Transcript Unrealistic dialogue: speech in drama versus speech in real life Dan McIntyre.
Slide 1
Unrealistic dialogue: speech in
drama versus speech in real life
Dan McIntyre
Slide 2
How like naturally-occurring
speech is dramatic dialogue?
The linguistic units of analysis appropriate to dialogue as interactional speech
are utterances. The sentence is an abstract entity in linguistics, defined in
relation to particular grammars, and not in absolute terms. […] Although
further complexities can be introduced, the simple distinction made above
will serve for our purposes although it must be noted that there is not always
a one-to-one relation between them when sentences are used in context as
utterances. Utterances may be liable to false starts, slips of the tongue, be
elliptical, incomplete, etc. so that it could be unclear as to which sentence
analogue is being used.
(Herman 1995: 13)
Slide 3
C-Units
Biber et al. (1999): the sentence is not an appropriate unit for
describing speech.
C-unit
Covers both clausal and non-clausal units
Non-clausal c-units
Units of around five to six words. Non-clausal units can be
analysed grammatically but cannot be connected to anything
else to form a longer syntactic unit.
Slide 4
C-Units
Well, | you know | what I did, | I looked in the trunk | I was
going to Vicky’s
(Leech 2000: 699)
Kate
The word friend…when you look back…all that
time.
(Pinter, Old Times, 1971: 9)
Slide 5
Normal non-fluency in drama
• Reflecting naturalistic speech patterns faithfully ‘would
occlude the meaning of particular disfluent utterances as
signs of hesitancy, embarrassment, uncertainty, disbelief, and
so forth’ (Richardson 2010: 78)
• In drama, we assume all linguistic choices to be meaningful
(see Bennison’s [1998] analysis of Tom Stoppard’s Professional
Foul and implicatures generated by Anderson’s frequent
performance errors)
• Dramatic dialogue is hardly ever realistic but it is often
credible; i.e. believable as a replica of non-fictional speech
Slide 6
Downton Abbey
Slide 7
Anachronisms in TV dialogue
• Ben Schmidt (2012) compares every 2-gram in Downton Abbey
scripts with Google N-gram Database, highlighting phrases that do
not appear between 1912 and 1921.
• ‘There are some areas where writers persistently drop the ball.
Through much of season 2, Downton Abbey is a hospital or
convalescent home, and medical vocabulary presents a particularly
problem. Branson escapes the draft because of a “mitral valve
prolapse” (first use, c. 1965) causing a “pansystolic murmur” (c.
1953); both terms suggest St. Elsewhere more than the Great War.
The doctor’s helpers aren't trained in “specialist care”; hardly their
fault, since the phrase was never used before 1925. The household
is relieved that Carson the butler did not suffer a “heart attack”; but
that phrase was about 50x rarer in 1917’ (Schmidt 2012)
Slide 8
Slide 9
[Context: Violet is Lady Edith’s grandmother and suspects that Edith is
fond of Sir Anthony Strallan, despite a significant age difference
between the two. Cora is Edith’s mother.]
Violet Sir Anthony Strallan was at Lady Wren’s party. He asked after
you.
(Edith smiles and exits.)
Cora
Is she really serious about him?
(Downton Abbey, Episode 7, Series 1)
OED
serious in reference to romantic feelings in use from 1841 onwards
serious about first attested in British English in 1961
Corpus of Historical American English
first usage with this sense in 1935
Slide 10
[Context: Lady Edith is arranging a day out with Matthew Crawley.]
Lady Edith
Then Saturday it is. I'll get Lynch to sort out the
governess cart and I'll pick you up at about eleven.
(Downton Abbey, Episode 3, Series 1)
OED
pick up not attested in British English in time period
pick up first attested in US English 1872 (though not with inserted
pronoun between verb and particle)
Slide 11
Explanations?
