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Handbook of Interpersonal Communication
HAL 2
≥

Handbooks of Applied Linguistics
Communication Competence
Language and Communication Problems
Practical Solutions
Editors
Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos
Volume 2
Mouton de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Handbook of
Interpersonal
Communication
Edited by
Gerd Antos and Eija Ventola
In cooperation with
Tilo Weber
Mouton de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)
is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.
앪
앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines
of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Handbook of interpersonal communication / edited by Gerd Antos,
Eija Ventola in cooperation with Tilo Weber.
p. cm. ⫺ (Handbooks of applied linguistics ; 2)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-018830-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Interpersonal communication. I. Antos, Gerd. II. Ventola,
Eija. III. Weber, Tilo, 1964⫺
P94.7.H36 2008
302.2⫺dc22
2008037812
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
ISBN 978-3-11-018830-1
쑔 Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin.
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-
copy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Cover design: Martin Zech, Bremen.
Typesetting: Dörlemann Satz GmbH & Co. KG, Lemförde.
Printing and binding: Hubert & Co., Göttingen.
Printed in Germany.

Introduction to the handbook series v
Introduction to the handbook series
Linguistics for problem solving
Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos
1. Science and application at the turn of the millennium
The distinction between “pure” and “applied” sciences is an old one. Accord-
ing to Meinel (2000), it was introduced by the Swedish chemist Wallerius
in 1751, as part of the dispute of that time between the scholastic disciplines
and the then emerging epistemic sciences. However, although the concept of
“Applied Science” gained currency rapidly since that time, it has remained
problematic.
Until recently, the distinction between “pure” and “applied” mirrored the
distinction between “theory and “practice”. The latter ran all the way through
Western history of science since its beginnings in antique times. At first, it was
only philosophy that was regarded as a scholarly and, hence, theoretical disci-
pline. Later it was followed by other leading disciplines, as e.g., the sciences.
However, as academic disciplines, all of them remained theoretical. In fact, the
process of achieving independence of theory was essential for the academic dis-
ciplines to become independent from political, religious or other contingencies
and to establish themselves at universities and academies. This also implied a
process of emancipation from practical concerns – an at times painful develop-
ment which manifested (and occasionally still manifests) itself in the discredit-
ing of and disdain for practice and practitioners. To some, already the very
meaning of the notion “applied” carries a negative connotation, as is suggested
by the contrast between the widely used synonym for “theoretical”, i.e. “pure”
(as used, e.g. in the distinction between “Pure” and “Applied Mathematics”)
and its natural antonym “impure”. On a different level, a lower academic status
sometimes is attributed to applied disciplines because of their alleged lack of
originality – they are perceived as simply and one-directionally applying in-
sights gained in basic research and watering them down by neglecting the limit-
ing conditions under which these insights were achieved.
Today, however, the academic system is confronted with a new understand-
ing of science. In politics, in society and, above all, in economy a new concept
of science has gained acceptance which questions traditional views. In recent
philosophy of science, this is labelled as “science under the pressure to suc-
ceed” – i.e. as science whose theoretical structure and criteria of evaluation are
increasingly conditioned by the pressure of application (Carrier, Stöltzner, and
Wette 2004):

vi Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos
Whenever the public is interested in a particular subject, e.g. when a new disease de-
velops that cannot be cured by conventional medication, the public requests science
to provide new insights in this area as quickly as possible. In doing so, the public is
less interested in whether these new insights fit seamlessly into an existing theoretical
framework, but rather whether they make new methods of treatment and curing poss-
ible. (Institut für Wirtschafts- und Technikforschung 2004, our translation).
With most of the practical problems like these, sciences cannot rely on know-
ledge that is already available, simply because such knowledge does not yet
exist. Very often, the problems at hand do not fit neatly into the theoretical
framework of one particular “pure science”, and there is competition among dis-
ciplines with respect to which one provides the best theoretical and methodo-
logical resources for potential solutions. And more often than not the problems
can be tackled only by adopting an interdisciplinary approach.
As a result, the traditional “Cascade Model”, where insights were applied
top-down from basic research to practice, no longer works in many cases. In-
stead, a kind of “application oriented basic research” is needed, where disci-
plines – conditioned by the pressure of application – take up a certain still dif-
fuse practical issue, define it as a problem against the background of their
respective theoretical and methodological paradigms, study this problem and
finally develop various application oriented suggestions for solutions. In this
sense, applied science, on the one hand, has to be conceived of as a scientific
strategy for problem solving – a strategy that starts from mundane practical
problems and ultimately aims at solving them. On the other hand, despite the
dominance of application that applied sciences are subjected to, as sciences they
can do nothing but develop such solutions in a theoretically reflected and me-
thodologically well founded manner. The latter, of course, may lead to the well-
known fact that even applied sciences often tend to concentrate on “application
oriented basic research” only and thus appear to lose sight of the original prac-
tical problem. But despite such shifts in focus: Both the boundaries between
disciplines and between pure and applied research are getting more and more
blurred.
Today, after the turn of the millennium, it is obvious that sciences are re-
quested to provide more and something different than just theory, basic research
or pure knowledge. Rather, sciences are increasingly being regarded as partners
in a more comprehensive social and economic context of problem solving and
are evaluated against expectations to be practically relevant. This also implies
that sciences are expected to be critical, reflecting their impact on society. This
new “applied” type of science is confronted with the question: Which role can
the sciences play in solving individual, interpersonal, social, intercultural,
political or technical problems? This question is typical of a conception of
science that was especially developed and propagated by the influential philos-
opher Sir Karl Popper – a conception that also this handbook series is based on.

Introduction to the handbook series vii
2. “Applied Linguistics”: Concepts and controversies
The concept of “Applied Linguistics” is not as old as the notion of “Applied
Science”, but it has also been problematical in its relation to theoretical lin-
guistics since its beginning. There seems to be a widespread consensus that the
notion “Applied Linguistics” emerged in 1948 with the first issue of the journal
Language Learning which used this compound in its subtitle A Quarterly Jour-
nal of Applied Linguistics. This history of its origin certainly explains why even
today “Applied Linguistics” still tends to be predominantly associated with
foreign language teaching and learning in the Anglophone literature in particu-
lar, as can bee seen e.g. from Johnson and Johnson (1998), whose Encyclopedic
Dictionary of Applied Linguistics is explicitly subtitled A Handbook for Lan-
guage Teaching. However, this theory of origin is historically wrong. As is
pointed out by Back (1970), the concept of applying linguistics can be traced
back to the early 19th century in Europe, and the very notion “Applied Lin-
guistics” was used in the early 20th already.
2.1. Theoretically Applied vs. Practically Applied Linguistics
As with the relation between “Pure” and “Applied” sciences pointed out above,
also with “Applied Linguistics” the first question to be asked is what makes it
different from “Pure” or “Theoretical Linguistics”. It is not surprising, then, that
the terminologist Back takes this difference as the point of departure for his dis-
cussion of what constitutes “Applied Linguistics”. In the light of recent contro-
versies about this concept it is no doubt useful to remind us of his terminological
distinctions.
Back (1970) distinguishes between “Theoretical Linguistics” – which aims
at achieving knowledge for its own sake, without considering any other value –,
“Practice” – i.e. any kind of activity that serves to achieve any purpose in life in
the widest sense, apart from the striving for knowledge for its own sake – and
“Applied Linguistics”, as a being based on “Theoretical Linguistics” on the one
hand and as aiming at usability in “Practice” on the other. In addition, he makes
a difference between “Theoretical Applied Linguistics” and “Practical Applied
Linguistics”, which is of particular interest here. The former is defined as the use
of insights and methods of “Theoretical Linguistics” for gaining knowledge in
another, non-linguistic discipline, such as ethnology, sociology, law or literary
studies, the latter as the application of insights from linguistics in a practical
field related to language, such as language teaching, translation, and the like.
For Back, the contribution of applied linguistics is to be seen in the planning
of practical action. Language teaching, for example, is practical action done
by practitioners, and what applied linguistics can contribute to this is, e.g., to
provide contrastive descriptions of the languages involved as a foundation for

viii Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos
teaching methods. These contrastive descriptions in turn have to be based on the
descriptive methods developed in theoretical linguistics.
However, in the light of the recent epistemological developments outlined
above, it may be useful to reinterpret Back’s notion of “Theoretically Applied
Linguistics”. As he himself points out, dealing with practical problems can have
repercussions on the development of the theoretical field. Often new ap-
proaches, new theoretical concepts and new methods are a prerequisite for deal-
ing with a particular type of practical problems, which may lead to an – at least
in the beginning – “application oriented basic research” in applied linguistics
itself, which with some justification could also be labelled “theoretically ap-
plied”, as many such problems require the transgression of disciplinary bound-
aries. It is not rare that a domain of “Theoretically Applied Linguistics” or “ap-
plication oriented basic research” takes on a life of its own, and that also
something which is labelled as “Applied Linguistics” might in fact be rather re-
mote from the mundane practical problems that originally initiated the respect-
ive subject area. But as long as a relation to the original practical problem can be
established, it may be justified to count a particular field or discussion as be-
longing to applied linguistics, even if only “theoretically applied”.
2.2. Applied linguistics as a response to structuralism and generativism
As mentioned before, in the Anglophone world in particular the view still
appears to be widespread that the primary concerns of the subject area of ap-
plied linguistics should be restricted to second language acquisition and lan-
guage instruction in the first place (see, e.g., Davies 1999 or Schmitt and Celce-
Murcia 2002). However, in other parts of the world, and above all in Europe,
there has been a development away from aspects of language learning to a wider
focus on more general issues of language and communication.
This broadening of scope was in part a reaction to the narrowing down the
focus in linguistics that resulted from self-imposed methodological constraints
which, as Ehlich (1999) points out, began with Saussurean structuralism and
culminated in generative linguistics. For almost three decades since the late
1950s, these developments made “language” in a comprehensive sense, as
related to the everyday experience of its users, vanish in favour of an idealised
and basically artificial entity. This led in “Core” or theoretical linguistics to a
neglect of almost all everyday problems with language and communication en-
countered by individuals and societies and made it necessary for those inter-
ested in socially accountable research into language and communication to draw
on a wider range of disciplines, thus giving rise to a flourishing of interdiscipli-
nary areas that have come to be referred to as hyphenated variants of linguistics,
such as sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, psycholinguistics, conversation
analysis, pragmatics, and so on (Davies and Elder 2004).

Introduction to the handbook series ix
That these hyphenated variants of linguistics can be said to have originated
from dealing with problems may lead to the impression that they fall completely
into the scope of applied linguistics. This the more so as their original thematic
focus is in line with a frequently quoted definition of applied linguistics as “the
theoretical and empirical investigation of real world problems in which lan-
guage is a central issue” (Brumfit 1997: 93). However, in the recent past much
of the work done in these fields has itself been rather “theoretically applied” in
the sense introduced above and ultimately even become mainstream in lin-
guistics. Also, in view of the current epistemological developments that see all
sciences under the pressure of application, one might even wonder if there is
anything distinctive about applied linguistics at all.
Indeed it would be difficult if not impossible to delimit applied linguistics
with respect to the practical problems studied and the disciplinary approaches
used: Real-world problems with language (to which, for greater clarity, should
be added: “with communication”) are unlimited in principle. Also, many prob-
lems of this kind are unique and require quite different approaches. Some
might be tackled successfully by applying already available linguistic theo-
ries and methods. Others might require for their solution the development of
new methods and even new theories. Following a frequently used distinction
first proposed by Widdowson (1980), one might label these approaches
as “Linguistics Applied” or “Applied Linguistics”. In addition, language is
a trans-disciplinary subject par excellence, with the result that problems do not
come labelled and may require for their solution the cooperation of various dis-
ciplines.
2.3. Conceptualisations and communities
The questions of what should be its reference discipline and which themes,
areas of research and sub-disciplines it should deal with, have been discussed
constantly and were also the subject of an intensive debate (e.g. Seidlhofer
2003). In the recent past, a number of edited volumes on applied linguistics have
appeared which in their respective introductory chapters attempt at giving a
definition of “Applied Linguistics”. As can be seen from the existence of the
Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA) and its numerous
national affiliates, from the number of congresses held or books and journals
published with the label “Applied Linguistics”, applied linguistics appears to be
a well-established and flourishing enterprise. Therefore, the collective need felt
by authors and editors to introduce their publication with a definition of the sub-
ject area it is supposed to be about is astonishing at first sight. Quite obviously,
what Ehlich (2006) has termed “the struggle for the object of inquiry” appears to
be characteristic of linguistics – both of linguistics at large and applied lin-
guistics. Its seems then, that the meaning and scope of “Applied Linguistics”

x Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos
cannot be taken for granted, and this is why a wide variety of controversial con-
ceptualisations exist.
For example, in addition to the dichotomy mentioned above with respect to
whether approaches to applied linguistics should in their theoretical foundations
and methods be autonomous from theoretical linguistics or not, and apart from
other controversies, there are diverging views on whether applied linguistics is
an independent academic discipline (e.g. Kaplan and Grabe 2000) or not (e.g.
Davies and Elder 2004), whether its scope should be mainly restricted to lan-
guage teaching related topics (e.g. Schmitt and Celce-Murcia 2002) or not (e.g.
Knapp 2006), or whether applied linguistics is a field of interdisciplinary syn-
thesis where theories with their own integrity develop in close interaction with
language users and professionals (e.g. Rampton 1997/2003) or whether this
view should be rejected, as a true interdisciplinary approach is ultimately im-
possible (e.g. Widdowson 2005).
In contrast to such controversies Candlin and Sarangi (2004) point out that
applied linguistics should be defined in the first place by the actions of those
who practically do applied linguistics:
[…] we see no especial purpose in reopening what has become a somewhat sterile
debate on what applied linguistics is, or whether it is a distinctive and coherent
discipline. […] we see applied linguistics as a many centered and interdisciplinary
endeavour whose coherence is achieved in purposeful, mediated action by its prac-
titioners. […]
What we want to ask of applied linguistics is less what it is and more what it does, or
rather what its practitioners do. (Candlin/Sarangi 2004:1–2)
Against this background, they see applied linguistics as less characterised
by its thematic scope – which indeed is hard to delimit – but rather by the
two aspects of “relevance” and “reflexivity”. Relevance refers to the purpose
applied linguistic activities have for the targeted audience and to the degree that
these activities in their collaborative practices meet the background and needs
of those addressed – which, as matter of comprehensibility, also includes taking
their conceptual and language level into account. Reflexivity means the contex-
tualisation of the intellectual principles and practices, which is at the core of
what characterises a professional community, and which is achieved by asking
leading questions like “What kinds of purposes underlie what is done?”, “Who
is involved in their determination?”, “By whom, and in what ways, is their
achievement appraised?”, “Who owns the outcomes?”.
We agree with these authors that applied linguistics in dealing with real
world problems is determined by disciplinary givens – such as e.g. theories,
methods or standards of linguistics or any other discipline – but that it is deter-
mined at least as much by the social and situational givens of the practices of
life. These do not only include the concrete practical problems themselves but

Introduction to the handbook series xi
also the theoretical and methodological standards of cooperating experts from
other disciplines, as well as the conceptual and practical standards of the prac-
titioners who are confronted with the practical problems in the first place. Thus,
as Sarangi and van Leeuwen (2003) point out, applied linguists have to become
part of the respective “community of practice”.
If, however, applied linguists have to regard themselves as part of a commu-
nity of practice, it is obvious that it is the entire community which determines
what the respective subject matter is that the applied linguist deals with and
how. In particular, it is the respective community of practice which determines
which problems of the practitioners have to be considered. The consequence of
this is that applied linguistics can be understood from very comprehensive to
very specific, depending on what kind of problems are considered relevant by
the respective community. Of course, following this participative understanding
of applied linguistics also has consequences for the Handbooks of Applied Lin-
guistics both with respect to the subjects covered and the way they are theoreti-
cally and practically treated.
3. Applied linguistics for problem solving
Against this background, it seems reasonable not to define applied linguistics as
an autonomous discipline or even only to delimit it by specifying a set of sub-
jects it is supposed to study and typical disciplinary approaches it should use.
Rather, in line with the collaborative and participatory perspective of the com-
munities of practice applied linguists are involved in, this handbook series is
based on the assumption that applied linguistics is a specific, problem-oriented
way of “doing linguistics” related to the real-life world. In other words: applied
linguistics is conceived of here as “linguistics for problem solving”.
To outline what we think is distinctive about this area of inquiry: Entirely
in line with Popper’s conception of science, we take it that applied linguistics
starts from the assumption of an imperfect world in the areas of language and
communication. This means, firstly, that linguistic and communicative compet-
ence in individuals, like other forms of human knowledge, is fragmentary and
defective – if it exists at all. To express it more pointedly: Human linguistic and
communicative behaviour is not “perfect”. And on a different level, this imper-
fection also applies to the use and status of language and communication in and
among groups or societies.
Secondly, we take it that applied linguists are convinced that the imperfec-
tion both of individual linguistic and communicative behaviour and language
based relations between groups and societies can be clarified, understood and to
some extent resolved by their intervention, e.g. by means of education, training
or consultancy.

xii Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos
Thirdly, we take it that applied linguistics proceeds by a specific mode of
inquiry in that it mediates between the way language and communication is ex-
pertly studied in the linguistic disciplines and the way it is directly experienced
in different domains of use. This implies that applied linguists are able to dem-
onstrate that their findings – be they of a “Linguistics Applied” or “Applied
Linguistics” nature – are not just “application oriented basic research” but can
be made relevant to the real-life world.
Fourthly, we take it that applied linguistics is socially accountable. To the
extent that the imperfections initiating applied linguistic activity involve both
social actors and social structures, we take it that applied linguistics has to
be critical and reflexive with respect to the results of its suggestions and solu-
tions.
These assumptions yield the following questions which at the same time de-
fine objectives for applied linguistics:
1. Which linguistic problems are typical of which areas of language compet-
ence and language use?
2. How can linguistics define and describe these problems?
3. How can linguistics suggest, develop, or achieve solutions of these prob-
lems?
4. Which solutions result in which improvements in speakers’ linguistic and
communicative abilities or in the use and status of languages in and between
groups?
5. What are additional effects of the linguistic intervention?
4. Objectives of this handbook series
These questions also determine the objectives of this book series. However, in
view of the present boom in handbooks of linguistics and applied linguistics,
one should ask what is specific about this series of nine thematically different
volumes.
To begin with, it is important to emphasise what it is not aiming at:
– The handbook series does not want to take a snapshot view or even a “hit
list” of fashionable topics, theories, debates or fields of study.
– Nor does it aim at a comprehensive coverage of linguistics because some
selectivity with regard to the subject areas is both inevitable in a book series
of this kind and part of its specific profile.
Instead, the book series will try
– to show that applied linguistics can offer a comprehensive, trustworthy and
scientifically well-founded understanding of a wide range of problems,
– to show that applied linguistics can provide or develop instruments for solv-
ing new, still unpredictable problems,

Introduction to the handbook series xiii
– to show that applied linguistics is not confined to a restricted number of
topics such as, e.g. foreign language learning, but that it successfully deals
with a wide range of both everyday problems and areas of linguistics,
– to provide a state-of-the-art description of applied linguistics against the
background of the ability of this area of academic inquiry to provide de-
scriptions, analyses, explanations and, if possible, solutions of everyday
problems. On the one hand, this criterion is the link to trans-disciplinary co-
operation. On the other, it is crucial in assessing to what extent linguistics
can in fact be made relevant.
In short, it is by no means the intention of this series to duplicate the present
state of knowledge about linguistics as represented in other publications with
the supposed aim of providing a comprehensive survey. Rather, the intention is
to present the knowledge available in applied linguistics today firstly from an
explicitly problem solving perspective and secondly, in a non-technical, easily
comprehensible way. Also it is intended with this publication to build bridges to
neighbouring disciplines and to critically discuss which impact the solutions
discussed do in fact have on practice. This is particularly necessary in areas like
language teaching and learning – where for years there has been a tendency to
fashionable solutions without sufficient consideration of their actual impact on
the reality in schools.
5. Criteria for the selection of topics
Based on the arguments outlined above, the handbook series has the following
structure: Findings and applications of linguistics will be presented in concen-
tric circles, as it were, starting out from the communication competence of the
individual, proceeding via aspects of interpersonal and inter-group communi-
cation to technical communication and, ultimately, to the more general level of
society. Thus, the topics of the nine volumes are as follows:
1. Handbook of Individual Communication Competence
2. Handbook of Interpersonal Communication
3. Handbook of Communication in Organisations and Professions
4. Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere
5. Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication
6. Handbook of Foreign Language Communication and Learning
7. Handbook of Intercultural Communication
8. Handbook of Technical Communication
9. Handbook of Language and Communication: Diversity and Change
This thematic structure can be said to follow the sequence of experience with
problems related to language and communication a human passes through in the

xiv Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos
course of his or her personal biographical development. This is why the topic
areas of applied linguistics are structured here in ever-increasing concentric
circles: in line with biographical development, the first circle starts with
the communicative competence of the individual and also includes interper-
sonal communication as belonging to a person’s private sphere. The second
circle proceeds to the everyday environment and includes the professional and
public sphere. The third circle extends to the experience of foreign languages
and cultures, which at least in officially monolingual societies, is not made by
everybody and if so, only later in life. Technical communication as the fourth
circle is even more exclusive and restricted to a more special professional clien-
tele. The final volume extends this process to focus on more general, supra-in-
dividual national and international issues.
For almost all of these topics, there already exist introductions, handbooks
or other types of survey literature. However, what makes the present volumes
unique is their explicit claim to focus on topics in language and communication
as areas of everyday problems and their emphasis on pointing out the relevance
of applied linguistics in dealing with them.
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Back, Otto
1970 Was bedeutet und was bezeichnet der Begriff ‘angewandte Sprachwissen-
schaft’? Die Sprache 16: 21–53.
Brumfit, Christopher
1997 How applied linguistics is the same as any other science. International
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Candlin, Chris N. and Srikant Sarangi
2004 Making applied linguistics matter. Journal of Applied Linguistics 1(1): 1–8.
Carrier, Michael, Martin Stöltzner, and Jeanette Wette
2004 Theorienstruktur und Beurteilungsmaßstäbe unter den Bedingungen der
Anwendungsdominanz. Universität Bielefeld: Institut für Wissenschafts-
und Technikforschung [http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/iwt/projekte/wissen/
anwendungsdominanz.html, accessed Jan 5, 2007].
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Edinburgh University Press.
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xvi Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Robert Straube who did an amazing job in copy-editing
and proof-reading the typescripts and who taught us what it means to edit 21 ref-
erence sections.
Gerd Antos, Halle
Eíja Ventola, Helsinki
Tilo Weber, Halle

Contents
Introduction to the handbook series
Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
1. Introduction: Interpersonal Communication – linguistic points of view
Gerd Antos, Eija Ventola, and Tilo Weber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
I. Theories, methods, and tools of Interpersonal Communication
research
2. Social Psychology and personal relationships: Accommodation
and relational influence across time and contexts
Margaret J. Pitts and Howard Giles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3. Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis
Dennis Day and Johannes Wagner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4. Interactional Sociolinguistics
Susanne Günthner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5. Interactional Linguistics
Dagmar Barth-Weingarten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6. Systemic Functional Linguistics: An interpersonal perspective
Geoff Thompson and Peter Muntigl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7. Functional Pragmatics
Angelika Redder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
8. Data and transcription
Arnulf Deppermann and Wilfried Schütte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
II. Linguistic and multisemiotic resources and their interplay
in managing Interpersonal Communication
9. Linguistic resources for the management of interaction
Margret Selting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
10. Dynamics of discourse
Barbara A. Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

xx Contents
11. Face-to-face communication and body language
Paul J. Thibault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
12. Technically-mediated interpersonal communication
Caja Thimm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
13. Feeling space: Interpersonal communication and spatial semiotics
Louise J. Ravelli and Maree Stenglin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
III. Interpersonal Communication on-track and off-track
14. Everyday communication and socializing
Tilo Weber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
15. Counseling, diagnostics, and therapy
Peter Muntigl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
16. Youth, discourse, and interpersonal management
Jannis Androutsopoulos and Alexandra Georgakopoulou . . . . . . 457
17. Language and discourse skills of elderly people
Anna-Maija Korpijaakko-Huuhka and Anu Klippi . . . . . . . . . . 481
IV. Working on conversational strategies
18. Relational work, politeness, and identity construction
Miriam A. Locher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
19. Humor, jokes, and irony versus mocking, gossip, and black humor
Alexander Brock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
20. Praising and blaming, applauding, and disparaging – solidarity,
audience positioning, and the linguistics of evaluative disposition
Peter R. R. White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
21. Silence and taboo
Sabine Krajewski and Hartmut Schröder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
Biographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
Subject index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629

