ACTA UNIVERSITATIS SAPIENTIAE, PHILOLOGICA, 5, 2 (2013) 255–263

DOI: 10.2478/ausp-2014-0018

Approaching Literature with Linguistic Means:

a Few Conclusions
Zsuzsanna AJTONY
Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca
Department of Humanities, Miercurea Ciuc
[email protected]

Abstract. This paper is a follow-up of my research carried out on the

interface area of language and literature, summarizing the conclusions that
can be drawn from the approach of literary works with linguistic means.
In my research I have analysed the dramatic works of G. B. Shaw with the
help of the latest results of interactional sociolinguistics. After a thorough
examination of the Shavian characters’ verbal interaction focusing on the
relevance of ethnic features (Britishness, for instance), this article discusses
the legitimacy of linguistic methods in the interpretation of literary works.

Keywords: language, literature, semiotic perspective, interactional

sociolinguistics, interdisciplinary approach

1. Introduction, structure of the paper

For those interested in applying linguistic methods to the study of literature an
obvious procedure is to use the categories of linguistics to describe the language
of literary texts. Literature, as Valéry said, ‘is a kind of extension and application
of certain properties of language’ (quoted in Culler [1975], 2008: 64). The linguist,
therefore, can contribute to literary studies by showing what properties of
language [are] being exploited in particular texts and how they [are] extended or
reorganized (ibid.).
In my research I have investigated the interface of language and literature
analysing literary works with the help of linguistics, in particular, discussing the
conversational strategies employed by G. B. Shaw’s characters that shape their
ethnic identity. In this paper I discuss the legitimacy of the linguistic approach to
literary works in general, specilcally referring to the Shavian plays as a corpus
analysed with sociolinguistic means.
This paper attempts at summarizing the conclusions that can be drawn from
the approach of literary works with linguistic means. Firstly, I introduce the
256 Zsuzsanna AJTONY

main topic of discussion, literature, approached as a type of public discourse, a

specilc genre, also paying particular attention to dramatic discourse. The second
part of the paper concentrates on relevant methods employed in the analysis of
dramatic dialogues, in general, particularly highlighting the Shavian plays that
have been analysed within the research. The lnal part of the article summarizes
the main results of the research carried out on the interface of language and
literature, emphasizing the relevance and legitimacy of the linguistic analysis
in the approach of the above mentioned plays in particular, making reference to
literature, in general.

2. Literature—a type of discourse

In my research I consider literature as one type of discourse, an identilable type
of ‘genre’, whether literary or not. Just as ‘the lecture, a casual conversation, and
the interview are all genres’ (Traugott and Pratt 1980: 20), the novel, the short
story or the drama are also different types of discourse. ‘This broader view on
genre is valuable in that it helps us conceptually to bridge the traditional gap
between literary and non-literary discourse. It enables us to view literature as a
particular range of genres or discourse type, that is, as a particular subset of the
repertory of genres existing in a given speech community.’ (ibid.)
Literature as a range of genres is public, not private, discourse. Additionally,
because it is a written form of discourse, it can be read ‘at a far distance in time and
place from its origin’ (idem, 21). Moreover, since the texts analysed belong to the
dramatic genre (G. B. Shaw’s plays), beside the ideational function of language
(according to which language is used to convey experience and information
about the context and is best exploited in poetry and prose), the interpersonal
function of language is brought to the limelight. Drama is prototypically the
literary genre composed almost entirely of face-to-face interaction between
characters (Tan 1998).

