ABSTRACT
One of the many things language allows us to do quickly and effectively is to shift and guide the attention of our listeners or readers to particular aspects of the world. Compare, for instance, pointing and using a word or phrase. Imagine you have a cup in front of you. You want to indicate something in relation to that object and, using gesture, you point to it. In most cases, you would succeed in directing your listener’s attention to a place and an object occupying that space. But how would your listener know whether you want to say something about the cup as a whole, or about its handle, or its shape, material, colour or function? The gesture works as a way of shifting and guiding attention but only in a limited way. Language allows much greater precision: by choosing particular words, or combinations of words, you can make clear whether you are talking about the whole object (the/a/this cup); or some part of the object (its handle, the rim, its sides), its shape or size (the roundness, its width), material or colour (bone china, purple) or function (a container). Even when we try to communicate about objects or events in our immediate environment, there is always too much going on. We need some way of directing our listeners to notice specific aspects of situations and disregard others. The more complex the object or situation, the more we need to zoom in on what is important to us and our listener, while blurring the rest. Imagine the situation where a child has just broken a rather precious cup and must tell his mother (see Figure 7.1). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203764039/c800d345-a313-4a93-9720-66598357bb1c/content/fig7_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