1. Introduction: Interpersonal Communication –
linguistic points of view
Gerd Antos, Eija Ventola, and Tilo Weber
This first volume in the series of nine Handbooks of Applied Linguistics deals
with issues concerning individual communication competence, or, in other
words, it is concerned with how the individual acquires language and what
s/he can do with it, what happens when there are problems in acquisition, and
how s/he learns to shift the modes from speaking to writing. These perspec-
tives on individual competences need, however, a closer definition. The rea-
son for this is that as humans we communicate with one another, and so, we
speak to each other. This is a fundamental characteristic of the human species.
Our linguistic system has often been described as an intrapersonal compet-
ence system, but as we use this system for interpersonal communication, the
linguistic design must also comprise the means which have been specifically
adapted for these purposes. This is the reason why it is necessary to reassess
the intra-perspective by capturing the ways interpersonal communication
operates.
Against this background, this second volume of the handbook series con-
centrates on examining how interactants manage to exchange facts, ideas,
views, opinions, beliefs, etc. by using the linguistic system together with the re-
sources it offers. Interpersonal communication is a continuous game between
the interactants – it is a give-and-take situation – a constant, dynamic flow that
is linguistically realized as discourse. We can say that interpersonal communi-
cation is produced, interpreted, and developed as an ongoing sequence of inter-
actants acting linguistically. In interpersonal communication, the fine-tuning of
individuals’ use of the linguistic system and its resources is continuously being
probed. In this process, the language used enhances social relations between the
interactants and keeps the interaction on the normal track. When interaction
goes off the track, linguistic miscommunication may create complications in
the flow, which may sometimes even lead to the destruction of social relation-
ships.
Thus, the essential theoretical approach and strategy of this volume is that
this fine-tuning, for better or worse, is primarily carried out using linguistic
methods. This focus is in contrast, for instance, with purely psychological or so-
ciological views. The chapters in the volume represent various theoretical and
methodological approaches in linguistics that have developed an interest in in-
terpersonal communication.
The volume starts out from some of the fundamental questions:

2 Gerd Antos, Eija Ventola, and Tilo Weber
– How do interpersonal relations manifest themselves in language?
– What is the role of language in developing and maintaining relationships in
interpersonal communication?
– What types of problems occur in interpersonal communication and what
kind of linguistic strategies and means are used to solve them?
– How does interpersonal communication that is realized in a linguistic mode
interact with other semiotic modes?
The questions presented above override the usual interpersonal perspectives
that are commonly presented in many typical interpersonal communication
studies of other fields. But linguists also share some common interests with
these alternative approaches, as exemplified by the following questions:
– What are the effects produced by the dyadic structure and the simultaneity,
typical, e.g., of face-to-face communication, on social behaviors of inter-
actants? How do behavioral patterns change when the communication is, for
example, mediated by modern technological media instead of face-to-face,
or how is interpersonal communication manifested when various social
groups are communicating with each other?
– How do the ever-changing cultural and intercultural contexts influence the
behavior of interactants?
– What are the effects on interpersonal communication when interactants en-
force their strategic goals and purposes (e.g., power, subtle influence, etc.)
in interpersonal communication?
Questions like these are typical for specialists working in fields such as social
psychology, communication, and media. It is by no means the case that this vol-
ume is not interested in these types of questions as well. The contrary is the case,
but what the above-mentioned approaches often seem to ignore is that language,
as linguistic structures, comprises largely the structures that realize interper-
sonal communication in the circumstances as described above, and linguists
have developed tools for researching these structures. Interpersonal communi-
cation is here, to a large extent, seen and researched from the perspective of
what is being said or written and how this is manifested in various generic
forms, but at the same time attention is also given to other semiotic modes
which interact with the linguistic modes. It is not concerned solely with the so-
cial roles of interactants in groups nor with the types of media available nor with
non-verbal behavior nor varying contextual frames for communication, but our
main focus is on the actual linguistic manifestations (if we really want to have a
comprehensive picture of what is actually going on in human interpersonal
communication). For productive research purposes, we need an interdiscipli-
nary approach with a strong linguistic focus. It is this linguistic perspective that
the volume aims to offer to any researcher who may be interested in interper-

Introduction: Interpersonal Communication – linguistic points of view 3
sonal communication, so that we can together successfully both analyze and in-
terpret the complexities of this field. Thus, what linguistics has to offer to the
other disciplines are aspects such as:
– orientation to interaction seen primarily as processes that are realized lin-
guistically
– expertise on theorizing and analyzing cultural and situational contexts
where linguistic processes are realized
– expertise on handling language corpora
– expertise on theorizing and analyzing interaction types as genres
– orientation to an integrated view of linguistic and non-linguistic participant
activities and of how interactants generate meanings
– expertise on researching the successful management of the linguistic flow in
interaction.
In short, interpersonal communication is social action – dyadic or multiparty – in
various social domains, and it is this unfolding inter-aspect of the communi-
cative process that has interested social psychologists and sociologists. However,
it is hard to make this unfolding of social action into “a thing or an object” to be
studied without actually investigating and researching the various modes that are
at the root of this process, and the linguistic mode is often the main one that we
need to look at when studying social interaction in interpersonal communication.
The volume thus offers an overview of the theories, methods, tools, and re-
sources of linguistically oriented approaches for the purpose of integration and
further development with various other paradigms concerned with interpersonal
communication. But we also need a specific applied linguistic perspective when
researching this prototypical problem-continuum (on-track versus off-track). It
is by means of empirical linguistic research and analysis of interpersonal com-
munication that applied linguists try to offer solutions to interactants’ linguistic
problems. They want to help the interactants to understand why communication
can go off the track to such an extent that it complicates interpersonal communi-
cation, and also to help them to become aware of strategies as to how they can
bring it back on-track.
The volume is divided into four major parts:
I. Theories, methods, and tools
III. Interpersonal communication on-track and off-track
Each of the parts and their chapters will be introduced and summarized briefly
below. All the contributions have the following three methodological features in
common: 1) they introduce the reader to a particular topic in interpersonal com-

munication research, 2) they present the most important contributions to the re-
spective research fields, and 3) they outline research perspectives that may be
realized in the future.
I. Theories, methods, and tools of interpersonal communication
research
This part introduces a variety of different theories that have either been greatly
influenced by the linguistic approaches or that have a sound linguistic base for
developing the theory and the methodologies involved in the study of interper-
sonal communication.
In chapter 2, Social Psychology and personal relationships: Accommo-
dation and relational influence across time and contexts, Margaret J. Pitts and
Howard Giles take a social psychological approach to the field. They place the
dynamically realized interplay of language and social cognition at “the nexus of
social interaction and interactional competence”. They argue that, by extending
our analysis to contextual and temporal influences on social relationships,
we will be able to improve our understanding not only of relations across inter-
personal contexts but also of how we daily relate to others, whether it be at a
great social distance or whether it be at a very intimate interpersonal level. This
chapter argues for the need to encompass the intersections of language and cog-
nition in relationships and the need to account for more specialized communi-
cation contexts and relationships in everyday settings across the whole human
lifespan. At the same time when the common social psychological approaches
for investigating and analyzing interpersonal encounters are highlighted, it chal-
lenges the current theories, tools, and methods, and suggests that the social
psychological study of accommodation and interdependence should be ex-
tended to cover the human lifespan.
In chapter 3, Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, Dennis Day and
Johannes Wagner show how these originally sociologically oriented approaches
have produced interesting strategies to deal with the issues of linguistic mani-
festation, conversation development, and maintenance of relationships in inter-
personal communication. The central concepts and tools offered for analysis
are: turn-taking, indexicality, reflexivity, recipient design, and membership cat-
egorization device. In addition, the authors demonstrate how these concepts can
be applied by presenting an analysis of an authentic interaction. They show how
interpersonal relationships are manifested semiotically via the interlocutors’ co-
orientations taking place within an emergent, (reflexively and collaboratively)
constructed space of social activity. Once the relevance of the interpersonal
relationship has been manifested, it is also sustained and extended within the
framework of the linguistically realized interaction.

In the next chapter 4, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Susanne Günthner, in-
troduces us to an alternative sociological approach to social interaction, based
on anthropological linguistics. Its perspective in analyzing language use is de-
fined by central operative research concepts and tools including indexicality,
inferencing, contextualization, communicative activities, and genres. This em-
pirically based, interpretative approach offers insights into linguistic and cul-
tural diversity that is characteristic to today’s communicative environments.
Günthner presents examples of interactional sociolinguistic analyses that focus
on relatively simple communicative genres, such as the use of proverbial say-
ings, and she shows how their combined effect leads to differentiated construc-
tion and assessment of various cultural and social identities.
The theory presented by Dagmar Barth-Weingarten in chapter 5, Inter-
actional Linguistics, has been inﬂuenced by the approaches introduced in the earl-
ier chapters 3 and 4, but it argues for a stronger linguistic orientation. The focus
is on the relationship between linguistic resources and interactional activities.
By investigating linguistic patterns from a holistic perspective, it studies all
cues and the role of linguistic resources available to the interlocutors in the pro-
cess of sense-making, taking into account recent analyses of the non-linguistic
aspects. Language is considered to be a dynamic system, which is adapted to the
task of enabling humans to accomplish certain actions. As in the other ap-
proaches introduced above, the analyses are empirical and the data consists of
collections taken from examples of natural, spontaneous talk. The aim is to
inductively uncover the participants’ categories, and the results are supported
by the participants’ behavior.
In chapter 6, Systemic Functional Linguistics: An interpersonal perspective,
Geoff Thompson and Peter Muntigl outline how the lexicogrammatical resources
of language are employed in a principled way to convey interpersonal meanings
which are motivated both by the immediate situation and by the wider socio-cul-
tural context in which the communication takes place and from which it derives
its sense. The main interpersonal systems at the level of grammar and discourse
are: mood and speech function, modality, appraisal, and exchange structure. By
taking data examples from the contrasting genres of a doctor-patient consultation
and a family argument, the authors are able to show how different lexicogram-
matical resources are accessed and drawn upon in these two contexts – one where
only one of the interactants has a socially validated authoritative role and the
other where interactants have to negotiate and contest the knowledge negotiated.
The advantages of the systemic, meaning-driven grammatical approach are to be
found in the flexibility of the description and the solidness or systematicity of the
approach, which has concrete and well-defined categories that make the analysis
of the recurrent patterns of language choices both replicable and explicable.
In chapter 7, Angelika Redder introduces Functional Pragmatics as “an in-
tegrated theory of linguistic action” that, while acknowledging the interpersonal

function of language, at the same time, aims at accounting for linguistic struc-
tures at all levels, including both discourse and text as well as morphology and
syntax. Redder offers a summary as to how functional pragmatics has developed
in the last 35 years – how it emerged from sources such as Bühler’s semiotic
conception and speech act theory. The main emphasis of this approach is firstly,
on language as a means to cope with societal needs and secondly, on language
use as a form of activity that is sociohistorically motivated. Redder, then, expli-
cates some of the central notions of functional pragmatics, including action pat-
tern and the so called theory of linguistic fields. She ends the chapter with a dis-
cussion of various areas of application such as language use in institutions,
plurilingualism, and language policy.
Part I closes with chapter 8, Data and transcription, where Arnulf Depper-
mann and Wilfried Schütte give an overview on what it means to do empirical
work, what kind of instruments are needed (and are available) for data-collec-
tion in a natural setting and, finally, on how to deal with the technical problems
that may occur during audio- and video-recordings. They further discuss is-
sues of corpus design and different systems for transcribing discourse data
(CA, HIAT, GAT). In addition, they present recently developed transcription
editors (EXMARaLDA, ELAN) and analyzing tools (PRAAT). They show
examples of transcripts and evaluate the differences of transcription systems
and software, used for transcription on the computer. Further, they highlight ep-
istemological problems of the written representation of oral communication via
transcripts and address the additional difficulties which arise in the transcription
of video data using multimodal interaction.
in managing Interpersonal Communication
This part has as its common theme the question of how the linguistic and
multisemiotic resources work together in interpersonal communication man-
agement.
In chapter 9, Linguistic resources for the management of interaction, Mar-
gret Selting outlines the resources that each individual has at his/her disposal via
the linguistic system and how they can be used for meaning-making in inter-
personal communication. The theoretical background and methodology is taken
from conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. Telephone conversa-
tional data are used to illustrate how the analyses function. The general focus in-
cludes the following fields: the use of syntax and prosody for unit construction,
lexical items for creating information, semantic focusing, various functions of
final prosody, the use and functions of voice quality and pauses for signaling in-
teractional mood and modality in interpersonal communication.

