pragmatics

1
pragmatics
from utterance to understanding
Any observation of normal conversational behavior
makes it immediately clear that people never say
exactly what they mean, and people always infer
more than what was said. The question becomes,
how are we able to accomplish this? How do we
manage to say so little yet communicate so much?
How do we communicate in spite of a languages
limitations?
2
Some incomplete messages

• Wanna get a bite?
• Have you got the time?
• Q Wheres Mikey?
• A There was an accident on H-2.
• Q Wanna get a beer?
• A I got a paper due tomorrow.
• A Its my girlfriends birthday.
• A Im broke.

3
communication as a joint activity
Clark begins to answer these questions by looking
at communication as an example of a joint
activity. These are activities in which persons
are seen as collaborating in order to accomplish
some action or goal of mutual concern. The goal
of communication is to establish a level of
understanding sufficient to serve some secondary
purpose.
4
The construal problem
Clark claims that in order to establish
understanding via communication we must resolve
the construal problem. This refers to the
establishing of some agreement as to what each
party intends by what they have said. We rarely
do this via explicit and effortful communicative
behavior. However we do assume that our
communicative partner is behaving cooperatively.
5
The cooperative principle
Grice dealt with our ability to find meaning
beyond the surface meaning of an utterance by
invoking a cooperative principle which states
that one should Make your conversational
contribution such as is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are
engaged.
6
conversational implicatures
According to Grice, one way in which we are able
to mean more than we say (i.e., activate more
meaning than was evident in a surface analysis of
an utterance) is by using conversational
implicatures and appropriate inference-making.
7
Properties of conversational implicatures
Conversational implicatures have three main
characteristics

• They are non-conventional.
• The implicature is not a logical consequence of
  the utterance.
• They are calculable.
• It is assumed that the hearer will be able to
  figure out the intended meaning.
• The are defeasible.
• The speaker can cancel or opt out of the
  implicature.

8
conversational maxims

• Grice claimed that adhering to the cooperative
  principle would manifest in people following four
  maxims
• Quantity -- Make your contribution as
  informative as is required.
• Quality -- Try to make your contribution true,
  one for which you have adequate evidence.
• Manner -- Be clear. Avoid ambiguity and
  obscurity.
• Relation -- Make your contribution relevant for
  the exchange.

9
Adhering to conversational maxims

• Following the maxims need not be obvious.
  Cooperation is assumed consequently
  communicators must figure out how utterances are
  consistent with the maxims. For instance a
  communicator may flout a maxim. Flouting refers
  to violating a maxim so blatantly (i.e.,
  apparently committing a quality violation) that
  any reasonable person knows the utterance is not
  intended to be taken at face value.

10
deception and implicature
What constitutes deception? Most theorists define
deception as bringing about in another a belief
that one does not personally believe. In short,
getting you to believe X even though I dont
believe X. Most deception theorists identify
roughly four methods of bringing about deception
(i.e., four deception types) fabrication,
denial, omission, and exaggeration. The problem
is only the first two actually involve what is
commonly perceived as lying. The latter two can
lead to deception without any untruths being
told. So why and how are they deceptive?
11
information manipulation theory (imt)
Steve McCornack argued that what people commonly
called deception was a function of Grices
conversational maxims. Specifically, McCornack
argued that covert violations of the maxims would
be perceived as deceptive. Remember, flouts
appear to be violations of maxims but they are
designed to be overt. So McCornack argued that
the failure to adhere to a maxim in a manner that
was meant to go undetected would be seen as an
attempt to produce a deception.
12
information manipulation theory
McCornack et al., (1992) tested IMT by having
research participants read a scenario in which
one of the stimuli persons told something to
another that covertly violated a maxim. In one
scenario the person was completely disclosive
(i.e., honest). Then the participants rated the
degree of honesty of the stimulus person. Not
surprisingly (and consistent with hypotheses)
complete disclosure was rated as most honest and
all of the violations were perceived to be
significantly less honest than complete
disclosure.
13
information manipulation theory
The honest ratings of the maxim violations were
particularly interesting.

