MA Seminar 3301-IfS MIOD 03 (Ewa Mioduszewska)

Face to face and Internet communication. Analogies and differences (semantics and pragmatics)

Four term MA seminar, the aim of which is for the Students to prepare their MA theses and pass the MA exam.

Seminar title: Face to face and Internet communication. Analogies and differences.The aim of the seminar is a comparison of CMC (computer mediated communication) and face to face communication at different levels, with special focus on the role of conversation in both types of communication. The common theoretical background - P. Grice's theory of conversation, its development in Relevance Theory, theory of analogy, selected literature on CMC.

Field: CMC, semantics and pragmatics.Topics: (a) social media - description, comparison, the role of conversation; (b) types of CMC (email, chat groups, virtual worlds, Web 2.0, instant messaging, blogging, vlogging, Youtube) and their correlates in face-to-face communication.

Selected references (to be supplemented by references of individual theses)

1.Clark, B. Relevance theory, 2013.2.Crystal, D. Language And The Internet, 2014.3.Crystal, D. Internet Linguistics. A student guide, 2011.4.Grice, P. Study in the way of words, 1989.5.Frobenius, Maximiliane. Audience Design In Monologues: How Vloggers Involve Their Viewers. Journal of Pragmatics 72 (2014): 59-72.6.Herring, J: http://info.ils.indiana.edu/~herring/pubs.html7.Hofstadter, D., E. Sander. Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, 2013.8.Hurford, J. and B. Heasley. Semantics, 1983, 2015 9.Johnson, G. M. (2006). Synchronous and Asynchronous Text-based CMC in Educational Contexts: A review of recent research. TechTrends, 50 (4), 46–5310.Johnstone, B. Discourse Analysis, 2006. 11.Quan-Haase, A., and A. L. Young. Uses And Gratifications Of Social Media: A Comparison Of Facebook And Instant Messaging. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30.5 (2010): 350-361. 12.Sykes, J. (2005). Synchronous CMC and Pragmatic Development: Effects of oral and written chat. The CALICO Journal, 22(3), 399–431.13.Tagg, C. Exploring Digital Communication, 2015.14.Thomas, J. Meaning in Interaction, 2015.15.Wilson, D. and Sperber, D. Meaning and Relevance, 2012.16.Wilson, D. and Sperber, D. Relevance Theory. In Horn, L.R. and Ward, G. (eds.) 2004 The Handbook of Pragmatics, 607-632. 17.Yule, P. Pragmatics, 1997.

Samples of defended MA thesis topics:1. Vlog as a comedic sketch: A case study of a successful British youtuber

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2. English borrowings in Polish corporation communication (with special focus on e-mails): a case study.3. Compliments in YouTube comments. In search for verbal and non-verbal clues. A study of selected examples from Zoella YouTube channel.

Methods and requirements.Term 1: part 1 (lecture – inferential model of communication, analogy theory); part 2 (students' presentations - selected forms of CMC); aim: determining the MA topic, presenting the list of references and collecting data.Term 2: presenting the first chapter.Term 3: individual consultations – writing the thesis.Term 4: MA edition, presentations of the theses (general summary by the lecturer).

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Part I: Ostensive inferential communication (lecture)

Topic 1. Ostensive inferential communication: Introduction

1. Ostension

- manifestness. A fact is manifest to a person if it is perceivable (by sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste), it can be represented mentally and the representation may be accepted as true by this person.

2. Ostensive stimulus- intentional behaviour (and/or its result), intentionally directed to the addressee.

3. Principles of relevance

- relevance of a fact: balance between costs of processing and its positive cognitive effects. Cognitive principle of relevance: our cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance.

- Optimal relevance: every ostensive stimulus comes with a guarantee of its own optimal relevance – Communicative principle of relevance. Ostensive stimulus is optimally relevant if it is worth processing and it is the best stimulus chosen by its producer according to his abilities and preferences.

4. Processing a stimulus- decoding: systematic, code-related, recovery of meaning/structure- disambiguation- referents’ assignment- enrichment, constructing ad hoc concepts- explicature (result of inference in activated mental context)- implicatures: explicature + contextual premises + inference rules =

implicatures.- Result: recovering intended meaning communicated by the person producing

the ostensive stimulus.

Example

John and Mary are a couple. They have an argument over breakfast. John leaves the house, slamming the door and shouting

John: Nice day

Communication between John and Mary, Mary’ comprehension process:- a fact is manifest to Mary- the fact is recognized as an ostensive stimulus (2 principles of relevance)- the stimulus is automatically processed- decoding x is a day, x is nice- disambiguation- reference assignment date, place, speaker, hearer- enrichment: John states that today on October 4th 2017 in Warsaw the day

(concept) is nice (concept)

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- inferencing: implicated premises – after an argument the day is not nice, when one slams the door and shouts (suprasegmentals) the day is not nice.