In chapter 10, Dynamics of discourse, Barbara Fox explores how speakers
accommodate their informational and interactional needs to their interactional
partner(s). The framework used is discourse-functional syntax, an approach that
applies conversation analysis to various levels of grammar. The chapter ex-
plores four facets of utterance design through which speakers display sensitivity
to their recipient(s) in terms of pragmatic organization, syntactic organization,
lexical organization, and prosodic organization. Two case studies present new
work relevant to the topic of recipient design. Further foci of the chapter include
both the prospective and retrospective aspects of discourse; in other words, our
abilities to “project” the development of discourses and to account for how the
discourse was carried out retrospectively.
In chapter 11, Face-to-face communication and body language, Paul Thibault
discusses the forms of intra-species (between humans) and inter-species (e.g.,
languaged bonobos and humans) face-to-face communication. Thibault argues
that with the notion of face-to-face communication we can link three kinds of ac-
tivity, the neuroanatomical capacities of the individual participant organisms, the
individual qua social-agent-in-interaction, and the networks of communicative
practices and conventions in which individual agents participate. The chapter ex-
plores the need to reframe face-to-face communication beyond purely proximate
and local processes in the here-and-now, and it suggests the need to abandon the
distinction of language and paralanguage in favor of one model based on dy-
namic processes that are spread across diverse time scales and which involves
brain, body, and cultural dynamics. It is further suggested that speech and gesture
should not be seen as two separate modalities that are “combined” in interaction
but rather as a foundation to all meaning-making and as a central unified system
whereby the whole body acts as “the sense-making and signifying body”.
In chapter 12 which shifts the focus of body-mediated communication to
Technically-mediated interpersonal communication, Caja Thimm discusses the
challenges introduced by technological developments in the media for interper-
sonal communication. Interactants today have various media available for inter-
acting technologically, with or without face-to-face interaction (letters, fax,
phone, SMS, PC-chatting, “Skyping”, and videoconferencing). Thimm points
out that interpersonal communication through technological mediation is char-
acterized by almost limitless mobility and availability of potential interactants
(SMS, mobile phone); spatial distance has become almost irrelevant. Social
networking sites and virtual worlds on the internet have (re-)introduced multi-
modality into technically mediated communication. These technological inno-
vations accompany the phenomenon of profound social change. Since individ-
uals are now in the position of designing their own web-identities (and thus are
responsible and accountable for them), new communities are emerging, some
of which are economically and socially connected to the “real” reality whereas
others constitute independent parallel worlds.

In chapter 13, the final contribution of Part II of the volume, Feeling space:
Interpersonal communication and spatial semiotics, Louise Ravelli and Maree
Stenglin discuss a resource that so far is less explored within research on inter-
personal communication: space. The focus is on issues in interpersonal com-
munication in relation to questions of spatial semiotics: how a (built) space
makes us feel, and how issues of spatial design contribute to the construction of
specific interpersonal relations between the interactants within and around the
space. The chapter introduces new systems for describing interpersonal mean-
ings in built spaces, in terms of how affective meanings are construed. By taking
as their example, the Scientia building, a relatively new “landmark” building for
the University of New South Wales, Sydney, the authors examine how such
issues as power, social distance, and affect are evoked through the exterior and
interior of the building, and what these mean for relations between the univer-
sity as an institution and its key stakeholder communities: its students and the
general public. In turn, this expanded understanding of interpersonal communi-
cation returns to questions of language, considering its relevance to a broader
understanding of communication.
III. Interpersonal Communication on-track and off-track
The chapters subsumed under this heading investigate how various factors, such
as genre and participants’ age, influence social interaction. In the contributions
presented here, the sequences of talk that are used as examples are placed some-
where along the discourse continuum of being “on-track” and “off-track”, a
continuum that is typical of everyday discourses.
In chapter 14, Everyday communication and socializing, Tilo Weber de-
scribes everyday communication as a concept that is based on an ethnocategory,
vague and difficult to define and, at the same time, indispensable in the fields of
linguistics and the social sciences. Weber suggests a prototype view of everyday
communication as a radial category with socializing or small talk as its central
member. He reconstructs the history of research in everyday communication
from its beginnings in the first half of the 20th century and identifies four differ-
ent sources that have contributed to the theoretical and methodological foun-
dations of the study of everyday communication. Against this background, it
seems that both conversation analysis and systemic functional linguistics have
in their different ways explicitly focused on everyday conversation and have
thus contributed to its study. Finally, it is suggested that what is regarded as
everyday communication may at the moment be undergoing a change which has
been stimulated by the emergence of new, internet-based media.
In chapter 15, Counseling, diagnostics, and therapy, Peter Muntigl explores
how detailed linguistic analysis can shed light on interactants in discourse

trouble and on the accomplishments of linguistic focus in therapy and counsel-
ing. Analyses of the linguistic details of the talk in sessions can help us to under-
stand how clients and therapists eventually share or diverge in their views of the
unfolding of conversational actions. The chapter focuses on the central discur-
sive practice of therapy and counseling, on the diagnosis of problems, a compo-
nent in most therapeutic activities. The chapter illustrates how problem diag-
nosis can become derailed or go off-track. An understanding of how language
changes over the course of counseling provides clients and therapists with new
resources that help them to improve diagnostic practices.
In chapter 16, Youth, discourse, and interpersonal management, Jannis
Androutsopoulos and Alexandra Georgakopoulou look at interpersonal man-
agement in youth communication in specific locations and activities most
commonly associated with young people. The discussion centers on the social
practices of aligning and converging on the one hand, setting boundaries and
misaligning on the other hand, together with the specific linguistic choices
these practices evoke. The peer-groups in leisure activities and in institutional
settings are focal sites where relations of intimacy and solidarity as well as con-
flict and hierarchy are discursively affirmed. But “identities” are formed,
shaped, and negotiated also in new communicational genres in the new elec-
tronic media.
In chapter 17, Language and discourse skills of elderly people, Anna-Maija
Korpijaakko-Huuhka and Anu Klippi focus on age-related factors that cause
changes in the ways elderly citizens do and can participate in different kinds of
everyday discourses. Normal aging may bring sensory problems (hearing and
sight impairments) that can make it difficult for the old people to maintain their
linguistic “normality”. Aging can have linguistic reflections which may hinder
their participation in everyday life activities. When aging is accompanied by
processes affecting the brain, interpersonal communication with and by the
elderly is at risk. With the help of their conversation partners, the normally
aging conversationalists can maintain their active role in interaction, but in de-
mentia the cognitive impairment changes their interpersonal communication
skills remarkably as the process of dementia advances.
It is commonly known that participants in interpersonal communication are
very sensitive with regard to the borders of their own sphere and that of their
partners. The chapters in this last part deal with different aspects of communi-
cative behavior by which interactants manage to keep the delicate balance
between what can and what cannot be talked about and in what way and in what
form communication may take place.

Miriam Locher, in chapter 18, Relational work, politeness, and identity con-
struction, explores the role of language in enhancing, maintaining, and challen-
ging relationships in interpersonal communication. In this, her point of view is
that of a “postmodernist”, and it considers social identity to be the unstable and
dynamic outcome of an active “social positioning” of participants in interaction.
This view is exemplified by applying it to the category of gender. Locher shows
that language use, even in cases that mainly serve informative purposes, always
involves and modifies the identity of those communicating. She then suggests
that the language aspect is but one factor in the process of identity work in gen-
eral and that it is closely intertwined with other semiotic means. The chapter
ends with a discussion on the interrelation between social identity and polite-
ness.
The foci of chapter 19, Humor, jokes, and irony versus mocking, gossip, and
black humor, by Alexander Brock, are linguistic phenomena that frequently
occur in various kinds of discourses, yet lack precise theorization and treatment.
Brock outlines some aspects such as the sequential management of conver-
sation, power exertion, information management, maintenance of group norms
and the resolution of interpersonal problems and calls for the creation of devel-
opment of adequate descriptions of these linguistic phenomena. What is needed
is a multi-functional treatment, as most of the phenomena have various discour-
sal functions as communicative devices and may equally cause as well as solve
communicative problems.
Chapter 20, Praising and blaming, applauding, and disparaging – solidar-
ity, audience positioning, and the linguistics of evaluative disposition, by Peter
White, explores the nature and the interpersonal functionality, in written texts,
of language which conveys positive/negative viewpoints, and the role of this
language in the negotiation of writer/reader solidarity. It outlines an approach to
the analysis of such attitudinal language provided by the so called appraisal
framework, which is well suited also for analyzing spoken discourse. A method-
ology is described and applied to two authentic texts for the purpose of identify-
ing different types of attitude, different methods of conveying attitudinal mean-
ing (i.e., explicitly versus implicitly), and different orientations by the writer
to other voices and evaluative viewpoints. A discussion is offered on the com-
municative effects which follow when authors give preference to certain evalu-
ative options over others, and how, by these preferences, they establish different
terms by which solidarity may obtain between writer and reader.
In chapter 21, Silence and taboo, the final chapter of the whole volume,
Sabine Krajewski and Hartmut Schröder characterize silence or, rather, differ-
ent kinds of silence as a differentiated family of communicative tools and taboo
as an equally manifold set of conventions that – in all cultures, if in very differ-
ent ways – influences interpersonal communication. In addition, the authors
elucidate the interrelationship between the two phenomena, e.g., how interac-

tants deploy silence to deal with taboos. Obviously, taboos imply limits on what
can be talked about and in what form the discourse may take place. The focus of
this chapter, however, is on the positive functions of taboos, the regulation of
behavior, the establishment of boundaries, and the recognition of authority. The
chapter closes with views on silence and taboo from an intercultural perspective.
It is the editors’ sincere hope that this volume will build bridges between
various approaches not only within linguistics but also across all research fields
interested in interpersonal communication. The more we know about the ways
how language, together with other modes, works, in communication, the better
we can keep it on-track when needed and remedy the course of interaction,
when it is heading off-track. This enhances our interpersonal communication as
social agents and as members of interactive communities across cultures.

I. Theories, methods, and tools
of Interpersonal Communication
research

2. Social Psychology and personal relationships:
Accommodation and relational influence across
time and contexts
Margaret J. Pitts and Howard Giles
1. Introduction
Everyday communication can be problematic, but we are relatively good at man-
aging it. How is this accomplished through interaction? As scholars across dis-
ciplines move forward in the pursuit of understanding, explaining, and even pre-
dicting outcomes and processes related to human interactions, we also become
increasingly aware of the intricacies involved in such interpersonal encounters.
Relational processing is at the root of most of our daily encounters whether with
a long-term relational partner, a stranger with whom we share a brief encounter,
or the cashier you greet everyday purchasing your morning coffee. The com-
plexities of interpersonal connections are situated in an array of dynamic human
features and personal attributes such as experience, developmental process, and
social and personal identity orientations.
The question is: What tools can scholars of human interaction use to make
sense of these seemingly kaleidoscopic encounters? Scholars tend to investigate
encounters grounded in the scholarship and epistemological and ontological
positionings of their primary field. Perhaps this is rightfully so. However with
this chapter, we urge scholars to move beyond disciplinary borders and into
specific sites of human interaction and meaning-making. Along with Knapp
and Antos (2008 = this volume), this necessitates that we start by looking at
some of the challenges we have with current theories, tools, and methods for
understanding interpersonal relationships across contexts and across interac-
tions. Such an approach highlights the imperfection of language and communi-
cation behaviors among individuals and between groups (see Coupland, Giles,
and Wiemann 1991; Giles, Gallois, and Petronio 1998). And, when applied to the
social psychology of interpersonal relationships, it helps to identify locations of
disconnect between cognition, language, and communication in everyday en-
counters and work toward applied manners for mending problems therein.
Berger (2005) argues that research that does not seek to problematize the
fundamental processes underlying social interaction and goal achievement might
be interesting, but does little to promote theories of interpersonal interactions.
Our goal with this chapter is to highlight social psychological approaches to-
ward theory, method, and tools for investigating and problematizing interper-

