- 287 - In line 8 she tells us, from the narrator’s omniscient viewpoint, that they are “magic” balls,
but in line 9 Father Christmas refers to them only as “footballs”. This raises an intriguing question for the hearer: did Father Christmas know that they were magic? The repetition of
the facts of lines 8 and 10 in a full description in line 32, omitting only their shininess, ensures that her hearer bears these facts in mind as she listens to the rest of the story.
Repetitions of locative, temporal and descriptive phrases are often coincidental rather than devices deliberately chosen to produce a particular effect: the opening of Fariba’s Story D
is perhaps one of the exceptions: 1
One DAY FAther Christmas was REALly ANGry. 2
He was ANGry 3
beCAUSE he DIDn’t LIKE his PICtures on the CARDS.
The repetition, following as it does the deployment of the lexical intensifier “really” in line 1, combines with it to focus the hearer’s attention on Father Christmas’s uncharacteristic
and unexpected emotional state, while line 3 gives the reason for this anger. Repetition of lexical items within a single phrase include expressions such as “lots and lots of”
mentioned above under quantifiers, “colder and colder” and several examples of the repetition of the lexical intensifier “very”, the best of which is probably that quoted and
discussed on page 269, from Sheiba’s Story C: 12
and the EXsimo [Eskimo] SAID, 13
“It is VERy, VERy, VERy FROSTy there”
where the repetition intensifies an embedded description rather than a particular action.
6.10 Single Appositives
Labov does not include single appositives at all in his list of evaluative devices, only correlative double appositives which are comparatively rare both in his data and ours. The
single appositive is more commonplace, but it does, nevertheless, have the effect of strengthening or intensifying a particular event or description. Quirk and Greenbaum
1973 state that:
- 288 - Apposition resembles coordination in linking units having grammatical affinity. But, in
addition, for units to be appositives, they must normally be identical in reference or else the reference of one must be included in the reference of the other…The relationship
underlying apposition is therefore an intensive relationship…” p. 276 In our data, of the thirty-four single appositives coded: twenty-two 65 percent are nominal
phrases, seven 20 percent are temporal expressions, four 12 percent are locatives, and one 3 percent is an appositive reason clause particularizing a more general causal statement
“he was happy to…go outside for giving for Christmas, giving all the toys” Humira B4445. The most controversial are the nonstandard examples of full NP + pronoun combinations
which appear in error taxonomies such as that of Politzer and Ramirez 1973. We are claiming that the majority of these combinations are used intentionally for special effect and
do not constitute errors, as they spell out for the hearer the exact identity of the referent concerned and his responsibility for the action, e.g. the following from Shvinder’s Story C
where there is a non-restrictive pause between the two appositives: 8
BILly-the TWIT, he FOUND a MAP Shvinder’s C8, which is superficially similar to Politzer and Ramirez’ example: “My brother he
go to Mexico”, is a recapitulation of 5-6 “So Billy-the-Twit went to school and he found a map” and precedes 9-11 which spell out for us the important fact that poor Billy could not
read maps. The effect of the apposition is to focus our attention on Billy himself rather than on the action: he may have found a map but that, in itself, does not guarantee a successful trip.
9 but he DIDn’t know
10
the BLUE parts were the WATer
11
and the RED were the COUNtries.
12 So he SAID,
13
“I’ll go to GREENland.”
14 But he DIDn’t know
what GREENland WAS.
So he was expecting to find plenty of grass there for his cows. The next two examples, where the pronoun precedes the naming of the referents, are not so controversial:
and HE - BILly-the-TWIT - TOOK his SHEEP to GREENLAND Sakander C28 they - ALL the TEAM - was making PLANS
Aqeel B214
- 289 - Sakander is saying in C28 that it was Billy-the-Twit, and no-one else, who took his sheep all
the way to Greenland fortunately Sakander’s Greenland did provide his animals with “sweet, green grass”, and Aqeel in B214 is making sure that the hearer understands that
the whole team were involved in the half-time discussions. Quirk and Greenbaum specifically mention identification of this kind in section 9.52, page 279; their example is: “We
- that is to say John and I - intend to resign”. Other examples of non-restrictive apposition in our data include:
Appellation: One DAY his FRIEND, CALLED BEN, came over Fariba E5
Designation: A-AND Mr. SONG, the ESkimo, lived in ALASka Humira F14
Attribution: and gave them FOOTball, a MAGic ONE Aqeel B216
Reformulation: ONCE upon a TIME there was a MAN - ChiNESE MAN Aqeel A1 Temporal appositives function as additional foregrounding devices, e.g.:
SO ONE DAY,
WHEN HE was asLEEP,
Shvinder A16
And THEN, in the MORning, he WOKE up EARly
Sheiba A10 and locative appositives give more specific positional or directional information, e.g.:
Position: and COMES HERE, in the BOX, to SHUT Humira B35
Direction: And THEN he went BACK, into his HOME Sakander D23
Some appositives, such as reformulation, are akin to what we have analysed as simple explicative clarifications, rather than simply packing more information into the clause. In
adult usage appositional relationships are often explicitly indicated by the insertion of expressions such as: “or”, “namely”, “that is”, “particularly”, “for example” between the
appositives, but all our appositives are simply juxtaposed.
6.11 Use of the First Language
