Linguistic Mitigation in English and Spanish

How Speakers Attenuate Expressions

Nydia Flores

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781032238500
• eBook ISBN: 9780429000119
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume offers a comprehensive examination of mitigation in speech in English and Spanish, exploring how it is defined and theorized and the various linguistic features employed to soften or downgrade the impact of a particular message across a range of settings. Building on the body of work done on mitigation in English, the book begins by discussing how it has been conceptualized in the literature, drawing on politeness theory among other perspectives from pragmatics, and highlighting increasing research on these topics in native and bilingual Spanish speakers and learners of Spanish. The volume explores examples from a variety of discursive contexts, including institutions, courts, and classrooms, to unpack mitigation as it occurs in spontaneous speech through different lenses, looking both at the actual units of discourse but also taking a broader view by examining differences across dialects as well. The book also looks at the ways in which conclusions drawn from this research might be applied pedagogically in language learning classrooms. This volume will serve as a jumping-off point for broader discussion in the field of mitigation and will be of particular interest to graduate students and researchers in pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis, in addition to learners and pre-service teachers of Spanish.

1 Linguistic Mitigation

Introduction

This chapter centers on defining and operationalizing linguistic mitigation as a linguistic and socio-pragmatic-affective phenomenon. Several concepts are also discussed concerning how mitigation intersects with vagueness and indirectness. While most researchers have shaped their perspectives on mitigation through the lens of Politeness Theory, and have examined the expression of mitigation within the realm of speech acts, we discuss this phenomenon using a broad lens. We consider mitigation as a communicative strategy that goes beyond the realm of politeness. It serves to decrease the illocutionary force of a message to its listener, and it has a socio-affective function since, at times, it is related to increasing solidarity, negotiating, garnering support, masking intentions, and even deception, among many other functions, to presumably win over or gain acceptance.

A Brief on Mitigation

Research on linguistic mitigation emerged as early as the 1970s–1980s when most work related to it was seen under the guise of vagueness or expressions of indirectness (i.e., hedges). Caffi (2007, p. 51), for example, explicates the emergence of the concept of mitigation was borne out of a concern of pragmatic research which attended to illocutionary acts within discourse. The seminal work of Goffman (1971) with the concept of thanks minimization (e.g., ‘not at all’, ‘my pleasure’, ‘don’t mention it’) seems to have prompted researchers to consider how speakers downgraded messages.

We also found early discussions on mitigation in Labov and Fanshel (1977) within therapeutic discourse, a study that documented how a client’s utterances were considered mitigating or aggravating. The study also discussed a myriad of paralinguistic cues (e.g., prosodic) and linguistic forms such as ‘just a little’ and how they intersect with mitigation. Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989) also attended to issues related to mitigation in their examination of speech acts of requests and refusals. For instance, Blum-Kulka et al. (1989, p. 287) discussed downgraders, lexical, phrasal, and syntactic mitigating supportive moves and preparatory formulas such as ‘I’d like to ask you something …’ among many other linguistic features that also manifest in Spanish (e.g., Me gustaría preguntarte algo …). These examples are representative of mitigated expressions which, as head acts, suggest that a direct or negative statement may be forthcoming. In essence, research on mitigation has persisted for approximately 50 years.

Throughout the years, the scholarship produced on mitigation has referred to mitigation as hedging (Holmes, 1995), attenuation (e.g., Briz Gómez, 1995; Leech, 1983), and downgrading (e.g., House & Kasper, 1981), among others. While there have been several definitions attributed to mitigation, our first encounter with this phenomenon was borne from Lakoff (1972), who proposed that attenuation is related to the concept of hedging.

Caffi (2007) further posits that there are different types of mitigation centered on the locutionary aspects of an utterance; the locutionary (i.e., vagueness or weakening of an act), illocutionary (i.e., the indirectness of the act), and perlocutionary acts (i.e., attenuating effects). So while we understand that mitigation entails vagueness and indirectness, we may ask how is it that attenuation is realized? Here are several examples that may be illustrative of her explanation:

1. Indirect expressions are not imperatives. (‘It’s hot in here.’ vs. ‘Open the window.’)
2. Questions can be formulated as indirect requests. (‘Don’t you think it’s hot in here?’ vs. ‘Open the window.’)
3. Preparatory formulas can attenuate a request. (‘Do you think it is possible for you to open the window.’ vs. ‘Open the window.’)
4. Responses can be indirect. (‘Well, I’ve tried to open it before.’ vs. ‘No, I can’t.’)

