Human communication is often thought about in terms of transmitted messages in a conventional code like a language. But communication requires a specialized interactive intelligence. Senders have to be able to perform recipient design, while receivers need to be able to do intention recognition, knowing that recipient design has taken place. To study this interactive intelligence in the lab, we developed a new task that taps directly into the underlying abilities to communicate in the absence of a conventional code. We (...) show that subjects are remarkably successful communicators under these conditions, especially when senders get feedback from receivers. Signaling is accomplished by the manner in which an instrumental action is performed, such that instrumentally dysfunctional components of an action are used to convey communicative intentions. The findings have important implications for the nature of the human communicative infrastructure, and the task opens up a line of experimentation on human communication. (shrink)

Most people working on linguistic meaning or communication assume that semantics and pragmatics are distinct domains, yet there is still little consensus on how the distinction is to be drawn. The position defended in this paper is that the semantics/pragmatics distinction holds between encoded linguistic meaning and speaker meaning. Two other ‘minimalist’ positions on semantics are explored and found wanting: Kent Bach’s view that there is a narrow semantic notion of context which is responsible for providing semantic values for a (...) small number of indexicals, and Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore’s view that semantics includes the provision of values for all indexicals, even though these depend on the speaker’s communicative intentions. Finally, some implications are considered for the favoured semantics/pragmatics distinction of the fact that there are linguistic elements which do not contribute to truth-conditional content but rather provide guidance on pragmatic inference. (shrink)

Together, the code and inferential models of communication are often thought to range over all cases of communication. However, their prevailing versions seem unable to fully explain what I call underdeterminacy without ostension. The latter is constituted by communication where stimuli that are not (nor appear to be) produced with communicative or informative intentions nevertheless communicate information underdetermined by the relevant codes. Though the prevailing accounts of communication cannot fully explain how communication works in such cases, I suggest that some (...) version of the inferential model can—if we allow it to extend to non‐ostensive, non‐intentional behaviors. (shrink)

This article addresses issues in the philosophy of fiction from the perspective of a relevance theoretic approach to communication: first, how should we understand the notion of ‘voice’ as it is used in the analysis of free indirect style narratives; and, second, in what sense can the person responsible for free indirect representations of fictional characters' thoughts be regarded as a communicator? The background to these questions is the debate about the roles of pretence and attribution in free indirect style. (...) I argue that the role of expressives in sustaining the illusion that fictional characters speak their inner thoughts suggests that ‘voice’ should be understood in two distinct ways. On the one hand, there are cases in which the use of expressive devices leads to the formation of thoughts which are understood to resemble other (attributed) thoughts. On the other hand, there are other cases in which expressives are used as a means of simulating a fictional character's behaviour or style. At the same time, I argue that in order to accommodate free indirect thought representation in a relevance theoretic model of communication, the responsibility for ensuring that the effort of processing the text will be rewarded by optimal relevance must be decoupled from the point of view that is being represented. While the (constructed) author is responsible for orchestrating our interpretation of free indirect thought representations so that the effort of processing will result in optimal relevance, the reader does not necessarily assume this function is being performed by someone who intends to communicate their own thoughts: the relevance of the act of narration may instead lie in the sense of mutuality achieved between reader and character. (shrink)

The central problem for pragmatics is that sentence meaning vastly underdetermines speaker’s meaning. The goal of pragmatics is to explain how the gap between sentence meaning and speaker’s meaning is bridged. This paper defends the broadly Gricean view that pragmatic interpretation is ultimately an exercise in mind-reading, involving the inferential attribution of intentions. We argue, however, that the interpretation process does not simply consist in applying general mind-reading abilities to a particular (communicative) domain. Rather, it involves a dedicated comprehension module, (...) with its own special principles and mechanisms. We show how such a metacommunicative module might have evolved, and what principles and mechanisms it might contain. (shrink)

W artykule przedstawiamy model ironii komunikacyjnej sformułowany w ramach teorii aktów mowy. Twierdzimy, że akty ironii werbalnej stanowią szczególne przypadki zjawisk, które John L. Austin określał mianem etiolacji językowej. Po omó- wieniu pojęcia ironii komunikacyjnej rozumianego w duchu Mitchella S. Greena modelu komunikacji ekspresywnej, proponujemy rozwinięcie Austinowskiej idei etiolacji i pokazujemy, jak przypadki etiolacyjnego zastosowania języka pasożytują na mechanizmach jego poważnych lub zwykłych zastosowań. W szczególności argumentujemy, że przywołanie echem oraz jawne udawanie są dwoma technikami etiolacji, które umożliwiają nadawcy ekspresję (...) negatywnego nastawiania do kontekstowo dostępnych reprezentacji mentalnych lub językowych. Pokazujemy też, że proponowany model pozawala na wyjaśnienie werbalnych form ironii komunikacyjnej. (shrink)

