Producer’s intention realized in speech and writting

Jasňa Šlédrová

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Realizace záměru mluvčího v psaném a mluveném textu

Aspects of text production and reception come to fore in a number of disciplines. An interdisciplinary explanation is also sought in the research on realized intention, both in speech and writing.

The intention in communication can be discussed from the point of view of general psychology, social psychology, psychology of personality, psycholinguistics, text linguistics, functional stylistics, speech – act – theory, pedagogy and didactics. I assume that producer’s intention is stimulated by social and practical needs and requires interdisciplinary account as it does not fit into any traditional disciplinary pattern. It does not enrich linguistic positions by additive contacts with other disciplines but applies the interdisciplinarity proper both gnoseological and ontological. This concept of interdisciplinarity draws on J. T. Klein (1990).

Acknowledging this, my research which focuses on pedagogical communication with teacher (producer) – the expository text (medium of communication) – pupils (recipients) as its elements attempts at a unified linguistic and psychological view complying with communicative – cognitive paradigm and the needs of school practice. Some of our findings can be applied to the questions of the text production and reception in general.

Research into a successful and efficient pedagogical communication is mostly longitudinal and based on auditive or audiovisual recordings of lessons (Průcha, 1987; Gavora, 1988; Mareš – Křivohlavý, 1989). Effects of the didactic text on learning are studied, in particular, the text properties determining acquisition and learning performance and enquiring what are the knowledge changes under the influence of information which the subject acquires while learning from the text. Slovak pedagogues (Gavora, 1988) find learner’s abilities to uderstand written texts unsatisfactory due to insufficient stimulation of teachers.

Analogously to the Swedish school (Holšánová, 1992), successful communication requires the intention to get across both in speech and writing and learners acquire abilities to listen and read to understand others and speak and write for the other to understand and get sensitive to linguistic flexibility of the intention.

Successful intention transfer is the ideal target of native tongue tuition. I enquired in my research what was this ability like at the Czech teachers.

 

Four didactic texts were analyzed, delivered in four lessons to four classes.

Realized teacher’s intention was assessed through questionnaires assigned to learners after exposition, in particular, through learners’ summaries of exposition while teachers were asked to give exposition statements as expected from learners.

The texts both spoken and written were segmented to pieces of information which are called ”cognitive information” in this research and they correspond to the first occurrence of cognitive information in text, and ”variant information” which may be considered synonymous with invariant cognitive information. The variant information was matched with invariant information and the frequency of repetitions was studied.

Spoken texts were further analyzed as regards the importance of information. The decisive criterion for the degree of information importance was the evaluation by the teacher provided in written texts, as the teachers put down in writing only that information which they considered important. The equivalents in oral exposition of the important information were ascertained.

[237]In this research traditional characteristics of spoken texts cannot be mechanically applied to the oral exposition of the teacher (Stage 1) and the characteristics of written texts (Stage 2) cannot be applied fully in the written rendering of exposition. The teachers realized their expositions in classes, having the possibility of making thorough preparations in writing or using texts from the textbook, which means, that their speech lacks the feature of unpreparedness. The factual renderings of expositions, on the contrary, were to be written by teachers immediately after their expositions within a time limit. The teachers did not have enough time for text–composition or corrections, and that is why the traditional feature in writing of preparedness and planning was suppressed.

This written form is specific through the fact that the factual renderings of expositions included the optimum reception anticipated. The teachers were instructed to formulate in the questionnaire their exposition renderings in a way expected from learners. Consequently, they not only reproduced the exposition content but were influenced by researchers.

