SLHS 300 Test 3

Pragmatics

the study of the ways people use language in actual conversation

Context

a frame that surrounds the event and provides resources for its appropriate interpretation (i.e. the setting).

Example: "She is there now"

➢ Difficult to interpret because there are 'placeholder' (deictic) words don't refer to something specific

➢ Determined by the context

Situation context

allows us to refer to things in the world even if they weren't directly uttered. What is physically present around the speakers/hearers at the time of communication. Ex: "the president is on TV"(pres of US, france, brazil

Social context

depends on the relationships between people talking - context changes the way you use language - speaking differently during a meeting with your boss vs a friend at lunch

Linguistic context

deals with what preceded a particular utterance in a discourse - Includes what others have said earlier in the conversation. EX: Billy hopes he'll get a job

Deixis(referent)

Words that cannot be interpreted unless the physical context, especially the physical context of the speaker, is known. Includes: Here/there, this/that, pronouns, etc. there are three types(place, time, person)

Anaphora

Subsequent reference to an already introduced entity, used within texts and conversations to maintain reference. Three types: surface(directly stated), indirect(implied), cataphora(word/phrase that refers to something later in the phrase)

Other types of reference

Act by which a speaker, writer, or signer uses language to enable a listener (or reader) to identify something. Two lexical units can have the same referent

Speech Acts

Acts performed through the use of language. Speech acts make language useful.

Purpose of speech acts

Convey information

- Request information

- Give orders

- Make requests

- Make threats

- Offer apologies

- Tell jokes

Three main speech acts

Assertion: conveys info

Question: elicits info

orders/requests: elicits action or info

Felcity Conditions

Conditions that must be in place and the criteria that must be satisfied for a speech act to achieve its purpose. Is something appropriate given the setting (context)?

Felicity Conditions for questions

1) The speaker does not know some piece of information about some state of affairs

2) The speaker wants to know that information

3) The speaker believes that the hearer may be able to supply the information that the speaker wants

Felicity Exceptions

Utterances generally have to follow these felicity conditions but there are some exceptions (when socially acceptable)

-Sometimes a felicity conditions can be suspended/eliminated in a certain situations - Teacher asking a student questions (teacher already knows the answer)

-Felicity conditions may also be modified - A friend asking another friend what she did over the weekend

-The speaker wants to know whether the hearer will tell the truth

Felicity Conditions for requests

1)The speaker believes that the action has not yet been done

2) The speaker wants the action to be done (thinks that the action should be done for some reason)

3) The speaker believes that the hearer is able to do the action

4) The speaker believes that the hearer may be willing to do things of that sort for the speaker

Performative Speech Acts

The particular action named by the verb is accomplished by the performance of the speech act itself. (promise, order, advise, apology)

Specialized performative verbs

Certain ceremonies or formal actions require the use of performative verbs:

- "We declare the defendant not guilty."

- "I hereby pronounce you husband and wife."

By using these verbs, a speaker is performing a speech act and changing something about the world

Requirements for performatives

1. The subject of the sentence must be first person (I or we) 2. The verb must be in the present tense

- Performative speech acts, since they are like actions, take place in the present -Insert the word 'hereby' before the verb, if the sentence sounds acceptable = performative verb (note: may sound awkward)

Direct Speech Acts

the functions of the speech acts are in a direct and literal manner

Indirect Speech Acts

what the speaker actually means is different from what she or he literally says (the real meaning is often implied)

Understand what the inference model is.

Speakers have communicative intentions that exceed the meanings conventionally conveyed by utterances. Therefore, comprehension requires the addressees to inferentially reconstruct those intentions from those meanings.

Paul Grice

described human communication as a case of expression and recognition of intentions, thus laying "the foundations for an inferential model of communication".

Briefly describe how cognitive pragmatics builds upon the inferential model.

a recent discipline whose aim is to identify the actual psychological mechanisms underlying the phenomena that Grice and others had recognized at a purely conceptual level of analysis.

Theory of Mind

The ability to understand observed behaviors as driven by intentions and other mental states. Being able to infer and use information from other people about their emotions, desires, intentions, beliefs, knowledge.

