Analyser af dansk og tysk talesprog (review)

This invigorating book deals with the manner in which information is transferred in two languages, Danish and German, using, in the main, materials culled either from actual transcripts of interchanges between tourist information personnel (or tourist guides) and their clientele or from video recordings of improvisations dealing with similar exchanges of information.

The book is divided into seven chapters. The first acts as an introduction, presenting the corpus and, particularly importantly for a book dealing with this topic, provides information on vocabulary and turns of phrase which are trade-specific to tourism. The second chapter is also largely introductory, providing a clear and illuminating discussion of pragmatics and discourse analysis, with particular reference to the ideas of Grice, Leech, and Brown and Levinson. Special focus is given to ‘face-threatening acts’ and politeness strategies.

The next two chapters deal with a number of these concerns, using specific examples from both Danish and German. Ch. 3 deals with the methods by which politeness can be implied in monologues. Fredsted finds that this can be done by a variety of means, many of which are concerned with the level to which the guide is (or wishes to be) included within the group. Ch. 4 discusses the beginnings and endings of conversations in both German and Danish tourist offices, dealing with such topics as nonverbal responses, ‘attention getters’, and further politeness phenomena.

Ch. 5 puts forward a somewhat different approach to the topic. Using the videotaped materials already mentioned, it develops something approaching a typology for spoken and—in particular—paralinguistic and nonlinguistic communication and their particular results for the purposes of politeness.

Ch. 6 is particularly interesting, dealing as it does with those occasions where one or another of the speakers may not be happy about the topic of conversation. Particularly striking were two conversations. In the first, the tourist office worker works against giving information to a young woman because the information she desires would not—in the official’s opinion—be appropriate for a woman of her age. Strains are therefore put upon politeness. The other stems from Bavarians wishing to find a Catholic church in North Germany; a discussion ensues on the post-Reformation status of Catholicism which is not much to the taste of the tourist office worker who is therefore faced with the desire to save face.

The book finishes with a useful chapter on politeness and linguistic cooperation and the perspectives they provide for second language teaching and for intercultural communication. A summary in English and an excellent bibliography follow.

Perhaps the single most important point in favor of this book is its practicality: It is intended to teach us something about the nature of communication, particularly across languages and cultures. That Schleswig/Slesvig should have been chosen for such a discussion is particularly appropriate, given the long history of tension and also cooperation to be found between the two speech communities in the region.