Linguistic and nonlinguistic codes

ContentsArgument I. The process of CommunicationI.1. Defining concepts I.2. Types of Communication I.3. Interpersonal Communication II. Interpersonal Codes II.1. The Linguistic Code II.2. The Nonlinguistic Code III. Interpersonal Relationships and Codes IV. Codes and Interpersonal Strategies IV. 1. The Argumentative Strategy IV. 2. The Interpersonal Persuasion IV. 3. The Strategy of Manipulation IV. 4. The Strategy of Negotiation IV. 5. The Politeness Strategy IV.6. Cooperation IV. 7. Active Listening

ContentsV. The Collector (the summary of the novel)V.1. Cultural Discourse in John Fowles’ s The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s WomanVI. The text Analysis VI.1. Miranda and Clegg- Two Different Classes/Cultures/Languages VI.2. Disclosing the Feeling of Despair VI.3. Miranda’s Art of Negotiation VI.4. Miranda and G.P.’s Art of Manipulation VI.5. Miranda’s Struggle to Persuade VI.6. Miranda’s Desire to Cooperate VI.7. Miranda’s Politeness Strategy VI.8. The Active Listening Strategy VII. Conclusions VIII. Bibliography

ArgumentThe starting point of this diploma paper is represented by the diversity of the theoretical practice regarding the Interpersonal Communication. The object of my research is based on a thorough study of the modern theories of the Interpersonal Communication, as reflected in the Cultural discourse in one of John Fowles’s novels. in order to sustain the theoretical income, I have chosen as support for my analysis The Collector, that I have considered relevant due to the relationships that are described within itself, selecting conversational excerpts that I have found eloquent in what concerns the realization of the discourse, using the face work strategies through speech acts.Cultural discourse is seen as tightly related to the modern society, and in this way the discourse can be seen as having the form of a spoken or written utterance, marked by the cultural model it belongs to, being considered either under a diachronic or synchronic perspective.I have tried to oppose the two discourses, the one of the collector, Frederick, belonging to the many, to the polloi, a Greek expression denoting in English the masses or the people, and the one of Miranda, the collected, realized at the level of the linguistic and nonlinguistic codes and their elements.

ArgumentIn interpreting The Collector I have started from the viewpoint that the author developed in Aristos, he coined the term, based on the Greek word meaning best, to refer to chararcters who exhibit certain qualities of individual superiority. The character G.P. in The Collector sums it up in his personal manner: But you don’t compromise your background. You cut off all the old you that gets in the way of the maker you. If you’re a suburban,…you throw away (cauterize) the suburbs. If you’re working class, you cauterize the working class in you. And the same whatever class you are, because class is primitive and silly (135).Miranda, one of the central characters of the novel under analysis, exhibits qualities that make her become an Aristos character: she has got ability to create, she proves to be superior in front of Caliban, the name that she gave to Frederick Clegg, through the arguments and the strategies she used in order to persuade him to free her, being secure of her own qualities, she belongs to The Few.

I. The Process of CommunicationI.1. Defining conceptsCommunication is the term applied to the active process established between a sender and a receiver (addresser)by means of which the first one transmits to the second his or her intentions of signification. It is realized simultaneously through the transmission of signs and signals, the sign representing static situations and the signal, a process. More signs taken together form a code.Many researchers understood the process of communication by means of some communication models/patterns, trying to adapt them to the needs of the individual in the contemporary society. There are six fundamental communication (relational) needs that a person exhibits : the need to speak, the need to be understood, to be recognized, to be valued, to influence and the need of privacy.Saussure makes an interesting distinction between langage, parole and langue, to which there are added: the index, the signal, the icon and the symbol.La langue is the concept designating the description of the formal properties, la parole (the word) represents the verbal aspect, while le langage (the language) is the sum of the two elements. McQuail considers, though, the language of gestures, of physical position as another form of communication.

