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 Current Issues in Intercultural
Pragmatics

Istvan Kecskes
State University of New York, Albany

Stavros Assimakopoulos
University of Malta

doi: 10.1075/pbns.274
ISBN: 978 90 272 6570 8 (ebook)
© 2017 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print,
photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission
from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam/Philadelphia
 Table of contents

Introduction 1
Istvan Kecskes and Stavros Assimakopoulos
Part I. The socio-cultural turn in pragmatics
Chapter 1. Determinacy, distance and intensity in intercultural
communication: An emancipatory approach 9
Robert Crawshaw
Chapter 2. “Western” Grice? Lying in a cross-cultural dimension
33
Jörg Meibauer
Part II. Lingua franca communication
Chapter 3. Why is miscommunication more common in everyday life
than in lingua franca conversation? 55
Arto Mustajoki
Chapter 4. “Burn the antifa traitors at the stake…:” Transnational
political cyber-exchanges, proximisation of emotions 75
Fabienne H. Baider and Maria Constantinou
Part III. Business communication
Chapter 5. The interpersonal pragmatics of intercultural financial
discourse: A contrastive analysis of European vs. Asian earnings
conference calls 105
Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli
Chapter 6. Face-threatening e-mail complaint negotiation in a
multilingual business environment: A discursive analysis of refusal and
disagreement strategies 129
Sofie Decock and Anneleen Spiessens
Part IV. Cultural perceptions
Chapter 7. Auto- and hetero-stereotypes in the mutual perception of
Germans and Spaniards 159
Jessica Haß and Sylvia Wächter
Chapter 8. The interactive (self-)reflexive construction of culture-
related key words 181
Ulrike Schröder
Chapter 9. “It’s really insulting to say something like that to
anyone:” An investigation of English and German native speakers’
impoliteness perceptions 207
Gila A. Schauer
Part V. Translation
Chapter 10. Identities and impoliteness in translated Harry Potter
novels 231
Monika Pleyer
Chapter 11. Presuppositions, paralanguage, visual kinesics: Three
culture-pragmatic categories of errors and misunderstanding in
translation and interpreting illustrated on the basis of the language pair
German/Greek 255
Olaf Immanuel Seel
Part VI. Pragmatic development
Chapter 12. Development of pragmatic routines by Japanese
students in a study abroad context 275
Naoko Osuka
Chapter 13. A cross­sectional study of Syrian EFL learners’ pragmatic
development: Towards a taxonomy of modification in interlanguage
requests 297
Ziyad Ali and Helen Woodfield
Chapter 14. The pragmatic competence of student-teachers of
Italian L2 323
Phyllisienne Gauci, Sandro Caruana and Elisa Ghia
Chapter 15. Adaptive Management and bilingual education: A
longitudinal corpus-based analysis of pragmatic markers in teacher talk
347
Laura Maguire and Jesús Romero-Trillo
Index 367
 Introduction
Istvan Kecskes &
Stavros Assimakopoulos
State University of New York, Albany | University of
Malta

Intercultural Pragmatics is a relatively new field of inquiry whose

theoretical frame has been shaped by scholars from all over the world
for more than a decade (e.g. Kecskes 2004, 2013a; Mey 2004;
Moeschler 2004; Haugh 2008; House 2008;). This discipline is
concerned with the way in which the language system is put to use in
social encounters between human beings who have different first
languages, but communicate in a common language, and, usually,
represent different cultures (cf. Kecskes 2004, 2013a). In these
encounters, the communicative process is synergistic, in the sense that
existing pragmatic norms and emerging, co-constructed features are
present to a varying degree. In this respect, what intercultural
pragmatics attempts to offer is an alternative way to think about
pragmatics.
Serving as the theoretical foundation for intercultural pragmatics,
the socio-cognitive approach was proposed by Kecskes (2008; 2010;
2013a; 2013b) and Kecskes and Zhang (2009) as an attempt to
emphasise the dialectical relationship between a priori intention (based
on individual prior experience) and emergent intention (based on
actual social situational experience), as well as egocentrism (individual)
and cooperation (social). A key theoretical claim of the socio-cognitive
approach is that what drives intercultural interactions is a “blending” of
the interlocutors’ prior experiences with their “actual situational
experiences” in such a way that the two are “both distinguishable and
indistinguishable from one another when needed” (Kecskes 2013a, 49)
This blending is accomplished through an ongoing, dynamic interplay
between co-operation-directed intention that is inherently social in
nature, and egocentrism-governed attention that is, inevitably, more
individual in nature. What is more, given that intercultural
communication is not entirely different from intracultural
communication, it seems reasonable to assume that it lies on a
continuum with it (cf. Kecskes 2013a; 2015).
An important reason for the emergence of intercultural pragmatics
as a new field of inquiry at the beginning of the 2000s was to
distinguish research on intercultural interaction and discourse from
interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatics, as well as emphasise the
importance of developing a subfield of pragmatics with a multilingual
focus. Interlanguage pragmatics focuses on the acquisition and use of
pragmatic norms in L2: how L2 learners produce and comprehend
speech acts, and how their pragmatic competence develops over time
(e.g. Kasper and Blum-Kulka 1993; Kasper 1998). On the other hand,
cross-cultural pragmatics (e.g. Boxer 2002; Wierzbicka 2003) is
comparative, focusing on the cross-cultural similarities and differences
in the linguistic realisation and the sociopragmatic judgment in context
By now, it has become clear that each of these three disciplines has its
own legitimacy. However, it is almost unavoidable that these three
fields have some overlap, which is a natural consequence of some of
the issues that each addresses from its own perspective, and some of
the papers in this volume are good examples for this.
The gradual development of a relatively coherent theoretical
framework has resulted in a great number of different applications that
has brought the new field together with other disciplines such as
Gricean pragmatics, politeness and social identity research, translation,
second language acquisition and others. One of the most important
driving force of these research projects has been that intercultural
pragmatics encourages a move beyond the traditional focus on the
pragmatics of utterances to a broader focus on meanings as they
attain in interaction. And the issues that have been addressed in
research articles and books represent the multifaceted nature of
explorations in the field: context (e.g. Fetzer and Oishi 2011; Romero-
Trillo and Maguire 2011; Maguire and Romero-Trillo 2013), vague
language (e.g. Cutting 2015; Zhang 2015), formulaic language
(Kecskes 2007; Baider 2013), language and identity (Romero-Trillo
2013), indirect complaints (Crawshaw et al. 2010), service encounters
(Félix-Brasdefer 2015), just to mention a few. This volume with
selected papers from the 6th International Conference on Intercultural
Pragmatics and Communication that took place in May/June 2014 at
the University of Malta is a further representative sample of this
process, which explains why we have selected the title “Current issues
in intercultural pragmatics”.
Even though the contributions of the present volume may appear
to deal with diverse issues, the ‘glue’ that holds them together derives
from the nature and main tenets of research in intercultural
pragmatics. Most of the papers address issues concerning intercultural
interaction, present data collected in a variety of intercultural settings
and treat interlocutors both as social beings and individuals, giving
equal importance to cognition and socio-cultural factors. All in all, all
papers in this volume present data and analyses that are bound to
inform future research on intercultural communication. In this respect,
they have been organised into six sections, each of which comprises
contributions that focus on different, yet complimentary, areas of
interest. As will become evident in the brief summary that follows, the
overall organisation of this volume has been based on the identification
of themes that each of its papers has in common with both the papers
that precede and those that follow it.
The first part comprises two papers with more of a theoretical
orientation that will expose the reader to some essential background
concepts. In the first paper, Robert Crawshaw presents the argument
for the socio-cognitive approach to pragmatic analysis that intercultura
pragmatics favours, by showing how the analysis of certain features –
such as ‘determinacy’, ‘distance’ and ‘intensity,’ which are essentially
negotiated between discussants during a conversational exchange – on
the basis of real-life data and metalinguistic commentary provided by
the interlocutors can shed more light to the idiosyncrasies of
intercultural communication. Jörg Meibauer, on the other hand,
attempts in his contribution to vindicate the traditional Gricean account
of lying against the criticism that it falls short of capturing the
variations of the relevant behaviour often found in non-Western
cultures. In this respect, and after a thorough overview of empirical
studies on lying in both the intracultural and intercultural context,
Meibauer argues that the universal description of lying as a violation of
Grice’s first maxim of Quality can be sustained, insofar as it allows for
social and cultural parameterisation should the need arise.
The second section of the volume comprises two articles that
situate intercultural communication in the context of lingua franca
communication. In the first paper, Arto Mustajoki seeks to account for
the observation that miscommunication takes place more often in
everyday rather than in lingua franca conversation. So, after outlining
the account of communication that he takes as his starting point and
describing each one of the two types of verbal interaction that he is
interested in, he moves on to systematically categorise their
differences on a number of grounds, motivating in this way his support
of this observation. In this section’s second paper, Fabienne Baider and
Maria Constantinou pinpoint the emergence of a lingua franca, which
they call ‘(extreme)-right newspeak,’ among supporters of the
extreme-right political ideology, through the analysis of the avatars and
nicknames, as well as the communicative strategies that individuals
who comment on YouTube videos related to the Greek far-right politica
party Golden Dawn use to sustain and strengthen their collective
identity against non-supporters of the party.
In the first paper of the third part of this volume, which deals with
business communication, Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli engages in an
analysis of teleconferencing interactions among financial analysts
working for European and Asian companies. Her in-depth analysis
shows that the discussants’ professional goals, as well as the
technology-mediated setting of the relevant interactions, can override
the effect that their cultural values are expected to have on relational
aspects of interaction. Then, the paper by Sofie Decock and Anneleen
Spiessens offers a discursive analysis of company refusal and customer
(dis)agreement strategies in French and German, through an
investigation of the level of directness and the use of internal and
external modifiers in the relevant e-mails collected in an authentic
corpus of a multinational company’s customer service correspondence.
Moving from the examination of cultural differences on the basis
of sample corpora to a more introspective analysis of cultural
perceptions, the fourth section of this volume starts off with a paper by
Jessica Haß and Sylvia Wächter, which reports on a qualitative study
investigating the self- and mutual perception of Germans and
Spaniards at the beginning of the debt-crisis in Spain. Through their
discussion the authors illustrate how a group’s self-perception can be
more critical than the perception of the other group, identifying a nove
social function that stereotypical thinking can be taken to perform. In
the second paper of this section, Ulrike Schröder embarks on a
qualitative analysis of videotaped conversational data from a group of
Brazilian and a group of German students and shows how the meaning
of basic concepts that are commonly used in evaluations of the own
and the other culture is effectively negotiated and co-constructed
during interaction, providing in this way support to the emergent
approach to meaning that research in intercultural pragmatics also
favours. In the final contribution to this section, Gila Schauer cross-
examines the perception of impoliteness among native speakers of
British English and German, in a study that underlines the usefulness
of metalinguistic commentary in accounting for the cultural differences
that underlie distinct evaluations of the same situation by different
cultural groups.
 The paper that introduces the fifth part of this volume, which is
concerned with translation, deals with impoliteness in children’s
literature, and more specifically, with the use of impolite structures in
the original text and the German translation of two Harry Potter novels
Through the cross-examination of such structures in a representative
sample of interactions between Harry Potter and Professor Snape,
Monika Pleyer demonstrates how they can reveal fundamental changes
in character identity, which may in turn be compromised in translation,
if the relevant structures are not maintained therein too. The second
paper of this section showcases the importance of having a solid
knowledge of a linguistic community’s culture when engaging in the
intrinsically intercultural activities of translating and interpreting. In it,
Olaf Immanuel Seel demonstrates how failure to recognise culture-
specific presuppositions and non-verbal means can lead to serious
misunderstandings, and thus makes the case for the establishment of
special means that will enable translators/interpreters to develop the
requisite cultural knowledge during their training.
Following Seel’s contribution, and its conclusions regarding the
need of translator/interpreting training to accommodate the
development of culturally-grounded pragmatic competence, over and
above the formal study of a second language, this volume’s final
section comprises papers that investigate pragmatic development in
second and foreign language learning. The first one addresses the
extent to which study abroad stays enable learners to develop
pragmatic routines pertinent to the language they are studying.
Through the comparison of the performance of a group of Japanese
learners of English in a multimedia elicitation task before and after
spending a semester abroad in the U.S. and a qualitative analysis of
their metalinguistic commentary, Naoko Osuka discusses the main
reasons that prevented them from developing a considerable number
of pragmatic routines during their study abroad stay. In the second
paper of this section, Ziyad Ali and Helen Woodfield report on a study
that investigates the developmental patterns in the requestive
behaviour of Syrian learners of English as a foreign language, on the
basis of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of their performance in
a written discourse completion task. Moving from the student to the
teacher perspective, the last two contributions of this volume reveal
the equally compelling need for instructors to develop their own
pragmatic awareness. In this vein, the paper by Phylisienne Gauci,
Elisa Ghia and Sandro Caruana presents a study on the requestive and
complaint behaviour of Maltese student teachers of Italian, which
indicates a lack of sensitivity towards contextual variables in the
relevant discourse completion task and role-play situations, suggesting
thus that the improvement of pragmatic awareness should be a vital
part of the training of language teachers. A similar conclusion, albeit in
the setting of classroom management, is drawn in the final
contribution of the volume, in which Laura Maguire and Jesús Romero-
Trillo examine the use of operative adaptive management markers by
teachers in a 6-year longitudinal corpus of classroom interaction at a
bilingual school in Madrid.

