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Coding speech acts for their degree of explicitness

Stefanie Alexa Stadler a,b,*a Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland, Private Bag, 92019, Auckland Mail Centre, Auckland 1142, New Zealandb Institut fur Allgemeine & Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft, Universita t Hamburg, Von Melle-Park 6, 20146 Hamburg, Germany

1. Introduction

The terms ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ frequently feature in speech act and politeness research and refer to the level of directness with which a speech act is expressed. According to Blum-Kulka (1987), implicitness and politeness have beenconsidered to represent scalable parallel dimensions in the literature on politeness and explicitness. Historically, a high levelof explicitness has been associated with a low degree of politeness, while implicitness has frequently been associated with ahigh degree of politeness (Lakoff, 1990; Brown andLevinson,1987; Werlen, 1983). Researchers have disputed the correlationbetween implicitness and politeness and between explicitness and impoliteness (House, 1986; Weizman, 1989; Doğancay-Aktunaand Kamɪslɪ, 2001; Falkenberg, 1989; Meier, 1995, 1997). However, it appears that it hasnot been questioned that thedegree of explicitness or implicitness has some kind of effect on how polite a speech act is perceived to be. The linkagebetween the degree of explicitness and impoliteness is particularly relevant to potentially offensive speech acts, such asdisagreements. Due to these relatively strong ties between the degree of explicitness and its expected effect on the degree of

politeness, speech act research has frequently concerned itself with assessing the degree of explicitness/implicitness of thespeech act it investigates.

Numerous qualitative and interactionally-based publications in the early era of speech act research of the 70 [s and 80shave provided explanations of what ‘explicitness’ means and have proposed a number of terms that reflect the differentdegrees of explicitness (cf. Brown and Levinson, 1987; Blum-Kulka and Ohlstain, 1984; House and Kasper, 1981).Terminology such as ‘bald-on-record’, ‘explicit’ or ‘on-record without redress’, ‘implicit’ or ‘on-record with redress’, and ‘hint’or ‘off-record’ is frequently encountered and definitions for these include the following:

Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36–50

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:Received 25 July 2007

Received in revised form 24 July 2009

Accepted 14 August 2010

Keywords:

Speech acts

Disagreement

Explicitness

Coding system

A B S T R A C T

Coding speech acts for their level of explicitness has been a standard procedure in speechact and politeness research for many years. Traditional coding methods, however, are

problematic in two ways. Firstly, they have mostly been coded on an impressionistic basis,

which can be inconsistent and unreliable. Secondly, explicitness coding has typically

heavily relied on the presence and/or absence of modification devices. This raises

problems in so far as modification devices are usually evaluated in addition to the level of

explicitness of a speech act and both features should be evaluated independent of the

other in order to avoid double-coding. The present study proposes a coding system for

speech acts that functions independent of modification devices and relies on structural,

syntactic and cohesive devices instead. It therefore offers a more reliable and consistent

way to code the level of explicitness in speech acts.

2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

* Correspondence address: Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland, Private Bag, 92019, Auckland Mail Centre,

Auckland 1142, New Zealand.

E-mail address: [email protected].

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Bald-on-record strategies have been defined as utterances in which ‘‘S wants to do the FTA with maximum efficiencymore than he wants to satisfy H’s face, even to any degree, he will choose the bald-on-record strategy’’ (Brown andLevinson, 1987:95). According to Brown and Levinson (1987), they typically come in the form of direct imperatives.Austin (1990:281) expresses bald-on-record strategies in the following way: ‘‘This is the strategy which pays minimalattention to the hearer’s face wants’’.

Explicit strategies or on-record strategies without redress, as they are also called, are defined as strategies where thespeaker ‘‘does not orient to the hearer’s face, although the speaker recognises the hearer’s need’’ ( Austin, 1990:283) orwhere other demands override face concerns (Brown and Levinson, 1987).

Implicit Strategies or conventionally indirect strategies were considered to be used by a speaker if he/she wishes to bedirect and at the same time wishes to avoid causing offence and threatening someone’s face. Conventionally indirectspeech acts are defined as having ‘‘contextually unambiguous meanings (by virtue of conventionalization) which aredifferent from their literal meanings’’ (Brown and Levinson, 1987:132). In this way a speaker can communicate theintended meaning clearly while showing concern for the addressee’s face wants and needs.

Hints or unconventionally indirect speech acts, as they are also called, ‘‘rely on the hearer’s ability to recover implicaturesfrom what is said. The actual face attack is not recoverable from just the utterance itself, but relies heavily on the context,and the participants’ mutual experience’’ (Austin, 1990:288).

These explanations are very useful for the qualitative speech act research projects in which they are applied and which focuson conducting a detailed in-depth analysis of individual speech acts. However, quantitative studies rarely have the luxury toanalyse each speech act in depth and therefore need to be able to depend on a quickly and reliably applicable system forcoding a large number of speech acts. Consequently, the coding schemes applied in qualitative studies prove problematic toquantitative speech act research for two reasons: Firstly, they do not propose an operationalized system for coding, with theconsequence that coding for the level of explicitness can become impressionistic, and either very slow and time-consumingor inconsistent. Secondly, the coding schemes of qualitative studies, such as the ones mentioned earlier, rely on modificationdevices as indicators of the level of explicitness of a speech act, rather than offering a system independent of modificationdevices, that allows the researcher to assess explicitness and modification separately.

As I was faced with coding in excess of 300 instances of disagreements for their level of explicitness and wanted to do so ina consistent way, I found myself unable to apply a system such as the one presented by Brown and Levinson (1987: 142–143), who propose several categories of requests in varying degrees of explicitness:

(a) Lend me your car!(b) May I borrow your car please?

(c) I’d like to borrow your car, if you wouldn’t mind.

(d) Would you have any objection to my borrowing your car for a while?(e) Could you possibly by any chance lend me your car for just a few minutes?(f) There wouldn’t I suppose be any chance of your being able to lend me your car for just a few minutes, would there?

While such definitions are generally clear, precise and easily comprehensible whenpresentedin connection with carefully chosen

examples, when it comes to applying such categories to real-life-data, their application can feel somewhat arbitrary. Naturally

occurring data rarely fits into these pre-formed categories neatly. It might also seem easy enough to attribute the clearly explicit

speech acts to the category ‘explicit’. The problem arises when one is faced with speech acts that are not so clear-cut. Where to

draw theline between an explicit andan implicit speech actor between an implicit speech actand a hint can become confusing. In

fact, Austin (1990:288) states that ‘‘there is no clear cut-off point between on-record and off-record face attacks, because even in

on-record strategies, there are elements recovered from the context’’. Hence, it is likely that researchers who try to rate their

speech act data for the level of explicitness will encounter difficulties at some point during the rating process.