I. The Process of CommunicationI.1. Defining conceptsStarting from the idea that it is impossible not to communicate, the representatives of the Palo Alto School reached the conclusion that : communication takes place at two levels (informational and relational); it can be digital and analogical; it is irreversible and it implies symmetrical and complementary transactions. These principles have in view some factors: 1. Not only our words communicate; there are also our appearance, clothes, posture; that convey information about us.2 Communicating, we establish relationships.3. The message influences us in one way or another. (irreversibility)4. Communication is a permanent process of adjustment and negotiation between and among individuals and it implies conditioning between or among the messages transmitted. This can be judged at two levels: between or among messages belonging to one individual and that between/among messages belonging to two participants to communication/

I.2. Types of Communication The intrapersonal communication – Alan Pease and Alan Garner have stated that the interpersonal communication begins intrapersonally. and a possibility of manifestation and development of the intrapersonal communication is called nowadays positive thinking.The daily communication may be placed on a continuum scale, a transition from impersonal to interpersonal.The Interpersonal Communication has its foundations in the intrapersonal communication, set in motion by internal or external stimuli, which determine inside the individual such processes as: reception, processing (cognitive, emotional, physiological) and transmission.The impersonal communication is that form of communication which enters in opposition with the interpersonal one (the individuals are not perceived in report with their feelings and emotions and also it excludes the existence of a chooser, addressable, reflective interlocutor)Other forms of communication, one including the other, are the concepts of mass-communication and the one of public communication (included in the first one). The public communication, as a concept, is tightly related to the notion of public zone.

I.3. Interpersonal CommunicationIn the Interpersonal Communication people behave as having the following characteristics: being unique, un-measurable, reflective, a chooser and addressable. The Interpersonal Communication has the following definite functions: the instrumental function (try to determine the interlocutor to do something), the linking function (the individual is linked to the environment), the expressive function ( thoughts and feelings), the regulatory function (it regulates behaviours), the ontological person-building function (based on contacts with other people).Certain variables may affect the Interpersonal Communication:1. The disclosure of self that supposes the respect for other’s needs2. the permanent desire of face-want becomes the condition of interaction in the human communication and everything that the individual does to save the face becomes face work/figuration.3. The negotiation in order to avoid conflict and using certain techniques and tactics: explanations, excuses, a certain negotiation style etc.4. The Feed-back (the individual evaluates) and Feed-forward (the individual’s preoccupation for setting up plans)5. The active/responsive listening/dialogic listening6. The nonverbal/paraverbalbehaviour and the management of the interpersonal conflict.

II. Interpersonal CodesThe codes are systems formed of many categories of signs and they are also dynamic entities, in a permanent change, as they do not belong to some isolated individuals, but to some collectivities. D. Chandler proposed a classification of codes, taking into account a semiotic perspective: social codes (verbal language, bodily codes, commodity codes, behavioral codes), textual codes (scientific, aesthetic, genre, rhetorical and stylistic codes, mass-media codes), interpretative codes (perceptual and ideological).From a descriptive point of view, codes may be classified into:Overt and explicit codesCovert codes (literary texts)According to the type of user, there are:Secret and public codes

II. 1. The Linguistic CodeThe sender and the receiver base themselves on the knowledge of the communication rules that guide the construction of the sense beyond the simple equivalence between expression and sense. These rules are conceived both by Ducrot, who calls them laws of discourse, and by P. Grice, who calls them conversational maxims.In what concerns the conversational rules formulated by P. Grice, they constitute the different aspects that the Cooperation Principle has got, and that can be grouped into categories called maxims: the maxim of quality (the contribution to the dialogue must seem true), the maxim of quantity (informative contribution), the maxim of relation (requires pertinence) and the maxim of manner (clarity of expression). M. Joss distinguishes five styles of the oral communication: The Frozen Style (the sender doesn’t know the receiver), The Formal style (the discourse in front of a numerous public), The Consultative Style (characterized by discussions, negotiations, business meetings), The Casual Style (conversations between friends), The Intimate Style (filled with words showing affection). According to Martinet, dialogue means communication (the central function of the language seen as instrument). In her work, I. Sterpu makes a clear distinction between the dialogue in the spoken language and the one belonging to the written text. The audience constitutes an extra-dialogal participant (present, but not interfering) or active (a casual receiver of the messages). The participants to a dialogue submit to two kinds of conditions, internal (the participants psychic coordinates: the competence know/can and the motivation want/must) and external (the same spatio-temporal framework) ones.