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Usefulness in Intercultural Competency.” International Journal for Cross-
Disciplinary Subjects in Education 4: 1166–1171.
Boxer, Diana 2002. “Discourse Issues in Cross-cultural Pragmatics.” Annual Review
of Applied Linguistics 22: 150–167. doi: 10.1017/S0267190502000089
Crawshaw, Robert, Jonathan Culpeper, and Julia Harrison 2010. “Wanting
to be Wanted: A Comparative Study of Incidence and Severity in Indirect
Complaint on the Part of French and English Language Teaching Assistants.”
Journal of French Language Studies 20: 75–87.
doi: 10.1017/S0959269509990469
Cutting, Joan 2015. “Dingsbums und so: Beliefs about German Vague Language.”
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Félix-Brasdefer, J. César 2015. The Language of Service Encounters: A
Pragmatic-Discursive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139565431
Fetzer, Anita and Etsuko Oishi 2011. “Introduction.” In Context and Contexts,
ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Etsuko Oishi, 1–10. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
doi: 10.1075/pbns.209.01intro
Haugh, Michael 2008. “Intention in Pragmatics.” Intercultural Pragmatics 5: 99–
110. doi: 10.1515/IP.2008.006
House, Juliane 2008. “(Im)politeness in English as a Lingua Franca Discourse.” In
Standards and Norms in the English Language, ed. by Miriam A. Locher, and
Jurg Strassler. 351–366. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kasper, Gabriele 1998. “Interlanguage Pragmatics.” In Learning and Teaching
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Byrnes, 183–208. New York: Modern Language Association.
Kasper, Gabriele and Shoshana Blum-Kulka 1993. “Interlanguage Pragmatics
Introduction.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and
Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 3–17. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kecskes, Istvan 2004. “Lexical Merging, Conceptual Blending and Cultural
Crossing.” Intercultural Pragmatics 1: 1–21. doi: 10.1515/iprg.2004.005
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Istvan Kecskes, and Laurence R. Horn, 191–219. Berlin / New York: Mouton
de Gruyter.
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PA RT I

The socio-cultural turn in

pragmatics
 CHAPTER 1

Determinacy, distance and

intensity in intercultural
communication
An emancipatory approach
Robert Crawshaw
Lancaster University

Abstract

This paper seeks to make the case for a more empirical, situation-based
approach to pragmatic analysis. It forms part of the recent move in
pragmatics research away from the cross-cultural comparison of speech acts
and neo-Gricean theoretical debates towards an analysis of real-life data
based on the socio-cognitive and affective implications of inter-lingual
conversational exchange. This approach is represented as ‘emancipatory’ in
that it is highly contextually grounded and considers meaning from an
‘emergent’ perspective in which attempts at achieving mutual understanding
are more or less effectively negotiated between participants. The notion of
intention is called into question and emphasis is placed on the importance of
metalinguistic commentary by interlocutors as an essential aid to
interpreting transcriptions of previous exchanges. Close attention is given to
linguistic features which define the attitudes and relationships between the
participants: in this case, markers of ‘determinacy’, ‘distance’ and ‘intensity’.
 Keywords

