Among the different factors affecting the well-formedness of discourse, particular attention will be placed in subsequent chapters on principles of organ- isation that are necessary for discourse cohesion. I begin by defining discourse cohesion in general terms (Section 2.3.1), then turn to two principles governing the uses of linguistic devices for the organisation of discourse cohesion across lan- guages. The first principle consists of markinginformation statusas a function of mutual knowledge (Section 2.3.2), and the second one involves thegrounding of informationas a function of communicative focus (Section 2.3.3). I highlight some general developmental implications of these principles for language acquisition (Section 2.3.4), which will be further discussed in subsequent chapters.
2.3.1 Discourse cohesion
Cohesion in discourse exists when the uses and interpretations of lin- guistic devices are interdependent across utterances (Chafe 1976; Halliday and Hasan 1976). As summarised by Halliday and Hasan (1976: 4):
Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another [across clauses]. The one presupposes the other in the sense that it cannot be effectively [or can only be partially] decoded, except by recourse to it. When this happens, a relation of cohesion is set up and the elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, are thereby at least potentially integrated into a text.
Cohesion is a necessary property of discourse, but its relative importance in determining speakers’ utterances varies with the degree to which the situation re- quires reliance on discourse-internal context (maximal in some situations, minimal in others). Situations that depend heavily on non-linguistic context do not require heavy reliance on discourse-internal organisation. For example, speech uttered in front of a vegetable counter in a shopping situation may involve much reliance on linguistic or non-verbal deixis (e.g. demonstratives, labelling, pointing), which can be used efficiently in this type of situation. In contrast, narratives produced in
Theoretical issues
the absence of mutual knowledge illustrate situations that require a great deal of reliance on discourse-internal organisation. In these cases, a narrator talks about entities that are not known to his or her interlocutors and recounts events they have not witnessed. Therefore, linguistic devices are necessary toregulate the flow of informationfrom utterance to utterance, following at least two general principles:
themarking of information status, whereby speakers indicate the degree to which different components of the information in their utterances are presupposed; and thegrounding of information, whereby they indicate what is the main information in focus and what is secondary. From each of these two principles follow various rules, either obligatory or optional in a given language, which partly determine how speakers use linguistic devices in different domains to regulate the information flow across utterances in discourse. We turn to each of these general principles below.
Different more specific aspects of each principle will be discussed in detail from a cross-linguistic perspective subsequently (Chapter 3).
2.3.2 Information status in discourse
The first principle governing the regulation of information flow in dis- course concerns the status of denoted information in relation to mutual knowledge.
This aspect of discourse organisation has been discussed in the literature under several headings, which I first briefly summarise below in terms of the distinction betweennewvs.giveninformation. Any stretch of discourse requires that speakers indicate whether the denoted information is relatively given or new, particularly in the absence of a relevant non-linguistic context (Chafe 1976; Clark and Haviland 1977; Haviland and Clark 1974; Halliday and Hasan 1976). When speakers cannot assume that their interlocutors know about a particular referent, they must first in- troduce this entity in discourse by means of linguistic devices that do not presuppose existence and identity. For example, consider (2.5), in which the speaker is talking about a common friend John and introduces a new referent (a beautiful painting) using an indefinite nominal determiner which marks that the denoted information is brand new. In contrast, definite noun phrases (the painting,it) maintain reference after entities have been introduced, presupposing their identity to different degrees, for example depending on potential ambiguities due to competing candidates in sur- rounding discourse. Similarly, verbal anaphora and ellipsis also presuppose states and events already mentioned, for example (2.6) and (2.7).
(2.5) Yesterday John found a beautiful painting in an antique furniture store near his house. He liked it so much that he went back there today and bought it for cash.
(2.6) John went home and so did Mary.
(2.7) Where did John go? Home.
