ALICE IN
PRAGMATICLAND:
REFERENCE,
DEIXIS AND THE DELIMITATION OF TEXT WORLDS
IN LEWIS
CARROLL’S ALICE BOOKS
clac 2/2000
Laura Hidalgo
Downing
Universidad
Autónoma de Madrid
0. Introduction
My interest in
the work of Lewis Carroll goes back to my childhood, but, more recently, as a
linguist, I rediscovered the enormous potential of the Alice books as
illustrations of how our language system actually works; this was thanks to Robin
Lakoff’s (1993) excellent article on the subversive potential of the Alice
books, which she analyses in general terms from a pragmatic perspective. The
reading of this article stimulated my own personal reflections and thoughts on
the books, in particular regarding the notion of reference and its connection
with acts of naming, classifying, categorising and establishing an orientation
within a text world. This article explores how reference is dealt with in the
books Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by focusing on
two aspects:
(a) the
peculiar way in which acts of assigning sense and reference take place in the
two fictional worlds,
(b) how the
deictic parameters regarding space, time and person coordinates determine the
idiosyncratic nature of Wonderland and, especially, of Looking Glass
World.
The general
theoretical assumption underlying the present discussion is that the analysis
of language in given texts can provide insights into the workings of our
language as a system of communication. This observation is taken by Lakoff (1993) as a point of departure in her
article, and it is also a general principle adopted in stylistic analysis in
general (see, for example Carter and Nash 1990) and in Systemic Functional
Linguistics in particular (see Halliday, 1978, 1994). In this view, which is
clearly functionally-oriented and grounded on pragmatics, language is part of
socio-cultural behaviour, and, as such, it is both governed by social rules,
and at the same time it reflects the way a given community or society works. In
this sense, language as a system of classification and categorisation reveals
the kinds of mental representations that are coded linguistically in different
societies.[1]
Language is thus both an instrument of communication and a mirror image of the
society which makes use of it.
1. The Alice books
If we consider
the worlds described in the Alice books we have two radically different
societies: as Lakoff (1993: 370-71)
observes, the dream world of Wonderland, a kingdom ruled by the Queen
and King of a card pack, is a world of total freedom, where no rules seem to
apply and arbitrariness characterises social and linguistic behaviour: however,
the world of Looking Glass, which is modelled upon a game of chess, is a
world governed by a rigid system of rules. The cards and the chess pieces as
crucial entities already determine the characteristics of the worlds they
inhabit, which, as the reader soon finds out, are more like games than a “real
world” as we understand it.
As a result,
the exchanges between Alice and the creatures she encounters turn out to be
puzzling and apparently nonsensical and absurd. However, a more careful reading
of the books reveals the fact that they constitute complex reflections on the
philosophical questions of the Victorian Age in Britain. From this perspective,
there is very little nonsense in these books. It can be said that the
adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are not
only the stories of a little girl in two different dream worlds, they are also
the stories of how human reason confronts traditional problems which have
troubled mathematicians, logicians, philosophers and linguists.
2. What is reference and how
can we do things with it?
Reference is
usually defined as a major linguistic function, the function which enables us
to establish connections between words or linguistic signs and things in the
world, and between different words within a text.[2]
Reference is thus a crucial aspect of text structure; it enables us to
introduce information in discourse and mantain it without repeating time after
time the same words, or to change it without incurring in incoherence. In this
article, reference is dealt with as a pragmatic function, that is, as a
context-dependent function, but it undoubtedly has a strong semantic and
structural basis. However, the pragmatic factor is crucial; this can be seen in
the well-known examples provided by textbooks, such as those in (1) and (2):
(1) I will be
back tomorrow.
(2) I told her
to leave it there.
Unless these
utterances are said in a context, it is impossible to a have full understanding
of their complete meaning. More precisely, it is not possible for us to
identify exactly the time reference of tomorrow in example (1), nor the
entities referred to by the pronouns I, her, and it, nor
the place reference for the adverb there in example (2). The failure to
establish a specific connection between these words and corresponding periods
of time, entities or places in a context is a failure in assigning reference.
A further
crucial aspect of reference is that it is speaker-based, which means that
referential and especially deictic expressions determine the orientation or
point of view of a discourse from the perspective of a specific speaker.