activity type; affect; distance; intensity; intention; relevance

1. Pragmatics’ socio-cognitive turn

This paper positions itself firmly in the wake of what is now recognised
as the socio-cognitive turn in intercultural pragmatics. The socio-
cognitive approach is perhaps most fully expounded in Istvan Kecskes’s
recent comprehensive overview of the topic in his book Intercultural
Pragmatics (2013). In this work, the latest following a series of papers
on the topic, Kecskes explores the relationship between linguistic form,
interactive processes and mental states in communication between
individuals from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. He does
so in the context of the increasingly well documented scepticism within
pragmatics towards approaches based on universal principles, whether
these relate to intention, underlying communicative functions
expressed through speech acts or fundamental psychological factors
which govern human interaction such as ‘face’, ‘politeness’ or ‘rapport’
(Haugh 2007; Bargiela and Haugh 2009). Instead, Kecskes focuses on
the internal dynamics of context. Following Van Dijk (2008), he defines
meaning making as a process of negotiation in which new
understandings ‘emerge’ as a product of the shifting positions of
interlocutors. Previously, Kecskes (2008) had argued for a balance
between theories of lexical meaning based on a pre-existing, more or
less established semantic core, which he calls ‘word-specific semantic
properties’, and the creative contingency which determines how words
are employed in real-life situations, especially in intercultural contexts
where the precise meaning of words may not be well known to
interlocutors. His 2013 book stresses throughout the special value of
intercultural communication as an object of research within pragmatics
since it is precisely in situations where shared cultural and linguistic
states of knowledge and being cannot be assumed that the factors
involved in the quest for shared meaning are most explicit.
In sharing Kecskes’ ‘emergent’ approach to meaning as a
phenomenon negotiated in and through intercultural communication, I
also draw directly on arguments by Hanks (2009) and Enfield (2009) in
favour of what they refer to as emancipatory pragmatics. Emancipatory
pragmatics is an approach to communication which places special
emphasis on spatiality, linguistic and physical, in defining the cultural
and psychological relationship between interlocutors. Taking issue with
what they see as western dominated theoretical paradigms which lay
claim to universality, Hanks and Enfield, together with Yasuhiro Katagir
and Sachiko Ide, propose a more bottom up, grounded approach which
is less driven by a priori cultural principles and instead derives directly
from the language itself as a function of the local context in which it is
used. As they put it, “features of language form and use are placed in
the context of social relations among interactants, with a special
emphasis on the lifeworlds of speakers” (Hanks, Ide and Katagiri 2009,
7).
While Hanks and Enfield use the term ‘emancipatory’ in a
consciously post-colonial, quasi-ethnographic sense, in that they focus
on examples of inter-relational positioning in ‘non-western’
environments, I am seeking in this paper to extend its implications to
that of intercultural pragmatics as a whole. In terms of the discipline,
the socio-cognitive, interpersonal turn is itself a form of emancipation
from the increasingly abstruse neo-Gricean discourse surrounding the
nature of intention, meaning and relevance in which the practical
interrelationship between context, personality and the dynamic of
change is largely ignored in favour of forensic theoretical argument.
The implication of an emergent approach to the negotiation of
meaning in and through inter-lingual communication is that greater
emphasis is placed on interpersonal relations. In the wake of Deborah
Tannen’s analysis of the nature of ‘rapport’ (1992) and her own
extensive explorations of the same topic, Helen Spencer-Oatey (2011)
raises the practical question of how ‘the relational’ can best be
approached within the framework of pragmatics research. She
acknowledges that her focus during the preceding phase of her work
had been on conceptualising ‘rapport’ in general terms rather than
detailing the linguistic markers which define its failure or achievement.
More recently, in 2014, she stresses that more reference should be
made to meta-linguistic comments by participants on the dynamic of
previous events (Spencer-Oatey 2011, 3569). In fully supporting
Spencer-Oatey’s approach, I wish to argue in this paper that the a
posteriori metalinguistic comments by participants will, by definition,
relate to specific attributes of the earlier interlocutor’s speech
behaviour and thereby designate those features of discourse which
should be more closely examined. In so doing, I do not seek to
establish the validity or otherwise of general pragmatic principles,
believing, like Meier (1995, 2010) that the elements which determine
the success or failure of a given interaction “can only be judged
relative to a particular context and a particular addressee’s
expectations and concomitant interpretations”(cit. in Spencer-Oatey
2011, 3568).
‘Needs and expectations’ therefore have a higher profile in my
analysis than they do in the majority of recent theoretical work in
intercultural pragmatics. As such, the paper focuses on the role of
‘affect’ in communicative interaction. Notwithstanding the increasing
impact of affect theory within social science (Wulff 2007; Scherer and
Ekman 2009) and the emphasis given by Spencer Oatey (2011) and
Culpeper (2011) to the lexis of emotion in their explorations of
‘rapport’ and impoliteness, both the two latter scholars acknowledge
that, until recently, emotion has been relatively occluded within
pragmatic theory. As distinct from the earlier work of Goffman and
Tannen, the discipline has sought to prioritise its scientific credentials
at the expense of focusing on human impulse. In an attempt to rectify
this imbalance, I focus on three features of communication:
determinacy, distance and intensity as important indices of emotion
and personality in the particular context of intercultural student-mentor
encounters. As such, the methodology followed is grounded and case-
driven and is heavily influenced by the ‘discursive approach’
commended by Haugh (2007).
A socio-cognitive approach which incorporates the study of affect
is founded on a number of heuristic principles which inform its
practice. While these are hardly original, they can be summed up as
follows.
1.1 The significant unit of conversational discourse is
the ‘event’ or ‘episode’
To analyse meaning from a socio-cognitive perspective relies on data
which extend beyond the analysis of single utterances or brief
sequences. It involves segments of discursive interchange bearing
witness to the initiation and completion of communicative episodes or
‘events’ in which specific sequences of turns reveal shifts in ‘position’,
marking a change in understanding or outlook. Such an approach by
definition supersedes a focus on individual speech acts as indices of
cultural difference. It concentrates instead on interactive processes of
co-construction in real-life situations (Mondada 2012). An episode is
not an extract. Following Goffman (1974), it is a complete event in
which there are clear markers of opening and closure and in which
both or several interlocutors agree either that the event as a whole has
finished (such as when a patient leaves the room following a
consultation with a general practitioner, or a student at the end of a
supervision) or that a distinct phase in an interchange, such as in a
dinner party conversation (Tannen 1986/2005) or during a group
seminar, has reached a provisional conclusion. Episodes can of course
be singular events, never to be repeated, as in the case of a brief one
off encounter with a stranger met on a journey or at a party, or indeed
as in an interview, if the parties do not know each other and are
unlikely to meet again. As often as not, however, they are part of a
series, like scenes in a play. They generally contribute to a wider
narrative, carrying with them baggage from past meetings or
anticipating the forms of future exchanges. And, as with a scene, you
expect something to ‘happen’. Relationships will have changed in a
more or less crucial, even potentially irreversible way, critically
modifying the psychological frame within which subsequent meetings
ensue, perhaps even altering the physical, institutional or political
context in which they take place.
An episode generally, though not necessarily, extends beyond the
bounds of Levinson’s (1979) and Thomas’s (1995) definition of ‘activity
type’, in that the roles of the participants may shift, and with them the
generic norms which govern the nature of the discourse. Other
participants may join the exchange or, as for example in a typical
institutional meeting, a presentation may be followed by ordered
discussion regulated from the Chair. Nevertheless, the approach taken
in the analysis of an episode will be similar in character to that of an
activity type but with added emphasis being placed on its ‘frame’ in the
senses defined by Goffman (1974) and Tannen (1992), vis. the set of
expectations and assumptions brought to the exchange by the
different parties. These generally involve their roles and relationships,
the main focus or topic of the exchange, the definition of which style
or register may be judged to be appropriate to the context and, more
broadly, the relationship between these and the wider culture of which
the episode forms part. In this sense, there is bound to be a dynamic
interaction between ‘situation’, ‘micro-culture’ and ‘macro-culture’
insofar as it is possible to make clear-cut divisions between these
different ‘levels’.
The blurring of boundaries between the different levels at which
socio-pragmatic determinants operate call into question Malinowski’s
(1923) distinction between ‘context of culture’ and ‘context of
situation’, reprised by Halliday fifty years later (1973). The binarity of
their categorisation may be thought reductive in today’s theoretical
discourse, which represents culture as ‘exploded’… multiple and
fragmented, lacking precisely the wider borders such as territory,
language or national identity which have traditionally circumscribed the
popular view of a macro-cultural environment. Multi-layered
sociological and institutional variables are fundamental considerations
(Wodak and Meyer 2009), but these too are only part of the story.
They leave aside the interpersonal relations and individual attributes of
interlocutors as they emerge through negotiation. The emphasis on
situation implied by the notion of ‘episode’ also validates, and at the
same time calls into question, Clifford Geerts’s celebrated adoption of
Ryle’s term thick description (Geerts 1973, 5–6). Thick description
defines an approach which relies on a single event’s providing an
ethnographic window on the symbolic structure of a wider culture.
Certainly, episodes should if possible have that function and should be
chosen with this object in mind. By definition, they will contain
culturally relevant semiotic indices. However, identifying these and
defining their wider significance is an exercise in selection,
extrapolation and interpretation in which the extraneous knowledge of
the analyst, inevitably variable and ideologically constructed, is
necessarily brought to bear. It is additional, authentically original data
emanating from the participants themselves as much as deep
understanding of the cultural environment (Enfield 2009) which
enables a particular episode to be situated in a wider, intertextual
context. As Spencer-Oatey puts it, “most people agree that it is
essential to hear the voice of the participants rather than that of
analyst” (2011, 3566). Without in any way negating Enfield’s (2009,
18) insistence on the central importance of cultural context (though he
was stressing this specifically in order to emphasise the non-western
environment to which he was referring), the primary focus in the socio-
cognitive approach is on the live data itself, implying a hermeneutic in
which the analyst moves from close reading of the text of the episode
and its associated metalinguistic comment to the wider information
source and back again, placing the episode in a narrative frame which
sheds light on its internal dynamic.

1.2 Meaning is not vested in intention

Recent theoretical controversy highlights the scepticism surrounding
the nature of intention as the defining ingredient of utterance meaning
(Kecskes 2013, Haugh and Jaszczolt 2012). Sperber and Wilson (1995)
have argued convincingly that it is all but impossible to know in
advance the precise intention of an interlocutor and that meaning is
co-determined by listeners' step by step, retrospective interpretation of
speakers’ utterances. Inferencing, it is argued, is governed primarily by
what listeners consider to be relevant to them, whether for reasons of
personal interest or as a response to the need to lend coherence to
their understanding of an evolving interactive speech situation. Without
fundamentally disagreeing with this analysis, intention as propounded
by this paper is regarded as an intangible variable, a bundle of
cognitive and emotional impulses comprising needs, desires and
rational calculation, frequently obscured by the form of utterances and
generally imperfectly understood. “Mutual knowledge” is, as Sperber
and Wilson put it, an ideal whose realisation is, at best, only “probable”
(1995, 18). Intention operates at many different levels, starting with a
set of hopes and aspirations which the initiator of the episode brings to
the exchange and then adjusted as the conversation proceeds. It
consists of the a priori perception by an interlocutor of the norms
governing a given interchange, combined with the sense – conscious
or unconscious – of what it is he or she hopes to get out of it (Bara
2011, 453; Tannen 1986). Far from being fixed, it may not even be
unambiguously definable at the outset of an episode. Interlocutors
generally rely on conversational exchange to ‘harden up’ or clarify what
may at first be only a partially formed concept or inarticulate need
which, in very many cases, is ultimately grounded in emotion. Meaning
is vested neither in semantic logic, nor in the preliminary mindset of
speaker or hearer; it lies half-hidden in the process of communication
itself.

1.3 Lexical meaning too is negotiated in context

MACBETH
Prithee, peace!
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

LADY MACBETH
What beast was’t, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
 And, to be more than what you were,
You would be so much more the man. Macbeth Act I Sc.7 1

Readers of Shakespeare will be familiar with this famous scene in

Macbeth, in which Lady Macbeth goads her husband into murdering
Duncan, the current King of Scotland. Duncan is Macbeth’s guest for
the night and ostensibly his friend and kinsman. Having just promoted
him, Duncan now stands between Macbeth and the fulfilment of the
prophecy announced by three witches earlier that day that Macbeth
himself will shortly become king himself. No commitment has been
made by Macbeth to assassinate Duncan, nor has he shown any
explicit wish to do so beyond a growing sense of personal ambition
fostered by the witches. The idea of murder has been sown in his mind
by his wife in an earlier scene. Having said at the start of this later
meeting that he wants nothing further to do with his wife’s proposal,
the outcome of the exchange is that Macbeth agrees to go ahead with
the plan. Lady Macbeth’s undermining of his ‘manhood’ is too great an
injury to his self-respect – or male ego. It is a crucial moment in the
plot which hinges on the shared understanding of the meaning of the
word ‘man’ and what it connotes in the context of the Jacobean Union
of England and Scotland in 1603 (aka the tribal culture ‘North of the
border’) – or indeed universally when seen in the context of gender
relations. Macbeth is a ruthless killer in battle, but until this moment,
the idea that his ‘manhood’ is conditional on his becoming a cold-
blooded murderer has not crossed his mind. From now on, the
contextual meaning of the term ‘man’ has changed, making the
borderline between masculinity, brutality and self-determination one of
the defining themes of the play. The semantic shift has taken place in
the process of the exchange and has hinged on the personal
relationship between man and wife as much as on the context of
feudal politics and moral degeneration.
Less dramatically, as Tannen (1992, 1986/2005) repeatedly points
out, lexical meaning is negotiated in context in most environments on
a daily basis. This principle clearly does not negate the Husserlian view
that words have core semantic properties or ‘essence’. These are
nevertheless culturally determined, relative, subject to convention,
constantly undergoing change and requiring repeated redefinition.
Meaning at lexical and utterance levels is therefore to a significant
extent emergent and associative rather than pre-established, though
both criteria have to be taken into account (see Teubert, 2010). Recent
debates have distinguished between two approaches to the use and
understanding of metaphor in conversation: the cognitive angle and
that commended by relevance theory. According to the former,
speakers bring knowledge of a pre-existing ‘schema’ to a conversation
and then select the metaphor which best fits their intention. Gibbs and
Tendahl describe the process as “a cognitive phenomenon with verbal
metaphor mostly being a surface realisation of underlying conceptual
metaphors” (2011, 601), suggesting a kind of structural smorgasbord
of pre-prepared semantic dishes from which the speaker simply selects
the appropriate verbal ingredients. The positions taken by Deidre
Wilson (2011) and Robyn Carston (2014) are somewhat different,
leaving more room for emotion and creativity. As Wilson puts it, “the
goal of lexical pragmatics is to explain how lexical meanings are
adjusted in the course of communication” (2011,184). According to
Wilson, the connotations of words and their interpretation are
generated by interactive impulse at the moment of communication and
arise out of what has just been said – an analysis which coincides
closely with the position adopted by this paper.