- Further inferencing because relevance was not found: John communicates that the day is terrible (ad hoc concept nice *), John is ironic about the nice day. These are implicated conclusions (speaker’s intended meaning)

Internet vs ftf communication:- different ostensive stimuli ?- different implicated premises ?- different decoding ?- different positive cognitive effects (i.e. different relevance) ?

Topic 2. P. Grice’ theory of communication ( reading: P. Grice “Logic and Conversation” see reading to # 165)

The Cooperative Principle (CP)

Make your 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.

The Maxims

Quality:Try to make your contribution one that is true(i) do not say what you believe to be false(ii) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidenceQuantity(i) make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange(ii) do not make your contribution more informative than is requiredRelevancemake your contribution relevantManner(i) avoid obscurity(ii)avoid ambiguity(iii) be orderly

I. Observing the maxims

A: I’ve just run out of petrolB1. You can get petrol in a garage around the cornerB2: Oh, there’s a garage just around the corner

II. Flouting (exploiting) the maxims

A. Let’s get the kids somethingB. OK but I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M-S

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III. Maxim clash (quality versus quantity)

A. Where does John live?B. In the south of France

IV. Opting out

A. What’s John’s surname?B. I won’t tell you

V. Violating the maxims

Context: John’s surname is BrownA. What’s John’s surname?B. Smith

Standard Implicatures (observing the maxims)

1. QualityA. John has two cows>> I believe he has and have adequate evidence that he has2.QuantityA. John has 14 children>> John has only 14 childrenA. The flag is white>> The flag is all white3.RelevanceA. Pass the salt>> Pass the salt nowA. Can you tell me the time?B. Well, the milkman has come>> It’s past 8 o’clock4. MannerA. The lone ranger jumped on his horse and rode into the sunsetA. Open the doorA. Walk up to the door, turn the door handle clockwise as far as it will go, and then pull gently towards you.

Non-standard implicatures (flouting the maxims)1. QualityA. Queen Victoria is made of ironA. Teheran is in Turkey, isn’t it Teacher?B. And London’s in America, I suppose2. QuantityWar is warEither John will come or he won’tIf he does it, he does it

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3. RelevanceA. I do think Mrs Jenkins is an awful bore, don’t you?B. Huh, lovely weather for March, isn’t it?4. MannerMrs. Singer produced a series of sounds corresponding closely to the score of an aria from Tosca

Conversational implicatures:a) Definition

S’s saying that p conversationally implicates q iff:(i) S is presumed to be observing the maxims, or at least the CP (in the case of maxim exploitation)(ii) in order to maintain this assumption it must be supposed that S thinks that q(iii) S thinks that both S and H mutually know that H can work out that to preserve the assumption in (i) q is in fact required.

b) Conditions on calculating the implicaturesFor H to be able to calculate the implicature q, H must know or believe that he knows(i) the conventional content of the sentence p uttered(ii) the Cooperative Principle and its maxims (tacit knowledge)(iii) the context of p(iv) certain bits of background information (e.g. that p is obviously false)(v) (i)-(v) are mutual knowledge shared by S and Hc) General pattern for working out implicatures(i) S has said that p(ii) there is no reason to think that S is not observing the maxims, or at least the CP(iii) in order for S to say that p and be indeed observing the CP, S must think that q(iv) S must know that it is mutual knowledge that q must be supposed if S is to be taken to be cooperating(v) S has done nothing to stop H thinking that q(vi) therefore S intends me to think that q and in saying that p he has implicated that q

Examples

1. A. Where’s Bill? B. There’s a yellow VW outside Sue’s house2. John: Hello Sally, let’s play marbles Mother: How’s your homework getting along Johnny?3. Joe teased Ralph and Ralph hit him4. Some of the boys went to the soccer match5. Mary is in the dining room or in the kitchen6. The tree wept in the wind7. John is an eel8. A. What kind of mood did you find the boss in? B. The lion roared

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Communicating the meaning - the system of sentential inferences in Paul Grice`s model of linguistic communication

I. Linguistic communication in P. Grice’s theory

Speaker communicated (the meaning intended by the sender)

Speaker said Speaker implicated(semantics: explicit meaning (pragmatics: implicit meaning, inferential coding-decoding communication) communication)

entailments implicatures

conventional conversational (language based) (context based)

generalized particularized (assumed linguistic context) (assumed extra-linguistic context)

Example:A. Do you think that Mary loves Bill?B. Well, his brother often asks her out to the cinema or to the theatre

1. Mary exists; Bill exists; Bill has a brother - entailments2. „Well” ---- hesitation, doubt - conventional implicature3. His brother does not always ask her out - < always, often, sometimes> generalized implicature derived by the quantity maxim4.He does not take her to the cinema and to the theatre at the same time <and, or> - generalized implicature5. I don`t think Mary loves Bill - particularized implicature6. I think Mary loves Bill - particularized implicature (in a different context it might change)