This specific form of a written text relates to the questions of the written and the spoken as reflected in the opposition of ”integration” and ”involvement” by W. Chafe (Hoffmannová, 1992). Hoffmannová points to the imprecision of opposing those two properties: ””Integration” means compactness and a focused elaboration of the written text, and ”involvement” means an extent of the personal commitment of the author, his/her personal contribution to the text, and explicit realization of the topic, text or the receiver (”involvement” is reflected in appeals to the addressee, requests for feedback signals, the use of emphatic and emotional devices, particles, interjections and so on).” Hoffmannová argues that a compatible opposition requires that ”integration” of the written text be opposed to nonintegrity and non–elaboration of the spoken text, and ”involvement” of the spoken text to personal distance of the author of the written text.

My research confirms that opposing ”integration” and ”involvement” is not justified. The written form may be characterized by both the integration and an explicit commitment of the author, and both the characteristics are less obvious in speech.

 

In all four written texts the teachers characterized their intention as the endeavour to transfer information, desirably resulting in the acquisition of this information by learners. This general characteristics of the intention complies with the written texts segmented for the sequence of invariant information. The spoken texts segmented in the same way contained more information and included further invariant information which the teacher later did not find important for acquisition, or the variant information of the invariant information delimited. Some parts of the text included no cognitive information at all, but were focused on organisation of the class.

The research also studies the occurrence of written invariants as variants in spoken text and the reflection of the repetition index in a successful acquisition of information by recipients.

Successfully realized intention was measured by the concurrence between its articulation by the teacher and its reconstruction by the learner.

Influences of the information value and the repetition index on a transfer success were examined. Repeated segments of information provided the indices of repetition while the value of information was assessed according to criteria suggested by the teacher. The research supported by methods of mathematical statistics proves that repeated information enhances transfer more than valuable information, which may also be due to the fact that the values were suggested by Czech teachers.

 

The following tables present all investigated characteristics in all four texts – A, B, C and D. Texts A and B were delivered by the same teacher I in civics classes and texts C and D by teachers II and III in history classes.

[238]The first column presents the sequence of all important pieces of invariant information which form the whole of the teacher’s written text and which the learners were supposed to acquire. The numbers refer to the succession of invariant information in text.

The second column presents the frequency of various pieces of variant information and indicates how many times the information occurred in text in different variants.

The third column presents, in per cents, the average acquisition of each invariant information with regard to all learners of the class participating in the research.

 

Text A				Text B
Information	Frequency	Average		Information	Frequency	Average
Number		Acquisition %		Number		Acquisition %
2	5	4,11		1	5	19,04
4	4	22,47		3	8	23,13
5	6	17,06		4	5	65,52
6	7	52,88		5	7	9,04
25	5	23,41		15	8	17,74
31	7	9,41		29	10	39,69
32	4	14,47		31	5	34,21
38	3	35,29		41	4	68,52
39	3	35,29		43	3	68,52
40	3	35,29		44	3	64,17
41	3	35,29		45	3	63,09
Text C				Text D
Information	Frequency	Average		Information	Frequency	Average
Number		Acquisition %		Number		Acquisition %
1	2	85,83		6	1	8,33
3	2	21,83		8	4	37,66
5	3	20,05		17	2	12,5
9	1	4		18	4	11
15	1	0		26	1	14
16	1	0		40	1	0
22	1	0		44	1	22,91
25	1	0		45	1	13,33
26	1	0		47	1	15,42
27	1	0		50	1	28,33
28	1	0		59	1	0
29	1	0
32	1	0
35	1	0
38	1	12,83
43	3	13,5
44	1	45,83
54	1	0
69	1	0

 

[239]If we compare the values presented in tables, we find an obvious difference between texts A and B of teacher I and texts C and D of teachers II and III. The main difference consists in the presented number of pieces of variant information in relation to invariant information. These numbers are several times higher with teacher I in comparison to teachers II and III. The highest number of variants – or the repetition index – occurs in text B, followed by text A, and incomparably fewer variants occur in texts C and D. The data confirm that repetition index positively influences a successful reception.

 

Successfully realized intention turns out to require as explicit and simple as possible articulation by the teacher and learner’s understanding first and cognitive accommodation next.