Indeed, authors such as Semino (1997) and Werth (1995, 1999) argue that deictic
terms are at the basis of the “world-building process”, that is, the process
whereby a reader or listener constructs a mental representation of a text.
Thus, deictis establish the coordinates for the entities and the setting that
characterise a given situation.
In the first
part of the article, I define reference as part of the assignment of linguistic
meaning and discuss certain problems
which have troubled philosophers and semanticists, but which have been solved
by means of discourse-based approaches. In the second part of the article I
concentrate on deixis, a specific type of reference, and I discuss how deixis
helps define a text world. The illustrations from the Alice books
provide excellent examples of how some philosophical and linguistic questions
which have to do with reference and deixis are humorously manifested in the
strange behaviour of the creatures which Alice encounters. They also constitute
good examples of how alternative (or different) worlds are defined and
constructed according to parameters which differ from those of our own world.
The objective is to illustrate the way in which reference actually determines
the creation of patterns of text and discourse and the way it conditions the
degree of internal coherence of a text and how this is perceived by a reader.[3]
Consequently, throughout the discussion we will see that reference has a lot to
do, not only with how a specific text or discourse may differ from other texts
or discourses, but also, crucially, that reference is a subjective function,
that is, it helps define a context from the specific point of view of a given
speaker.
2.1. The pragmatic nature of
acts of referring
In this section
I address some basic aspects regarding the definition of reference focusing on
its pragmatic nature and on the relationship between the notion of reference
and existential assumptions. The way reference is standardly understood to work
when we use language in context (i.e. in a present-day, developed, western
society) is contrasted with the peculiarities which can be appreciated in the
use of reference in the Alice books.
We can say, as
many authors have done before (see, for example, Thomas 1996) that the
interpretation or processing of language in context hinges upon the successful
assignment of the sense, reference and force of words. By sense, we usually
mean the dictionary meaning or meanings of a word. For example, the word bank
in English may have two senses or dictionary meanings,
(a) a place
where you keep your money
(b) a river
bank or shore
The precise
meaning of a word in a given utterance is determined contextually, thus if I
hear (3), I will assume the speaker will be talking about the place where you
keep money:
(3) I went to
the bank this morning but it was closed.
In brief, sense
is traditionally considered to be inherent to specific words and, consequently,
context-independent; however, this is only relative, since successful communication
depends on an adequate identification and processing of the sense that is
intended in a given context. Reference, however, is by nature context-dependent
and is speaker motivated. For example, the word dog alone does not
refer, but we need referring expressions, such as the possessive
genitive John’s dog or the demonstrative that dog in order for an
NP to refer in a specific context. Indeed, reference is typically
grammaticalised in the form of articles (the man, a book) and
pronouns (he, she, it, this, that, mine...), or lexicalised in the form
of adverbs (here, there, now).
The main types
of referring expressions are:
- definite and
indefinite NPs - proper
names - deictic elements
I wish now to
consider some of the characteristics of referring expressions and
comment on the peculiarities of the worlds described in the Alice books
according to these observations.
We have seen in
examples (1) and (2) that in order to assign reference successfully an
utterance needs to be interpreted within a specific context. This means that in
many situations a discourse-pragmatic interpretation of an utterance will be
favoured even if it contradicts the literal semantic component of the
proposition. In traditional semantics, it is assumed that on saying an
utterance, a speaker is committed to the truth of the proposition uttered and
to the fact he or she believes that the entities referred to exist.[4]
However, very often in everyday communication we may say utterances which are
not strictly speaking true, but which can be understood on the basis of
contextual clues. Thus, somebody may utter:
(4) I like your
blouse!
The utterance
exemplified in (4) will successfully be understood as referring to the blouse I
am wearing at the moment of utterance, even if the speaker may not know that it
is not actually my blouse, but my sister’s, from whom I have borrowed
it. An interpretation of this kind favours a context-based inferencing process,
rather than the assumption that the literal meaning expressed by the existential
presupposition >> the blouse belongs to me must be true. Simple as
this may seem, it is a process that does not seem to form part of the
linguistic conventions of Wonderland and Looking Glass creatures.
