Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

4. Life x 3

Life x 3 is a comedy-drama written by a contemporary French author Yasmina Reza, the English translation was provided by Christopher Hampton. The plot is very simple and almost unimportant, Reza focuses particularly on the language of her four characters, and the play is therefore convenient for a linguistic analysis.

Reza introduces two married couples: Henri and Sonia and Hubert and Inès. Henri is not a very successful research scientist who has invited his superior, Hubert Finidori (with his wife, Inès), over for dinner the next night. But suddenly the Finidori’s show up - a day early.[4]The hostess is completely unprepared to receive guests, which creates many absurd situations troughout the whole play The play has three acts; in each the central embarrassing situation is replayed with slight changes. I have chosen the first act (I will further use the word play instead of act) to deal with in my work as I find it most interesting from the point of view of indirectness.

The play contains four types of exchanges:direct speech acts motivated bydirect speech acts ,indirect speech acts motivated bydirect speech acts ,direct speech acts motivated byindirect speech acts and finallyindirect speech acts motivated byindirect speech acts .

The proportion of individual types in the play is outlined in the following table:

              Table 1. Proportion of individual types of exchanges

The table above suggests that Life x 3 is a play based rather on indirect speech acts since there are 62 exchanges out of which at least one is indirect, the total number of exchanges being 89.

There is a variety of reasons for the use of universal indirectness and hence also for indirectness in this piece of theatre. Thomas (1995) introduces the main factors which influence the application of indirect speech acts in the discourse; she claims that the motivation for indirectness includes:

The desire to make one’s language more/less interesting

To increase the force of one’s message

Competing goals

Politeness (Thomas, 1995: 143)

These four observations can be traced in the indirect utterances of Reza’s play, too. However, in large measure, it is not only the purpose but also the context, the shared background situation (Searle, 1979: 48), the speaker-hearer relationship, their education and social status which determine whether the characters, and people in general, choose to use indirect speech acts or not.

  “Conversational situations are never just conversational. They are governed by social rules as well as conversational rules. Insofar as these are mutually recognized – whether institutionally imposed, determined by the persons involved, or personally imposed and reflective of the individuals involved – they provide guidelines within which acts (linguistic and otherwise) are performed and perceived.” (Bach and Harnish, 1979: 105)

4.1. Direct speech Acts As a Reaction to Direct Speech Acts

There are only 27 direct - direct exchanges in the play. Their role is more or less informative and sober. To a direct question there is a direct answer. The cooperative principle together with at least three Grice’s maxims, those of Quality, Relation and Manner, is always observed and thus there is little space for any possible misunderstanding.

Yes/no questions

Henri:Should I peel it?

Sonia:Yes. (18)

Henri:Have you closed the doors?

Sonia:Yes. (33)

Henri:You didn’t go to see him?

Sonia:No. (28)

Henri:Oh, yes? Is this very recent?

Hubert:Yes, yes, this morning: ‘On the Flatness of Galaxy Halos’ . (23)

In the first three utterances above, the speaker forms a direct question with one intention – to get a satisfactory and unequivocal answer. The hearer understands what information the speaker is asking for and forms an adequate response. As for yes/no question, it is of course either a clearyes or a clearno . The four maxims are fully observed. The question and also the answer are both perfectly clear.

Yet, the fourth exchange is a bit different from the preceding two. The speaker utters a direct yes/no question but the hearer apart from answering mereyes adds another piece of information (this morning and the name of an articleOn the Flatness of Galaxy Halos ). The hearer provides perhaps more information than was originally needed and asked for and he thus violates Grice’s maxim of Quantity. In the context of the play, the hearer is a cunning intellectual who wants to discourage and humiliate his colleague and I suppose that is why he quickly adds other unsolicited facts. Hubert possibly also tries to make his utterance more interesting and a bareyes to a yes/no question would thus not be enough to fulfill this role.

Wh-questions

Wh-questions are, in this case, very similar to yes/no questions: A direct question is formed in order to get a specific answer (information) different from yes or no.

Inès:How old is he?

Sonia.Six. (34)

Hubert:Where were you before?

Sonia:Montparnasse. (24)

Henri:What’s that?

