Linguistic Accommodation

Accommodation is the process whereby a listener makes adjustments in response to behavior of the speaker. In the area of linguistics we might broadly label as theoretical pragmatics, within which we include much of formal semantics and philosophy of language, accommodation is the mechanism whereby hearers modify their representation of the conversational background so as to match assumptions that the speaker has made. The most pervasive type of accommodation involves presupposition, when a speaker takes some type of information for granted. Accommodation of presuppositions occurs when the listener adjusts their knowledge state in order to match the information that a speaker has presupposed. For example, if a speaker says, “I have to go pick up my sister from the airport,” there is a presupposition triggered that the speaker has a sister. If the listener is not already aware of the existence of the sister, they must accommodate this information by adjusting their information state accordingly. Two dominant approaches to modeling presupposition behavior have emerged in the past few decades, resulting in two broad understandings of accommodation. For a class of dynamic semantic theories, accommodation is a process that involves satisfaction in local contexts. On the other hand, a wave of research on presupposition as anaphora relies on a notion of accommodation as the creation of antecedents to enable anaphoric resolution that would otherwise fail. Within both understandings of accommodation, the particular mechanisms can also vary. Some accounts weigh the plausibility of material to be accommodated, some accounts weigh the alternative contexts within which material might be accommodated, and some weigh the amount of descriptive content contributed by the presupposition. Besides accommodation in theoretical pragmatics, a broader notion of accommodation is prominent in sociolinguistics, as well as further afield from linguistics in social psychology and anthropology. This notion includes not only the beliefs of the interlocutors, but also many other aspects of speech style and communicative behavior more generally. This literature primarily draws from communication accommodation theory (CAT), according to which a speaker adjusts their communicative behavior based on that of their interlocuter. Commonly, this adjustment involves mirroring, but interlocutors may also adjust to make differences salient rather than emphasizing similarity. While theoretical pragmatic and sociolinguistic accommodation are distinct notions with independent intellectual histories, presupposition accommodation can be seen as a special case of sociolinguistic accommodation. Both involve a hearer’s adjustment in response to a speaker. However, the former is more restrictive, concerning only adjustment to increase similarity, and only adjustment of aspects of what Lewis termed the conversational scoreboard, within which he includes the beliefs of the speaker and hearer.

The language of suppression: Muslims, migrant workers, and India's response to COVID-19

When a society faces a moment of crisis, its language can mirror, expose, and reinforce societal chaos and fault lines. As India came to terms with COVID-19, the coronavirus’ impacts on different populations exposed and widened India's deep social, economic, and religious divides. This article studies the language of India's response to COVID-19 surrounding three major events that occurred in the early months of the pandemic: the janta curfew, the Tablighi Jamaat incident, and the migrant worker crisis. Through an analysis of media reports, speeches made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and representations on social media, we see how forms of linguistic trickery—silence, presuppositions, accommodations, othering, dog whistling, and povertyism—were used to suppress, harm, and marginalize two minority groups: Muslims and migrant workers. This article demonstrates how those in power use language to reflect, shape, and reinforce meaning, social hierarchies, and marginalization in a time of crisis. (Linguistic trickery, othering, silence, presupposition, accommodation, dog whistling, povertyism)

Fiction and importation

Importation in fictional discourse is the phenomenon by which audiences include information in the story over and above what is explicitly stated by the narrator. This paper argues that importation is distinct from generation, the phenomenon by which truth in fiction may outstrip what is made explicit, and draws a distinction between fictional truth and fictional records. The latter comprises the audience’s picture of what is true according to the narrator. The paper argues that importation into fictional records operates according to principles that also govern ordinary conversation. An account of fictional records as a species of common ground information is proposed. Two sources of importation are described in detail, presupposition accommodation and conversational implicatures. It is shown that presuppositions are both mandatorily imported and mandatorily generated. By contrast, conversational implicatures are neither mandatorily imported nor mandatorily generated. The paper distinguishes conversational implicatures from contextual inferences. Both rely on background assumptions, yet conversational implicatures moreover depend on assumptions concerning Gricean cooperation.

Conversational Disgust and Social Oppression

In recent years, philosophers have begun to uncover the role played by verbal conduct in generating oppressive social structures. I examine the oppressive illocutionary uses, and perlocutionary effects, of expressives: speech acts that are not truth-apt, merely expressing attitudes, such as desires, preferences, and emotions. Focusing on expressions of disgust in conversation, I argue for two claims: (1) that expressions of disgust can activate in the local, conversational context the oppressive power of the underlying structures of oppression; (2) that conversational expressions of disgust can, via the pragmatic process of presupposition accommodation, contribute to morally problematic cases of disgust contagion.

The main types of mental information processing: a systematic structural method

The article describes the main types of mental information processing in the context of a systematic structural method. The author analyses the semantic theories of information. The author reviews the mechanisms of information processing and its qualitative properties. The article describes the mechanism of textual presupposition accommodation.

Pre-emptive interaction in language change and ontogeny: the case of [there is no NP]

This study is centred on the pre-emptive dimension of interactional exchanges. Dialogues are not merely characterised by information transmission, they are also constantly informed by pre-emptive attempts to address potential reactions to what is being said. We argue that pre-emptive interaction intersects with intersubjectivity (i.a. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 2003. From subjectification to intersubjectification. In R. Hickey (ed.), Motives for language change, 124–139. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Schwenter, Scott A. & Richard Waltereit. 2010. Presupposition accommodation and language change. In K. Davidse & L. Vandelanotte (eds.), Subjectification, intersubjectification and grammaticalization, 75–102. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton; Tantucci, Vittorio. 2017a. From immediate to extended intersubjectification: A gradient approach to intersubjective awareness and semasiological change. Language and Cognition 9(1). 88–120; Tantucci, Vittorio. 2020. From co-actionality to extended intersubjectivity: Drawing on language change and ontogenetic development. Applied Linguistics 41(2). 185–214) and constitutes an important trigger of semantic-pragmatic reanalysis and constructional change. We provide a corpus-based study centred on the change of the [there is no NP] construction in Early Modern English dialogic interaction. During 16th century, the chunk is originally used in assertions, however it then progressively acquires a new function of pre-emptive refusal. Something similar is at stake throughout the child’s ontogeny. We provide corpus-based data from the CHILDES database of first language acquisition to show that children’s ability to use [there is no NP] to address potential reactions to what is being said occurs only around the fourth year of age, that is when a Theory of Mind (ToM) starts to become fully developed (i.a. Apperly, Ian. 2010. Mindreaders: The cognitive basis of theory of mind. New York: Psychology Press; Wellman, Henry M. 2014. Making minds: How theory of mind develops. Oxford: Oxford University Press). Pre-emptive interaction correlates diachronically and ontogentically with ToM and underpins a projected turn taking of a specific or generic interlocutor as a result of what is being currently said.