How does theory of mind relate to social outcomes?

-Lalonde and Chandler (1995) found that ToM was related to social skills that arguably involve mental states (e.g., following rules in simple games without being reminded) but was not related to social skills that only involve routine social conventions (e.g., saying "thank you").

-Jenkins and Astington (2000) report a significant impact of ToM understanding on children's success at complex pretend play, particularly joint role taking and explicit communication of roles. • -Astington and Pelletier (2003) found that children's ToM understanding accounted for unique variance in a teacher rating of the children's social competence, even after accounting for age and language ability. There was no evidence of the reverse effect.

How does theory of mind relate to language?

-references to mental states in explanations of behavior (focus on mental causes, labels for concepts)

- conversational dialogue (reading communicative intent, presuppositions, and state of knowledge)

Relevance theory

A theory that takes into account the relation between cognitive pragmatics and theory of mind (a.k.a. mindreading) • Utterance (according to Relevance Theory): A linguistic coded piece of evidence. Utterances automatically create expectations that gear the listener.

Cognitive principle of relevance

Human cognitive processes are aimed at processing the most relevant information available in the most relevant way.

How does theory of mind relate to pragmatics?

Includes trouble with these (related) areas:

• Intention • Inference • Humor

Describe one example of clinical population with pragmatic disorders.

Individuals with right hemisphere damage (RHD) can show issues with pragmatics

Discourse

A unit of language typically longer than 1 sentence • Concerned with how language flows

Describe what the goal of discourse processing is.

-How do we make sense of texts that we read?

What makes us think that one text is coherent or connected while another is incoherent or jumbled?

How do we understand what speakers mean despite what they say?

Cohesion

lexical (word) and grammatical (structure) linking within a text or sentence that holds a text together and gives it meaning

Cohesive ties

The devices that help discourse flow

1) Referencing: deixis/anaphora/cataphora

2) Transitions (however, therefore, in addition, but, etc.)

3) Substitutions

• Which pen do you want? The purple one because the other ones are out of ink

4) Repetition of words and phrases

• I went to the beach. The beach is so calming when I feel stressed out

Coherence

Refers to how the sentences in a paragraph follow each other reasonably - stresses the connection of ideas at the idea level

Coherence is decided by the end-user or reader and determines whether the content seems meaningful, understanding and useful.

Proposition

an idea put forth; a suggestion

Explain why coherence and cohesion are not the same thing.

They are not the same thing because with cohesion means the sentences are all grammatically correct while coherence focuses on if the sentences flow/make sense together.

Grice's Maxims

quantity, quality, relevance, manner

Quantity

Make your contribution as informative as is required - no more, no less - be to the point

Example: Do you have the time?

Yes, its 930.

Quality

Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack evidence - be truthful

Example: Do you know where the Big Ben clock tower is?

It's in London.

Relevance

Be relevant - contribute things that are pertinent to the conversation at hand

Manner

-Try to be as clear, brief, and as orderly as you can.

Avoid obscurity, ambiguity, and jargon.

• avoid jargon (specialized terms) if some people in the conversation wouldn't understand them

•Individuals with chronic aphasia have hypoperfusion in fronto-temporal ROIs

• avoid ambiguity

Breaking the Maxim

Lying, rambling, changing the subject, etc

Flouting the Maxim

Purposefully breaking the maxims in order to create additional meaning

The intended meaning is understood based on context and pragmatics

Implicature

-inferences obtained from flouting of maxims

• Allows speaker to flout a maxim, while still being co-operative

• Idea communicated based on speakers' knowledge of language use

EX: A: Uncle Bill is coming over for dinner tonight.

B: I guess we'd better lock up the liquor.

Define what a Mental Model is in the context of discourse comprehension.

-The final goal of discourse comprehension is a "mental model" (or situation model)

-Mental simulation of the events of the story: • Space • Time • Causality • Emotional states

- better narratives are more memorable because they create better mental models

Describe what the Construction-Integration Model is and what it means for a discourse representation to be built in cycles.

