Meaning of words – meaning of speech acts

1. Meaning of words – meaning of speech acts

2. Approaches to meaning • Meaning as • Reference • Logical form • Context and use • Conceptual structure • Culture • from Forrester 1996, 42 • NB: No either … or … issue, rather depending on research interest and / or context of application

3. Reference • In Fregean terms: • Sense : meaning • Reference : truth-value • Less restrictive: • Words refer to entities and relationships within a world • One-to-one or via a conceptual structure • Entities and relationships: • Persons/objects, events, space, time, modality

4. Logical form • Meaning : truth-conditions (of a sentence) • In everyday terms: we know the meaning of a sentence if we know under which circumstances what is said literally (its proposition) is true • (1) The arrow hits the target. • (1) is true if, and only if • xy ((arrow(x)  target(y))  hit (x,y)) • Relates to Philosophy of Language as well as Artificial Intelligence applications

5. Context and use • Meaning and use are inseparable • Utterances provoke “activation” of presuppositions • Presuppositions: • Semantic: invoked by lexemes and syntactic structure, e.g. (1) presupposes that there is an arrow, a target and a hitting-relation between both • Pragmatic: (2) The baby cried. The mother picked it up. • (2) presupposes, e.g. that the baby stopped crying, it lay in a cot, a pram, … but not on the kitchen table …

6. Conceptual structure • Pre- / non-linguistic mental models of the world and elements of it • E.g. spatial relations, school: building, school: institution • Explains why we can refer to abstract entities • vs. prototype semantics • Is there prototypical love? Or more pragmatically: there are good fish and bad fish

7. Culture • Acquisition of cultural practices and language acquisition are closely related, parallel processes • Rationale: Culture shapes the way we think; the way we think shapes the way we speak (what we have to and are able to express in words) • But beware of the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax (Pullum, 1991)

8. The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax • “It is quite obvious that in the culture of the Eskimos … snow is of great enough importance to split up the conceptual sphere that corresponds to one word and one thought in English into several distinct classes …” • “It is quite obvious that in the culture of the printers … fonts are of great enough importance to split up the conceptual sphere that corresponds to one word and one thought among non-printers into several distinct classes …” Pullum 1991

9. perception Extra-linguistic event

10. From Semantics to Pragmatics • What do sentences mean in the context of actual conversation? • How do participants in interactions convey this meaning to other participants? • What are the organising principles of conversation / verbal interaction? • What else is conveyed in interaction settings? • These topics rest on the intersection between semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, sociology, and possibly psychology and psycholinguistics.

11. Grice’s maxims of conversation Levinson 1983, 101/2

12. Conversational Implicatures • A: Have you seen Rebecca? • B: There’s a pink mustang at the back of Paul’s flat. Forrester 1996, 52 • B’s utterance forces A to draw certain inferences assuming that B is not violating the cooperative principle. • Levinson 1983, 103: “people will interpret what we say as conforming to the maxims on at least some level” and • the maxims of conversation “describe rational means for conducting co-operative exchanges.”

13. More on implicatures • Generalised implicatures • I walked into a house. Implicates: • The house was not my house. • Particularised implicatures • The dog looks very happy. Implicates: • Perhaps the dog has eaten the roast beef. Only e.g. in the following context: • A: What on earth happened to the roast beef? • B: The dog is looking very happy. • Conventional implicatures • Do not affect truth conditions of a sentence • Cannot be detached from the word / sentence • E.g. German du/Sie distinction • ?Du bist der Professor. Vs. Sie sind der Professor.

14. Flouting maxims • A: Teheran’s in Turkey, isn’t it, teacher? • B: And London’s in Armenia, I suppose. • Quality • War is war. • Quality (Tautology). • Johnny: Hey Sally, let’s play marbles. • Mother: How is your homework getting along Johnny? • Relevance • Miss Singer produced a series of sounds corresponding closely to the score of an aria from Rigoletto. • Manner (and others) • Special case: Metaphors, particularised, yet quite context independent • England is as sinking ship.