Features of various inferences: cancellability, calculability, truth-conditionality, source

1. entailment: non-cancellable, non-calculable, truth-conditional, source: words or sentence structuree.g. John has 3 cows entails John exists; John has two cows

2. Conventional implicature: hardly cancellable, non-calculable, non-truth-conditional, source: words (sometimes sentence structure)e.g. John is an Englishman; therefore he is brave implies conventionally His being brave follows from the fact that he is an Englishman

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items giving rise to conventional implicatures: but, therefore, even, yet, however, moreover, anyway, well, still, furthermore, although, sir

3. Generalized implicatures: cancellable, calculable by the quantity maxim from scales of expressions, non-truth-conditional.e.g. Some boys went to the party implies Not all boys went to the party

Examples of scales of expressions underlying generalized implicatures<all, most, many, some>; <succeed in, try to, want to>, <and, or>, <certain, probable>, <love, like>, <must, should , may>, <excellent, good>, <hot, warm>, <always, often, sometimes> , <(p and q), (p or q)>, <(since p, q), (if p ,q)>, <(a knows p), (a believes p)>

4.Particularized implicatures: cancellable, calculable from extra-linguistic context, non-truth-conditionale.g. A. Is it a nice day today? B. Take an umbrella implies It`s not a nice day today

A. I`m afraid of dogs B. Take an umbrella implies Then you don`t have to be afraid

Paul Grice: „Logic and conversation”. In: Grice, P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA.

I. Organization of the paper1. Differences between logic and natural language;2. Attitudes to (1): formalists, informalists, H.P. Grice;3. Saying Conventional meaning of words;5. The Cooperative Principle and its maxims;6. What can we do with the CP and its maxims ?7. Conversational vs conventional implicatures.8. Examples;9. Testing for implicature.

Ad.1 Differences between logic and natural language- Formal devices: ~, ^, v, , (x), (x), ix- Natural language devices: not, and, or, if, all, some, theExample: and - He went home and watched TV He watched TV and went home or - He likes ice creams or cheese not - The king of france isn`t bald

Ad. 2. Attitudes to (1)- Formalists: - interested in patterns of valid inference - formal devices are „better”: allow for (1) generalizations; (2) deciding about dubious cases; - natural languages are imperfect: they escape clear cut definitions and truth evaluation;

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- solution: construct an ideal language to secure the foundations of science. - Informalists: - scientific inquiry is not that important. We understand language without knowing its analysis - we should look for the conditions of use of the language; - solution: construct logic of natural language.- P.H. Grice: - there are no divergencies between logic and natural language. You see that they don`t exist if you analyze conditions governing conversation.

Ad. 3. Saying and implicatingExample: A. How is C getting on in his job ? B. Oh, quite well, I think; he likes his colleagues and he hasn`t been to prison yet.- implicate, implicature, implicatum- say: conventional meaning of the words usedExample: He is in the grip of a vice- In between „implicate” and „say” we have:* referent assignment (he(?))* time specification* disambiguation („in the grip of a vice”)

Ad. 4. Conventional meaning of words- utterances (words) conventionally implicate:Example: He is an Englishman; he is, therefore, braveIf conventional implicatures fail, the sentence may still be true. They are non-truth-conditional

Ad. 5. The Cooperative Principle and its maximsThe CP: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchangeQuantity: (1) Make your contribution as informative as is required; (2) Do not make it more informative than is required.Quality: (1) Do not say what you believe to be false (2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidenceRelation: Be relevantManner: (1) Avoid obscurity of expression; (2) Avoid ambiguity; (3) Be brief; (4) Be orderlyThe most important maxim: Quality: only if this is observed, may the others be observed. There may also be other maxims: aesthetic, social, moral (e.g. be polite)Talking: purposive, rational behaviour - an empirical fact - common, immediate aim; - interdependence of exchange; - assumption of continuationAssumption: talk exchange is profitable if the participants adhere to the CP and the maxims.p. 142: „I am fairly sure that I cannot reach this conclusion until I am a good deal clearer about the nature of relevance and of the circumstances in which it is required.”

Ad. 6. What can we do with the CP and the maxims?(a) violate;(2) opt out;

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(3) maxim clash;(4) flout or exploit.

Ad. 7. Conversational vs conventional implicaturesS saying that p has conversationally implicated that q if:(1) S is presumed to be observing the CP and the maxims;(2) To accept (1) we must assume that S has implicated that q;(3) S thinks (and assumes that H thinks) that H may work out that q.Conversational implicatures have to be worked out. To work them out, H must know:(1) conventional meaning of p;(2) referents;3) CP and the maxims;(4) context;(5) background knowledge;(6) assumption of mutual knowledge of (10-(5).