In both books we find different examples which reveal unsuccessful reference
assignment due to a literal interpretation of the utterance and an inability
(or refusal) to interpret the utterance contextually. Thus, the last episode in
Wonderland is the trial against the knave of hearts, who has stolen the
Queen’s tarts; the King asks the Mad Hatter to take off his hat:
(5) “Take off
your hat”, the King said to the hatter.
“It isn’t
mine,” said the Hatter.
“Stolen!”
the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the
fact.
“I keep them to
sell”, the Hatter added as an explanation: “I’ve none of my own. I’m a Hatter.”
(W/147)
Extract (5)
illustrates clearly the pragmatic nature of reference and to what extent its
successful interpretation depends on the appropriate inferencing on the part of
the listener or addressee. As we saw in example (4) above, in ordinary
communication we are able to assign reference even if the referring expression
may not be, strictly speaking, true. A successful inferencing process would
hinge upon the understanding of the reference of the deictic your as
conveying what is most relevant in the context, that is, interpretation (6)
below[5]:
(6) Take off
your hat +> Take off the hat you are wearing.
Instead, the
Hatter understands the utterance to express the literal meaning in (7):
(7) Take off your
hat >> Take off the hat which belongs to you.
A similar
example may be found when Alice meets the Red Queen in Looking Glass World
and tells her she has lost her way, as illustrated in extract (8):
(8) “I don’t
know what you mean by your way,” said the Queen: “all the ways about
here belong to me - “ (LG/206)
As we saw in
extract (5), in extract (8) again we find an example of unsuccessful reference
assignment linked to a literal interpretation of the meaning of a possessive
pronoun. As in (5), it is not the semantic presupposition that must be inferred
by the addressee, that is, it is not (9) a. that Alice means, but the
relevance-based implicature illustrated in (9b):
(9) a. I have
lost my way >> The way belongs to me.
b. I have lost my way +> I don’t know
what direction to go.
Reference is
also interpreted literally in the case of time deixis, not only of Noun Phrases
describing entities. As I explain in section 2.4. below, Looking Glass
World is defined deictically by a different set of parameters and conventions
from what we understand to be the case in our world. Thus, when Alice meets the
White Queen she asks her to be her maid and offers her a salary and “jam every
other day”, which Alice rejects:
(10) “It’s very
good jam,” said the Queen.
“Well, I don’t
want any today, at any rate.”
“You couldn’t
have it if you did want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam tomorrow
and jam yesterday - but never jam today.”
“It must
come sometimes to ‘jam today’“, Alice objected.
“No, it can’t,”
said the Queen. “It’s jam every other day: today isn’t any other
day, you know.” (LG/247)
This passage
illustrates the indexical nature of deictic terms. Thus, deictics are
traditionally described as indexical symbols[6], that
is, as terms which have a basic meaning component and a variable one which
singles out a referent in a specific context. Thus, the deitic today,
for example, has a lexical meaning component which stands for “the current
day”, while the indexical component will single out different instances of days
depending on the context of utterance. Today is a proximal deictic, since it indicates closeness with the
time-reference of the speaker and contrasts with other time expressions such as
tomorrow, and yesterday - distal deictics, in that they indicate
distant time references from the point of view of the speaker. The indexical
component of the deicitic today corresponds to its function as
“pointer”, or its ability to single out the specific date which corresponds to
the expression today in a given context. Deictics are thus always
relative to their context of utterance. It is this function of the words
today, yesterday and tomorrow that the Queen seems to be ignoring in
her exchange with Alice. This point is also made by many owners of shops, bars
and restaurants, who have notes put up in their establishments saying that
credit is always granted yesterday and tomorrow, but never today.
The
context-dependent nature of reference makes it possible to use different
referring expressions to refer to a single entity; thus, I may refer to the
person sitting opposite me as my brother, that young man or Enrique.
There is a playful reference to this feature in the episode where Alice meets
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whose house is signalled by a sign that says:
(11) To
Tweedledum’s house/ To the house of Tweedledee
In the sign,
both indications refer to the same house.
2.2. The problem of
non-referential NPs
A standard question
when dealing with reference is that referring expressions such as the ones we
have seen so far may also be used non-referentially, that is, without pointing
in any specific way at an entity in particular or a place or time in
particular. Let’s consider a typical example:
(12) Jim wants
to meet a contemporary artist.