In my own explicitness coding, I encountered two sizable problems. One problem consisted of the lack of reliability andconsistency in impressionistic coding systems, which were consequently dismissed as being counter-productive for my ownresearch project. The other problem – in connection with the use of categories proposed by qualitative, interactional studies– is that, in my data set, no matter how direct or indirect a speech act was, it almost always contained some form of internalmodification. Internal modification devices comprise two categories, softening devices aimed at taking the threat andoffence out of a speech act and strengthening devices aimed at reinforcing a speech act. In my recent study of disagreements(Stadler, 2007), disagreement speech acts without either softening or strengthening devices were extremely rare. In speechact research, modification devices are traditionally assessed in addition to the degree of explicitness, that is the presence orabsence of modification devices is employed as a characteristic for coding a speech act for its level of explicitness. Blum-Kulka and Ohlstain (1984), for example, employ the category ‘hedged performative’ in order to assess the level of directnessof requests, but also assess ‘hedges’ separately as a modification device. Likewise, Brown and Levinson (1987) based theircategories for explicitness coding on the presence or absence of redressive action. However, to do so means to employ thesame criterion to assess two very different types of coding schemes. This is felt to misrepresent the data to some extent, as

S.A. Stadler/ Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36–50 37



redressive action constitutes a form of politeness and politeness and directness are not necessarily closely linked to oneanother (cf. Meier, 1999). It is therefore deemed necessary not to evaluate the level of explicitness on the basis of the amountand type of modification devices a speech act contains, as this is already being carried out separately from the explicitnessrating. This makes it clear that another set of categories is needed. Hence, the present study proposes a coding system thatkeeps the coding for modification devices and the coding for explicitness separate.

The aim of the present paper is to describe an attempt to construct a consistent coding system. As it is difficult, if notimpossible, to create a single coding system for all the types of speech acts that have been investigated in the past, thepresent article focuses on one single speech act, namely ‘disagreement’. The coding system and all of the examples presentedare taken from disagreement data. Despite of this restriction, the coding system may be applicable to a range of speech acts.While some of the categories would have to be modified to accommodate different speech acts, several of the ratingcategories are directly transferable (which will be discussed in more detail in section 6). To extend the proposed system forcoding the level of explicitness of disagreements to other speech acts, however, is an area for future research activity.

The purpose of the proposed system is to make the rating process less arbitrary and, consequently, more reliable. Ratherthan basing the decision on intuition, the degree of explicitness of speech acts is rated on the basis of categories such ascohesive devices, structural indicators and the autonomy of a speech act. In developing this system, several differentapproaches that discuss the explicitness and problems associated with the rating process were combined to create oneunified coding system. To this end, existing categories were reviewed and assessed for their practicality and modifiedaccordingly where considered necessary. This system refrains from attributing the differing levels of explicitness it generatesto pre-formed categorizations and terminology, such as ‘explicit’ or ‘implicit’. It allows for more fine-grained distinctionsbetween different levels of explicitness. This system is purely intended for the benefit of a researcher trying to code largeamounts of data and, as a consequence, the level of explicitness is defined as the level of ease/difficulty with which aresearcher can identify an utterance as a disagreement.

2. A review of the notion of explicitness

The following studies appear to agree that implicitness is strongly connected to contextual factors. This is to say implicitutterances are understood to be vague and ambiguous (Held, 1992), ‘‘not easily observable by another person’’ (English andEnglish, 1958: [254, quoted in Graumann, 2002) or ‘‘inaccessible to our immediate awareness’’ (Wegner and Vallacher, 1977:[16, quoted in Graumann, 2002). Implicatures can be said to be the intended meaning of what is meant but not said by aspeaker (Marmaridou, 2000; Mey, 2001). Implicit utterances, consequently, require the addressee to infer and recover theintended meaning from the social, situational and linguistic context (van Eemeren et al., 2002; Linell, 2002; Graumann,2002). Implicitness is, therefore, usually seen in terms of information that must be added to the linguistically expressedinformation in order for a piece of discourse to become complete and coherent ( Steiner, 2005). In contrast to implicitness,explicitness is represented as meaning which is explicitly stated in an utterance (Grundy, 2000), therefore relying lessheavily on the context to infer meaning.

While all of the approaches discussed above regard context as the main indication for the distinction betweenexplicitness and implicitness, Vorderwulbecke’s (1986) notion of the degree of autonomy of an utterance provides the mostuseable definition. He concludes that the higher the degree of autonomy of an utterance from the surrounding contextualinformation, the more explicit it is. It is difficult to assess a speech act according to how much contextual information ispresent or required. It is considerably easier to rate a disagreement for its level of autonomy, in which case a researcher isable to consider the disagreement – disregarding the context in which it occurs – and assess whether or not s/he considers itto be recognizable as a disagreement. Hence, Vorderwulbecke’s (1986) approach was considered the most suitable definitionfor inclusion in a coding system.

There are, however, other approaches to implicitness that need to be considered, including those by Marquez Reiter (2002)and Gruber (1998) that are based on structural and syntactic indications. Marquez Reiter (2002), who looks at traditionallinguistic structures, regards indirectness as a question of whether structure and function have an indirect relationship; that isto say when the format (i.e. the structure) of an utterance does not conform with its function, or as Wennerstrom (2001)expresses it, cases in which grammar suggests one speech act and intonation another, are indirect. According to Bond et al.(2000), Heritage (2002) and Georgakopoulou (2001), theuse of questions instead of statements is a form of indirectness.Henceif the format (e.g. question) does not conform with the function (e.g. disagreement) of an utterance, the utterance is indirect.This form-function correlation has also been incorporated into the proposed coding system.

The second approach, which has its roots in Conversation Analysis is nicely illustrated by Gruber (1998), who outlineshow structural features can indicate dispute to the addressee. He discusses four structural features that indicatedisagreement. Firstly, he mentions the change of preference organization, where disagreements are no longer prefaced bydispreferred discourse markers. (Preference organization is a conversation analytical concept assuming that under certaincircumstances a particular response is preferred, while another is dispreferred. For example, when a speaker utters apersonal opinion on a topic, disagreement is a dispreferred response, while after self-deprecation, disagreement is thepreferred reaction.) (cf. Pomerantz, 1984; Schegloff et al., 1977) Secondly, he notes a change of preference organization withregard to turn organization. Typically, speakers take over the floor at transition relevance points (TRPs). TRPs are points in aconversation where a listener can expect the current speaker to finish his/her turn. Typical indicators include the completionof the sentence structure, a final falling intonation and the completion of the speech content. A TRP is, therefore, a ‘legitimate’

S.A. Stadler/ Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36–5038



point for another speaker to take the speaking floor, regardless of whether the present speaker does in fact continue his/herspeaking turn. When speaker changes no longer occur at TRPs but at what he calls ‘disagreement relevance points’ (DRPs),the speaker exhibits a preference for disagreement. DRPs, unlike TRPs, are likely to be interruptive and turn-competitive.While not all interruptions constitute disagreement, disagreements are frequently interruptive. Interruptions can, therefore,make it more explicit that an utterance is a disagreement. Consequently, the notion of interruptive disagreement as opposedto disagreement occurring at a TRP has been integrated into the explicitness rating system.