Functional aspects of reference In addition, any stretch of discourse requires that speakers share a common spatio-temporal frame of reference. When interlocutors talk about entities that are present in the immediate speech situation and about events that are happening in that situation, they can simply assume that this spatio-temporal frame is thehic-et-nunc (here-and-now), thereby taking the speech situation as theirorigo. However, when the denoted entities and events are displaced, they must provide a minimal amount of information allowing the interlocutor to locate them in space and time. Thus, as the speaker introduces a new referent in (2.5) above, he or she simultaneously provides information about time (yesterday) and place (an antique furniture store near his house). Reference can then be maintained to John (he), to the painting (it), and to the spatial frame (there) in an utterance that contains a deictic motion verb and particle (went back) presupposing that John left the spatial frame between the initial time frame (yesterday) and a new subsequent one (today).
As will be shown in subsequent chapters, although the binary distinction be- tween given and new information captures some aspects of information structure in discourse, the marking of information status is best characterised in terms of a continuum corresponding to the relativeaccessibilityof referents, that is the relative ease or difficulty with which information concerning the existence and identity of denoted entities is recoverable in the universe of discourse. Degree of accessibility is itself a function of a number of intersecting factors determining the degree to which the existence and identity of referents can be retrieved in discourse. Thus, as noted in Chapter 1, the linguistic forms available in all languages for the denotation of entities in discourse can be placed along a continuum, which is illustrated by the English forms in (2.8) (reproduced from Chapter 1). This continuum corresponds to the degree to which different forms presuppose the existence and identity of entities in discourse: indefinite nominals (e.g.a car), definite nominals (e.g.the car), overt pronominal forms (e.g.it), zero elements (e.g.The car slid and 0 hit the tree).
(2.8) indefinite nominal<definite nominal<overt pronoun<zero pronoun 2.3.3 Information grounding in discourse
In addition to marking information status, speakers mustground in- formation, that is present it as belonging to theforegroundvs.backgroundof dis- course. Roughly, utterances in the foreground correspond to the skeleton of the narrative, that is to the chronologically ordered main events that constitute the time line and make the plot line move forward, whereas backgrounded ones need not be chronologically ordered, for example because of a relation of simultaneity or over- lap, and they correspond to secondary information surrounding the foreground. As shown repeatedly across languages, a number of devices contribute to the presen- tation of backgrounded vs. foregrounded situations: aspect, subordination, word
Theoretical issues
order, and voice (Chvany 1985; Dry 1981, 1983; Ehrlich 1987, 1988; Giv ´on 1987;
Hopper 1979a, 1979b, 1982; Kamp 1979; Liet al. 1982; Reinhart 1984; Schiffrin 1981, 1990; Thompson 1987; Tomlin 1985, 1987).
For example, grammaticalised aspect (verbal inflections, particles), which can be used in conjunction with other temporal-aspectual devices (adverbials, connectives), marks differentperspectivesin relation to the temporal structure of situations: the perspective of theimperfectiveis located within the internal structure of ongoing situations, whereasperfectiveaspect marks an external perspective which repre- sents situations independently of their internal structure as points, for example after events have stopped and/or have been completed. Thus, as noted in Chapter 1, the inflections of (2.9) (perfectivecame in, imperfectivewas eating) represent Mary’s arrival as a point that occurs after John began eating the apple and before he fin- ished it: Mary’s arrival is a foregrounded event moving the plot line forward, John’s eating a backgrounded event overlapping with the foreground. Similarly, (2.10) shows how imperfective aspect and subordination can coincide as backgrounding devices: the perfective past (sat down,started to read,rang) marks foregrounded events, the subordinated progressive (while he was reading) a backgrounded event.
(2.9) John was eating an apple. Mary came in.
(2.10) John sat down and started to read a book. While he was reading, the door bell rang.
2.3.4 Developmental implications
I conclude this chapter by highlighting some of the developmental implications of functional approaches to language acquisition, with particular at- tention to the type of approach to be adopted in subsequent chapters. To summarise the discussion so far, all functional approaches share a common emphasis on two fundamental properties of language: multifunctionality and context-dependence. In addition, I argued that two levels of linguistic organisation must be distinguished:
the sentence and discourse levels. Although most approaches acknowledge the ex- istence of these two levels, they have typically focused on either one or the other level. One of the main points to be stressed throughout subsequent chapters is that we must consider both levels simultaneously. In particular, the well-formedness of utterances depends both on sentence-internal rules, governing how propositional information is organised within the sentence, and on discourse rules, governing the relations between utterances and their contexts of use.