II. 1. The Linguistic CodeThe means of realization of the dramatic dialogue are: le bouclage (and le non-bouclage, meaning the way in which a retort is linked by another one), the repetition (ballet des paroles or variations on a certain subject, underlines the emotive function of the language), the interruption (assures the passage from one reply to another and the succession of topics in a dialogue) , the dialogue containing narrations (the technique of a reply within a reply, having a dynamic character) and the monologueThe illocutionary force of a speech act can be construed from a variety of devices, which encompasses verb classes, types of modal verbs, sentence structure, intonational contour. According to J. L.Austin, there are five classes of illocutionary speech acts: the verdictives(eloquent performative verbs: to esteem, to consider, to condemn), the exercitives (the expression of a for/against decision, including verbs of the kind: to plead, to revoque, to name, to forgive, to nominate), the promissives/commissives (have as a consequence the obligation of the locutor concerning the exhibition of a certain kind of behavior; the verbs are: to promise, to swear, to engage oneself), the expositives (revealing a certain vision, of motivations or arguments)Different types of arguments have been formulated, such as the classification offered by K.C. Rybacki and D.J. Rybacki: the simple argument (sustained by a single assertion), the successive/chain argument (a series of arguments linked between them), the bunch argument (a number of assertions sustaining independently the same conclusion), the causal argument (between phenomena there is no temporal link and there is an order in everything )S. Savulescu distinguishes three other types of arguments: arguments linked to the ethos (of moral and affective order), arguments linked to the pathos (adapted to our psychological profile), arguments linked to the logos (deductive, analogical, ethimological, causal, oppositive), behabitives (the locutor’s reactions towards the previous behavior of somebody else)

II. 1. The Linguistic CodeThe illocutionary force of the speech acts is very well rendered by sentecnces and in this respect, A. Bantas has suggested several classifications of the sentences, taking into account different criteria: 1. From the point of view of the purpose of communication, there are: declarative sentences (used to affirm, declare or state something, without any emotional implication; they resort to the Indicative mood), interrogative sentences (expressing curiosity, they are subdivided into: general, special/particular, alternative and disjunctive questions), imperative sentences (including commands, requests, invitations). The exclamatory sentences are strictly connecte to our emotions.2. From the point of view of the structure/composition, there are : the simple sentence (only one thought), the compound sentence ( more coordinated clauses), the complex sentence (more main or subordinate clauses)3. From the point of view of their status, there are: independent sentences, main clauses/head clauses, regent and subordinate /secondary clauses.

II. 2. The Nonlinguistic Code (the bodily code)According to A. Cruse, the Nonverbal Communication submits to a dichotomy: discrete (arbitrary) signs, such as words and continuous(iconic) signs, such as the nonverbal behavior, drawings.Ch. S. Pierce included, in his classification of signs the paralinguistic elements, the bodily type, the charisma, the clothing and the accessories, the use of space and the assertion of some social distances, the tactile contact, the indexes-control of time, the icons (signs with referential capacity), the emblems ( or the symbols, that are bodily movements translated in words and they are different from a culture to another).There are different types of emblems (according to O. Pânisoară): the illustrators (the ones that reinforce the words), the regulators (using a complex of bodily movements), the exhibition of feelings (revealing the intensity of our emotions), the adaptors (used by individuals when they find themselves in uncomfortable situations), the face expressions (the mimics), the eye-contact and the body language (gestures, movements, positions). T.K. Gamble and M. Gamble divide the body language into two subsystems: the posture and the gestures.

II. 2. The Nonlinguistic Code (the bodily code)A. PostureAny kind of sudden change of external posture reflects a sudden change of the inner posture (for instance the running position denotes a person whose look is directed from down to up, the open position is the one in which the hand is partly covering the chest area and the arm leans upon, the leant on one’s back position signifies self-importance). Having a strict relation with the positions of the body, the proxemics is understood as a way of communication through space. In this way there are different types of zones and distances:The personal zone: the close mode: 45-74 cm , the social zone, close mode from 1,25 to 2,10 m and the public zone (between 3,60 and 7,50 m)B. GesturesKinesics is the study of communication through gesture and a larger classification of the gestures is the following: batons/rhythmic gestures, ideographs (showing the direction of thoughts), deictic movements (that indicate objects), spatial movements (express the spatial relationships), kinetographs, pictographs (that draw pictures of the referent), metaphoric gestures (depict abstract entities), beats (are aligned with prosodic prominence). There are also: compensatory gestures (gesture used to replace items), supplementary gestures (additional non-redundant gestures, accompanied by a pointing gesture), completion gestures (that put an end to the utterance), substitutive gestures (linked to the length or distance between participants)