• One member of the family is from America
• Dialogue is intended as a reflection of spoken rather than
written language
• ‘Anachronisms’ are anachronistic in written language
Authenticity does not necessarily result in credibility
Slide 12
Slide 13
Milch’s attempt to capture a sense of historical distance with the speech patterns of
Deadwood succeeds marvelously, but not because the dialogue achieves true realism or
gritty accuracy. Deadwood’s characters don’t talk quite like us, but neither do they talk like
Dakota scalawags in 1876 probably talked. Instead, the show’s fidelity to the idea that the
past is a foreign country results in dialogue that is just slightly stilted and formal, even as
Deadwood’s characters say the earthiest and vilest things. The combination yields the most
deliciously literary television dialogue I’ve ever heard.
(Feeney 2004)
Slide 14
COHA (Corpus of Historical American English 1810-2009)
Honor and a pleasure first attested in 1870s
Goddamn
first attested in 1910s
Limey
first attested in 1910s
Motherfucker
first attested in 1950s
Cocksucker
first attested in 1960s
Fucked * up
first attested in 1960s
Trust * as far as I can first attested in 1950s
Slide 15
COHA (Corpus of Historical American English 1810-2009)
Some attested taboo words of the period:
goldarn
darned
tarnation
gosh
Slide 16
‘Gosh!’ Lena spoke that wicked word boldly. ‘I’m glad this summer’s
over! I hate houses.’
(Wilder, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 1939: 130)
If characters used the authentic swear words of the time (the mid1800s), ‘they would not sound very threatening to modern ears’
(Brenz 2007: 246)
Slide 17
‘The force of the traditional taboos against using religious oaths has
generally diminished in modern times with the secularizarion of
Western society’ (Hughes 2006: 389)
• Religious swearing gives way to sexual swearing.
• Semantic weaking / delexicalisation of previously taboo words.
• Sexual swearing preserves pragmatic force of archaic terms.
Slide 18
Slide 19
2. (pause) Just a reminder that erm, expenses and
P:PS004) He can't leave her. And he erm sends his
pause) I'm sorry David. (SP:PS1E5) No, no, no, no
t with her! (laugh) (SP:PS510) (unclear) it's all
) first erm (pause) meeting. (SP:PS527) Give your
orry. (SP:KPVPSUNK) (laugh) Ar, look at all these
tary. (SP:PS6PH) Right. Better make a start then.
o we welcome you Bill. We've received a number of
for the salt together and upset it and there was
d that he was the buyer for the London County JA5
've got erm, a letter from Ron in addition to his
L8) No, no. No. (pause) Right. To the agenda. Erm
SP:PS1L8) Oh yes (unclear) (-----), yes, sent his
t it doesn't matter. And er (pause) are there any
PT) Erm right! Er Martin (-----) see--, sends his
ent secreta-- chairman, secretary, Julia, Judith.
7T) Okey doke. (SP:PS27S) (unclear) talking about
et (-----), Kell (-----), Barbara (-----) and me.
to be added is there? (SP:PS27R) Don't think so.
S27S) Mhm. (SP:PS27R) However. So anyway, no more
mpaign around er saving (-----). I have a few erm
le to join you on this occasion. Please accept my
apologies should be given to Suzanne or Eileen. (pause) Erm
apologies. (SP:KB0PSUNK) Apology from Mrs (-----), she's no
apologies I just don't want to know (unclear) (pause) I'll
apologies. (unclear) out before we've absolutely (pause) ab
apologies as you walk in (unclear) (SP:PS527) Well yes, and
apologies (SP:KPVPSUNK) (unclear) (SP:KPVPSUNK) she's havin
Apologies for absence for Sir (-----) who is in Fiji. Erm (
apologies for absence. And the ones I've had so far are the
apologies and talks and then he discovered that he was the
Apologies for absence (unclear) (SP:PS40Y) Councillor Peter
apologies. (SP:D95PS000) Right and you'll be reading that o
apologies for absence. Erm (pause) er (pause) er Mrs, Jacki
apologies, right. (pause) Er minutes of the previous board
apologies? (SP:F7VPSUNK) Yes, Celia (-----) and John (----apologies I'll be actually chairing the meeting for him. Er
Apologies were received from Phil, Malcolm, John and Paulin
apologies for this meeting (unclear)2. (SP:PS27R) Can you s
Apologies from Anne. The minutes of the previous meeting we
Apologies for tonight's meeting have been received from Nan
apologies. (SP:G59PSUNK) (unclear) flowers no? (SP:PS27R) O
apologies for absence to er make. One from Joyce (-----), w
apologies and best wishes, and rest assured (pause) of my o
• 104 instances of apologies in the spoken section of the BNC
• Majority from formal business meetings (standard agenda item often ‘apologies for absence’)
• Apologies tends to be premodified by a possessive pronoun (my apologies, his apologies) or
quantified (a number of apologies, any apologies).