Ad. 8. Examples(1) No maxim violated(a) A. I am out of petrol. B. There is a garage round the corner.(b) A. Smith doesn`t seem to have a girlfriend these days. B. He has been paying a lot of visits to New York lately.(2) Maxim clash(a) A. Where does C live ? B. Somewhere in the south of France.(3) Maxim exploitation- Quantity(a) „Dear Sir, Mr. X`s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Yours, etc.”(b) Women are women.(c) War is war.- Quality(a) Irony: „X is a fine friend”.(b) Metaphor: „You are the cream in my coffee”.(c) Meiosis/understatement: „He was a little intoxicated.(d) Hyperbole/overstatement: „Every nice girl loves a sailor”.- Relevance(a) A. Mrs. X is an old bag. B. The weather has been quite delightful this summer, hasn`t it?- Manner(a) I sought to tell my love, love that never told can be.(b) I have Sind/sinned.(c) obscurity in the presence of children.(d) Miss X produced a series of sounds....

(1-3) - particularized conversational implicatures: saying that p on a particular occasion in virtue of special features of the context.- generalized implicatures: p normally implicates that q (in the absence of special circumstances): examples - a) X is meeting a woman this evening

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b) X went into a house yesterday and found a tortoise inside the front door

Ad. 9. Testing for conversational implicatures:(a) cancellability;(b) non-detachability;(c) non-conventionality;(d) non-truth-conditionality;(e) indeterminacy

Topic 3. Relevance Theory (reading: 16 see reading to # 2657)

Deirdre Wilson & Dan Sperber 2004. Relevance Theory (G. Ward & L. Horn

(eds.) Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.)

1. Introduction

Human communication – expression and recognition of intentions (inferential

model of communication versus code model)

Inferential pragmatics – how H infers S’s meaning on the basis of the evidence

provided.

Assumption: utterances create expectations which guide H – expectation of

relevance.

2. Relevance and cognition

What may be relevant? Any external stimulus or internal representation which

provides an input to cognitive processes.

The search for relevance is a basic feature of human cognition.

When is an input relevant? When it connects with background information to

yield relevant conclusions = positive cognitive effects (e.g. contextual

implications, strengthening, weakening, withdrawing assumptions).

Relevance of an input to an individual

a. Other things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive effects

activated by processing the input, the greater the relevance of the input to

the individual at that time.

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b. Other things being equal, the greater the processing effort expended, the

lower the relevance of the input to the individual at that time.

Example: 1. We are serving meat

2. We are serving chicken

3. Either we are serving chicken or (7x134 – 3) is not 46

Effort and effect are non-representational (non-numerical) dimensions of mental

processes. The same is true of relevance.

Our perceptual mechanisms tend automatically to activate potentially relevant

assumptions and process them in the most productive way.

Cognitive Principle of Relevance

(Wilson & Sperber 2003: 7): Human cognition tends to be geared to the

maximization of relevance.

3. Relevance and communication

Ostensive-inferential communication

a. the informative intention: The intention to inform an audience of

something

b. The communicative intention: The intention to inform the audience of

one’s informative intention.

Ostensive stimulus= behavior designed to attract an audience’s attention and

focus it on the communicator’s meaning. It creates a presumption of relevance.

Communicative Principle of Relevance

(Wilson & Sperber 2003: 9): Every ostensive stimulus conveys a presumption of

its own optimal relevance.

Optimal Relevance

(Wilson & Sperber 2003: 10): An ostensive stimulus is optimally relevant to an

audience iff: (a) It is relevant enough to be worth the audience’s processing

effort; (b) It is the most relevant one compatible with communicator’s abilities

and preferences.

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This definition accounts for situations when S is unable or unwilling to produce

the most relevant stimulus (e.g. various types of silence).

H should take the linguistically encoded sentence meaning, following a path of

least effort, he should enrich it at the explicit level and complement it at the

implicit level until the resulting interpretation meets the expectation of

relevance.

Relevance-theoretic Comprehension Procedure

(Wilson & Sperber 2003: 13): (a) Follow a path of least effort in computing

cognitive effects: Test interpretive hypotheses (disambiguation, reference

resolution, implicatures etc.) in order of accessibility. (b) Stop when your

expectations of relevance are satisfied.

When H following the path of least effort arrives at an interpretation that

satisfies his expectations of relevance, in the absence of contrary evidence, this

is the most plausible hypothesis about S’s meaning. Since comprehension is a

non-demonstrable inference process, this hypothesis may well be false, but it is

the best a rational hearer can do.

4. Relevance and comprehension

In ostensive-inferential communication, the communicator’s behavior provides

no direct evidence for the intended conclusions, and it is only the presumption of

relevance conveyed by the ostensive stimulus which encourages the audience to

devote the effort to discovering S`s meaning.

In verbal communication, utterances encode logical forms (fragmentary,

incomplete conceptual representations) which S has chosen to provide an input

to H’s inferential comprehension process. As a result, verbal communication can

achieve a degree of explicitness not available in non-verbal communication.