• Complete disclosure 21.88
• Quantity violation 16.78
• Clarity violation 13.70
• Relevance violation 11.71
• Quality violation 6.99

Each of the ratings were significantly different
from the others.
14
information manipulation theory
The results are supportive of IMT but they raise
a new question of theoretical significance Why
are the various maxim violations perceived as
differing in terms of honesty/deceptiveness? If
deceptiveness were simply a function of covertly
violating a maxim, each of the violations should
have been perceived as equally deceptive. Yet
they are systematically different. Why?
15
explaining degrees of deceptiveness
Consider the specific and ordered differences
across the honesty attributions. From least
deceptive to most deceptive they are ordered
quantity violation, clarity violation, relevance
violation, quality violation. What might explain
our perceptions that each of these maxim
violations is rated as significantly more
deceptive than the next violation? Ask the
questions, how was the deception accomplished?
who is to blame for the targets being deceived?
16
communicative responsibility theory
Aune (1998) introduced a theory of communicative
responsibility (CRT) that begins with three
simple assumptions

• Communicators believe the primary goal of
  communication is to create a desired state of
  understanding between themselves.
• The degree to which they hold themselves and
  their communicative partners responsible for
  creating this state of understanding is variable.
  
• Judgments of communicative responsibility will
  affect communicative behavior.

17
communicative responsibility theory
CRT builds on Grices theory of conversational
implicature by addressing the question how do we
know how implicit/explicit to be in any
conversation? A message of a given level of
explicitness can seem oblique in one setting,
appropriate in another, and condescending in yet
another. Interrogation can be appropriate in a
journalistic setting but inappropriate between a
boyfriend and girlfriend in casual conversation.
18
communicative responsibility theory
Communicative responsibility (CR) can be
described using two continua, one for each
communicator in an interaction. Two continua must
be use because they can vary independently. This
leads to two dimensions used to describe CR in a
communicative event

• Degree of symmetry in participants communicative
  responsibility
• Magnitude of each communicators CR.

19
communicative responsibility theory
How does CR affect communicative behavior?

• As personal assessments of CR increase,
  communicators will engage in less implicating and
  less inference-making.
• As personal assessments of ones CR increase, one
  will increase the extent to which one is being
  explicit in message encoding.

20
communicative responsibility theory
So a message source can be expected to

• increase the use of redundancy via
• repetition of information
• creation of associations among units of
  information
• incorporation of additional codes and media
• increase the amount of information offered.

Conversely, increases in CR will lead receivers
to solicit more redundancy of the forms described
above.
21
communicative responsibility theory
Several aspects of a communicative situation can
produce variance in judgments of CR.

• Locus of Meaning the extent to which meaning is
  seen to reside in one person is associated with
  that persons CR
• Common Ground the extent to which communicators
  believe they share relevant knowledge.
• Communicators Ingroup-based Norms.

22
communicative responsibility theory

• Perceived ability of the participants to process
  the message
• How fully articulated the meaning is
• The extent to which the meaning can be presented
  in a commonly shared code
• The extent to which communicative participants
  are believed to be familiar with the code.
• Motivation to Create Understanding

23
research support for Crt
Several studies have been conducted to test the
predictions made by CRT. The first study tested
whether people do, in fact, systematically assign
levels of CR to communicative participants.
Research participants read pairs of scenarios
that were designed to differ in how symmetrically
distributed CR would be between the communicators
in the scenarios.
24
research support for Crt

• Jordan is studying for a midterm with a group of
  friends. She is trying to explain one of the most
  important theories to the group. Jordan believes
  she understands the theory and is confident that
  she can explain it well to others. (asymmetric
  CR)
• Jordan is studying.understands the theory but
  she is not so sure she can explain it to somebody
  else. (symmetric CR)

25
research support for Crt

• James is giving directions to Chris on how to get
  to Johns house. James has been to Johns house
  numerous time before but Chris has never been
  there. (asymmetric CR)
• James and Chris are looking at a map and
  discussing the best way to get to Johns house.
  Neither James nor Chris have been to Johns house
  before. (symmetric CR)

