Advanced Pragmatics of Communication Introduction

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(Advanced) Pragmatics of Communication
Introduction

• Paul Piwek
• ITRI Information Technology Research Institute,
  Faculty of Science and Engineering

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Practical Issues LCM13/CBM14(Advanced)
Pragmatics of Communication

• Attendance list
• Introductions
• Paul Piwek (ITRI)
• Kees van Deemter (ITRI)
• Irmi Karl (CMIS)
• David Horner (CMIS)
• Preparation Pack

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Plan for introduction

• What is Pragmatics?
• Syntax - Semantics - Pragmatics
• Varieties of Meaning and Context
• Some remarks on History the Field (Books,
  Journals, etc.)
• Plan for remainder of today, Tuesday and Wednesday

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What is Pragmatics?

• Charles Morris (1938). The science of signs
  (semiotics)
• Syntax relation of signs to each other
• Semantics signs and things to which they apply
• Pragmatics signs and interpreters

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Syntax

• Syntax. Distinguish grammatical from
  non-grammatical sentences.
• Generative Grammar (Chomsky) Have a finite set
  of rules which produce only the grammatical
  sentences of language, e.g., English
• John yesterday house bought. NO
• John bought a house yesterday YES
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously YES
• ... (till infinity John, Mary, Peter and Sally
  went to the movies.)

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Semantics

• Truth-conditional semantics. (Richard Montague).
  Semantics assigns meanings to grammatical
  sentences.
• (Semantics) Meaning Truth-conditions
  Proposition (borrowed from Logic)
• M(It is eight oclock) P
• w1 ? True,
• w2 ? False,
• w3 ? True,
• w4 ? True,
• w5 ? True,
• ...
• Statement P(w_now) true

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Semantics

• What time is it Eccles?
• Just a minute. Ive got it written down on a
  piece of paper. A nice man wrote the time down
  for me this morning.
• Then why do you carry it around with you
  Eccles?
• Well, if anybody asks me the time, I can show
  it to them.
• Wait a minute, Eccles my good man.
• What is it, fellow?
• It is written on this piece of paper that its
  eight oclock
• ...
• (From the Goon Show by Spike Milligan and Peter
  Sellers)

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Semantics

• Semanticists have looked predominantly at how the
  meanings of the parts of a sentence contribute to
  the whole. Rather than trying to specify the
  semantics of red and ball they suggest how
  the meaning of red ball is composed of the
  meanings of red and ball.
• They have done the same thing on the sentence
  level. What is the meaning s1 or s2 given the
  meanings of s1P and s2Q? or(P,Q)
• P(w) Q(w) or(P,Q)(w) (For all w)
• T T T
• T F T
• F T T
• F F F

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Semantics

• P(w) not(P)(w) (For all w)
• T F
• F T
• Tautologies a statement that is necessarily true
• John is at home or John is not at home
• P(w) not(P)(w) or(not(P),P)(w) (For all w)
• T F T
• F T T

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Semantics

• Catch-22 (Contradictions)
• Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another
  approach. Is Orr Crazy?
• He sure is, Doc Daneeka said.
• Can you ground him?
• I sure can. But first he has to ask me to.
  Thats part of the rule.
• ...
• He has to be crazy to keep flying combat
  missions after all the close calls hes had.
• ...
• Then why doesnt he ask you to?
• ...
• Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty
  isnt really crazy

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Semantics

• a ask to be grounded
• f flying (currently)
• g will be grounded
• c crazy
• If c and a then g.
• If a then not c.
• If f then c.

P(w) Q(w) if(P,Q)(w) T T T T F F F T T F F T
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Syntax and Semantics

• Rule-based.
• Distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical
  sentences.
• Distinguish semantically sensible (sets of)
  sentences from problematic ones (tautologies and
  contradictions).
• Pragmatics how do people use sentences in
  communication
• Characterize acceptable/unacceptable use
• It is no longer possible to consider sentences in
  isolation we need to take the context into
  account
• We look beyond truth-conditional meanings

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Context

• You make great coffee.
• This sentence expresses a proposition, but which
  proposition it expresses depends on the context
• The deictic pronoun You
• The verb make. Douwe Egberts makes great
• coffee, but in different sense from the
• everyday coffee user.

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Context

• Context helps to determine the truth-conditional
  meaning of a sentence, i.e., the proposition it
  expresses.
• But there is more to the meaning of a sentence
  when we consider the sentence in relation to its
  situation of use

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Context

• A Do I make good coffee?
• B You make great coffee.
• A Do you think Im a good cook.
• B You make great coffee.
• A Its your turn to make the coffee.
• B You make great coffee.

