Pragmatic Phenomena Research Articles

On Hawthorne and Magidor on Assertion, Context, and Epistemic Accessibility

Hawthorne and Magidor's criticisms of the model of presupposition and assertion that I have used and defended are all based on a rejection of some transparency or introspection of assumptions about speaker presupposition. This response to those criticisms aims first to clarify, and then to defend, the required transparency assumptions. It is argued, first, that if the assumptions are properly understood, some prima facie problems for them do not apply, second, that rejecting the assumptions has intuitively implausible consequences, and third, that the ‘margin of error’ argument against the principle of positive introspection has a false premiss. The paper concludes with a response to a criticism of what Hawthorne and Magidor call ‘the uniformity principle’ that is used in the model to explain some pragmatic phenomena.

Intention(ality) and the Conceptualization of Communication in Pragmatics

It is commonly assumed in (linguistic) pragmatics that communication involves speakers expressing their intentions through verbal and nonverbal means, and recipients recognizing or attributing those attentions to speakers. Upon closer examination of various pragmatic phenomena in discourse, however, it appears the situation is actually much more complex than the standard conceptualization of communication in pragmatics allows. In particular, it is suggested in this paper that the focus on expressing and recognizing/attributing (speaker) intentions underestimates the dynamic nature and complexity of cognition that underpins interaction. The notion of ‘dyadic cognizing’ is thus introduced as a way of reconceptualizing the inferential work that underlies communication. It is suggested that such inferential work is ‘directed’ and thus is inherently ‘intentional’ in the sense proposed by Brentano, but need not necessarily be ‘directed’ towards the ‘intentions’ of speakers.

Papers on pragmasemantics

Optimality theory as used in linguistics (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004; Smolensky & Legendre, 2006) and cognitive psychology (Gigerenzer & Selten, 2001) is a theoretical framework that aims to integrate constraint based knowledge representation systems, generative grammar, cognitive skills, and aspects of neural network processing. In the last years considerable progress was made to overcome the artificial separation between the disciplines of linguistic on the one hand which are mainly concerned with the description of natural language competences and the psychological disciplines on the other hand which are interested in real language performance.
 
 The semantics and pragmatics of natural language is a research topic that is asking for an integration of philosophical, linguistic, psycholinguistic aspects, including its neural underpinning. Especially recent work on experimental pragmatics (e.g. Noveck & Sperber, 2005; Garrett & Harnish, 2007) has shown that real progress in the area of pragmatics isn’t possible without using data from all available domains including data from language acquisition and actual language generation and comprehension performance. It is a conceivable research programme to use the optimality theoretic framework in order to realize the integration.
 
 Game theoretic pragmatics is a relatively young development in pragmatics. The idea to view communication as a strategic interaction between speaker and hearer is not new. It is already present in Grice' (1975) classical paper on conversational implicatures. What game theory offers is a mathematical framework in which strategic interaction can be precisely described. It is a leading paradigm in economics as witnessed by a series of Nobel prizes in the field. It is also of growing importance to other disciplines of the social sciences. In linguistics, its main applications have been so far pragmatics and theoretical typology. For pragmatics, game theory promises a firm foundation, and a rigor which hopefully will allow studying pragmatic phenomena with the same precision as that achieved in formal semantics.
 
 The development of game theoretic pragmatics is closely connected to the development of bidirectional optimality theory (Blutner, 2000). It can be easily seen that the game theoretic notion of a Nash equilibrium and the optimality theoretic notion of a strongly optimal form-meaning pair are closely related to each other. The main impulse that bidirectional optimality theory gave to research on game theoretic pragmatics stemmed from serious empirical problems that resulted from interpreting the principle of weak optimality as a synchronic interpretation principle.
 
 In this volume, we have collected papers that are concerned with several aspects of game and optimality theoretic approaches to pragmatics.