II. 2. The Nonlinguistic Code (the bodily code)The eye-contact The oblique look- from down to up means a cringing attitudePerpendicularly oriented look (the head is lifted)- a growing interest concerning something or somebodyThe look headed to the left side- bending towards logic and objectivityThe look headed to the right side –orientation towards imagination, creativity, personal memories.The clothing and the accessories , indexes of the control of time (chronemics), the tactile contact, the bodily type, all these give specific information about the attitude, behavior or even social condition of the people.As paraverbal elements we can distinguish the pitch of voice or the accent, the intonation.

III. Interpersonal Relationships and CodesAny type of relationship follows a certain pattern of development, thus passing through different stages that are analyzed by M. Knapp: Relationship development- explained in the Relational Escalation Model as: initiation (greetings and mannerism), experimenting (the individuals ask questions in order to gain information about them, deciding whether to continue or not the relationship) , intensifying (interactants see each other as individuals), integrating (the others come to see them as pair), bonding (a formal announcement is made).Desintegration of Relationship – explained in the Relationship Termination Model as: differentiating (the individuals gain independence in topics), circumscribing (the individuals avoid certain topics of discussion), stagnating (others begin to take notice that something is wrong), avoiding (physical separation), terminating (can occur positively or negatively).The Horizontal Relationship: an ax belonging to one aspect gradually directed towards the distance and towards privacy and familiar; it is negotiable and negotiated.Vertical Relationship: it is an asymmetric relationship, in which the inequality between the participants is supported by such factors as: age, sex, status, interractional role etc.M. Milcu identifies three forms of interpersonal relationship: cooperation, competition and conflict, that suppose attraction and reciprocal rejection.

IV. Codes and Interpersonal StrategiesIV.1 The Argumentative Strategy In the theory of argumentation, the dialogue represents an interpersonal relationship of symmetrical communication between partners who are searching for a sollution to their problem of communication.Aristotle distinguishes between deductive and rhetorical arguments. The deductive argument brings to a conclusion starting from primary true premises, without requiring any completion while the rhetorical/inductive argument justifies a decision, attacks or defends a pretention; if the premises are true. IV.2 The Interpersonal Persuasion involves people’s ability to create and convey appropriate responses, to identify and explain creative solutions and to motivate people to positive change. IV.3 The Strategy of Manipulation is to be recognized in the observation of some meta-words, meta-expressions, meta-sentences, typical for the speaker (forming the meta-language).IV.4 The Strategy of Negotiation is based on the win-win situation between both parties.IV. 5 The Politeness Principle is based on two axes: the positive politeness (being complimentary and gracious to the addressee) and the negative one (in ways of mitigating the imposition , such as: hedging, pessimism, indicating deference, apologizing and impersonalizing).

IV. Codes and Interpersonal StrategiesThe FTA theory, according to Brown and Levinson, identifies two faces also: the negative face (waiting one’s actions to be constrained or inhibited by others, the rights to territories) and the positive one (the positive self-image that people have about themselves and their desire to be appropriated by other people).Types of face threatening acts (FTAs) there are: for the negative face of the other: requests, complaints, offers, for the negative face of the speaker (one’s self): promises, acceptance of offers, thanks, for the positive face of one’s self: apologies, compliment acceptance.IV. 6 Cooperation -related to the FTAs, indicate awareness and concern for the other’s positive face wants.IV. 7 Active Listening brings to effective interpersonal communication, usable for: information (correcting the wrong perception that the speaker has on the conflict), moral support, advisability, calming the other and answer to the verbal attack.