The weakening effect is found in ‘it’s hot in here’, ‘don’t you think …’, ‘do you think it is possible …’, ‘well, I’ve tried to …’. We can claim that these expressions represent a modulation, a decrease in the strength of an utterance. For instance, ‘it’s hot in here’ can be realized by engaging the listener and issuing ‘Do you find it hot in here?’. Naturally, depending on the relationship of the interlocutors, the power dynamics, and other factors, the illocutionary force may produce different results. An addressee may merely agree while another may ask what can be done to alleviate the heat. A colleague of equal rank, for instance, may suggest: ‘Have you tried opening the window?’ whereas a student or an assistant may say: ‘Do you want me to open it for you?’ or ‘Why don’t I open the window?’.

We gather from this brief explanation that attenuated expressions entail a degree of indirectness and vagueness. More importantly, however, its manifestation relies on the speaker-addressee relationship and the contexts in which social interactions occur. In general, we modify our expressions to accommodate to the situation at hand. The decrease in illocutionary force of a message touches every realm of communication, albeit institutional talk or informal talk among friends. What is perhaps most important is that attenuation does not manifest with a set of specific syntactic structures, prosodic features, lexical items, and so forth. It is boundless, and it is highly dependent on the speakers’ need to soften, pad, or cushion a message, all conditioned by the addressee(s) involved in a particular interaction.

We argue throughout this book that mitigation represents modulation—a cushioning, padding, softening of an expression—and that the degree of modulation is mediated by many factors surrounding the interaction and the speaker(s) and hearer(s).

Czerwionka (2010, p. v) posits that mitigation represents a modification of language in “response to social and cognitive challenges (stressors) in contexts of linguistic interaction” following the work of Martinovski, Mao, Gratch, and Marsella (2005). Czerwionka argues that previous research attended to mitigation through word and utterance levels of language. However, her seminal work defines mitigation outside the realm of words, and she suggests that the manifestation of mitigation largely depends on two factors: A degree of uncertainty and a degree of imposition a speaker may face during an interaction. Also, in this book, we view mitigation as a psychological and socio-affective phenomenon, not only a linguistic one, an observation we will substantiate with authentic excerpts produced by speakers of Spanish and English.

Mitigation in the Field of Socio-Pragmatics

Mitigation or atenuación (as it is known in Spanish) has been defined as what we do with language that results in softening the effects of a message or decreasing the harshness of a message. It does not manifest in specific linguistic forms and features (Schneider, 2013). Instead, it is how forms and features contribute to soften, pad, or cushion our messages. It refers to how we use our linguistic resources (e.g., lexical and non-lexical items, discourse markers, verb forms, syntactic structures, morphological and prosodic features) to reduce the illocutionary force of our messages. We can say that when we mitigate, we downgrade the strength and impact of our expressions and, in doing so, we tend to mask our real intentions (Briz Gómez, 1995).

The phenomenon of attenuation can also entail the use of other linguistic features and behaviors such as prosodic or suprasegmental ones (e.g., rising intonation, stress, pauses), and even smiles, laughter, and silence have been found to co-occur with attenuating expressions (e.g., Cabedo Nebot, 2016; Kallen, 2011; Piatti, 2000).

Fraser’s (1980, p. 341) classic example of an employer releasing an employee is illustrative of how a speaker can mitigate unwelcome news. His example: “You’re fired.” as opposed to issuing “It is my unpleasant task as Vice President to bring you the bad news that we are no longer able to retain you in our employ.” is representative of how a message can be attenuated.

Fraser (1980, p. 342) also posits that mitigation involves several features and effects that arise as a consequence of an utterance. His perspective has associated mitigation with how speakers deal with face-threatening acts (e.g., to mitigate the force of criticism or bad news), and how speakers may use linguistic strategies to avoid risk whenever the act entails an unwelcoming effect.

We should point out that defining precisely when communication is attenuated is highly challenging since linguistic features and grammatical structures cannot be isolated. That is, we need to consider how these features and structures, together with context, soften, cushion, or pad a message. Further, at times, attenuated messages¹ go even undetected. In the broad sense, we can say that attenuation refers to how we use language, our linguistic strategies, to reduce the impact of what is being said.