Isn’t it Ironic? An Analysis on the Elaboration of Ironic Sentences with ERPs

Although frequent in our everyday conversations, irony is a complex pragmatic phenomenon involving specific linguistic, communicative and cognitive abilities in order to be fully understood. In this study we examined the pragmatic comprehension of ironical and non ironical language by analysing event-related potentials (ERPs) of irony decoding proc- ess. We asked 12 subjects to listen to 240 sentences with a counterfactual vs. non-counterfactual content and spoken with ironical vs. neutral prosody. ERPs morphological analysis showed a negative deflection peaking in central-frontal and pa- rietal areas at about 460ms post stimulus onset (N400) for all the conditions. Statistical analyses applied to peak ampli- tudes showed no statistically significant differences between the conditions as a function of the type of sentence (ironical vs. non ironical) and the content of ironical sentences (counterfactual vs. non counterfactual). An increase of N400 related to ironical sentences was nonetheless observed. The absence of an N400 effect may indicate that irony is not treated as a semantic anomaly, although, the observed differences in amplitude could be probably attributed to a higher requirement for the cognitive system in order to integrate contrasting and complex lexical, prosodic and contextual cues.

Communicative impairment in traumatic brain injury: A complete pragmatic assessment

The aim of the present study was to examine the communicative abilities of traumatic brain injury patients (TBI). We wish to provide a complete assessment of their communicative ability/disability using a new experimental protocol, the Assessment Battery of Communication, ( ABaCo) comprising five scales—linguistic, extralinguistic, paralinguistic, context and conversational—which investigate all the main pragmatic elements involved in a communicative exchange. The ABaCo was administered to 21 TBI subjects and to a control group. The results showed that performance by TBI patients was worse than that of controls on all scales; moreover they showed a trend of increasing difficulty in understanding and producing different pragmatic phenomena, i.e., standard communication acts, deceits and ironies, whether such phenomena are expressed through the linguistic or extralinguistic modality.

Simple and complex deceits and ironies

In the classical philosophy of language a distinction is made between direct and indirect speech acts. In the present paper we propose that a new distinction, between simple and complex communicative acts, can include any kind of pragmatic phenomena, including deceit and irony. In particular, we assume that a complex act, with respect to a simple act of the same sort, e.g., irony, requires a complex inferential chain in order to grasp the communicative intention of the speaker. Therefore, we predict that complex acts are more difficult to comprehend than simple acts. Furthermore, we assume that simple acts of different sorts, e.g., deceit and irony, involve mental representations of different degrees of complexity. Therefore, we predict that simple standard acts are easier than simple deceits, which are in turn easier than simple ironies. Overall our predictions are confirmed by the results of an experiment carried out on 96 children aged 6;6–10 years. Some unexpected results are also interpretable within the proposed framework.

Metapragmatics of Speech and Its Interactions with Pragmatic Inferences

Since it was first introduced to the linguistic pragmatics in the early 1970s, the notion of metapragmatics has been employed in one way or another in the description of some pragmatic phenomena such as indexicality and reported speech. However, virtually no attempts have been made to make use of this independently motivated notion in the discussion of pragmatic implicatures. This study is an attempt to build a new metapragmatic perspective in the study of pragmatic inferences. To this end, we begin with characterizing metapragmatic implicature in comparison with pragmatic implicature, and then investigate the role of metapragmatics in pragmatic reasoning in the neo-Gricean framework. In particular, it is shown that the order of the incrementation of the context, or the projection principle proposed by Levinson (2000) is defective since it does not take into account the presence of metapragmatic implicature. Moreover, it is pointed out that some unexpected failures of implicature on a pragmatic level is due to the presence of metapragmatic implicature involved in the utterance. Thus, this study shows that the interaction of metapragmatics and pragmatics provides a new insight into how implicatures are processed or blocked without positing any extra devices to deal with apparent counterexamples or exceptions to the neo-Gricean pragmatics.