1.4 Co-operation and rapport are not universal

principles
Rapport is generally viewed as the summum bonum of successful
communication. Yet, as with most pragmatic principles, it is most
readily identified in the various ways in which speakers fail to attain it.
It may well be a false god to which speakers pay lip service or use as
the public face of provisional, politically motivated agreements. But
agreement and rapport are not the same thing. Agreement has to do
with commitment to referential meaning or a bundle of facts or
principles. It is a sort of tacit contract which may or may not have
illocutionary force: ‘You’re right, Jack certainly is a lousy driver’; ‘I
agree to pick up the children at 3.30 after school’ etc. You can agree
with someone without feeling any warmth towards them. Rapport, on
the other hand, implies mutual emotional understanding, which can
never be guaranteed. It has to be experienced as the gratification of a
human need or observed in others as a potential simulacrum or
interpersonal ‘chemistry’. As Tannen (1986, 53) points out so sharply,
rapport often depends on saying as little as possible, relying rather on
paralinguistic indicators such as laughter and other physical aspects of
behaviour. And, as she further illustrates when discussing the
relationship between solidarity and power, rapport-like gestures may
well be a gambit for getting what you want out of an exchange. In her
own words: “Power can masquerade as solidarity” (Tannen 1986, 79).
Rapport has the same double edge. It may, to borrow Spencer-Oatey’s
categorical term, simply be ‘strategic’ and thus not emotionally
reciprocal at all. Like intention, the more you think about it, the harder
it becomes to identify its pragmatic core. You only know it’s there
when you feel it as a source of pleasure: either in yourself or through
observing the behaviour of others. The language used is not a signifier
per se, but more an affective clue to the level and type of empathy it
conveys.
A safer train of thought is to follow Goffman’s adage that the
responsibility of speakers in situations towards the content and form of
their utterances “is to be found in the relation of the speaker to himself
as someone about whom he is speaking” (Goffman 1967/2003, 5).
Selfhood, according to Goffman, is both inter-subjective (altercentric)
and egocentric, though not necessarily in the crude sense of material
self-interest. In the words of Kecskes:

An adequate account of interaction should consider

interlocutors not only as common-ground seekers but as
individuals with their own agendas, their own prior
experience, their specific mechanisms of saliency (based on
prior experiences) and their individual language production
systems. (Kecskes 2013, 30)

Rapport is most strongly felt when each speaker appears to respond to

the needs of the other interlocutor in a manner which carries with it
‘illocutionary force’ i.e. where a sense of pleasure is matched by a
belief that the understanding of the other will find expression in the
speaker’s subsequent behaviour, or, in short, that it has the appearance
of being ‘authentic’ and is thence persuasive. The challenge is the
difficulty of recognising when this is really the case or alternatively
when some ulterior motive lies behind it. The data and the context
normally, but by no means always, provide the clue. Pragmatics then
becomes less a social science and more a rigorous exercise in
psycholinguistic detective work.

1.5 The evidence lies in the data

It seems truistic to state that there is an identifiable relationship
between features of discourse deployed by speakers in verbal
communication and the mental states – cognitive and affective – which
underlie them. Yet it remains the task of pragmatics to distinguish
between verbal forms which represent social or cultural norms and
those which are the authentic expression of an individual’s feelings.
The issue goes to the root of the difference between the humanities
and social science. If primacy is given to affect, the emphasis of the
analysis is more on the degree of understanding between the
interlocutors and on its sources than on the validity or otherwise of the
category which has been selected as a heuristic. The latter is, after all,
only a means to an end. So for example the terms ‘distance’ or ‘power’
are less defining components of pragmatic or discursive theory than
psychological diagnostics offering an insight into where interlocutors
stand in relation to each other.
 One of the defining features of intercultural communication is that
understanding is less easy to achieve because of the relative linguistic
shortcomings of one or other, or several, of the interlocutors. Requests
for clarification will draw attention to the aspect of the relationship
which the other speaker is failing to satisfy and foreground the
linguistic features which indicate this. It is these highlighted aspects of
the success – or more commonly failure – of communication that are
brought out in the metalinguistic protocols which accompany primary
data in the manner demonstrated by Spencer-Oatey (2011) and
Culpeper (2011) and an example of which we analyse below.

2. The case study

The episode which has generated the data considered in this paper is
an encounter between a young university language student who is
taking up a post as a language teaching assistant in a French school
and the member of staff who has agreed to act as the student’s
mentor or co-ordinator during her professional stay. The data was
gathered as part of a three year investigation funded by The Economic
and Science Research Council of England and Wales (ESRC) into the
problems of communication between language assistants and staff in
schools in France and England (www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/pic).
The encounter was one in which the student was seeking information
about the types of activity which would be demanded of her as a
teacher in the different classes to which she would be allocated. The
nature of these activities would vary and would depend to a significant
degree on the desiderata of the teachers with whom she would be
called upon to work.
The student’s interlocutor, whom we have called ‘Sylvain’, 2 is the
regional coordinator for language teachers. He has had the idea that it
would be beneficial for the teachers at the schools where the assistant
is due to teach to have informal discussions in English with the
assistant but is uncertain as to the best format for such extra-curricular
meetings and indeed to what the level of response from the teachers is
likely to be. The schools in which the student – ‘Hannah’ (sic.) – is due
to teach fall under his aegis but he, Sylvain, has no direct control over
teachers' classroom behaviour. He has committed to the Pragmatics
and Intercultural Communication project which has been sponsored by
the French Ministry of Education and is therefore keen that relations
between school and language assistants should be as cordial and
pedagogically effective as possible. The programme is not, however,
top of his in-tray and he is a busy person. Hannah on the other hand
wants hard facts and advice in order to relieve the stress of being
parachuted into a new job, but is uncertain of how best to express
herself. Each party to the interchange is feeling her/his way and is
paradoxically looking to the other for support in answering a shared se
of questions: when and where should the meetings with the teachers
take place? How long should they last? What should be the main
focus/topics of the activities undertaken? What materials – if any –
should be used?

2.1 Methodology
The core data falls into three main categories: (1) a live recording of
an early meeting between assistant and mentor (entretien), (2) a
private recording of the assistant’s reactions to the conduct and
outcomes of the meeting (témoignage), (3) a written logbook
containing a record of the developing relationship between assistant
and mentor (journal). As will be clear, (2) and (3) qualify as meta-
textual commentaries. While it is true that they do not refer directly to
the form of the language used by the mentor other than by
occasionally ‘quoting’ him, they do focus on the student’s interpretation
of it. The task of the pragmatic analyst is to equate the two. Additional
data was also included in the project: linguistic and psychometric. The
linguistic ‘metadata’ took the form of an essay on a stereotypical view
of the ‘other’ culture (in this case French). The psychometric data was
the outcome of a simple, questionnaire-based, on-line, personality test
‘The Big 5’, which offers a profile of an individual along five variables
(http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/, accessed 9/12/2014). It is then
possible to compare at least three generic outputs of the student using
a hermeneutic combination of pragmatic and discourse analysis, and to
set these against additional features of personality and discourse.
The model adopted can be represented in three dimensions
corresponding to three axes: time, feature, person. In a large data set
such as that used in the PIC project (71 students were involved), the
model allows each feature or an individual person’s output to be
analysed across the timescale of the data collection period such that
each data type corresponds to a particular time frame. Thus the
témoignage takes place shortly after the entretien while the written
journal is linear and covers a three month period. In our example, the
samples of data considered are drawn from each of the data types.

2.2 The data

2.2.1 The entretien

Participants: Hannah (English language teaching assistant, early

20s)
Sylvain (Regional English language teaching co-
ordinator, mid-50s)

Location: Sylvain’s office in the regional capital.

S: Est-ce que tu te souviens du nombre d’heures dont
on avait parlé, pour l’école ?
H: Non, parce que en entier je vais travailler 12 heures
erm par semaine mais je ne sais pas ce que vous
voulez que je faire si je je passe 10 heures à l’école
et 2 heures par semaine avec des enseignants, c’est
er ce que vous voulez… ?
S: [simul : oui, absolument… mm… en conversation],
oui moi, je pense que on pourrait faire ce qu’on
appelle une cote mal taillée, eh bien pour
commencer, 10 heures pour l’école et 2 heures euh
de la conversation, hein pour des collègues qui qui
viendraient euh soit le soir soit sur leurs heures de
midi. Voilà. Mais alors, j’ai déjà, j’en ai déjà parlé à
de nombreux collègues euh mais euh mais ce n’est
 pas qu’ils soient réticents mais ils ont tellement de
choses à penser et puis c’est une chose de plus à
caser. Même si des fois, même même s’ils sont
demandeurs…alors euh, alors on a 2 solutions, soit
nous prévoyons un horaire d’avance, on dira par
exemple, je sais pas, par exemple le mardi midi, de
de midi 30 ou midi 45 jusqu'à euh 1h15, on fera
atelier conversation. On peut, on peut imaginer ça
comme ça. Mais ça fait pas 2 heures. Pour faire 2
heures de conversation, il faudra avoir 4 ateliers du
midi ou du soir dans la semaine, c’est ça ; donc on
va essayer de faire comme ça, on va dire on va
essayer de caser euh 4 périodes d’une demi-heure, 2
le midi, peut-être demain soir, hein, comme on aura
nos 2 heures. Euh…
H: [simul : d’accord, oui… oui, oui, d’accord… mm –
mm – mm… oui, oui, d’accord] C’est c’est seulement
la conversation, ou c’est un du… de n’importe quel
sujet ?
S: Voilà, c’est ça. Le sujet euh c’est toi ou moi ou nous
ensemble qui choisissons. Mais je pense qu’il vaut
mieux aller au-devant des des collègues en leur
donnant des choses toutes prêtes et après pour les
fois suivantes s’ils viennent, ils pourront avoir des
idées, mais au début il faut commencer par apporter
des choses qui leur conviennent alors je je j’avais
 imaginé qu’on pourrait faire une première série de
séances en parlant de voyages.
S: Do you remember the number of hours we talked
about for working at the school(s) ?
H: No, because overall I am due to work 12 hours per
week but I don’t know what you want me to do if I
spend 10 hours at school and two hours a week with
the teachers ; is that what you want ?
S: [simul : Yes absolutely…mm… conversation]. Yes
personally I think that we we could have what we
call ‘a first shot at it’ now, so, as a starting point,
let’s say 10 hours at school and two hours of
conversation, OK, for colleagues who would come er
either in the evening or… or during their lunch hour.
There we have it. But… well, I’ve already spoken to
a lot of colleagues… er… but… er… but it’s not that
they’re reluctant but they’ve got so many things to
think about and this is just another thing for them to
bear in mind. Even if sometimes… even, even if they
have asked for it themselves… so…er… so, we’ve got
two options, either we set a timetable in advance,
let’s say for example, I don’t know, for example
Tuesday at 12… from 1230 or 1245 until… er… 1315
to hold a conversation workshop. We could think of
it like that. But that doesn’t add up to 2 hours. To
make up two hours of conversation, we’ll need to
have 4 workshops at midday or in the evening
 during the week. That’s it ; so we’ll we’ll try and do
it like that, we’ll say we’re trying to set aside 4
sessions of half an hour, two at midday, maybe
tomorrow evening, OK , that way we’ll have our two
hours… er…
H: [simul : that’s fine, yes… yes, yes OK, that’s fine…
mm – mm – mm… yes, yes that’s fine] Is it, is it
simply a matter of conversation, or is it a… on any
subject ?
S: Yes that’s right, that’s it. As far as the subject goes,
you or I or both of us together are the ones who
should choose. But I think that it’s a better idea if we
take the lead ahead of colleagues by giving them
things to discuss and then after, for the subsequent
sessions, if they come, maybe they’ll have their own
ideas, but at the start we have to begin by bringing
them suitable ideas, so I’d imagined that we might
do a first series of sessions by talking about
travelling.