26
research support for Crt
Ten pairs of scenarios were tested. The perceived
CR was assessed for each character in the
scenario. A difference score was created by
subtracting the CR score of the character
expected to have the lower responsibility from
the CR score of the character expected to have
the higher responsibility. A positive number
would indicate that the character we expected to
have more CR was indeed perceived by research
participants as having higher CR.
27
research support for Crt
In 8 of the 10 scenarios the difference score was
positive and 7 of these scores were significantly
different (i.e., probably not due to chance).
These results provide evidence that we do make
judgments of communicators communicative
responsibility. But.do our judgments of
communicative responsibility affect the way we
communicate?
28
research support for Crt
A second study was conducted to assess whether
judgments of CR affect communicative behavior.
Research participants were asked to give
directions based on a map of a fictitious town
to a stranger who was described as another UH
student (i.e., culturally similar condition) or a
student from University of Pretoria, South Africa
( i.e., culturally dissimilar condition). We were
testing the effect of perceived common ground
(i.e., shared knowledge) on CR and subsequent
communicative behavior. We expected that
29
research support for Crt

• Hypothesis Perceived personal CR would be higher
  for the person in the culturally dissimilar
  condition.
• Results Participants giving directions to the
  South Africa student rated their CR significantly
  higher than did participants giving directions to
  the UH student.

30
research support for Crt

• Hypothesis Higher CR would lead to increases in
  message redundancy and elaboration.
• Results A significant positive correlation was
  found between participants personal CR and the
  length of the directions (i.e., number of words
  used).
• Additional support A significant negative
  correlation was found between the type-token
  ration (i.e., ration of unique words to total
  words) and CR, indicating greater repetition.

31
research support for Crt
Last, after controlling for the total number of
words used, a significant correlation was found
between judgments of personal CR and the number
of references to natural landmarks. This shows
that higher CR participants were making reference
to more generalizable information. In sum, CR
was shown to vary in a systematic fashion and
that judgments of CR had both quantitative and
qualitative effects on one communicative
behavior.
32
research support for Crt
The studies reviewed so far demonstrate that we
do form systematic judgments of CR and that these
judgments affect our communicative behavior. The
final study was designed to examine how we
respond to anothers violation of our judgment of
his/her CR. Specifically we exposed research
participants to conversation scenarios that were
created to be interrogation-appropriate or
interrogation-inappropriate.
33
research support for Crt
We developed a dialogue involving Anna and
Mike in which Anna interrogates Mike as to his
previous evenings social behavior, i.e., who did
he go out with? what did he do? where did he
go? However, we manipulated the communicative
context. In one case Anna and Mike were
girlfriend/boyfriend having lunch
(interrogation-inappropriate condition). In the
other situation Anna was an Anthropology
professor who was researching recreational
behavior of college students. Mike was a research
participant (interrogation-appropriate).
34
research support for Crt
We assessed perceptions of Mikes and Annas CR
and how inappropriate the communicative behavior
was perceived to be. Results showed that

• Anna/anth was judged higher in CR than was
  Anna/gf.
• Mike/bf was judged slightly higher in CR than was
  Mike/subj.
• Anna/gfs behavior was seen as more inappropriate
  than was Anna/anths.
• Mike/bfs behavior was seen as slightly less
  appropriate than was Mike/anth/s.

35
Politeness and language production
Communicative responsibility provides one
explanation for the extent to which we engage in
implicature and inference-making in conversation.
Another explanation can be found in Politeness
Theory. The main proponents, Brown Levinson,
draw heavily from Goffmans writings on Face
Work. Face is the positive social value a person
effectively claims for himself by the line others
assume he has taken during a particular contact.
36
Politeness and language production
Brown Levinson see two aspects to face
positive face the desire for connection with
others and negative face the desire for
autonomy. We may engage in face work to
accomplish positive and negative face
needs. Face needs enter into communicative
situations and affect our behavior not only
because our own face needs affect our behavior
but because we infer others face needs and
adjust our behavior accordingly.
37
Politeness and language production
Consider, for example, a compliment. When we
offer a compliment we may feel it adds to our
positive face needs and the person to whom we
offer the compliment. On the other hand, a
compliment can threaten a receivers negative
face needs by making him/her feel obligated to
respond in a similar manner, thus imposing on
that person. Similarly requests are inherently
face threatening both to the speaker and the
hearer.
38
types of face threats
Type of Face Threat Type of Face Threat
Threat Focus Negative Face Positive Face Positive Face
Hearer Requests Offers Compliments Disagreements Criticisms Complaints Disagreements Criticisms Complaints
Speaker Promises Acceptance of Offer Thanks Apologies Emotional Leakage Compliment Acceptance Apologies Emotional Leakage Compliment Acceptance
39
Politeness STRATEGIES
So we have an inherent conflict in every
communicative situation we want to manage each
others face needs at the same time we want to
perform social acts that are inherently face
threatening. In fact we could think of politeness
as any deviation from Grices Cooperative
Principle given that politeness involves
deviations from maximal communicative efficiency.
Brown Levinson offer a typology of five
superstrategies that range on a continuum from
very impolite to very polite.
40
Politeness STRATEGIES

