There is some work from Sacks onward on formulating third parties, or trying to get people to give their names (in the helpline stuff), but nothing that helps much with this question.
I'm particularly interested in where the name is not used to select next speaker, for instance, but rather to characterise the form of address.
I'm looking at Joni Mitchell's address to the Isle of Wight festival crowd, which finishes with: "give us some respect man"
What is "man" doing there? It doesn't identify the respondent, but it somehow characterises the relationship.
The use of terms such as mate, chum, buddy etc and a dozen other soubriquets are examples of redundant language rather than identifiers,
Something along the lines of adding pointless expressions like "do you know what I mean" at the end of a sentence.
It is doubtful that Joni Mitchell's address contained any complex message at all. The language used at music festivals is usually a combination of soundbites and pious rhetoric, a bit like political speeches really.
Barry, if you read the work of Harvey Sacks, you will see how even the most mundane and casual talk is intricately organised. It would be wrong, therefore, to dismiss any expression as redundant or pointless, prior to close and detailed examination of its actual use.
I have done exactly this with regards to Mitchell's address, and can assure that it does indeed carry a complex message. However, to see it in this light is really to miss the point. It is what Mitchell is doing when she speaks, rather than merely what she is saying, that is the focus of analysis.
The segment offered here is the conclusion to a story which is itself a third attempt to quieten an unruly crowd. It is the only part of the sequence which is not fully analysed, so it would be a pity if it were to prove resistant.
John
Referring to redundant language is not dismissing it as pointless. Redundant simply means not necessary. I fully appreciate that the use of redundant language has cultural function, as alluded to by Sacks, that does not make it any less redundant in linguistics terms.
Redundant language is an identifier in many cases. The somewhat irritating punctuation of sentences with 'know whatta mean" or "innit" is used to convey the message of membership of particular street culture.
The peppering of sentences with invective is used as a method of emphasis and as an identifier. So, yes it carries complex messages beyond syntactical meaning.
In terms of linguistics it is still redundant language.
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