• When used without premodification or quantification, usually in the context of recording an apology
from a third party (apologies were received, Apologies from Anne)
• Only 6 times in 104 examples is it used in the first-person as a substitute for a direct speech act.
• While not absent from the corpus, this usage is rare.
Slide 20
Slide 21
1. Batiatus
2. Lucretia
3. Gaia
4. Batiatus
At last the Gods remove cock from fucking ass! The House of
Batiatus, no… the House of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus rises to
the fucking heavens! Soon my champions will be carved in
stone, towering above all who came before. And Gannicus will
be the first of them after his victory in the fucking primus.
The position was not gained absent aid.
I offered naught but introduction and a few selected words of
suggestion.
You could wile the Goddess Laverna herself. Your place in this
will not pass without much fucking gratitude.
[Batiatus begins to make love to Gaia. Titus, Batiatus’s father, enters and is
shocked at the scene.]
5. Titus
6. Batiatus
7. Titus
Quintus!
Father!
Gather yourself. I would have words.
(Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Episode 4, ‘Paterfamilias’, Starz 2011)
Slide 22
Deletion of determiners
[Turn 1]
At last the Gods remove cock from fucking ass!
(cf. At last the Gods remove their cock[s] from my fucking ass!)
[Turn 2]
The position was not gained absent aid.
(cf. The position was not gained absent some aid.
[Turn 3]
I offered naught but introduction
(cf. I offered naught but an introduction)
But compare:
[Turn 1]
Gannicus will be the first of them
[Turn 3]
...a few selected words of suggestion
[Context: A later plot to persuade Titus to leave Capua]
Batiatus
We must prove this house in fucking order and prompt decision
for his quick return to Sicilia.
Slide 23
Archaisms
[Turn 2]
absent as a preposition (= without)
[Turn 3]
naught
[Turn 4]
wile as a transitive verb
[Turn 7]
modal would as a catenative verb in an archaic nonconditional sense: would means ‘desire’
Slide 24
Does unrealistic dialogue
matter?
Why do viewers respond negatively to some kinds of
unrealistic dialogue but not others?
We have to take real readers/viewers seriously.
Slide 25
Suspension of disbelief
To understand fiction one has to
suspend disbelief, and suppose that the
events being depicted actually occur.
Only through automatic and possibly
effortless suspension of disbelief is
narrative immersion possible.
(Sandford and Emmott 2012: 46)
Slide 26
Suspension of disbelief
• Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer
evidence for the use of world
knowledge in language processing
• ‘ERPs reflect electrical activity in the
brain, as measured using
electroencephalographic (EEG)
methods on the scalps of readers’
(Sandford and Emmott 2012: 25)
Slide 27
Suspension of disbelief
• N400: an index of semantic
processing
• ‘Elicited by every content word of an
unfolding sentence’ (Niuewland and
Van Berkum 2006: 1099)
• A measurement of the ease with
which a word is related to its
semantic context (Niuewland and Van
Berkum 2006)
Slide 28
Suspension of disbelief
• ‘Words that do not easily fit the animacy
requirements imposed by a sentential
context elicit a larger N400 than words that
do not fit those requirements’ (Niuewland
and Van Berkum 2006: 1100)
• The fact that animacy violations are quickly
normalised suggests readers are indeed
suspending disbelief and becoming
immersed in the fictional world
• Could anachronistic dialogue cause an N400
effect?
Once upon a time, a psychotherapist was consulted in her
home office by a yacht/sailor with emotional problems.
