5.1

5.1 Micro functions of Language

There is not an infinite or indefinite number of ways people use language for their own ends. There is really a rather limited number of basic things we do with language. As Searle (1976:22-23) has indicated, “We tell people how things are, we try to get them to do things, we commit ourselves to doing things, we express our feelings and attitudes, and we bring a bout changes through our utterances. Often we do more than one of these at once in the same utterance.”
Robinson and Rackstraw (1972:11-12) cite some others: “To ask for or give knowledge or beliefs about the physical and social world external to oneself and report on private’ states (referential function) often by making statements or posing questions, to control other people’s behavior, often by issuing commands; to relieve tensions by exclaiming; to order one’s own nonverbal behavior, to attract or retain attention; to joke or recite or create poetry, to conform to social norms; to identify one’s status; to derive the role relationships between speaker and listener; to teach someone else the language.”
Whereas in sociology, functionalist theory is not consumed with individual motivation for certain actions, sociolinguistic theory takes into account both the intent of the speaker and the consequences for speaker, hearer, or others, as well as for the socio cultural structure. Furthermore, linguist are especially consumed with the means employed-in other words, what do people hope or expect to accomplish with language, what actually is accomplished, and how is it done? Consider the following.
1. Would you mind handing me the ledger, Abigail?
Abigail’s boss hopes to get the ledger, and let us assume for the sake of argument that she (that is Abigail’s boss) does in fact get it, so that is what is accomplished. The means employed is that of a questions but of a particular form a polite type of question, and one whose intention is clean the speaker is uttering a request. Abigail’s boss could just as well have said:
2. Gimme the goddamned ledger, Abby!
Here the intent is no less clear, although this utterance is better characterized as a command rather than as a request and its function may not be quite the same. That is, the boss may get the ledger, but in (2), Abigail might get quite upset if this is not the boss’s usual way of addressing her. This personal function might be wither manifest or latent, depending on the speaker’s intentions.
This particular example has been chosen, at least in part, to emphasize the point that most instances of language use are for the purpose of inducing changes in the hearers, either motor or intellectual/emotional, rather than merely to “communicate” ideas from one person to another.
The utterances of very young children are functionally simple, as each utterance normally serves just one function. Halliday (1973:353) notes that language develops in response to the child’s personal and social needs and suggests what some of these needs might be:
1. Instrumental-language is used to satisfy some material need.
2. Regulatory-language is used to regulate the behavior of others.
3. Interactional-language is used to maintain and transform social relationships.
4. Personal-language is used to express individual identity and personality.
5. Heuristic-language is used to investigate speaker’s environment.
6. Imaginative-language is used in fantasy and play.
7. Representational-language is used to express propositions.