In the article we present a model of communicative irony formulated within the framework of speech act theory. We claim that acts of verbal irony are special cases of phenomena that John L. Austin referred to as “etiolations of language”. After discussing the concept of communicative irony understood in the spirit of Mitchell S. Green’s expressive communication model, we propose to develop the Austinian idea of etiolation and show how cases of etiolative use of language parasitize the mechanisms of its (...) serious or ordinary applications. In particular, we argue that echoing and overt pretence are two etiolation techniques that allow the sender to express a negative attitude towards contextually available mental or linguistic representations. We also show that the proposed model allows the explanation of verbal forms of communicative irony. (shrink)

Abstract: One oft-cited feature of speech acts is their expressive character: Assertion expresses belief, apology regret, promise intention. Yet expression, or at least sincere expression, is as I argue a form of showing: A sincere expression shows whatever is the state that is the sincerity condition of the expressive act. How, then, can a speech act show a speaker's state of thought or feeling? To answer this question I consider three varieties of showing, and argue that only one of them (...) is suited to help us answer our question. I also argue that concepts from the evolutionary biology of communication provide one source of insight into how speech acts enable one to show, and thereby express, a psychological state. (shrink)

Arbitrariness is a distinctive feature of human language, and a growing body of comparative work is investigating its presence in animal communication. But what is arbitrariness, exactly? We propose to distinguish four notions of semiotic arbitrariness: a notion of opaque association between sign forms and semiotic functions, one of sign‐function mapping optionality, one of acquisition‐dependent sign‐function coupling, and one of lack of motivatedness. We characterize these notions, illustrate the benefits of keeping them apart, and describe two reactions to our proposal: (...) abandoning arbitrariness‐talk in favor of the newly introduced conceptual vocabulary, or feeding the distinctions back into the parent concept. (shrink)

Arbitrariness is a distinctive feature of human language, and a growing body of comparative work is investigating its presence in animal communication. But what is arbitrariness, exactly? We propose to distinguish four notions of semiotic arbitrariness: a notion of opaque association between sign forms and semiotic functions, one of sign-function mapping optionality, one of acquisition-dependent sign-function coupling, and one of lack of motivatedness. We characterize these notions, illustrate the benefits of keeping them apart, and describe two reactions to our proposal: (...) abandoning arbitrariness-talk in favor of the newly introduced conceptual vocabulary, or feeding the distinctions back into the parent concept. (shrink)

Tomasello and colleagues have offered various arguments to explain why apes find the comprehension of pointing difficult. They have argued that: (i) apes fail to understand communicative intentions; (ii) they fail to understand informative, cooperative communication, and (iii) they fail to track the common ground that pointing comprehension requires. In the course of a review of the literature on apes' production and comprehension of pointing, I reject (i) and (ii), and offer a qualified defence of (iii). Drawing on work on (...) expressive communication, I sketch an account of a mechanism by which ape gestural communication may proceed: the showing of expressive and naturally meaningful embodied behaviours. Such gestures are easily interpretable because they present rich evidence for a speaker's message. By contrast, pointing typically provides poor evidence for a speaker’s message, which must therefore be inferred from considerations in the interlocutors' common ground. This makes pointing comprehension comparatively difficult. (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to cast doubt on an idea that is shared, explicitly or implicitly, by most contemporary pragmatic theories: that the inferential interpretation procedure described by Grice, neo-Griceans, or post-Griceans applies only to the interpretation of ostensive stimuli. For this special issue, I will concentrate on the relevance theory (RT) version of this idea. I will proceed by putting forward a dilemma for RT and argue that the best way out of it is to accept that (...) the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure ap- plies to certain non-ostensive stimuli, contrary to what is generally claimed within RT. In particular, I will argue that relevance theorists should accept that (ceteris paribus) non- ostensive emotional expressions in interactions guarantee a presumption of relevance such that they are interpreted through the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure. This leads me to propose what I call 'the expressive principle of relevance'. (shrink)

The main hypothesis of the article is that there has been an attitude change in the field of pragmatics: the philosophical notion of intentionality has penetrated in a cognitive approach. The first aim is to argue for this attitude change via analyzing classical pragmatical writings (works of J. R. Searle and H. P. Grice) and the relevance- theoretical approach of D. Sperber and D. Wilson. The second aim is to argue for the legitimacy of the attitude change by presenting a (...) new direction of research within the field of cognitive pragmatics. The author summarizes Dan Sperber's metarepresentations-first hypo-thesis about the evolution of ostensive-inferential communication, identifies its implicit presuppositions and analyzes its implications for evolutionary psychology and other related disciplines. The conclusions are the following: (1) the philosophical notion of intentionality play an important role in cognitive pragmatics as well (i.e. it uses the Gricean concept of non-natural meaning, and the Searleian distinction of first- and second-order intentionality), (2) the attitude change has enriched the notion of intentionality, (3) this enrichment makes new research directions possible in the field of pragmatics. (shrink)