tagmemics
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Definition:
A system of linguistic analysis that attempts to integrate grammatical, phonological, semantic and pragmatic information. Tagmemics is sometimes called slot-and-filler grammar.
Tagmemics was largely developed by American linguist Kenneth L. Pike (Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, 1954). Pike's intent was to describe linguistic patterns in connection with sociocultural behavior.
(See Examples and Observations, below.)
Tagmemics came to the attention of rhetoricians and composition instructors through Kenneth Pike's articles in College Composition and Communication in the 1960s and through the influential textbook Rhetoric: Discovery and Change (1970) by Pike, Richard Young, and Alton Becker.
As noted in the Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics (1996), contemporary research in tagmemics "focuses primarily on semantic and ethnolinguistic problems, e.g. kinship terms in different languages . . ., especially the inclusion of non-verbal, paralinguistic perspectives in linguistic description."
See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "Linguistic tagmemics is concerned with discovering the patterns and regularities of language, and with stating these as consistently, systematically, and elegantly as possible. . . .
"There have been numerous practical applications of tagmemic theory, and I believe that the great applicability of tagmemics is a significant strength in its favor. One application has been as a heuristic for helping students to understand the nature of language. But this is not all. There have been numerous successful applications of the theory to translation, language learning, literacy, and linguistic analysis--particularly in the study of unwritten and 'exotic' languages. In addition, there have been many other applications in other disciplines, most notably anthropology (since tagmemics is a theory not only of language, but also of human behavior)."
(L.K. Jones, "A Synopsis of Tagmemics." Syntax and Semantics, 13, 1980)
- Functional Relationships
"A tagmeme is an association of a grammatical function with the set of items which may fill that function. As [Robert E.] Longacre (1965:65) has said, 'Tagmemics makes grammatical functions focal, but associates such functions with sets of items and constructions.' The primacy of grammatical function arises because the various functions contribute a type of meaning. Thus the subject of a clause is the topic of the clause. John saw Bill is a statement about John, while Bill was seen by John is a statement about Bill. Similarly, the dented fender is not an exact paraphrase of the fender dented. (The dented fender was the left one. The fender dented was the left one.) When the participle occurs before the noun it characterizes the noun in a relatively permanent way. When the participle follows the noun it modifies no such permanence is implied. The difference in the relationship between modifier and head in the two examples above is a result of the difference in the grammatical functions the two modifiers fill."
(Peter H. Fries, "Some Fundamental Insights of Tagmemics Revisited." Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honor of Archibald A. Hill: General and Theoretical Linguistics, ed. by Mohammed Ali Jazayery, Edgar C. Polomé, and Werner Winter. Mouton, 1978) - A Model of Functional Syntax
"The central concept [in tagmemics] is the tagmeme, defined by the relation between a syntactic 'slot' or function, such as subject or object, and a class of units, such as noun phrase or pronoun, that can 'fill' it. Constructions, or syntagmemes, are accordingly characterized by sequences of obligatory and optional tagmemes: e.g. that of The people were leaving by one in which there is an obligatory subject slot, filled by the noun phrase, followed by an obligatory predicate slot, filled by a verb phrase. Each syntagmeme is of a specific 'size-level': thus this example is of a clause-level syntagmeme, while those which would represent the constructions of the people and were leaving are at phrase level. Size-levels in turn are linked by potentially recursive relations among syntagmemes, functions, and classes. E.g. the structure of the people is that of a noun phrase; this can function as subject in a structure which is that of a certain class of clause; that in turn might function e.g. as the object in a larger clause (They said [the people] were leaving)."
(P.H. Matthews, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford University Press, 1997) - Language as Behavior
"[T]he view of language as part of human behaviour necessitates a recognition that language cannot be strictly formalized. No representational system could accommodate all the relevant facts of language, and tagmemics seeks a balance between the need for generalizations about language, and the particularities and variations found in it. Therefore, tagmemics accepts various different modes of representation for different purposes, and does not insist that there must be only one correct grammar or linguistic theory . . .."
(Kirsten Malmkjaer, "Tagmemics." The Linguistics Encyclopedia. Routledge, 1995) - Tagmemics in Rhetoric and Composition
"Tagmemic theory . . . argues that human beings must, and in fact do, bring multiple perspectives to their communication efforts. But they do so selectively and often unconsciously, and tagmemic rhetoric attempts to systematize this multiperspectival inquiry. . . . Pike's tagmemics ultimately grounds speech, textuality, and communication in a rhetoric of participation wherein communities of writers and readers are seen as sharing the responsibility for meaning-making within specific, nonarbitrary historical contexts and in a publicly available discourse, thus rejecting the more dubious, positivistic notion that a static, self-evident, extractable core of meaning inheres in an utterance or text itself."
(Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication From Ancient Times to the Information Age, ed. by Theresa Enos. Taylor & Francis, 1996) - The Extralinguistic Setting
"The two most significant influences on the development of tagmemics come ultimately from the field of physics. The first, the so-called unified theory, when viewed as an intellectual goal, has had a profound effect on tagmemics. The second, the simultaneous viewing of light as wave, particle, and field, has, in a general sense, enabled tagmemics to unify several seemingly disparate phenomena; taken in its specifics, however, it has proven to be problematic, as has been recognized by Pike and others."
("Traditions of Descriptive Linguistics in America." History of The Language Sciences: An International Handbook on the Evolution of The Study of Language from the Beginnings to the Present, Vol. 3, ed. by Sylvain Auroux, E.F.K. Koerner, Hans-J. Niederehe, and Kees Versteegh. Mouton de Gruyter, 2006)
Also Known As: slot-and-filler grammar
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