• Bald-on-record
• Positive Politeness
• Claim common ground
• Convey cooperation
• Fulfill hearers wants
• Negative Politeness
• Conventional indirectness
• Avoid assumptions
• Avoid coercion
• Communicate desire to avoid impingement
• Incur a debt

• Off-record Politeness (face threatening act must
  be inferred)
• Violate conversational maxims
• Quality
• Quantity
• Manner
• Relation

41
Speech Act Theory
Debate used to rage over what an utterance
meant. Attempts were made to impose
truth-conditional approaches on language. That
works for 336 or other forms of reasoning
such as All Xs are Ys. B is an X, therefore B
is a Y. But linguistic utterances often dont
mean something definitive.
42
Speech Act Theory
A truth value could be determined for the
following utterance It is raining
outside. But not for this utterance I
apologize for what I said. John Austin referred
to the latter as a performative utterance and the
former as a constative utterance.
43
Speech Act Theory
The rain utterance could be assessed as true or
false but the apology utterance could, at best,
misfire or be infelicitous (i.e., basically
fail to work properly). In other words, the
apology utterance may not be seen as sincere,
it may not be well-formed or well-stated, or it
may not count as an apology. Consider Clyde
Arakawas apology for manslaughter Im sorry
for what happened. A well-formed apology should
indicate acceptance of responsibility for the
offending action and sincere regret for the
action.
44
Speech Act forces
A speech act is described in terms of three
forces associated with any communicative
utterance

• Locutionary force the actual utterance what is
  spoken and heard.
• Illocutionary force what the speaker intends by
  the utterance the intended meaning to be
  activated by the utterance.
• Perlocutionary force the actual effect of the
  utterance on the hearer may or may not be
  consistent with the illocutionary force.

45
Types of Speech Act s

• Directives world to words (hearer) requesting,
  ordering, interrogating.
• Assertives words to world asserting,
  concluding, informing, reporting, predicting.
• Commissives world to words (speaker)
  promising, threatening, guaranteeing.
• Declaratives world to words vice versa
  performing a marriage, declaring war, calling a
  runner out.
• Expressives null thanking, complaining,
  greeting, apologizing.

46
felicity conditions
According to John Searle, for a speech act to be
effective it must satisfy four felicity
conditions

• Propositional content the MAP as constrained by
  the illocutionary force of the utterance.
• Preparatory conditions what must be already
  true about the world or the communicators prior
  to the speech act.
• Sincerity condition speaker must mean it.
• Essential condition the utterance must count
  as a performance of the relevant act.

47
communication accommodation theory
CAT was developed by Howard Giles and was
referred to originally as Speech Accommodation
Theory. It was developed to explain how and why
convergence and divergence of communicative
behavior occur in communicative interaction(s).
In short, Giles argued that our communicative
styles tend to converge or diverge as a function
of perceptions of affiliation with conversational
partners.
48
communication accommodation theory
Convergence and divergence can be accomplished
several ways

• Upward vs. Downward
• Full vs. Partial vs. Hyper
• Large vs. Moderate
• Uni- vs. Multicodal
• Symmetrical vs. Asymmetrical
• Subjective vs. Objective

49
communication accommodation theory
Motives for and outcomes of accommodation

• A speakers (often unconscious) need for social
  integration or identification with another.
• Social approval.
• Social attractiveness.
• Perceived similarity.
• Perceptions of power.
• Social influence Compliance