Gruber (1998) further mentions discourse markers, more specifically disagreement markers such as ‘but’ and ‘well’,which he claims indicate that a dispute is going on and which he considers to be aggravating. ‘But’ signals a contrastivestatement or challenge and is frequently associated with disagreements (Kuo, 1994; Locher, 2004; Mori, 1999; RamaMartınez, 1993; Scott, 2002). While ‘well’ constitutes a somewhat more implicit form of disagreement marker, it isnevertheless often used to introduce both an element of acceptance and doubt. Due to this characteristic, ‘well’ has also beenfound to be strongly linked to disagreement instances (Bolinger, 1989; Gardner, 2000; Holtgraves, 1992; Kuo, 1994).

A further interesting approach to structural indicators lies in the notion of conventionalization, i.e. the predictability of anupcoming utterance on the basis of the use of expressions which frequently occur in connection with a particular type of speech intent. According to Vega Moreno (2007), Relevance Theory proposes a correlation between conventionalizedlinguistic expressions and their strength of explicature. Bond et al. (2000) further assert that the more conventionalized amessage is, the more easily can it be interpreted (i.e. the less implicit it is). As there are a number of conventionalizedexpressions, which are not disagreement markers, but nevertheless serve as contextualization cues for disagreement, afurther category was added to the rating system. This category was named ‘conventionalization cues’ and allows to accountfor conventionalized expressions such as ‘I wonder’, ‘look’, ‘hang on’ or address terms such as the use of first names.

A last but no less interesting approach is that of Haverkate (1994), who regards speech acts as explicit if they make adirect cohesive reference to a previous turn. A direct reference can be a partial repetition of a prior turn, but can merelypoint to a prior utterance. Gruber (1998) also alludes to formal cohesive devices, namely the recurrence of words orphrases. A direct referenceprovides cohesion, which Steiner (2005) considers to be an important indicator for explicitness.Kotthoff (1993) also argues that repetition strengthens cohesive ties between two utterances, thereby rendering adisagreement more explicit, while foregrounding through lexical and syntactic repetition also expresses emphasizeddisagreement. By making a direct reference, a speaker verbally ‘points a finger’ at another speaker’s statement, whichequates to a mild form of face-threat.

While all of these studies identify important features that help to establish the degree of explicitness of a disagreement,only two studies propose a system to categorically code disagreements for their explicitness levels. Scott’s (2002) codingsystem focuses on coding disagreements and Steiner’s (2005) focuses on coding explicitness levels of larger texts.

Scott (2002) identifies a range of variables in order to code disagreements for their level of explicitness. Several of thesefeatures are identical with the ones discussed above, including repetition, discourse markers and floor bids (i.e. interruptionsin order to gain the floor). While these features are clearly highly relevant to the coding of the degree of explicitness of disagreements, her system was considered problematic as a basis for the coding system proposed in this study for tworeasons. Firstly, her approach includes features that are typically regarded as modification devices, such as modals,emphatics, and absolutes (mostly found as the modification category ‘booster’; cf. Holmes, 1984). In the present study this isconsidered undesirable, as the aim is to establish a coding system that separates the coding for explicitness from the codingfor modification. Secondly, her approach is not entirely aimed at coding disagreements for their degree of explicitness(although she distinguishes between three different feature strengths, including the categories ‘strong’, ‘moderate’, and‘weak’). Instead, her focus is on identifying different types of disagreement. Her study distinguishes between backgroundedand foregrounded disagreements, with the latter category being split into three subcategories (collegial disagreements,personal challenge disagreements, and personal attack disagreements). While these subcategories are linked to varyingdegrees of hostility, they are not directly linked to varying degrees of explicitness.

Steiner (2005) approaches the topic of explicitness from a translation perspective, based on corpus data, rather than aspeech act theory perspective. His approach focuses on the explicitness/implicitness of a text as a whole more than onparticular types of speech acts. For his coding scheme, corpora would need to be tagged with 22 different categories for hisoperationalizations to work. Steiner’s (2005) approach could hardly be more thorough, but is impractical for use in codingspeech acts for the following reasons. Several of his categories are only applicable for the use of coding entire texts and are,consequently, not suitable for a singled-out speech act. Furthermore, his hugely complex coding system is hardly viable forcoding several hundred speech acts. However, he does refer to several important categories that have been incorporated inthe present coding system, including the notion of cohesive relations and referents. While his model cannot be immediatelytransferred to the coding of speech acts it has valuable implications and has inspired the creation of the proposed codingsystem for speech acts.

The focus of the present paper is to combine the features discussed above, that determine the explicitness of speech acts,to form a simple and time-efficient yet comprehensive explicitness coding system.

3. Methodology

The proposed coding system is based on a medley of different methodological approaches (see section 2 for details),combined to devise a comprehensive and reliable explicitness coding system. In accordance with these studies, the




present paper defines disagreement to be explicit or implicit according to the number of the following properties theycontain:

(a) autonomy, i.e. how much interpretational work does the addressee have to do;(b) syntax-function correlation, i.e. how explicit is the structure of a disagreement;

(c) reference, i.e. does the disagreement refer to something explicitly mentioned in a prior utterance or to somethingthat has been implied;

(d) structural indication markers for argumentation, i.e. is the disagreement delayed, is it interruptive, does it containconventionalization cues, is it prefaced by disagreement markers, and is there a recurrence of structuralindicators?

The data used in the present study is taken from New Zealand televised panel discussions, including Express Report , anepisode of a gay and lesbian programme, where the interviewer talks to the Christian Heritage Party Leader; an episode of

Eye-to-Eye, where the host leads a discussion between Māori (indigenous New Zealanders) and Pākehā (New Zealanders of European descent) on their views of the chances for success of a Māori Party; an episode of the Ralston Group, where thehost discusses the policies and practices of a former politician with a number of his former colleagues and discussantsfrom various political backgrounds; a programme called Rubber Gloves or Green Fingers, where the host leads a discussionbetween a number of people in favour of the use of chemicals in food production and a number of guests who oppose suchpractices; and a programme called Time Bomb, where the interviewer leads a controversial discussion on the New Zealandwelfare system.

