- 146 - recorded in table 4.6; however, at 0.762, it is still significant at the p 0.025 level for a one-
tailed test i.e. less than a 1 in 40 chance of obtaining this result by chance.
4.5 Evaluative Devices Preferred by Young Speakers
In the previous section we were looking at whole clauses; we now turn to specific devices of internal evaluation. Table 4.8 gives a count of the total number of each evaluative device
used by the eight speakers in the six stories; however, as we noted in chapter 2, pages 40– 42, not all the devices coded as evaluative in the transcriptions are necessarily used
effectively. In chapters 6 and 7 we discuss this difference between the effective use of evaluation and the presence of syntactic structures or phonological features which are only
potentially evaluative. As we remarked in chapter 2, page 35, because the same devices may perform a referential or an evaluative function, it is not always easy to decide in every case
which is the one intended; it may even be both. Then, in chapter 1, page 5, we noted the difference between the early use of evaluative devices as a means of highlighting events in
their local setting and the use of these same devices by more mature narrators to signal the hierarchical organization of the linear events they are describing.
Table 4.8. Total number of evaluative devices used in the data Continued overleaf
INTENSIFIERS TOTALS COMPARATORS
TOTALS 1. Phonology
487 1. Imperatives
19 2. Direct Speech
407 Hortatives
3 Direct Quotation
16 2. Questions
70 3. Direct Address
11 3. Negatives
116 Exclamations
4 4. Futures
22 Interjections
38 Modals
99 4. Foregrounding
59 Quasimodals
47 5. Lexical Items
142 5. Comparatives
10 Emphasizers
18 Superlatives
9 Lex. Intensifiers
28 6. OR-clauses
3 6. Quantifiers
64 7. CHP
13 Phras. Quantifiers
18
- 147 -
INTENSIFIERS TOTALS COMPARATORS
TOTALS 7. Repetitions
105 8. Single Appositives
34 9. First Language
14 + Derogatory Remarks
1 Totals 1446
411 CORRELATIVES
EXPLICATIVES 1. Be...-ing
31 1. Simple: Qual.
6 Double...-ing
2. Simple: Caus. 44
2. Double Appositives 4
3. Complex: Qual. 3. Doub. Attributives
14 4. Complex: Caus.
Mult. Attributives 12
5. Comp. : Qual. 4. Participle: Right
21 6. Comp. : Caus.
Participle: Left 7. Clarification:
5. Compound N P 22
substitution addition of
Compound Adj P 3
Lexical Items 19
Compound L P 2
ClauseSent. 6
6. Optional P P 14
Totals 123 75
Table 4.9 translates the raw scores into percentages: of the four major categories, 70 percent of all the devices found are Intensifiers, 20 percent are Comparators, 6 percent are
Correlatives, and only 4 percent are Explicatives. Within each major category percentages are given for each significant subcategory, with individual devices grouped together
according to their general function within the narrative.
- 148 - Table 4.9. Total percentages of evaluative devices used in the data
Continued overleaf
INTENSIFIERS s
COMPARATORS s
70 20
1. Phonology 34
1. Imperatives 5
2. Direct Speech 29
Hortatives Direct Quotation
2. Questions 17
3. Direct Address 4
3. Negatives 28
Exclamations 4. Futures
41 Interjections
Modals 4. Foregrounding
4 Quasimodals
5. Lexical Items 13
5. Comparatives 5
Emphasizers Superlatives
Lex. Intensifiers 6. OR-clauses
1 6. Quantifiers
6 7. CHP
3 Phras. Quantifiers
7. Repetitions 7
8. Single Appositives 2
9. First Language 1
+ Derogatory Remarks CORRELATIVES
s EXPLICATIVES
s 6
4 1. Be...-ing
25 1. Simple: Qual.
8 Double...-ing
2. Simple: Caus. 59
2. Double Appositives 3
3. Complex: Qual. 3. Doub. Attributives
21 4. Complex: Caus.
Mult. Attributives 5. Compound: Qual.
4. Participle: Right 17
6. Compound: Caus. Participle: Left
7. Clarification:
- 149 -
CORRELATIVES s
EXPLICATIVES s
5. Compound N P 22
Substitutionaddition of Compound Adj. P
Lexical Items 33
Compound L P ClauseSent.