2.2.1.1 Determinacy
The term determinacy as used in this paper relates to the degree of
explicitness or certainty in making a statement. As such, it is closely
related to clarity and referentiality. Its antonym, indeterminacy, implies
vagueness or lack of specificity. Typical figures which, deliberately or
otherwise, have this effect on a listener are ‘mitigation’ (Caffi 1999)
and ‘hedging’ (Thomas 1995), which “lessen the impact of an
utterance” (Börjars and Burridge 2010, 299). It is often assumed that
indeterminacy is a strategic move but it may equally well be the result
of genuine uncertainty on the part of the speaker or hesitancy in
finding the right words to express what s/he wants to say. More
fundamentally, it may be a function of the speaker’s personality. The
meaning underlying indeterminacy lies in the context and in the
interpretation of the receiver of the message. As Caffi (1999), Ran
(2013), and others point out, it finds expression in different types of
construction in different languages and has different cultural
connotations.
In the case considered here, determinacy is critical to the
successful outcome of the episode since its ‘frame’ is that one
interlocutor, the student, is anxious to be given precise information
about the conditions in which she will be teaching, while the
responsibility of the other, the mentor/teacher coordinator, is to provide
it. The exchange fails because the teacher, for whatever reason,
appears unable to be sufficiently specific in the information he gives
her. Sylvain’s mitigation could be seen as an effort to be considerate,
by not imposing on Hannah, and thus reducing the power/distance
between them. This is not, however, how Hannah interprets his
message. She wants precise information and is frustrated that her
needs are not being satisfied. Her response is an emotional one, but
she too mitigates the intensity of her questions out of a mixture of
politeness, deference and linguistic limitation. It is only the second
time that they have met. Sylvain is an experienced official of the
French Regional Education Authority, in which Hannah is due to teach,
and is directly responsible for the outcome of her professional
experience as an assistant. The power/distance between them is a
potent discursive determinant.
The lack of determinacy which contributes to the pragmatic failure
of the exchange takes a number of forms. These are identified below
and accompanied by examples illustrative of the feature concerned,
followed by a brief discussion:

(1) a. The interrogative: ‘Do you remember the number of

hours we’d discussed for school work?’

The question in (1a) opens the episode on a note of uncertainty. The

mentor might reasonably have been expected to remember the
proportional allocation of time to in-school teaching as opposed to the
special sessions with the English teachers which he has had in mind.
Sylvain almost certainly knows that the statutory number of contact
hours designated to language assistants under the terms of the
international scheme is 12. But he appears to have forgotten the
number of hours he had previously agreed with Hannah should be set
aside for conversation with teachers. His uncertainty undermines
Hannah’s confidence, as she demonstrates in her subsequent
response, whose directness is almost certainly due to her limited
command of polite nuance in French:

(2) b. ‘No, I have to work for 12 hours overall. I don’t know

what you want. If I were to work 10 hours at school
and have two hours with the teachers, would that be
what you would like?’
(3) Qualification: verbal in terms of lexical choice and mood, use
of modals ‘I think that we could/would/might…’ (x2); ‘we
could imagine it like this…’ ; ‘we’ll try…’
‘Yes, as I see it, I think that we could have what is known
as a ‘first shot’ at it…’
‘I think it would be better to go ahead of colleagues…’
(i.e. to take the initiative ourselves in choosing topics for
conversation)
‘We could imagine it happening like this…’
‘So we’ll try and do it like that…’

Sylvain appears to be feeling his way. He has apparently not thought

through the issue of timing or the precise nature of the topics for
conversation with the teachers. The reiterated use of verbs which
relativise his position combined with the conditional point strongly in
this direction – which is indeed how Hannah sees it.

(4) Qualification: phatic interjections/discourse markers ‘OK?’… ;

‘I don’t know…’ ;

Sylvain is checking in that Hannah is following his self-interrogation.

This might seem like politeness, but it seems more likely that he is
looking for her assurance that his ideas are sound. This becomes clear
as his explanation proceeds. He realises that the times he is proposing
do not correspond to the time agreed (‘but that doesn’t make two
hours’). He is working it out as he goes along, all of which does not
inspire Hannah with self-assurance.
(5) Mode: self-questioning monologue incorporating contrastive
conjunctions which structure the discourse: ‘Yes… but… even
if… therefore… perhaps… etc.’

The responses to the two main questions put by Hannah: timing and
content, take the form of a monologue which helps Sylvain to frame
his own thoughts. His answer emerges progressively as he talks until
he reaches conclusions which bear all the hallmarks of provisionality.
This is evidently not by design, even if, technically, it could be seen as
an attempt to address her on equal terms. This interpretation is belied
by the contrast between Sylvain’s apparent assurance (‘Yes exactly…’;
‘That’s it…’) immediately followed by remarks which reveal his
uncertainty as to whether the format will really work with busy
teachers (‘but, it’s not that they’re reluctant, it’s just that they have a
lot of things to think about and it’s just one other thing to have to bear
in mind!’). The discursive sequence gives the impression that he is not
sure himself whether the idea is really going to work and that he trying
to convince himself as much as Hannah that it will.

2.2.1.2 Power/distance
The episode is marked by evident efforts on the part of Sylvain to
reduce the distance between himself and Hannah, or, in other words,
to appear as friendly as possible so as to increase her confidence. This
mainly hinges on his liberal use of the familiar forms of pronouns (‘tu’,
‘on’, ‘nous’), his less than formal choice of words (‘caser’ = ‘set aside’),
and the repeated elliptical omission of the ‘ne’ particle in the negative.
Sylvain’s personal approach does not, however, appear to cut much ice
with Hannah. Paradoxically, in view of her linguistic limitations and her
subaltern position, she comes over as more direct than he is: a clear
indication that the dominant determinant as far she is concerned is to
be reassured as to what is expected of her. At this point intensity on
her part is implicit. She controls her feelings out of respect for Sylvain’s
position of authority.

2.2.2 The témoignage

The témoignage is the first meta-commentary of the kind commended
by Spencer-Oatey (2011). Recorded live on a personal cassette shortly
after the event, it bears witness to what Hannah was feeling at the
time of the entretien above and of the independent opinion she is
beginning to form of Sylvain’s character. It should not be forgotten that
the discourse has a performative dimension. Hannah knows that her
comments will be studied by the research team whom she addresses
as ‘you’. In their role as home-based academics from a shared national
cultural background, the members of the team can be seen as
therapeutic sounding boards for her feelings. In fact the discourse is
framed in that way. Hannah addresses the invisible reader directly as
someone to whom she has an obligation and who will to some extent
be judging her from a position of authority:

Sorry I didn’t say at the start of that recording but that was
Monday the 11th of October, and it took place in the
‘inspection académique’ in R…. with me and my ‘responsable’
erm I called in on him to see if he had my timetable ready
and er well as you could hear he didn’t (laughs) and erm and
like I just I just had expected it to be ready because, like all
the other assistants on my ‘stage’ [= training course], they
had a computer printed out thing that they’d been given from
their ‘responsable’, just like detailing their hours, and you
know, they’d already got it and it had all been sorted out and
they’d just got it, gone and got it from their ‘responsable’ so
when I went down to see Sylvain today I had kind of thought
that I would just be given this sheet and it would just be like
‘oh here are your hours this is what you’re going to do’ but
erm obviously not, but erm, that’s fine I don’t mind going
down to the school, it’ll be good going down to talk to the
headmistress anyway, I don’t mind going to do that, and so it
looks like I’m all sorted. Erm I think I achieved what I wanted
to achieve from the meeting. All I wanted to know was about
my timetable and he gave me all the details I needed to – I
needed to go and get my timetable so that’s OK erm, I
wanted to know about the conversation classes and he told
me about that, so, everything, everything’s fine really. The
only thing I find about him is that he’s a little bit vague, on
everything, I don’t know whether that’s a French thing in
general or whether it’s just a Sylvain Genet thing…I think it
might just be a Sylvain Genet thing, but he never quite seems
to know, like, what he’s doing, and he’s like ‘oh well you know
you could have a lesson then if you wanted, and oh your
timetable, well you can go and do that, and do it today if you
like, yeah’ and like I’d appreciate it sometimes if he just gave
me a straight answer and said, you know, ‘this is when your
lessons are going to be, this is what you’re going to do’ you
 know, (laughs) but there you go that’s just how he is. I feel
that he is helpful towards me, he does like help me as much
as he can, gives me lots of advice, seems to be very keen on
song. He’s always very insistent whenever I speak to him on
er, that I do lots of songs with the kids, but there we go, if he
thinks that’s going to be useful then that’s what I’ll do erm so
yeah I think it was a fairly straightforward meeting nothing
too bad…about it…I think I expressed myself quite well, didn’t
say all that much but got my questions answered, found out
everything I needed to know, so, so yeah, I think it was good
There we go.

2.2.2.1 Determinacy
Hannah’s lack of confidence is revealed by her need to justify herself at
every turn. In her efforts not to appear unreasonably demanding, she
peppers her language with qualification and mitigation. The adverbial
conjunction ‘just’ occurs six times as if to emphasise that her request
for a timetable was appropriate since all her friends had obtained one
without any difficulty. Apart from the profusion of mitigating discourse
markers (e.g. ‘kind of’, ‘yeah’, ‘you know’, ‘like’, ‘there we go’ ‘a little
bit’, ‘fairly’), this sense of self-justification is further reflected in her
choice of words to refer to the timetable: ‘timetable’, ‘this sheet’,
‘computer printed out thing […] detailing their hours’, as if to imply
how routinely straightforward it was to produce the document and
therefore to exonerate her from imposing excessively on an authority
figure whose efficiency she is beginning to question. Her attitude is
further justified by the repetition of ‘got it’ (‘they’d just got it, gone and
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animo viam ingressus est. Constituit, quantùm fieri posset, littus
sequi, nec sylvestribus locis se committere, ne in feras incideret.