Relevance theory treats the identification of explicit content as equally

inferential and guided by the Communicative Principle of relevance as the

recovery of implicatures. In both cases, H’s goal is to construct a hypothesis

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about S’s meaning, which satisfies the presumption of relevance conveyed by

the utterance. The task may be broken into sub-tasks:

Sub-tasks in the overall comprehension process

(Wilson & Sperber 2003: 16): (a) Constructing an appropriate hypothesis about

explicit content […explicature] via decoding, disambiguation, reference

resolution, and other pragmatic enrichment processes. (b) Constructing an

appropriate hypothesis about the intended contextual assumptions [… implicated

premises]. (c) Constructing an appropriate hypothesis about the intended

contextual implications [… implicated conclusions].

Comprehension is an on-line process. Each sub-task above involves a non-

demonstrable inference process embedded within the overall process of

constructing a hypothesis about S`s meaning.

Example: Peter: Did John pay back the money he owed you?

Mary: No. He forgot to go to the bank.

The comprehension process involves a range of lexical-pragmatic processes: 1.

narrowing & loosening of concepts (bank1, bank*, bank**); 2. ad hoc concept

construction.

Lexical items give access not to ready-made prototypes but to a vast array of

encyclopedic information which varies in accessibility from occasion to

occasion, with different subsets being selected ad hoc to determine the occasion-

specific interpretation of a word.

Side remark: loose uses of language – square mind, silent room – different from

lies, jokes, metaphors and other tropes. Not felt to be any violations of

truthfulness.

Relevance: whether an utterance is literally, loosely or metaphorically

understood depends on the mutual adjustment of content, context and cognitive

effects in the effort to satisfy H’s expectation of relevance.

Example: Peter: What do you think of Martin’s latest novel?

Mary: It puts me to sleep.

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Mary’s answer may be a literal assertion, a hyperbole, a metaphor. Loose

interpretation of `put to sleep*` = being extremely boring and un-engaging. (cf.

square, square face, square mind)

The relative indeterminacy of explicatures is linked to the relative strength of

implicatures. A proposition may be more or less strongly implicated by an

utterance: strongly (strong implicatures) – if its recovery is essential to get a

relevant interpretation; weakly (weak implicatures) – otherwise.

Loose, metaphorical uses, poetic effects – an array of weak implicatures (e.g.

`John has a square* mind`).

Relevance-theoretic account of irony

- interpretive use of language (e.g. reported speech or thought)

- echoic interpretive use of language – expressing S’s attitude to views

tacitly attributed to someone else. Example: Peter: That was a fantastic

party! Mary: Fantastic (happily, puzzled, scornfully)

Higher-order speech acts or prepositional attitudes are expressed. Irony – tacitly

dissociative attitude to an attributed utterance or thought (Example: `He forgot

to go to the bank`). Second-order meta-representational ability is involved in

irony. Metaphors and tropes require only first-order. Higher-order explicatures

provide an account of speech acts:

Peter: Will you pay back the money by Tuesday?

[Peter is asking Mary whether she will pay back the money by Tuesday]

Mary: I`ll pay it back by then.

[Mary is promising to pay back the money by Tuesday]

5. Relevance theory and mental architecture

Comprehension = a variety of mind-reading or theory of mind (the ability to

attribute mental states to others in order to explain and predict their behavior),

involving the application of general purpose reasoning mechanisms to premises

based on explicit hypothesis about the relations between mental states and

behavior.

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- Central vs peripheral processes: modular input processes vs central processes

(Fodor 1983)

- Towards massive modularity --- relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure

as a special purpose inferential comprehension module (special purpose

inferential procedures - `fast and frugal heuristics`; Eye Direction Detector,

Intentionality Detector).

6. Conclusion: Relevance Theory is an experimentally testable cognitive

theory

Communication

General assumptions: communication theory - rooted in a theory of human

cognition. The „aim” of human cognition is to extend one’s knowledge of the

world: Cognitive Principle of Relevance - the greatest cognitive effect for the

smallest cognitive effort.

Communication assumes attracting the hearer’s attention. This can be achieved

if the hearer considers what we want to communicate to be relevant to him

(Communicative Principle of Relevance).

Assumptions about communication: Communication requires two different

modes: the code model and the ostensive-inferential (intentional) model. The

two modes are distinct and cannot be reduced to one of them. The ostensive-

inferential communication can exist on its own. The coding-based

communication cannot.

Ostensive-inferential communication: Speaker makes manifest to Hearer his

intention to make manifest the message. A fact is manifest to an individual at a

given time if the individual can mentally represent the fact and accept this

representation as true.

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Mutual cognitive environment = facts that are manifest to more than one person

at the same time.

Communication requires two intentions on the part of the Speaker: the

informative intention (to inform the Hearer about something) and the

communicative intention (to inform the Hearer that the Speaker wants to inform

him about something).

