Evaluative stance and counterfactuals in language and literature

Abstract

This article argues that speakers often express attitudes not only toward events that have happened, but also toward counterfactual events; speakers communicate these attitudes by expressing an evaluative stance toward counterfactual scenarios. By analyzing examples from a variety of discourse situations, from conversation to canonical literature, the author demonstrates that counterfactuals and evaluations function jointly to produce rhetorical effects. The options for expressing evaluative stance are described in detail, as are the four configurations of focal scenario and evaluative stance that may arise in discourse. By considering the connection between evaluative stance and emotion, the author explains the rhetorical connection between counterfactuals and feelings of relief and regret. With this theoretical and methodological framework established, the article then moves to consider the role of counterfactuals and evaluative stance in literature. In literature, different speakers, including characters and narrators, may imagine and describe counterfactuals, which are scenarios not realized in the story and which are regarded as unrealized by the speaker who introduces them. These narrative speakers, as well as the implied author, may also adopt an evaluative stance toward counterfactuals that are introduced. Readers must juggle these contending representations and evaluations. Because counterfactual scenarios are often depictions of foreclosed possibilities, lost opportunities, and near misses linked to strong feelings of relief and regret, they are evocative elements of narrative that reward readers for their mental work with an enhanced appreciation for characters and textual themes. Counterfactuals also encourage readers to take a participatory role in the process of judgment.