There proves to be a contrast between the teacher’s intention as realized in lesson (Stage 1) and its additional formulation in writing (Stage 2). While Stage 1 dominate the contents, Stage 2 intention.

Similar conclusions bring the analyses of controlled dialogues between couples and trios of participants (Janoušek, 1988). The participants take speech turns at Stage 1, precisely store turns in memories at Stage 2, and report in indirect speech and past tense at Stage 3, while Stage 1 proves to be a contents recording, Stage 2 reveals implicit attitudes to turns, adding to message, and Stage 3 explicitly reflects the producer’s intention and effects on recipients.

In contrast to direct realization, the explicit intention in additional report or summary is due to written vs. spoken distinction but also accounted for by other such as the time or psychosocial characteristics.

 

My contribution was an attempt to reveal some characteristics of the producer’s intention in a speech activity. The intention of producer being a very complex phenomenon, attention was paid only to those characteristics that – as follows from empirical data – most influence successful realization of the producer’s intention in expository texts. By successful realization is meant the degree of agreement between producer’s intention and recipient’s reaction. Reaction is understood as a cognitive effect gained by the recipient. The method described is intended as a kind of proposal for studying phenomena like the producer’s intention with the aid of interdisciplinary approaches.

 

LITERATURE

 

Austin, J. L.: How to do Things with Words. Oxford UP – New York 1973.

Gavora, P. a kol.: Pedagogická komunikácia v základnej škole. Bratislava 1988.

Hoffmannová, J.: Mluvené a psané texty ve vzájemných citacích (aluzích). Stylistyka, I, 1992, s. 67–81.

Holšánová, J.: Výchova k produkci a interpretaci textu / komunikátu na švédských školách. ČMF, 74, 1992, s. 99–104.

Janoušek, J.: Metodologické problémy psychologického výzkumu významové struktury textu. SlavPrag, 32, 1988, s. 35–41.

Klein, J. T.: Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. Wayne State University Press, Detroit 1990.

Mareš, J. – Křivohlavý, J.: Sociální a pedagogická komunikace ve škole. Praha 1989.

Průcha, J.: Učení z textu a didaktická informace. Praha 1987.

[240]Strawson, P. F.: Intention and convention in speech acts. The Philosophical Review, 73, 1964, p. 439–460.

Šlédrová, J.: Studium komunikace z hlediska potřeb pedagogiky. SaS, 53, 1992, s. 129–138.

 

R É S U M É

Realizace záměru mluvčího v psaném a mluveném textu

Interdisciplinárně orientovaný výzkum chce přispět k explikaci hlavních faktorů ovlivňujících realizaci záměru mluvčího. Některá zjištění lze aplikovat na problematiku procesů produkce a recepce textu obecně, avšak v centru pozornosti je jeden konkrétní typ komunikace – komunikace pedagogická, a to zejména ta její forma, kdy hlavními participanty jsou učitel (produktor), výkladový text (komunikační médium) a žáci (recipienti).

Má-li být vlastní realizace záměru úspěšná, je zapotřebí, aby hlavní aktivita produktora byla soustředěna na co nejexplicitnější, nejjednoznačnější formulaci záměru a aktivita recipienta aby směřovala nejprve k porozumění produktorova záměru a poté ke změně jeho kognitivní struktury v souladu s očekáváním produktora.

V příspěvku porovnáváme, jak učitel realizuje svůj záměr mluveným výkladem v rámci vyučovací hodiny (I. fáze) a jak jej formuluje dodatečně písemně (II. fáze). Výzkum ukazuje, že zatímco v I. fázi dominuje věcně obsahová složka výkladu, ve II. fázi vystupuje do popředí složka záměrová. Tento rozdíl není způsoben pouze distinkcí psaný text – mluvený text, ale podílejí se na něm i faktory komplexnější povahy.

Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR
Praha

Slovo a slovesnost, volume 54 (1993), number 3, pp. 236-240

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