It we interpret
this utterance referentially, the speaker will have a specific person in mind,
while in a non-referential interpretation we will mean “any” artist, without
specifying one in particular. While many noun phrases and deictics may be
ambiguous, as indeed (10) is, negative words are standardly understood as being
non-referential. Thus, if we face an utterance like (11) we assume that the
negative word nobody cannot refer to any particular entity,
consequently, it is a non-referential NP:
(13) I saw
nobody.
This is not so
in Looking Glass world where even negative NPs or pronouns may be interpreted
referentially. This may be observed in an episode where Alice meets the White
King in Looking Glass world:
(14) “I see
nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I
had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone.”To be able to see Nobody!
And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people,
by this light!” (LG/279)
In (14) the
King interpets Nobody to be a specific individual that can be identified
by Alice and referred to linguistically. This seems to be a recurrent motif in
literary works, rendered famous in the episode in the Odyssey where Ulysses
adopts the name Nobody to cheat Polyphemus and to escape.
A related
example of misinterpretation of a non-referential pronoun is found in an early
episode in Wonderland, where the Mouse is telling a story:
(15)’...and
even Stigand, the patriotric Archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable
---’
‘Found what?’
said the Duck.
‘Found it,’
the Mouse replied rather crossly, ‘of course you know what “it” means.’
‘I know what
“it” means well enough, when I find a thing,’ said the Duck: ‘It’s generally
a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?’
The Mouse did
not notice this question, but hurriedly went on... (W/47)
The pronoun it
in the example above obviously does not refer, but is a dummy it which
perfoms a grammatical function, that of occupying the Object position of an
extraposed clausal complement. As in other examples, the passage illustrates
the tendency of Wonderland creatures to believe that all words must
invariably have both reference and sense.
In fact,
reference has traditionally been linked to questions about the existence of
objects and their ontological status.[7]
Traditionally, it is assumed that on uttering an NP, like for example, the
unicorn, the speaker is committed to the belief that such an entity exists,
otherwise, reference will not be possible. This is explained by the fact that
NPs trigger existential presuppositions. However, common sense tells us that it
is actually possible to refer to imaginary or fictional entities as long as we
are aware that they only exist in imaginary or fictional worlds (see Lyons
1977: 181-197). Thus, Lyons (1995: 299) makes the following observation:
one cannot
successfully refer to something that does not exist. One can, of course, successfully
refer to imaginary, fictional and hypothetical entities; but in so doing, one
presupposes that they exist in an imaginary, fictional or hypothetical world.
Similarly, one can (and frequently does) refer to dead persons.
The possibility
of assigning reference to non-existent entities can be formalised in a theory
of discourse grounded on possible world theory, which can be defined briefly as
a theory where each speech event or discourse situation constitutes a possible
world or possible state of affairs. In this view, as Ryan (1991) claims, each
world is the centre for its inhabitants. That is, the actual or real world is
the centre for you and me, but for a character in a book, like Alice, the
centre is her own world.
The Alice
books are interesting examples from this perspective because there is a shift
from the actual world of Alice or Alice’s world to a dream world, Wonderland
first and then to Looking Glass. This shift from one world to another
has a consequent shift in the centre of reference or deictic orientation, a
point I come back to in section 2.4., and it may be illustrated by two episodes
in Looking Glass World, where Alice meets the unicorn and where she
meets the Red King:
(16) ‘What - is
- this?’ he [the unicorn] said at last.
‘This is a
child!’ Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice, and spreading out
both his hands towards her in Anglo-Saxon attitude. ‘We only found it today.
It’s as large as life, and twice as natural!’
‘I always
thought they were fabulous monsters!’ said the unicorn. ‘Is it alive?’
‘It can talk’,
said Haigha solemnly.
The Unicorn
looked dreamily at Alice and said: ‘Talk, child’.
Alice could not
help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: ‘Do you know, I always
thoguht Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!’
‘Well, now that
we have seen each other’, said the Unicorn, ‘if you’ll believe in me,
I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?’
