Cover not available
Part of
Reference: From conventions to pragmatics
Edited by Laure Gardelle, Laurence Vincent-Durroux and Hélène Vinckel-Roisin
[Studies in Language Companion Series 228] 2023
► pp. 185–210

Referring to the self and the addressee overtly

An emerging convention in Indonesian argumentative practice?

| The University of Sydney
This chapter explores some ways in which referring to the self and the addressee – or interlocutor reference – by means of pronouns, kin terms or other nouns, accomplishes more than simple referring. Focusing on interlocutor reference in argumentative contexts, the study proposes that referring overtly, i.e., by means of referring forms rather than null expressions, appears to be an emerging convention in Indonesian political argumentation. Data from political interviews are analysed to show how participants employ overt reference to claim knowledge about the states of affairs or the addressee’s cognitive state, position themselves as the party responsible for claims and assertions, and solicit an aligning response from the addressee.
Keywords: pronouns, kin terms, overt reference, Indonesian, argumentative discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Interactional linguistics and the pragmatics of argumentation
  • 3.Interlocutor reference in Indonesian
  • 4.Two ways that minimal reference does more than just refer
    • 4.1The distribution of first-person pronouns in the panel interview
    • 4.2Overt subject/agent and strategic maneuvering
  • 5.More-than-minimal reference and referent regrading
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.228.10dje
References (53)
References
Abtahian, Maya R., Cohn, Abigail C., Djenar, Dwi Noverini, & Vogel, Rachel C. 2021. Jakarta Indonesian first-person singular pronouns: Form, function and variation. Variation and Change in Languages of Indonesia. Special Issue of Asia-Pacific Language Variation 7(2): 185–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bhat, Darbhe Narayana Shankara. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Bilmes, Jack. 2019. Regrading as a conversational practice. Journal of Pragmatics 150: 80–91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carr, E. Summerson & Lempert, Michael. 2016. Introduction: Pragmatics of scale. In Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life, E. Summerson Carr & Michael Lempert (eds), 1–21. Oakland CA: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clayman, Steven & Heritage, John. 2002. The News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures On The Air. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clayman, Steven E. 2013a. Agency in response: The role of prefatory address terms. Journal of Pragmatics 57: 290–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013b. Conversation analysis in the news interview. In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, Jack Sidnell & Tanya Stivers (eds), 630–656. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Clift, Rebecca & Haugh, Michael. 2021. Conversation analysis and sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, Michael Haugh, Dániel Z. Kádár, & Marina Terkourafi (eds), 616–638. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Conners, Thomas J., Brugman, Claudia M. & Adams, Nikki. B. 2014. Reference tracking and non-canonical expressions in Indonesian. In Studies in Language Typology and Change, Yanti & Timothy McKinnon (eds). NUSA 60: 59–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Selting, Margaret. 2018. Interactional Linguistics: Studying Language in Social Interaction. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cysouw, Michael. 2003. The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Djenar, Dwi Noverini & Sidnell, Jack. 2022. Interlocutor reference in Southeast Asian speech communities: Sociolinguistic patterns and interactional dynamics. In Signs of Deference, Signs of Demeanour: Interlocutor Reference and Self-Other Relations across Southeast Asian Speech Communities, Dwi Noverini Djenar & Jack Sidnell (eds), 1–23. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.Google Scholar
Djenar, Dwi Noverini, Ewing, Michael C. & Manns, Howard. 2018. Style and Intersubjectivity in Youth Interaction. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Djenar, Dwi Noverini. 2006. Patterns and variation of address terms in colloquial Indonesian. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 29(2): 22.1–22.16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. Which self? Pronominal choice, modernity, and self-categorizations. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 189(1): 31–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022. Interlocutor reference and deferential relations in Indonesian broadcast talk. In Signs of Deference, Signs of Demeanour: Interlocutor Reference and Self-Other Relations Across Southeast Asian Speech Communities, Dwi Noverini Djenar & Jack Sidnell (eds), 1–23. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2003. The stance triangle. In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 164], Robert Englebretson (ed.), 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, John W., Schuetze-Coburn, Stephen, Cumming Susanna & Paolino Danae. 1993. Outline of discourse transcription. In Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research, Jane A. Edwards & Martin D. Lampert (eds), 45–89. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Emmertsen, Sophie. 2007. Interviewers’ challenging questions in British debate interviews. Journal of Pragmatics 39: 570–591. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enfield, Nicholas J. 2007. Meanings of the unmarked: How ‘default’ person reference does more than just refer. In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives, Nicholas J. Enfield & Tanya Stivers (eds), 97–120. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Englebretson, Robert. 2007. Grammatical resources for social purposes. In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 164], Robert Englebretson (ed.), 69–110. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ewing, Michael C. & Djenar, Dwi Noverini. 2019. Address, reference and sequentiality in Indonesian conversation. In The Social Dynamics of Pronominal Systems: A Comparative Approach [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 304], Paul Bouissac (ed.), 253–287. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ewing, Michael C. 2014. Motivations for first and second person subject expression and ellipsis in Javanese conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 63: 48–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019. Localising person reference among Indonesian youth. In Contact Talk: The Discursive Organization of Contact and Boundaries, Zane Goebel, Deborah Cole & Howard Manns (eds), 140–159. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fleming, Luke & Sidnell, Jack. 2020. The typology and social pragmatics of interlocutor reference in Southeast Asia. Journal of Asian Linguistic Anthropology 1: 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fox, Richard. 2018. More Than Words: Transforming Script, Agency, and Collective Life in Bali. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Greatbatch, David. 1992. On the management of disagreement between news interviewees. In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, Paul Drew & John Heritage (eds), 268–301. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Hacohen, Gonen & Schegloff, Emmanuel A. 2006. On the preference for minimization in referring to persons: Evidence from Hebrew conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 38: 1305–1312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John & Clayman, Steven. 2010. Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities, and Institutions. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John. 1985. Analyzing news interviews: Aspects of the production of talk for an “overhearing” audience. In Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Vol. III: Discourse and Dialogue, Teun van Dijk (ed.), 95–119. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hobart, Mark. 2015. Beyond words: Some thoughts about how Balinese argue. Paper presented at the first symposium on “How Indonesians Argue”. <[URL]> (10 June 2022)
Kaufman, Daniel. 2014. The syntax of Indonesian imposters. In Cross-Linguistic Studies of Imposters and Pronominal Agreement, Chris Collins (ed.), 89–129. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Gene H. 2003. Selecting next speaker: The context-sensitive operation of a context-free organization. Language in Society 32(2): 177–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 2013. Action formation and ascription. In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, Jack Sidnell & Tanya Stivers (eds), 103–130. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 2002[1969]. Convention: A Philosophical Study. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1979. Third person pronouns and zero-anaphora in Chinese discourse. In Syntax and Semantics 12: Discourse and Syntax, Talmy Givón (ed.), 311–335. New York NY: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luong, Hy Van. 1990. Discursive Practices and Linguistic Meanings of the Vietnamese System of Person Reference [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 11]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Manns, Howard. 2012. First-person pronominal variation, stance and identity in Indonesia. Australian Journal of Linguistics 32(4): 435–456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moussay, Gérard. 1981. La Langue Minangkabau [Cahier d’Archipel 14]. Paris: Association Archipel – l’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Nariyama, Shigeko. 2003. Ellipsis and Referent Tracking in Japanese [Studies in Language Companion Series 66]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oh, Sun-Young. 2007. Overt reference to speaker and recipient in Korean. Discourse Studies 9(4): 462–492. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita M. 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, J. Maxwell Atkinson & John Heritage (eds), 57–101. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Prior, Matthew T. 2019. The interactional dynamics of scaling and contrast in accounts of interpersonal conflict. Journal of Pragmatics 150: 92–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey & Schegloff, Emmanuel A. 1979. Two preferences in the organization of reference to persons in conversation and their interaction. In Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, George Psathas (ed.), 15–21. New York NY: Irvington.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emmanuel A. 1980. Preliminaries to preliminaries: “Can I ask you a question?” Sociological Inquiry 50: 104–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1996. Some practices for referring to persons in talk-in-interaction: A partial sketch of a systematics. In Studies in Anaphora [Typlogical Studies in Language 33], Barbara A. Fox (ed.), 437–485. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007. Conveying who you are: The presentation of self, strictly speaking. In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives, Nicholas J. Enfield & Tanya Stivers (eds), 123–148. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sidnell, Jack. 2019. Vietnamese interlocutor reference, linguistic diversity and semiotic mediation. Paradigmi: Rivista di Critica Filosofica 37(3): 467–490.Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Enfield, Nicholas J. & Levinson, Stephen C. 2007. Person reference in interaction. In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives, Nicholas J. Enfield & Tanya Stivers (eds), 1–20. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H. & Houtlosser, Peter. 2009. Strategic maneuvering: Examining argumentation in context. In Examining Argumentation in Context: Fifteen Studies on Strategic Maneuvering [Argumentation in Context 2], Frans H. van Eemeren (ed.), 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans H., Jackson, Sally & Jacobs, Scott. 2015. Argumentation. In Reasonableness and Effectiveness in Argumentative Discourse: Fifty Contributions to the Development of Pragma-Dialectics, Frans H. van Eemeren (ed.), 3–30. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zuckerman, Charles H. P. 2022. “Friends who don’t throw each other away”: Friendship, pronouns, and relations on the edge in Luang Prabang, Laos. In Signs of Deference, Signs of Demeanour: Interlocutor Reference and Self-Other Relations Across Southeast Asian Speech Communities, Dwi Noverini Djenar & Jack Sidnell (eds), 138–159. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.Google Scholar