Critical Exploitation of the Receptive Use

In the above examples of the receptive use, the speaker cites a proverb to agree with his/her interlocutor. The usage type, however, is not necessarily confined to such cases where the speaker shows a favorable stance. It is also available when s/he attempts to confront and criticize the interlocutor.

Let us consider an instance of such critical receptive use. Cited below is an excerpt from Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. One man is murdered on the Orient Express, a sleeper express bound for Paris. Hercule Poirot, a Belgian private detective who happened to be on the train, begins to interrogate

The evaluation from the interlocutor corresponds to Arrow 2, “Agreement (or other expression of contiguity)” in Drew & Holt’s

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(1988; 1998) description (9). This indicates that the receptive use contributes to the closure and transition of topics.

the passengers to help find the murderer(s). As he enters the cabin of a British lady, Mary Debenham, for investigation, he gets Greta Ohlsson, a woman who has been there with her, out of the room.

(36) Miss Debenham had put her book down. She was watching Poirot. When he asked her, she handed over her keys. Then, as he lifted down a case and opened it, she said:

“(a)Why did you send her away, M. Poirot?”

“I, Mademoiselle! (b)Why, to minister to the American lady.”

“(c)An excellent pretext — but a pretext all the same.”

“(d)I don’t understand you, Mademoiselle.”

“(e1)I think you understand me very well.” She smiled. “(e2)You wanted to get me alone. Wasn’t that it?”

“(f)You are putting words into my mouth, Mademoiselle.”

“(g)And ideas into your head? No, I don’t think so. The ideas are already there. That is right, isn’t it?”

“(h)Mademoiselle, we have a proverb —”

“(i)Qui s’excuse s’accuse — (j)is that what you were going to say? (k)You must give me the credit for a certain amount of observation and common sense. (l)For some reason or other you have got it into your head that I know something about this sordid business — (m)this murder of a man I never saw before.”

“(n)You are imagining things, Mademoiselle.”

“No, I am not imagining things at all. But it seems to me that a lot of time is wasted by not speaking the truth — by beating about the bush instead of coming straight out with things.”

(Christie, Murder on the Orient Express)

When asked by Debenham why he get Ohlsson out of her cabin (36a), Poirot replies that it is to have her look after Mrs. Hubbard (“the American lady”), who is feeling ill (36b). She does not accept it, and calls it “a pretext” (36c). As Poirot says he is unable to understand her intention (36d), Debenham asserts that he must have intended to make her alone in the cabin (36e). In reply to this, the detective retorts that she is trying to make him say what she wants him to say (36f). The woman, however, argues that he actually had the exact intention as she identified (36g). As Poirot is about to cite a proverb in response (36h), but Debenham interrupts the utterance (36i).

Qui s’excuse s’accuse is a French proverb which can literally translate into “he who excuses himself accuses himself” and usually used to point out “making excuses reveals a guilty conscience” (Merriam-Webster.Com, s.v. Qui s’excuse s’accuse). In this scene, “Qui s’excuse” corresponds to Debenham’s words that she has uttered to Poirot, and “s’accuse” to (what she claims to be) Poirot’s opinion that her hostility to him comes from her guilt.

Notice that Debenham cuts in on Poirot’s turn (36h-i), and “preemptively completes” (Lerner, 2004:

226-229; Kushida, 2007: 160) his utterance. Although she superficially attempts to confirm that the proverb ⁶⁹ she has just cited matches what he actually wanted to say (36j), she continues to talk without giving him the floor (36k-l). By shaping her talk in this way, Debenham attributes the proverb (36i) to Poirot. The proverbial utterance is, therefore, characterized as a receptive use in that a proverb is cited as if on behalf of the interlocutor. On the other hand, Debenham does not aim to agree with Poirot, but rather to claim that she knows his ‘true’ intention. In her view, the detective sent Ohlsson to Mrs. Hubbard because he wanted Debenham alone with him in her cabin (36e), and her utterances should have sounded to be a “pretext,”

given that he hides such intention. This is what she argues for with the proverb (36i), which is also transparent in the fact that she explains why she can be so sure (36k). A reason or support being given right after a claim is a typical pattern in everyday argument (Canary & Sillars, 1992: 746). In this way, the proverb Debenham utters by taking the floor from Poirot serves to make a claim that she can read his mind, and not a demonstration of agreement with him.

Subsequent to the proverb, Debenham further elaborates her argument about Poirot’s ‘true’ intention.