Slide 29
Deictic shift theory
• Aims to explain how readers come to feel deeply involved in a
fictional world (see Bruder et al. 1995; McIntyre 2006, 2007)
• ‘[T]he metaphor of the reader getting inside the story is
cognitively valid’ (Segal 1995: 14-15)
• In an idealised reading situation, the reader pushes into a
deictic field in the fictional world and the real world deictic
field subsequently decays as a result of not being
reinstantiated
• In an non-ideal reading situation, readers are frequently
reminded of their real-world deictic field – i.e. full immersion
is prevented
Slide 30
Deictic shift theory
• Unrealistic dialogue acts as reminder of the actual world and
reinstantiates a reader’s real-world deictic field but...
• ...only if the dialogue is not credible for the fictional world
Slide 31
Downton Abbey
Unrealistic and incredible
Deadwood
Unrealistic and credible
Spartacus
Unrealistic and credible
Slide 32
Schematic knowledge
• Schemas are not necessarily developed out of personal
experience
Slide 33
Schematic knowledge
• Schemas are not necessarily developed out of personal
experience
Slide 34
Conclusions
• Fictional dialogue that is an exact mirror of naturally occurring
conversation loses the possibility for the nuances of spoken
language to inform characterisation
• Fictional dialogue can offer a credible illusion of naturally
occurring speech
• Illusion of realism often stems from stylistic choices that make
the dialogue appear credible for the fictional world of the
characters
• Unrealistic dialogue is not necessarily a barrier to the creation
of a credible fictional world
Slide 35
Looking to the future
• Stylistic analysis necessitates mixed methods and
interdisciplinarity
• Stylistics needs to embrace this fully
• Practitioners must be conversant with multiple methodologies
and analytical frameworks
• Growth of experimental work (eye-tracking, EEG, etc.)
• Large-scale collaborative project work (cf. the natural
sciences)
Don’t forget the text!
Slide 36
References
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Bennison, N. (1998) ‘Accessing character through conversation: Tom Stoppard’s Professional Foul’, in Culpeper, J., Short, M. and Verdonk, P. (eds)
Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context, pp. 67-82. London: Routledge.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. and Finegan, E. (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
Brenz, B. (2007) ‘Deadwood and the English language’, Great Plains Quarterly 27 (Fall): 239-51.
Deadwood. (US) (2004-06) HB0. Writer: David Milch. Directors: Various.
Downton Abbey. (UK) (2010 - present) ITV. Writer: Julian Fellowes. Directors: Various.
Feeney, M. (2004) ‘Talk pretty: the linguistic brilliance of HBO’s Deadwood. Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2004/05/talk_pretty.html. Accessed 29 June 2014.
Herman, V. (1995) Dramatic Discourse. London: Routledge.
Hughes, G. (2006) An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World.
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Leech, G. (2000) ‘Grammars of spoken English: new outcomes of corpus-oriented research’, Language Learning 50(4): 675-724.
McIntyre, D. (2006) Point of View in Plays: A Cognitive Stylistic Approach to Viewpoint in Drama and Other Text-types. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
McIntyre, D. (2007) ‘Deixis, cognition and the construction of viewpoint’, in Lambrou, M. and Stockwell, P. (eds) Contemporary Stylistics, pp. 118-30.
London: Continuum.
Nieuwland, M. S. and Van Berkum, J. J. A. (2006) ‘When peanuts fall in love: N400 evidence for the power of discourse’, Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience 18(7): 1098-1111.
Pinter, H. (1971) Old Times. London: Faber and Faber.
Pride and Prejudice (UK) (2005) Studio Canal / Working Title. Writer: Deborah Moggach. Director: Joe Wright.
Richardson, K. (2010) Television Dramatic Dialogue: A Sociolinguistic Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ryan, M-L (1980) ‘Fiction, non-factuals and the principle of minimal departure’, Poetics 9: 403-22.
Sanford, A. J. and Emmott, C. (2012) Mind, Brain and Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmidt, B. (2012) ‘Making Downton more traditional’, Blogpost: http://sappingattention.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/making-downton-moretraditional.html. Accessed 29 June 2014.
Segal, E. M. (1995) Narrative comprehension and the role of deictic shift theory’, in Duchan, J. F., Bruder, G. A. and Hewitt, L. E. (eds) Deixis in Narrative:
A Cognitive Science Perspective, pp. 61-78. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. (US) (2011) Starz. Writers: Various. Directors: Various.
