Looking beyond language, out and into the world

Elodie Oursel (1, 2)

1 SFL - Structures Formelles du Langage
2 UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis

Linguistics has long been self-centered: linguists study language. When context becomes significant, linguists study language in context (pragmatics, discourse analysis, anthropolinguistics…). Language remains the core object of research of linguists. However, there are other ways. Through a research project on the listening skill in conversation, we have come accross two theories that altered our vision of linguistics. The first theory confronts logocentrism: language is not the center of all things, and should not be studied as such. Language can be seen as a means, as a tool, in order to act, to think, to express oneself and so on. It is part of something bigger. Linguists could study the bigger picture and look at how language modifies it. Language is then considered as a modifier in the course of an action or situation (Scollon 2001). The second theory confronts egocephalocentrism: the human brain is not the center of all cognition. It does not interpret everything independently of what surrounds it. There is no brain-body, brain-world or langue-parole duality. On the contrary, there is continuous interaction between all these entities. Mace (1977) sums this up in a brilliant sub-title: “don’t ask what’s inside your head but what your head’s inside of”. This presentation will describe the main ideas of these two theories, showing how “language is one of the many resources available to the humans to live and act together” (Oursel 2013), showing how we, as researchers, can look beyond our traditional object and study its relations to goals, actions, situations, other people, or to the world. We will present several consequences that these theories have had on our research, at a theoretical level (impact on our view of listening and mutual understanding), at a terminological level (words used in our analyses), at the level of the data (impact on transcriptions) and at the time of conclusions. Although our corpus is solely audio-recorded (here, administrative conversations between administrative agents native of French and non native users), due to difficulties to obtain authorisations for more modalities, it has been treated in this perspective as much as it allowed: this presentation will show how to make the most of audio data with this theoretical background. Brassac Christian (2001) « L’interaction communicative, entre intersubjectivité et interagentivité » in Langages n°144. p. 39-57. Clark Herbert H. (1996) Using Language. Cambridge (GB), Cambridge University Press. Dubar Claude (2001) « À propos de l’individu, du Moi et de l’identité » in Mouvements n°17/4. p. 151-159. Available at: www.cairn.info/revue-mouvements-2001-4-page-151.htm (last visit 09/09/2013). Gibson James J. (1977) « The theory of affordances » in Shaw Robert & Bransford John (eds.) Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing. For an Ecological Psychology. Hillsdale (NJ, US), Erlbaum, p. 67-82. Hutchins Edwin (1995) Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge (MA, US), Londres (US), MIT Press. Kaufmann Jean-Claude (2001) Ego. Pour une sociologie de l’individu. Paris, Nathan. Mace William M. (1977) « James J. Gibson’s strategy for perceiving : Ask not what’s inside your head, but what your head’s inside of » dans Shaw Robert & Bransford John (eds.) Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing. For an Ecological Psychology. Hillsdale (NJ, US), Erlbaum, p. 43-65. Oursel Élodie (2013) Des interactions de service entre francophones natifs et non natifs. Analyse de la gestion de l’intercompréhension et perspectives didactiques. Thèse de doctorat de 3e cycle co-dirigée par Sophie Moirand et Richard Duda, soutenue à l’université Paris 3 – Sorbonne nouvelle le 12 décembre. Paveau Marie-Anne (2010) « Une linguistique symétrique pour penser le discours » in La pensée du discours. Available at: https://penseedudiscours.hypotheses.org/95 (online since 23/04/10, last visit 15/01/16). Schegloff Emanuel A. (1991) « Conversation analysis and socially shared cognition » in Resnick Lauren B., Levine John M. & Teasley Stephanie D. (eds.) Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. Washington (D.C., US), American Psychological Association, p. 150-171. Scollon Ron (2001) Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice. Londres (GB), New York (NY, US), Routledge. Suchman Lucy (1987 [2007]) Plans and Situated Actions: the Problem of Human/Machine Communication [Human-Machine Reconfigurations. Plans and Situated Actions]. Cambridge (GB), Cambridge University Press.

Domaines: Linguistique; Education

Elodie Oursel. Looking beyond language, out and into the world. Language as a Form of Action, Jun 2017, Rome, Italy. ⟨hal-01727162⟩