Sonia:The Fox and the Hound. You put the Fox and the Hound on for him. (39)

In the examples noted above, the speaker is interested in one particular piece of information – age in the first exchange, name of the city in the second and identification of the sound playing in the background in the third. The hearer reacts using a direct speech act as well, directly giving the information requested. In the third example, the hearer again provides more information than is originally needed. This time, the purpose is not mischievousness but the hearer’s intention to remind the speaker of his past actions.

The direct-direct exchanges are quite brief, with no implicature involved, with no additional level of meaning. The hearer does not have to look for what the speaker might have meant by uttering such and such sentence, everything in their interaction is expressed explicitly. Misunderstandings hardly occur.

4.2. Indirect Speech As a Reaction to Direct Speech Acts

The play contains 28 direct-indirect exchanges, they represent the most numerous group within the play. I have chosen only those I find particularly interesting to comment on. Generally, it could be said that indirectness in this type of exchanges is used to increase the force of one’s message, to convey politeness, some kind of explanation or refusal and sometimes irony or sarcasm.

I would like to present at least these examples to be considered:

Henri:Hubert, am I doomed?

Hubert:....You’re going through a rough patch.    (48)

In this case, the speaker, Henri, positively asks a direct yes/no question. From this follows that the hearer, Hubert, should utter a response containingyes orno , but this is not the case. The hearer is well aware of the fact that he cannot say a positiveyes , even if he probably longs to do so, as he would violate certain conventions observed in the society. As Bach and Harnish (1984:95) claim: “Not only do people expect one another to act in certain mutually recognized ways, as determined (at least in part) by mutually recognized rules governing mutually recognized types of persons and types of situations, they expect others to expect them to act in these ways.” The hearer would not only offend the speaker but he would also lose his face within the discussion group which is of course undesirable. As Bach and Harnish (1984: 99) observe: “The speaker compromises the presumption (maxim) of manner in order to avoid the offense to the hearer or the embarrassment to himself that explicit language would engender.” And therefore, the hearer chooses to use an indirect strategy, relying on the speaker’s ability to read between the lines.

The result here is that the speaker feels humiliated and in order to get a straight answer, asks the same question a few more times again. He finally succeeds and the hearer responds less indirectly, uttering the not very courageous and quiet ‘A bit.’ (which is still remarkably indirect) some minutes later. As already suggested above, in avoiding the direct yes, the hearer intentionally flouts the maxims of Manner, Relation and perhaps also that of Quality and makes the speaker look for another explanation. Henri knows very well what Hubert is conveying but he refuses to believe it and for that reason he keeps repeating the same question again and again. His ego is hurt.

Inès:And are they (the halos)flat, do you think? (S)

Henri:I think they’re ten times as thin as they’re long. (H) (70)

In this second example, the motivation for indirectness is somehow different. It is not politeness which is exercised in the hearer’s response; Henri rather wants to sound scientific, interesting and important. His objective is to win recognition and that is why he desperately tries not to use simple language. He realizes that a research scientist should speak in a cultivated and sophisticated manner. Knowing that Inès is an uneducated housewife, he feels she could admire him for his scientific assumptions and thus he decides not to answer with simpleyes . Henri flouts the maxim of Quantity - he is more informative than necessary. Inès, in fact, is not interested in halos, she is just trying to ease the awkwardness of silence. According to Bach and Harnish, her primary aim is obviously to fill the air and pass the time with a minimum of discomfort.

Sonia:I’d have done better to receive them in my dressing gown!

Henri:Congratulations, Sonia! Well done! (68)

The speaker, Sonia, is annoyed with the current state of affairs, she thinks she did not have to bother to receive the guests with such a pomp and she mentions her ideas directly. The hearer, her husband Henri, is angry with her for saying this. He wants to be polite since he hopes Hubert could help him with his career. Henri utters an expressive which might seem uncooperative at the first sight, yet Henri’s reaction is perfectly relevant. Although Austin would even call this an insincere or void act, the act is not void at all.

  “The observation that the speaker (Henri in this example) has said something which is manifestly untrue, combined with the assumption that the CP is in operation sets in motion the search for an implicature” (Thomas, 1995: 63). Indeed, the utterance cannot be taken literally, the hearer’s actual intention is not to congratulate his wife Sonia whereby he just proves that he does not observe the maxim of Quality (he says what he believes to be false).Henri wants to express the opposite and he deliberately makes an ironical remark. But the words themselves and the appropriate context are not enough to transmit the right message, something else is still needed to make the utterance function. As Searle points out, to understand what is really meant, not only the context but also other illocutionary force indicators, including mainly stress and intonation in this case, are essential. (Searle 1976: 30) The irony would not be understood without them.