3. Relevant methods for the analysis of the Shavian plays

The methods of analysis, which focus on the linguistic structure of the dramatic
dialogue, belong to the domains of discourse analysis, conversation analysis and
pragmatics, which deal precisely with face-to-face interaction. All these prove to
be useful tools in analysing the meanings of utterances in (lctional) dialogues.
Besides, politeness theory, which is also applied in the analyses, can illuminate
the social dynamics and character interaction, while discourse analysis can shed
light on aspects of characterization.
 Approaching Literature with Linguistic Means: a Few Conclusions 257

Research shows that ‘an increasing interest in the pragmatics of literary texts
has been making itself felt across the disciplines of both literary sciences and
linguistics’ (Mey 2001: 787). Suflce it to mention the emergence of such salient
works as Traugott and Pratt’s (1980) Linguistics for the Student of Literature,
the Interface Series of Routledge Publishing House and studies in the so-
called literary pragmatics (e.g. Mey (1999), Toolan (1994), Fludernik (1993)). In
addition, further research articles can be mentioned in this line, included in the
journals of this borderline area like Text, Poetics, Journal of Literary Semantics,
and especially Language and Literature, which covers the latest developments
in stylistic analysis, the linguistic analysis of literature and related areas. These
journals also provide lrm evidence that the combination of literary criticism and
linguistics is both legitimate and creative.
The language of literature is one of the most traditional applications
of linguistics, ‘one which has been given new impetus by the rapid new
developments in linguistics since the development of generative grammar.
At the present time, linguistic analysis of literature is one of the most active
and creative areas of literary studies’ (Traugott & Pratt 1980: 19-20). Although
linguistics is not essential to the study of literature, it can contribute to a better
understanding of a text. It can help in raising awareness of why it is that we
experience what we do when we read a literary work and it can also reveal
how the experience of a work is in part derived from its verbal structure. Above
all, however, linguistics can give the conscious reader a point of view, a way
of looking at a literary text that will help them develop a consistent analysis,
and prompt them to ask questions about the language of a text that they might
otherwise ignore. Linguistics helps ensure a proper foundation for analysis by
enabling the literary critic to recognize the systematic regularities in the language
of a text. In this sense, we can use linguistics to construct a theory about the
language of a text in the form of a “grammar of the text”. In this way, linguistics
forms an integral component of literary criticism.
Alongside this line of research, my study has examined the ‘signilcance’ of
the literary text from a linguistic perspective, investigating its language from
different points of view. In this sense, investigation has taken place on two levels:
1. the analysis of the language proper, of the linguistic choices the author (G.
B. Shaw, in our case) makes, which draws no distinction between the literary text
and other types of texts;
2. the analysis of the signilcance of such linguistic choices, which leads the
critic to a deeper, more proper interpretation of the literary work.
The signilcance of linguistic choices is understood in two complementary
ways:
(i) Firstly, the literary text is considered to be an answer to the everyday social
and political questions of the playwright’s time. In our case, Shaw’s adoption of
258 Zsuzsanna AJTONY

one of the ideological trends of the age (Fabianism, socialism) is transparent in the
texts of the plays, in the characters’ attitudes to certain social and political issues;
(ii) Secondly, the work shapes the ideological views of the time. In this sense,
the literary work plays an active role in forming the ideology of an age. This point
is especially salient in the case of Shaw’s plays, as they have been inmuenced by
the ideologies of the age, but they also inmuenced the critical thinking of the age.
Within this framework, the methodology of analysis applied to the plays is
micro-sociolinguistic. The key problem in this leld of linguistic research is always
the origin and nature of the social valence attached to linguistic forms. Choices
of form are primarily determined by the social characteristics of participants and
setting. As Brown and Levinson (1987) point out, it is precisely in action and
interaction that the most profound interrelations between language and society are
to be found: this is the leld of micro-sociolinguistics. In line with this approach,
the Shavian plays are taken as an authentic socio-cultural linguistic corpus
(Bucholtz & Hall 2005). In this context, the social variables that shape the identity
of the characters are related to their language use and social behaviour. Born from
the writer’s lctional world, the language these individuals use is characteristic
of the time and society in which the author lived and created them. In this sense,
my research has been an attempt to capture the typical sociolinguistic features
of these literary lgures who—though on the surface have nothing to do with real
life at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century—basically are the
‘children’ of their creator’s age, whether the action of the play takes place in the
16th (Saint Joan), 19th century (A Man of Destiny) or right in Shaw’s own time (Mrs
Warren’s Profession, Major Barbara, or Pygmalion).
By offering an ambiguous view of the created ethnic stereotypes, Shaw
constructs and undermines at the same time his characteristically paradoxical plot
and character treatment. My research has concentrated on all the conversational
strategies the Shavian characters employ while they act like a typical specimen
of their ethnic group or nationality, of their gender or their class, or exactly the
opposite. The analyses pursued in the research not only capture these characters
in their linguistic interaction with other characters, but, as their ethnical bias is
revealed in ways other than language, it also seizes the way they utter certain
sentences or make certain gestures, use body language, etc. In other words,
the focus of my research has been to analyse how interacting participants use
language, which – as a result – shapes their ethnic identity. However, because
ethnicity is not neatly isolable from other facets of identity, it is necessary to
consider the participants’ positioning with respect to other types of group identity
(e.g. gender, class, age), as well as personal and interpersonal identities that are
adopted, shaped and abandoned in the course of the unfolding interaction.
Summing up, the methods of analysis of the plays are based on the interface of
language and literature. The plays are approached from a micro-sociolinguistic
 Approaching Literature with Linguistic Means: a Few Conclusions 259