Pragmatics and Adult Language Disorders: Past Achievements and Future Directions

In this article, the current state of our knowledge of pragmatic disorders in adults with language impairment is assessed. A brief historical background of clinical pragmatics is presented, and the place of adult language pathology within the development of this field is discussed. A comprehensive review is undertaken of pragmatic deficits in adults with language impairments of diverse etiologies. Specifically, pragmatic deficits are examined in adults with left-hemisphere damage, often resulting in aphasia, and in adults with right-hemisphere damage, traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, and neurodegenerative disorders (principally, Alzheimer's disease). Although many pragmatic phenomena have been examined in these clinical populations, studies have also tended to neglect important areas of pragmatic functioning in adults with these disorders. Several such areas are identified within a wider discussion of how researchers and clinicians can best pursue future investigations of pragmatics in adults with language impairment.

Linguistic and extralinguistic communication in deaf children

We present a study on the linguistic and extralinguistic pragmatic abilities of deaf children. Following the tenets of Cognitive Pragmatics theory, which provides a framework for explaining differences in difficulty as regards various pragmatic phenomena, we investigate the ability to comprehend direct, indirect, deceitful, and ironic communication acts performed through linguistic and extralinguistic means. Our main prediction is that there is a gradation of difficulty in comprehending these communicative phenomena, in deaf children as well as in hearing children. This prediction is grounded on the assumptions that the construction of the meaning of a communication act is independent of both the communicative means (i.e. linguistic or extralinguistic) and the input modalities (i.e. oral or visual). Rather (as supported by previous studies on hearing children), the gradation of difficulty is determined by mental representations of different complexity and inferential chains of different loads. Our aim was to validate the predictions on (46) deaf children aged 2–4 years and 4;6–7 years. The results confirm our expectations.

Neuropragmatics: Extralinguistic pragmatic ability is better preserved in left-hemisphere-damaged patients than in right-hemisphere-damaged patients

The aim of the present study is to compare the pragmatic ability of right- and left-hemisphere-damaged patients excluding the possible interference of linguistic deficits. To this aim, we study extralinguistic communication, that is communication performed only through gestures. The Cognitive Pragmatics Theory provides the theoretical framework: it predicts a gradient of difficulty in the comprehension of different pragmatic phenomena, that should be valid independently of the use of language or gestures as communicative means. An experiment involving 10 healthy individuals, 10 right- and 9 left-hemisphere-damaged patients, shows that pragmatic performance is better preserved in left-hemisphere-damaged (LHD) patients than in right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) patients.

La ironía y la cortesía: una aproximación desde sus efectos

Este artículo presenta un análisis de la ironía verbal en relación con la cortesía. El objetivo fundamental es demostrar que la cortesía puede estar presente en un enunciado irónico y se puede utilizar como estrategia para producir ironía. Proponemos una clasificación según los efectos de la ironía, basada en el análisis de ejemplos reales.

Some Worries for Would-be mers

DeRose appeals to ordinary English usage to support his contextualist semantics for "know"-attributions. A common objection holds that though the relevant assertions are both appropriate and seemingly true, their seeming truth arises merely from their appropriateness. This Warranted Assertability Maneuver (WAM) aims to provide a stand-alone objection by providing a reason not to take the ordinary language data at face-value. However, there is no plausible model or mechanism for the pragmatic phenomena WAMmers must postulate. Given what the WAM requires, it is doubtful it could work out in detail.

Hedging: an exploratory study of authors' and readers' identification of ‘toning down’ in scientific texts

In preparing students for their future discourse communities, the EAP/ESP literature has shown interest in the role of hedges in scientific literature. This interest has resulted in several studies that define and classify hedges, and hypothesize about their purpose. With these as our theoretical basis, we are led to ask “What is the relation to actual practice?” To paraphrase [R. Markkanen & H. Schroder (Eds.) (1997). Hedging and discourse: Approaches to the analysis of a pragmatic phenomenon in academic texts. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.] , a hedge exists when it is mutually recognized by author and reader. This article represents a very tentative attempt to explore this conceptual space. In Study I, I asked authors to identify hedges in their own texts, and their motivation for using them. In Study II, I presented three of these texts to EAP students (PhD candidates), requesting them to identify the hedges. There are three main findings. Firstly, the authors' choices of hedges did not coincide with definitions previously reported in the literature. Secondly, the authors did not cite politeness as a general motivation for hedging. Thirdly, there was a great divergence between readers' and authors' identifications; in general, readers identified many more instances of hedges than were intended by the authors. If validated on a larger scale, these findings have implications for instruction in reading and writing scientific articles.