Definition of communication: (p. 63) „the communicator produces a stimulus

which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the

communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make manifest or more

manifest to the audience a set of assumptions {I}”

Producing a stimulus constitutes the communicator’s ostensive behavior.

Understanding (audience) consists in drawing inferences from the produced

stimulus.

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Topic 4. Conversational analysis (reading: “Conversational analysis” in Levinson, S. Pragmatics see reading to # 2643)

. Conversation Analysis

Discourse Analysis

Methods:

Isolating units

Finding rules about units connectivity to get well-formed sequences

Appeal to intuitions in judging well-formed sequences

Assumptions

Unit acts (speech acts/moves) in speaking (specifiable, delimited set)

Utterances corresponding to units

Procedure mapping utterance/units onto speech acts and vice versa

Conversational sequences arrived at by rules over sequencing speech act types

Conversation Analysis

Turn Taking

Local management system: operate on a turn-by-turn basis.

Turn-constructional units: identified from linguistic surface structure

Transition-relevance-place: at the end of each unit (the ends are predictable)

Rules on turn-taking:

R1 – at the first TRP of any turn a) If current speaker C selects new speaker (N) in current

turn, then C must stop speaking, and N must speak, transition occurring at the first TRP after

N-selection.

- If C does not select N, then any other party may self-select, the first one gaining rights

to the next turn

- If C has not selected N, and no other pary self-selects, then C may (but need not)

continue

R2 – at all subsequent TRPs: When the third option has been applied by C, then at the next

TRP rules (a), (b) apply recursively at the next TRP, until speaker change is effected

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Overlaps: competing first starts; mis-projection of TRP for systematic reasons

Gaps: between an application of (1b) or (1c)

Lapse: the non-application of Rule1

Significant (attributable) silence: when N is selected but doesn’t speak

Adjacency Pairs

Sequences of two utterances that are

Adjacent

produced by different speakers

ordered as a first part and a second part

typed, so that a particular first part requires a particular second (or a range of

seconds)

Problems: insertion sequences; lack of second part; possible variety of seconds undermines

the structural significance of the concept of an adjacency pair

Preference organization: preferred versuss dispreferred seconds

Dispreferreds:

delayed: preface marking their status („well”), followed by an account of why

the preferred can’t be given

delays: by pause before delivering, by the use of a preface, by displacement

over a number of turns via use of repair initiators of insertion sequences

prefaces: use of markers, of announcers, production of token agreement before

disagreements, the use of appreciators, apologies or qualifiers

hesitations

accounts

declinations (marked and avoided)

A rule for speech production: try to avoid the dispreferred action

General conclusion: a large proportion of the situated significance of utterances can be traced

to their surrounding sequential environments

Overall Organization

e.g. Telephone conversations: summons, answer, reason (3 turn sequence), closing

implicature, pre-closing items closings

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Pre-sequences: prefiguring an upcoming action, invite collaboration in that action or in

avoiding the action (e.g. pre-invitations, pre-announcements, pre-requests). There may be

inserted sequences after pre-sequences. That’s why there is a distinction between turn location

(sequential) and turn position (response to some prior but not necessarily adjacent turn).

Structure of conversation holds across positions rather than turns

Repair sequences

Next Turn Repair Initiator (NTRI): invites repair of the prior turn in the next turn, for

corrections of misunderstandings, mishearings or non-hearings. Repair analysis has found a

number of systematic slots across (at least) a three-turn sequence in which repair or its

prompting can be done:

1st turn: self-initiated self-repair (or between 1st and 2nd turn); 2nd turn – other-repair or

other-initiated self-repair. Repair may be covert (implicit) or exposed (explicit)

Topic 5. Analogy ( 7 optional)

What is analogy?

Assumptions:- No thought without concepts- No concepts without analogy

Examples of concepts by analogy-making

1. Band - a piece of cloth

- coloured strip on a surface

- smallish set of musicians

- a wedding ring

- a range of frequencies, energies, prices or ages

each of them may have (potentially) related sub-meanings – types of wedding bands (or chairs, shoes, dogs, teapots, the letter “A”)

2. A. band, chair, teapot, letter ‘A’ --- unlimited number of meanings vs. B. Prime number, DNA --- what is shared by all their members is expressible

precisely and unambiguously.3. Zeugmas = syllepsis (figures of speech, humorous effects) --- more than one meaning

of a word is exploited in a sentence although the word appears only once.

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- I’ll meet you in five minutes and in the garden

- ‘You are always welcome in my home’, he said in English and all sincerity

- the bartender gave me a wink and a drink.

- The book was clothbound and unfortunately out of print.

- I go to work by car, and other times on foot. (go; Polish: jadę, idę; German: fahren, gehen. Polish: 5 grammatical genders marked on verbs in the past tense: robił, robiła, robiło, robili, robiły).