6. Optional P P 12
If we look at the raw scores, we can see that Expressive Phonology and Direct SpeechQuotation account for nearly half of all the devices coded. We could argue that
direct speech is not a single device like most of the others, neither is it one that Labov specifically discussed. Could it not just as well have been included under external
embedded evaluation as it has some features in common with it? We have chosen to analyse it as the complement of the speech verb, and the speech verb is seen as an action
verb like any other. Toolan 1988, in his section on “doing and saying” comments as follows:
Perhaps the most basic point to emphasize is that Labov works on the broad assumption that what is said by yourself or others will not be the core of a story; that, rather,
what is done by you or others will be. The “what is done” then becomes or may become the core narrative text of clauses—actions—while the “what is said” becomes
evaluative commentary on those actions. 1988:157 Toolan goes on to state that “more complicated imbrications of words and actions are also
possible, where the sayings are the most important doings—are the ‘actions’ of the narrative—revealing a fixity of sequence of those sayings, temporal juncture, and so on” p.
158. We are not talking about verbal “doings” of this kind here, but we are making the point that speaking is an action, and that to choose to advance the story in this way is an
evaluative decision because its whole purpose is to dramatize the events being described for the benefit of the hearer. Clearly, our subjects prefer to tell their stories this way, and
this can be demonstrated by the fact that they often include far more conversation than was used in the original.
- 150 - We have no problem with Expressive Phonology because Labov himself treats it as
intensification. However, Labov’s devices are both stylized and conventional, whereas we are calling anything which expressively enhances the meaning or significance of a clause
evaluative phonology; the decision may be based on positive feedback from the interlocutor, e.g. an appreciative giggle or interjection, but often it is an arbitrary decision
based on a subjective feel for whether the phonology is merely a neutral factor or whether it does add an extra dimension to the telling.
So, in many ways, both Direct SpeechQuotation and Expressive Phonology are more “external” than some of the other preferred devices. If we exclude them from our
calculations, we are still left with a total of 536 for Intensifiers; of these: 35 are lexical devices;
20 are repetitions; 15 are quantifiers;
11 are foregrounding devices; 10 are boundary features;
6 are appositive expressions which pack in extra information about characters, or the temporal or spatial orientation of events;
3 are lapses into L1, which report particularly noteworthy events or include derogatory remarks.
Lexical devices head the list but repetitions are not so numerous as either Modals or Negatives in the Comparator category. Not only are Modals and Negatives together with
Questions the devices which seem to be most popular among our subjects i.e. after Expressive Phonology and Direct SpeechQuotation, they are also the most successfully
used. As we shall see in chapters 6 and 7, there are degrees of effectiveness in the choice of evaluation; first, we must ask ourselves, is it evaluative, and then if so, how successful is
this use of evaluation? Here we acknowledge the fact that we have added extra devices in all four categories, but
especially in the Intensifiers, and also that some of the devices we have coded are not all that effective, and may even contain errors; however if we exclude Direct
SpeechQuotation and Expressive Phonology, the overall picture agrees with Labov’s findings for his preadolesent subjects, even though not in the details. From ten fight
- 151 - narratives, his subjects produced an equal proportion of Intensifiers and Comparators
46, and an equal proportion of Correlatives and Explicatives 4. His figures include no Phonology, Lexical Items, or Repetitions; no Futures, or OR-clauses; and only a single
Double Appositive and Simple Causal. Our adjusted figures are: 47 percent Intensifiers, 36 percent Comparators, 11 percent Correlatives, and 6 percent Explicatives, and we have
examples of all the above devices. As predicted by Labov, Correlatives and Explicatives are not widely used by young
speakers; in our data, together they account for less than 10 percent of all the devices coded. Labov mentions the possible exceptions of the right-hand participle and the simple
causative clause: we have forty-four examples of simple causatives 59 percent of all Explicatives but only twenty-one of right-hand participles 17 percent of all Correlatives.
The only other significant results from Labov’s original categories are the thirty-one progressives 25 percent of all Correlatives used to signal simultaneous, continuous, or
closely related actions. Twenty-one percent of all our Correlatives are attributives but we have added the category Multiple Attributives to account for nouns modified by several
adjectives andor prepositions. We have a significant number of Compound Phrases twenty-seven in all and also fourteen “optional” prepositional phrases e.g.
Accompaniment and Benefactive which pack additional information into the clause. Clarifications account for 33 percent of all Explicatives; children do try to make the
information they give as clear to their interlocutors as possible and sometimes this means correcting a slip or adding new information.
4.6 Intensifiers and Evaluative Syntax