After claiming her ability to identify the proverb that (she believes) he was actually about to say (36k), and then explains why she arguably knows that Poirot wants to make her alone for interrogation (36l). That is, she argues here that he must be attempting to maker her tell him what she knows of the man’s death. Note that the woman strategically insists not only that he suspect her of the murder, but also that his doubt has no firm grounds (“For some reason or other”). In addition, she also adds another claim to her description of the event (“this sordid business”), a claim that she has never seen the victim before he was killed (36m). In this way, citing the proverb by taking the floor from Poirot, Debenham maintains that she has nothing to do with the murder — her innocence. At the same time, the claim also works as a retort to (what she believes to be) Poirot’s doubt for her that she captured with the proverb (36i). To sum, her proverb is characterized as a first step for her to criticize the opponent, Poirot. In this sense, Debenham’s proverbial utterance counts as an

An utterance is not always preemptively completed in such a critical attitude. For examples in which the conversational move is

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done as a cooperative act, cf. Hayashi (2017).

example of the critical receptive use.

The receptive use of the proverb can be exploited in this way, because it is indeed based on attributing a proverb — or the evaluation or argument with a proverb — to the interlocutor. The attribution of the proverb is equivalently done in the cases where the speaker takes a sympathetic stance towards the interlocutor, where the focus is on demonstrating how s/he has aceepted his/her opinion. Recall that, in (34), Pussy first simply accepts Goldfinger’s order by saying “Certainly,” before citing a proverb, “Business before pleasure.” When the receptive use is exploited in a critical manner, in contrast, the speaker expresses his/her own view of the interlocutor’s opinion as if it were a given fact that s/he thinks that way. That is, the focus is on attributing (the evaluation or argument carried by) the proverb to the interlocutor itself. In (36), Debenham not only cuts in on Poirot’s utterance (36h-i), but also, after citing the proverb, explains why she is so confident that it is his true intention (36k-l). Since the proverb is uttered on behalf of the interlocutor in the receptive use, it is also possible to make use of the usage as a strategy for criticism. It does not mean, however, that it is the only way to put one’s evaluation or opinion into the interlocutor’s mouth; the same is possible with quotatives (cf. Ihara, 2017: 32-36; Yamaguchi, 2009: 54−57). The critical exploitation of the receptive use of proverbs is, therefore, one of several ways to speak in others’ voice.

Among the ways to attribute a judgment or claim to the interlocutor, the use of proverbs exhibit a special characteristics which comes from one of proverbs’ general features. As we discussed in Section 4.2, proverbs are a kind of idiom that has been repeatedly used and shared in society, as means to typologically capture and show attitudes to situations (Burke, 1967: 296-297; Takeda, 1992b: 213). Being typological can mean, from a different point of view, to be stereotypical and platitudinous (Sato, 1987: 239-240). The critical deployment of the receptive use of proverbs is thus a rhetorical strategy to characterize the interlocutor’s opinion as platitudinous, while keeping a distance from it. This rhetorical feature is most obvious in (36), in which Debenham chooses a French proverb, even though she is talking in English. Whereas she is an English, Poirot is from a French-speaking society in Belgium. “Qui s’excuse s’accuse” is therefore what the French-speaker would be likely to say, and by imprinting such a stereotypical image on him, she skillfully keep distant from the attitude it encapsulates. The strategy of utilizing the receptive use to criticize the interlocutor’s opinion, thus, serves to negatively characterize it as stale, which is the strength of the

technique. ⁷⁰

It is now apparent that the receptive use has two facets. In the standard, sympathetic receptive use, such as (34), the speaker attributes the authority carried by proverbs to the interlocutor — or his/her opinion

— without evaluating it as stereotypical or platitudinous. In contrast, when exploiting the usage for argumentation, the speaker negatively characterize it as a platitude, instead of giving the interlocutor the proverbial authority. The two cases differs in which of the two aspects of the proverb the speaker connects with the interlocutor, its authority or its banality. The two ways of employing the receptive use stems from the different ways of characterizing the time-tested ideas that proverbs generally carries.

This section analyzed how proverbs are deployed as a means to receive the interlocutor’s opinion. In this usage type, the speaker employs a proverb to demonstrate how s/he has received the interlocutor’s opinion. As the proverb represents the interlocutor’s (and not the speaker’s own) opinion, the social authority

— or the banality — of the proverb is added to him/her.