Dynamic resonance and social reciprocity in language change: the case of Good morrow

Abstract

Entrenchment (i.e. Langacker 1987) does not necessarily lead to predictable behaviour. This study aims at complementing the usage-based model of language change by operationalising the role of dialogic creativity as a mechanism that can be in competition with conventionalization and grammaticalization. We provide a distinctive collexeme analysis (i.e. Hilpert 2006) focusing on the constructionalization of the dialogic pair [A: good morrow B-B: (good) morrow (A)] from the 15th up to the 18th century. After reaching the highest degree of entrenchment and automatisation, the dialogic pair will show an increasing tendency to be creatively remodelled with ad-hoc meanings during online exchanges by means of dynamic resonance (Du Bois 2014) and non-reciprocal behaviour. We define this creative process of large-scale alteration as entrenchment inhibition. From our data it will emerge that entrenchment inhibition is triggered by spontaneous attempts of producing a creative 'surplus' over the expected social reciprocity (Gouldner 1960) of conventionalized exchanges. This tendency will be shown to be driven by marked attempts of polite and impolite behaviour.

Politeness reciprocity in Shakespeare’s dialogue

“…Leech (2014: 291), in his work on the pragmatics of politeness, writes: "in Shakespeare's day, as in earlier times, politeness was not just a unidirectional tribute paid by the lowly to the rich and powerful but also had a reciprocal element". Tantucci et al (2018) considered a dialogic construction consisting of the reciprocal greetings good morrow-good morrow. The interest here was to explore not just whether speakers did politeness work that achieved a reciprocal balance but the nature of that politeness work.…”

“…This is generally geared towards normatively polite or politic interaction (see Watts [2003], see also Culpeper and Tantucci [2021] on normal versus extra politeness), although tendencies towards conventionalised impoliteness are also attested (Culpeper 2011). What is key about this is that ad hoc efforts made to produce reciprocity imbalances or rebalance them -whether towards a distinctive surplus of politeness or impoliteness -involve creativity (Tantucci et al 2018), as they often deviate from conventionally expected and/or formulaic behaviour. Our dataset was no exception in this respect.…”

Diachronic change of rapport orientation and sentence-periphery in Mandarin

“…Overtly codified attempts of RM indicate when the speaker finds necessary to encode his or her awareness of the addressee as a distinctive effort or ‘surplus’ over mere propositional meaning and ‘politic’ behaviour (e.g. Culpeper, 2011; Gouldner, 1960; Kasper, 1990; Tantucci, 2016b, 2017a, 2017b, 2018; Tantucci et al, 2018; Tantucci and Wang, 2018; Watts, 2003), for example, Actually, I’m tired now vs I’m tired now (cf. Tantucci, 2017b; Traugott and Dasher, 2002 on the intersubjective functions of the discourse markers actually ).…”

Andreas H. Jucker, Politeness in the history of English: From the Middle Ages to the present day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 210. ISBN 9781108589147.

“…This would could have been avoided had the most recent work by Jonathan Culpeper and colleagues (Tantucci et al . 2018) and joint work by Dániel Kádár and Juliane House (Kádár & House 2020), known best for thought-provoking ideas in cross-cultural politeness studies, been taken into account.…”