The Collector by John Fowles (the summary of the novel)The title character is Frederick Clegg, a clerk of the Town Hall and a butterfly collector (who prefers to be called Ferdinand, but to whom is given the name Caliban, in this way we can identify a thread of Shakespeare’s The Tempest), who decides to kidnap the long-admired object of his fantasy, an art student named Miranda Grey.Frederick keeps her prisoner in a room in his secluded basement. He is able to give her everything, but her freedom. The first chapter offers Frederick’s viewpoint as one who cannot separate, in his madness, the real world from his own thoughts (and this because of the way in which are rendered the conversations with Miranda: her replies are marked by inverted comas, while his are not).Near the end, an unexpected tragedy occurs and we are thrust in the terror of the situation (back into the reality), discovering Frederick whose fear overcame his humanness, so that he couldn’t bring the girl to a doctor, letting her die and afterwards deciding to burry her under an apple tree.

V.1. Cultural Discourse in John Fowles’ The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s WomanThe cultural discourse in these two novels is seen through language, because Nicholas and Conchis, on one side, and Sarah, Ernestina and Charles on another, are either trapped, or have a special link with the linguistic or nonlinguistic codes they use, the narrators revealing their social and even cultural belonging through the usage of the physical display and of all sorts of bodily movements.Sarah is the source of mystery that brings with her another cultural background, opposed to the tortoise- like English life style, the French one, meaning also lack of conventionality and exotism, illustrating a sort of Aristos capable of surpassing her time. A foreign background is the one dominating The Magus too, but what in The French Lieutenant’s Woman represented just an innuendo, here becomes an entire exotic setting: Greece is the country illustrated not only through its surroundings, but through its culture, into which Nicholas is trapped and consequently, spelled. Conchis, another Aristos character, has acquired the technique through which he can adjust his behaviour according to the conversational situations. Though the contrast between masculine and feminine, that Fowles underlines in all his novels, it is clearly revealed in The Magus: Men see objects, women see relationships between objects. (The Magus, p. 413)

VI. The text analysisVI.1. Miranda and Clegg-Two different Classes/Cultures/LanguagesV. Miranda Grey and Frederick Clegg submit to two different steps of both relationship development (initiation, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, bonding) and disintegration of relationship (differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding and terminating), each step being seen through the perlocutionary and illocutionary speech-acts.VI. F. I dream about it, I said. It can’t ever be real. M. Like Tantalus.Like in the example above, Miranda places Frederick (or Caliban, as she names him) into a mythological context, Tantalus being an intertextual element revealing a cultural meaning, that he is not able to catch: she identifies Caliban with the one who cannot reach his freedom of expression or who cannot achieve any emotional fulfillment, due to his impossibility of discerning the real from the imaginary world. She wants to give him an equivalent, using this kind of argument, that is a deductive one, beginning with the effects, rendered by his impossibility of establishing any normal bonding and reaching the premise, the typology in which she places him: He is the New People and I am the Few (p. 242).It can be said that his discourse is one of nothingness, and hers one of somethingness, because she is the one bringing arguments in expositive speech acts, trying to build her image. This excerpt illustrating the Frederick’s nothingness is based on a bunch, causal argument, revealing his future intentions through verbal markers, such as: insects, die, lot, no mercy, Great Beyond, Nothing.

VI. The text analysisVI.1. Miranda and Clegg-Two different Classes/Cultures/LanguagesMiranda’s discourse is in Standard English and in dramatic form, as she is capable of motivating herself, of seeing herself as another, of using the emphatic means- that form of projective behavior which is defining for humans. Unlike Clegg’s, her basic exercises are re-construction and reinscription of figures or introduction of people and events into a cultural image. She has no trouble identifying in Clegg the class and sex deficiencies. She is , in the same time, the novelist’s projection, condemning as Caliban’s England (…) and together the apathy in England.Miranda is permanently sawing an intelligible net over the events, trying to understand them in terms of arguments of similarity, available in a previous cultural construction. She is able of spiritual progress, her present suffering, instead of hardening her, helps her to think and understand things better. Miranda is the representative of the elite and of the intellectuality, she’s Fowles’ feminine projection, as G.P is the masculine one, two Aristos, both of them condemned by The Many.

