Comprehending implied meaning

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-162
Author(s):  
Ayşenur Sağdıç
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
Length Of Residence ◽  
Pragmatic Development ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Implied Meaning

Abstract This study investigated the extent to which proficiency, length of residence, and intensity of interaction in a target language affect L2 learners’ pragmatic ability in comprehending conversational implicature and indirect speech acts. 68 participants, 38 L1 English and 30 L2 English users, completed two measures: a pragmatic listening test measuring implied meaning comprehension and a language contact profile survey identifying length of residence and intensity of L2 interaction. The standard multiple regression analysis revealed a significant relationship between implied meaning comprehension and learners’ proficiency, length of residence, and intensity of interaction. Together, these factors explained a significant amount of the variance in learners’ overall comprehension ability, with proficiency being the strongest predictor, followed by intensity of interaction, then length of residence. Findings also showed that while it was more challenging for the less proficient learners to comprehend conversational implicature than indirect speech acts, there was no significant difference between the two types for the higher proficiency group. Further analysis of the L2 interaction types indicated a significant, moderate relationship between the time spent speaking and learners’ implied meaning comprehension. These findings offer pedagogical and methodological implications for L2 pragmatic development.

Assertion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell S. Green
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts

Assertion is here approached as a social practice developed through cultural evolution. This perspective will facilitate inquiry into questions concerning what role assertion plays in communicative life, what norms it is subject to, and whether every viable linguistic community must have a practice of assertion. The author’s evolutionary perspective will further enable us to ask how assertion relates to other communicative practices such as conversational implicature, indirect speech acts, presupposition, and, more broadly, the kinematics of conversation. It will also motivate a resolution of debates between conventionalist and intentionalist approaches to this speech act by explaining how those who make assertions can embody their intentions to perform an act of a certain kind. The chapter closes with a discussion of how assertoric practice can be compromised by patterns of malfeasance on the part of a speaker and by injustice within her milieu.

Jordanian graduate students’ complaints on Facebook: Semantic formulas and politeness

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-165
Author(s):  
Fathi Migdadi ◽  
Muhammad A. Badarneh ◽  
Laila Khwaylih
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Student Union ◽  
Closed Group ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Face Saving

Abstract This study examines Jordanian graduate students' complaints posted on a Facebook closed group and directed to the representatives of Student Union at Jordan University of Science and Technology to be transferred to the officials concerned. In line with Boxer (1993b), the study considers the students' complaints to be indirect speech acts, as the addressee(s) are not the source of the offense. Using a sample of 60 institutional complaining posts, the researchers have analysed the complaints in terms of their semantic formulas, politeness functions and correlations with the gender of the complainers. The students’ complaints are classified into six semantic formulas of which the act statement element is indispensable as the complaint is stated in it. The other five formulas, ordered according to their frequency, are opener, remedy, appreciative closing, justification and others. Despite the negative affect typically involved in the complaining act, the semantic formulas identified in this study are found to signal politeness and fit into Brown and Levinson’s (1987) pool of face-saving strategies rather than face-threatening acts. Specifically, when the graduate students direct their Facebook complaints to the students' representatives, they tend to offer camaraderie with them to be encouraged to pursue the problems specified in the complainers’ posts.

Conversational sequences and preference for indirect speech acts

1988 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond W. Gibbs ◽  
Rachel A. G. Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Conversational Sequences

scholarly journals PRAGMATIC TRANSPOSITIONS OF INTERROGATIVE STATEMENTS IN EVERYDAY COMMUNICATION

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Т.В. Нестерова
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Comparative Aspect ◽  
Expression Of Emotions ◽  
Lexical Composition ◽  
Everyday Communication

В статье описаны контекстуально-ситуативные косвенные речевые акты, имеющие форму вопроса, но реализующие другие коммуникативные интенции – сообщение, согласие, побуждение, выражение эмоций. Речь идет о высказываниях с одинаковым синтаксическим строением и лексическим составом (омонимия высказываний разных коммуникативных типов), в которых наиболее ярко проявляются различительные свойства интонации. Механизмом порождения этих речевых актов является прагматическая транспозиция. The article describes contextual-situational indirect speech acts in the form of a question, but realizing other communicative intentions – message, consent, motivation, expression of emotions. We are talking about statements with the same syntactic structure and lexical composition (homonymy of statements of different communicative types), in which the distinctive properties of intonation are most clearly manifested. The mechanism for generating these speech acts is pragmatic transposition. The materials of the article can be used both for further theoretical studies of transposed speech acts (including in a comparative aspect), and for the creation of communicatively oriented textbooks on Russian as a foreign language.

scholarly journals Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali W.Lafi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts

Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

scholarly journals Dempster-Shafer Theoretic Learning of Indirect Speech Act Comprehension Norms

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (06) ◽  
pp. 10410-10417
Author(s):  
Ruchen Wen ◽  
Mohammed Aun Siddiqui ◽  
Tom Williams
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Rule Learning ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Robot Teams ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Indirect Speech Act

For robots to successfully operate as members of human-robot teams, it is crucial for robots to correctly understand the intentions of their human teammates. This task is particularly difficult due to human sociocultural norms: for reasons of social courtesy (e.g., politeness), people rarely express their intentions directly, instead typically employing polite utterance forms such as Indirect Speech Acts (ISAs). It is thus critical for robots to be capable of inferring the intentions behind their teammates' utterances based on both their interaction context (including, e.g., social roles) and their knowledge of the sociocultural norms that are applicable within that context. This work builds off of previous research on understanding and generation of ISAs using Dempster-Shafer Theoretic Uncertain Logic, by showing how other recent work in Dempster-Shafer Theoretic rule learning can be used to learn appropriate uncertainty intervals for robots' representations of sociocultural politeness norms.

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