‘Yes, if you
like,’ said Alice. (LG/287)
This episode
playfully reflects on reference and existence. In Looking Glass World, not only
do unicorns exist and it is consequently possible to refer to them - and to
talk to them! - but, what is more, the world they inhabit is oriented from their
perspective, so that it is not the existence of unicorns that is questioned,
but the existence of children, such as Alice, and the possibility of referring
to them and interacting with them.
This
relativisation of cultural understanding is taken to an extreme in the episode
where Alice meets the Red King, illustrated in (17) below; in this episode,
Alice comes across the Red King, who is lying asleep against a tree in the
wood:
(17) “He’s
dreaming now”, said Tweedledee: “and what do you think he’s dreaming about?”
Alice said:
“Nobody can guess that.”
“Why, about you!”
Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if he left off
dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?”
“Where I am
now, of course,” said Alice.
“Not you!”
Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort
of thing in his dream!” (LG/238)
In passage (17),
the deictic centre placed from the point of view of Alice is questioned, in
such a way that Alice is described as a sort of thing in the Red King’s
dream. But at the same time we have been told that Alice enters Looking Glass
world in a dream, which means that the Red King is a sort of thing in
her own dream. The result is a recursive structure where Alice dreams of the
King who dreams of Alice who dreams of the King...a paradoxical structure which
lacks a deictic or referential centre and which is typical of the mirror image
effects of Looking Glass World[8].
2.3. Sense, reference,
naming and categorisation
Naming is the very
essence of language, and, as such, it encloses what we understand by the
meaning of a word (both reference and sense) and how that meaning
conventionally stands for something in the world. The human habit of naming
things, as Alice says, is useful for people who name them though it may seem
pointless or arbitrary to the creatures themselves. This is reflected in the
conversation between Alice and a gnat in Wonderland, where Alice tells the gnat
that she is not fond of insects but that she can tell him the names of some of
those that inhabit her world. To this the gnat answers:
(18) ‘Of course
they answer to their names?’ the gnat remarked carelessly.
‘I never knew
them to do it.’
‘What’s the use
of their having names’, the gnat said,’ if they won’t answer to them?’
‘No use to them’,
said Alice; ‘but it’s useful to the people that name them, I suppose. If not,
why do people have names?’ (LG/222)
The gnat seems
to believe that a name has mainly a pragmatic or interactive function - so that
people can ‘call’ things - but not a classificatory function. The gnat goes on
to say he does not know the answer to the question ‘Why do people have names?’,
but that further on there is a wood where the creatures have no names. Alice
meets a friendly fawn in the wood, and they walk together for a while, until
they leave the wood and they both remember their names:
(19) ‘I’m a
fawn!’ it cried out in a voice of delight. ‘And, dear me! you’re a human
child!’ A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in
another moment it had darted away at full speed. (LG/227)
Here there is a
distinction between the ‘pure’ state of creatures, without interpretation or
classification, and the understanding, through the knowledge of who is stronger
and more aggressive, of the relations between the creatures. This is expressed
as a kind of pragmatic relation which takes place by means of the act of naming
something. Thus, because a creature is called “fawn”, it knows immediately that
it is weaker than many other creatures and that the others can attack him. What
is striking in this passage is that the awareness of what an entity is, either
a fawn, or a little girl, comes through language, not through the direct
experience of the world. This is an extremely important point, which has been
the point of departure for many philosophical writings on how language not only
describes reality but how it also controls and, to some extent determines that
reality (see Fowler 1986). This view leads quite naturally into issues of language
and power and language and ideology, a theme also touched upon in the Alice
books, as can be observed from the episode where Alice meets Humpty Dumpty,
which I turn to now.[9]
A consistent
failure to assign reference and sense to words in context leads necessarily to
arbitrariness. What is the meaning of a word or sequence of words? How
can one ever be sure? The arbitrary nature of language as a convention and the
consequent arbitrariness of acts of naming and referring is mentioned
explicitly by Humpty Dumpty in his famous conversation with Alice. His peculiar
views of language are expressed as soon as Alice introduces herself, as we can
observe in extract (12) where Alice answers to Humpty’s question about her
name:
(20) “My name
is Alice, but -”
“It’s a stupid
name enough!” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. “What does it mean?”
“Must a
name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully.
