Linguistics meets economics: Dealing with semantic variation

Adam D Clark-Joseph,Brian D Joseph

doi:10.3765/plsa.v5i2.4794

Abstract

We explore here what happens in conversation when listeners encounter variation as well as change in semantics. Working within a general Gricean framework, and in ways somewhat akin to the “Cheap Talk” model of Crawford and Sobel (1982) and the “Rational Speech Act” model of Goodman and Frank (2016), we develop here a transactional view of communicative acts, based largely on insights drawn from economics. Taking a novel perspective, we build on what happens when communication misfires rather than examining what makes for successful communication. We see this effort as a demonstration of the utility of taking an economic perspective on linguistic issues, specifically the analysis of communicative acts.

Highlights

Human conversation is inherently interactional, involving, minimally, two interlocutors — a speaker and a listener — who attempt to transmit information through a series of utterances taken in turns; minimally, one utterance which may or may not provoke a response
Within the context of exploring what happens in conversation when there is variation as well as change in semantics, we propose yet another interactional model, one that shares some characteristics with the three mentioned above, but is based instead on insights drawn from economics
Assuming an affirmative answer to (2a), what happens when such occurs?. We address these questions, and develop a perspective on them, and especially on (2b), that draws on economic theory, viewing conversation and the extraction of meaning from conversation in transactional terms

Summary

Introduction

Human conversation is inherently interactional, involving, minimally, two interlocutors — a speaker and a listener — who attempt to transmit information through a series of utterances taken in turns; minimally, one utterance which may or may not provoke a response. Meaning — the real-world referent in the view espoused in section 2 — attached to the word impeach.

Results

Conclusion