Abstract
Studies of linguistic structures have long been predominantly conducted from a static, atemporal and product-based perspective, based upon the idealisation of speech data (transcribed speech or invented data), which assumes language as the final product of a fixed and autonomous abstract grammatical ‘system’ (consisting of phrases, clauses and sentences), separating concrete speakers from incremental speech production in real-time interactional communication. The structural tradition of language observation and grammatical description accepts ‘the premise that language structure is independent of language use’ (Bybee and Hopper, 2001: 1), as is codified in Saussure’s langue–parole and Chomsky’s competence–performance distinctions. However, this tradition seems inadequate to the description and analysis of authentic spontaneous speech produced in interactive contexts. Therefore, in this book, Haselow puts forward an innovative perspective on grammar and language processing which provides an alternative approach to the traditional formalist and functionalist description of grammar and structures.
In addition to Introduction and Conclusions, the book has five chapters. After introducing the product-based and process-based views of grammar, the Introduction chapter points out that spontaneous speech (with ‘unintegrated’ expressions and ‘defective’ syntax) is a challenge for grammatical modelling following traditional clause-based approaches and, therefore, proposes The Grammatical Dualism Assumption which posits that linguistic processing is based on principles of both microgrammar and macrogrammar.
Chapter 2 introduces the theoretical bases of this study of spontaneous speech. Drawing on the principles of Giddens’ Structuration Theory and Harris’ Integrationalism, Haselow develops an Interfield Approach, encompassing grammatical, conversational and neuro-linguistic analyses, to achieve triangulation in the analysis of spontaneous speech. In Chapter 3, the two types of grammar distinguished in this study are discussed. Microgrammar deals with the internal organisation of emergent structural units based on linearisation and hierarchisation, whereas macrogrammar deals with the organisation of language based on three parameters, namely, cognitive aspects, text organisation and addresser–addressee relationship, which involves linearisation but no hierarchisation. Chapter 4 analyzes the use and features of ‘unintegrated’ expressions (macrogrammatical expressions not integrated into hierarchical relations) produced in temporal slots and conversational spaces – Fields (initial, medial and final fields) – to tackle specific communicative tasks in real-time interactions.
Chapter 5 deals with the second manifestation of macrogrammar, that is, the ‘disintegrated’ and ‘defective’ syntax of spontaneous speech. Spontaneous speech needs to be structured in formats that are based on shorter units (segments) to achieve processing efficiency, and three syntactic formats allow for maximal efficient processing: minimal structures (ellipses), chaining syntactic segments (into larger structural units) and far-reaching projections (initial segment projecting a second one and opening up a larger structural span). Chapter 6, based on corpus and experimental data and drawing on the research findings of neuro-linguistic studies, discusses the plausibility of the Grammatical Dualism conceptualisation. Experimental research evidence shows that the production and interpretation of microgrammatical and macrogrammatical expressions (units) involve different brain structures (e.g. left or right hemispheres), and they are thus processed differently, which supports the assumption of dualistic organisation of grammar.
In the Conclusions chapter, Haselow summarises the findings of the study, refers to the major points of critique that he has been facing and struggling with, and puts forward some questions for future research.
This monograph is fundamental in theoretical, methodological and pragmatic aspects. Theoretically, it develops the conception of ‘emergentism’ which highlights the emergent nature of linguistic structure (grammar) in real-time speech production rather than the realisation of the abstract ‘deep structures’ based on a monolithic system of categories and descriptive rules. Adopting a similar view of language to Michael Halliday, Paul Hopper, George Lakoff and others, this perspective diverges from the assumptions of American structuralism and Transformational-Generative Linguistics, attempts to ‘temporalize structure’ and ‘preserve the essential real-time interactive nature of language’ (Hopper, 2015: 325) and regards grammar as a dynamic temporal phenomenon rather than a fixed timeless system.
Methodologically, the book adopts an interfield approach (linguistics, discourse and cognitive neuroscience of language) and dualistic perspective (microgrammar and macrogrammar) to the study of grammar and language processing, from which any discourse segments (‘unintegrated’ or ‘extra-clausal’ expressions) in spontaneous speech can be observed, described and analysed without being subsumed under ‘peripheral’ or ‘ellipses’, viewed as ‘ungrammatical’ or ‘ornamental’, and thus put into the ‘wastebox’ of pragmatics. This approach expands the notion of ‘grammar’ and ensures that language is analysed in its natural form (authentic talk produced in spontaneous conversation) rather than being reduced to the idealisation of speech data.
Pragmatically, the book not only provides readers with concrete examples of analysing authentic spontaneous speech data, but also puts forward questions particularly worthy of further investigation and exploration, which lends researchers fresh insight into study of spontaneous speech and grammar.
This monograph evidently carries massive implications for research into grammar and linguistic structure since it broadens the notion of grammar and provides an alternative approach to it, enabling researchers to investigate the emergent grammar of speech from an integrated perspective, differing from the monolithic, ‘fixed-code’ and sentence-based approach to language and grammar through which grammar has been described and analysed.
The book is also of immense significance to academics in discourse studies, a field where spontaneous spoken language data have become the mainstream research objects. Based on the theorisation of ‘dualistic organization of grammar’ and the ‘openness and emergent feature of structure’ proposed in the book, discourse research will be forwarded through integrating sentence-based syntactic (microgrammatical) description and analysis of the hierarchical structures with non-sentence-based (macrogrammatical) description and analysis of ‘unintegrated’ and ‘disintegrated’ discourse segments so as to broaden the perspective of linguistic analysis and get closer to the nature of real-time interactive communication. Therefore, this book is highly recommended to scholars of discourse and grammar.