“Of course it
must,” Humpty Dumtpy said with a short laugh: “my name means the shape I
am -and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be
any shape, almost.” (LG/263)
While in our
western society noun phrases and other referring expressions have both sense
and reference, proper names are standardly understood as having only reference
but not necessarily sense. Humpty Dumpty assumes the contrary to be the case,
so that a proper name like Alice must have a meaning and may be
used to refer to almost any kind of entity. Similarly, Humpty Dumpty is
fully aware of the arbitrary relation that governs acts of denoting and
referring, as he tells Alice in a famous passage reproduced under (13); here
Humpty Dumpty replies to Alice who protests about his arbitrary use of the word
‘glory’:
(21) “When I
use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what
I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”
“The question
is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different
things.”
“The question
is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all.” (LG/269)
This passage
illustrates not only the arbitrary nature of acts of denoting and referring,
but also, as Robin Lakoff points out (1993: 372), to what extent these acts are
speaker-dependent and governed by ideological questions. Those who have power
have the power to decide on the meaning of words, including what we may refer
to. This leads to a reading of the Alice books as potentially subversive, since
they reveal the fact that linguistic power is real power.
2.4. Deictic reference and
the definition of a text world
In the
discussion of examples (16) and (17) above I have mentioned the notions of
deictic centre and orientation. I wish now to focus on these aspects and
discuss the notion of deixis, a special type of reference. Deictic terms are
what I described above as grammaticalisations and lexicalisations of
referential information which is processed contextually (see Green 1995: 12).
Thus, deixis is a special type of reference which is manifested in specific
word classes, such as personal, demonstrative and possessive pronouns, adverbs
specifying time and space coordinates and the tense system. It can be said that
deictic terms introduce the spatio-temporal coordinates of a discourse
situation with regard to a deictic centre or point of reference, which is
egocentric, or oriented from the point of view of the speaker. This point is
usually described as the zero point, or the I-here-and-now, and it also
receives the name of index. Each index, or orientation centre,
distinguishes a possible world or discourse situation from an alternative (see
Lyons 1995: 305).
Deixis is
considered to be egocentric or an expression of subjectivity because an
opposition is usually established between the I-here-now, which
contextually indicates what is close to the speaker, and distant terms such as
those in the table below:
|
Deictic centre or zero point |
Distal terms |
|
I here/this now |
you him/her/it there/that then |
In the
time-tense system, a contrast is established between the now and what precedes
and follows it. Also, it is assumed that time develops linearly from past to
present over to future, and that this sequence cannot be altered[10]:
yesterday now tomorrow
---------------------------------------------X----------------------------------------------
Radical
alterations in the spatio-temporal system give rise to what traditionally are
defined as impossible worlds (see Eco 1989). Ryan (1991) rejects the notion of
impossible world in favour of a view of different worlds as alternative and
governed by different rules from the rules that govern the actual or real
world. Her proposal is briefly outlined at the end of this section in order to
account for deviations in the time system in Looking Glass World.
The
spatio-temporal coordinates, which are expressed by means of deictic terms,
define the boundaries of a given world, be it a real or a fictional situation
(see Werth 1995, 1999). This view of deixis is particularly interesting if we
consider its applications to the understanding of text and discourse
structures. Following Werth (1995, 1999), a text world may be defined as a
conceptual domain which is organised in hierarchical structures, each level
delimited by its own set of deictic and modal parameters. According to
Werth (1995: 49) “deixis is in fact
part of the modality function of language, i.e. the situating of the
information with respect to the current context.” As such, deixis as a function
may be subdivided into three main types (ibid.):
Viewpoint
Probability
Interaction
Of these three
it is viewpoint that corresponds to what we standardly understand by deixis,
which in Werth deals mainly with spatio-temporal specifications.