Wilder, L. I. (1939) By the Shores of Silver Lake. New York, NY: Harper and Brothers.
Unrealistic dialogue: speech in
drama versus speech in real life
Dan McIntyre
Slide 2
How like naturally-occurring
speech is dramatic dialogue?
The linguistic units of analysis appropriate to dialogue as interactional speech
are utterances. The sentence is an abstract entity in linguistics, defined in
relation to particular grammars, and not in absolute terms. […] Although
further complexities can be introduced, the simple distinction made above
will serve for our purposes although it must be noted that there is not always
a one-to-one relation between them when sentences are used in context as
utterances. Utterances may be liable to false starts, slips of the tongue, be
elliptical, incomplete, etc. so that it could be unclear as to which sentence
analogue is being used.
(Herman 1995: 13)
Slide 3
C-Units
Biber et al. (1999): the sentence is not an appropriate unit for
describing speech.
C-unit
Covers both clausal and non-clausal units
Non-clausal c-units
Units of around five to six words. Non-clausal units can be
analysed grammatically but cannot be connected to anything
else to form a longer syntactic unit.
Slide 4
C-Units
Well, | you know | what I did, | I looked in the trunk | I was
going to Vicky’s
(Leech 2000: 699)
Kate
The word friend…when you look back…all that
time.
(Pinter, Old Times, 1971: 9)
Slide 5
Normal non-fluency in drama
• Reflecting naturalistic speech patterns faithfully ‘would
occlude the meaning of particular disfluent utterances as
signs of hesitancy, embarrassment, uncertainty, disbelief, and
so forth’ (Richardson 2010: 78)
• In drama, we assume all linguistic choices to be meaningful
(see Bennison’s [1998] analysis of Tom Stoppard’s Professional
Foul and implicatures generated by Anderson’s frequent
performance errors)
• Dramatic dialogue is hardly ever realistic but it is often
credible; i.e. believable as a replica of non-fictional speech
Slide 6
Downton Abbey
Slide 7
Anachronisms in TV dialogue
• Ben Schmidt (2012) compares every 2-gram in Downton Abbey
scripts with Google N-gram Database, highlighting phrases that do
not appear between 1912 and 1921.
• ‘There are some areas where writers persistently drop the ball.
Through much of season 2, Downton Abbey is a hospital or
convalescent home, and medical vocabulary presents a particularly
problem. Branson escapes the draft because of a “mitral valve
prolapse” (first use, c. 1965) causing a “pansystolic murmur” (c.
1953); both terms suggest St. Elsewhere more than the Great War.
The doctor’s helpers aren't trained in “specialist care”; hardly their
fault, since the phrase was never used before 1925. The household
is relieved that Carson the butler did not suffer a “heart attack”; but
that phrase was about 50x rarer in 1917’ (Schmidt 2012)
Slide 8
Slide 9
[Context: Violet is Lady Edith’s grandmother and suspects that Edith is
fond of Sir Anthony Strallan, despite a significant age difference
between the two. Cora is Edith’s mother.]
Violet Sir Anthony Strallan was at Lady Wren’s party. He asked after
you.
(Edith smiles and exits.)
Cora
Is she really serious about him?
(Downton Abbey, Episode 7, Series 1)
OED
serious in reference to romantic feelings in use from 1841 onwards
serious about first attested in British English in 1961
Corpus of Historical American English
first usage with this sense in 1935
Slide 10
[Context: Lady Edith is arranging a day out with Matthew Crawley.]
Lady Edith
Then Saturday it is. I'll get Lynch to sort out the
governess cart and I'll pick you up at about eleven.
(Downton Abbey, Episode 3, Series 1)
OED
pick up not attested in British English in time period
pick up first attested in US English 1872 (though not with inserted
pronoun between verb and particle)
Slide 11
Explanations?
• One member of the family is from America
• Dialogue is intended as a reflection of spoken rather than
written language
• ‘Anachronisms’ are anachronistic in written language
Authenticity does not necessarily result in credibility
Slide 12
Slide 13
Milch’s attempt to capture a sense of historical distance with the speech patterns of
Deadwood succeeds marvelously, but not because the dialogue achieves true realism or
gritty accuracy. Deadwood’s characters don’t talk quite like us, but neither do they talk like
Dakota scalawags in 1876 probably talked. Instead, the show’s fidelity to the idea that the
past is a foreign country results in dialogue that is just slightly stilted and formal, even as
Deadwood’s characters say the earthiest and vilest things. The combination yields the most
deliciously literary television dialogue I’ve ever heard.