16 Margaret J. Pitts and Howard Giles
sonal encounters. We do so first by problematizing traditional approaches to the
study of interpersonal relationships.
Without careful attention to tools and methods of conducting relationship
research, theory development can become constrained. Theories of interper-
sonal interactions can move forward to help us make sense out of everyday in-
teractions – theories that are relevant to real world, real time encounters. How-
ever, they need to account for more specialized communication contexts (e.g.,
service, health, and family) and relationships (e.g., strangers, acquaintances,
lovers, family members, intergroup relationships) in everyday settings across
the lifespan (Nussbaum and Coupland 2004; Pecchioni, Wright, and Nussbaum
2005). From this perspective, we echo Knapp and Antos’ (this volume) call
for investigators to actively engage in the problematics of blurring applied and
basic research and the problematics of engaging in everyday interpersonal
encounters – an approach they refer to as “linguistics for problem-solving.” In
doing so, we argue that it is time to put interpersonal theories into action and
into context. Moreover, we agree with Fiedler (2006) that language is not with-
out social cognition and social cognition is not without language. Understand-
ing language as a problem-solving and problem-evoking instrument heightens
the necessity of applied theories of interactional competence. We emphasize the
importance of investigating these everyday encounters from a longitudinal,
developmental perspective. This can be accomplished by entering and investi-
gating real life encounters where dynamic communication is happening and
where we can “see” talk in action.
2. Interdependent theorizing about personal relationships
The shift of focus, at least in the area of interpersonal communication, from
theories of persuasion and social influence to theories of disclosure, develop-
ment, and dissolution marks the trend over the last four decades toward a more
relational focus on interpersonal interactions (Berger 2005). Unfortunately, and
perhaps ironically, despite the social and interdependent nature of interpersonal
relationships, scholars have systematically explored them from a single-par-
ticipant, rather than dyadic, research paradigm with a primary focus on self-
reported data that situates the participant in a space devoid of any social, envi-
ronmental, political, and emotional context (Acitelli, Duck, and West 2000;
Ickes and Duck 2000). Instead, it is the dynamic interplay between people in
relationships that should be explored, as this is where the primary relational
functions are being managed and negotiated (e.g., Friesen, Fletcher, and Overall
2005).
Surprisingly little attention has been oriented toward how relational partners
creatively and communicatively develop “couple” or “family” identities. These

Social Psychology and personal relationships 17
identities are often distinctive and positive images of themselves as a unit that
relational partners can chose to act out in the presence of particular others (Giles
and Fitzpatrick 1984). Couple-focused social comparisons necessarily become
active and salient for all relational units involved in such conversations. Re-
latedly, it is fairly uncommon to explore personal and relational contradictions
as witnessed in multi-leveled discourse, or discourse with multiple goals, such
as marital conflict co-occurring with supportive relational talk (Verhofstadt et
al. 2005) or “selfishly” initiating rapport-building while maintaining an other-
orientation (Pitts and Miller-Day 2007). Investigations that take such a perspec-
tive emphasize the inherent dialectics and dualities in relationships and relat-
ing – such as developing a public and private couple identity while maintaining
public and private individuality. Relational contradictions are “emergent in the
communicative choices of the moment, but those choices reflect, in part, the
constraints of socialization and what transpired in the prior history of the rela-
tionship” (Baxter and Montgomery 1996: 59). Thus, relationships should be
viewed as part of a dialectic system, not just as individuals and dyads, but also
as couples and individuals within a larger societal context (Brown, Altman, and
Werner 1992). Couples experience dialectical tensions within their relationship
as well as between their socio-cultural relationships, including kinship, friend-
ship, and other social relationships (see Rawlins 2004). What we should strive
to find are answers to the questions about the dynamic interplay of human inter-
actions across time and context that provide us with a better understanding of
the ways in which such subjective and intersubjective interactions influence
everyday living (Ickes and Duck 2000). Although theorists are no longer woeful
about the lack of theories relating to interpersonal interactions (Ickes and Duck
2000), there is still a need for current and new theories to draw from a more in-
teractional, dynamic theoretic paradigm.
3. Accommodating to relational partners
Interaction has been described as “a multi-event process that involves the con-
nections between each partner’s observable behaviors and the others’ subjective
responses (i.e., thoughts and feelings)” (Surra and Bohman 1991: 282). New
and developing theories can gain much from this approach while being pushed
to examine the dynamic interaction between communication and cognition
shifting, thus providing a link between cognition, communication processes,
and intersubjective interpretations across time and across interactions. Here
we argue for a shift of attention from intrapersonal processes to interpersonal
processes with a focus on language and cognition. Such an approach fosters an
understanding that language and behaviors have a cognitive counterpart, and
that cognition is structured through language and context. Historically, Kelley

and Thibaut’s (1978; Kelley 1979) interdependence theory, and later Rusbults’
investment models (Rusbult, Drigotas, and Verette 1994), have maintained a
focus on interpersonal processes (Rusbult and Arriaga 2000) from a primarily
social psychological perspective, while Giles and colleagues’ (Giles 2008;
Giles, Coupland, and Coupland 1991) communication accommodation theory
takes a language-focused approach toward understanding interpersonal en-
counters and mutual influence.
Both theories take into account fundamental influences that shape inter-
actions by addressing the self, the cognition/goal, and the actual interaction.
However, the triangle of influence is not equilateral in that these two theories do
not put the same attention on each of the three influences (i.e., interdependence
theory focuses more on the cognitive processes while communication accom-
modation theory focuses more on the communication and resulting outcome).
Moreover, accommodation is at the nexus of each theory determining relational
satisfaction, relational closeness, interactional competence, and so forth. How-
ever, the core meaning of accommodation in each theory differs. An interdepend-
ence perspective on accommodation regards it as a pattern of interaction involv-
ing the suppressed desire to match a partner’s destructive interaction in order to
respond in a more constructive manner (Rusbult and Arriaga 2000; Rusbult,
Yovetich, and Verette 1996). In this way, accommodating to a partner who is
behaving negatively by responding in a constructive rather than destructive
manner will serve to preserve the relationship, but might come at a significant
cost to the accommodating party (Rusbult, Yovetich, and Verette 1996). In a
way, by accommodating to the partner (in this sense by responding construc-
tively) a person actively demonstrates her/his affiliation with her/his partner.
Communication accommodation theory is primarily concerned with the
motivation and social consequences underlying a person’s change in communi-
cation styles (verbal and nonverbal features such as accent, volume, tone, lan-
guage choice) to either accommodate or not accommodate their interactional
partners (Giles et al. 2007). In both theories, motivation plays the driving role
for accommodating (or nonaccommodating) behaviors. Interactants may take
into account such variables as long-term goals, social norms, and/or a desire to
preserve the other’s well-being. Kelley (1979) and Rusbult, Yovitch, and Ve-
rette (1996) describe this as a transformation of motivation wherein interactants
strive to maximize the partner’s outcomes, a joint outcome, to achieve equity, or
to defeat the partner. Motivation to accommodate (or not) in communication ac-
commodation theory is derived from similar relational features, but contextual
features as well; social power and status are a prerogative of it (Gallois, Ogay,
and Giles 2005).
Communication accommodation serves both cognitive and affective purposes
in interpersonal settings. Cognitive purposes are met when accommodation
facilitates comprehension, prevents misattributions, or stimulates a shift in

communication that is more suitable to a particular context or mode of relational
development. Affective needs can be met through convergence so as to appear
more likeable, or diverging to reinforce distinctiveness and a sense of positive
personal identity. Convergence is typically associated with seeking affiliation,
social approval, compliance, and communication effectiveness. Divergence is
typically associated with seeking distinctiveness and/or expressing social dis-
approval (Harwood, Soliz, and Lin 2006). There are exceptions, however, such
as when too much convergence, or overaccommodation, results in negative out-
comes. For example, when patronizing speech (e.g., simplified grammar and
slow enunciations) directed at older people is seen by cognitively-active members
of this social group as utterly demeaning and condescending (Williams and
Nussbaum 2001).
A final feature of communication accommodation theory, for our purposes
here, is its capacity to account for compelling intergroup processes not usually
accountable under the rubric of “interpersonal communication”, yet are funda-
mental to it (see Gallois and Giles 1998). Some years ago, Tajfel and Turner
(1979) proffered the distinction between encounters – even dyadic ones –
that were either “interindividual” or “intergroup”. The former were interac-
tions that are based solely on the personal characteristics of the parties
involved (e.g., their personalities and moods) and not at all dependent on their
respective social category memberships. Hence, accommodation-nonaccom-
modation in these cases would be toward or away from the idiosyncratic com-
munication attributes of the other. Intergroup encounters were the converse,
and so accommodation-nonaccommodation was pitched vis-à-vis the other’s
and one’s own social category memberships (sexual orientation, gang, sorority,
religious, political, etc.). This class of interactions was regarded by these auth-
ors as constituting and actually defining a very large proportion of all the inter-
personal situations we encounter. Even the most intimate communication –
such as between spouses who have been married for decades – can, at times,
be usefully understood and analyzed in intergroup terms (e.g., talk about who
does the cleaning, caring for the children, and shopping und cooking).
Rather than construing these dual entities as polar opposites of a single
interactional continuum, scholars (e.g., Giles and Hewstone 1982) have felt it
prudent to represent conversational possibilities as being located along two or-
thogonal continua, namely interindividual (high-low) and intergroup (high-
low). This lends the possibility of encounters being construed as high on both
dimensions, either in sequences within any conversation or between them, as in
the case whereby a son first discloses to his mother that he is gay. The history of
their relationship dictates that interpersonal salience would be high, with the
mother dealing with her son as the unique person she has known since birth.
Simultaneously, her son’s homosexuality should be pertinent, potentially shap-
ing the encounter in so many ways.

4. Message production in relationships
Other psychological perspectives on interactions, albeit from communication
science, such as message production, skill, and design (Greene 1997; Greene
and Lindsey 1989; Greene et al. 1997; O’Keefe 1997), interaction goals, and
message organization (O’Keefe and Shepherd 1987; Ryan et al. 1996), and
conversation planning (Waldron 1997), help us understand the development,
output, and adaptation of messages in interaction, but rarely do they take a
dyadic perspective. Action assembly theory, for example, attempts to “specify
the mechanisms by which output, so conceived, is produced, moment-by-
moment, during ongoing interactions” (Greene 1997: 152), but focuses on the
behavior of an individual at any moment of time. Moreover, a message-pro-
duction focus inherently misses perhaps the most important factor when deter-
mining message effectiveness (i.e., how it is received and interpreted). Be-
cause of the dynamic nature of conversation and cognitive processing, social
psychological theories of relationships must move toward a better understand-
ing of the cognitive and language shifts in an interaction. Although message
design models, for example, state a focus on message adaptation (O’Keefe
1997), adaptation in this sense refers to developing a message that meets situ-
ational and goal needs, but not necessarily message adaptation across an inter-
action1. A second criticism of planning approaches to message production is
that the focus rests too much on the cognitive processing and not enough on the
larger social forces (context, relationship, conversational direction) that in-
fluence the interaction (Waldron 1997). Conversational and relational goals
change in interaction (Greene 1997; Ryan et al. 1996), plans get thwarted
(Berger 1995, 1997; Berger and diBattista 1993), and people may simply
become distracted or too cognitively overloaded to communicate effectively.
Any of which could occur to one person, one time, in one action. Or, more
likely, all of which might occur several times, across several interactions, for
several interactants.
5. Methods for investigating interpersonal relationships
The study of the social psychology of interpersonal relationships has been
stifled by a persistence to look only narrowly at the act of relating. Methods
have myopically focused on single-participant relationship reflections, staged
laboratory investigations, and/or solitary case studies in a singular point of time.
Yet, relationships develop in context, many in the workplace and others outside
of it. In order to appreciate the unique ways in which relationships are socially
constructed and maintained, they must be studied from within their larger con-
texts including the broader socio-cultural history, developmental and relational

status, emotional, health, family, and social network, as well as economic in-
fluences in which they are embedded (Acitelli, Duck, and West 2000).
Taking relational and developmental status into account can lend significant
insight into the influences interpersonal communication can have on future in-
terpersonal encounters and relationships across the lifespan (Alberts et al. 2005;
Nussbaum 2006). We know, for example, that an interaction between long-term
partners is influenced by their relational history, the present context, and can
have implications for their future interactions as well as a significant influence
over each other’s lives (Rusbult and Arriaga 2000). Much of this can be studied
through the process of encoding and storing messages across time. For example,
partners encode and store past experiences as knowledge structures (Fletcher
and Thomas 1996) that later help serve to interpret or guide future interactions.
Overtime, interpersonal interactions can work in a self-fulfilling or expectancy-
confirming manner, thereby shaping not only the individual, but the relationship
as well (e.g., Murray and Holmes 1996). Moreover, interpersonal relationships,
even between the same partners, change across the lifespan as partners and
individuals shift their life-task focus from, say, becoming good parents to man-
aging a retirement lifestyle (Cantor and Malley 1991). Similarly, Carstensen’s
(e.g., 1995) socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that people are searching
for different meanings in their relationships with others as they move into
the second half of their lives. Socioemotional selectivity theory predicts that
when time boundaries (i.e., end of life) are perceived, people prioritize present-
oriented and emotionally meaningful goals over future and knowledge-oriented
ones. Such shifts in priority influence social preferences, social network
composition, emotion regulation, and cognitive processing (Löckenhoff and
Carstensen 2004). Accordingly, as people age, they are motivated to reach emo-
tionally meaningful goals and seek out interpersonal relationships and social
messages that fulfill that need (Cantor and Malley 1991; Fung and Carstensen
2003). Interpersonal relationships among elder adults or between people in inter-
generational relationships are necessarily different than those among younger
adults or children, especially in terms of relational maintenance, motivation,
and communicative work. Thus, a look at messages across time with a focus on
lifespan development gives us insight into quality and expectations of relation-
ships in later life (Pecchioni, Wright, and Nussbaum 2005).
In addition to actual interactions, people frequently generate and manage
relationships cognitively through series of imagined interactions. Such interac-
tions are often the source of relational expectations, but are also practice realms
in which individuals are able to rehearse or replay various relational encounters
(Honeycutt and Cantrill 2001). The knowledge structures developed over the
course of (real and imagined) relating help interactants to predict, explain, and
control interpersonal interactions, while at the same time can serve as relation-
ship-enhancing tools (Fletcher and Thomas 1996). As such, pro-relational modes