I now consider
some examples from the Alice books and analyse how examples from
situations in the fictional worlds are defined deicitcally and how they are
oriented from the perspective of a particular speaker. Extract (18) below
describes how Alice feels when she has grown to huge proportions and cannot get
out of the White Rabbit’s house:
(22) “It was
much pleasanter at home”, thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t growing larger
and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I
hadn’t gone down that rabbit hole - and yet - and yet - it’s rather curious,
you know, this sort of life!” (W/58)
In this extract
we see a contrast between the situation in which Alice finds herself at
present, this sort of life, and what used to be her life at home. The
deictic centre is situated in Alice’s perception of the situation and a shift
is described from a distant spatio-temporal situation was...at home and
the present situation (this sort of life). This shift indicates clearly
that there has been a change in possible world or discourse world in linguistic
terms. The deictic centre itself is made more complex by the fact that Alice
talks to herself, creating the impression that the centre is a multiple
consciousness, rather than a single one:
(23) “Oh, you
foolish Alice!” she answered herself. “How can you learn lessons in here? Why,
there’s hardly any room for you, and no room at all for any lesson
books!” (W/59)
The split in
the consciousness creates the illusion of an internal distance between
different parts of Alice, even if physically this is not possible, as
both are situated within the same body. The difficulty of identifying the I
as one single unitary entity is a recurrent motif in the Alice books,
where Alice’s identity is often not recognised by other creatures, who are not
able to assign a conceptual category to the child they are facing, and,
consequently, are not able to refer to her. Alice herself is well aware of the
problems of identity she is going through; this problem is first manifested as
a problem in defining the I, the centre of consciousness:
(24) ‘Dear,
dear! How queer everything is today! and yesterday things went on just as
usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I
the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I remember feeling a little
different. But, if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am
I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” And she began thinking of all the children
she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been
changed for any of them.” (W/37)
While the shift
from Alice’s real world to Wonderland only implies a change in space and time
coordinates in that Wonderland is a projection of a dream world, in Looking
Glass World the shift becomes more complex, as the space-time relations are
inverted with respect to the real or actual world. This is so because Looking
Glass World is supposed to be a mirror image of the real or actual world.
Alice finds it very difficult to understand the way space and time are
understood in Looking Glass World. In extract (20), Alice is running
together with the Red Queen, but they do not move at all, no matter how fast
they run:
(25) Alice
looked round her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we’ve been under this
tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!”
“Of course it
is,” said the Queen. “What would you have it?”
“Well, in our
country,” said Alice panting a Little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else -
if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of
country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running
you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you
must run at least twice as fast as that.” (LG/210)
As in the
examples discussed above, the deitic terms establish a comparison between an
alternate situation or state of affairs (In our country you’d generally get
to somewhere else - if you ran very fast as we’ve been doing) and the
present situation (here). Distance or remoteness (see Werth, 1999:
239-40) is marked by means of hypotheticality (if you ran) and the
exclusive use of the third person pronoun our.
Similarly, in Looking
Glass World, the chronological order of events is inverted with respect to the
order that is followed in our world. This can be seen in the episode where
Alice meets the White Queen:
(26) “What sort
of things do you remember best?” Alice ventured to ask.
“Oh, things
that happened the week after next,” the Queen replied in a careless tone. “For
instance, now...there’s the King’s Messenger. He’s in prison now, being
punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course
the crime comes last of all.” (LG/248)
In fact, the
general rule regarding the way time develops in Looking Glass World
seems to be that events occur in inverted relationships with regard to the
progression they follow in the real world. In Looking Glass World
effects happen first and are then followed by causes. For this reason the
messenger is imprisoned before he commits the crime in passage (26) above. This
inversion of chronological sequences is illustrated further in other episodes
such as the ones reproduced below. In (27) the White Queen is still talking to
Alice and suddenlt starts shouting:
(27) ‘Oh, oh,
oh!’ shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as if she wanted to shake it
off. “My finger’s bleeding! Oh, oh, oh!’ (...)
‘What is
the matter?’ [Alice] said, as soon as there was a chance of making herself
heard. ‘Have you pricked your finger?’
‘I haven’t
pricked it yet,’ the Queen said, but I soon shall - oh, oh, oh!’
‘When do you
expect to do it?’ Alice asked, feeling very much inclined to laugh.
‘When I fasten
my shawl again’, the poor Queen groaned out. (...) As she said the words the
brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it and tried to clasp it
again. (LG/349)
As is expected,
the Queen does not hold the brooch properly and pricks her finger. The
cause-effect relation between the pricking and the bleeding is inverted, so
that chronologically the bleeding is previous to the pricking.
