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Section 3. Linguistics
Khrisonopulo Ekaterina Yurievna, Saint-Petersburg State University of Culture, Candidate of Philology, the Faculty of World Culture, Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics E-mail: hrisonopulo@mail.ru
The interactive dimension of personal reference in dialogic responses: the case of I bet and you bet in English
Abstract: The proposed paper explores motivations for contrastive uses of English first- and second-person pronouns as constituents of the clauses I bet and you bet in dialogic responses. As evidenced by linguistic data, both pronouns contribute — in different ways — to the expression of communicative support by shaping the clauses with bet as interactively aligned utterances.
Keywords: personal pronoun, dialogue, communicative support, speech event, interactive alignment, epistemic state.
The proposed paper aims to reveal motivations for contrastive uses of English first- and second pronouns as clausal subjects in dialogic communication. Traditionally, the pronouns I and you are treated as the basic items of personal deixis whose function consists in reference to the speaker and the addressee, respectively. However, a number of the pronouns' uses in actual communication suggest that reference alone may not provide sufficient basis for choosing a particular pronoun as a clausal subject. A case in point is the distinction between I and you when the pronouns make part of the expressions I bet and you bet in dialogic responses, as in (l) and (2):
(1) 'I couldn't say no to an offer like that.' — "I'll bet!' (www. macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/bet).
(2) 'Are you coming too?' You bet.' (www.macmillandic-tionary.com/british/bet).
According to Macmillan English Dictionary [7], that provides the above examples, the expressions I bet and you bet convey the meanings specified here in (la) and (2b):
(la) used for saying that you understand or agree with what someone has just said;
(2a) used for saying 'yes' in an enthusiastic way.
Both definitions are obviously very similar and suggest that — independently of which pronoun is actually used — the collocation of the pronoun with bet is intended to convey a kind of "epistemic support" to the initial speaker. On the other hand, I bet u you bet receive contrastive definitions in cases like (3) and (4):
(3) 'I'm going to tell her what I think of her.' 'Yeah, I bet!' (www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/eng-lish/bet_l).
(4) 'Are you nervous?' You bet!' (www.oxfordlearnersdic-tionaries.com/definition/english/bet_l).
According to Oxford Learner's Dictionaries [8], I bet and you bet in (3) and (4) convey the meanings given in (3a) and (4a):
(3a) ... to tell somebody that you do not believe what they have just said;
(4a) ... used instead of'yes' to emphasize that somebody has guessed something correctly or made a good suggestion.
The uses of I bet and you bet in (3) and (4) show that whereas the first one conveys disagreement, the latter one, again, functions as a way of saying 'yes'. Besides, whatever the communicative import of the expression employed in response, it is obviously not directly related to the actual reference of the lst or the 2nd person pronoun. In all the four mentioned examples it is the speaker's agreement or disagreement which is expressed, not the addressee's. This implies that the contrast between I and you as constituents of the respective collocations goes beyond a purely referential distinction.
The proposed study of non-referential values conveyed by English I and you has involved addressing the following four theoretical points: (a) E. Benveniste's [l] suggestions on the functional properties of personal pronouns, namely, double reference of the first- and second-person pronouns manifested through their pointing to speech-event participants via prior evocation of "the instance of discourse" and close interrelat-edness of I and you in "the correlation of subjectivity"; (b) a cognitive grammar account of personal pronouns suggested in R. Langacker [3; 4; 5; 6] that posits the latter's association with conceptual content on the basis of their relation to the ground, the current discourse space (CDS) and intersubjec-tivity; (c) the assumption, substantiated in Stewart et al. [l2] on the crucial role of dialogic interactions and coordinating activities in the generation, shaping and enactment of meaning; (d) the theoretical approach suggested in the studies of
E. Sidorov [9; 10; 11] that contain an account of linguistic phenomena from the perspective of activity theories of cognitive processes and speech phenomena and that posit the principle of communicative coordination and interactive alignment as the basic mechanism for the speaker's and addressee's activities in communication in general and for the interlocutors' choices of linguistic items (including pronouns) in particular.
In what follows, the paper discusses contrastive uses of I bet and you bet with special focus on particular contribution of the pronouns to the meaning of the expressions in dialogic responses. The analyzed data come from two main sources: the corpus of spoken English represented in the British National Corpus (BNC) [13] (500 examples); online dictionaries of Contemporary English [7; 8; 14; 15] (75 examples).
The first step of analysis has involved assessing the communicative import of utterances in turn-initial position. At this first step it has been established that I and you are used alternatively in dialogic responses in two usage types: in reactions to oral narratives, as in (1); in responses to the previously expressed direct or indirect questions, as in (2) and (4).
Within these two usage types the collocation with I occurs in reactions to oral narratives, whereas the clause with you comes as a response to the first speaker's question or some form of expressing uncertainty. At first sight, there is no obvious rationale behind this distribution of responses, since the speaker (I) takes epistemic commitment in the form of betting about the story s/he doesn't know, and, on the other hand, the act of commitment-taking is suggested to the addressee (you bet) in a situation where it is nearly impossible to do it because of the addressee's uncertainty.