Why Definite Descriptions Really are Referring Terms

According to Russell, '... the phi ...' means: 'exactly one object has phi and ... that object ...'. Strawson pointed out that, if somebody asked how many kings of France there were, it would be deeply inappropriate to respond by saying '... the king of France ...': the respondent appears to be presupposing the very thing that, under the circumstances, he ought to be asserting. But it would seem that if Russell's theory were correct, the respondent would be asserting exactly what he was asked to assert. So Russell's theory wrongly predicts that the respondent's answer will be appropriate. Russellians deal with this by saying that this anti-Russellian intuition embodies our reaction not to what is semantically encoded in the respondent's words, but to what is pragmatically imparted by them. So Russell's theory is correct: the fact that it appears wrong is due to the distorting effects of pragmatics. In this paper I show that pragmatic phenomena cannot possibly be responsible for the just mentioned anti-Russellian intuition. No matter how hard we try to put the blame on pragmatics, Russell's theory still falls short. It follows that defi nite descriptions really are what they appear to be: referring expressions. I argue that defi nite descriptions are complex demonstratives; and, within that framework, I deal with cases where defi nite descriptions appear to be functioning non-referentially. I also solve Frege's puzzle within the framework defi ned by my treatment of defi nite descriptions taken in conjunction with Kripke-Kaplan semantics.

On the optimization and grammaticalization of anaphora

The purpose of this dissertation is to defend the idea that the empirical responsibilities of binding theory can be handled in a more psychologically and historically realistic way when assigned to the field of pragmatics. In particular, I wish to show that Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince & Smolensky, 1993), the stochastic OT and Gradual Learning Algorithm of Boersma (1998), the Recoverability of OT of Wilson (2001) and Buchwald et al. (2002), and the bidirectional OT of Blutner (2000b) and Bidirectional Gradual Learning Algorithm of Jäger (2003a) can all participate in a formal framework in which one can formally spell out and justify the idea that the distributional behavior of bound pronouns and reflexivs is a pragmatic phenomenon.

A metaphor in search of a source domain: The categories of Slavic aspect

Abstract I propose that human experience of matter provides the source domain for the metaphor that motivates the grammatical category of aspect in Russian. This model is a version of the universal TIME IS SPACE metaphor, according to which SITUATIONS ARE MATERIAL ENTITIES, and, more specifically, PERFECTIVE IS A DISCRETE SOLID OBJECT versus IMPERFECTIVE IS A FLUID SUBSTANCE. The contrast of discrete solid objects with fluid substances reveals a rich array of over a dozen properties; the isomorphism observed between those properties and the complex uses of aspect in Russian is compelling. This model presents a more finely articulated account of Russian aspect than feature analysis can achieve. Although some of these properties overlap significantly with the count versus mass distinction often associated with aspect, the properties provide more detail and ground the metaphor to concrete experience. Properties of matter can be divided into three groups: inherent properties such as edges, shape, and integrity (which correspond to inherent situation aspect); interactional properties such as juxtaposition, dynamism, and salience (which correspond to discourse phenomena of aspect); and human interactional properties such as graspability and impact (which correspond to pragmatic phenomena of aspect). The interactional and human interactional properties can be used to motivate subjective construal, whereas the inherent properties serve as default motivators. The model will be demonstrated in detail using Russian data, followed by a survey comparing Russian with the other Slavic languages, which will show that deviations consist of either non-implementation of a given property, or the implementation of an inherent (default) property in place of an interactional or human interactional property. This model will be contrasted with a brief discussion of a selection of non-Slavic languages. The specific metaphor in this model does not apply beyond Slavic, but perhaps it will encourage investigation into the source domain of aspect in other languages. There appears to be a correlation between the relatively heavy morphological investment Slavic languages make in nominal individuation and the individuation of situations presented in this metaphorical model.