Inès:Perhaps he should read it before he starts getting upset.

Hubert:Inès, my love, don’t interrupt when you don’t know what you’re talking about. (46)

The first utterance pronounced by Inès is a reaction to Hubert’s announcement concerning an article he saw published in a scientific magazine. Her contribution can be taken as a suggestion or advice. I don’t think it is really meant for someone, Inès simply feels like saying something. Hubert, her husband, cuts her down to size and even though he tries to be polite in front of their hosts, his neat words are clearly suggesting something not very positive and what is more, something quite rude. His utterance could be without any doubts interpreted like this: Shut up, you silly goose! Nevertheless, Hubert would not say anything of this sort since he would be afraid to lose face, he utters the propositional act indirectly trying to sound very polite and thus indirectly communicating the illocutionary force of imperative or even threat. Inès, knowing his husband, ignores him.

Hubert:Check before you get in a state about it.

Henri:I left my laptop at the Institute. (62)

Hubert utters a clear imperative sentence explicitly stating what Henri should do. Henri answers indirectly giving an explanation why he cannot execute what Hubert advised him. Henri’s utterance might seem unrelated to Hubert’s but “in indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.” (Searle, 1979: 31) Henri does not say ‘I cannot’, but it is obvious from his contribution that it is impossible for him to check the article Hubert is speaking about - without a laptop he cannot connect to the internet. The primary illocutionary act ‘I cannot’ thus makes an internal and perhaps inseparable part of the literal secondary illocutionaryI left my laptop at the Institute. While uttering the actual speech act ‘I left my laptop at the Institute ’ Henri also relies on Hubert’s nonlinguistic knowledge concerning computers and the internet.

Direct-indirect exchanges are the most frequent within the play. This suggests that their use is somehow preferable. The hearer (the second speaker) often responds indirectly in an attempt to make his answer more gentle so that it complies with set social rules, to sound more interesting or to increase the force of his message. His choice of an indirect strategy is premeditated and deliberate.

4.3. Direct Speech As a Reaction to Indirect Speech Acts

There are only 9 direct-indirect exchanges out of 89 exchanges in total. This number indicates that the direct-indirect strategy might be dispreferred by the speakers. Is it really so? Why is the direct-indirect strategy not sought after? These are the main questions I would like to deal with in this section.

Henri:He wants a cuddle. Just a little cuddle.

Sonia:No. (71)

Henri’s utterance could be interpreted as an imperative or request (Go and give him a cuddle!). In saying ‘He (our son)wants a cuddle. Just a little cuddle.’ Henri performs two illocutionary acts: a primary illocutionary act of request which is communicated by way of performing a secondary illocutionary act of making a statement. He performs the secondary illocutionary act by way of uttering a sentence the literal meaning of which is such that its literal utterance constitutes a performance of that illocutionary act. (Searle, 1979: 33) In other words, the secondary illocutionary act is literal while the primary illocutionary act is not.

The speaker, Sonia, apparently understands what message her husband tries to transmit, she succeeds in decoding that he is making a request since she answersno . Her response is short but absolutely clear. In fact, herno accompanied with certain paralinguistic features could be taken as an invitation to an argument. And indeed, after Sonia’s briefno the couple starts quarrelling. Her directno after a nice indirect request made Henry annoyed.

Henri:Will you go and get dressed, Sonia?

Sonia:No. (76)

This example is very similar to the preceding one. Henri utters an indirect request whose surface form resembles a question. Taken from a different perspective, the primary illocutionary act is again a request, the second illocutionary act is a yes/no question this time. Sonia answersno again. In this exchange, it is not easy to say whether or not she has decoded the primary illocutionary act of request produced by the speaker because the answer to both, to the yes/no question and to the request, might beno . However, everything indicates that she has decoded the speaker’s intentions correctly. It seems that Sonia wants to make Henry angry. She seems to resist his power. Requests like these typically do not normally call for any reply and if they do, then it tends to be in the affirmative or some avoidance strategy. And therefore it is easy for the situation to escalate into a quarrel – in a quarrel politeness, maxims, etc. are not observed. This time the dispute is evaded because the Finidoris are waiting outside, and therefore Henri only reacts in uttering ‘How can you be so selfish?’ Under normal conditions, it is probable that the row would have started.