VI. The text analysisVI.2 Disclosing The Feeling of DespairM. It hurts so when I coughF. It is only a cold, I said.M. It’s not a cold. She nearly shouted at me.F. Of course it’s a cold, I said. And stop acting. I know your game. M. I’m not acting.F. Oh, no. You never acted in your life, I said. Of course not. M. Oh, God, you’re not a man, if only you were a man. (p. 121)Miranda reveals her feeling of despair in a series of bunch, deductive arguments (declarative sentences), that situate her on a lower position(It hurts so when I cough…It’s not a cold and I’m not acting), the relationship that they establish being an asymmetrical one in which Frederick is the one who dominates. She is the Child who complains about her physical state, while he is the Parent who censures her attitude. Shouted is a supplementary paraverbal element, that offers additional information without being redundant. It suggests that Miranda tries to hide fear or anger or , in the same time, witnessing her physical state that is decaying.The text respects both Grice’s and Ducrot’s maxims and laws, requiring clarity, maximum of information and honesty. Miranda’s perlocutionary act is not accomplished.

VI. The text analysisVI.3. Miranda’s Art of NegotiationM. Fresh air? She still had her back turned. F. It’s too dangerous.M. Well, there was a silence, she spoke as plain as words, though in the end I gave in. F. Perhaps at night. I’ll see.M. When? She turned then.F. I’ll have to think. I’d have to tie you up.M. But I’d be on parole.F. Take it or leave it, I said.M. The bath?F. I could fix up something, I said.(p. 50)Miranda’s art of negotiation is revealed by her closed or open types of questions, that are actually elliptical utterances, meant to produce a change in her relationship with Frederick, a change of positions. This attempt is rendered through a nonverbal element, used as a compensatory gesture, meant to substitute words (her back turned).The transactions they realize are between an Adult, Miranda, who gets informed, and Frederick, a Parent characterized by coercion and censuring her attitude. The transaction is a criss-cross one, his discourse being characterized by promissive speech acts, illustrated by verbs at Future Tense Simple (I’ll have to think, I’ll see), denoting the implication in a future action.

VI. The text analysisVI.3. Miranda’s Art of NegotiationBut Miranda is the one who forces the limits of the negotiation, committing face threatening acts towards his positive face, when asking him to let her outside, she produces another promissive illocutionary speech act, rendered by the short form of would and by the verb to be (I’d be).She exposes her simple argument, but to this expositive Frederick opposes an imperious request, marking a directive speech act (Take it or leave it). The transaction , at this point, becomes a complementary one, , between a Child who still enjoys playing games (But I’d be on parole) and a Parent who manifests his authority and forbids.In the end, we have two Adults, both of them adjusting positions, one getting informed (Miranda) and another evaluating the reality by means of a promissive speech act (“I could fix up”)The text does not obey Grice’s maxims and Ducrot’s laws requiring clarity and sufficient information, because of the presence in her speech of the elliptical sentences.

VI. The text analysisVI.4. Miranda and G.P.’s Art of ManipulationThe text I’ve chosen to analyse, reflects mostly G.P’s art of manipulation and Miranda’s impossibility of action:G.P. just that first Botticelli moment of the first time of her taking her clothes off. Soon shrivels. The old Eve takes over (…). Exit Anadyomene.M. Who’s she? I asked.He explained. I was thinking, I shouldn’t let him talk like this, he’s drawing a net around me. I didn’t think it, I felt it. G.P. He said, I’ve met dozens of women and girls like you. Some I’ve known well, some I’ve seduced against their better nature and my better nature, two I’ve even married. (p.186)G.P. are the initials of the painter George Paston, Miranda’s mentor, the one who succeeds to influence her past, the one to which her cultural background and knowledge are linked to. In this excerpt he is the one who initiates an argumentative discourse, passing from a story of his own life to a general case, of the woman’s innocence (he uses the argument of the expert, based on a similarity between his own life and Botticelli’s paintings).Beginning with a deductive argument, from conclusion to the premise, G.P. wants to manipulate her and to build his own image in the same time. His perlocutionary act almost reaches his target, when he mentions the name of the antique deity, Anadyomene, in an attempt of distracting her attention. Through this expositive speech act, in which the verb’s presence is an implicit one, he manages to

VI. The text analysisVI.4. Miranda and G.P.’s Art of Manipulationmake her direct the conversation to the desired point, manipulating the dialogue. Miranda’s open question is a directive speech act, she is the Adult who gets informed. Both Miranda and G.P. respect the maxim of relation and quantity and of quality, G.P. being the one offering sufficient information that should go to the intensifying of their relationship.