Disagreements derived from these programmes were subjected to explicitness coding, based on a coding system whichproposes assigned values to a number of features (see below for details). However, instead of assigning the values derivedfrom this coding system to pre-formed categories and instead of artificially trying to merge values with labels such as‘explicit’ or ‘implicit’, the values reflect a more fine-grained distinction between levels of explicitness. This practice not onlyprovides the benefit of arriving at a far more fine-grained coding system, but it also avoids the arbitrariness of forcing valuesto correspond with categories, which this system rejects for their lack of consistency and meaningfulness to quantitativespeech act research. As avoiding arbitrariness is the very purpose of this coding system, it was deemed preferable to reflectthe level of explicitness through the values 0–9.

As can be seen in Table 1, the degree of explicitness is determined according to how many of the following properties adisagreement contains: [(a) autonomy, [(b) syntax–function correlation, [(c) structural indication markers for argumentation,and [(d) reference.

The assigned value ranges from 0 to 9. The value 9 represents the most explicit rating, i.e. when a disagreement is entirelyautonomous, when syntax and function correlate, when a disagreement explicitly refers to a previous utterance in order topick up on and contest an earlier statement/remark, and when a disagreement is clearly marked with a number of structuralindicators. The value 0 reflects the least explicit rating, i.e. when a disagreement cannot be identified without consideringwider contextual factors, when syntax and function do not correlate, when the disagreement does not refer to an earlierstatement, and when there are no disagreement indicators.

4. Coding system

The proposed coding system is aimed at helping a researcher process large amounts of research data. Consequently, thepurpose of the coding system is to help the analyst identify the level of explicitness more easily. The following categoriesfrequently make reference to the ‘identifyability’ of a disagreement, which refers to how easy or difficult it is for a researcher

Table 1

Coding system.

Coding category Explicitness of category Assigned value

Autonomy Autonomous 2

Moderately autonomous 1

Not autonomous 0

Syntax–function correlation Does correlate 1

Does not correlate 0

Reference Does refer to prior utterance 1

Does not refer to prior utterance 0

Structural indication Five indicators 5

Four indicators 4

Three indicators 3

Two indicators 2

One indicator 1

Zero indication 0




to identify an utterance as a disagreement. In the following section I will discuss how the individual categories of theproposed coding system relates to real-life data, before demonstrating howto apply the coding systemto practical examples.

4.1. Autonomy

The level of autonomy is assessed with regard to the contextual information required for a disagreement to be identifiableas a disagreement. To this end, every disagreement instance was assessed purely on its intrinsic degree of ‘identifiability’. For

this purpose, the disagreements in this category are deliberately presented in a de-contextualized form.

4.1.1. Autonomous

For a disagreement to be considered autonomous, an utterance has to be identifiable as a disagreement in a completelyde-contextualized form.

Example: Oh see I disagree with that.

This disagreement is completely autonomous, as it is unmistakably identifiable as a disagreement without consulting thesurrounding context. This utterance clearly communicates an opposing opinion, which gives it a high level of identifyability.

4.1.2. Moderately autonomous

For a disagreement to be considered moderately autonomous, it may not necessarily be recognizable as a disagreement inde-contextualized form, but has to be identifiable on the basis of the immediately surrounding (verbal) context.

Example: I think the hikoi proved that there a::re common (.) M āori interests.

This disagreement is uttered in a way in which it could be a statement of opinion as much as it could be a disagreement.While the mention of ‘the hikoi’ (= the Māori word for ‘march’) can serve as a cue that the present speaker is relating theutterance to a previously discussed issue, the intention of the utterance is ambiguous. A listener may or may not be able toidentify the disagreement in a de-contextualized form (as it is presented above). However, by taking only the immediatelypreceding context into account, the utterance can be clearly identified as a disagreement.

Immediately prior to the disagreement, another participant claimed that Māoris have no common interests. In the light of this statement, it becomes clear that the opposing statement, i.e. that ‘there are common Māori interests’, is unmistakably adisagreement. The fact that the word ‘are’ is lengthened further emphasizes the utterance’s status as a disagreement.

4.1.3. Not autonomous

For a disagreement to be considered ‘not autonomous’, it has to be virtually unidentifiable as a disagreement in its de-contextualized form. Even the immediately surrounding verbal context may not be sufficient to identify the utterance asdisagreement and the wider verbal, prosodic and non-verbal context may be required to recognize that the statement orquestion is to be interpreted as a disagreement.

Example: They’re all over sixty Hone.

This disagreement has a very low level of autonomy. The de-contextualized utterance can no longer be identified as adisagreement. Rather, it requires the context of the ongoing discussion, as even the immediately preceding verbal contextdoes not offer sufficient cues to allow the utterance to be identified as disagreement. Immediately prior, another participantlists a number of people:

We’ve got Tareana Turea? A woman of-uhm principle uh we have (???) examples? Who who who has provenby hisacts; (0.3)

that he is the leader (0.4) of Māori. And Whata Wineatu is probably one of a::: (0.8) leading intellectual for the Māori society.

This statement alone does not suggest that the example provided here is a disagreement. It only becomes clear from the widercontext that the list of people refers to candidates forthe Māoriparty that the participant considersto be good leadersand fromthe previously occurring discussion around the issue that the Māori party will only succeed if it has good, young leaders whohold more public appeal. Only in the light of this context and through the way in which the disagreement is uttered [– turn-competitive and raised volume – as well as the non-verbal behaviour of the speaker [– leaning forward and gesturing franticlytowardsthe previous speaker– does the statement become identifiableas a disagreement. A listenerhas to rely both on his/herability to retrieve meaning from the utterance’s wider contextual embedding and/or draw on non-verbal and prosodic cues.

4.2. Syntax–function correlation

The syntax–function correlation was assessed on the typical, i.e. prevalent, syntactic format of a disagreement, namely astatement. If the format of a disagreement was a statement, this category was assessed as ‘does correlate’. If the format wasthat of a question, for example, it was assessed as ‘does not correlate’.




4.2.1. Does correlate

Example See it’s not just the difference between using chemicals and not using chemicals. It’s the difference between

two different systems of agriculture. Whe:re- the:- organic one uses a whole lot of other things instead

of chemicals.

In this example the disagreement is produced as a statement, which is the standard disagreeing format. Therefore, it isassessed as ‘does correlate’.

4.2.2. Does not correlate

Example But Merepeka wasn’t there a time when you didn’t agree with the M āori party?

In this example, the syntactical format (question) does not correlate with the function of the utterance (disagreement).Hence, there is no syntax–function correlation in this disagreeing instance. While it would have made the disagreementmore explicit if it was formulated in the following way: ‘‘But Merepeka there was a time when you didn’t agree with the M āori

party’’ , formulating the disagreement as a question makes the opposing opinion more subtle and thereby more implicit.