Scholars have conceptualized mitigation within the framework of Politeness Theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987). However, our approach to this phenomenon rests outside the scope of politeness and face-threatening acts as we will discuss throughout the book. We consider linguistic politeness as a form of communication, a behavior, that is universal to all languages and it is culturally bound to societal norms. Leech (1983, p. 3) argued that what is meant to be polite is to “speak or behave in such a way as to (appear to) give benefit or value not to yourself but to the other person(s) you are conversing with”. We view mitigation differently; it does not necessarily always benefit the person we are speaking with; it benefits the speaker. Also, it is essential to dissect polite ‘behavior’ and polite ‘language’ to enable our researcher’s lens to visualize the difference between polite and mitigated language. The book focuses on language, mitigated or attenuated expressions, messages which may not be solely attributed to polite language. Watts (2003) approaches the technical term ‘politeness’ from a variety of perspectives. In general, he approaches the analysis of politeness with how it manifests in language usage, in language interaction. In other words, he focuses on ‘linguistic politeness’. While the manifestation of both politeness and mitigation may be culturally bound, they reflect different expressions of language, and they serve different communicative goals.

Mitigation is not a speech act; it is the modification of the contents of the utterance (albeit oral or written) and the effects it has upon the hearer. Fraser (1980, p. 342) suggests that it is the modification of only those effects which are unwelcoming, but this modification may not be universal to all languages. To this perspective, we add that the scope of mitigation may also entail preparatory formulas and not only the unwelcoming segments of a message. Consider this example in which a spouse is telling her partner that she thinks he cannot do a household chore:

• Don’t you think … that seems too hard for you to handle?
• ¿No crees … que esto se te hace difícil manejar?

In this example, ‘don’t you think’ operates as a head act, a preparatory formula, and an external modification. The main clause contains ‘seems’ which functions as a mitigating device since the wife could have stated ‘is’. In other words, she modified the message in three ways: Formulating a question, a syntactic strategy, prefacing the main clause with an external modification, and employing a verb whose semantic meaning denotes doubt rather than asserts. The same interpretation can be applied to the example in Spanish.

Thus, and as mentioned earlier, mitigation manifests in different ways; it is a socio-pragma-affective-linguistic phenomenon and, as we will see throughout the book, it depends on a speaker’s motivations, linguistic preferences and repertoire, the arsenal of devices speakers have and wish to employ, and the context in which attenuated messages are conveyed. We also note that it is an affective phenomenon in that mitigated expressions may increase bonds and solidarity among the speakers.

Caffi (2007, p. 16)² uses ‘attenuation’ as a synonym of mitigation and posits that it is the result of a weakening operation or a modulation related to the intensity of a message. For instance, on the one hand, a speaker can intensify her message by adding ‘totally’ in English or totalmente in Spanish, by escalating the modulation:

• I totally agree with you.
• Well … I somewhat agree with you.

The lexical items ‘well’ and ‘somewhat’ weaken the strength of the utterance while ‘totally’ increases the intensity. In Spanish the statement may also create the same effect; intensification or a weakening:

• Estoy totalmente de acuerdo contigo.
• Bueno … estoy un poco de acuerdo contigo.

In both languages, these examples convey a similar meaning and they reflect similar degrees of intensity. Also, two functions overlap with the mitigating effects in both languages. For example, by expressing ‘somewhat agree’ or estoy un poco de acuerdo contigo, the speaker is attempting to convey opposition, not only minimizing the impact of the message. The discourse markers ‘well’ and bueno signal doubt and preface what is forthcoming, a negative statement.

We may ask ourselves, why do we mitigate or soften our messages instead of being direct? When we attenuate, we downgrade, or minimize the impact of a message, and this linguistic behavior has been associated with a reduction of face loss (Caffi, 2007; Fraser, 1980; Leech, 1983). Caffi (2007), for instance, has noted that this linguistic behavior is pervasive in our speech. However, several scholars suggest that mitigation is more than a set of strategies (e.g., phrases, words, clauses) we employ to attenuate the impact of our messages (Briz Gómez, 2004; Caffi, 1999, 2007; Czerwionka, 2010; Fraser, 1980; Placencia, 1996; Sbisà, 2001, among others). We also argue that mitigation is not only related to politeness and saving face, a perspective we address more fully throughout the text. In brief, we can say here that we attenuate because we worry and are concerned with ourselves and others; that we worry about what others think of us. That is, we have our i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Linguistic Mitigation
• 2 Empirical Research on Mitigation in English and Spanish
• 3 Several Theoretical Perspectives
• 4 Detecting Mitigation Devices and Strategies
• 5 Putting It All Together
• 6 Methodological Considerations
• 7 Teaching Language Learners How to Mitigate
• 8 Bridging the Gap
• 9 Concluding Thoughts
• Bibliography
• Index