Each language has the right and the responsibility to decide where it draws distinctions in a semantic space. Resemblances between acts allow a language to describe them all by the same label (go, made) (L. Wittgenstein 1953 --- family resemblance)People who share a common native language accept as natural and self-evident the conceptual network handed to them by their language.Example: ‘play’

- Sylwia plays tennis, monopoly and violin

- Sylwia gra w tenisa, monopoly i na skrzypcach

- Mandarin: different labels for stringed instruments, wind, guitar and piano, drums.

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The nature of categorizationTraditional view:

- Entities (dogs, cats, ...) --- unambiguously assigned to mental boxes (categories) (’dogs’, ‘cats’, ...)

Objective, observer-independent, reliable process

Hofstadter/Sander:- Category – mental structure created over time that evolves and contains info in an

organized way, allowing access to it.

- Categorization --- graded, gray, shaded linking of an entity (situation) to a prior category in one’s mind; gives the feeling of understanding, anticipating future events.

Analogy is- The very essence of thought

- Fundamental and widespread cognitive process

- Below the conscious threshold

- An automatic process

The triggering of memories by analogy – the essence of being human- Labelled and unlabelled concepts: “that time I found myself locked outside my house

in bitterly freezing weather because the door slammed shut by accident.”

- It allows/predicts instant inference making – introducing new mental elements into a situation that one is facing:

o See a child crying --- the child is distressed

o See set table --- meal will be soon

o See a dog --- it may bark, bite, has a stomach

Mind versus computer- Distractibility of attention - rationality

- Fatigue - size

- Imprecision of sensory organism - reliability

- Serious thought - impossibility of tracing ideas

- Translation

Our thought, though slow and vague, are reliable, relevant, insight-giving. Newborns with no past have to build categories from scratch (inborn categories?)

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Humans compare what’s happening to them now with what happened to them in the past --- incessant flow of analogies (e.g. One should never try to catch a falling knife – huge, irrepressible forces against which one has no power and which would carry one off to one’s doom if one were to rash as to try to stop them)

Analogy and word meaning

Concepts = categories

(p. 34) an abstract pattern in the brain that stands for some regular, recurrent aspect of the world [...] to which any number of different words/’signs’ point

Specific/concrete instance + a halo

- centres

- a halo (accounts for the vague blurring and flexible quality of the concept. It thins out as one moves farther out from the core)

- fuzzy boundaries of categories: not due to lack of expertise – inherent in the act of categorization

Analogy: category ~ metropolis

Metaphorical suburban ring(most recent/novel usageof the word)

The scheme is dynamic

Mental category: tiny, almost solid central core (can move over time). Outer ring – repeated acts of extension due to perceived analogies (what was metaphorical gradually may become the essence).

(p. 65) a category has an ancient core, some commercial zones, some residual zones, an outer ring, and then suburbs that [...] shade of into countryside. One passes smoothly and continuously from a concept’s core to its fringes. It results from a spectrum of analogies: from the simplest (concept’s core) to the most far-fetched.

Conceptual spaces

Concepts exist in multidimensional spaces. They come together through relationships of similarity and context.

Conceptual spaces: at the very centre of each --- the most common concepts for a culture, era in need of instant categorization (to live).

- Core items: body parts, classes of animals, plants, things to eat/drink, common feelings, actions, properties, relationships, common degrees. Near

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Urban ring

Original coreCentral core/the category’s essence

the centre – concepts (quasi) universally covering part of the human condition.

- Rings or shells in conceptual spaces.

o Rings: less frequently used concepts --- thanks, barn, fog, purple, sincere, garden, send, star, roof, although.

o Shells: not frequent at all --- frowning, fingernail-biting, tap-dancing, income tax, vegetarian, chief executive officer, wishful thinking.

- Different languages cover, or fail to cover, certain concepts

Conceptualization by analogy

(p.64) the human mind is [...] seeking novelty (the set of metaphors cannot be limited or fixed). Goal --- to understand what surrounds us.

Conceptualization is automatic and biologically bestowed. Ostensive stimuli (e.g. being at an airport): making sense of them ---- automatic, unconscious triggering of familiar categories (lexicalized or not)

How categories emerge

Single member categoriesMommy + experience (trial an error): mommy, mother, ‘mother’, ‘mother nature/earth’

Onset: concrete situation, something unique, clearly separable from the rest of the world

Later: other similar situations encountered and the link is made ---- a new mental structure, less detailed but fundamentally not different from the onset.

Concepts extend through spontaneous analogies, growing in generality and becoming more discriminating.

Tension: finer distinction (experts) vs. making broader categories. Refinements: compounds, idioms, proverbs, catch phrases, building up concepts with no verbal labels.

Concept = category --- outcome of a long series of spontaneous analogies (between a freshly perceived stimulus and the old mental analogy with only one member or a highly developed mental category are based on the same mechanism).