4.3. Reference

This category was named ‘reference’ rather than ‘repetition’. While the notion of making reference to a prior utterance can

and does occurthrough the repetition of keywordsand phrases, speakers can also referto a previous statement in otherways. Acommon way of doing this is through verbally ‘pointing’ to a previous utterance without necessarily reduplicating any parts of it. The utterance a speaker refers to may be the previous phrase or may have occurred much earlier on in the conversation. Byreferring to a previous utterance, the disagreement becomes more explicit, if not aggressive and confrontational.

Example: Does make reference

We::ll- (0.8) uh (1.0) a lot of the people who work in the area were certainly saying what you said. but a lot of the people

who I would say who were alived (.) o:n (hard) benefits and what have you; actually wanted to wo::rk?

This disagreement example shows clearly that thespeaker is makingreferenceto a prior turnwiththe statement ‘what yousaid’.Thedisagreement is a directresponse to theprevious speaker’s utterancethat ‘‘a lotof thepeoplewho were workingat thesharpend [. . .] were saying that the problem is not the welfare system, the problem is to do with the economy. [ . . .]’’. The speaker

provides a linkageboth by repeatingkeywords (‘a lotof thepeople’)as well as by directly referring to what theprior speaker said.In contrast to this disagreement, the following utterance neither picks up and repeats key words or phrases nor does it

verbally refer to a previous utterance.

Example: Does not make reference

Context: A gay and lesbian programme interviewer discusses sodomy with the Christian Heritage Party at the time of the interview.

A: I just have a problem with the unnatural thing, because I just think if if sodomy was talked about in the Bible thenit’s been happening for a hell of a long time – ‘h’hh

B: <Yes, but it was talked about in a in a negative way?=That we shouldn’t do it?>

A: I just wonder- Can you tell me how many of your congregation, or how many of you that people in the party; . . .

It only happens rarely that a disagreement does not make a direct (or not so direct) reference to a prior statement, as it is inthe very nature of a disagreement to take an opposing or differing stance to a prior utterance. Hence, it is mostly hints thatdisagree in such a subtle manner that they do not refer to a prior utterance. Here, the speaker neither repeats words, nor doesshe refer to anything previously mentioned. She merely raises a question, which subtly insinuates the accusation that priestshave been known to engage in sodomy. Due to the subtlety of this utterance, it is only under these particular circumstancesand in the context in which it occurs, that its disagreeing function becomes evident.

4.4. Structural indicators

The category ‘structural indicators’ assesses the number of indicators found in a disagreement. The more structuralindicators a disagreement contains, the more easily identifiable it is as a disagreement, hence the more explicit it is. Themaximum number of structural indicators identified and employed in the present coding scheme is 5, the minimum 0. As

mentioned above, the higher the level of ‘identifiability’ for a disagreement the higher the value assigned to it. Consequently,




a disagreement with all five structural indicators present is assigned the value 5, while a complete lack of indicators isassigned the lowest number, i.e. 0.

4.4.1. Change of preference organization

Preference organization refers to whether a response to an initiation move is as invited by the initiation move. A responsethat is produced as invited by the prior turn is preferred, a response that is not as invited by the initiation move isdispreferred. The category ‘change of preference organization’ assesses whether the typical preference pattern applies to adisagreement. As disagreements have been associated with dispreference markers, such as hesitatation markers and delays(Pomerantz, 1984), the standard, ‘unmarked form’ is that a disagreement should show signs of dispreference. A lack of dispreference markers indicates a change of preference organization, which functions as a structural indicator to make adisagreement more explicit.

4.4.1.1. Complies with preference organization. If a disagreement adheres to expected preference patterns, i.e. if thedisagreement has markers that indicate that a disagreement is the dispreferred move, then it falls under the category‘complies with preference organization’.

Example Uhm: yeah well I still think that he: (.) uhm (.) he still appealed to a certain sector of society.

This disagreement shows the typical signs of preference organization commonly associated with disagreement.The disagreement starts with a hesitation marker (uhm:), which is lengthened and thereby further delayed, whichconstitutes a further dispreference marker. The hesitation is followed by initial agreement (yeah), a further slight delaythrough lengthening the word ‘he’, two pauses, indicated by (.), and a further hesitation marker (uhm). All of these markersindicate that the speaker only tentatively disagrees, demonstrating that the speaker acknowledges that disagreementconstitutes the dispreferred next move. If, however, such markers are absent, the speaker indicates that s/he has noreservations about disagreeing directly. The absence of markers makes the disagreement intent clearer and thedisagreement more explicit.

4.4.1.2. Violates preference organization.

Example: The evidence in Christchurch doesn’t say that at all.=As you well know.

In this disagreement, no signs of delay, hesitation or pausing are present. Instead, the speaker disagrees with the previousspeaker in a very assertive way. Instead of delay, there is even latching (indicated through ‘=’), which indicates that thespeaker hastens to produce his disagreement. This straightforward way of disagreeing constitutes a change to the norms of preference organization, thereby violating preference organization rules.

4.4.2. Interruption

The category ‘interruption’ assesses whether the disagreement occurs at a Transition Relevance Point, i.e. whether alistener waits for an indication that the present speaker has finished his/her turn. Interruptive disagreements occur duringanother speaker’s turn, rather than at transition relevant points in an interaction. Such interruptive speech behaviourrenders a disagreement more confrontational and consequently more easily recognizable and explicit.

4.4.2.1. Non-interruptive disagreement.

Example

A: . . .‘h’hhhh and it did occur to me that the setting up of a Māori Party; in New Zealand, smacks of Apartheid.

B: Oh see I disagree with that;

This disagreement occurs at a Transition RelevancePoint. This is to say, speaker A hasfinished his statement, produces fallingfinal pitch (indicated by a dot) and does not appear to wish to continue his turn. Speaker B waited for this potential end pointin speaker A’s turn and utters her disagreement at a ‘legitimate’ transition point.

4.4.2.2. Interruptive disagreement.

Example

A: . . . it needs to have the courage? to say if that is gonna be the issue, and it is gonna put people off, howdo we address

[this. It’s time for courage]

B: [well well well wait. We’re not] sure if it’s gonna put people off?




Here, speaker A has not finished her turn, in fact, she is still in mid-sentence when speaker B interrupts her. He produces hisdisagreement directly adjacent to the statement he is in disagreement with, instead of waiting for speaker A to finish herturn. Speaker B’s disagreement is, therefore, interruptive.

