Synchronic analysis, higher-level explicatures and contextual implicatures

In its evaluative traditional sense, shame is an emotionally charged item that can be conceptually represented (therefore, part of the language of thought) as well as serve on the computational level to facilitate the inferential process (thus associated with states of language users) (cf. Wilson, 2016a: 11). But having become pragmatically strengthened, the balance of conceptual-procedural encoding has been readjusted by becoming more procedurally focused and pragmatically versatile to function in a variety of interpersonal contexts as a PM that projects the speaker’s attitude.

As some of the tokens from the data illustrate, shame appears to be subtly associated with, but different from, some conventionalised phrases that are common in other English varieties. The token in (22) shows shame used as a response to express pity or empathy/sympathy:

(22)

R: She's totally ... clueless

S: she's not really, she's terribly ... terribly shy C: oh shame (#that’s a shame, #what a shame)135 (ice-sa_spoken\s1a-025.txt)

However, from a SAfE point of view, exchanging shame in (22) with one of the conventionalised phrases would eliminate a softening or euphemistic quality that has become procedurally encoded

in PM shame, demonstrating that the PM cannot be assumed to be a mere shortening (e.g., what a shame) of one of the conventionalised phrases.

Another example is that in (23a) in which shame is used within the narrative with a narrow scope that focuses on the speaker’s final clause. This use triggers higher-level explicatures, expressing the speaker’s sensitive and compassionate attitude she has regarding her unmusical father. Compare the use of PM shame in (23a) and (23b) where the PM has been replaced with a conventionalised phrase:

(23)

(a) Yes, my mom played quite a bit, but my dad wasn’t musical shame (interviews tape/page: 120331_005 / 24)

(b) #Yes, my mom played quite a bit, but my dad wasn’t musical what a shame

The use of shame in (23a) cancels the interpretation of an unintended contextual implicature, that being that the speaker is faulting or expressing disapproval of her father. In essence, shame proactively retracts the potential interpretation of a harsh comment. This sentiment is lost when replaced with the conventional phrase in (23b), which instead communicates regret, akin to suggesting that the father’s lack of musical talent somehow held him back in life or that it was a real burden or disgrace to the family. In fact, the conventional phrase achieves just the opposite of PM shame; it underscores the speaker’s disappointment with her father instead of softening its unintended interpretation. Even if the hearer additionally assumes the speaker’s expression to be ironically driven, this replacement eliminates the endearing sentiment communicated by PM shame. Such a replacement alters the entire meaning of the utterance by changing the speaker attitude to one that is more closely aligned with the traditional meaning of shame; that is, one that alludes to something undesirable.

References such as the DSAE refer to shame in SAfE as functioning as an interjection, and in some contexts, there are obvious similarities, such as intonation contours, accompanying facial expressions and “descriptive ineffability” (Blakemore, 2011). However, replacing shame with a similarly functioning interjection (aw) as in (23c) or eliminating it altogether as in (23d) indicates differently:136

136 _{The Oxford dictionaries website (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/aw) provides several}

definitions for aw, one of which is as follows and quite similar to SAfE use: “Used to express pleasure,

(23)

(c) #Yes, my mom played quite a bit, but my dad wasn’t musical aw (d) #Yes, my mom played quite a bit, but my dad wasn’t musical

In addition to expressing affection in (23a), shame also alleviates a social unpleasantry and rectifies a potential discourtesy that the hearer might pragmatically interpret, thus constraining the inferential interpretation. This procedural function cannot be achieved by replacing it with a similarly functioning interjection as in (23c), and it disappears when omitted in (23d), leaving the hearer to rely on other cues if he is to determine how the speaker feels about her father. In other words, PM shame can be used to cancel a potentially disparaging contextual implicature that may be derived in its absence. Although the interjection aw is considered pragmatically similar to shame, as (23c) shows, it cannot be exchanged without awkwardness, infelicity and loss of pragmatic inference. Here, PM shame represents the state of the language user by guiding the hearer toward an interpretation that is closer to the speaker’s intention. Furthermore, within the South African context, it safeguards the speaker from being misunderstood; in this case, from being perceived as insolent or socially offensive.