VI. The text analysisVI.5. Miranda’s Struggle To persuadeM. I promise, I swear that if you let me go I will not tell anyone. I’ll them all some story. I will arrange to meet you as often as you like, as often as I can when I’m not working. Nobody will know this except us. F. I can’t, I said. Not now. I felt like a cruel king, her appealing like she did. M. If you let me go now I shall begin to admire you. I shall think, he had me at his mercy, but he was chivalrous, he behaved like a real gentleman.F. I can’t, I said. Don’t ask. Please don’t ask. M. I should think, someone like that must be worth knowing. She sat perched there, watching me.F. I’ve got to go now, I said. I went out so fast I fell over the top step. She got off the drawers and stood looking up at me with a strange expression. (p. 41)Miranda commits a series of promissive speech acts with the purpose of persuading him to set her free (promise, swear, will, I’ll tell, I will arrange, will know, shall begin, shall think, should think). These speech acts denote engagements in future actions. They form an inductive argument, that is the premise for a bunch argument, sustaining it. We have a complementary transaction: Child to Child.Through his answer Frederick produces expositive illocutionary speech acts, which are denials (don’t ask, can’t)

VI. The text analysisVI.5. Miranda’s Struggle To persuadeMiranda uses another type of argument, the one of the similarity between cases, when saying: he behaved like a real gentleman.Because his thoughts are rendered in the discourse, this gives us a clue upon the posture that Frederick adopts, of running, mentally and physically.Miranda uses even the strategy of positive politeness with verbs like shall and should, the last one having a predictive meaning. She commits face threatening acts towards her own self, because she does not obtain any result following her strategy of persuasion.Frederick does not obey Grice’s maxim of relation, because he decides to interrupt the conversation.Her speech acts are compensated by a last nonverbal compensatory element, the eyes and the mimics, the direction of her thought being given by these ideographs.

VI. The text analysisVI.6. Miranda’s Desire to CooperateM. Tell me more about your father.C. I told you.M. He got killed in a car-crash before the war. Your mother went off with another man.C. She was no good. Like me. (I gave him an icy look).M. So your aunt took you over (…) Like Mrs. Joe and Pip.C. Who?M. Never mind.C. She’s all right. She kept me out of the orphanage.M. And your cousin Mabel. You’ve never said anything about her. (p. 194)C. She’s older than me. Thirty. There’s her older brother, he went out to Australia after the war with my Uncle Steve. He’s a real Australian. Been out there years. I never seen him. (sic)In this dialogue, both characters prove their desire to cooperate, that could go, in the end, to a self- disclosure from both sides. Through her first speech act, Miranda initiates the cooperation, as a result of her desire to get informed. She is using a technique of persuading him that is based on the assertive repetition of some utterances that do not belong to her, but to him.

VI. The text analysisVI.6. Miranda’s Desire to CooperateHe self discloses in an explicit manner and enlarges the open pane of his self, minimizing the other one, which is the hidden one.Miranda reveals her attitude towards his words nonverbally (icy look), as a supplementary non-redundant nonlinguistic element, that gives force to her opinions.She is the Adult who draws conclusions, placing his situation in another cultural context, offering in this way the argument based on the similarity between a case belonging to the Victorian period that was characterized by a harsh behavior towards the orphans and his particular one, fact that is not understood by Frederick, whose expositive revealing the desire of getting informed is blocked by Miranda’s never mind, that is a reflection of her attitude and of the broken communication.The text does not obey the maxim of manner, as both characters commit elliptical utterances (“Who?”, “Thirty” or And your cousin Mabel).