4.4.3. Discourse markers

The use of discourse markers functions as a further cohesive device that explicates a disagreement; while the range of discoursemarkers is quite extensive, the discourse markers ‘well’ and‘but’,both of which signal upcoming disagreement, areby far the most common ones in use. Discourse markers are words or phrases that fulfil the function of signalling that aparticular speech act is forthcoming, thereby warning and preparing interlocutors for the upcoming disagreement.

Example: No discourse markers

There are also a lot of products, that can be dr grown at just as great a yield? Without? chemicals? W once they’re on to

a proper established organic farming basis?

This disagreement does notprovide any lexical linkage with a prior utterance in the form of discourse markers. Theutterancestarts un-prefaced, and contains a straightforward disagreement.

Example: Discourse markers

But in hi in his day people had jobs? People had state homes?

The first word ‘but’ functions as a discourse marker and clearly introduces a statement that is in opposition with a previousutterance.

4.4.4. Conventionalization Cues

The notion of conventionalization cues stems from Gumperz’s (1995) notion of contextualization cues, which hedescribes as signals that serve to retrieve the communicative intent of a message. Levinson (2002:35) describescontextualization cues as a ‘nudge to the inferential process’ that help to explicate a message. Through conventionalization, i.e. the conventional use of such cues in particular contextual circumstances, the intended meaning of an utterance can beidentified more easily. According to Allen (1991:399) even very young children have ‘little difficulty producing a responsethat matches the communicative adult intent of an utterance’, when the linguistic forms are ‘routine and conventionalized’.In other words, conventionalization cues can help to make a disagreement more explicit.

Example: No conventionalization cues

They are safe if u::sed acco:rding to the label instructions.

The lack of conventionalization cues (among other disagreement indicators), can leave doubt as to whether the utteranceconstitutes a disagreement. Had the speaker employed cues, such as ‘look’ or ‘see’, the disagreement could be more readilyidentified and would thus be more explicit.

Example: Conventionalization cues

uhh – look mate. Uhh <M āori are just like anybody else.=We’ve all got our differences. You’re from a different Iwi1 to me. You

live in the city I live up home2. At the end of the day though I think that- (0.3) what the party has. The M āori party has.

That others don’t have; is a M āori interest at heart,

Through the conventional use of the word ‘look’ in connection with utterances such as disagreements – or justifications andexplanations used in conjunction with disagreements – the intended function of the message becomes more evident and thedisagreement consequently becomes more explicit. The employment of address forms such as the word ‘mate’ used in thisparticular example also function as attention-seeking devices and are also conventionally used to introduce disagreements,thus further contributing to rendering the utterance more explicit.

4.4.5. Recurrence of structural indicators

A recurrence of words fulfils the function of linking two utterances and is therefore providing cohesion. The recurrence of words counts as a device to increase explicitness, because repetition can serve to reinforce an utterance (Holmes, 1984;Delattre, 1970). As discussed in section 2, Kotthoff (1993) and Steiner (2005) both consider repetition to constitute a form of making disagreements more explicit. While the repetition of keywords or key-phrases and the reference to a prior utterance

1

An Iwi is roughly equivalent to a tribe.2 New Zealand Māori historically inhabited predominantly the northern part of the North Island.




are accounted for under section 4.3, the repetition of structural indicators also makes a disagreement more explicit. Forexample, the use of multiple discourse markers renders a disagreement more explicit than the use of one single discoursemarker. Consider the following example:

Example: Recurrence of structural indicators

[but] < yes, but it was talked about in a in a negative way?=That we shouldn’t do it?>

The repetition of the discourse marker ‘but’ has a stronger impact than if the discourse marker had only been used once. Suchduplication has a reinforcing effect and therefore contributes to the level of explicitness of a disagreement.

The following example, on the other hand, contains only one single structural indicator and is therefore less explicit.

Example: No recurrence of structural indicators

Well, I think it is.

Now that I have discussed the various rating categories and shown with examples how the rating categories were applied, letus turn to how the rating scheme is put into practice.

5. Applied examples

The proposed coding system offers the researcher the opportunity to code a large amount of data relatively quickly andconsistently. The system can easily be applied to disagreement instances and the respective categories can be assessednearly instantaneously. In particular, the presence or absence of structural indicators are immediately obvious. As such, thissystem offers a convenient way of coding one’s quantitative data reliably. This coding system operates on the basis that thedisagreement is situated in the oppositional utterance following a statement of opinion. While this can occur over a numberof turns (where the disagreement is interruptive or interrupted), in the majority of the cases the disagreement is located in asingle-turn utterance.

In this first example I will demonstrate how the categories of the coding system can be applied to real-life examples of disagreement data, with a view to exploring the ease with which this system operates.

The example in Table 2 is situated in a discussion between a gay and lesbian programme interviewer and the ChristianHeritage Party leader at the time. At this point of the interview the discussion features around the topic of whether the NewZealand public is interested in gay and lesbian programmes and whether public funding should be used for this type of programme. The Party leader previously explained his standpoint that he thinks that the New Zealand public objects to

public funding being used for gay and lesbian television programmes. The interviewer on the other hand is tryingto establishthat her programme has received public funding from ‘New Zealand On Air’ and is now trying to assert that if the public wasagainst programmes such as hers, she would not have been granted the funding in the first place.

Table 2

Applying the coding system to an explicit disagreement.

Previous utterance And in fact- (.) we (.) New Zealand on air? =And I would disagree that the majority of

New Zealanders are/opposed\ to us? =Because they’ve obviously (.) taken account of (.) who is

for and who is/against\==AND THEY HAVE DECIDED to grant us some public fun[ding]

Disagreement [Well they] ARE, THEY

ARE opposed.

Value

Autonomy Autonomous U 2Moderately autonomous 1

Not autonomous 0

Syntax–function correlation Does correlate U 1


Reference Does make reference U 1

Does not make reference 0

Structur al indicator s Violates pref er enc e or ganization U #5 = 5

Interruptive U #4 = 4

Contains discourse markers U #3 = 3

Contains conventionalization cues #2 = 2

Recurrence of structural indicators #1 = 1

None #0 = 0

Total 7

Bold print indicates the applicable value for this particular disagreement instance.