The insufficiency and infelicity of replacing shame with a conventionalised phrase or an interjection becomes even clearer when the intended higher-level explicature is one of affection as in (19a): (19)

(The scene: Mother with her newborn baby in pram. Another woman looks into the pram and remarks at what she sees)

(a) a: Aw, shame

(b) b: #Aw, that’s/what a shame

The token in (19a) cannot be replaced with a conventionalised phrase (19b) without causing serious social confusion at the very least. PM shame is used in (19a) following the pragmatically similar interjection aw; the question, then, is whether shame could be eliminated, leaving only the interjection, without loss to the speaker’s intention. As the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure describes, an individual realises relevance through an intuitive and automatic behaviour that evaluates relevance in terms of processing effort and cognitive effects. Since individuals are inclined to be cognitively efficient, the speaker is unlikely to expend more effort in production and

definition to this one found among the references consulted is from the AHDEL (2012), which categorises

also assumes the hearer will not do so in terms of processing if there is no foreseeable reward in return. This means the gain of cognitive effects must outweigh the cost in processing effort. Therefore, according to the principles of relevance, the use of a meaningfully similar interjection preceding shame must have a purpose, otherwise the speaker would not have gone to the effort of including it. One could argue that the speaker is simply engaged in a kind of repetition or rephrasing, such as with appositions. If such is the case, one could also argue that this is an instance in which the speaker was uncertain of being heard or understood. But such explanations cannot account for why, in the data, the interjection + shame construction occurs in over half the response types (55%). Furthermore, the fact that shame is never found to precede an interjection in the data suggests a certain degree of collocation.137 _{Although there is something of an ineffable quality to} the interpretation of this interjection + shame construction (cf. Blakemore, 2011), in accordance with the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure, the only reasonable explanation for its relatively frequent occurrence is that the two items are encoded differently and when used together communicate information that would otherwise not be expressed. The speaker deems this information to be worth the effort for the hearer to inferentially interpret the utterance. The interjection + shame construction conveys this meaning, and the speaker assumes that the hearer will be able to derive the intended cognitive effects. Presumably, then, the construction procedurally conveys something about the speaker’s attitude. Assuming this to be true, then one possibility is that through collocation, reinforced by the cross-linguistic influence of Afrikaans, the interjection is used to attract attention or prompt the hearer’s expectation for shame. If this is the case, the aw + shame construction in (19) procedurally encodes an expression of endearment that is contextually specific; that is, to remark on something the speaker considers adorable. In this way, the procedural encoding for the interjection is quite similar to that of the prosodic contour and lip-rounding common in the production of the Afrikaans items foeitog and siestog (discussed in Section 5.1.1). Another possibility, or in addition to the previous one, is that the preceding interjection serves as an intensifier to shame, procedurally leading the hearer to more precisely interpret the speaker’s intentions. It is also possible that aw serves as a cue to the hearer to anticipate shame. Simply because a similarly functioning interjection cannot adequately replace shame does not determine whether or not shame is an interjection. However, when combined with the fact that shame retains elements of conceptual encoding, it does seem to suggest that shame cannot be accurately categorised as an interjection in the same ways that (English) aw, oh and (Afrikaans)

137 _{This is not to suggest that shame never precedes the use of an interjection, only that no tokens were}

found with this sequence in the SAfE data. It does, however, suggest there may be a grammatical or pragmatic reason why this sequence is preferred in SAfE.

ag are categorised.138 _{Rather, this use of shame seems to belong to a pragmatic grouping other than} interjections.

Consider the tokens used in (24) – (27) in which shame is used to alleviate an uneasy social topic or remark by expressing lighthearted or amused sympathy:

(24)

C: … I think there're about four loos and the queues … and it's quite amazing B: rent-a-loos

C: yea

B: oh shame [laughter] (ice-sa_spoken\s1a-043.txt) (25)

S3: the Germans, do they have humour? [laughter] Some of them do, some of them do S1: shame ... ja, ...

(ice-sa_spoken\s1a-003.txt) (26)

(looking at photos from a wedding)

J: … ok there they're coming out of the church. That's Jeremy who's half Diana's fighting weight, but S: oh shame, ... she's going to be a large lady

J: she is a large lady

(ice-sa_spoken\s1a-033.txt) (27)

C: Anyway, all I was lacking was an older brother. R: Shame.

(interviews tape/page: 120331_004 / 20)

138 _{This is not meant to suggest that all interjections are necessarily non-conceptual. Padilla Cruz (2009)}

explores whether some interjections (e.g., oh, ouch! and some expletives) might be conceptually encoded;

that is, whether they fall somewhere on the conceptual-procedural continuum and, therefore, may be considered pro-concepts. He argues that if individuals can distinguish specific attitudes and emotions from the use of interjections, it is conceivable that they are at least partially conceptually encoded regardless of whether or not they have lexical origins.