The system builds three related representations:

• Surface form • Text base (Proposition) • Situation model

A discourse representation is built in cycles

Construction phase

Build surface form representation. Extract propositions.

Automatically activate knowledge based on association with individual words and propositions.

Integration phase

Links propositions to each other and to the preceding material

List 1 type of evidence that support that integration is psychologically real.

Evidence #1-better memory recall(story details) with a picture

Evidence #2-Faster reading time for short sentences than long

-Argument overlap allows one proposition to connect to another.

The two propositions must be activated in working memory.

If there is no overlap between activated propositions, reinstatement search may be used to find a good match in the preceding discourse.

Explain the Structure-Building Model and how it differs from the Construction-Integration Model.

The structure building model goes into the details of text base propositions. It differs from the construction-integration model because the integration mechanism is not language specific. Also discourse integration should go beyond linguistic text(pictures)

Details of Structure Building Model

-Laying a foundation: use first-arriving information to start representing the story.

• Mapping: connect new information to old information.

• Shifting: stop building the current structure; begin building a new one.

Describe the Tangram Task used to elicit dialogue.

• Tangram task

• Two participants -director and matcher

-Director sees a card, directs the matcher how to make it.

-Both can talk

Results:

Lots of overlapping speech

-Agreement about what to call pieces

-Backchannel communication (gestures, nods, uhs/ums)

Discuss what the notion of Common Ground is in conversations and why it is important.

It is figuring out what other people in the conversation know. They have common terms for things. This is important because it can help conversations flow.

Explain what is meant by "Audience Design" in conversations.

Speakers craft utterances for specific listeners.

Macro adjustments(audience design)

Bilinguals "code-switch" • "Motherese" • Out-of-towners • Volume in noise

Micro adjustments(audience design)

continuous, small adjustments based on moment-tomoment changes in the listener's knowledge, attentional state, and needs

Briefly discuss how what we know about turn taking helps us understand psychological processes at play in the speaker and listener.

-Often overlapping - even if not overlapping ~100-300ms between speakers

• Long pauses are AWKWARD •We must be planning our own speech while listening to others •Waiting for the appropriate moment to jump in

-Various signals that a turn is coming to an end

Describe the levels of representation, the processes involved, and the word properties that matter at each level.

LEVELS:

Semantic-->lexical->phonological-->articulation

Semantic Level

-Concepts

-Conceptual preparation-selection of lexical concepts

-imageability

-How do we know the meaning of a word?

Lexical/lemma level

-words and morphemes

-Lexical selection, Morphological encoding

-lexical frequency

-Modality dependent or independent? (Same for writing and speaking or no?)

Phonological level

-Phonemes, syllables, syllabic frames (e.g. onset-nucleuscoda)

-Phonological encoding, Syllabification ,Stress assignment

-Phonological neighborhood density

-Are the planning units of phonology the same across languages?

Articulation level

-Gestural scores

-Motor movements

-Complexity

-Does articulation show evidence of activated, but unselected items at earlier levels?

Explain what we have learned about language production from speech errors.

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Describe the logic of reaction time studies, what SOA is, and what reaction times studies can teach about language production.

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Explain what tip-of-the-tongue states are and what they tell us about linguistic representations.

1. Maintain part of speech

2. Conceptual relationship (especially substitutions)

3. Mixed errors: More likely with semantic & phonological overlap 4. Lexical swaps can travel farther than phoneme swaps

List the stages that make up language comprehension from acoustics to semantics.

Describe what categorical perception means.

(At least for some acoustic properties) continuous features of sound are perceived categorically

• Why does this happen?

• Motor theory of speech production: Perceiving a sound depends on activating an articulatory representation

List the different theories of speech perception and which phenomena invalidates these.

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Explain what the McGurk effect is and what it tells us about speech perception.

Evidence that phoneme perception is influenced by visual modality

Explain what the Ganong effect is and what it tells us about language comprehension.

-Shifts in categorical perception based on whether perceiving that sound makes a word

-Phoneme perception is driven by top-down lexical knowledge