This saturday at 6:30 AM I was awaken by a speech event going on out in hallway. The Freshmen Orientation staff was running through the halls screaming for the freshmen to get up so that they could make them run around campus before the game.
I'm not sure if I completely understand all of Jakobson's and Hymes' points about speech events but I'll give it a try:
Jakobson identifies 6 parts of a speech act: In this instance, the addressers were the screaming orientation staff and the addressees were all the sleeping freshmen. The addressers did not seem to mind being overheard by additional addressees that they were not trying to contact - i.e, the rest of the sleeping dorm. The context was the dorm on Saturday morning; the code was English; The Contact was the sound of their voice.
I was a lot more confused about the 6 functions of language that Jakobson (and later Hymes) points out: Emotive, conative, referential, poetic, phatic, metalingual.
These are their definitions as far as I can understand. I will also relate them to my example if I can.
1. Emotive: The speaker's attitude towards the subject. The freshmen orientation staff seemed very excited and enthusiastic to be up and waking others up.
2. Referential: giving information to another party. The f.o.s. gave instructions to the freshmen - get up, get dressed, and meet in the lobby.
3. Conative - (not sure...) How the speaker addresses the listener - i.e. whether in a command, question, statement, etc. In this example: the speaker were using commands.
4. Poetic - (not sure...) the form that the message comes in; if it gives entertainment from the way the words sound.
5. Phatic - communicating for the sake of communicating. - they continued to repeat the same information again and again. This did not seem necessary as I am sure that everyone was awake. They seemed to be using phatic communication or perhaps to continue the emotive function.
6. Metalingual - talking about language - doesn't apply to example.
7. Contextual - (not sure...) what something means to people in a certain situation. Out of this context, the message would not make sense.
Excuses, excuses: why I dread writing
17 years ago
1 comment:
When I was reading your post I thought about how the frosh-o staff often make the freshmen learn songs and chants, which they then require the freshmen to yell when they run around as a dorm. (haha...we had to do that as freshmen)
If that is the case, maybe it could apply to the poetic function in this example. It could also maybe apply to Code, too (singing rather than speaking)...although I'm still a little bit unsure about the extent of what code can mean.
Post a Comment