Ac primo die nihil ei in itinere accidit memorandum. Sex milliaria

circiter eo die confecit ; et quo longiùs progrediebatur, eò certiùs
comperit se in sterilissimâ insulæ parte sedem posuisse. Multis
nimirùm in locis arbores invenit vario fructuum genere abundantes,
unde victum non salubrem minùs quàm jucundum petere
[119]potuisset. Horum posteà usus nominaque didicit.

Primam noctem Robinson in arbore egit, ut tutus à feris esset ;

et posterâ die iter persecutus est. Nec multum viæ confecerat, cùm
extremam insulæ partem versùs meridiem attigit. Solum nonnullis in
locis erat arenosum. Dum autem tendit ad tractum terræ in mare
procurrentem, ecce pedem fert retrò ; tum pallescere, contremiscere,
oculos circumferre, et subito hærere quasi fulmine repentino ictus.
Videt nimirum quod hic visurum se nunquàm speraverat, vestigia
hominum arenæ impressa...!

Tum ille territus undique circumspicit : audito vel levissimo

foliorum strepitu stupet, sensusque adeo perturbantur, ut stet inops
consilii ; tandem collectis viribus, fugam corripit, quasi instarent à
tergo, nec præ terrore respicere ausus est. At ecce repentè substitit.
Metus in horrorem vertitur. Videt nimirùm fossam rotundam,
[120]atque in medio ignis exstincti focum. Quem circà, horresco
referens, crania, manus, pedes, aliaque corporis ossa adspicit,
exsecrandas reliquias convivii à quo natura abhorret. Scilicet tunc
temporis in insulis Caraibicis feri homines degebant, cannibales
vocati aut anthropophagi : quibus solemnis erat consuetudo captivis
mactatis assatisque immanes epulas celebrare, in quibus lætitiâ
atrociùs debacchabantur, saltantes, canentes, aut potiùs, satiatâ
feritate, ululantes.

Robinson oculos ab horribili spectaculo avertit. Nauseâ etiam

correptus, animi deliquio laboraturus fuisset, nisi stomachum vomitu
levâsset. Ubi primùm paululùm refectus est, fugit tantâ velocitate, ut
vix fugientem fidelis lama sequi potuerit. Tantoperè verò mentem
Robinsonis timor alienaverat, ut lamæ sui planè oblitus, audito
sequentis socii gressu, instantem à tergo sibi cannibalem fingeret,
omnibusque viribus effugere conaretur.
[121]

Ac ne cursum morarentur, hastam, arcum, sagittas, securim

abjicit : quam sibi videt expeditiorem, viam potiorem habet ;
iteratisque per totam horam ambagibus sic efficit, ut circumeundo ad
locum eumdem, unde aufugerat, redierit. Tunc novus horror animum
ejus attonitum occupat. Quo in loco versetur non agnoscit, nec
animadvertit eumdem esse, quem anteà viderat ; sed putat invenisse
se novum immanitatis eorum quos fugit monumentum. Itaque
violentissimo impetu se proripit, neque priùs currere desiit quam
fessum cursu corpus vires desererent. Tunc omninò exhaustus
sensuque orbatus procidit. Hùc quoque lama advenit, nec fessus
minùs juxtà dominum procumbit. Fortè is ipse erat locus ubi anteà
Robinson arma abjecerat. Oculis itaque non multo post apertis, hæc
prima in gramine conspexit. Quodquidem somnium ipsi omninò
visum est, nec intelligebat quomodo et arma sic jacerent, et ipse in
eum locum venisset : [122]tantopere formido animum ejus
perturbaverat !

Ac brevì surrexit, ut locum istum quàm celerrimè linqueret. Sed

tunc paululùm ad se reversus, nec tam imprudens ut arma
oblivisceretur, statuit ea jam non exuere quibus solis vitam poterat
defendere. Tantopere autem erat debilitatus, ut, licet instante metu,
jam non eâdem, quâ anteà, pernicitate fugeret. Per totum reliquum
diem cibi appetitum planè amisit, semelque tantummodò substitit, ut
sitim fontis aquâ restingueret.

Frustra speravit se eodem die ad sedem suam perventurum.

Obscurâ jam luce, dimidiæ circiter horæ spatio aberat à domicilio, eo
scilicet in loco quem rusculum suum vocaverat. Quippe spatium erat
clausum, et satis amplum, in quo partem gregis coercebat, quia
nempe pinguiora ibi quam prope habitaculum suum crescebant
gramina. Ibi nonnullas noctes superiori æstate degerat, ne ab
insectis, quæ eum [123]domi fodiebant, infestaretur. Sed viribus
planè exhaustis longiùs progredi non poterat. Etsi periculosissimum
ei videbatur pernoctare in loco nullis præsidiis munito, attamen
necessitas illud postulabat. Vix autem humi se prostraverat, cùm
neque omnino sopitus, neque omnino vigil, in ambiguâ somni
exspectatione, ecce subito terrore perhorruit.

Vocem audivit veluti cœlo demissam, hæc verba articulatè

proferentem : « Ave, Robinson. »

Robinson perterritus exsilit, toto corpore contremiscens, et planè

inops consilii. Ac iisdem iterum auditis, oculos in eum locum timidè
convertit, unde vox profecta erat. Tum vidit, quod sanè ignavo
cuique in promptu esset, si rem, priusquam animus perturbaretur,
paulò attentiùs consideraret ; vidit se vano metu territum fuisse :
quippe vox illa profecta erat, non de cœlo, sed de ramo in quo
carissimus sibi insidebat psittacus. Tum verò [124]metus in lætitiam
vertitur quod causam rei invenisset. Manum porrigit psittaco. Ille
devolat ; dumque mutuis alter alterum blanditiis excipit, psittacus
pergit proferre dictatam salutationem.

Hic autem totam ferè noctem insomnem traduxit, tum cibi, tum
quietis immemor, fremitum quemque auribus captans. Feri homines
semper occurrebant oculis ; frustrà verò animum à fœdâ cogitatione
abducere tentavit. Tum ut se tutiorem in futurum præstaret, cœpit
plurima animo consilia agitare, eaque stultissima : ex quibus unum,
quod incredibile videbitur, hoc erat, ut die oborto omnia adæquaret
solo quæ tantâ diligentiâ, tanto labore exstruxerat, ne vel minimum
quidem humanæ industriæ vestigium deprehendi posset.
[125]
 Caput decimum quintum.

Epulæ atroces. — Prælium. — Fortitudo Robinsonis. —

Vendredi servatus.

V ix alma diei lux umbras noctis dispulerat, cùm Robinson res

vidit in alio lumine collocatas. Quod heri prudentia, quod
necessitas suadebat, tunc stultum atque inutile judicavit. Consilia
demum minùs considerata quæ timor ipsi suggesserat, nunc
reprobat, et ad meliora rationique magis consentanea animum
convertit. Nunc enim, nocte interpositâ, intelligit timorem hesternum
fuisse nimium. « Dudum, ait ille secum, hic ego commoratus sum,
nec ullus unquam homo ferus in vicinitatem habitaculi mei venit : ex
quo satis patet suum eos in hâc insulâ domicilium non habere.
Verisimile est, [126]aliam eos incolere regionem, unde nonnulli hùc
veniunt, ut victorias atrocibus epulis concelebrent, eosque ad eam
insulæ partem quæ vergit ad meridiem, appellere, atque inde
discedere, cæteris insulae partibus neglectis. Singulari igitur ac
divino munere, ego in hanc steriliorem insulæ partem compulsus fui,
hoc ipso tutior. » Tum animo et viribus confirmatus, domum se
contulit, ut nova, quæ inierat, consilia persequeretur.

Placuit inter cætera plantare non procul ab arboreo quo

habitaculum munierat septo nemus ita densum, ut sedes à longinquo
conspici non posset. Hâc mente duo circiter millia ejus generis
salicum plantavit quas jam facilè radices agere atque brevì crescere
animadverterat. Sed maximè cavendum judicavit ne eas ordine
aliquo disponeret, ut silvula naturâ potiùs quàm arte consita
videretur. Tum statuit viam subterraneam per cuniculum agere, ab
imâ speluncâ ad alterum montis [127]latus, ut, urgente necessitate,
haberet effugium, Quodquidem opus fuit magni et diuturni laboris,
adeo ut à cymbæ fabricatione ad tempus omninò desisteret.

Sic ille quidem satis tutus sibi videbatur ab impetu repentino.

Quid verò ? si hostis instet, obsidioneque cinctum teneat ? Neque
hoc vanum prorsus erat aut futile ; quippe quod aliquandò fieri
posset. Itaque necesse esse judicavit ut se adversus hunc casum
muniret, ne fame aut periret, aut ad deditionem compelleretur.
Quamobrem statuit unam certè lamam quæ lacte abundaret in atrio
domicilii servare, atque ad hanc alendam fœni acervum sepositum
habere, ex quo nihil, nisi necessitate coactus, detraheret. Decretum
est quoque casei, pomorum et ostrearum copiam parare, quam de
die in diem renovaret.

Quibus ita dispositis, Robinson aliquot annos vitam vixit adeo

tranquillam, ut nihil memoratu dignum ei acciderit. Igitur ad [128]rem
illam propero, quæ ad commutandam ejus conditionem plus valuit
quàm quidquid huc usque ei contigerat.

Cùm Robinson mane quodam sereno in cymbâ fabricandâ esset

occupatus, magnum è longinquo fumum adscendentem subitò
conspexit. Primo quidem adspectu obstupuit, mox autem ad montem
speluncæ imminentem quàm celerrimè cucurrit, causam rei inde
speculaturus. Ubi primum montem conscendit, majori etiam cum
terrore conspexit quinque scaphulas in littore religatas, triginta autem
barbaros ingentem apud focum, truci gestu, atque incondito clamore
chorum agentes. Saltabant unico tantùm pede ; nam alterum
erectum et in aere libratum habebant.

Etsi ad spectaculum hujusmodi videndum Robinson non

imparatus erat, parum tamen abfuit quin rursùs terrore exanimaretur.
Verumtamen fortitudinem et fiduciam celeriter in animum
revoca [129]vit : tum è colle properè descendit, omnia dispositurus
quibus se tueretur ; cunctisque armis instructus, et auxilium precatus
à Deo, constituit vitam suam, quoad posset, defendere. Tunc iterum
ad summum collem conscendit, hostes exploraturus.

