From Speaking to Grammar

The S2G programme brings together ideas and experiences not only of speech specialists, but also of scholars who analyze speech data in research with diachronic, typological, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, educational objectives. In fact, the essays collected in this book well represent the multiplicity of points of view of the S2G programme, but, although they deal with different topics and develop various approaches, they share some strong claims.

The mutual starting point is the assumption that the grammar of languages, as a metalinguistic construction, must be deduced from the grammaticality that is naturally expressed by linguistic production. In order for a linguistic production to be successful, it is necessary that the meaning it is supposed to convey is expressed through a grammatical form shared or sharable by the speakers. Every utterance in every language, therefore, is an expression of the regulative framework of the code, even in cases where innovative elements are present. The system, in fact, dynamically actualizes in the infinite possible linguistic uses. In this perspective, utterances are neither the result of the mere application of rules nor the expression of the free creativity of the speaker, but the result of a continuous interplay of adaptation of individual uses to the language and of the language to them. Hence the linguistic system and the speakers are equally central elements for the understanding of what grammaticality is and how it works, since it appears as the result of a balance of forces acting simultaneously from the speaker to the system and vice versa. In an authentically Saussurian perspective (De Mauro 1994), the speaking mass is, therefore, internal to the system and the speakers are consequently constructors of the grammaticality of languages and not mere users.

In this perspective, it is only natural that the analysis of talk-in-interaction becomes a privileged point of observation. As will be evident from the reading of the various essays, dialogic speech clearly brings out the decisive role that both the speaker and the addressee have in the process of co-construction of the grammaticality of the utterances and the complex interplay among the system, the modes of communication and sociolinguistic traits. Attesting the dynamic and dialogical foundations of great part of grammaticality (Linell 2008; Du Bois 2014; Günthner et al. 2014; Deppermann and Günthner 2015; Thompson et al. 2015), a complex and composite picture emerges, requiring not only the knowledge of speech properties as such, but the integration among different points of views to understand whether and to what extent its features affect the grammaticality of languages.

In fact, the analysis of speech contributes to reshaping the very categories of linguistic analysis, which mainly derive from static algorithmic a-modal models of language, rendering them more adequate to the variety of linguistic usage (Voghera 1992, 2017; Bybee 2006, 2013; Auer 2009; Hopper 2011; Calaresu 2020). Besides, a closer investigation of speech, and in particular of dialogic texts, suggested new interpretative categories also in diachronic analysis: an example is the relevance acquired by notions such as subjectivity and intersubjectivity in the analysis of the processes of linguistic change (Traugott 2003; Brems et al. 2014; Sansò this volume). The importance of speech has also emerged in typological studies, which have shown the relevance of speech properties in conditioning the usage and the pattern of linguistic change in languages that are unrelated both genetically and areally (see Mauri and Masini this volume).

Therefore, the study of speech opens up new perspectives in many areas of linguistics because, on the one hand, it brings out poorly explored parts of grammar and, on the other hand, it forces us to review the relationship between the linguistic system and factors traditionally considered external, such as the mode of communication or the relationship between the speakers and the code. In other words, investigating speech not only enriches linguistics with new data, but also puts forward new theoretical points of view.

Summarizing, the collection of studies presented here not only aims to broad the empirical linguistic data, but also to design a coherent framework, in which it is possible to identify the constants of grammaticality on a synchronic and diachronic level that derive from the reciprocal adaptation of the code to the needs of the speakers and of the speakers to the regulatory framework of the code. It is on these constants that one can build a grammar, understood as an interpretative model of the functioning of languages. Hence, in S2G programme speech is not only an object of investigation, but also a testbed for the validation of theoretical hypotheses and an opportunity for the exploration of new territories. The essays in this volume are a some tesserae in this complex mosaic, which requires the combined effort of a number of perspectives and competences.

2. Overview of the contributions to the volumes

Using mainly syntactic data, Voghera points out to some key elements, which should be taken into account in linguistic descriptions in order to build more realistic and more efficient grammatical models of language. The first element is audio-phonicity, which is not a mere involucre of verbal sequences, but conditions the shaping of texts, and through prosody deploys an extraordinary flexible semiotic resource for text cohesion and progression. The second element is the role of recipients as co-constructors of the message and of the incremental process of text progression. The third element is the widespread use of hypospecific elements: in a hypothetical scale that goes from maximum to minimum realization of the distinctive features of a constituent, spontaneous spoken texts, not only dialogic, tend towards the minimum potential specification at all levels of codification (De Mauro 1971). Finally, the previous elements, according to Voghera, highlight the crucial role of the relationship between speakers and addressees and between them and the signs, i.e. the pragmatic dimension, which emerges as an internal component of language grammaticality and not as a complement.

The essay by Cecilia Andorno, Interpersonal, ideational, and textual functions of coverbal gestures in speech. Remarks from a teacher talk sample, focuses on some theoretical aspects of the relationship between language and gestures and the substantial multimodality of communication. In particular, the author discusses the relationship between gestures and speech in school communication and the place the latter has in teachers’ talk. Gestures play a crucial role because they help students in the conceptualization of new meanings and, from a cognitive point of view, they offer to students a “global and synthetic” way of signifying, which does not bind them to the linearity of the signifier.