Negation as basic discourse category

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Place of work: Vinnytsia Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi State Pedagogical University Country: Ukraine

Negation as basic discourse category

Olena Malinka

(Вінниця) (Vinnytsia)

У статті розглянуто заперечення як мовленнєва стратегія, проаналізовано його функціональні особливості в сучасній англійській мові. Також визначено місце заперечення серед фактів мовленнєвої діяльності, обґрунтовано його прагматичну специфіку та досліджено комунікативно-прагматичні чинники реалізації заперечення в мовному середовищі.

Ключові слова: заперечення; дискурс; мовленнєва стратегія; спростування; заперечні вислови.

OLENA MALINKA

NEGATION AS BASIC DISCOURSE CATEGORY

The article deals with negation as speech strategy and analyzes its peculiarities in modern English. Also, the theoretical foundation of negation as discourse category is investigated, the position of negation among the facts of speech activity is determined and its pragmatic specificity is defined. Besides that situational examples of negation and the notions related to it are analyzed. Communicative-pragmatic factors of the realization of negation in the communicative surrounding are investigated in the article. Discourse characteristics point out high frequency and communicative relevance of negation in the English language. Negation is not a specific characteristic of a separate language as it has many universal functions in comparison to socio-linguistic peculiarities that mostly perform the catalyzing function. Moreover, in the English language it is possible to highlight the semantic field of the category of negation. Such a status confirms the importance of this notion for the communicative competence and for the adequate communicative conduct. Though adequate perception of negation demands additional extra lingual knowledge in communication the fact that only the speech invariant is present in this type of communicative conduct remains undeniable. Key words: negation; discourse; speech strategy; denial; negative statements.

negation speech english linguistic

Introduction

Problem setting. Negation as a functional notion has become the subject of a thorough linguistic research not long ago. Different means of discourse formation are viewed, as a rule, in the context of rhetoric and text analyses, but taking into consideration the pragmatic aspect of communication it should be admitted that the transition to the second level takes place in oral speech with pragmatic functions becoming focal. The novelty of the research is presupposed by a strong interest to the study of discourse and of the role of extra-linguistic factors in communication, by the necessity to study pragmatics and the strategies used for effective communication.

The theme of the article explains the notion of negation as speech strategy and its functional peculiarities in modern English. The importance of the notion of negation in real discourse and lack of research in this field predetermined the choice of the theme.

Publications analysis. The roles of negation have puzzled philosophers, linguists and psychologists throughout the centuries. Parmenides, the first major writer of negation, posed many interesting problems with negation and 'not being' which were analyzed in depth by Plato and more recently by Pelletier (1990). In both works negation was defined primarily in terms of differences. They both had significant interest in the negation of words: whether, for example, not beautiful meant the opposite (ugly) or, as Plato claims, something different. They also regarded negative statements as less 'valuable' or 'useful' than positive ones - a view still often expressed. Such philosophers as Bacon, Kant, Strawson, Russell and also some linguists (Givon, Leech and others) have also embraced the Parmenides-Plato view of negation as less important than positive statements.

It was Aristotle who led the way to a more pragmatic understanding of negation by analyzing its use in natural language and logic. He discussed contrary and contradictory oppositions and the asymmetry between negative and positive statements. He also analyzed singular negative statements and ambiguity in negation, a major study of presupposition. It was this language-based work by Aristotle that formed the basis for Horn's well-documented study of the history of negation (Horn, 1989).

Horn provides a sound basis for linguistic studies of negation, although Klima had earlier established the study of negation within the clause and sentence as a complex issue in linguistics worthy of detailed study. Negation as a theoretical language concern largely within a transformational-generative framework was later developed by Lakoff, Lasnik, Smith, Seuren, and Frawley.

The aim of the article is to investigate the theoretical foundation of negation as discourse category, and to research the peculiarities of its functioning in modern English. The aim presupposes the fulfillment of the following tasks: 1) to determine the position of negation among the facts of language activity and to define its pragmatic specificity; 2) to analyze situational examples of negation and the notions related to it; 3) to investigate communicative-pragmatic factors of the realization of negation in the communicative surrounding.