Henri:I told him you were coming.

Sonia:I’m not going in there one more time, I hope that’s clear. (78)

In this example, Henri repeats his strategy from the first indirect-direct exchange. He communicates a request. Sonia, once again, correctly decodes the primary illocutionary act behind the statement and utters a corresponding answer. Her answer is a bit stronger than it was in the preceding two exchanges. She clearly does not observe the maxims of Manner (she is not brief enough) and Quantity (her contribution is perhaps more informative than required). Sonia’s answer provokes Henri to criticize her and once again, it might be taken as some kind of rudiment for an argument.

Hubert:See ,and she knows what she’s talking about!

Inès:I’m not offended, you know. (77)

The situation in this example is slightly different from those commented on above. Hubert utters an indirect speech act which is to be understood as ironical or even sarcastic. The context and already mentioned paralinguistic features are an important part which helps to establish the meaning of the whole utterance. Without an appropriate context and Hubert’s intention to mock Inès, the sentence could have been taken literally. It is the speaker who can influence the meaning. “What is added in the indirect cases is not any additional or different sentence meaning, but additional speaker meaning.” (Searle, 1979: 42)

Hubert:Oh, look, there’s one more Wotsit!

Sonia:Eat it! (72)

The first part of Hubert’s utterance with hidden ironical meaning is intended for Inès; Hubert scornfully explains to her what Henri meant withtopical. The second part of Hubert’s utterance seems a bit out of place, he suddenly and quite unexpectedly completely changes the subject of conversation by saying ‘Oh, look, there’s one more Wotsit!’ and thus flouts the maxim of Relation. “The maxim of Relation is exploited by making a response or observation which is obviously irrelevant to the topic in hand (e.g. by abruptly changing the subject).” (Thomas, 1995: 70) And this is exactly what Hubert does.

Bach and Harnish state that changing the subject is a common conversational practice with a range of possible purposes. One may change the subject to avoid revealing a secret, to keep from committing oneself on something, to avoid excessive dwelling on a subject painful to oneself or to the hearer, to confuse the hearer, to test the hearer’s interest or persistence, or simply to liven up the conversation (1984: 99). Hubert’s purposes for changing the topic can be connected with his decision not to put down his wife anymore. For him, this conversation is over and besides, he seems to really have a soft spot for Wotsits. The primary illocutionary act in this case is a question (Can I have the last Wotsit?), the secondary literal illocutionary act is a statement describing the situation about Wotsits. Sonia, the hostess, recognizes the primary illocutionary act in Hubert’s contribution and utters ‘Eat it!’ .  The indirectness was revealed and properly treated. The hearer understood the speaker’s message.

The indirect-direct exchanges are scarce in the play (9 out of 92). From the examples in the play it follows that a direct utterance employed after an indirect one mightprovoke an argument (there are 6 cases in 9 which could be taken as a possible impulse for an argument; three of potential ‘argument-starters’ are specified in more detail above). This might be the main reason, and the numbers empirically prove it, why the characters avoid using this conversational strategy.

4.4. Indirect Speech As a Reaction to Indirect Speech Acts

The category of indirect-indirect exchanges contains 25 items and thus becomes the third most commonly used strategy throughout the play. It is interesting to note that this strategy is employed chiefly between the partners of one couple (between Henri and Sonia and between Hubert and Inès with Henri and Sonia using indirectness-indirectness the most frequently). There is one indirect speech act which is not recognized by the hearer.

Henri:He wants a biscuit.

Sonia:He’s just cleaned his teeth. (83)

According to Searle’s theory of indirect speech acts, Henri utters an indirect primary illocutionary act in the form of request (Go and give him a biscuit!) combined with a literal secondary act – the actual statement ‘He wants a biscuit.’ Sonia decodes the utterance and forms an indirect speech act herself. The non-literal primary illocutionary act ‘He’s just cleaned his teeth.’ is a clear refusal here. The literal secondary illocutionary act gives a reason why she refuses to fulfill the directive uttered by Henri supposing that everybody knows it is not advisable to eat anything having cleaned one’s teeth. She probably uses indirectness in order to increase the force of her message as Thomas suggests in similar examples. Both the hearer and the speaker succeeded in encoding and decoding their intentions.