We must therefore account for how children master the uses of devices at both the sentence and discourse levels. At the sentence level they must learn to express
Functional aspects of reference semantic and syntactic relations in grammatically well-formed sentences in which they refer to entities, predicate states or events about them, and situate them in time and space. In addition, we must account for how they relate utterances to their contexts of use and learn to anchor their speech to the non-linguistic and linguistic context. The gradual mastery of both types of context-dependence is a central as- pect of their linguistic competence. Children at first anchor speech in the immediate here-and-now, then learn to anchor speech locally and globally in discourse when they begin to displace reference away from the speech situation. It will be suggested that the development of discourse-internal organisation has implications for what cognitive psychologists have traditionally called the process of ‘decontextualisa- tion’ in development, whereby children free themselves from immediate percep- tion. Discourse cohesion requires that children master endophoric uses of linguistic devices, thereby promoting their ability to use language as itsowncontext. This new type of context implies a form of abstraction, which has direct consequences for children’s participation in gradually more complex forms of interpersonal com- munication and, more generally, more complex forms of cognitive activity. Finally, general all-purpose cognitive capacities may not suffice to account for some of the processes that take place during this development. In particular, this book will argue for an approach that views multifunctionality and context-dependence as fun- damental properties of language, while simultaneously acknowledging the impact of linguistic structure on development and the importance of some processes that might be ‘specialised’ for language behaviour, as compared to other forms of human activity.
This position was inspired by two theoretical perspectives, originating in debates that run across cognitive developmental psychology, on the one hand, and linguistic theory, on the other hand. First, it adopts some of the ideas developed by some tradi- tions of cognitive developmental psychology (e.g. Vygotsky 1962), concerning the structuring role of language on cognitive development. Such ideas, however, must be updated in the light of recent advances in developmental psycholinguistics.
Second, it also adopts a version of Whorf’s (1956) ‘linguistic relativity’ hypothesis, according to which some aspects of cognitive organisation may be influenced by the structure of the particular language to be acquired. On the one hand, the two general principles of discourse organisation discussed above are universal. On the other hand, the existence of large cross-linguistic variations raises the question of potential differences that may occur during the course of development. Thus, regardless of their native language, all children must learn these discourse principles in order to be able to communicate efficiently in situations where maximal reliance on discourse is required. In all languages a variety of devices are available and necessary to relate utterances to non-linguistic and linguistic aspects of speech situations, for example
Theoretical issues
to indicate who speaks to whom, where and when, about what focal information, and in relation to what presupposed knowledge. However, languages vary greatly in the particular devices they make available to speakers for this regulation, presenting children with different problems to solve during the acquisition process. We first turn below to a more detailed discussion of universal vs. language-specific aspects of each principle (Chapter 3), before addressing the developmental questions on the basis of a review of the relevant available literature (Chapters 4 to 7).
3 Cross-linguistic invariants and variations
This chapter highlights some universal vs. language-specific properties of linguistic systems which bear on the developmental issues to be raised in subsequent chap- ters. I first briefly describe some of the general typological dimensions along which languages vary (Section 3.1). I then present in more detail invariant and variable properties of linguistic organisation at the sentence and discourse levels in each of the three domains to be examined subsequently from a developmental point of view. First, denoting entities (Section 3.2) requires the marking of universal dis- tinctions concerning the discourse status of information as a function of mutual knowledge. However, languages rely to different extents on two types of markings:
localmarkings affecting the nominal system andglobalmarkings affecting the en- tire clause. Similarly, space in language (Section 3.3) involves universal distinctions in the representation of motion and location, as well as general principles governing spatial anchoring in discourse. However, languages vary a great deal in the par- ticular systems of spatial devices they provide and in how they distribute spatially relevant information in the clause. Finally, systems of temporal-aspectual markings (Section 3.4) universally allow speakers to represent various types of situations from different perspectives, to locate these situations temporally, and to ground informa- tion as a function of discourse focus. However, they vary in important ways, such as the extent to which markings are grammaticalised, rich, symmetric, and trans- parent. Hypotheses concerning the impact of such universal and language-specific properties of linguistic systems on the rhythm and course of development will then be examined in subsequent chapters in the light of the available literature on child language.