perspective. Although I have followed the close analysis of the texts, concentrating
on their different closures which lead us back to the age of structuralism, in
my research I have applied post-structuralist, present-day methods, relying on
the latest and newly emerging branches of linguistics: pragmatics, conversation
analysis, Speech Act Theory, Politeness Theory and other methods of analysing
linguistic manifestations of identity, and specilcally, ethnicity.
It must be added that through pragmatics, linguistics extends its area of research
towards sociology, anthropology, to the study of power relations and language
ideology (in the sense discussed by Foucault and Barthes). In my analyses, however,
I have remained within the area of linguistics (micro-sociolinguistics), by offering
analyses based on cultural pragmatics. Thus linguistics provides a method of
analysis, it steels us with a battery of concepts, which bridge the space between
text and its ideological and sociological signilcance. The micro-sociolinguistic
concepts employed in the analyses originally derive from the fathers of pragmatics
and language philosophy; such concepts as Austin and Searle’s ‘illocutionary
force’, Grice’s ‘conversational implicature’, further developed by Leech’s
‘interpersonal rhetoric’ (as it appears in his Principles of Pragmatics), and Brown
and Levinson’s politeness theory. From the vast area of micro-sociolinguistic
research we have chosen the method of conversation analysis, which is viewed
as micro-sociolinguistic analysis. The discussion of the roles, identities, ethnicity
that the different characters assume takes us to the realm of their language use, the
leld of socio-pragmatics (as Leech delnes it in his ‘interpersonal rhetoric’1), also
incorporating Speech Acts, viewed as social transaction.

4. Results—the relevance and legitimacy of the

linguistic analysis in the approach of literature

So far a great deal of research has been carried out concerning the Shavian plays
from the perspective of literary criticism. However, I consider that linguistic
methods can give a new perspective and offer a more rigorous approach to the
literary text than literary methods, by offering a close analysis of the plays. I have
approached them with post-structuralist methods, which are able to foreground
subtleties of the literary text, which otherwise would remain unnoticed. I believe
that precisely through the pragmatic approach, especially Speech Act theory,
through inference and implicature, it is possible to legitimise and bring evidence

1 Cf. Leech (1983: 79) where he shows that both the CP (Cooperative Principle) and the PP
(Politeness Principle) are required to account for pragmatic interpretations, and there is a
need for a ’rhetoric’, in the sense of a set of principles which are observed in the planning and
interpretation of messages.
260 Zsuzsanna AJTONY

for the claims of literary criticism. These methods have also led to other lndings
that only the linguistic analysis could bring to the surface. In order to be able to
approach the Shavian plays relevantly, they are viewed as a micro-sociolinguistic
corpus on which the characters’ verbal behaviour, their face-to-face interaction
can be followed and analysed.
Following our socio-cultural analysis of lve Shavian plays I have come to the
following methodological results:

