How an utterance relates to previous utterances by other figures

How does an utterance relate to immediately preceding utterance by the dialogue partner? To understand this relationship it is perhaps preferable to realize that there are two extremes: complete unrelatedness and identity. In the next table some characteristics of both will be given:

IDENTITY	COMPLETE UNRELATEDNESS
No change in semantic orientation	Total semantic incoherence
'Consensus dialogue'	'Talking past each other' & 'Disrupted communication'

The complete semantic break must be evaluated as a refusal to communicate and as an expression of unwillingness to answer. For an example of this, I refer to the first part of Kiss Me. Normally speaking however, the relationship between one speech and the next lies somewhere between these extremes of identity and complete unrelatedness. The second speech generally picks up certain elements in the first, but places them in a different context. The first speech always gives the speaker the opportunity to choose between two alternatives. Negation and qualification are particularly common features of conflict orientated classical drama. H.G. Coenen's analysis^5.26 establishes a complete repertoire of variants, tackling two main aspects:

1. the choice of the point of reference in the preceding speech or utterance; and
2. the way this point of reference is treated in the second speech or utterance.

The point of reference is often the 'sign content', that is: the subject matter or the idea, of the first. Another way of referring to it is the captation benevolentiæ for example which recognizes the emotional state of the dialogue partner in a conciliatory way, only to reject his or her wishes. An example of this Wait in Act I.

When the 'sign' is not the point of reference, the speaker is not responding to the content, but to the fact that the subject has been raised in the first place. The first speech is taken up by its actional role. Again Wait is a good example of this.

Reference to the communication process plays no more than a subordinate role in classical drama because it only occurs when dialogical communication is disrupted.

The processing of the chosen point of reference by the second speaker can be done by applying two strategies:

1. he can show that the opposite is true;
2. he can invalidate his dialogue's partner's arguments; this is a weakened form of negation, because it does not propose an opposing view.

Should the second speaker wish to show that the opposite be true, an entire series of rhetorical and dialectical arguments the speaker may rely:

1. by invoking some other authority e.g communis opinio or the argumentem ad hominem, the latter being referring to earlier opinions expressed by the speaker; and,
2. demonstratio ad oculos, in which the speaker shows the contradiction between the words spoken and what actually is happening; and,
3. reference to preconditions; and,
4. reference to future consequences; and,
5. reductio ad absurdum; and,
6. rejection of the propositio; and,

The invalidation of the first speakers argument by the second may also be done by the above principles. Coenen's typology assumes successful communication.