(Feeney 2004)
Slide 14
COHA (Corpus of Historical American English 1810-2009)
Honor and a pleasure first attested in 1870s
Goddamn
first attested in 1910s
Limey
first attested in 1910s
Motherfucker
first attested in 1950s
Cocksucker
first attested in 1960s
Fucked * up
first attested in 1960s
Trust * as far as I can first attested in 1950s
Slide 15
COHA (Corpus of Historical American English 1810-2009)
Some attested taboo words of the period:
goldarn
darned
tarnation
gosh
Slide 16
‘Gosh!’ Lena spoke that wicked word boldly. ‘I’m glad this summer’s
over! I hate houses.’
(Wilder, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 1939: 130)
If characters used the authentic swear words of the time (the mid1800s), ‘they would not sound very threatening to modern ears’
(Brenz 2007: 246)
Slide 17
‘The force of the traditional taboos against using religious oaths has
generally diminished in modern times with the secularizarion of
Western society’ (Hughes 2006: 389)
• Religious swearing gives way to sexual swearing.
• Semantic weaking / delexicalisation of previously taboo words.
• Sexual swearing preserves pragmatic force of archaic terms.
Slide 18
Slide 19
2. (pause) Just a reminder that erm, expenses and
P:PS004) He can't leave her. And he erm sends his
pause) I'm sorry David. (SP:PS1E5) No, no, no, no
t with her! (laugh) (SP:PS510) (unclear) it's all
) first erm (pause) meeting. (SP:PS527) Give your
orry. (SP:KPVPSUNK) (laugh) Ar, look at all these
tary. (SP:PS6PH) Right. Better make a start then.
o we welcome you Bill. We've received a number of
for the salt together and upset it and there was
d that he was the buyer for the London County JA5
've got erm, a letter from Ron in addition to his
L8) No, no. No. (pause) Right. To the agenda. Erm
SP:PS1L8) Oh yes (unclear) (-----), yes, sent his
t it doesn't matter. And er (pause) are there any
PT) Erm right! Er Martin (-----) see--, sends his
ent secreta-- chairman, secretary, Julia, Judith.
7T) Okey doke. (SP:PS27S) (unclear) talking about
et (-----), Kell (-----), Barbara (-----) and me.
to be added is there? (SP:PS27R) Don't think so.
S27S) Mhm. (SP:PS27R) However. So anyway, no more
mpaign around er saving (-----). I have a few erm
le to join you on this occasion. Please accept my
apologies should be given to Suzanne or Eileen. (pause) Erm
apologies. (SP:KB0PSUNK) Apology from Mrs (-----), she's no
apologies I just don't want to know (unclear) (pause) I'll
apologies. (unclear) out before we've absolutely (pause) ab
apologies as you walk in (unclear) (SP:PS527) Well yes, and
apologies (SP:KPVPSUNK) (unclear) (SP:KPVPSUNK) she's havin
Apologies for absence for Sir (-----) who is in Fiji. Erm (
apologies for absence. And the ones I've had so far are the
apologies and talks and then he discovered that he was the
Apologies for absence (unclear) (SP:PS40Y) Councillor Peter
apologies. (SP:D95PS000) Right and you'll be reading that o
apologies for absence. Erm (pause) er (pause) er Mrs, Jacki
apologies, right. (pause) Er minutes of the previous board
apologies? (SP:F7VPSUNK) Yes, Celia (-----) and John (----apologies I'll be actually chairing the meeting for him. Er
Apologies were received from Phil, Malcolm, John and Paulin
apologies for this meeting (unclear)2. (SP:PS27R) Can you s
Apologies from Anne. The minutes of the previous meeting we
Apologies for tonight's meeting have been received from Nan
apologies. (SP:G59PSUNK) (unclear) flowers no? (SP:PS27R) O
apologies for absence to er make. One from Joyce (-----), w
apologies and best wishes, and rest assured (pause) of my o
• 104 instances of apologies in the spoken section of the BNC
• Majority from formal business meetings (standard agenda item often ‘apologies for absence’)
• Apologies tends to be premodified by a possessive pronoun (my apologies, his apologies) or
quantified (a number of apologies, any apologies).
