说“因时”

On Enchrony

本文旨在介绍Enfield从互动语言学的研究实践中总结提炼出的因时分析理论框架。其命名旨在和传统的历时、共时视角相并列。“因时”分析,在汉语字面上就有因应说话时间逐步推进而权衡制宜地做出分析的意思。其思想渊源主要来自会话分析、新皮尔斯主义符号学和关联论。其核心理论体系如下:社会互动包括作为符号的行为及其引发的回应两个部分;这两部分形成的序列是一个完整的互动单位;多个序列会连成具有前因后果的交际轨迹;而意义就是在这种由序列组合而成的复合话段中得来;举动,则是社会互动中的基本层次单位;要对复合话段的意义做出解释,需要进行关联性的分析;关联具有两面,包括符号对回应的致效性和回应对符号的恰当性。因时分析理论是行为生物学框架的一部分。因时分析具有广阔的应用价值,尤其是对汉语的延伸句、叹词的言谈管理功能、话题的互动性、名词短语指称属性的建立以及糅合造句等等。因时视角可以和认知语法的“提取激活模型”相互借鉴,相辅相成。因时说还提出关于人类语言起源的社会学假说。

This paper aims to introduce Enfield's theoretical framework for enchronic analysis,distilled from the research practice of interactional linguistics.Its term"enchrony"is intended to be parallel with the traditional diachrony and synchrony perspectives.Its Chinese version literally means to make a balanced analysis in response to the gradual progress of speech time.The notion of enchrony is needed for bringing together certain aspects of language that are typically handled by quite disparate conceptual and methodological approaches,especially Conversation Analysis,neo-Piercean semiotics and relevance theory.Enfield has refined some relevant concepts and methods that have been applied in practice in interactional linguistics over the years,and integrated them into the theoretical system of the enchronic analysis.Its core notions include:1)Social interaction consists of two parts:the action as a symbol and the response it triggers.2)The sequence formed by these two parts is a complete unit of interaction.3)Multiple sequences are connected into a communicative trajectory with"because motives"and"in-order-to motives".4)Meaning is derived from the composite utterances formed by the combination of such sequences.5)Move is the basic level unit in social interaction.6)To interpret the meaning of the composite utterances,a relevance analysis is required.7)There are two facets of relevance:effectiveness of the symbol to the response,and the appropriateness of the response to the symbol.Such an enchronic analysis theory is part of the Behavioral Biology framework.Situated within an integrated set of causal frames for language,enchrony provides conceptual tools for an account of language that foregrounds social cognition and interaction in a usage-based model.Enchronic analysis has a wide range of applications,especially for incremental sentences in Chinese,the talk management function of interjections,interactivity of topics,the establishment of demonstrative properties of noun phrases,and blended sentence construction.This paper provides some examples to illustrate such applications in grammar research.Enchrony is not just a frame that happens to have been under-appreciated and can readily be bolted onto our existing accounts of language without much ado.Rather,enchrony is the frame that matters most.The enchronic perspective can be used in conjunction with the access and activation model of cognitive grammar,which is complementary to each other.It also suggests a sociological hypothesis for the origin of human language.