SAR SH 524 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Steven Pinker, Illocutionary Act, Cooperative Principle
5 Mar 2019
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February 21st, 2019
Lecture 10
Communicative development: learning to use language in context
Two kinds of competence:
-linguistic competence
-the ability to produce and understand well-formed, meaningful sentences
-phonology, semantics/lexicon, morphology and syntax
-Communicative competence
-the ability to use sentences appropriately in various communicative interactions
-pragmatics, discourse, and sociolinguistics
Stephen Pinker on Pragmatics
there is a third interface between language and the mind: pragmatics — how people understand language in
context using knowledge about the world. Cooperative principle: your conversational partner is working with
you to get the meaning across clearly.
Pragmatics is what we mean, not necessarily what we say. When we talk our words have meaning, we do
things with words.
Pragmatics:
-when we talk, we do things with words
-e.g. in a marriage ceremony, the words “I now declare you husband and wife” actually accomplish the
marriage
-The philosopher J.L. Austin described the kinds of things we do with words in Speech Act theory
-Speech Act: the notion that every utterance is behavior; the notion that talking is “doing things with words”
Speech Act components: we can separate the content of a sentence from its intended function and its effect
-illocutionary force: intended FUNCTION of the speech act
-Locution: linguistic FORM of the speech act
-Perlocution: EFFECT of the speech act on the listener
“my mother wants to borrow a cup of sugar”
-Illocutionary force: to REQUEST sugar
-Locution: DECLARATIVE sentence
-Perlocution: unknown — depends if you get the sugar! Or if your request was understood
Intentionality: the characteristic of having a purpose or goal (in speaking)
-most purposeful communication is done intentionally
-the speaker intends for the listener to think something in particular
-E.g. I want you to know I need sugar
-Not all communication is intentional
-some of our behaviors signal information we don’t intend
-for example, sneezing an signal that you have allergies, whether you intend for people to know or not
-unless you are pretending to sneeze to inform people of your allergies it is not a communicative act
Form-function mapping and the role of context
-there is not a 1-to-1 mapping between linguistic forms and intentional functions they serve
Open the window!
-Illocutionary force: to REQUEST that the window be opened
-Locution: IMPERATIVE sentence
It sure is stuffy in here
-Illocutionary force: to request that the window be opened
-locution: declarative sentence
-Often, we need context to determine the intention behind a sentence
I wonder if that window opens?
-illocutionary force: to request that the window be opened
-Locution: interrogative sentence
Implicature is whatever is meant but not literally said. E.g. “give me a hand” means please help me. it does
not mean saw off your hand and give it to me.
Implicature calculation requires not only linguistic knowledge, but a whole lot of real-world knowledge.
-very difficult for artificial intelligence, 2nd language learners and children!
Scalar implicature
-when a quantitative value is asserted the negative of all larger forms (higher on the scale) is implicated
-“some students got an A in this course”
-implies that not all students got As, because some is less than all. By saying some, we negated all.
-“She will possibly get the job”
-Implies that she won’t necessarily get the job, because possible is less than necessary.
-Explanation: if the speaker were in a position to make the stronger statement, he would have done so. Since
he did not, he must believe that the stronger statement is not true.
Discourse:
-communicative language usually involves sequences of connected sentences and interchanges among
people. There are called discourse or connected discourse
-Conversations: two or more people talking to each other
-extended monologue: narratives, lectures, etc
-communicative competence involves knowing how to produce and participate in discourse
-The philosopher Paul Grice identified two key rules of discourse: take turns and be cooperative
-to be cooperative, speakers must follow 4 maxims (rules)
-when a maxim is violated, some aspects of communication breaks down, and misunderstandings are
likely to occur
Grice’s conversational maxims
Sociolinguistics
How language is used varies depending on the context.
Registers: language is used differently in different social situations. We talk differently to teachers in
classrooms than to a baby in a playpen. These different styles of speech in different social contexts are called
registers.
Different cultures have different social norms for how to use language, and the process of language
socialization is how children learn these norms.
The development of speech acts
-reminder of speech acts
Quantity
Make your contribution as informative as is required, provide neither too much nor too little
information
Quality
Try to make your contribution one that is true; do not say what you believe to be false or that for
which you lack adequate evidence
Relation
Be relevant
Manner
Be clear, brief, orderly, unambiguous
-perlocution: effect on listener
-illocution: speaker’s intended function (force)
-locution: linguistic form
-Bates: 3 phrases of pragmatic development (1975)
-<10 months: perlocutionary stage (no intent)
-10-12 months: illocutionary stage (communicative intention, but immature linguistic form)
->12 months: locutionary stage (proper linguistic form)
Perlocutionary stage
Behavior has consequences but is not produced with communicative intent.
-through 9-10 months, infant communication is largely perlocutionary
-infants do things that have communicative effects (parents do things for them)
-but they do not necessarily intend their actions to be communicative
-e.g. crying —> care from parents, but no request for care
Illocutionary stage
Behavior has communicative goals but does not use the forms of the target language.
-beginning 10 months, infants come to understand that they can purposefully signal their desires to other
people
-e.g. an 11 month old wants a toy may actively try to engage an adult to help her get it
-a critical marker of infants’ communicative intentions is their use of eye-gaze: they look at their addressee
and monitor their turn gazes
-However, children in the illocutionary stage do not yet use language to accomplish their communicative
goals
-their efforts to get others to do things for them are Proto-imperatives
-Their efforts to show others things in the world (e.g. via pointing) are Proto-declaratives
Locutionary stage
In the elocutionary stage (from 12 months on), infants use language to communicate their intentions. Not
synonymous with first words; must have aspects of linguistic form and communicative intention.
Behavior has communicative intentions and adult like forms.
Degree within the elocutionary stage:
-Idiosyncratic Sounds (e.g. “mmm” + point to request)
-Non-referential words (e.g. “bam” when knocking over blocks)
-Referential words (e.g. “dog” to refer to a dog)
Expanding the range of speech: communicative functions
-over the 2nd year of life, children expand their use of communicative functions in several ways:
-produce more speech acts with communicative intent
-produce more different types of communicative functions, and have more ways of communicating each
function
-by 24 months, they expand the “reach of speech” and start talking about absent objects and events, the
past and future, and there imagination
-Children are becoming able to engage in conversational discourses and produce narratives
First functions of language (Halliday 1975)
Communicative behaviors produces by one child 12-16 months. May be illocutionary or locutionary.
Function
Definition
Instrumental
Satisfying the child’s needs
Regulatory
Directing others’ behavior
Document Summary
Communicative development: learning to use language in context. The ability to produce and understand well-formed, meaningful sentences. The ability to use sentences appropriately in various communicative interactions. Stephen pinker on pragmatics there is a third interface between language and the mind: pragmatics how people understand language in context using knowledge about the world. Cooperative principle: your conversational partner is working with you to get the meaning across clearly. Pragmatics is what we mean, not necessarily what we say. When we talk our words have meaning, we do things with words. When we talk, we do things with words. E. g. in a marriage ceremony, the words i now declare you husband and wife actually accomplish the marriage. Austin described the kinds of things we do with words in speech act theory. Speech act: the notion that every utterance is behavior; the notion that talking is doing things with words .
