1. Doing space: The pragmatics of language and space

In: Andreas H. Jucker and Heiko Hausendorf (eds.). (2022). Pragmatics of Space, -20. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.

Abstract

Language use and space are connected in intricate and multiple ways, and therefore pragmatics must account for the numerous dimensions of the spatial parameters of communicative interactions. At the same time, space needs to be seen not as a pre-existing, physical entity, but as something that is being done in the process of using language. This introductory chapter discusses these basic aspects, which permeate all the contributions of this volume, and it introduces three interfaces of language and space: space within language, language use within space, and language(s) in space. The pragmatics of space cannot be reduced to one of these perspectives, but they serve as useful heuristics to structure the contributions of this volume. The chapter also discusses a range of different conceptualizations of space that are relevant for pragmatics, and it proposes some perspectives for future research in the pragmatics of space.

1. Introduction

Why do we need a handbook dedicated to the “Pragmatics of Space”? The contributions of this volume will themselves provide rich evidence for this need. In this introduction, we will answer the question from two different angles. As we will argue, pragmatics must intrinsically account for space since spatial parameters essentially belong to language use. Accordingly, there is a direct connection from pragmatics to space. Conversely, there is some reason to assume that linguistic accounts of space in themselves need pragmatics. For it is pragmatics that can best bring in the perspective that space is something to be done by the participants (see Jucker et al. 2018), i. e. not a physically given entity but something emerging in and from discourse. Taken this way, there is also a direct connection from space to pragmatics. But before turning to this twofold reasoning in favor of a genuine pragmatic vision of space and language, we will begin by illustrating the general connection between language and space that has been a challenge for linguistics right from the beginning and somehow beyond the traditional fragmentation into syntax, semantics and pragmatics. When we explore some of the important interfaces between space and language, we enter a field of research that has been massively discussed across several disciplines. This becomes obvious in the contributions of this volume whose authors systematically provide reviews of the literature of their specific fields. In this introduction, we will, therefore, pick out some references only selectively in order to indicate the richness and diversity of the literature without any extensive coverage of the different fields. First and foremost, our goal is to comment on the structure of this volume with its four sections and to sketch out the many ways in which the contributions approach the issue of space from the perspective of linguistics and pragmatics. First, we will argue that the pragmatics of space cuts across different interfaces between space and language (Section 2). In Section 3, we will consider the perspective from pragmatics to space, or, to put it differently, we consider the question of why and in what sense pragmatics needs space. In Section 4, we will turn the tables and look at the perspective from space to pragmatics, or, why does space need pragmatics? The last section provides a brief conclusion and some thoughts on potentials for future research directions. In all sections, we will, of course, regularly refer to the individual contributions of this volume but for actual summaries, readers are referred to the abstracts that precede the individual contributions.

2. Interfaces between space and language

The relationship between space(s) and language(s) establishes a fundamental concern for linguistics which has been accounted for again and again. Natural languages are closely and intricately intertwined with spatial parameters both on a micro level and on a macro level (called, for instance, the “double spatial indexicality of language” by Auer et al. 2013: 10). On a micro level, spatiality belongs to the speech situation in an extensive way. Particular types of discourse require particular spaces. But it already starts with the physical distance between the participants. In spoken interactions that do not rely on the help of technological devices, speakers have to be within earshot of each other, that is to say they have to share a common physical space. And actual spaces may have a very considerable impact on whether and how the interaction is possible. On a building site with loud machinery, in a disco with ear-piercing music or somewhere close to a runway with airplanes taking off and landing, spoken interaction may be close to impossible. Other surroundings are not only conducive to interactions, but they are actually purpose-built to enable certain types of interactions. This is true for most if not all types of institutional communication: Lecture theaters, assembly halls, playhouses and churches are all specifically constructed to provide the necessary affordances for specific communicative events. They generally assign specific places to speakers and listeners and make sure that listeners can hear and see the speakers even across distances that in other environments would be too large for easy spoken interactions. For this space between speaker and listener, Edward T. Hall, one of the pioneers of early interaction studies, coined the term of “proxemics” (1969), which he studied across different cultures and communities. According to the title of his book, there is a “hidden dimension” of communication that becomes obvious via the participants’ spatial configuration within certain formations among which the so-called “face-to-face interaction” is the most prominent and “canonical” constellation (see Haddington and Oittinen, and D’Antoni et al. this volume). This basic anthropological configuration has left its traces in the linguistic resources that help us to orient ourselves within interactional spaces, most obvious in the case of deictic expressions (or local or positional adverbs) that relate to the speaker’s position (such as “here”), specify embodied differences of spatial orientation (like “in front” vs. “behind” or “right” vs. “left”) or indicate directional aspects of movements (with the speaker’s position as source or target: “to” vs. “from”) (see Levinson 2003; as well as Auer and Stukenbrock, and Gerwien and von Stutterheim this volume).

On a macro level, natural languages are generally tied to specific spaces or localities. People who live in the same geographic area share a common linguistic code that allows them to interact. In our everyday understanding of different languages, such as French, Japanese, Igbo or Swahili, they are first and foremost bound to geographically defined spaces. Wikipedia entries on specific languages typically start with an indication on the localities where they are spoken. This is true both for languages that are restricted to a well-defined and perhaps very small area and for languages that are spoken in many different places across the entire world, such as English or Arabic. Language, that means languages, as H. Weinrich once put it in the title of one of his monographs (Weinrich 2003), and rightly so, one might add: Language, that means spaces. Accordingly, different parts of the world are defined by referring to “their” language: entire continents as in the case of “Latin America” or regions within a country as in the case of “German speaking”, “French speaking” or “Italian speaking Switzerland”. As a result, linguistic forms (across different levels of description from phonology to syntax, from lexis and semantics to pragmatics) can be mapped onto geographically defined spaces and can accordingly constitute linguistic areas (at different scales) which can be flagged within “linguistic atlases” (see Schneider and Félix-Brasdefer this volume). It goes without saying, however, that a fixed and stable, even nation-state vision of language and space (one territory, one language) as evoked perhaps by the tradition of cartographic representations is entirely inadequate. The relation between language and space has to be considered as a dynamic and ever-changing one including phenomena such as multilingualism, migration and diasporas. But nevertheless, language change, in itself, is situated in space, and physical proximity of speakers with different first languages inevitably leads to language contact and contact-induced change. The very process of speaking as the production of sounds allows listeners to infer the speakers’ home and origin from aspects of pronunciation. In this way, relevant aspects of identity and belonging are indicated in a most effective and often inevitable way. We habitually “place”...