for relating and partner accommodation may become routine after time (Rusbult
et al. 1996). This is especially salient among close interpersonal relationships
marked by positive illusions and idealization of a romantic partner early in a
relationship that not only positively influences relational satisfaction (Murray,
Holmes, and Griffin 1996a), but through interaction over time also aids in the
social construction of the ideal romantic partner (Murray, Holmes, and Griffin
1996b). Therefore, methods that focus on relating across time and encounters
rather than on individuals or relationships are paramount.
A lifespan perspective takes into account the consequences and benefits of
communicating across time. Moreover, longitudinal studies such as the Marital
Instability over the Life Course (Booth, Amato, and Johnson 1998; Kamp Dush,
and Amato 2005) help to charter relational change and relational satisfaction
across time in close romantic relationships. Using paradigms of interdepend-
ence and accommodation might allow scholars the ability to map personal and
relational transformations across time. For example, partners or interactants
who behave, communicate, and interpret in a relationship-enhancing manner
and in ways that maximize individual and relational outcomes positively affect
present and future interactions. This type of communication promotes long-
term well-being, establishes a sense of trustworthiness, and lays the ground-
work for future reciprocal interactions (Rusbult and Arriaga 2000).
Methods for developing a more comprehensive view of relationships must
center on looking within and outside of personal relationships. A social psycho-
logical perspective “implies a focus on the relation between structures and pro-
cesses at the individual level, with those operative at the dyadic level”, but in
doing so, does not deny the importance of investigating interpersonal interac-
tions in their wider social contexts (Fletcher and Fitness 1996: xii). Longitudi-
nal and lifespan approaches toward the study of interpersonal relationships
are not the only directions that will advance knowledge. Interpersonal scholars
could spend more time developing knowledge surrounding the mundane side
of relating and everyday conversations (Alberts et al. 2005). Duck (1992: 69)
suggests:
In everyday life, we make many snap judgements about people and form instant likes
and dislikes. We all know that we can create ‘irrational’ first impressions, sudden
lusts and likings, and intense hatreds for strangers. We can like the manner of a per-
son who has not even uttered a word to us. So, paradoxically, the study of initial
responses to strangers makes sense as a starting point for understanding long-term
human relationships; it is at this point when relationships most often start or fail to
start.
A “problem-solving” approach also necessitates a focus on interpersonal rela-
tionships as they naturally occur in a variety of everyday contexts (i.e., relation-
ships in action). While there has been a strong focus on investigating romantic
and other close interpersonal relationships, less attention has been paid to other

types of interpersonal encounters such as those between strangers, acquaint-
ances, service personnel, and others with whom we interact on a frequent basis
but have not developed a particularly close relationship (for an exception see
Ventola 1979).
Even within the domain of close interpersonal relationships, romantic rela-
tionships among primarily young adults have received the majority of attention
while relationships among older adults, some family relationships, and friend-
ships have received less attention (Pecchioni, Wright, and Nussbaum 2005). Re-
search that neglects to account for changes across the lifespan is missing most
of the relating that is happening. To remedy this requires a focus on stability
and change in personal relationships and a look at life transitions beyond just
ageing, adolescence, or college transitions, and into other life course changes
such as parenting, relocating, changes in career or health status, or personal
milestones.
6. Research tools for investigating relationships in action
Relationships are dynamic entities, on-going processes that are influenced by
everything that is around them (Planalp and Rivers 1996). Acitelli, Duck, and
West (2000) argue that when investigating the social there are three quintessen-
tial relational elements that must be attended to: the psychological congruence
and empathic understanding between two people, the interdependence of
their behaviors, and the larger social contexts in which the interactions are em-
bedded. Because social relationships are experienced subjectively and change
across time, the tools we use to explore those relationships must be sensitive to
capture relational nuances as they occur. In addition to investigating communi-
cation across relational or lifespan transitions Nussbaum (2006), Acitelli, Duck,
and West (2000) and others (e.g., Alberts et al. 2005) suggest researchers should
attend to even those relational enactments that appear to be trivial or routine
in nature, paying more attention to the subjective and intersubjective nature
of relationships and relating. Routine ways of relating has received very little
attention from scholars across disciplines (Berger 2005), but are rich areas to
explore in an effort to uncover how relationships are accomplished. Indeed, how
often have we heard responses like “same old, same old” to the question, “how
are things going?” – a response that is often verbalized by other parties as being
a healthy state of affairs given the presumed and valued stability together with a
lack of stress and uncertainty.

7. Relating in real time: Charting interpersonal goals and emotions
Contributions from the ﬁeld of cognitive psychology have provided evidence that
people’s on-line processing is inextricably related to knowledge structures
developed through relating in interpersonal encounters (Fletcher and Thomas
1996). The availability and accessibility of knowledge structures and relational
elements, such as commitment and accommodation, can have an incredible
influence on present and future thoughts and communicative behaviors (Etch-
everry and Le 2005). Language in action develops, modifies, enhances, and
perhaps even dissolves the knowledge structures we can access. For example,
rewriting negative scripts for self- or other-talk into positive ones can serve to
generate new knowledge structures of self and other and over time if negative
scripts are not accessed they can weaken. Knowledge structures that develop
over the course of relating and relationships help us to create scripts and schema
that guide both verbal and nonverbal interactions. These relationally con-
structed scripts also provide information about the nature and course of various
emotions in their relationships (Fitness 1996). Unfortunately, ascertaining some
of the cognitive influences on the message output in an interaction poses the
most difficult challenge.
This challenge has been met in present times through convenient digital
media methods such as digital recording and replay (e.g., Verhofstadt et al.
2005), unobtrusive audio recordings of daily conversations (e.g., Alberts et al.
2005), and through more traditional methods such as maintaining a diary across
interactions (Duck et al. 1991; Goldsmith and Baxter 1996), or at the very least
comparing self-report data with observations (e.g., Qualter and Munn 2005).
These research tools provide the researcher with the important ability to cap-
ture talk in action, and in the case of diary studies offer longitudinal insight.
Researchers (and participants) can take a discursive psychological approach
to charting shifts in cognition and language outcomes by looking closely and re-
flecting on interactional goals in a moment-by-moment manner (see Wetherell,
Taylor, and Yates 2001). Warner (2002) suggests a microanalytic approach (e.g.,
detailed information about the behavior, affect, and/or physiology of social
interaction among participants) to capture the moment-to-moment exchange of
behaviors that occur as partners are relating in everyday contexts. The wide-
spread availability of the internet and computer-mediated interfacing offers yet
another tool for the examination of on-line processing. “Lurking” in a chat room
or instant-messaging forum where the researcher provides participants with
changing goals in an interaction could be a useful way of charting language
shifts as they relate to new interpersonal goals.
In addition to investigating dynamic interaction goals, Berger (2005) sug-
gests social interaction researchers should take more interest in the role of emo-
tions in both close relationships and more impersonal relationships to glean a

better understanding of how emotions shape our communication and how con-
text and rules for communicating shape our display of emotions. A recent special
issue on emotions in personal relationships (Fitness and Planalp 2005) points
to the inextricable, yet complicated ways that emotions influence relationships
and vice-versa. Moreover, a lifespan focus on emotions and relationships pro-
vides evidence that older and younger adults experience and process emotions
differently (Carstensen et al. 2000). Fitness (1996) argues that an emotion-script
analysis provides insight into the on-line processing of relational interactions
and would be useful in providing an additional link between relational cognition
and communication. This could be particularly insightful across age cohorts and
across relationship types. Research that does take an interaction-focus moves a
step closer to understanding the dynamic as well as dialectical nature of lan-
guage and behavior, but often does so in ways that are limited in terms of time
and task (Rusbult, Yovetich, and Verette 1996).
8. Conclusion
With this chapter, ways in which we can better investigate, better understand
and, as a result, better relate across interpersonal contexts are highlighted. By
taking a “linguistics for problem-solving” approach, we first argued that inter-
personal relationships and the contexts in which they flourish (or falter) are
dynamic and complicated. Linguistics for problem-solving involves socially ac-
countable applied research (Knapp and Antos this volume) designed to bring the
research focus out of laboratory and to the actual sites of linguistic and cogni-
tive behavior. People relate through various forms of talk (self-talk, relational
talk, computer-mediated talk, public discourse, etc.) simultaneously forging and
auditioning different personal, relational, and social identities. Thus, we must
strive to capture relating where the vast majority of relating is occurring. That
is, we should focus our attentions toward everyday contexts across a variety of
relationships from impersonal encounters to our most intimate ones. Moreover,
the changing social psychology of individuals, relational partners, and even so-
cial groups over time warrants a life-span approach. For example, investigating
the long-term influence of communication and accommodation across time and
across relational context is an important next step in understanding the social
psychology of personal and intergroup relationships as they develop over time.
More and more, scholars are investigating the interdependence between
communication and cognition. However, as we argue earlier, researchers tend to
approach social interaction primarily from either a communication or a cogni-
tion perspective, rather than emphasizing their powerful mutual influence. We
hope to have successfully argued for a shift in focus that includes the dynamic
interplay of communication and cognition. We further hope that the perspec-

tives, methods, and tools for investigating the social psychology of interper-
sonal relationships offered herein provide a fertile ground for future research
and theory development.
Notes
1. This is in comparison with communication accommodation theory which does take
into account shifts in accommodative strategies within a single interaction (Gallois,
Ogay, and Giles 2005).
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Title: Mother of Pearl
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THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE
IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
EDITED BY FREDERIC CHAPMAN
MOTHER OF PEARL

MOTHER OF PEARL
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
A TRANSLATION
BY
FREDERIC
CHAPMAN
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMVIII

WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

CONTENTS
PAGE
The Procurator of Judæa 3
Amycus and Celestine 29
The Legend of Saints Oliveria and Liberetta 39
St. Euphrosine 55
Scholastica 75
Our Lady’s Juggler 83
The Mass of Shadows 97
Leslie Wood 109
Gestas 129
The Manuscript of a Village Doctor 143
Memoirs of a Volunteer 161

Dawn 225
Madame de Luzy 243
The Boon of Death Bestowed 257
A Tale of the Month of Floréal in the Year II 265
The Little Leaden Soldier 277