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Context

• We convey more than the literal, propositional
  meaning. But what is the meaning of an utterance
  in this wider sense?
• Surely it doesnt include all the information
  conveyed by the performance of an utterance (from
  voice age, sex, nationality, e.g., Dutchman
  speaking English).
• Grice Natural versus Non-natural meaning.
• Natural smoke means fire
• Non-natural meaning S meant-nn z by uttering U
  if and only if
• S intended U to cause some effect z in recipient
  H
• S intended 1. to be achieved by H recognizing
  intention 1.

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Context

• Deixis direct utterance context as a resource
  for constructing meaning.
• Meaning additional to proposition Conversational
  Implicature.
• Note that for 2. it is essential to think about
  utterances as acts, i.e., Speech Acts, and its
  relation to the context.
• Presupposition The King of France is bald. John
  has stopped beating his wife/John didnt stop
  beating his wife.
• Conversational Structure

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Conversational Structure

• A Do you have some time on Monday.
• B Yes.
• A We want to move and need a hand.
• B No problem, what time shall I see you?

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Conversational Structure

• A Do you have some time on Monday.
• B Yes.
• A We want to move and need a hand.
• B No problem, what time shall I see you?
• A Sorry to trouble you.
• B Not at all.
• A Thank you very much. Good day
• (Morecambe and Wise)

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The social dimension

• Wednesday Judith Butler. What is the relation
  between representation and conduct in language
  use.
• She examines the notion of injurious speech (hate
  speech).
• Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492.
• discover b be the first to find or find out
  (who discovered America?). Oxford Encyclopedic
  English Dictionary

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The social dimension

• Bush on the two Koreas
• "People on both sides of this border want to
  live in freedom and dignity, without the threat
  of violence and famine and war. I hope that one
  day soon this hope will be realized. And when the
  day comes, all the people of Korea will find in
  America a strong and willing friend," he said.
  (Bush in SEOUL, South Korea. CNN 20-02-02 )

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The social dimension (Pinters The Dumb Waiter)

• GUS How many times have you read that paper?
• (BEN slams down the paper and rises)
• BEN (angrily) What do you mean?
• GUS I was just wondering how many times youd
• BEN What are you doing, criticising me?
• GUS No, I was just
• BEN Youll get a swipe round your earhole if you
  dont watch your step.
• GUS Now look here Ben
• BEN Im not looking anywhere! (he addresses the
  room)
• How many times have I! A bloody liberty!
• GUS I didnt mean that.
• BEN You just get on with it mate. Get on with it
  thats all.

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What is Pragmatics? History

• Rudolph Carnap (Analytical Philosopher). A study
  is within the scope of pragmatics if explicit
  reference is made to the speaker/user of the
  language.
• Wide interpretation includes studies such as
  those of Jung into Freudian slips of the tongue.
• Bar-Hillel/Kalish/Montague Narrowly interpreted
  this boils down to the study of languages that
  contain indexical/deictic terms.

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What is Pragmatics? Field

• Pragmatics is not to be confused with Pragmatism,
  and the Pragmatist Maxim which was conceived of
  by C.S. Peirce (1878). Roughly speaking, Peirce
  contends that the meaning of a word is not
  something in the mind of the speaker when he
  utters or accepts it, but rather what he is
  prepared to do when he utters or accepts it.
• Pragmatics the study of language use taking into
  account the context.

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What is Pragmatics? Field

• Most influential contributors have been
  philosophers John Austin, John Searle and Paul
  Grice
• There is wide range of introductory text books.
  The most used one probably being Levinson
  (1983). Others Green (1989), Leech (1983), Mey
  (1993), Yule (1996), etc.
• Reader Davis (1991)
• Journals Journal of Pragmatics, Pragmatics, and
  Pragmatics and Cognition

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Summary

• Pragmatics
• Syntax study of grammatical sentences
• Semantics study of truth-conditions of sentences
  and specifically sentences with special
  truth-conditions (tautologies, contradictions)
• Pragmatics Language users, Context
• Constructing meanings (deixis, presupposition)
• Speech Acts
• Implicated meaning (Conversational Implicatures)
• Conversational Structure
• Social Dimension some examples (political/power
  relations/creating spaces for discourse)
• History and Field

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Plan

• Day 2
• Discussion of 2001
• Preparation and Presentations
• Clark (indirect Speech Acts)
• Pratt (Conv. Impl. in Lit. Disc.)
• Meyerson (Habermas).
• Schank/Lenat (on 2001)

• Remainder Day 1
• Speech Acts (Austin/Searle)
• Wittgenstein/Habermas
• Conversational Implicatures (Grice)
• Film 2001 extract.

• Day 3
• Butler Hate speech/Speech injury
• Conclusions/Evaluation
• Further Essay Application to Text/Discourse
  Project Application to Computer artefact web
  pages, dialogue systems, ...