A similar scene
takes place in the episode where Alice meets the Unicorn in Looking Glass
World. In this passage, the Lion and the Unicorn have asked Alice - to whom
they refer as ‘The Monster’ - to cut up a cake in slices for all to eat.
However, Alice is not aware that this action needs to follow Looking Glass
World laws and not the natural laws she is used to:
(28) Alice
seated herself on the bank of a little brook, with the great dish on her knees,
and was sawing away diligently with the knife. ‘It’s very provoking!’ she said,
in reply to the Lion (...). ‘I’ve cut several slices already, but they always
join on again!’
‘You don’t know
how to manage Looking Glass cakes’ the Unicorn remarked. ‘Hand it round first,
and cut it afterwards!’
This sounded
nonsense, but Alice very obediently got up, and carried the dish round, and the
cake divided itself into three pieces as she did so. ‘Now cut it up,’
said the Lion, as she returned to her place with the empty dish. (LG/290)
As in example
(27) above, in extract (28) the relation of cause-effect between cutting and
handing out slices is inverted.
The
peculiarities of the spatio-temporal system of Looking Glass World may be
analysed more in depth by considering exactly in what way the alternate world
depicted in the fictional world differs from the actual world or real world.
Ryan (1991) proposes a complex taxonomy which allows us to identify the
different types of accessibility relations between alternate worlds and the
actual world, where we, as readers, are situated. For the purposes of the
present discussion we may include the following variables (Ryan 1991: 32-33):
a. Physical
compatibility. A world is accessible from AW if they share the same natural
laws.
b. Taxonomic
compatibility. A world is accessible from AW if both worlds contain the
same species and they have the same properties.
If we consider
the characteristics of Wonderland and Looking Glass World according
to these variables we may observe that both differ from the real world along
these parameters since animals and inanimate objects can talk, and in both
worlds we find animate entities such as chess pieces or cards and extinct
species, like dodos. Moreover, Looking Glass World differs further along
the parameter of physical compatibility in that the natural laws that govern
time progression are not respected.
2.5. Conclusion
Reference is
crucial in order to account for the process of communication and it depends on
pragmatic clues for its adequate interpretation. This has been illustrated by
means of different passages from the Alice books, which are two
idiosyncratic worlds where pragmatic principles in general and reference in
particular are not understood to work in the way we (or Alice) would expect. An
analysis of the defeat of expected uses
provides interesting insights regarding the implied reflections on the validity
of our language systems as systems of communication. This leads to the conclusion
that the Alice books, rather than ‘nonsense’ or ‘children’ literature
constitute playful reflections on issues which have been the concern of
linguists and philosophers for many years.
To end, an
analysis of deictic terms as a special type of reference in the fictional
worlds of the Alice books may provide insights regarding the importance
of such terms in their function of delimiting the text world boundaries and in
illustrating the laws that rule spatio-temporal relations. By providing
distorted versions or mirror images of our own world, the fictional worlds of Wonderland
and Looking Glass invite the reader to meditate about the
characteristics of the world we inhabit and how such characteristics are
systematised by means of language.
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© Laura Hidalgo. A previous
version appeared in A. Downing, J. Moya, and J. I. Albentosa (eds.), Patterns
in discourse and text. Ensayos de análisis del discurso en lengua inglesa,
Cuenca 1998, Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, pp.109-127.
Back to contents of this issue.
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[2] Lyons (1995: 293) defines reference as “the
relation that holds between linguistic expressions and what they should stand
for in the world”.
[3] Keith Green’s (1995) New Essays in Deixis
offers a variety of approaches to the topic of deixis which are the result of
recent developments in the field.
[4] See the traditional definition of semantic
and existential presupposition in Levinson (1983, chapter 4) and Lyon’s discussion
of reference (1977, chapter 7).
[5] A Gricean approach to this question may
lead to an interpretation where the possessive pronoun creates a
relevance-based implicature which must be recovered by the addressee.
[7] For a discussion of this topic, see Marsh
(1988), Dummett (1981), and Lyons (1977, chapter 7 and 1995 p. 299).
[8] Curiously, this kind of effect is typical
of recent postmodern literature (see McHale 1987); in the case of Lewis Caroll,
the interest in paradox probably originates from his background as a
mathematician.