4.1. The general semiotic perspective and within it, the structural approach to
the Shavian plays has guided me to a new and relevant interpretation of these
texts. According to the semiotic approach to texts, the intention of a text is never
completely clear or obvious therefore it seems to allow for several possible
readings. It is the structure of the text that steers the reader to comprehend
certain elements in a certain way. Research has claimed (Kelemen 1998 following
Eco 1990, 1992) that a text always contains all its possible readings. In order to
correctly recognize the intention of the text, the reader’s task is to use conjectures.
These conjectures must be tested and conlrmed by the text as an organic whole.
If this is achieved, the reader has come to a pertinent interpretation. If not, new
conjectures must be made until the text replies to them. The interpretation of a
text is therefore a continuous dialogue between the text and its reader.
In my analyses of the verbal interactions of the Shavian characters I have tried
to maintain this continuous conversation with the text. I have demonstrated that
the author’s intentions are coded into the linguistic or other textual strategies
employed in/by the text. As a reader of the Shavian texts, as the addressee of
the author’s intention, I have kept these strategies in mind all along the process
of interpretation. All the textual (semantic, stylistic, semiotic, structural) but
also ideological, cultural and historical constraints, as integral parts of the
internal coherence of the text, are planted into it. If we are to provide a relevant
interpretation of these texts, all these aspects have to be taken into account.
In this line, in those cases (Arms and the Man, The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and
Cleopatra, John Bull’s Other Island) where the play has an ethnic reading, i.e. it is
ethnicity as a structuring element that the play is constructed around, parallelisms
could be drawn between the different versions of Britishness. In that case where
the play cannot be read as a discourse about British ethnic identity (Pygmalion),
parallel identities disappear. Therefore a new conjecture had to be made, and the
intertextual reading of the title and, consequently of the play, gave a clue to its
relevant interpretation. Though Britishness is not the main structuring element of
Pygmalion—though ethnic references are to be found in the verbal manifestation
of some of the characters—, this text has also been investigated because it offers
a larger perspective on Britishness, opening to the more general framework of
‘Anglo-Saxon attitudes’. Therefore this play has been interpreted as an overtly
 Approaching Literature with Linguistic Means: a Few Conclusions 261

intertextual play about the condition of the creator within a specilc historical
and social context, intertextuality being offered by the title of the play itself.

4.2. The ambiguity and paradoxical attitude in the Shavian character treatment
has some implications for the theory of stereotypes and schema theory, as well.
The analyses of the British stereotypes in the selected plays have conlrmed the
already-known theoretical claim that stereotypes act like schemas, in so far as
they are perfectly compatible with all the elements of the category. Consequently,
its boundaries can be extended and the schema (in our case, the stereotype)
will still remain unharmed. This is in line with the claim (Mills 2003: 202) that
stereotypes themselves do not necessarily exist in any ‘real’ or ‘material’ form.
Rather, they function as hypotheses made on the part of the speakers about what
norms and assumptions function within that particular context or community
of practice. In his plays, Shaw goes even further. He challenges the boundaries
of ethnic stereotypes in such a way that not only does he maintain but he
also contests them, for the sake of intellectual adventure but probably for an
educational purpose as well.
The other theoretical conclusion regarding stereotypes is the conlrmation of
the idea that though stereotypes may change due to different social, cultural or
historical circumstances—since they assume incomplete factual knowledge—
they still remain valid over time.
Strongly connected to this validity concept, our analyses have also conlrmed
the presence of the same ethnic stereotypes produced by cultural historians (for
instance, Doyle 1989, Lucas 1990 and Easthope 1999), sociologists and cultural
anthropologists (Fox 2005) or journalists (Paxman 1998). Ample footnotes have
made references to them. The stereotypical ethnic traits are thus verilable in
the language strategies of the characters, as the analyses of the character’s verbal
behaviour have revealed it.
Obviously, the circle of plays analysed could have been extended, but we
believe that these lve plays can be considered as models of Shaw’s pattern of
character creation and simultaneous display of ethnic stereotypes and counter-
stereotypes. The different varieties of the British stereotype prove to be each
other’s paradoxically complementary elements. Our analyses have discussed the
‘degree of Englishness’ the characters exhibit in their speech, behaviour, manner
and customs.