THE PROCURATOR OF JUDÆA
MOTHER OF PEARL

THE PROCURATOR OF JUDÆA
ælius Lamia, born in Italy of illustrious parents, had not
yet discarded the toga prætexta when he set out for the
schools of Athens to study philosophy. Subsequently he
took up his residence at Rome, and in his house on the
Esquiline, amid a circle of youthful wastrels, abandoned
himself to licentious courses. But being accused of engaging in
criminal relations with Lepida, the wife of Sulpicius Quirinus, a man
of consular rank, and being found guilty, he was exiled by Tiberius
Cæsar. At that time he was just entering his twenty-fourth year.
During the eighteen years that his exile lasted he traversed Syria,
Palestine, Cappadocia, and Armenia, and made prolonged visits to
Antioch, Cæsarea, and Jerusalem. When, after the death of Tiberius,
Caius was raised to the purple, Lamia obtained permission to return
to Rome. He even regained a portion of his possessions. Adversity
had taught him wisdom.
He avoided all intercourse with the wives and daughters of Roman
citizens, made no efforts towards obtaining office, held aloof from
public honours, and lived a secluded life in his house on the
Esquiline. Occupying himself with the task of recording all the
remarkable things he had seen during his distant travels, he turned,
as he said, the vicissitudes of his years of expiation into a diversion
for his hours of rest. In the midst of these calm employments,
alternating with assiduous study of the works of Epicurus, he
recognized with a mixture of surprise and vexation that age was
stealing upon him. In his sixty-second year, being afflicted with an
illness which proved in no slight degree troublesome, he decided to
have recourse to the waters at Baiæ. The coast at that point, once

frequented by the halcyon, was at this date the resort of the wealthy
Roman, greedy of pleasure. For a week Lamia lived alone, without a
friend in the brilliant crowd. Then one day, after dinner, an
inclination to which he yielded urged him to ascend the incline,
which, covered with vines that resembled bacchantes, looked out
upon the waves.
Having reached the summit he seated himself by the side of a
path beneath a terebinth, and let his glances wander over the lovely
landscape. To his left, livid and bare, the Phlegræan plain stretched
out towards the ruins of Cumæ. On his right, Cape Misenum plunged
its abrupt spur beneath the Tyrrhenian sea. Beneath his feet
luxurious Baiæ, following the graceful outline of the coast, displayed
its gardens, its villas thronged with statues, its porticos, its marble
terraces along the shores of the blue ocean where the dolphins
sported. Before him, on the other side of the bay, on the Campanian
coast, gilded by the already sinking sun, gleamed the temples which
far away rose above the laurels of Posilippo, whilst on the extreme
horizon Vesuvius looked forth smiling.
Lamia drew from a fold of his toga a scroll containing the Treatise
upon Nature, extended himself upon the ground, and began to read.
But the warning cries of a slave necessitated his rising to allow of
the passage of a litter which was being carried along the narrow
pathway through the vineyards. The litter being uncurtained,
permitted Lamia to see stretched upon the cushions as it was borne
nearer to him the figure of an elderly man of immense bulk, who,
supporting his head on his hand, gazed out with a gloomy and
disdainful expression. His nose, which was aquiline, and his chin,
which was prominent, seemed desirous of meeting across his lips,
and his jaws were powerful.
From the first moment Lamia was convinced that the face was
familiar to him. He hesitated a moment before the name came to
him. Then suddenly hastening towards the litter with a display of
surprise and delight—
“Pontius Pilate!” he cried. “The gods be praised who have
permitted me to see you once again!”

The old man gave a signal to the slaves to stop, and cast a keen
glance upon the stranger who had addressed him.
“Pontius, my dear host,” resumed the latter, “have twenty years so
far whitened my hair and hollowed my cheeks that you no longer
recognize your friend Ælius Lamia?”
At this name Pontius Pilate dismounted from the litter as actively
as the weight of his years and the heaviness of his gait permitted
him, and embraced Ælius Lamia again and again.
“Gods! what a treat it is to me to see you once more! But, alas,
you call up memories of those long-vanished days when I was
Procurator of Judæa in the province of Syria. Why, it must be thirty
years ago that I first met you. It was at Cæsarea, whither you came
to drag out your weary term of exile. I was fortunate enough to
alleviate it a little, and out of friendship, Lamia, you followed me to
that depressing place Jerusalem, where the Jews filled me with
bitterness and disgust. You remained for more than ten years my
guest and my companion, and in converse about Rome and things
Roman we both of us managed to find consolation—you for your
misfortunes, and I for my burdens of State.”
Lamia embraced him afresh.
“You forget two things, Pontius; you are overlooking the facts that
you used your influence on my behalf with Herod Antipas, and that
your purse was freely open to me.”
“Let us not talk of that,” replied Pontius, “since after your return to
Rome you sent me by one of your freedmen a sum of money which
repaid me with usury.”
“Pontius, I could never consider myself out of your debt by the
mere payment of money. But tell me, have the gods fulfilled your
desires? Are you in the enjoyment of all the happiness you deserve?
Tell me about your family, your fortunes, your health.”
“I have withdrawn to Sicily, where I possess estates, and where I
cultivate wheat for the market. My eldest daughter, my best-beloved
Pontia, who has been left a widow, lives with me, and directs my
household. The gods be praised, I have preserved my mental vigour;
my memory is not in the least degree enfeebled. But old age always
brings in its train a long procession of griefs and infirmities. I am

cruelly tormented with gout. And at this very moment you find me
on my way to the Phlegræan plain in search of a remedy for my
sufferings. From that burning soil, whence at night flames burst
forth, proceed acrid exhalations of sulphur, which, so they say, ease
the pains and restore suppleness to the stiffened joints. At least, the
physicians assure me that it is so.”
“May you find it so in your case, Pontius! But, despite the gout
and its burning torments, you scarcely look as old as myself,
although in reality you must be my senior by ten years.
Unmistakably you have retained a greater degree of vigour than I
ever possessed, and I am overjoyed to find you looking so hale.
Why, dear friend, did you retire from the public service before the
customary age? Why, on resigning your governorship in Judæa, did
you withdraw to a voluntary exile on your Sicilian estates? Give me
an account of your doings from the moment that I ceased to be a
witness of them. You were preparing to suppress a Samaritan rising
when I set out for Cappadocia, where I hoped to draw some profit
from the breeding of horses and mules. I have not seen you since
then. How did that expedition succeed? Pray tell me. Everything
interests me that concerns you in any way.”
Pontius Pilate sadly shook his head.
“My natural disposition,” he said, “as well as a sense of duty,
impelled me to fulfil my public responsibilities, not merely with
diligence, but even with ardour. But I was pursued by unrelenting
hatred. Intrigues and calumnies cut short my career in its prime, and
the fruit it should have looked to bear has withered away. You ask
me about the Samaritan insurrection. Let us sit down on this hillock.
I shall be able to give you an answer in few words. Those
occurrences are as vividly present to me as if they had happened
yesterday.
“A man of the people, of persuasive speech—there are many such
to be met with in Syria—induced the Samaritans to gather together
in arms on Mount Gerizim (which in that country is looked upon as a
holy place) under the promise that he would disclose to their sight
the sacred vessels which in the ancient days of Evander and our
father, Æneas, had been hidden away by an eponymous hero, or

rather a tribal deity, named Moses. Upon this assurance the
Samaritans rose in rebellion; but having been warned in time to
forestall them, I dispatched detachments of infantry to occupy the
mountain, and stationed cavalry to keep the approaches to it under
observation.
“These measures of prudence were urgent. The rebels were
already laying siege to the town of Tyrathaba, situated at the foot of
Mount Gerizim. I easily dispersed them, and stifled the as yet
scarcely organized revolt. Then, in order to give a forcible example
with as few victims as possible, I handed over to execution the
leaders of the rebellion. But you are aware, Lamia, in what strait
dependence I was kept by the proconsul Vitellius, who governed
Syria not in, but against the interests of Rome, and looked upon the
provinces of the empire as territories which could be farmed out to
tetrarchs. The head-men among the Samaritans, in their resentment
against me, came and fell at his feet lamenting. To listen to them,
nothing had been further from their thoughts than to disobey Cæsar.
It was I who had provoked the rising, and it was purely in order to
withstand my violence that they had gathered together round
Tyrathaba. Vitellius listened to their complaints, and handing over
the affairs of Judæa to his friend Marcellus, commanded me to go
and justify my proceedings before the Emperor himself. With a heart
overflowing with grief and resentment I took ship. Just as I
approached the shores of Italy, Tiberius, worn out with age and the
cares of empire, died suddenly on the selfsame Cape Misenum,
whose peak we see from this very spot magnified in the mists of
evening. I demanded justice of Caius, his successor, whose
perception was naturally acute, and who was acquainted with Syrian
affairs. But marvel with me, Lamia, at the maliciousness of fortune,
resolved on my discomfiture. Caius then had in his suite at Rome the
Jew Agrippa, his companion, the friend of his childhood, whom he
cherished as his own eyes. Now Agrippa favoured Vitellius, inasmuch
as Vitellius was the enemy of Antipas, whom Agrippa pursued with
his hatred. The Emperor adopted the prejudices of his beloved
Asiatic, and refused even to listen to me. There was nothing for me
to do but bow beneath the stroke of unmerited misfortune. With

tears for my meat and gall for my portion, I withdrew to my estates
in Sicily, where I should have died of grief if my sweet Pontia had
not come to console her father. I have cultivated wheat, and
succeeded in producing the fullest ears in the whole province. But
now my life is ended; the future will judge between Vitellius and
me.”
“Pontius,” replied Lamia, “I am persuaded that you acted towards
the Samaritans according to the rectitude of your character, and
solely in the interests of Rome. But were you not perchance on that
occasion a trifle too much influenced by that impetuous courage
which has always swayed you? You will remember that in Judæa it
often happened that I who, younger than you, should naturally have
been more impetuous than you, was obliged to urge you to
clemency and suavity.”
“Suavity towards the Jews!” cried Pontius Pilate. “Although you
have lived amongst them, it seems clear that you ill understand
those enemies of the human race. Haughty and at the same time
base, combining an invincible obstinacy with a despicably mean
spirit, they weary alike your love and your hatred. My character,
Lamia, was formed upon the maxims of the divine Augustus. When I
was appointed Procurator of Judæa, the world was already
penetrated with the majestic ideal of the pax romana. No longer, as
in the days of our internecine strife, were we witnesses to the sack
of a province for the aggrandisement of a proconsul. I knew where
my duty lay. I was careful that my actions should be governed by
prudence and moderation. The gods are my witnesses that I was
resolved upon mildness, and upon mildness only. Yet what did my
benevolent intentions avail me? You were at my side, Lamia, when,
at the outset of my career as ruler, the first rebellion came to a
head. Is there any need for me to recall the details to you? The
garrison had been transferred from Cæsarea to take up its winter
quarters at Jerusalem. Upon the ensigns of the legionaries appeared
the presentment of Cæsar. The inhabitants of Jerusalem, who did
not recognize the indwelling divinity of the Emperor, were
scandalized at this, as though, when obedience is compulsory, it
were not less abject to obey a god than a man. The priests of their

nation appeared before my tribunal imploring me with supercilious
humility to have the ensigns removed from within the holy city. Out
of reverence for the divine nature of Cæsar and the majesty of the
empire, I refused to comply. Then the rabble made common cause
with the priests, and all around the pretorium portentous cries of
supplication arose. I ordered the soldiers to stack their spears in
front of the tower of Antonia, and to proceed, armed only with sticks
like lictors, to disperse the insolent crowd. But, heedless of blows,
the Jews continued their entreaties, and the more obstinate amongst
them threw themselves on the ground and, exposing their throats to
the rods, deliberately courted death. You were a witness of my
humiliation on that occasion, Lamia. By the order of Vitellius I was
forced to send the insignia back to Cæsarea. That disgrace I had
certainly not merited. Before the immortal gods I swear that never
once during my term of office did I flout justice and the laws. But I
am grown old. My enemies and detractors are dead. I shall die
unavenged. Who will now retrieve my character?”
He moaned and lapsed into silence. Lamia replied—
“That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from
the uncertain events of the future. Does it matter in the least what
estimate men may form of us hereafter? We ourselves are after all
our own witnesses, and our own judges. You must rely, Pontius
Pilate, on the testimony you yourself bear to your own rectitude. Be
content with your own personal respect and that of your friends. For
the rest, we know that mildness by itself will not suffice for the work
of government. There is but little room in the actions of public men
for that indulgence of human frailty which the philosophers
recommend.”
“We’ll say no more at present,” said Pontius. “The sulphureous
fumes which rise from the Phlegræan plain are more powerful when
the ground which exhales them is still warm beneath the sun’s rays.
I must hasten on. Adieu! But now that I have rediscovered a friend,
I should wish to take advantage of my good fortune. Do me the
favour, Ælius Lamia, to give me your company at supper at my
house to-morrow. My house stands on the seashore, at the extreme
end of the town in the direction of Misenum. You will easily

recognize it by the porch which bears a painting representing
Orpheus surrounded by tigers and lions, whom he is charming with
the strains from his lyre.
“Till to-morrow, Lamia,” he repeated, as he climbed once more
into his litter. “To-morrow we will talk about Judæa.”
The following day at the supper hour Lamia presented himself at
the house of Pontius Pilate. Two couches only were in readiness for
occupants. Creditably but simply equipped, the table held a silver
service in which were set out beccaficos in honey, thrushes, oysters
from the Lucrine lake, and lampreys from Sicily. As they proceeded
with their repast, Pontius and Lamia interchanged inquiries with one
another about their ailments, the symptoms of which they described
at considerable length, mutually emulous of communicating the
various remedies which had been recommended to them. Then,
congratulating themselves on being thrown together once more at
Baiæ, they vied with one another in praise of the beauty of that
enchanting coast and the mildness of the climate they enjoyed.
Lamia was enthusiastic about the charms of the courtesans who
frequented the seashore laden with golden ornaments and trailing
draperies of barbaric broidery. But the aged Procurator deplored the
ostentation with which by means of trumpery jewels and filmy
garments foreigners and even enemies of the empire beguiled the
Romans of their gold. After a time they turned to the subject of the
great engineering feats that had been accomplished in the country;
the prodigious bridge constructed by Caius between Puteoli and
Baiæ, and the canals which Augustus excavated to convey the
waters of the ocean to Lake Avernus and the Lucrine lake.
“I also,” said Pontius, with a sigh, “I also wished to set afoot public
works of great utility. When, for my sins, I was appointed Governor
of Judæa, I conceived the idea of furnishing Jerusalem with an
abundant supply of pure water by means of an aqueduct. The
elevation of the levels, the proportionate capacity of the various
parts, the gradient for the brazen reservoirs to which the distribution
pipes were to be fixed—I had gone into every detail, and decided