Mox verò cohorruit atque indignatus est, cùm satis distinctè vidit
duos homines è scaphis trahi ad ignem. Ac primò suspicatus est eos
neci addictos, brevique comperit se non errâsse. Aliquot enim ex
barbaris alterum captivum prosternunt, prostratumque duo alii adorti
corpus laniant, ad epulas atroces instruendas. Interim stabat alter
captivus, donec ipse quoque mactaretur. Dum verò intentos quisque
oculos in cruciatum et lacerationem tenet, ille, tempore arrepto, fugit
atque citatissimo cursu in eam regionis partem contendit quam
Robinson incolebat.

Tunc noster erectus suspensusque tum [130]spe et lætitiâ, tum

timore atque horrore vicissim perstringitur. Hinc exsultat, cùm videt
captivum aliquo spatio persequentes superantem ; inde toto corpore
contremiscit, cùm animadvertit cunctos ad habitaculum suum, anteà
ignotum, cursum dirigere. Erat autem sinus mediocris profugo
trajiciendus, ne in manus hostium caderet. In quem statim prosiliit,
eâdemque quam huc usque adhibuerat celeritate tranavit ad littus
oppositum. Dum ii qui propiùs urgebant in aquam se quoque
projiciunt, cæteri ad convivium horribile revertuntur. Quanto autem
gaudio Robinson animadvertit, hos illi natando pares non esse !
Miser enim jam ex aquâ emerserat, cùm cæteri nondùm emensi
erant dimidiam sinûs partem.

Tunc Robinson insolitâ fortitudine atque audaciâ animatum se

sensit ; hastâ correptâ è monte decurrit. Et continuò egressus silvâ,
terribili voce exclamat : « Siste gradum ! » At ille, adspectu
Robin [131]sonis pellibus horridi, obstupuit ; ratus esse aliquem supra
humanam conditionem, incertusque utrum se ad pedes ejus
projiceret, an verò fugam persequeretur. Robinson ei manu significat
adesse se defensorem, et subitò conversus it obviam hostibus.
Priorem, cùm jam propius esset, hastâ percussum vi magnâ dejicit.
Alter, qui centum circiter passus aberat, attonitus stupet ; tum arcum
sagittâ instruit, quam in Robinsonem jam proximè accedentem
intorquet. Illa pectus ejus ferit ; sed adeò leviter pellem, quâ indutus
erat, strinxit, ut corpus ferro esset intactum. Tum Robinson priori
victoriâ ferox, vehementi impetu elatus, barbarum prostravit. Deinde
hominem respicit, cujus vitam servaverat : hic autem timorem inter et
spem dubius eodem in loco hærebat, incertus utrum hæc omnia suæ
salutis causâ agerentur, an sibi ignotâ victoris manu foret quoque
pereundum. Ille autem [132]barbarum ad se vocat, significatque ut
propiùs accedat. Hic paruit, mox autem præ metu constitit ; et nunc
pedem profert, nunc retrahit ; demùmque lentè progreditur, non sine
magnâ significatione terroris, supplicisque habitu.

Cùm Robinson amicitiam suam omni modo demonstrâsset,

tandem ille formam ignotam adire ausus est ; sed decimo quoque
passu supplex in genua procidit, quasi gratias ageret simul et
honorem præstaret.

Tum Robinson sublatâ larvâ vultum humanum et benignum

ostendit. Quo viso, barbarus confidentiùs servatorem suum adit,
totoque corpore se projiciens terram osculatur. Noster autem, qui
amicum habere mallet quàm servum, blandè hominem manu
allevans, ei quâcumque potuit ratione persuadere studet se velle
cum ipso amicitiam jungere. Multa verò facienda supererant.

Barbarus qui prior fuerat prostratus, [133]vulnus lethale non

acceperat : itaque cùm animum sensim recepisset, herbis evulsis ad
sedandum sanguinem vulnus obturare cœpit. Robinson barbaro suo
hoc demonstrat. Tum Indus nunc securim lapideam Robinsoni
ostendit, nunc se ipsum, significans se illius ope vitam hosti
erepturum. Robinson autem, qui ab humano sanguine effundendo
abhorrebat, tunc necesse ratus ut hostis de medio tolleretur, securim
porrigit, avertens oculos. Indus in hostem vulneratum irruit, illum uno
ictu obtruncat : tum ovans revertitur ; et securim, cæsique hominis
cruentum caput, victoriæ pignora, ad pedes Robinsonis deponit.

Tum Robinson ei signis quibusdam dedit intelligendum, ut,

collectis cæsorum arcubus et sagittis, se prosequeretur ; barbarus
autem innuit Robinsoni, priùs quam recederent, corpora defunctorum
esse humi condenda, ne socii ulla aliquando eorum vestigia
reperirent.
[134]

Cùm Robinson indicâsset se hoc probare, Indus solis manibus

magnâ cum celeritate brevì utrumque cadaver arenâ obruit. Tum
ambo ad habitaculum Robinsonis se conferunt.
[135]
 Caput decimum sextum.

Robinson paratus ad obsidionem ferendam. — Vendredi

describitur. — Quare sic appellatus.

I ncerta adhuc ancepsque erat fortuna Robinsonis. Nonne

verisimile erat barbaros, epulis inhumanis satiatos, vestigia
sociorum secuturos esse, ut eos, et captivum qui evaserat,
quærerent. Tunc verò dubium non erat quin illi, detecto semel
Robinsonis habitaculo, expugnatoque, eum simul et novum comitem
occiderent. Quæ cogitatio Robinsonis animum agitabat, dum è
summo colle post arborem latens fœdam epulationem chorosque
barbarorum intuetur. Tunc deliberat, quid sibi in hoc rerum articulo
faciendum sit, utrum fugiat, an in arce suâ inclusum [136]se teneat.
Cùm verò mentem suam ad potentissimum illud numen innocentiæ
præsidium erexisset, sese adeò confirmatum animo sensit, ut
posterius facere constituerit. Itaque inter dumeta usque ad
domicilium prorepit, socio significans ut idem agat ; sicque ambo ad
speluncam perveniunt.

Tunc barbarus, domicilium liberatoris commodè dispositum

intuens, obstupuit ; quippe qui nihil unquam vidisset sic ordinatum.

Robinson barbaro significat, quid sit ab hostium multitudine

metuendum ; se autem paratum esse ad vitam strenuè
defendendam. Quo quidem ille intellecto truci vultu securim vibrat,
gestuque terribili versùs eum locum se convertit, ubi hostes erant,
quasi illos provocaret, patronoque declararet se ad acerrimam
defensionem paratissimum. Robinson, hâc ejus fortitudine probatâ,
hastam, arcum et sagittas ei tradit, eumque ad foramen
[137]munimenti arborei velut in excubiis collocat, unde prospiceret,
quid in spatio inter parietem et nemus à se consitum interjecto
ageretur. Sic cum forti socio usque ad vesperam armatus stetit. Cùm
verò post aliquot horas nihil usquàm hostile cernerent,
existimaverunt barbaros, postquam frustra investigaverant, in
scaphis domum reversos esse. Igitur armis depositis, Robinson
cœnam instruit.

Cùm autem hæc dies in vitâ Robinsonis maximè memoranda,

dies esset Veneris, gallicè Vendredi, memoriam ejus consecrare
voluit ; itaque barbarum, quem servaverat, eo nomine appellavit.

Nondum huc usque Robinsoni vacaverat eum attentiùs

considerare. Juvenis erat egregiæ formæ, viginti circiter annorum ;
colore fusco, cute nitidâ ; crinibus nigris, non autem laneis, sicut
Æthiopum, sed rectis ; naso brevi, nec eo depresso ; labiis parvis ;
dentibus ita albis, ut ebur æquarent. Aures ejus variis conchis et
pennis [138]ornatæ erant, quibus ille non mediocriter superbire
videbatur : nudus cæterùm à capite ad pedes.

Itaque Robinson amiculo consutis è pellibus confecto socium

induit. Tùm ei significavit, ut lateri assideret ad cœnandum.

Vendredi magnâ cum reverentiæ atque grati animi significatione

ad Robinsonem accessit ; tum in genua se prostravit, capite in
terram demisso.
 Robinson, autem socio atque amico diù exoptato mirificè
lætatus, blanditiis potiùs illum sibi devincire cupiebat ; nimirum
existimabat duplicem non esse generis humani originem, nec fictos
meliore luto hos qui vocantur albi, cùm eodem patre atque nigri
homines nati sint. Attamen, cùm putaret prudentius esse hospitem
nondum satis sibi cognitum intra obsequii et venerationis fines
continere, honoremque ab eo velut sibi debitum accipere, aliquandiù
regis personam erga hominem gerere constituit.
[139]
 Caput decimum septimum.

Origo regiæ potestatis. — Robinson abundat opibus. — Habet

subditos. — Vendredi novo vivendi genere delectatur.

I taque Robinson signis gestuque socio intelligendum dedit, se

illum quidem in tutelam suam recepisse, eâ tamen lege ut
summam ipsi obedientiam præstaret, atque omnibus sedulo vacaret
quæcumque dominus et rex novus jussisset. Ideò cacicum se ipse
appellavit, quoniam eo nomine barbarorum in Americâ principes ab
istis vocari meminerat. Quâ voce, meliùs quàm signis adhibitis,
Vendredi id intellexit quod suus ei domibus declarabat ; et ut pateret
se domino in servitutem semetipsum dicare, iterum iterumque
nomen illud clarâ [140]voce pronuntiavit, Robinsonem manu
demonstrans, pedibusque ejus advolutus est. Quin, ut significaret se
satis intelligere quanta esset vis regiæ potestatis, hastam arreptam
domino porrexit, cuspide ad pectus suum directâ, atque hoc ipso
declaravit Robinsonem vitæ necisque habere potestatem. Tum
Robinson, assurgens in regiam majestatem, dextram subdito
porrexit, jussitque secum cœnare. Vendredi dicto audiens fuit, ita
tamen ut ipse ad pedes Robinsonis humi, ille verò in suggestu
graminis sederet.

Haud absimili ratione primi reges apud mortales exstitêre. Viri

nempe fuerunt sapientiâ, fortitudine atque corporis robore cæteris
præstantiores. Itaque infirmiores, ut se ab impetu ferarum, quibus
initio terræ plurimùm infestabantur, aut ab injuriâ vique hominum se
defenderent, confugêre ad potentioris auxilium. Pro quo præsidio, se
ea quæ imperâsset facturos polliciti sunt, daturosque quotannis
certam de fructibus [141]agrorum partem, ut patroni, quibus non
esset quærendum unde ipsi victitarent, toti essent in salute
subditorum propugnandâ. Quæquidem donaria regi à subditis
quotannis tribuenda, tributa vocata sunt. Hinc regum potestas, et
opes ; hinc obsequia debitaque subditorum.