In order to assess the first category, i.e. the level of autonomy of the disagreement, the disagreement context is not takeninto account. Rather, only the statement ‘‘well they are, they are opposed’’ is considered. With a repeated emphasis on theword ‘are’ and the raised voice, the utterance clearly marks an oppositional stance. As such this utterance is easilyrecognizable as a disagreement in this de-contextualized form. Consequently, the disagreement is rated as ‘autonomous’.While the assessment of a disagreement’s autonomy does require a level of inference and consideration on the researcher’spart, all other categories are virtually immediately observable. In the category syntax-function correlation, the observermerely has to assess whether a disagreement is uttered in the form of a statement. In this particular example, thedisagreement is rated as ‘does correlate’ as the disagreement is produced in the form of a statement, which is the unmarkedcase for a disagreement. The category ‘reference’ is also fairly easy to assess. Assuming that a researcher is familiar with thewider context of the text in which the disagreement occurs, s/he will also be able to assess quickly whether the speakerrelates his/her disagreement to a prior utterance or insinuation. In the category ‘reference’, this disagreement example isassessed as ‘does make reference’ as it refers to the immediately preceding utterance. By stating ‘they are opposed’, thespeaker refers both to the claim that the New Zealand public is opposed to public funding being used for a gay and lesbianprogramme in general as well as to the claim that this statement applies to the majority of the population. The category‘structural indicators’ is by far the easiest category to assess as the presence or absence of structural indicators is apparent ata glance. In this category, the present disagreement displays three indicators that are considered in this rating scheme. Thereare no delays, hesitations or pauses which typically assert an adherence to disagreement being marked as a dispreferredsecond. Consequently, the disagreement exhibits a change of preference organisation. As the party leader does not wait forthe interviewer to finish her utterance, the disagreement is turn-competitive and was therefore rated as ‘interruptive’. Whilethe disagreement does not contain any conventionalization devices or a repetition or a recurrence of structural indicators, itdoes contain a discourse marker, as the party leader commences the disagreement with the disagreement marker ‘well’.

With its high intrinsic level of autonomy and the use of multiple devices – structural, lexical and syntactical – thisdisagreement is located at the more explicit end of the coding scale.

The subsequent example stands in direct contrast to the previous, very explicit, disagreement. In this disagreement I willdemonstrate that the ease of use of the coding system is not restricted to explicit disagreements, but can be applied just aseasily to disagreements which are located on the implicit end of the spectrum.

The example in Table 3 occurs in the context of a discussion of the suitability of the welfare system in New Zealand. Theissue debated in this excerpt focuses on the question of whether there is or is not a problem with unemployment and aneconomic underclass in New Zealand and whether policies implemented by the government are responsible for what one of the interactants refers to as the ‘perpetual cycle of failure’ of the welfare system.

The disagreement in Table 3 essentially looks like a simple question and is not easily recognisable as a disagreement in ade-contextualized form. It is rated as ‘not autonomous’ as even in the context of the immediately preceding utterance (orindeed in the context of the wider preceding context) it is not entirely evident that the question functions as a disagreementrather than as a question. It’s function as a disagreement does not become evident until the subsequent conversational andcontextual embedding are taken into account, where it becomes clear that the question ‘what’s your evidence for that please’is used to set the interactant up just to attack him in the following turn. The subsequent dialogue, however, makes it clearthat the person asking the question knows what evidence the mentioned 5% stems from and knows that the figures are not

Table 3

Applying the coding system to an implicit disagreement.

Previous utterance The FACT IS that we do have a problem. and we have a particularly seve::re problem – amongst

around about 5% of families. We have 5% of families in this country who are esse:ntially

dysfunctional.

Disagreement What’s your evidence for that please?

Value

Autonomy Autonomous 2Moderately autonomous 1

Not autonomous U 0


Does not correlate U 0



Structural indicators Violates preference organization U #5 = 5

Interruptive #4 = 4

Contains discourse markers #3 = 3

Contains conventionalization cues #2 = 2


None #0 = 0

Total 2





quite correct. This can be seen in the fact that he does not even wait for the addressee to finish the answer to his question. Assoon as ‘Christchurch’ is mentioned, he interrupts the addressee with another disagreement: ‘‘no, no, the evidence inChristchurch does[ not say that at all, as you well know’’. The lack of a syntax-function correlation is further adding to theambiguous nature of the disagreement. Consequently, both the level of autonomy and the syntax–function correlation canbe assessed quickly and easily by identifying the questioning format. While the disagreement does refer to the previousutterance with the word ‘that’, the use of only one single structural indicator further emphasizes the disagreement’sobscurity. Due to the lack of verbal marking, this disagreement requires rather a lot of interpretative work in order to berecognizable.

The examples presented in Tables 2 and 3 might leave some doubt regarding the necessity of a coding system. Both of these disagreements are clearly identifiable as fairly ‘explicit’ and as fairly ‘implicit’ respectively without coding. So why usea coding system? The reason for the need of a coding system is that disagreements are rarely so clearly marked for their levelof explicitness. In most cases they are less clear-cut and the boundary between ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ comes in varyingdegrees of ambiguity and vagueness. Hence, the benefits of using a coding system will become more obvious in the followingtwo examples (Tables 4 and 5). The aim of the following examples is to demonstrate how two very different cases of disagreements can be weighed up against each other systematically and can be assessed by the fine-grained distinctions thiscoding system allows. These types of examples are ones where impressionistic coding systems tend to fail due to theircontrasting natures and which make an impressionistic approach to coding time-consuming, unreliable and tedious.

The subsequent examples demonstrate the benefits of a coding system when faced with disagreements that cannot beclearly attributed to labels such as ‘explicit’ or ‘implicit’, but are ambiguously located in a grey-zone between the twoextremes. While disagreements can be fairly similar in their impact, it is extremely difficult to code them if they are verydifferent in their format. The following two examples demonstrate that this coding system allows a researcher to assessstructurally diverse disagreements.

The example in Table 4 stems from a discussion around the topic of conventional versus organic farming techniques. Inthis particular excerpt the interviewer raises questions regarding the practices of the companies producing pesticides, whopreviously asserted that they themselves carry out research into the safety of use of their own products.

Apart from the conventionalization cues ‘aw’ and ‘look’ there are not many indicators suggesting to the outside observerthat the utterance is a very explicit disagreement, at least if approached in a de-contextualized form. At first glance, thisdisagreement looks like an answer to a question. However, if the wider context of the preceding debate is taken intoconsideration, it is fairly obvious that the utterance is a disagreement. Hence, the disagreement is assessed as ‘moderatelyautonomous’. As the disagreement is uttered in the form of a statement there is a clear syntax–function correlation, thedisagreement also clearly refers to the previously mentioned research and contains a number of structural indicators.

However, it becomes clear in an example such as this is that while it contains some markers that suggest that thisutterance is a disagreement it cannotbe as clearly andunambiguously identifiedas a disagreementas theexample in Table 2.Hence, if an impressionistic approach were to be taken to code a disagreement such as this one, which cannot be classed aseither clearly explicit or clearly implicit, a researcher would struggle to classify it and attach it to either one of those labels.What becomes evident in the following example is that impressionistic coding gets even more complicated when

Table 4

Example of a moderately explicit disagreement.