everything for myself with the assistance of mechanical experts. I
had drawn up regulations for the superintendents so as to prevent
individuals from making unauthorized depredations. The architects
and the workmen had their instructions. I gave orders for the
commencement of operations. But far from viewing with satisfaction
the construction of that conduit, which was intended to carry to their
town upon its massive arches not only water but health, the
inhabitants of Jerusalem gave vent to lamentable outcries. They
gathered tumultuously together, exclaiming against the sacrilege and
impiousness, and, hurling themselves upon the workmen, scattered
the very foundation stones. Can you picture to yourself, Lamia, a
filthier set of barbarians? Nevertheless, Vitellius decided in their
favour, and I received orders to put a stop to the work.”
“It is a knotty point,” said Lamia, “how far one is justified in
devising things for the commonweal against the will of the
populace.”
Pontius Pilate continued as though he had not heard this
interruption.
“Refuse an aqueduct! What madness! But whatever is of Roman
origin is distasteful to the Jews. In their eyes we are an unclean
race, and our very presence appears a profanation to them. You will
remember that they would never venture to enter the pretorium for
fear of defiling themselves, and that I was consequently obliged to
discharge my magisterial functions in an open-air tribunal on that
marble pavement your feet so often trod.
“They fear us and they despise us. Yet is not Rome the mother
and warden of all those peoples who nestle smiling upon her
venerable bosom? With her eagles in the van, peace and liberty have
been carried to the very confines of the universe. Those whom we
have subdued we look on as our friends, and we leave those
conquered races, nay, we secure to them the permanence of their
customs and their laws. Did Syria, aforetime rent asunder by its
rabble of petty kings, ever even begin to taste of peace and
prosperity until it submitted to the armies of Pompey? And when
Rome might have reaped a golden harvest as the price of her
goodwill, did she lay hands on the hoards that swell the treasuries of

barbaric temples? Did she despoil the shrine of Cybele at Pessinus,
or the Morimene and Cilician sanctuaries of Jupiter, or the temple of
the Jewish god at Jerusalem? Antioch, Palmyra, and Apamea, secure
despite their wealth, and no longer in dread of the wandering Arab
of the desert, have erected temples to the genius of Rome and the
divine Cæsar. The Jews alone hate and withstand us. They withhold
their tribute till it is wrested from them, and obstinately rebel against
military service.”
“The Jews,” replied Lamia, “are profoundly attached to their
ancient customs. They suspected you, unreasonably I admit, of a
desire to abolish their laws and change their usages. Do not resent
it, Pontius, if I say that you did not always act in such a way as to
disperse their unfortunate illusion. It gratified you, despite your
habitual self-restraint, to play upon their fears, and more than once
have I seen you betray in their presence the contempt with which
their beliefs and religious ceremonies inspired you. You irritated
them particularly by giving instructions for the sacerdotal garments
and ornaments of their high priest to be kept in ward by your
legionaries in the Antonine tower. One must admit that though they
have never risen like us to an appreciation of things divine, the Jews
celebrate rites which their very antiquity renders venerable.”
Pontius Pilate shrugged his shoulders.
“They have very little exact knowledge of the nature of the gods,”
he said. “They worship Jupiter, yet they abstain from naming him or
erecting a statue of him. They do not even adore him under the
semblance of a rude stone, as certain of the Asiatic peoples are
wont to do. They know nothing of Apollo, of Neptune, of Mars, nor
of Pluto, nor of any goddess. At the same time, I am convinced that
in days gone by they worshipped Venus. For even to this day their
women bring doves to the altar as victims; and you know as well as
I that the dealers who trade beneath the arcades of their temple
supply those birds in couples for sacrifice. I have even been told that
on one occasion some madman proceeded to overturn the stalls
bearing these offerings, and their owners with them. The priests
raised an outcry about it, and looked on it as a case of sacrilege. I

am of opinion that their custom of sacrificing turtledoves was
instituted in honour of Venus. Why are you laughing, Lamia?”
“I was laughing,” said Lamia, “at an amusing idea which, I hardly
know how, just occurred to me. I was thinking that perchance some
day the Jupiter of the Jews might come to Rome and vent his fury
upon you. Why should he not? Asia and Africa have already enriched
us with a considerable number of gods. We have seen temples in
honour of Isis and the dog-faced Anubis erected in Rome. In the
public squares, and even on the race-courses, you may run across
the Bona Dea of the Syrians mounted on an ass. And did you never
hear how, in the reign of Tiberius, a young patrician passed himself
off as the horned Jupiter of the Egyptians, Jupiter Ammon, and in
this disguise procured the favours of an illustrious lady who was too
virtuous to deny anything to a god? Beware, Pontius, lest the
invisible Jupiter of the Jews disembark some day on the quay at
Ostia!”
At the idea of a god coming out of Judæa, a fleeting smile played
over the severe countenance of the Procurator. Then he replied
gravely—
“How would the Jews manage to impose their sacred law on
outside peoples when they are in a perpetual state of tumult
amongst themselves as to the interpretation of that law? You have
seen them yourself, Lamia, in the public squares, split up into twenty
rival parties, with staves in their hands, abusing each other and
clutching one another by the beard. You have seen them on the
steps of the temple, tearing their filthy garments as a symbol of
lamentation, with some wretched creature in a frenzy of prophetic
exaltation in their midst. They have never realized that it is possible
to discuss peacefully and with an even mind those matters
concerning the divine which yet are hidden from the profane and
wrapped in uncertainty. For the nature of the immortal gods remains
hidden from us, and we cannot arrive at a knowledge of it. Though I
am of opinion, none the less, that it is a prudent thing to believe in
the providence of the gods. But the Jews are devoid of philosophy,
and cannot tolerate any diversity of opinions. On the contrary, they
judge worthy of the extreme penalty all those who on divine

subjects profess opinions opposed to their law. And as, since the
genius of Rome has towered over them, capital sentences
pronounced by their own tribunals can only be carried out with the
sanction of the proconsul or the procurator, they harry the Roman
magistrate at any hour to procure his signature to their baleful
decrees, they besiege the pretorium with their cries of ‘Death!’ A
hundred times, at least, have I known them, mustered, rich and
poor together, all united under their priests, make a furious
onslaught on my ivory chair, seizing me by the skirts of my robe, by
the thongs of my sandals, and all to demand of me—nay, to exact
from me—the death sentence on some unfortunate whose guilt I
failed to perceive, and as to whom I could only pronounce that he
was as mad as his accusers. A hundred times, do I say! Not a
hundred, but every day and all day. Yet it was my duty to execute
their law as if it were ours, since I was appointed by Rome not for
the destruction, but for the upholding of their customs, and over
them I had the power of the rod and the axe. At the outset of my
term of office I endeavoured to persuade them to hear reason; I
attempted to snatch their miserable victims from death. But this
show of mildness only irritated them the more; they demanded their
prey, fighting around me like a horde of vultures with wing and
beak. Their priests reported to Cæsar that I was violating their law,
and their appeals, supported by Vitellius, drew down upon me a
severe reprimand. How many times did I long, as the Greeks used to
say, to dispatch accusers and accused in one convoy to the crows!
“Do not imagine, Lamia, that I nourish the rancour of the
discomfited, the wrath of the superannuated, against a people which
in my person has prevailed against both Rome and tranquillity. But I
foresee the extremity to which sooner or later they will reduce us.
Since we cannot govern them, we shall be driven to destroy them.
Never doubt it. Always in a state of insubordination, brewing
rebellion in their inflammatory minds, they will one day burst forth
upon us with a fury beside which the wrath of the Numidians and
the mutterings of the Parthians are mere child’s play. They are
secretly nourishing preposterous hopes, and madly premeditating
our ruin. How can it be otherwise, when, on the strength of an

oracle, they are living in expectation of the coming of a prince of
their own blood whose kingdom shall extend over the whole earth?
There are no half measures with such a people. They must be
exterminated. Jerusalem must be laid waste to the very foundation.
Perchance, old as I am, it may be granted me to behold the day
when her walls shall fall and the flames shall envelop her houses,
when her inhabitants shall pass under the edge of the sword, when
salt shall be strown on the place where once the temple stood. And
in that day I shall at length be justified.”
Lamia exerted himself to lead the conversation back to a less
acrimonious note.
“Pontius,” he said, “it is not difficult for me to understand both
your long-standing resentment and your sinister forebodings. Truly,
what you have experienced of the character of the Jews is nothing
to their advantage. But I lived in Jerusalem as an interested
onlooker, and mingled freely with the people, and I succeeded in
detecting certain obscure virtues in these rude folk which were
altogether hidden from you. I have met Jews who were all mildness,
whose simple manners and faithfulness of heart recalled to me what
our poets have related concerning the Spartan lawgiver. And you
yourself, Pontius, have seen perish beneath the cudgels of your
legionaries simple-minded men who have died for a cause they
believed to be just without revealing their names. Such men do not
deserve our contempt. I am saying this because it is desirable in all
things to preserve moderation and an even mind. But I own that I
never experienced any lively sympathy for the Jews. The Jewesses,
on the contrary, I found extremely pleasing. I was young then, and
the Syrian women stirred all my senses to response. Their ruddy lips,
their liquid eyes that shone in the shade, their sleepy gaze pierced
me to the very marrow. Painted and stained, smelling of nard and
myrrh, steeped in odours, their physical attractions are both rare and
delightful.”
Pontius listened impatiently to these praises.
“I was not the kind of man to fall into the snares of the Jewish
women,” he said; “and since you have opened the subject yourself,
Lamia, I was never able to approve of your laxity. If I did not

express with sufficient emphasis formerly how culpable I held you
for having intrigued at Rome with the wife of a man of consular
rank, it was because you were then enduring heavy penance for
your misdoings. Marriage from the patrician point of view is a sacred
tie; it is one of the institutions which are the support of Rome. As to
foreign women and slaves, such relations as one may enter into with
them would be of little account were it not that they habituate the
body to a humiliating effeminacy. Let me tell you that you have been
too liberal in your offerings to the Venus of the Market-place; and
what, above all, I blame in you is that you have not married in
compliance with the law and given children to the Republic, as every
good citizen is bound to do.”
But the man who had suffered exile under Tiberius was no longer
listening to the venerable magistrate. Having tossed off his cup of
Falernian, he was smiling at some image visible to his eye alone.
After a moment’s silence he resumed in a very deep voice, which
rose in pitch by little and little—
“With what languorous grace they dance, those Syrian women! I
knew a Jewess at Jerusalem who used to dance in a poky little
room, on a threadbare carpet, by the light of one smoky little lamp,
waving her arms as she clanged her cymbals. Her loins arched, her
head thrown back, and, as it were, dragged down by the weight of
her heavy red hair, her eyes swimming with voluptuousness, eager,
languishing, compliant, she would have made Cleopatra herself grow
pale with envy. I was in love with her barbaric dances, her voice—a
little raucous and yet so sweet—her atmosphere of incense, the
semi-somnolescent state in which she seemed to live. I followed her
everywhere. I mixed with the vile rabble of soldiers, conjurers, and
extortioners with which she was surrounded. One day, however, she
disappeared, and I saw her no more. Long did I seek her in
disreputable alleys and taverns. It was more difficult to learn to do
without her than to lose the taste for Greek wine. Some months
after I lost sight of her, I learned by chance that she had attached
herself to a small company of men and women who were followers
of a young Galilean thaumaturgist. His name was Jesus; he came

from Nazareth, and he was crucified for some crime, I don’t quite
know what. Pontius, do you remember anything about the man?”
Pontius Pilate contracted his brows, and his hand rose to his
forehead in the attitude of one who probes the deeps of memory.
Then after a silence of some seconds—
“Jesus?” he murmured, “Jesus—of Nazareth? I cannot call him to
mind.”

AMYCUS AND CELESTINE
TO GEORGES DE PORTO-RICHE

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