15. Computing implicatures Levinson 1983, 113/4

16. Speech to interaction: Speech acts (Austin /Searle) • Locutionary act - what is said • Illocutionary act - speech act • Perlocutionary act - effect of speech act • Felicity Conditions (for promises): • Preparatory conditions • Hearer would prefer S doing the act • It is not obvious that S would do the act anyway • Sincerity condition • Speaker intends to do the act • Essential condition • Speaker intends that the utterance will place him/her under an obligation to do a future act

17. Types of Speech Acts • Representatives • Commit speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition • asserting • Concluding • Directives • Attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something • requesting • Questioning • Commissives • Commit speaker to some future course of action • promising • Threatening • Offering • Expressives • Express a psychological state • thanking • apologising • welcoming • Congratulating • Declaratives • Effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs, usually involving elaborate extra-linguistic institutions • excommunicating • declaring war • christening • firing from employment

18. Speaker’s intentions and hearer’s perceptions • Mother: Where are your boots? • Son: In the closet • Mother: I want you to put them on right now! • Intended as an order, interpreted as a question. Or response (2) is joke? • Interpreted as a refusal to obey her order. Or indicate that joking is not appropriate Maybe all of these are present? Context is critical.

19. Speech acts to Joint actions • A joint project is a joint action projected by one of its participants and taken up by the others. (Clark 1996, 191) • Principle of joint construal: For each signal the speaker and the addressee try to create a joint construal of what the speaker is to be taken to mean by it. (Clark 1996, 212)

20. Common Ground (shared bases): • “p is common ground for members of community C if and only if: • 1. every member of C has informationthat basis b holds; • 2. b indicates to every member of C that every member of C has information thatb holds; • 3. b indicates to members of C that p.” (Clark 1996, 94) • Common Ground (mutual beliefs): • “1. A and B each believethat situation s holds • 2. s indicates to A and to B that A and B each believe thats holds • 3. s indicates to A and to B that there is (object o) between them” (Clark 1996, 97)

22. Adjacency Pairs • Adjacency Pairs (Levinson 1983, 303) • are sequences of two utterances that are: • adjacent • produced by different speakers • ordered as a first part and a second part • typed, so that a particular first part requires a particular second (...) • [production of a first part requires closing a TCU and a next speaker to produce a second part] (PG) • Clark1996, 201: • „1.Adjacency pairs consist of two ordered actions – a first part and a second part. • 2. The two parts are performed by different agents A and B. • 3. The form and content of the second part is intended, among other things, to display B’s construal of the first part for A. • 4. The first part projects uptake of a joint task by the second part.“

23. Adjacency pairs

24. Conversation Analysis – Basic Terms • Turn • Turn-taking • Turn constructional unit (TCU) • Transition relevance place (TRP) • intonation rising or falling • drawl on final syllable • stereotyped sequences • drop in pitch or loudness • completion of syntactic clause • termination of gestural movement • tags such as “you know” • hold the floor with “attempt suppression signal” • (following Duncan, 1972)

25. CA – Basic Terms • Rules for transition • current speaker can select next speaker • non-selection allows for self-selection • the current speaker can continue, but is not obliged to • Projectability • Insertion Sequences • Conditional Relevance

26. Conversational Organisation • Preference Organisation • Preferred vs. Dispreferred (marked vs. unmarked) • Repairs • Sequential Organisation • (pre-)sequences • openings / closings • Topical Organisation

27. Accountability for non-response

28. Preference organisation

29. Closing sequence

30. New topic introduction

31. Social meaning of verbal actions • Deixis: sets what is said into a relation to the speaker’s position • Person deixis – Who am I? • Spatial deixis – Where is here? • Temporal deixis – When is now? • Discourse deixis – Where are we in a narrative universe?

32. Social deixis • What we say and how we say it conveys our relationship to other participants in an interaction. • Examples: • Politeness phenomena / social honorifics • Code-switching / register change

33. Politeness phenomena • Accounting for status (often combined with age) differences • Du/Sie distinction (also e.g. in French and Dutch; but Danish: ‘Sie’ equivalent almost only used to address the Queen) • Honorifics such as: Ma’am, Your Honour, Your Excellency, Father, … • Some languages, e.g. Japanese require some kind of addressee honorifics in almost any utterance • Producing more elaborate utterances, e.g. in requests • ‘face’ maintaining acts • E.g. hedging (similar to requests) • Can be more or less formulaic

34. Code-switching / register change • Using a language variety according to social setting, e.g. informal v. business or friends v. government officials • Switching between different languages according to addressee and / or situation • Kenyan example: Luyia when chatting with bus driver, Swahili when negotiating fare, English when requesting change to be given • Professional contexts

35. Examples: professional contexts • PIC: kannst du den glide path angle mal selecte? • F/O: set speed brake one eight zero (.) tschuldigung. one nIne zero. • PIC: one niner zero. • F/O: guet. wir ham bereits final configuration. landing check three greens. • PIC: jawohl ah- (.) landing- (---) all green. ja.