• When used without premodification or quantification, usually in the context of recording an apology
from a third party (apologies were received, Apologies from Anne)
• Only 6 times in 104 examples is it used in the first-person as a substitute for a direct speech act.
• While not absent from the corpus, this usage is rare.
Slide 20
Slide 21
1. Batiatus
2. Lucretia
3. Gaia
4. Batiatus
At last the Gods remove cock from fucking ass! The House of
Batiatus, no… the House of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus rises to
the fucking heavens! Soon my champions will be carved in
stone, towering above all who came before. And Gannicus will
be the first of them after his victory in the fucking primus.
The position was not gained absent aid.
I offered naught but introduction and a few selected words of
suggestion.
You could wile the Goddess Laverna herself. Your place in this
will not pass without much fucking gratitude.
[Batiatus begins to make love to Gaia. Titus, Batiatus’s father, enters and is
shocked at the scene.]
5. Titus
6. Batiatus
7. Titus
Quintus!
Father!
Gather yourself. I would have words.
(Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Episode 4, ‘Paterfamilias’, Starz 2011)
Slide 22
Deletion of determiners
[Turn 1]
At last the Gods remove cock from fucking ass!
(cf. At last the Gods remove their cock[s] from my fucking ass!)
[Turn 2]
The position was not gained absent aid.
(cf. The position was not gained absent some aid.
[Turn 3]
I offered naught but introduction
(cf. I offered naught but an introduction)
But compare:
[Turn 1]
Gannicus will be the first of them
[Turn 3]
...a few selected words of suggestion
[Context: A later plot to persuade Titus to leave Capua]
Batiatus
We must prove this house in fucking order and prompt decision
for his quick return to Sicilia.
Slide 23
Archaisms
[Turn 2]
absent as a preposition (= without)
[Turn 3]
naught
[Turn 4]
wile as a transitive verb
[Turn 7]
modal would as a catenative verb in an archaic nonconditional sense: would means ‘desire’
Slide 24
Does unrealistic dialogue
matter?
Why do viewers respond negatively to some kinds of
unrealistic dialogue but not others?
We have to take real readers/viewers seriously.
Slide 25
Suspension of disbelief
To understand fiction one has to
suspend disbelief, and suppose that the
events being depicted actually occur.
Only through automatic and possibly
effortless suspension of disbelief is
narrative immersion possible.
(Sandford and Emmott 2012: 46)
Slide 26
Suspension of disbelief
• Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer
evidence for the use of world
knowledge in language processing
• ‘ERPs reflect electrical activity in the
brain, as measured using
electroencephalographic (EEG)
methods on the scalps of readers’
(Sandford and Emmott 2012: 25)
Slide 27
Suspension of disbelief
• N400: an index of semantic
processing
• ‘Elicited by every content word of an
unfolding sentence’ (Niuewland and
Van Berkum 2006: 1099)
• A measurement of the ease with
which a word is related to its
semantic context (Niuewland and Van
Berkum 2006)
Slide 28
Suspension of disbelief
• ‘Words that do not easily fit the animacy
requirements imposed by a sentential
context elicit a larger N400 than words that
do not fit those requirements’ (Niuewland
and Van Berkum 2006: 1100)
• The fact that animacy violations are quickly
normalised suggests readers are indeed
suspending disbelief and becoming
immersed in the fictional world
• Could anachronistic dialogue cause an N400
effect?
Once upon a time, a psychotherapist was consulted in her
home office by a yacht/sailor with emotional problems.
Slide 29
Deictic shift theory
• Aims to explain how readers come to feel deeply involved in a
fictional world (see Bruder et al. 1995; McIntyre 2006, 2007)
• ‘[T]he metaphor of the reader getting inside the story is
cognitively valid’ (Segal 1995: 14-15)
• In an idealised reading situation, the reader pushes into a
deictic field in the fictional world and the real world deictic
field subsequently decays as a result of not being
reinstantiated
• In an non-ideal reading situation, readers are frequently
reminded of their real-world deictic field – i.e. full immersion
is prevented
Slide 30
Deictic shift theory
• Unrealistic dialogue acts as reminder of the actual world and
reinstantiates a reader’s real-world deictic field but...
