english lit/lang anthology OCR definitions

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Giles Accommodation Theory (1970)

Convergence is moving speech closer to the other persons.

Divergence is moving speech further apart for effect. You can downwardly (toning down) or upwardly (eliminating features) converge. A conversation relies on mutual convergence.

What is divergence?

Grice's Maxim of Quantity

Speaker's contributions should be as informative as required; not saying either too little or too much.

Grice's Maxim of Relevance

Contributions should relate to the purposes of the exchange.

Grice's Maxim of Manner

Contributions should be orderly, perspicuous, brief, and free of ambiguity

Grice's Maxim of Quality

The speaker's contributions ought to be true

Brown and Levison's Facework (1987)

In order to enter into social relationships, all people must acknowledge the 'face' of other participants. The theory states the use of 'Positive and Negative Faces.'

The positive face needs

The desire to be appreciated and approved, liked and honoured

The negative face needs

The desire to be free from imposition or intrusion

Face-threatening acts (FTAs)

Linguistic strategies that threaten the negative or positive face of another participant such as commands, threats, warnings etc.

How do we avoid FTA's?

Providing a balance between getting a message across directly, which might challenge someone, and getting a message across indirectly, which is more polite but means the message gets lost.

Hedging

Avoiding directness in communication in an attempt to lessen a negative effect.

Fillers

'Um', 'Ah', 'Er' - sounds for thinking time

Ellipsis

The omission of a word or phrase which is grammatically necessary but can be deduced from the context.

Skip connectors

Return to previous topic of conversation e.g. anyway, coming back to our original discussion.

Adjacency pairs

A sequence of two related utterances by different speakers, the second being dependent on the first.

Deixsis

Words that create a pointing effect; 'that.'

Tag questions

A question added onto the end of declarative statement that lessens the impact of that statement

Discourse Marker

A word or phrase that indicates a change in topic or a return to a previous topic.

Back channeling

Active listening technique that prompts a respondent to continue telling a story or describing a situation. Involves use of phrases such as "Go on," "Uh huh," and "Tell me more."

Vague expression

An expression that allows for borderline cases in which it is impossible to tell if the expression applies or does not apply.