In accounting for the rationale behind the seemingly illogical uses of I bet and you bet it is necessary to identify the communicative needs that are either explicitly or implicitly signaled by utterances in turn-initial positions. In most general terms, a communicative need, or motive, makes an integral part of an utterance as a unit of speech activity, which, in turn, is included into a particular speech event as a unit of communication [10, 109-127]. Following the assumption that an utterance in a communicative event presents a unit of an interactively aligned speech activity (see, for instance, [9, 72; 10, 84]), the use of the pronouns I and you as clausal subjects may be plausibly considered as linguistic items that contribute to this alignment or, more specifically, respond to the communicative need, as conveyed by an utterance in the turn-initial position.
Coming to the identification of the mentioned communicative needs at the second stage of analysis, it is supposed that such needs can be conveyed — both directly and indirectly — either in the initial speaker's utterance or in the second speaker's response, for instance, in case of echoing or elaborating some aspects of the previously expressed content.
The corpus of dialogues that contain oral narratives in turninitial utterances and that elicit (as mentioned previously) responses with I bet suggest that the primary communicative need
of the one who tells a narrative is to be listened to and be understood by an interlocutor. Obviously, this need is understood by the initial speaker's interlocutor in example (5):
(5) 'They're a pretty depressed lot at the moment' I bet they are. They have nothing to do. Not much to look forward to ...' (BNC).
In mentioning a negative emotional state of the people in (5) the initial speaker wants to make the narrated story part of dialogically negotiated "shared knowledge". The co-speaker reacting to the story with I bet signals — through the very use of I — that he activates, or enacts, a speech event and that he is thus cognitively and communicatively involved in the further discussion of this story. Moreover, this communicative support is elaborated in the subsequent utterance where the second speaker provides some explanation of the people's depressed state. Similarly, the use of I in I bet helps to express communicative support in example (6):
(6) '... she wanted to watch this film. I said no, you don't get into bed you know?' 'Yeah.' 'She was asleep within ten minutes.' I bet! Best way er.' (BNC).
In the given example, the initial speaker directly addresses his interlocutor to support the statement that there was no way of getting to bed while watching TV. The requested support comes from the second speaker who says I bet and further confirms the negotiated idea by calling it "best way".
What the given examples in (5) and (6) have in common is that the 'I' of the co-speaker is implicitly requested to make the corresponding oral narrative part of shared knowledge as a necessary prerequisite for further communicative interaction. On the other hand, it remains unclear why the first-person pronoun collocates with bet if there is no actual betting on the part of the speaker. Besides, there are no obvious reasons for choosing the first-person pronoun as a way of activating the "instance of discourse", since the latter can be equally enacted by you.
One of the possible answers to the posited questions is that enaction requires intentionality and if, following Gallagher [2], one assumes that it is the consciousness of 'self' which is associated with the sense of agency and "ownership for action" it is only natural to use I (rather than you) for signaling the intentional evocation of a speech event. Besides, the enaction of intentionality with the use of I obviously entails the evocation of the intentional component in the meaning of the verb bet. This intentional component is specified in Oxford Learner's Dictionary [8], as shown in (7):
(7) bet: ... trying to predict the result.
The cited part of the definition "trying to predict the result", in turn, presupposes the ability to imagine the situation in question and to grasp its essence. Thus, according to The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online [14], the phrase I bet, used as a response, conveys the sense specified in (8) and illustrated by examples in (8a) and (8b):
(8) you understand or can imagine the situation that someone has just told you about. (www.ldoceonline.com/diction-ary/bet_1).
(8a) 'God, I was so angry.' 'I bet you were.' (www.ldoceon-line.com/dictionary/bet_l).
(8b) 'It makes things much easier.' 'Yeah, I'll bet it does.' (www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/bet_l).
In other words, owing to the enaction of intentionality in uses of I as part of I bet, saying I bet amounts to saying I imagine, and this is precisely what is needed by an author of an oral narrative. When a participant of a conversation can bet and thus intentionally imagine something he or she sounds empathetic and supportive, as in the following conversation:
(9) 'Ah, we were pleased, Daddy and I' "I bet you were.' (BNC).
The co-speaker's imagining the narrative is especially needed when it contains a description of some unusual circumstances, as in (l0):
(10) 'I started to come round when they put me on the slab. I was lucky not to go straight in the fridge, I tell you.' I bet!' 'The word 'autopsy' kept running through my mind. You know? But they were at the end of their shift. They closed the old door behind them and there I was alone with a few dozen stiffs. Assuming they were stiffs and not afresh consignment of medical mistakes.' (BNC).
In (l0), the narrator speaks about having been taken for a dead person in hospital and about his escaping the fridge by a mere chance. The phrase I bet which comes as a reaction to the story from the co-speaker signals the latter's active involvement in the narrated plot through the act of intentional mental visualization and thus — through giving an epistemic guarantee (I bet) that the story is plausible. In other words, the I of I bet functions as a trigger of the interlocutor's communicative support, which stimulates further narration.