Basic materials. Modern linguistic researches are directed at the study of the facts of verbal communication with special attention to both inner and outer factors. A wide interpretation of the discourse as a dynamic language space means that perception follows the expression, while meaning presupposes knowledge.

In linguistics communicative-pragmatic paradigm is being actively worked out with all the psychological, social, aesthetic factors considered. The key categories of the process of communication include information, speaker-addressee and communicative aim. The main component is verbal communication, but its usage may have diverse forms, not only conventional ones. The cases when what the speaker wants to say differs from what he has said form an important part of real discourse. Negation belongs to such categories.

Discourse characteristics point out high frequency and communicative relevance of negation in the English language. Negation is not a specific characteristic of a separate language as it has many universal functions in comparison to socio-linguistic peculiarities that mostly perform the catalyzing function. Moreover, in the English language it is possible to highlight the semantic field of the category of negation. Such a status confirms the importance of this notion for the communicative competence and for the adequate communicative conduct. Though adequate perception of negation demands additional extra lingual knowledge in communication the fact that only the speech invariant is present in this type of communicative conduct remains undeniable.

Studies of direct and implicit negations in their true textual and contextual environments are needed to determine the ways by which negations display significant contextual and interpersonal meanings in addition to their ideological sense. No amount of scholarly debate regarding the 'meaning' of such negative and positive statements can be complete without considering their contextual, textual and interpersonal roles in natural language. And for this we need to study actual communicated examples of negation within their contexts of situation and use. Thus, pragmatic studies are required.

The need for a pragmatic study of negation to be centrally concerned with context is clear from Leech's understanding of pragmatics who considers it to be the study of how utterances have meaning in situations (Leech, 1983).

Givon's later discussion shows recognition of the need for a true contextual environment for pragmatic studies. He accepts that in the logical tradition negation simply reverses the truth value rather like the mathematical negative. He argues, however, that there is much more to negation than that, and that a real understanding of negation must take contextual factors into account (Givon, 1989, p. 156-157).

The notion of context as being at the heart of pragmatic work is stated by Levinson as follows: "Pragmatics is the study of those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of the language" (Levinson, 1983, p. 9).

The apparent restriction in this definition to matter solely of grammar is recognized by Mey, who claims that pragmatics is interested in broader contextual areas: "pragmatics is the study of the conditions of human language uses as these are determined by the context of society" (Mey, 1993, p. 42). He also expands the definition of pragmatics to include conversational implicature (Mey, 1993, p. 99-103), discussed earlier by Grice (1981). The principles involved can be extended into written forms, in which the writer views the communicative task as meeting the informational needs of readers.

While examples of negation that are made up with no actual situation of context may prove valuable to philosophers and theoretical linguists, real examples in real contexts for meaningful pragmatic studies of negation are needed.

Just as Lakoff (1971) came to recognize that syntax could not legitimately be separated from the study of language use, it must be recognized that understanding of the meaning of negation (and many other language issues) can no longer be separated from their contextual and interpersonal function in real language.

Especially for the use of negation in texts containing more than a sentence or two, the contextual and textual roles of negation become of paramount importance.

The sub-maxim of negative uninformativeness, when combined with the maxim quality, implies that a negative statement will be avoided if a positive one can be used. Moreover, it will imply that when negative sentences are used, it will be for a special purpose. The cooperative principle will predict that negative sentences tend to be used precisely in such situations when they are not less informative for a given purpose than positive ones and this will be when the speaker wants to deny a proposal which has been put forward or entertained by someone in the context (Leech, 1983, p. 100).

Such negative statements contain different sorts of information (contextual, textual and interpersonal) than the ideational information contained in positive statements. Grimes (1975) calls this 'collateral information' and explains the role of negation: some information in a narrative instead of telling what did happen, tells what did not happen. Thus it may not even be appropriate to seek to compare the information levels of positive and negative statements in language use, as they serve totally different purposes.

Wason showed that negative statements are more marked and are harder to comprehend than their positive counterparts (Wason, 1961, p. 136). He later introduced the theory of 'contexts of plausible denial' that the function of negative statements is "generally to emphasize that a fact is contrary to an expectation" (Wason, 1965, p. 7). Negative statements are harder to comprehend when their related presupposition is clear.