A single item (entity) belongs to lots of categories. Our mental life consists in placing entities in one category and then in reassigning them to another category. Context changes categorization and modifies our perception (chair – stool).

Example: man/human being, 60 kg mass, biped, mammal, living entity, book-lover, romantic, blood-type A+, vegetarian, sister

Bird: bat, airplane, bronze seagull, eagle in a photograph, shadow of a vulture in the sky, Tweet the cartoon-inhabiting canary, generic eagle/robin, a flying dinosaur, the song of a nightingale played 50 years after it died

Examples of category emergence and extension

(2) I undressed the banana (undressing --- peeling)

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(3) They turned off the rain (turn off – stop)

(8) How do you cook water (cook – boil) You know your cigarette is melting (melt – burn)

(12) Do buses eat gas? (eat – use)

(adult) I broke my DVD (break – scratch)

To break (analogical extensions) – bread/one’s fast/the ice/the news/someone’s heart/a habit/the law

The legs of a table, the spine of a book, a head of lettuce, a traffic jam, a stream of insults, the bed of a river

Category adjustment/extension by analogy making

Analogy maps a mental structure on another mental structure. New concepts (HUB) influence ‘more primitive’ concepts (AIRPORT). At first there was airport, then hub. But once hub exists, airport is influenced. Newer concepts are incorporated inside their ‘parents’ as well as the reverse (shaded boundaries, influence of context).

- Euclidean geometry – non-Euclidian geometry

- Classical mechanics – relativistic and quantum mechanics

- Mother/surrogate mother/adoptive mother/single mother

- Office/study/attic

- 1610 Galileo Galilei – Jupiter (planet, star, moon): through analogy – another earth with its own moons (the concept of moon is born). Using familiar phenomena to understand the unfamiliar ones.

- Constructing a label for a complex situation by finding a more familiar/concrete situation analogically linked to it. The name of the concrete situation is taken over to the complex one:

- You’re nuts, it’s Greek to me, my engine is coughing, she’s so square, she drove me crazy

- Recession is our enemy, corruption must be fought

- The act of metaphorization = the way to extend our categories. Goal – to understand more directly and intensely what surrounds us.

Concepts and words

Claim: all words evoke concepts/are concept-related

1. Verbs

Rain/snow/hail ---N& V

Dog – something is barking

Mouths – eat, drink, speak

Labelling situations --- menacing, to menace (the same perceptual entities)

2. Much

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(unconscious) opposition to an imaginary some or somewhat situation. A mental comparison. An unexpectedly large quantity or large degree of something (too much peanut butter, much to my displeasure). Intensifying a part of speech, phrase or clause

Grammatical patterns define mental categories

I don’t go out much

*I much don’t go out

Much the same *Much the difference

Much obliged *Much grateful

Child: too much, not much, much more --- core

A lot much, many much, much red --- rejected

Refinement of much situations (semantic and syntactic)

3. And, But, (So, While) – deep, subtle concepts grounded in analogies

a. AND

A natural link between two statements (people, people and objects, time sequences, causal links, abstract qualities. John and Mary, Sally and her toy, I went and looked, It fell and broke, hot and cold water, before and after my haircut)

Motion in the space of discourse goes smoothly along an established pathway. And (moreover, indeed, in addition, on top of that) is warranted

Subcategories (as in car/truck: Honda, Hyundai, coupe, sedan, automatic/manual, fuel-efficient/gas-guzzling, sporty/family style)

b. BUT

Motion in the space of discourse takes an unexpected swerve. But (whereas, however, actually, in fact, although, nevertheless, even so, still, yet, in spite of that) is warranted.

He has big ears, but he’s really a nice guy

He is on one side of one norm and yet (despite that fact) is on the other side of another norm)

In Polish: i, ale/lub, a

Each language slices up the world in its own manner.

English: siblinghood – brother/sister

Indonesian: siblinghood – kakak/odik (elder/younger)

4. Very, one, too

a. VERY

relative magnitude, expectations, intensities. Category having to do with norms built up over prior experience

One smart dude, one cute cookie: rich and subtle categories in our minds (the kind of person who goes around saying ‘one smart dude’)

b. TOO

i. also (he liked it too)

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ii. Overly much (he eats too much). There are analogies linking each too situation to other such situation – abstracting the concept of ‘too’-ness.

c. Words: the same categories/concepts from low-frequency ‘hub’ to the most frequent ‘the’, from visual/concrete to intangible/mental.

A language: immense number of labels of categories that people have found useful. Children absorb them by osmosis, we internalize them.

Part II CMC (Computer mediated communication), Netspeak: presentations

Topic 6. The Internet

Topic 7. CMC types

Topic 8. Netspeak

Topic 9. Netspeak vs face to face communication

Topic 10. Research perspectives

Topic 11. MA theses topics

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