Henri:He’s agreed to a slice of apple.

Sonia:He’s not having any apple, he’s not having anything, you don’t eat in bed, the subject is closed. (89)

This exchange is very similar to the previous one, only the force of Sonia’s indirect speech act is even stronger here since she supports her refusal with a more detailed explanation why she is not going to give him anything to eat and she closes her contribution with ‘the subject is closed’ implying that she considers the debate to be over and that she is not willing to discuss it anymore. The speaker and the hearer managed to encode and decode their messages again.

Hubert:It’s twenty past nine.

Inès:I cannot turn up with a ladder in my stocking. (92)

This exchange takes place between Hubert and Inès, the other couple. Hubert’s contribution is to be taken as follows: The primary illocutionary act is an appeal or perhaps a request towards Inès (Hurry up lest we will be late, Inès!) and the literal secondary illocutionary act explains that it is getting late. Inès decodes Henri’s indirect appeal and reacts with an irritated indirect response. Inès indirectly conveys in ‘I’ m not going to hurry, I need a new pair of stockings.’ Hubert understands her utterance and tries to persuade her that nobody will notice. The indirectness was recognized and well comprehended by both of them.

Inès:Whose fault is that?

Hubert:I’ m not going to put up with this recital. (80)

In this case Inès utters an indirect speech act with a surface form (secondary illocutionary act) of a question which could be interpreted as a reproach or accusation (It’s your fault!). She obviously does not ask a question and Hubert is well aware of this fact. He therefore, as if indirectly, defends himself against Inès’ reproach and indirectly forms an imperative (Stop it!). The communication between them was successful.

Sonia:Have they heard us?

Henri:Why, what did we say? (104)

This last example I would like to present here is a bit special as Henri’s decoding of Sonia’s utterance fails this time. Sonia forms a question (surface form, secondary illocutionary act) which is in fact supposed to imply something completely different. Sonia actually indirectly suggests: ‘Let’s not let them in.’ Henri is apparently nervous and taken aback by unexpected visitors and maybe therefore he does not reveal Sonia’s indirect proposal. He only reacts to the secondary illocutionary act in Sonia’s utterance and he therefore almost automatically utters another question as an indirect response to Sonia’s interrogative. The exchange fails, the speaker’s message is not uncovered. Searle observes that one cannot always tell from what the sentence means what the speaker really means by its utterance. (Searle, 1979: 40) And this seems to be the case, Henri relies purely on the sentence meaning and he fails to detect another additional speaker’s indirect message hidden inside the sentence.

4.5. Data Evaluation

According to the analysis of indirectness carried out on the play Life x 3 by Yasmina Reza, I came to the conclusion thatthe second speaker (usually denoted as a hearer in my work)often accepts the strategy suggested by the first speaker . This observation can be empirically proved since there are 27 direct-direct and 25 indirect-indirect exchanges which makes the total of 52 exchanges in the play (their proportion is thus more than a half).

The second speaker also frequently follows a direct-indirect strategy making his answer more reticent or polite. The reason for this linguistic behaviour is, among others, most probably embedded in social rules set by the cultural community. There are 28 direct-indirect exchanges in the play.

The indirect-direct strategy seems to be unpopular. There are only 9 indirect-direct exchanges in the play out of which 6 could be accounted for possible ‘argument-starters’. It is hence clear that the speakers deliberately attempt to avoid it.

The motivation for indirectness is miscellaneous. When using indirect utterances, the speakers often want to sound interesting (this phenomenon is demonstrable in Hubert’s and Henri’s contributions), they try to increase the force of his message (this often happens in the exchanges between the partners within one couple) and last but not least they observe the principles of politeness. These three factors for using indirectness devised by Jenny Thomas (she mentions also competing goals) are the most common in the play.

Proportionally to the number of individual contributions, indirectness is mainly used by Hubert who probably uses it not only in order to be polite, to increase the force of his utterance or to sound interesting but also to sound superior and scientific. He believes himself to be a more educated person than the others involved in the conversation.