Contextual and textual power of negation to dominate the communicative situation is discussed in terms of single statement denials of an expectation which are not preceded by a statement of the underlying presupposition or followed by further information to create a two- or three-part information structure. Such textually isolated statements are often sufficient communications in themselves, without the need for further information about what the presupposition is, or what actually is true.

Denials can also be communicated non-verbally, by a shake of the head, for instance. We can also recognize a non-reply as often being a refusal or rejection. As a matter of politeness, we expect a reply to a request or a proposal (even if it is a negative one); it can be thus assumed that a deliberate non-response is a rejection as well as a form of impoliteness. That is, a non-reply is often a reply. None-response is not always an intentional denial, however, and we often have difficulties while talking over the telephone and emailing when we have to decide whether or not another response is appropriate. We need to stop a dialogue at some stage, but our cultural expectations sometimes make us feel we should respond again before finally breaking contact lest we be misunderstood as 'communicating' a rejection through non-response.

Legal agreements may include negative statements. The negation explicitly denies what readers might reasonably have otherwise construed from, or thought should be included in the document. Such negations are typical of introductions to scholarly works. These examples of negation are only meaningful as communications because they deny what readers or listeners might think would be true.

There are such types of negations as positive-assessment negations and negative assessment negations. Negation is commonly used to indicate that something does not have certain features or components which readers might think they might have, and which would detract from the value or usefulness of the product. Such negations are positive assessments of the product. It can be seen in the following example:

By the year 2001 this will be the standard. Why? Because only Acu-Stop means

No Strenuous Dieting

No Pills

No Nervousness

No Frantic Exercises

No Strange Formulas

No Special Food to Buy (Leisureways, March 1995, p. 13)

This message is needed because readers will normally associate those attributes with any weight loss system, and the advertisers of this product wanted to deny that this is also true for their product. By making this denial they are making statements in favour of their product.

Jordan (1984, p. 8-11) discusses other important negative information commonly expressed by writers. In a great deal of engineering and science work investigators often seek to determine the cause of an effect, or to validate an explanation for a conclusion, or to test the effectiveness of a solution to a problem. When the results are negative, this is often an important item of information which often needs to be communicated to the readers.

Winter (1976) points out that after a denial there is often a strong motivation to say what is true. He calls this pair "denial and correction", whereas Grimes (1975) refers to it as "collateral inversion". Some languages use a separate conjunction to distinguish this pair from contrast and concessions (Horn, 1989). Denial and correction do not always need an explicit statement in the text or discussion to deny and correct; they are involved whenever readers might legitimately come to an incorrect or incomplete conclusion based on their previous knowledge and/or the information already presented. Denial is often the pivotal element in a common three-part structure statement-denial-correction (Winter, 1976).

Conclusions

As an important use of the negative is to indicate something different, unusual or contrary to the expectation of readers, negation is not needed very often. But when we do need to use it, it is often an important element in the text at that point in the discourse. This contextual and textual power of negation to dominate the communicative situation is discussed in the article in terms of single statement denials of an expectation which are not preceded by a statement of the underlying presupposition or followed by further information to create a two-or three-part information structure.

References

1. Givon, T. (1989). Mind, Code and Context: Essays in Pragmatics. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

2. Grice, H. Paul. (1981). Presupposition and Conversational Implicature. In Peter Cole, & Jerry L. Morgan (Eds.), Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.

3. Grimes, Joseph. E. (1975) The Thread to Discourse. The Hague: Mouton.

4. Horn, Laurence R. (1989). A Natural History of Negation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

5. Jordan, Michael P. (1984). Rhetoric of Everyday English Texts. London: Allen and Unwin.

6. Lakoff, G. (1971). On generative Semantics. In Danny D. Steinberg, & Leon A. Jakobovits (Eds.), Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leech, G.N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Leisureways, March 1995.

7. Levinson, Stephen C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8. Mey, Jacob L. (2001). Pragmatics: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing.

9. Wason, Peter C. (1965). The Context of Plausible Denial. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 4. Winter, Eugene O. (1976). The Fundamentals of Information Structure: a pilot manual for further development according to the student need. Hatfield: School of Humanities, Hertfordshire University.

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