Jam verè Robinson rex fuit. Quippe insula erat pro regno, lamæ
fructusque pro ærario, Vendredi pro subdito, unico quidem, sed
carissimo, psittacusque pro aulico, sed ferè inutili. Placuit sæpè regi
ad subditum usque descendere, quantùm regia dignitas pateretur.

Cœnâ confectâ, rex novus de cubiculis ritè disponendis

mandata dedit. Parùm sanè Robinson consideratè egisset, si socio,
qui tam brevì tempore tot munera adeptus erat (quippe qui esset
subditus idem et minister, legatus et miles, præfectus copiarum et
ædium), si, inquam, homini novo, nec satis probato, secum in eâdem
speluncâ recubandi licentiam dedisset. Ete [142]nim non satis tutum
habuit vitam suam cæcumque subterraneæ viæ exitum credere
externo et alienigenæ, de cujus fidelitate nondum adhuc spectatâ
non satis constabat. Itaque jubetur Vendredi ut idoneam fœni
copiam in caveam transportet, sibique inde paret cubile : novus
intereà rex, ut securitati suæ consulat, arma omnia in cubiculum
suum confert.

Tum Robinsonem non puduit in conspectu totius populi humili

ac prorsùs agresti ministerio fungi. Qui universæ, quaquà patebat,
insulæ imperitabat, qui in suos omnes subditos vitæ necisque jus
habebat, ille non erubuit, servilem in modum, regiis manibus lamas
ipse mulgere, ut ritè doceret ministrum, cui hanc provinciam posteà
mandare in animo habebat. Hic verò, quamvis rem attentè
consideraret, quò tamen spectaret minimè intellexit. Quippe nec ille,
nec ejus populares, ut hebeti prorsùs erant ingenio, unquam
suspicati fuerant lac animalium [143]salubre æquè ac nutriendo
corpori esse accommodatissimum : nunquàm hoc genus alimenti
labris attigerat. Itaque singularem cepit voluptatem, cum paululùm
lactis â Robinsone oblatum hausit.

Variis autem hujus diei molestiis periculisque fessi ambo somni

quietisque erant appetentissimi. Robinson igitur subdito mandavit, ut
ad lectum se conferret ; tum ipse quoque eò se contulit. Priùs tamen
quàm cubitum iret, noster non oblitus est gratias Deo agere, quòd
uno eodemque die tantis periculis defunctus fuisset, sibique similem
suî, socium et, ut sperabat, amicum ille misisset.
[144]
 Caput decimum octavum.

Suspicio in lætitiam et admirationem versa. — Casus qui risum

legenti movebit. — Rebus secundis adversæ levantur.

P ostero die Robinson cum socio statim ad eum locum se

contulit, ubi hesterno barbaros atrocibus epulis accumbentes
viderat. Inter eundum eò devenerunt, ubi ambo barbari à Robinsone
interfecti arenâ obruti jacebant. Vendredi, locum domino
demonstrans, apertè significavit quantùm gestiret cadavera ista
eruere, ut improbam carnis aviditatem expleret. Quem Robinson
intuens torvo vultu, ei declarat quantùm à tali facinore ipse
abhorreat, hastâque elatâ, infesto gestu, mortem ei denuntiat, ei
unquam ille ejusmodi cibum [145]attingeret. Quo quidem intellecto,
Vendredi statim domino paruit, incertus tamen quam ob causam sibi
epulis interdiceretur, quas à teneris non mediocriter appetierat.

Tunc ad locum convivii devenerunt. Heu ! qualis adspectus !

terra cruore tincta ! disjecta passim ossa ! Robinson oculos avertit,
sociumque jubet terram statim fodere, tristesque barbarorum
helluonum reliquias condere.

Dum ille mandata exsequitur, Robinson cineres sopitos attentè

suscitabat, sperans se aliquam ignis particulam inventurum. Sed
frustra. Erat ignis omnino exstinctus ; quoquidem Robinson
magnoperè doluit. Ex quo enim divino munere socium sibi
adjunxerat, nihil ipsi ferè optandum supererat præter ignem. Dum
autem ille, capite inclinato, mœstoque vultu exstinctos cineres
adspicit, ecce Vendredi, cùm dominum cogitatione defixum
animadvertisset, nonnulla signa dedit, quæ Robinson non
[146]intellexit ; tum subitò arreptâ securi, citatissimo cursu silvam petit
intimam, Robinsonemque relinquit obstupescentem.

« Quid hoc sibi vult ? ait secum Robinson, dum euntem anxiis
prosequitur oculis. Mene homo deserat, et ablatâ securi aufugiat ?
an ille sit tam perfidus, ut meum habitaculum occupet, ut me ipsum
vi inde arceat, et popularibus suis inhumanis prodat. Proh scelus ! »
Statimque inflammatus irâ hastam corripit, ut proditorem
persequatur, nefariaque consilia et puniat et prævertat. Dum sic de
fide barbari timet, videt hominem citatissimo cursu redeuntem.
Robinson sistit gradum, miraturque eum, quem proditionem
machinari suspicatus fuerat, sublatum graminis aridi manipulum
tenere unde fumus oriebatur. Jam in flammam erumpit ; et Vendredi,
manipulo in terram projecto, addit diligenter majorem graminis aridi
atque sarmentorum copiam, clarumque et ardentem ignem
succendit : quod [147]quidem non minorem Robinsoni lætitiam quam
admirationem movit.

Tum compertâ causâ propter quam Vendredi subitò excurrerat,

cùm ipse tantam lætitiam capere non posset, hic illum amplexus
osculatusque tacitè rogat præconceptæ suspicionis veniam.

Scilicet Vendredi diligenter silvam petierat, ut è trunco arido duo

ligni fragmenta excideret. Qua ille scitè alterum altero colliserat tantâ
celeritate, ut ignem conciperent. Tum citiùs lignis arido gramine
involutis, cum isto manipulo procurrerat, quâ motûs velocitate
exarserat fœnum.

Tantoperè agitatione flammarum Robinson delectatus est, ut

illarum adspectu satiari non posset. Tandem arreptâ tædâ, comite
Vendredi, in habitaculum properat.

Tum igne accenso, nonnullisque solanorum tuberibus circa

focum positis, ad gregem festinat ; lamæ pullum eligit, mac [148]tat,
dissecat, quartamque ejus partem veru affigit, quod socio
versandum mandat.

Intereà dum ille hoc munere fungitur, Robinson segmentum

pectoris amputat ; tum nonnulla tubera probè lavat, manipulumque
zeæ duobus saxis adhibitis molit ; hæc omnia ollæ committit, in quâ,
addito sale, idoneam aquæ partem infundit, ac demùm olla igni
apponitur.

Vendredi istum omnem apparatum cernebat, nec intelligebat

quò res spectaret. Noverat quidem usum assandi, sed nunquàm de
arte coquendi audiverat. Quin etiam ignorabat, quænam esset vis
ignis in aquam ollæ infusam. Quæquidem fervere cœpit, cùm
Robinson paululum in speluncam secessisset. Vendredi obstupuit,
miratus quid esset quod sic aquam moveret.

Cùm verò eam vidit exæstuantem et undequàque exundantem,

stultè putavit animal in ollâ esse, quod istum derepente æstum
excitaret : ut autem impediret, ne omnis ab ollâ aqua effunderetur,
manum [149]celeriter immersit, ut animal noxium caperet. Tum verò
clamorem et ululatum edidit, quo tota personuit spelunca. Hoc audito
Robinson valdè exterritus est, existimans à barbaris
supervenientibus socium opprimi. Itaque timor et insitus in animis
propriæ salutis amor suadebant, ut per subterraneum cuniculum
effugeret. Mox autem consilium abjecit, turpe ratus subditum, aut
potiùs amicum, in ancipiti periculo deserere. Sine morâ igitur è
speluncâ prorupit armis instructus, paratusque vitam ipse suam
profundere, ut comitem è manibus barbarorum iterum eriperet.

Ut verò obstupuit, cùm hominem solum, amentis instar,

ululantem gestuque insolito circum trepidantem vidit ! Diù quoque
Robinson dubius anxiusque hæsit. Re demum explanatâ, intellexit
omne malum ex eo esse, quòd manum sibi Vendredi leviter usserit.
Nunquàm ille neque audiendo, neque experiendo cognoverat aquæ
fervorem addi posse ; nunquàm manu tetigerat [150]aquam fervidam :
itaque non potuit intelligere, quæ causa esset doloris ejus quem
manu in aquam immersâ sensit. Sic igitur magicâ quâdam arte hoc
fieri, dominumque magum esse existimavit, Robinson ægrè animum
socii sedare, eique persuadere potuit, ut denuò carni veru versandæ
assideret. Ille mandato tandem obsecutus, ollam non sine horroris
quodam sensu, dominum verò, quem humanâ conditione majorem
nunc putavit, timidâ cum reverentiâ contemplatus est. Quamquidem
opinionem albus color promissaque barba etiam confirmabant : hæc
enim efficiebant, ut Robinson specie oris longè differret à socio
ejusque popularibus, fuscum colorem et imberbem vultum
præferentibus.

Jam verò prandium paratum erat. Quantoperè Robinson calidis

et pinguibus cibis delectatus sit, facile est intelligere. Nunc quoque
calamitatum præteritarum oblitus sibi in animo fingit jam non desertâ
in insulâ, sed in regione frequentissimâ se [151]versari. Sic animi
vulnera insperato quodam gaudio sanari solent, etsi illa plerumque
insanabilia putamus.
 Prandio confecto, Robinson secessit, ut de prosperâ rerum
suarum commutatione secum ipse meditaretur. Nunc omnia ei
arridere visa sunt. Quippe qui jam non esset homo solitarius,
socioque gauderet quîcum nondum quidem colloqui, sed ex cujus
consuetudine multum solatii opisque licebat exspectare.

Et verò cogitanti venit quidem in mentem vitam mollem atque

otiosam agere, dum intereà Vendredi, juvenis robustusque, de quo
prætereà tam benè meritus fuerat, ut eum sibi famulum jure quodam
vindicaret, necessariis muneribus laboribusque perfungeretur. Sed
cùm intùs reputâsset fieri posse ut aliquandò tam felici ipse
conditione excideret ; tunc verò, si otio atque inertiâ corrumpi se
pateretur, molestum sibi fore ad duritiem paupertatemque prioris
vitæ redire ; statuit in labore [152]æquè gnaviter ac strenuè
perseverare : atque, hoc decreto, è strato exsilit, citatoque gressu in
vestibulo domicilii obambulat. Intereà Vendredi ciborum reliquiis in
cellâ sepositis, Robinsonis jussu, ad lamas mulgendas abit.
[153]