Previous utterance How can they do an objective jo:b. How can it do an ob objective job-=when ( .) it’s selling the

stuff? (0.2) for profit? (0.8) I mean shouldn’t we be out there doing our own dispassionate

research?

Disagreement Aw, lookwe can’t afford the levels ofresearchthat-uh wouldbe necessaryforus tobe ableto givean

unqualified uh label to what’s going on.

Value


Moderately autonomous U 1

Not autonomous 0

Syntax–function correlation Does correlate U 1





Interruptive #4 = 4

Contains discourse markers #3 = 3

Contains conventionalization cues U #2 = 2

Recurrence of structural indicators U #1 = 1

None #0 = 0

Total 6





disagreements come in very different ‘shapes and sizes’. The question that poses itself then is: can and should one weighdisagreements up against each other purely based on intuition?

The example in Table 5 occurs during a debate on whether a Māori party is [(a) feasible and [(b) justified. Prior to thisexchange the interviewer questioned whether it is appropriate for the Māori population to be singled-out from New Zealandsociety.

While there are some similarities between the two disagreements in terms of their levels of autonomy, referents and theinclusion of structural indicators, their overall format is very different. While the disagreement example in Table 4 does havea syntax–function correlation, the disagreement in the present example is uttered in the format of a question. Even thoughboth disagreements include a range of structural indicators, the number and types of indicators used is quite different. Theexamples show that consistent rating is even more challenging when the disagreements differ in a number of the categories,as they get harder to compare. When comparingthe disagreements in Tables4 and 5, it thereforebecomes clear why a codingsystem can be useful, and indeed necessary. These disagreements are fairly close in their level of explicitness, and without afunctioning coding system, where one categorizes starkly different disagreements becomes an arbitrary decision. This leadsto the possibility of inconsistency in coding, even by a single coder. With the use of a coding system that pre-assigns valuesand therefore determines the level of explicitness of a disagreement based on clearly defined criteria and categories, one canreliably differentiate between disagreements, with consistent results.

Consequently, the real benefit of the present coding system is that [(a) two very different disagreements can be assessedand weighed up against each other based on indicators that can be assessed fairly easily and [(b) labelling the disagreementsand trying to force them into prescriptive categories is unnecessary as it operates on an unlabelled value-system.

6. Conclusion

I hope to have demonstrated in this article not only that a coding system for the coding of speech acts is helpful andsimplifies the process, but also that it renders the coding process considerably more reliable and consistent. Just as we applygrammar rules in order to help us create a correct and well-formed sentence, we need to apply a set of coding ‘rules’ in orderto help us choose the correct level of explicitness. This is particularly true where the researcher deals with starkly differingexamples of speech acts.

While the coding system presented in this article is based on disagreement speech acts and all of the examples presentedhere are taken from disagreement data, I believe that the present coding system can serve as a basis for coding a wider rangeof speech acts. There is no denying that different speech acts require different coding categories and the coding system needsto be modified accordingly. However, categories such as ‘autonomy’ or ‘reference’ apply to a multitude of speech acts.Likewise, structural indicators such as discourse markers, cohesive devices such as recurrence of key words, and a change of preference organization are not bound to disagreements alone. Discourse markers have been identified for a range of different speech acts, as have preference structures. The latter received a fair amount of attention in the 1980 [s (Pomerantz,1984; Levinson, 1983; Brown and Levinson, 1987). Many speech acts with a negative connotation, i.e. face-threateningspeech acts, such as complaints or refusals, are also typically dispreferred moves and are therefore also typically delayed

Table 5

Example of a moderately explicit disagreement.

Previous utterance If people feel; that their issues are not well/se:rved\, by mainstream political/pa:rties\? then we

now have the environment that is actually conducive to that and supports that. We have the

green’s party who believe that theenvironmental issues, andindeed some of thesocial issuesare

so important? so they get under [way. so-]

Disagreement [But Merepeka wa]sn’t there a time when you didn’t agree with

the Maori party? You’re not looking for a list position are you?

Value


Moderately autonomous U 1

Not autonomous 0


Does not correlate U 0




Interruptive U #4 = 4

Contains discourse markers U #3 = 3

Contains conventionalization cues U #2 = 2


None #0 = 0

Total 6





(Brown and Levinson, 1987). Hence, many of the categories used to code disagreements are likely to be useful to a broadrange of speech acts and the creation of coding systems for speech acts other than disagreements would be desirable forfuture research.

Besides the obvious advantage of providing a more reliable and consistent rating system, the proposed coding schemeoffers additional benefits. Firstly, it allows us to distinguish finer nuances of explicitness and implicitness. Rather thanmerely distinguishing between ‘explicit’, ‘implicit’, and ‘hint’, the present system distinguishes nine grades of explicitness,while rendering an allocation to particular labels unnecessary. In other words the coding system introduced in this paperadopts a gradient scale of explicitness rather than an attribution to one particular inflexible category. Secondly, it enables usto rate speech acts for their intrinsic level of explicitness. Consequently, modification devices no longer have to be used as ameans to determining the degree of explicitness of a speech act, but canbe analysed for the additional information they offer,independent of the level of explicitness.

In summary, a coding system such as the one proposed in this study, could offer multiple benefits to researchers in theircoding of speech acts. Besides helping the researcher to code quantitative data more quickly and reliably, the applications forsuch a coding system are not limited to speech act research in its narrow sense. Rather it has more wide-reachingimplications for other fields of research, such as politeness and impoliteness research with its recurrent discussion of therelationship between politeness and (in)directness. A coding system such as the one proposed can also help with theannotation of data and can thereby facilitate the creation of databases. Consequently, just as this study drew on Steiner’s(2005) corpus-based work, the creation of corpora could benefit from coding schemes and classifications. Hence, for amultitude of reasons, the further development and implementation of systematic coding systems for a wider range of speechacts would be desirable in future speech act research and beneficial to a wide-reaching range of fields.

Appendix A

Transcription conventions.

(.) short pause

(0.3) longer pause with specified duration in seconds

underlined stressed word

CAPITAL LETTERS increased loudness

8word8 decreased loudness

<word> increased tempo

>word< decreased tempo

/word\ pitch change, sing-song intonation

- level terminal pitch

; moderate terminal rise in pitch

? strong terminal rise in pitch

, moderate terminal fall in pitch

. strong terminal fall in pitch

{word {word non-phrase-final pitch reset

: prolonged vowel

= latching, no phrase final pause

[word] overlapping speech

(word) not clearly audible, but likely lexeme

(????) inaudible speech

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Stefanie Stadler is an independent researcher in Auckland, New Zealand. Her research interests focus on cross-cultural communication, politeness, pragmaticsand multimodality. Her Ph.D. considered German and English speech behaviour, investigating the verbal, prosodic and non-verbal realization of disagreement.


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