A model for the analysis of dialogue
comprises two principal methodological orientations.
- Structure: A focus on the way spoken discourse is structured; on how it is organised in a linear fashion and how its various components are bolted together. A structural analysis of discourse thus seeks to explore the connection (or sometimes, lack of connection) in dialogue between questions and answers, statements and acknowledgements, requests and reactions, and so on.
- Strategy: The study of discourse in terms of strategy. Here attention is focussed on the way speakers use different interactive tactics at specific points during a sequence of talk. The axis of selection forms a strategic continuum ranging from ‘direct’ to ‘indirect’, along which different types of utterances can be plotted in terms of their varying degrees of politeness.
Characterisation is created through
patterns of language and to highlight the points of departure and/or
intersection between the discourse world of the play and the discourse
situation of the world outside the play.
A. The
strategies of dialogue:
Analyzing play dialogue in terms of
discourse strategy often involves cross-reference between the character level
and the higher-order interactive level of playwright and audience/reader.
The ‘Theatre of the Absurd’: The tradition of absurd writing is characterised by a
preoccupation with the apparent futility of human existence, and this often
manifests in play talk that, when compared to the sociolinguistic routines of
everyday verbal interaction, stands out as deviant, anti-realist or just plain
daft. o
From N. F. Simpson’s absurdist play One Way Pendulum, a courtroom has been hastily assembled inside a domestic
living room to facilitate Mr. Groomkirby’s ‘swearing in’ ceremony:
The Usher enters followed by Mr.
Groomkirby, whom he directs into the witness box. Mr. Groomkirby takes the
oath. Mr. Groomkirby: (holding up a copy of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’) I swear, by Harriet
Beecher Stowe, that the evidence I shall give
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Judge: You
understand, do you, that you are now on oath? Mr. Groomkirby: I do,
m’lord.
A courtroom is institutionally
sanctioned to deal exclusively with legal proceedings, and is manifestly not
the sort of thing that can be set up by anybody in a domestic living room.
Furthermore, although Mr. Groomkirby’s ‘swearing-in’ contains many instantly
recognisable formulaic structures such as ‘ . . . the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth . . .’, the use of Uncle Tom’s Cabin clearly violates
the pragmatic conditions which govern this ritual.
Absurdist, as opposed to realist,
drama tends to make use of a special kind of incongruity that comes from a
mismatch between communicative strategy and discourse context, often deriving from fictional
speakers not observing the familiar or expected routines that are cued by
everyday discourse contexts. And these incongruities often have humorous
outcomes.
B. The
structure of dialogue
One of the most significant studies
of the structures of play talk is Deirdre Burton’s book on dialogue and discourse. Burton investigates a number of play texts using a variety
of different models in conversation analysis and speech act theory. Her book
culminates with a lengthy breakdown of Harold Pinter’s play The Dumb Waiter
GUS: I want to ask you something.
BEN: [no response]
BEN: What are you doing out there?
GUS: Well I was just BEN: What about
tea?
GUS: I’m just going to make it.
BEN: Well go on, make it.
GUS: Yes, I will.
In ‘I want to ask you something’,
Gus attempts to initiate an exchange , although Ben fails to provide the
anticipated second part to this. Furthermore, Gus’s initiation is couched in
the form of a discourse act known as a metastatement. Metastatements work as
organising devices, but function more as ‘language about language’ than as
information-carrying units of discourse in their own right. This request for
permission to hold the floor is of course rebuffed by his interlocutor, who
immediately initiates his own ‘question and answer’ exchange which this time
does elicit a reply from his interlocutor. It is noticeable that Gus is
prevented from finishing his reply before Ben opens up a new ‘request and
reaction’ type exchange with ‘What about tea?’.
Concerning characterization, the
unequal statuses of the participants, she argues, are reflected in the
structure of dialogue On the one hand, Ben is the dominating interactant, the
confident director of operations and persons, although there are occasional
sequences of talk where his frailer side comes to the fore. Gus, in spite of
the odd battle for superiority, is the inferior interactant who as ‘victim’
gains audience sympathy by the end of the play.
Burton makes a number of connections
between the structure of Pinter’s dialogue and that of adult-to-child
interaction. The means by which Ben for example asserts his conversational
dominance bears much similarity to the patterns other researchers have
uncovered for the way adults interact with children. Gus’s attempts at
initiation, by contrast, resemble those of children who also tend to be less
successful initiators of conversational exchanges.
The overall point is that the
structures Burton uncovers in play talk become messages about those characters
at the level of discourse between playwright and audience.
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