Introduction to Pragmatics
Timo Honkela
Aalto University School of ScienceDepartment of Information and Computer ScienceComputational Cognitive Systems research group
Computational Pragmatics, Spring 2012, 23rd of January, 2012
Pragmatics
● is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning
● studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on ● the linguistic knowledge of the speaker and listener,
but also on ● the context of the utterance, ● knowledge about the status of those involved, ● the intent of the speaker, etc.
Levels of written language
Structure Meaning
Syntax
Morphology Semantics
Pragmatics“Structure ofsentences”
“Structure ofwords”
“Meaning incontext”
“Prototypicalmeaning”
On Complexity
Genitiveconstruction
“X's Y”
MeaningStructure
Ownership“Mary's car”
Relationship“Mary's husband”
Property“Mary's weight”
etc.
Theories in Pragmatics
● Jakobson: Functions of languages● Austin: Speech act theory● Grice: Conversational maxims
Roman Jakobson's Functions of Language
TARGET FACTOR FUNCTION EXAMPLE
Context Referential “This is Jim”
Addresser Emotive “Yuck”
Addressee Conative “Go there!”
Contact Phatic “Hello”
Code Metalingual “What does 'phatic' mean?”
Message Poetic “Dibba-dabba-doo”
http://www.signosemio.com/jakobson/functions-of-language.asp
J. L. Austin: How to Do Things with Words /The three Components of Speech Act Theory
● Locutionary act, “the act of 'saying' something.”
● Illocutionary act, “the performance of an act in saying something as opposed to the performance of an act of saying something.”
● Perlocutionary act, for "saying something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, of the speaker, or of other persons."
Austin's Speech Act Theory
● A locutionary act has meaning; it produces an understandable utterance.
● An illocutionary act has force; it is informed with a certain tone, attitude, feeling, motive, or intention.
● A perlocutionary act has consequence; it has an effect upon the addressee.
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/glossary/Speech_act_theory.html
Paul Grice:Conversational Maxims
● A speaker is assumed to make a contribution that● is adequately but not overly informative
(quantity maxim)● the speaker does not believe to be false and for
which adequate evidence is had (quality maxim)● is relevant (maxim of relation or relevance), and● is clear, unambiguous, brief, and orderly
(maxim of manner).
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAConversationalMaxim.htm
Introductions
Suggested themes
1. Models of context for natural language processing
2. Meaning negotiation
3. Game theoretical approaches to meaning
4. Dialogue models
5. Modeling subjectivity in understanding language
6. Miscommunication
Preliminary selected themes
1. Spoken dialogue systems
2. Modeling subjectivity
3. Meaning negotiation, (mis)communication, dialogue models
4. Dialogue models for robotics
5. Human dialogue
6. Modeling subjectivity
7. Pragmatics and cognitive science
