The role of perspectives in various forms of language use

Abstract

AbstractThe present paper aims to differentiate various social forms of language use such as communicative, informative, and manipulative ones on the basis of speakers’ and hearers’ intentions, which are assumed to be involved in the intentional viewpoint of their perspectives. The paper analyzes how speakers can realize their intentions through their perspectives and what perspectives speakers intend to develop in their partners of verbal interactions in various forms of language use as well as how partners in verbal interactions of these social forms of language use can infer the speakers’ intentions evaluating and taking speakers’ perspectives on the basis of indicators provided by speakers and according to their own perspectives. The analyses presented in the paper have shown that the success of informative, communicative, and manipulative forms of language use seems to be partly predicted according to what extent the speakers’ and hearers’ perspectives coincide or differ from each other.