Pragmatics: Using language
- Speech Acts (Searle, 1975)
- An Outline of the Utilization Process
- Indirect Speech Acts
- A Model for Computing Indirect Meaning
- Evidence for the Model (Clark & Lucy, 1975)
- Evidence Against (Gibbs, 1983)
Speech Acts (Searle, 1975)
- Searle’s "speech acts" allow us to categorize individual utterances
according to the speaker’s goal.
- Types of Speech Acts
- Representatives
- Directives
- Commissives
- Expressives
- Declarations
Representatives
- Convey the belief that a proposition is true.
- Example:
- The listener must note the belief.
Directives
- Attempt to get the listener to do something.
- Examples:
- "Go home!"
- "Can you tell me what time it is?"
- The listener must note the action and carry it out.
Commissives
- Commit the speaker to a future course of action.
- Example:
- "I promise I’ll pay you back on Tuesday."
- The listener must note the commitment.
Expressives
- Convey the speakers psychological state.
- Examples:
- "I’m really glad you came."
- "Thanks for the ride!"
- The listener must note the speakers state.
Declarations
- Bring about a new state.
- Examples:
- "I sentence you to five years in prison."
- "I christen this ship the USS Rustbucket."
- The listener must note the new state.
An Outline of the Utilization Process
- Clark & Clark (1977) categorize utterances according to the processing demands they
place on the listener (Assertions, Yes/No Questions, Wh- Questions, Requests).
- They describe the listener’s task as trying to figure out how to
"utilize" an utterance.
- Their outline assumes that utilization is a bottom-up process.
An Outline of the Utilization Process
- Step 1: Identify the speech act, propositions, and given-new information.
- Step 2: Search memory for the given information.
- Step 3: Deal with the new information as follows.
- Assertions: Add the new information to memory.
- Yes/No Questions: Compare the new information to the contents of memory and answer
accordingly.
- Wh- Questions: Retrieve the wanted information and answer accordingly.
- Request: Carry out the action necessary to make the new information true.
Indirect Speech Acts
- Literal versus Contextual Meaning
- The Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1967)
- Sincere Requests
- Conveying Indirect Requests
Literal versus Contextual Meaning
- The literal (or direct) meaning of an utterance is captured by its propositional
representation.
- The contextual (or indirect) meaning depends on how the speaker uses the utterance in a
particular context.
- "Were you born in a barn?"
- To someone describing their humble beginnings.
- To someone who just left the door open.
The Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1967)
- Speakers and listeners try to cooperate with one another.
- Cooperative speakers must adhere to Grice’s Maxims:
- Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as required, but no more.
- Quality: Do not say anything that you believe to be false or lack adequate evidence for.
- Relation: Make your contribution relevant to the aims of the ongoing conversation.
- Manner: Be clear. Avoid obscurity, wordiness, and disorderliness.
Sincere Requests
- To make a sincere request (I.e., one that adheres to the cooperative principle) a
speaker must . . .
- believe that the listener has the ability to comply
- desire for the listener to comply
- believe that the listener will comply
- have good reasons for making the request
Conveying Indirect Requests
- Each of the following can be used to indirectly ask someone to pass the salt.
- "Can you reach the salt?"
- "I would like to have the salt."
- "Would you pass the salt?"
- "These vegetables are really bland!"
- Each of these asserts that one of the sincerity conditions is met or asks whether one of
them is met.
- Indirect requests are often used for politeness.
A Model for Computing Indirect Meaning
- Clark & Clark (1977) argue that indirect meaning is computed as follows:
- Step 1: Compute the direct meaning.
- Step 2: Decide if this is what was intended.
- Step 3: If not, use the cooperative principle to compute the contextual meaning.
- Step 4: Utilize the utterance on the basis of its contextual meaning.
- This assumes that the relationship between the semantic and pragmatic components is
bottom-up.
Evidence for the Model (Clark & Lucy, 1975)
- Participants were shown a sentence and a picture.
- "I’ll be very happy if you open the door."
- "I’ll be very sad unless you open the door."
- Task: Does the sentence satisfy the request?
- These sentences have the same contextual meaning, so if contextual meaning is computed
directly they should be processed equally fast.
- The direct meaning of the second is more complicated (double negative), so if direct
meaning is computed first, it should be processed more slowly.
- The second sentence is processed more slowly.
Evidence Against (Gibbs, 1983)
- Can indirect (contextual) meaning ever be computed more quickly than literal (direct)
meaning?
- Materials
- Indirect Story: Mrs. Norman was watching her kids play in the back yard. One of the
neighbor’s children came over to play. But Mrs. Norman’s kids refused to share
their toys. She angrily walked outside and said to one of the children, "Can’t
you be friendly?"
- Literal Story: Rod was talking to his psychiatrist. He was having lots of problems
establishing relationships. "Everyone I meet I seem to alienate," Rod said.
"I just turn hostle for no reason," he continued. The shrink said,
"Can’t you be friendly?"
- Literal Target: "Are you able to act friendly?"
- Indirect Target: "Please be friendly to other people."
- Unrelated Target: Running is excellent for the heart."
- Participants were presented with each story followed by a "sentence decision"
task.
- Initial results indicated greater activation of the indirect meaning even in the literal
story!
- In a second experiment, the last line of the story was changed to make it less
prototypical of an indirect request.
- Under these circumstances, the literal target showed priming after the literal story and
the indirect target showed priming after the indirect story.
- Gibbs argues that strong contextual bias or wording typical of indirect requests can
lead to direct activation of the indirect meaning.
The End!
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