VI. The text analysisVI.7. Miranda’s Politeness StrategyIn the end she grew calm, she lay there with her eyes shut for a while and then when I moved she said, Will you do something for me? F. What, I asked.M. Will you stay down here with me and let the door be open for air?Well, I agreed (…) (p.124)This text is preceded by a nonverbal element (“with her eyes shut”) that reveals her state of mind and constituting a sort of ideograph, a gesture indicating the direction of thought.His change of posture produces a reaction from her part, trying to cooperate with him and using, for this purpose, the positive politeness strategy, underlined by the subject-operator inversions in closed questions (will you stay, will you do, let) that constitute mannerisms, meant to draw the attention of her interlocutor. The perlocutionary act is accomplished, as a result of his act of agreement.The transaction they realize are complementary ones, between two Adults, one who follows a certain purpose by using behabitives and the other one getting informed.Frederick doesn’t obey Grice’s maxim of manner, because he’s using an elliptical question (“What?”)

VI. The text analysisVI.8. The Active Listening StrategyM. She said, Your photo was in the paper.I’ve always hated to be found out, I don’t know why, I’ve always tried to explain, I mean stories to explain. Suddenly I saw a way out.F. I said, I’m only obeying orders.M. Orders, she said. Whose orders?F. I can’t tell you.She would keep staring at me. Keeping her distance, too. I suppose she thought I would attack her.M. Whose orders? She said again. (p.33)In this text, the active listening is diminished to a simple technique in the interpersonal communication, being part of the persuasion strategy and it is suggested by her reaction and by a verbal cue, sending to a pause in speech: the adverb again, that reinforces the repetition of an interrogative utterance: Whose orders? This is a closed question that has the purpose of increasing the tension.The distance imposes an asymmetrical relationship that is rendered through her space movement, meaning that Miranda protects her private space, on the social axis. The transaction they realize are criss-cross ones (between Miranda, the Adult and Frederick, the Child). Her repeated questions are FTAs upon Frederick’s image, who does not want to self-disclose and to enlarge his open pane.

VII. ConclusionsEach of us need to communicate and in order to do this, we use linguistic and nonlinguistic codes integrated in a psycho-social context, having as basis our cultural background.Taking into account the above mentioned facts, I have started from the premise that the cultural discourse influences the interpersonal relationships that we establish, the strategies of face work that we use to adjust our behavior according to the others’ and how all these are being reflected by both linguistic and nonlinguistic codes. So, I have structured my diploma paper, as follows:The first chapter tries to define main concepts of the interpersonal communication, reaching up to its characteristics and its main types: The Interpersonal, The Intrapersonal, The Impersonal and The Mass/Public one. The second chapter constitutes itself as a sum-up of the linguistic and nonlinguistic elements that are classified according to different perspectives, with the arguments integrated within the main types of illocutionary speech acts (see Austin, Searle and Evans), these taxinomies compensating one another.The experts of the Interpersonal Communication chose to make a clear distinction between gestures, spatial distances, posture, mimics, clothing, bodily type, pitch of voice as well as its accent, these last two belonging to the paralinguistic elements.

VII. ConclusionsThe next chapter is concerned with the problem of the relationships, M. Knapp formulating two models according to which he interpreted them: The Relation Escalation Model and The Relation Terminating Model.The forth chapter wants to underline the link created between the linguistic and nonlinguistic codes and the strategies we use in our daily conversation and that describe our way of approaching the others.The last chapter focuses on two main relationships that Miranda Grey establishes: With Frederick Clegg, the kidnapper (and the New People) and with G.P (her mentor). She negotiates her position within the asymmetrical relationship that she establishes with Frederick Clegg, developing her strategy of face want in the same time. She wants to manipulate Frederick in order to set her free, developing a win-win strategy in order to gain his trust.

Selective Bibliography1. Bonta E. (2004): “Dombey and Son” An Interpersonal Communicative Approach, Cultural Perspectives;2. Cmeciu D. (2003): Signifying Systems in Literary Texts, Ed. “Egal”, Bacau3. Gullberg, M. (1998): Gesture as a Communication Strategy in Second Language Discourse, Lund University Press;4. Pease, A and Garner, A (1997): The Language of Speaking (The Art of Conversation), Ed. Polirom, Bucharest;5. Rybacki, K.C. and Rybacki D.J. (2004): Introduction in the Art of Argumentation, Polirom, Iasi;6. Tarbox, K. (1985): The Art of john Fowles, The University of Georgia Press, Athens and London7. John Fowles (2004): The Collector, Vintage Classics, London

Linguistic and nonlinguistic codes

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Linguistic and nonlinguistic codes