Although Halliday explains child language in terms of seven specific functions, he explains adult language in terms of three more general functions: (1) the ideational, or the expression of content, that is, the speaker’s experience of the “real” world; (2) the interpersonal, aimed at the establishment and maintenance of social relations, such as social roles, and (3) the textual function : whereby language provides links with itself and with the situation in which it is used (Halliday 1970:143). Any adult utterance normally fulfills more than one function, e.g. Like I said, I’m kicking you out you bum! Where all three functions can be identified. Another scholar, Leech (1974) has come up with a somewhat different list of functions.
1. Informational-conveying information
2. Expressive-expressing the speaker’s or writer’s feelings or attitudes
3. Directive-directing or influencing the behavior or attitudes or others
4. Aesthetic-creating an artistic effect
5. Phatic-maintaining social bonds.
Consider, for example, the following sentences, illustrative of each of these functions.
1. The dog chewed up the book (informational)
2. Well, for goodness sake, look at that! (expressive)
3. Bring me a beer, will ya? (directive)
4. Quoth the raven, never more! (aesthetic)
5. good morning, Mr. Wong (phatic).
Again, more than one of these functions can be carried out by a single utterance, in fact the multifunctional utterance is undoubtedly the rule rather than the exception. It must also be noted that these classifications are all impressionistic and intuitive, certainly neither scientific nor exhaustive. Undoubtedly the phatic and directive functions are those of greatest interest to the sociologist, whereas the social psychologist ought to be particularly interested in the expressive function. It should be further noted that any of these functions can be carried out by paralinguistic or kinesic means, as well as by the verbal act.
Some ethnographers of communication (see section 5.3) have been active observers in classrooms, studying interaction between teachers and pupils. Many different types of analysis have been carried out, some of them recently developed. One scheme sometimes used is an older one of Bales (1950), which can be used to analyze any type of interaction within small groups in terms of the functions of language, that is, what the speakers are doing with language. These functions are classified as follows.
1. Shows solidarity, raises other’s status, gives help, reward
2. Shows tension release, jokes, laughs, shows satisfaction
3. Agrees, shows passive acceptance, understands, concurs, complies
4. Gives suggestion, direction, implying autonomy for other
5. Gives opinion, evaluation, analysis, expresses feeling, wish
6. Gives orientation, information, repeats, clarifies, confirms
7. Asks for orientation, information, repetition, confirmation
8. Asks for opinion, evaluation, analysis, expression of feeling
9. Asks for suggestion, direction, possible ways of action
10. disagrees, shows passive rejection, formality, withholds help
11. Shows, tension, asks for help, withdraws out of field
12. Shows antagonism, deflates other’s status, defends or asserts self

Categories 1 through 3 represent the positive social-emotional area, while 10 through 12 represent the negative social-emotional area. The remaining categories represent the neutral task area. Bales bases his classification on the notion that interaction in a group accomplishes two main objectives: (1) it gets a job done (task area) and (2) it maintains social relationships among the members of the group (social-emotional area).
Not all the micro functions of speech are manifest, that is, intended and/or obvious; they may be unintended and/or hidden. For example, speech gives information about the speaker whether or not he realizes or desires it. We can often easily determine various social categories to which a person might belong, by his speech alone: regional, ethnic, or national origin; social class, educational level; and in some instances, occupation or religion.
People also like to play with language. They may enjoy the sound of their own voices, with or without an audience, and may talk at great length with cats, dogs, or other pets, as well as to supernatural entities or forces from whom no immediate response is forthcoming. People may further engage in various kinds of language play, such as verbal dueling, nonsense rhymes, children’s verses, and disguised languages, as well as glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”), which is sound-making rather than language.
Verbal dueling, such as that of Turkish teenagers, Eskimo songs, West Indian Calypso, or United States black ghetto youth, serve a number of functions, such as providing a verbal substitute for physical assault, thus avoiding physical violence. The duelers, usually youths, are able to test norms and limits and, hence, their own position of dominance in the group. In this word play, youths are being prepared for the adult world, where competition will be carried on a different basis (Farb 1974:125) (see section 9.2).
The rationalistic view of man fostered by contemporary linguistics has tended perhaps to overemphasize man’s logical nature. That man’s use of language can be also non logical has been pointed out by Firth, who claims that scholars have deceived people by “persistently defining language as the expression of thought, “a medium for transmitting ideas to another individual,” a code of signs of symbols standing for concepts, ideas, and feelings,’ a means of’ manifesting outwardly the inward workings of the mind.’ Metternich was much nearer the mark when he pointed out to the professors that one of the commonest used of language was for the concealment of thought and that, generally speaking, the very last thing a man of affairs wanted to do, assuming such a thing to be possible, was to manifest the inward workings of his mind” (Firth 1970:99).
To quote Firth further (1970:100-101), “Common speech is not the instrument of pure reason. It is as full of feelings, of the ‘animal’ sense as the common social life in the routine service of which we learn it. As Pareto said, ‘Ordinary language, at best, reflects the facts of the outer world very much as a bad photograph that is a complete botch. It is serviceable in everyday life just because it is a manifestation of feelings.”