4.3. The linguistic methods proposed for analysis of literary texts have thus
proved to be relevant. The approach of a literary text with linguistic means and
more specilcally, discussing the verbal behaviour of the national and ethnic
stereotypes of Shavian characters with the help of conversation analysis (including
Speech Act theory and Politeness Theory) has been demonstrated to be a proper
262 Zsuzsanna AJTONY

and legitimate method. What is missing from the earlier description of Shaw’s
work (and to my knowledge, utterly absent from research on Shaw’s plays) is the
discussion on the relationship between his complex ideology and its manifestation
in the language of his plays. The micro-sociolinguistic, pragmatic analyses of the
plays have demonstrated that the playwright’s complex, ambiguous, paradoxical
attitude does appear in the linguistic behaviour of the characters, as expressions
of their identity, in the form of ambiguous, paradoxical ethnic identities. The
linguistic approach has been proved to be more rigorous in manner than literary
methods and has given a new perspective to the interpretation of the Shavian
plays. In my analyses I have found evidence for the issues brought by literary
criticism (Shaw’s plays as plays of ideas, his mastery of paradox and irony) but I
have also come to lndings that only the linguistic analyses were able to bring to
the surface in the form of parallel and paradoxical identities.

Conclusions
In this paper I have outlined an interdisciplinary approach to ethnic
identity, relying particularly upon theories from linguistics (especially micro-
sociolinguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis), sociology, anthropology, and
cognitive psychology (in particular, stereotype theory). I have attempted to explain
how characters are constructed in their face-to-face interaction with each other. In
the pragmatic analysis of the Shavian plays I have tried to explore the dynamics
of dialogue conceived as verbal interaction, having implications for the author’s
character treatment as well as his own ideological, cultural, ethnic identity.

References
Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in
Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall. 2005. Identity and interaction: a sociocultural
linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7 (4-5): 585-614.
Culler, Jonathan. [1975], 2008. Structuralist Poetics. London and New York:
Routledge.
Doyle, Brian. 1989. English and Englishness. London: Routledge.
Easthope, Anthony. 1999. Englishness and National Culture. London & New
York: Routledge.
Eco, Umberto. 1990. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press. Accessed on Google Books 28 September 2009.
 Approaching Literature with Linguistic Means: a Few Conclusions 263

---. 1992. Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Umberto Eco with Richard

Rorty, Jonathan Culler, Christine Brook-Rose. Ed. S. Collini. Cambridge: CUP.
Accessed on Google Books, 1 October 2009.
Fludernik, Monika. 1993. The Fictions of Language and the Languages of
Fiction: The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness. London:
Routledge.
Fox, Kate. 2005. Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour.
London: Hodder.
Kelemen, János. 1998. Olasz hermeneutika Crocétól Ecóig [Italian hermeneutics
from Croce to Eco]. Budapest: Kávé.
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London & New York: Longman.
Lucas, John. 1990. England and Englishness. Ideas of Nationhood in English
Poetry 1688-1900. London: The Hogarth Press.
Mey, Jacob L. 1999. When Voices Clash: A Study in Literary Pragmatics. Berlin /
New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
---. 2001. Literary Pragmatics. In Schiffrin D. et al. (eds.), The Handbook of
Discourse Analysis, 787-97. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Paxman, Jeremy. 1998. The English: A Portrait of a People. London: Penguin
Books.
Tan, Peter K.W. 1998. Advice on doing your stylistics essay on a dramatic text. In
Jonathan Culpeper, Mick Short, Peter Verdonk (eds.), Exploring the Language
of Drama, 161-71. London & New York: Routledge.
Toolan, Michael. 1994. Narrative: A Critical Linguistic Introduction. London:
Routledge.
Traugott, E.C. & Pratt, M.L. 1980. Linguistics for Students of Literature. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.