The play contains 64 exchanges out of which at least one is indirect which proves that indirect speech acts are employed more extensively than direct speech acts. Levinson even points out that ‘most usages are indirect’. (Levinson, 1983: 264)

Conclusion

The thesis deals with the speech acts and its main terms within the framework of the theory of direct and indirect speech acts. It further explains indirectness and its usage in every day communication, jokes and drama.

In my practical analysis, I then focused mainly on directness and indirectness in drama, based onLife x 3 , a play by Yasmina Reza.

The play contains four types of exchanges and thus four types of speaker-hearer strategies:direct-direct ,direct-indirect ,indirect-direct andindirect-indirect . The proportion of individual strategies differs, yet there is one which is obviously dispreferred – anindirect-direct strategy , the number of indirect-direct exchanges being only 9 out of 89 contributions.

I came to the conclusion that the speakers probably avoid this strategy since a direct response to an indirect strategy may provoke an argument (there are 6 exchanges out of 9 which could be understood as an ‘argument-starter’) which might be the main reason why the speakers rather choose not to answer directly in this case.

The numbers of direct-direct (27), direct-indirect (28) and indirect-indirect (25) exchanges are more or less balanced and therefore it could be said  that the hearer either accepts the strategy proposed by the speaker (direct-direct, indirect-indirect) or he decides to make his contribution less straight and therefore gives preference to indirectness. He thus not only shows respect to the speaker, but he also expresses politeness or sometimes even unwillingness to quarrel. Using indirectness, the speaker also proves his ability to toy with the language and make his words sound more interesting.

People are well aware of the fact that some, mostly negative, information cannot or should not be expressed explicitly or directly and that indirect strategies should be applied. Indirectness nowadays plays a vital role in our communication.

Czech résumé

V bakalářské práci nazvanéPřímé a nepřímé řečové akty v angličtině jsem se pokusila nastínit hlavní aspekty teorie řečových aktů a s tím související problematiku nepřímých výpovědí v angličtině. Práce shrnuje a komentuje teoretické definice klíčových pojmů a soustředí se na použití řečových aktů v různých konverzačních situacích s důrazem na použití přímých a nepřímých strategií v jazyce dramatu.

První tři kapitoly s názvem „Jazyk, řečové akty a performativy“, „Lokuční, ilokuční a perlokuční akty“ a „Nepřímost“ jsou teoretické. Tyto kapitoly prezentují klasifikaci řečových aktů a dále objasňují, jaké podmínky a okolnosti musí být splněny, aby druhý mluvčí správně pochopil nepřímou výpověď prvního mluvčího. V těchto kapitolách jsou následně zmíněny důvody, proč mluvčí v některých situacích volí raději nepřímost.

Čtvrtá kapitola „Life x 3“ je věnovaná praktické ukázce přímosti a nepřímosti v dramatu. K analýze je použita hra Life x 3 současné francouzské autorky Yasminy Rezy, jejíž literární dílo je často postaveno zejména na slovní interakci postav.

Hra (tedy její první akt, který je předmětem zkoumání) obsahuje čtyři typy promluv: přímé -  přímé, přímé - nepřímé, nepřímé - přímé a nepřímé - nepřímé. Tyto promluvy jsou ve hře zastoupeny v různém poměru. Největší procento zaujímají promluvy přímé – nepřímé, nejmenší naopak nepřímé – přímé.

Poměr přímých – přímých, přímých – nepřímých a nepřímých – nepřímých promluv se však v zásadě neliší. Markantní rozdíl nastává právě v počtu promluv nepřímých - přímých. Tento rozdíl zřejmě způsobuje fakt, že přímost druhého mluvčího v  nepřímé – přímé promluvě může být pokládána za výzvu k hádce

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Other complementary electronic sources:

< http://heralds.westkingdom.org/Ceremony/West/Chivalry.pdf > 10 March 2006.

<http://www.zawaj.com/articles/marriage_ceremony_basics.html > 5 March 2006.

<http://www.wfu.edu/~louden/Interpersonal/IPC%20Materials/GENDER.PPT#6 > 16 January 2006.

<http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/rezay/lifex3.htm > 23 February 2006.