Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The origins of language
- Animals and human language
- The development of writing
- The sounds of language
- The sound patterns of language
- Words and word-formation processes
- Morphology
- Phrases and sentences : grammar
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Pragmatics
- Discourse analysis
- Language and the brain
- First language acquisition
- Second language acquisition/learning
- Gestures and sign languages
- Language history and change
- Language and regional variation
- Language and social variation
- Language and culture
- Appendix: Suggested answers to study questions
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Discourse analysis
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The origins of language
- Animals and human language
- The development of writing
- The sounds of language
- The sound patterns of language
- Words and word-formation processes
- Morphology
- Phrases and sentences : grammar
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Pragmatics
- Discourse analysis
- Language and the brain
- First language acquisition
- Second language acquisition/learning
- Gestures and sign languages
- Language history and change
- Language and regional variation
- Language and social variation
- Language and culture
- Appendix: Suggested answers to study questions
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
There's two types of favors, the big favor and the small favor. You can measure the size of the favor by the pause that a person takes after they ask you to “Do me a favor.” Small favor – small pause. “Can you do me a favor, hand me that pencil.” No pause at all. Big favors are, “Could you do me a favor …” Eight seconds go by. “Yeah? What?”
“… well.” The longer it takes them to get to it, the bigger the pain it's going to be.
Humans are the only species that do favors. Animals don't do favors. A lizard doesn't go up to a cockroach and say, “Could you do me a favor and hold still, I'd like to eat you alive.” That's a big favor even with no pause.
Seinfeld (1993)In the study of language, some of the most interesting observations are made, not in terms of the components of language, but in terms of the way language is used, even how pauses are used, as in Jerry Seinfeld's commentary. We have already considered some of the features of language in use when we discussed pragmatics in the preceding chapter. We were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users successfully interpret what other language-users intend to convey. When we carry this investigation further and ask how we make sense of what we read, how we can recognize well-constructed texts as opposed to those that are jumbled or incoherent, how we understand speakers who communicate more than they say, and how we successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis.
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- Information
- The Study of Language , pp. 124 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005