The rhetorical management of academic criticism in research article abstracts

In order to justify publication, the writers of scientific texts must create a research space that allows them to present new knowledge claims to the other members of the discourse community. This implies the use of a number of rhetorical strategies which involve the criticism of members of their own academic community. This article explores the interpersonal pragmatic phenomenon of academic criticism (AC) from a crosslinguistic perspective in research article abstracts. To this end, we have analyzed the various rhetorical options that writers may use to convey critical speech acts, in a corpus of 160 research paper abstracts written in English and Spanish in two disciplines (phonetics and psychology) of the social sciences. The results showed that the overall frequency of occurrence of instances of academic criticism is higher in the English abstracts, and that in the English texts, the writers preferred to convey criticism in an impersonal and indirect way, whereas in the Spanish texts, the writers opted more frequently for the use of personal and direct AC. The reason for this rhetorical variation is mainly explained by the influence of the sociopragmatic context of publication, that is, the relationship between the writers and the discourse community they are addressing, which is different both in terms of size and pressure.

Construction of gender in informal face-to-face encounters

In this article I argue that we need to treat what I call the “local fields of participation” in a methodologically systematic manner. These fields are the relatively stable domains of social participation if everyday life: family, school, clique, workplace and so on. The research on language and gender constitutes a good example of the need to build an adequate understanding of the reproduction and transformation of relations of domination. I also argue against the customary practice of making excessively direct inferences out of isolated interactions or out of very specific linguistic or pragmatic phenomena, which prevents an profound understanding of issues domination and contestation at the local level. Here I will provide data of interactions recorded amongst a group of young people and I will show how these can only be interpreted in terms of their position within the group’s set of relations, through which a given régime of gender identities were constructed, with its tensions and contradictions. This process of identity construction was in turn inserted in a wider network of relationships between the clique and various other fields (family, school, job market). Finally, I discuss some ways in which Pierre Bourdieu’s model can be used to analyze the workings of local fields and the relationships amongst social fields at various levels.

Risky speech: behavioral game theory and pragmatics

Abstract One traditional model of communication is the coordination game. Schelling’s original analysis of this game in 1960 emphasized the ideas of equilibrium, salience, common knowledge, and convention, all of which have had an impact on pragmatics. In the succeeding four decades, economists have discovered new regularities of behavior in coordination games, as multiple equilibria are distinguished by interactions among forward induction, payoff dominance, risk dominance, and sympathy. These game-theoretic factors, in turn, shed new light on such pragmatic phenomena as eavesdropping, relevance, irony, indirectness, euphemism, implication, and ishindenshin.

How children comprehend speech acts and communicative gestures

We propose a framework for explaining difference in difficulty of various pragmatic phenomena. In particular, we investigate the ability to comprehend direct, indirect, deceitful, and ironic communicative acts. Our main prediction is that there is a gradation of difficulty in their comprehension. Such a prediction is grounded on the assumptions that the various phenomena involve both mental representations of different complexity and different inferential load. A further prediction is that a communicative act has in principle the same difficulty of comprehension, whether performed through speech acts or communicative gestures. The underlying assumption is that the construction of the meaning of a communicative act is independent of the input modalities. We validate our predictions through an experiment on 160 children, with 40 in each of the following age groups: 2.6 to 3 years, 3.6 to 4 years, 4.6 to 5.6 years, and 6 to 7 years. The results confirm the predicted gradation of difficulty both for the different sorts of speech acts and for the communicative gestures. Also, the results, when broken down by each phenomenon, show that participants performed equally well in speech acts and in communicative gestures. We conclude with a discussion of the possible implications of our results for linguistic and gestural communication research.