• ...only if the dialogue is not credible for the fictional world
Slide 31
Downton Abbey
Unrealistic and incredible
Deadwood
Unrealistic and credible
Spartacus
Unrealistic and credible
Slide 32
Schematic knowledge
• Schemas are not necessarily developed out of personal
experience
Slide 33
Schematic knowledge
• Schemas are not necessarily developed out of personal
experience
Slide 34
Conclusions
• Fictional dialogue that is an exact mirror of naturally occurring
conversation loses the possibility for the nuances of spoken
language to inform characterisation
• Fictional dialogue can offer a credible illusion of naturally
occurring speech
• Illusion of realism often stems from stylistic choices that make
the dialogue appear credible for the fictional world of the
characters
• Unrealistic dialogue is not necessarily a barrier to the creation
of a credible fictional world
Slide 35
Looking to the future
• Stylistic analysis necessitates mixed methods and
interdisciplinarity
• Stylistics needs to embrace this fully
• Practitioners must be conversant with multiple methodologies
and analytical frameworks
• Growth of experimental work (eye-tracking, EEG, etc.)
• Large-scale collaborative project work (cf. the natural
sciences)
Don’t forget the text!
Slide 36
References
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Bennison, N. (1998) ‘Accessing character through conversation: Tom Stoppard’s Professional Foul’, in Culpeper, J., Short, M. and Verdonk, P. (eds)
Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context, pp. 67-82. London: Routledge.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. and Finegan, E. (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
Brenz, B. (2007) ‘Deadwood and the English language’, Great Plains Quarterly 27 (Fall): 239-51.
Deadwood. (US) (2004-06) HB0. Writer: David Milch. Directors: Various.
Downton Abbey. (UK) (2010 - present) ITV. Writer: Julian Fellowes. Directors: Various.
Feeney, M. (2004) ‘Talk pretty: the linguistic brilliance of HBO’s Deadwood. Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2004/05/talk_pretty.html. Accessed 29 June 2014.
Herman, V. (1995) Dramatic Discourse. London: Routledge.
Hughes, G. (2006) An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World.
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Leech, G. (2000) ‘Grammars of spoken English: new outcomes of corpus-oriented research’, Language Learning 50(4): 675-724.
McIntyre, D. (2006) Point of View in Plays: A Cognitive Stylistic Approach to Viewpoint in Drama and Other Text-types. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
McIntyre, D. (2007) ‘Deixis, cognition and the construction of viewpoint’, in Lambrou, M. and Stockwell, P. (eds) Contemporary Stylistics, pp. 118-30.
London: Continuum.
Nieuwland, M. S. and Van Berkum, J. J. A. (2006) ‘When peanuts fall in love: N400 evidence for the power of discourse’, Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience 18(7): 1098-1111.
Pinter, H. (1971) Old Times. London: Faber and Faber.
Pride and Prejudice (UK) (2005) Studio Canal / Working Title. Writer: Deborah Moggach. Director: Joe Wright.
Richardson, K. (2010) Television Dramatic Dialogue: A Sociolinguistic Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ryan, M-L (1980) ‘Fiction, non-factuals and the principle of minimal departure’, Poetics 9: 403-22.
Sanford, A. J. and Emmott, C. (2012) Mind, Brain and Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmidt, B. (2012) ‘Making Downton more traditional’, Blogpost: http://sappingattention.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/making-downton-moretraditional.html. Accessed 29 June 2014.
Segal, E. M. (1995) Narrative comprehension and the role of deictic shift theory’, in Duchan, J. F., Bruder, G. A. and Hewitt, L. E. (eds) Deixis in Narrative:
A Cognitive Science Perspective, pp. 61-78. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. (US) (2011) Starz. Writers: Various. Directors: Various.
Wilder, L. I. (1939) By the Shores of Silver Lake. New York, NY: Harper and Brothers.