Example (24) is discussing the long queues of people waiting to use one of four portable toilets at a public event, (25) is lightly remonstrating another speaker for making a potential derogatory reference about another nationality and (26) is doing the same while expressing sympathy for a young lady who has been pointed out as overweight. Depending on the context, (27) is either responding to a potential delicate childhood memory or a humorous one or is an example of a response in which the speaker is unsure of how else to respond. The function of each one of these tokens appears to be to trigger higher-level explicatures (expressions of discomfort or guilty pleasure about the topic or current situation) and contextual implicatures (to euphemistically soften a potentially unpleasant or insensitive topic or remark, perhaps with which the speaker does not want to be explicitly associated). In this way, shame is used to lightly distance the speaker from something that is uncouth. Even in example (22), in which a conventional phrase might be viewed as felicitous, if PM shame indeed encodes this kind of euphemistic softening, then such a replacement is not as appropriate as it initially appears: the replacement alludes to something that is regretfully missed or lost, while the PM metacommunicatively addresses a sensitive topic. (22)

R: She's totally ... clueless

S: she's not really, she's terribly ... terribly shy C: oh shame (#that’s a shame, #what a shame) (ice-sa_spoken\s1a-025.txt)

Example (28) represents similar use as those above. However, here the speaker’s intention is not to express rejection of something socially uncomfortable but to acknowledge it. By alluding to an emotion, the speaker expresses what is believed to be a mutually manifest assumption: that growing up with seven older sisters may have been difficult (i.e., socially uncomfortable) for a single boy. (28)

C: He was in London. He came from a family of I think seven girls and he was the eighth child, a boy. R: Okay, shame.

(interviews tape/page: 120331_003 / 4)

As Wharton (2016: 29) explains, “[e]xpressing emotion is more about showing than it is about meaning”. Thus, in (28) shame functions to express an emotion that is not one of light reproach but one in which its procedural encoding is used to acknowledge or bring to the forefront an

assumption believed to be mutually manifest and possibly one that the speaker assumes the hearer will evaluate as mildly amusing.

LaPolla (2015: 35) describes how a single linguistic item spoken in a specific context can provide all the meaning necessary to communicate an intention; such appears to be the case in many of the examples presented thus far. However, as mentioned, tokens of shame found in the data also occur within the narrative. These also frequently either soften the preceding remark, as in (23), or prepare the hearer (i.e., set the tone) for sensitive information to follow, as in (21) and (29):

(23)

Yes, my mom played quite a bit, but my dad wasn’t musical shame (interviews tape/page: 120331_005 / 24)

(21)

A: [discussing visiting a friend in Groote Schuur Hospital] … and so he went in with James and then they went to Groote Schuur, and shame they bought her some flowers and some … a card or whatever which I thought was quite sweet

(ice-sa_spoken\s1a-004.txt) (29)

A: ... and I didn’t have to look at my watch once and think ooh gosh you know it’s three o’clock I must be somewhere or does Moira have to be there or should I be at home or shame Moira's there on her own or, you know, none of that

(ice-sa_spoken\s1a-009.txt)

Although shame is used within the narrative in examples (21), (23) and (29), each use appears to have more in common with an extralinguistic cue, such as a facial expression or gesture that instructs the hearer about how the speaker feels about her utterance, than a linguistic expression. Its use either prefaces or reflects back on the speaker’s emotionally driven remark. This versatility is not especially unusual for a PM; PMs such as like and you know are highly versatile. However, shame does not demonstrate versatility so much as linguistic detachment in that it does not appear to be a constituent of the utterance. For this reason it is described here as having metacommunicative features that comment directly on a proximate utterance to guide the hearer during inferential interpretation. Like PMs that are grammatically versatile, shame is not used randomly; rather, like an exclamative it can be used clause-peripherally but not clause-internally,

and its sentential placement systematically corresponds with its intended pragmatic meaning or function. PM shame informs the hearer of the speaker’s attitude, thus activating higher-order explicatures, and communicates contextual implicatures, or the cancelation of such. That is to say, its use is motivated by a need for an expression that more accurately expresses speaker attitude and represents the speaker’s thoughts. In this way PM shame procedurally constrains the hearer’s inferential interpretation so that it is more in line with the speaker’s intentions.

In summary, all of the tokens of shame found in the data function to procedurally trigger recognition of the speaker’s attitude and thoughts and, therefore, can be viewed as triggering higher-level explicatures and contextual implicatures. This use is believed to have developed alongside its hyperbolic use and pragmatic strengthening. While some of its original conceptual encoding has been retained, as reflected in meanings alluding to pity and sympathy, the conventionalised phrases that similarly express these meanings cannot adequately replace those of PM shame without loss of procedural purpose and pragmatic meaning, thus suggesting its use is distinct from uses in other English varieties. Although shame as it is used in SAfE has been referred to as an interjection, it appears that it also cannot be replaced with a similarly functioning interjection, again without loss of procedural function and pragmatic meaning. Since shame functions to procedurally express the speaker’s attitude by expressing an endearment and/or euphemistically softening a topic or remark, from a relevance-theoretic point of view its functions are better recognised as triggering higher-level explicatures and contextual implicatures. That is, PM shame provides evidence about the evaluative emotion that the speaker intends the hearer to apply to the inferential interpretation of the utterance (Wilson, 2016b: 18).