Utilization of Sentences Lec. 3

Main points to be discussed Why people listen Speech acts Propositional and thematic content The utilization process Recording assertions The function of assertions The Given-New Contract Active and Passive Sentences Implicatures Indirect utilization of utterances

Introduction People talk for a purpose Listeners would be remiss if they did not register this purpose and act accordingly This is the goal of the utilization process The line between the construction and utilization processes is not a sharp one This chapter focuses on the UP- the listeners’ mental processes in utilizing a sentence as the speaker intended.

Why people listen Speakers convey their purposes in three separable parts of their utterances The speech act The propositional content The thematic content Ex. Kathy: Does George own a car? Jeff: ? Jeff has to register these three bits of information, search memory for the right information and provide an answer

Speech acts George owns a car Speech acts are limited in their variety. Ex. George owns a car Does George own a car? I warn you that George owns a car Each utterance is said to have a different kind of illocutionary force

There are five general categories of speech acts (Searle, 1975) Representatives: in uttering a representative the speaker conveys his belief that some proposition is true.(suggesting, hypothesizing, swearing, stating ..etc). Directives: the speaker attempts to get the listener to do something (ordering, commanding, requesting, begging, pleading)

3. Commissives: the speaker is commiting himself to some future course of action.(promises, vows, pledges, contracts, guarantees and other types of commitments)> 4. Expressives: if the speaker wants to express his psychological state about something, he utters an expressive (a speaker may apologize, thanks, welcome, congratulates, deplores—express how good or bad he feels about some event)

5. Declarations: When a speaker utters a declaration his words bring about a new state of affairs. Ex. You’re fired I resign I hereby sentence you to 5 years in prison Most declarations are specialized for use within a particular cultural system, such as employment, law, or government.

Each of these categories requires something different of the listeners. Of the 5 categories the first 2 are the most important.

Propositional and thematic content When the speaker makes an assertion, what beliefs is he attempting to convey? And when he utters a directive, what action does he want carried out? The answers are found in the propositional and thematic content of his utterances. Ex. It was Julia who discovered the virus Was it Julia who discovered the virus?

Listeners must deal not only with the propositions underlying Julia discovered the virus but also with the thematic content associated with them. What listeners do with the content depends on the speech act. It was Julia who discovered the virus (assertion) Was it Julia who discovered the virus? (question)

For both speech acts they have to search memory, compare one proposition with another, and carry out other mental operations. The fundamental question in the UP is just how this is done.

The utilization process UP How listeners utilize sentences: On hearing an utterance, listeners identify the speech act, propositional content and thematic content. They next search the memory for information that matches the given information. Finally, depending on the speech act, they deal with the new information:

If the utterance is an assertion, they add the new information to memory. If the utterance is a yes/no question, they compare the new information with what is in memory and, depending on the match, answer yes or no. If the utterance is a WH-Q, they retrieve the wanted information from memory and compose an answer conveying that information. If the utterance is a request, they carry out the action necessary to make the new information true. (e.g. feed the dog)

Direct utilization Indirect utilization The utilization processes to be taken up rely on three major principles. The first two are the reality and the cooperative principles. The third principle, the congruence principle, governs the listeners’ search for information in memory.

Recording assertions Listeners should record the assertion. How? Listeners must register the fact that the speaker’s utterance was an assertion, determine its propositional and thematic content, and add the new belief to memory. To do this they must make assumptions about the roles that the propositional and thematic content play in assertions.

The function of assertions Imagine Ann trying to tell Ed she has just seen John hit Bill. She could do so in many different ways, for example: John hit BILL Bill was hit by JOHN It was JOHN who hit Bill. It was BILL John hit. What John did was HIT BILL The one used would depend on what she assumed Ed already know.

The Given-New Contract The speaker agrees (a) to use given information to refer to information she thinks the listener can uniquely identify from what he already knows and (b) to use new information to refer to information she believes to be true but is not already known to the listener.

Active and Passive Sentences Ex. a. The boy is petting the CAT b. The cat is being petted by the BOY Although both express the proposition the boy pets the cat..a) seems to be about the boy and (b) about the cat.

Active and passive sentences are particularly versatile. a. The boy is petting the cat has one of three given-new divisions: New information Given information X= the boy pets the cat X= the boy pets X= the boy X is happening the boy is doing X the boy is petting X

b. The cat is being petted by the boy has one of three given-new divisions: New information Given information X= the boy pets the cat X= the boy pets X= the boy X is happening X is happening to the cat X is petting the cat

The passive is found to be less versatile than the active. The article the is a special device to mark information in a noun phrase as given information, as in: -I met the general The article a is not the same.. -I met a general

Implicatures Patience walked into a room. The room was enormous Patience walked into a room. The chandeliers burned brightly. Whenever listeners cannot identify an antecedent directly, they are expected to do so indirectly- to build bridging assumption- at least if the speaker is being cooperative. They add this bridging assumption or implicature to memory as part of what the speaker meant to convey.

Indirect utilization of utterances Utterances do not always carry a clear indication of their illocutionary force. Ex. Open the window (literally a request --direct ) Its hot in here—would you mind opening the window

The cooperative principle the cooperative principle describes how people interact with one another. As phrased by Paul Grice, who introduced it, it states, "Make your contribution such as it 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 cooperative principle can be divided into four maxims, called the Gricean maxims, describing specific rational principles observed by people who obey the cooperative principle; these principles enable effective communication.

Grice's Maxims Maxim of Quality Be Truthful Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Maxim of Quantity Quantity of Information Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Maxim of Relation Relevance Be relevant. Maxim of Manner Be Clear Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief

Implicature It is possible to flout a maxim intentionally or unconsciously and thereby convey a different meaning than what is literally spoken. Many times in conversation, this flouting is manipulated by a speaker to produce a negative pragmatic effect, as with sarcasm or irony. One can flout the Maxim of Quality to tell a clumsy friend who has just taken a bad fall that her gracefulness is impressive and obviously intend to mean the complete opposite.

Indirect speech act Searle has introduced the notion of an 'indirect speech act', which in his account is meant to be, more particularly, an indirect 'illocutionary' act. Applying a conception of such illocutionary acts according to which they are acts of saying something with the intention of communicating with an audience, he describes indirect speech acts as follows: "In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer

The use of felicity conditions An utterance is neither true nor false, but can instead be deemed "felicitous" or "infelicitous" according to a set of conditions whose interpretation differs depending on whether the utterance in question is a declaration ("I sentence you to death"), a request ("I ask that you stop doing that") or a warning ("I warn you not to jump off the roof").

Felicity conditions for requests Propositional content condition: the requested act is a future act of the hearer Preparatory precondition: 1) the speaker believes the hearer can perform the requested act; 2) it is not obvious that the hearer would perform the requested act without being asked Sincerity condition: the speaker genuinely wants the hearer to perform the requested act Reasons.