Obviously, triggering intentionality though the use of I would also involve evocation of actual, rather than fictional, or virtual reality. As a result of this, in cases when a turn-initial utterance describes from an interlocutor's viewpoint — an unreal or improbable situation, as it was in example (3) earlier, the response I bet would integrate two senses: the ego's intentional evocation of actuality (I); the ability to imagine an actual situation as opposed to the one described (bet).
As a result of combining these two senses, the response I bet can convey irony or sarcasm, as in (ll) and (l2):
(11) 'I'm definitely going to give up smoking this time.' 'Yeah, I bet!' (www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/bet_l).
(12) 'And so I promise lower taxes and a better world for everybody,' the candidate said. I bet,' muttered John (www. wordreference.com/definition/bet).
The irony of I bet in both cases is reflected in the corresponding dictionary definitions given in (lla) and (l2a):
(lla) Used to show that you do not believe what someone has just told you (www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/bet_l).
(l2a) Used to express sarcasm, or to show disagreement (www.wordreference.com/definition/bet).
Interestingly, the expression of irony or sarcasm puts a constraint on the combinability of bet with the second-person pronoun you. Of special interest here is the reason behind
that constraint, considering that in cases like (ll) and (l2) it is the statement (and, in a way, "betting") of the addressee (you), not the speaker's (I), which is the object of irony. The constraint can probably be explained with reference to the communicative value of you in collocation with bet.
As mentioned earlier with reference to examples (2) and (4), the use ofyou bet as a response contributes to the confirmation of what has been previously suggested in an uncertain manner. This suggests that the very use ofyou in a dialogic response signals the addressee orientedness of the respective utterance, or its interactive alignment with the interlocutor's needs. The need in question is that of having more certainty about the issue being discussed. The use of you in this context qualifies the interlocutor as a salient participant of a speech event, whereas the use of bet ascribes an action to the addressee ("betting") which is necessary for regaining the state of certainty. In other words, saying you bet is supposed to communicate more confidence to the addressee in a negotiated situation.
Usually uncertainty is expressed in the form of a question. It can also be conveyed by a clause that refers to a speaker's supposition, as in (l3):
(13) 'I suppose you are right,' the young hedgehog allowed. [...] You bet your bristles I'm right,' Ferd replied (BNC).
The expression you bet may appear in responses even when there is no explicit reference to the first speaker's state of uncertainty, for instance:
(14) 'We can't let her go alone,' he said to Jack. You bet we can't!' Jack hurled himself down and Ho followed (BNC).
In (l4), the pronoun you identifies the addressee not only as a participant of a speech event, but as the subject of an epistemic state. In this case, the undertaking of the announced action (= not letting a third person go alone) requires that the first speaker be certain that he would be right in doing so. The response you bet obviously contributes to settling the epistemic problem through the integration of two dialogic instructions: (a) establishing the addressee as a focus of attention (you) in an epistemic (or mentally represented) situation; (b) attributing to the addressee potential epistemic commitment taking (bet), which in turn presupposes communicative enactment of an epistemic state that is requisite for the performance of the announced action.
The analyzed examples show that there are both differences and similarities in uses of I and you in collocation with bet. Both pronouns act as triggers of a speech event, which puts the content of the initial utterance onto the plane of shared knowledge. On the other hand, whereas I enacts the intention of one's self in imagining the negotiated content and placing it in the sphere of actuality, the use of you places the interlocutor into the sphere of epistemic (or virtualized) reality where the potential act of betting is intended to stabilize or alleviate the state of uncertainty.
The function of you as a trigger of enaction of an epistemic state becomes salient when the initial speaker does not resort to the explicit verbalization of uncertainty, as in (l5) and (l6):
(15) Merrill smiled. 'Well, see you in church, as they say.' You bet. I'll be there with bells — as they say,'Rob laughed. 'Wedding bells.' (BNC).
(16) 'Nowyou look like everyone else!' he complained. 'You look like every other shop girl!' 'No, I do not, Patsy!' Ellie retorted. 'No shop girl could afford this style! This style is the very height of fashion!' You bet,' Patsy said. 'And where are you planning to show it off? At Sunday lunch? When Pa gets home?' (BNC).
In (15), you bet functions as a response to the implicit uncertainty on the part of the first speaker that the characters would get married. On the other hand, the use of you bet in (16) provides some communicative support to the initial
speaker by informing the latter that she could have some certainty (you bet) about acceptability of her disputable opinion.
Results of the conducted analysis suggest that contrastive uses of first- and second-person pronouns in collocation with the verb bet are motivated by the needs of communicative interaction rather than by reference to different speech-event participants as such. As constituents of complex linguistic expressions (such as I bet and you bet) the pronouns function as enaction triggers of experiences and states that are requisite for maintaining — through communicative support — further dialogic interactions.
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