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Billy Clark, Middlesex University (b.clark@mdx.ac.uk)

SALIENT INFERENCES: PRAGMATICS, STYLISTICS AND PRAGMATIC STYLISTICS. Billy Clark, Middlesex University (b.clark@mdx.ac.uk). 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies Constantine The Philosopher University, Nitra, March 2009 . AIMS.

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Billy Clark, Middlesex University (b.clark@mdx.ac.uk)

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  1. SALIENT INFERENCES: PRAGMATICS, STYLISTICS AND PRAGMATIC STYLISTICS Billy Clark, Middlesex University (b.clark@mdx.ac.uk) 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies Constantine The Philosopher University, Nitra, March 2009

  2. AIMS To consider how stylistic analyses can exploit insights from approaches to pragmatics which focus on the inferential processes involved in communication. Despite practical difficulties in accounting for inferential processes (mainly to do with how much time and space they involve), accounts of inferential processes can help us to understand how texts create the effects they do and help us to understand literary interpretations and literary criticism. I also consider what we might achieve by looking at the inferential processes of (spoken and written) communicators as well as addressees, and I say a few words about how this might help in teaching reading and writing. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  3. STRUCTURE • Inference • Pragmatics, Stylistics and Pragmatic Stylistics • Stylistics Without Inference • Stylistics With Inference • Writers and Students • Conclusion Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  4. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students We make inferences all the time without thinking about them, e.g. when I interpreted this text message at the airport in London on my way here: ‘I gave you a bunch me euros!’ Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  5. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students ‘I gave you a bunch me euros!’ I used a number of contextual assumptions, including: • that this was a response to a text from me commenting that one pound is no longer to enough to buy one euro • that predictive text often ‘predicts’ me when users intend of Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  6. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students ‘I gave you a bunch me euros!’ And I made a number of inferences, including: • that my text had suggested (and so my wife thinks) that I had bought even more euros on the way • that (my wife thinks) I might not have realised how many euros I already had • that (my wife thinks) I might not be appreciating the helpfulness of giving me lots of euros • that ‘I’ here refers to my wife and that ‘you’ refers to me Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  7. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students In everyday situations, we don’t really notice the inferences we’re making. But some examples draw our attention to inferential processes so that we can’t help notice them (even if we don’t use terminology from pragmatics in discussing them). Examples include: • jokes • misunderstanding • ‘contested meanings’ • certain kinds of witty or playful language, including ‘literary’ or creative language Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  8. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Gordon Brown during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons last week (18 March 2009): ‘…I think the Leader of the Opposition doesn’t understand one thing. This is an unprecedented global banking crisis. ‘Unprecedented’ means ‘without precedent’. ‘Global’ means it’s in the whole of the world. ‘Banking Crisis’ means it’s affecting every bank in the world…’ Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  9. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students A man is driving a truck down the motorway when he sees some wild monkeys playing by the side of the road. He gathers them into his truck and drives on. A police officer spots him and forces him to stop. The driver explains what has happened and asks the policeman what to do. ‘I think you’d better take them to the zoo,’ suggests the police officer. The man agrees. The next day, the same police officer sees the same driver in the same truck still carrying the same group of monkeys. He stops the truck again. ‘What are you doing with the monkeys?’ asks the police officer. ‘I thought you were taking them to the zoo.’ ‘Yes,’ replies the driver. ‘I took them there yesterday. They loved it. Today I’m taking them to the seaside’. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  10. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students (Bob Dylan after reading in a newspaper that he smokes 80 cigarettes a day) ‘I’m glad I’m not me.’ (Bob Dylan after reading in a newspaper that he smokes 80 cigarettes a day - Dont Look Back, 1965. dir. D.A. Pennebaker) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  11. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students (Bob Dylan after being asked what kind of rain he had in mind when writing his song ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’. The questioner suggested acid rain or some kind of post-nuclear rain) ‘Well, I always thought it was a hard rain.’ (discussed in Cook, G. 2007. ‘This we have done’: The different vaguenesses of poetry and public relations. In Cutting, J. (ed.) Vague Language Explored. Palgrave, London: 21-39) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  12. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students (John Lennon discussing the controversy following his comment about The Beatles being ‘bigger than Jesus’) ‘I didn’t mean what everybody thinks I meant.’ (Included in the film The US versus John Lennon, 2007, dir. David Leaf and John Scheinfeld) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  13. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Another case where we might argue that inferential processes become more salient is in responding to literary or other creative texts . . . Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  14. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students ‘Pragmatics’, ‘Stylistics’ and ‘Pragmatic Stylistics’ are all understood in different ways by different researchers. My aim today is to consider how one approach to pragmatics (focusing on inference) can be applied to one approach to stylistics (aiming to explain how texts give rise to the effects they do). Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  15. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Most broadly, pragmatics is about language use and users. Sometimes, this leads to a focus mainly on social phenomena and sometimes mainly on psychological phenomena. (Although it is hard to see how you could account for one without an account of the other). The main focus could be on the communicator, on the audience, on (social, institutional or other) context(s), or on the interaction of more than one of these. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  16. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Work which has developed from the work of Paul Grice has focused largely on inferences made in understanding utterances. But there are a large number of different approaches and a large number of different kinds of work which could be termed ‘pragmatics’. Today, I’ll be thinking mainly about approaches which build on Grice’s approach which aimed to explain how we can ‘mean more than we say’ when we communicate. Key assumptions here are that understanding utterances involves the inference of meanings which go beyond the literal, or linguistically encoded, meanings of utterances. There has been extensive discussion about the details of this (see, for example, discussion by Burton-Roberts 2007, Carston 2002, Levinson 2000, Recanati 2004) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  17. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students A typical example exchange might be: Student: ‘What do you think of my draft essay?’ Tutor: ‘How long did you work on it?’ Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  18. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Student: ‘What do you think of my draft essay?’ Tutor: ‘How long did you work on it?’ Gricean and post-Gricean accounts would focus on how the student in this context uses evidence provided by the tutor’s utterance to arrive at an interpretation of the tutor’s utterance. For many approaches, the key thing here is that the indirectness of the answer suggests a less than positive assessment of the draft essay. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  19. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students There are a large number of approaches to stylistics, but many of them would fit quite well with this characterisation: ‘Stylistics’ …‘[stylistics] characteristically deals with the interpretation of texts by focusing in detail on relevant distinctive linguistic features, patterns, structures or levels and on their significance and effects on readers’ Wales, K. 2006. ‘Stylistics’. In Brown, K. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Elsevier, Oxford: 213-217 (this quote from p.216). Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  20. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Peter Stockwell says something a bit more specific: ‘There is a growing body of work in stylistics which marries up detailed analysis at the micro-linguistic level with a broader view of the communicative context . . . The numerous different developments that I outline below all have in common the basic stylistic tenets of being rigorous, systematic, transparent and open to falsifiability . . . In short, they present themselves as aspects of a social science of literature’ (Stockwell 2006: 755) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  21. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students ‘. . . Stylistics necessarily involves the simultaneous practice of linguistic analysis and awareness of the interpretative and social dimension’ (Stockwell, 2006: 755) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  22. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students ‘Cognitive Stylistics’ might also be relevant here: ‘. . . in focusing on the relationship between linguistic choices and effects, stylistics has always been concerned with both texts and readers’ interpretations of texts . . . What is new about cognitive stylistics is the way in which linguistic analysis is systematically based on theories that relate linguistic choices to cognitive structures and processes. This provides more systematic and explicit accounts of the relationship between texts on the one hand and responses and interpretations on the other’ Semino, E. and J. Culpeper. 2002. ‘Foreword’ in Semino and Culpeper (eds.) 2002. Cognitive Stylistics: Language and cognition in text analysis. John Benjamins, Amsterdam: xi Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  23. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students ‘Cognitive stylistics is . . . crucially concerned with reading . . . at its core, cognitive stylistics sets out to answer two main questions: first, what do people do when they read? And second, what happens to readers when they read?’ Burke, M. 2006. ‘Stylistics, Cognitive’. In Brown, K. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Elsevier, Oxford: 218. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  24. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students ‘Pragmatic Stylistics’ also has different meanings for different people. Elizabeth Black (2006. Pragmatic Stylistics. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh) takes an eclectic approach, applying ideas from a range of approaches as ‘tools’ to help us understand how texts work. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  25. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Work in pragmatic stylistics has largely focused on psychological processes involved in understanding, or developing interpretations of, texts. A natural assumption is that Gricean or post-Gricean approaches can explain how characters understand each other and how we understand characters, Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  26. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students But of course there are ‘layered’ communicative acts in any literary text: ‘. . . There is a further distinction to be made between work that applies the pragmatic models to examples of communicative interaction between fictional participants in literary texts, and work that addresses the nature of the interaction between writer and reader’. MacMahon, B. 2006. Stylistics: Pragmatic Approaches. In Brown, K. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Elsevier, Oxford: 232-236 (this quote from p.232). Pragmatic Stylistics should have something to say about all kids of inferences involved in interpreting texts. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  27. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students One way to look at how much accounts of inference can help with stylistic analyses is to begin by looking at two examples of successful stylistic analyses which do not go far in attempting to explain inferences. One good example is Michael Halliday’s famous (1971) analysis of William Golding’s novel ‘The Inheritors’. Another is David Hoover’s (1999) analysis of the same novel. Hoover explicitly suggests that an account of inferential processes would help us understand the text. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  28. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Stylistics Without Inference: ‘The Inheritors’ can be seen as containing four parts: • Epigraph • Passage A’ (pp.11-215) • ‘Passage B’ (pp.216-222) • ‘Passage C’ (pp.223-233) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  29. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Halliday and Hoover do not divide the text up in the same way. Halliday contrasts ‘language A’ which covers the first (and largest) part of the book and ‘language C’ which covers the final section. He claims there is no language B but that the intervening passage has features of both. Hoover sees the book as divided into three parts based on the narrative voice/point of view/’mind style’. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  30. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Here is an extract from Passage A (the very beginning, page 11): Lok was running as fast as he could. His head was down and he carried his thorn bush horizontally for balance and smacked the drifts of vivid buds aside with his free hand. Liku rode him laughing, one hand clutched in the chestnut curls that lay on his neck and down his spine, the other holding the little Oa tucked under his chin. Lok’s feet were clever. They saw. They threw him round the displayed roots of the beeches, leapt when a puddle of water lay across the trail. Liku beat his belly with her feet. “Faster! Faster!” His feet stabbed, he swerved and slowed. Now they could hear the river that lay parallel but hidden to their left. The beeches opened, the bush went away and they were in the little patch of flat mud where the log was. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  31. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Moments later, when Lok and Liku arrive at the place ‘where the log was’, Lok says (page 12): “The log has gone away”. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  32. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Here is an extract from passage B (pages 216-217): The red creature stood on the edge of the terrace and did nothing. The hollow log was a dark spot on the water towards the place where the sun had gone down. The air in the gap was clear and blue and calm. There was no noise at all now except for the fall, for there was no wind and the green sky was clear. The red creature turned to the right and trotted slowly towards the far end of the terrace. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  33. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students And here is an extract from passage C (page 223): Tuami sat in the stern of the dug-out, the steering paddle under his left arm. There was plenty of light and the patches of salt no longer looked like holes in the skin sail. He thought bitterly of the great square sail they had left bundled up in that last mad hour among the mountains; for with that and the breeze through the gap he need not have endured these hours of strain. He need not have sat all night wondering whether the current would beat the wind and bear them back to the fall while the people or as many as were left of them slept their collapsed sleep. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  34. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Language A: Restricted diction (e.g. stick, twig, log for bow, arrow, boat) Inanimate objects/human body parts as subjects of transitive verbs High number of intransitive verbs Halliday’s analysis is based on distinguishing ‘Language A’ and ‘Language C’ and establishing contrasts between them: Language B: Richer diction (e.g. bow, arrow, dug-out, sterering-paddle, sail, etc.) Human subjects for transitive verbs More transitive verbs Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  35. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Halliday on Language A (1971: 349-353): ‘The picture is one in which which people act, but they do not act on things; they move, but they move only themselves, not other objects … It is particularly the lack of transitive clauses of action with human subjects . . . that creates an atmosphere of ineffectual activity: the scene is one of constant movement, but movement which is as much inanimate as human and in which only the mover is affected — nothing else changes. . . . it is the syntax as such, rather than the syntactic reflection of the subject-matter, to which we are responding . . . . the entire transitivity structure of Language A can be summed up by saying that there is no cause and effect.’ Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  36. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Largely based on corpus evidence, Hoover comes to different conclusions, including: ‘There is no monolithic Language A, at least not with respect to transitivity’ (p.26) ‘. . . the extremely high levels of transitivity in some sections of language A are more unusual than the low levels in some sections of language A and language C’ (p.46) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  37. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students For Hoover, the main characteristics of ‘The Inheritors’ (mainly of language A) are: • short, simple sentences, mainly in simple past tense • body parts and inanimate objects as agents, and as subjects of mental process and perception verbs, and intransitive verbs of motion • body parts and inanimate objects with attributes normally associated with animate beings • a small, concentrated, peculiarly distributed vocabulary of short words • a high proportion of very frequent concrete, physical nouns and verbs • natural object words used to refer to artifacts, buildings, and boats • words referring to modern cultural phenomena and activities and names of known places and people are absent Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  38. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Despite differences in the details, it seems to me that these two analyses do tell us quite a lot about how ‘The Inheritors’ works. What might be added by looking at inference? A number of possibilities arise, some of them suggested (but not fully developed) by Hoover. First, we can look at specific local inferences we make when reading texts. As mentioned above, some of these are to do with how characters understand each other or events, some are to do with how we understand characters and events, some are to do with how we understand what the author or narrator (or an implied author/narrator) intends us to communicate, and so on. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  39. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Specific inferences: Fa looked across to the place where the broken trail began again. There was earth churned up there where the other end of the log had lain. She asked a question of Ha and he answered her with his mouth. (The Inheritors, page 13) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  40. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students The bushes twitched again. Lok steadied by the tree and gazed. A head and a chest faced him, half-hidden. There were white bone things behind the leaves and hair. The man had white bone things above his eyes and under the mouth so that his face was longer than a face should be. The man turned sideways in the bushes and looked at Lok along his shoulder. A stick rose upright and there was a lump of bone in the middle. Lok peered at the stick and the lump of bone and the small eyes in the bone things over the face. Suddenly Lok understood that the man was holding the stick out to him but neither he nor Lok could reach across the river. He would have laughed if it were not for the echo of the screaming in his head. The stick began to grow shorter at both ends. Then it shot out to full length again. The dead tree by Lok’s ear acquired a voice. “Clop!” His ears twitched and he turned to the tree. By his face there had grown a twig: a twig that smelt of other, and of goose, and of the bitter berries that Lok’s stomach told him he must not eat. (The Inheritors, page 106) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  41. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Inferences before reading: Assumptions we have before we begin reading might be based on assumptions about the author, about the book or its genre, about its physical or other location, and so on. Hoover mentions how different covers might affect interpretations. The epigraph is also worth looking at here. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  42. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Epigraph: ‘. . . We know very little of the appearance of the Neanderthal man, but this . . . seems to suggest an extreme hairiness, an ugliness, or a repulsive strangeness in his appearance over and above his low forehead, his beetle brows, his ape neck, and his inferior stature. . . . Says Sir Harry Johnston, in a survey of the rise of modern man in his Views and Reviews: ‘The dim racial remembrance of such gorilla-like monsters, with cunning brains, shambling gait, hairy bodies, strong teeth, and possibly cannibalistic tendencies, may be the germ of the ogre in folklore . . . ‘ H.G. Wells, Outline of History Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  43. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Effects of the different languages: Neither Halliday nor Lok say much about inferences we might make based on the differences among the different languages. As mentioned above, Halliday suggests that ‘it is the syntax as such, rather than the syntactic reflection of the subject-matter, to which we are responding’. Hoover rejects Halliday’s claim that the transitivity levels are ‘independent of subject matter’ and cites passages in passage A which are straightforwardly transitive and suggests that some of the sense of powerlessness and ineffectiveness associated with language A are inherent in the plot. It seems, at least, that there is more work to be done on establishing where particular effects of the novel come from. Could an account of inference provide part of the story? Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  44. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Hoover’s comment about the more complex variation in transitivity levels might suggest an inferential account of some of these contrasts. There is also a very striking difference in the experience of reading the different passages which neither Halliday nor Hoover comment on: the inferential processing involved in reading passage A is much more complex and difficult than reading passage B or passage C. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  45. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students The bushes twitched again. Lok steadied by the tree and gazed. A head and a chest faced him, half-hidden. There were white bone things behind the leaves and hair. The man had white bone things above his eyes and under the mouth so that his face was longer than a face should be. The man turned sideways in the bushes and looked at Lok along his shoulder. A stick rose upright and there was a lump of bone in the middle. Lok peered at the stick and the lump of bone and the small eyes in the bone things over the face. Suddenly Lok understood that the man was holding the stick out to him but neither he nor Lok could reach across the river. He would have laughed if it were not for the echo of the screaming in his head. The stick began to grow shorter at both ends. Then it shot out to full length again. (page 106) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  46. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Passage B gives us a new, detached, perspective on Lok: The red creature stood on the edge of the terrace and did nothing. The hollow log was a dark spot on the water towards the place where the sun had gone down. The air in the gap was clear and blue and calm. There was no noise at all now except for the fall, for there was no wind and the green sky was clear. The red creature turned to the right and trotted slowly towards the far end of the terrace. (pages 216-217) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  47. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Passage C gives us a new, engaged, perspective on the new people. Tuami sat in the stern of the dug-out, the steering paddle under his left arm. There was plenty of light and the patches of salt no longer looked like holes in the skin sail. He thought bitterly of the great square sail they had left bundled up in that last mad hour among the mountains; for with that and the breeze through the gap he need not have endured these hours of strain. He need not have sat all night wondering whether the current would beat the wind and bear them back to the fall while the people or as many as were left of them slept their collapsed sleep. (page 223) Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  48. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Reading passage A is a much more laborious process than reading passage B or passage C. All readers comment on how difficult this passage is. Inferential conclusions require significant work and readers can not be sure they’ve got the ‘right’ conclusions at the end of the process. The passage raises a number of questions and does not resolve them, sometimes until later in the novel, sometimes not comletely conclusively. Passage B is clearer. We realise that we are looking at Lok from a detached point of view but one which sees the world from a point of view similar too our own. Passage C is shaped by a consciousness like our own. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  49. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Reading passage C is much easier than reading passage A and easier than reading passage C. Objects are described in ways which make sense to us. Descriptions of events, reasoning and emotions make instant sense to us. Inferences come thick and fast. Noticing this contrast is one of the key effects of reading the text. One thing it strongly implicates is that the ‘new people’ are ‘people like us’ and so that there is a sense in which we are the ‘inheritors’ who have had a catastrophic impact on Lok’s world. The effects of salient inferences such as this are a strong argument for looking at the inferential processes involved in reading texts and at ways in which writers aim to manipulate inferences in general. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

  50. Inference - Pragmatics and Stylistics - Stylistics Without Inference - Stylistics With Inference - Writers and Students Other areas to explore include: ‘Global’ inferences based on evidence provided by a text as a whole rather than specific passages (e.g. assumptions about Lok’s people being able to communicate without words). Inferences which take place after, but not necessarily immediately after, reading a text (e.g. inferences which make a text ‘grow on you’ or determine which works continue to be popular or valued). Inferences involved in developing literary interpretations. Inferences involved in literary criticism and in critical discussion. Billy Clark, b.clark@mdx.ac.uk 3rd Nitra Conference on Discourse Studies, March 2009

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