Showing papers by "Laurie A. Stowe published in 2010"

Gricean brainwaves: Brain responses to pragmatic violations in dialogues

Abstract: Gricean Brainwaves: Brain Responses to Pragmatic Violations in Dialogues John C. J. Hoeks (j.c.j.hoeks@rug.nl) Center for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, PO Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. Petra Hendriks (p.hendriks@rug.nl) Center for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, PO Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. Gisela Redeker (g.redeker@rug.nl) Center for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, PO Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. Laurie A. Stowe (l.a.stowe@rug.nl) Center for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, PO Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. Abstract During conversation, speakers and listeners act on certain basic assumptions, which enable them to communicate swiftly and seemingly effortlessly (Grice, 1975). The speaker, for instance, is supposed to say no more, but also no less than is necessary in a given conversational context (Maxim of Quantity). The present study looks at how language users react when this pragmatic assumption is violated. Participants were presented with written mini-dialogues while their ERPs (Event-Related brain Potentials) were measured. Dialogues in the violation condition, where the answer did not meet the quantity requirements, differed from control dialogues in three different time-windows, time-locked to the presentation of a critical word. Violating the Maxim of Quantity was signalled immediately and gave rise to effortful processing at different levels of representation. default set of assumptions - specifically the listeners’ assumptions about the speaker - of which all participants in a communicative situation are aware (Horn, 2004). Grice’s Maxim of Quantity, for example, describes how a listener expects the speaker to say no more, but also no less than necessary in a given conversational context. In the present experiment we will investigate what happens when the speaker does not comply to this conversational rule. Consider, for instance, the mini-dialogue in (2). There, the actions of two persons, John and Peter, are under discussion, and the answer provides all the information that is needed about these two protagonists, unlike dialogue (3). 2. Question: What did John and Peter do? Answer: John kissed Annet and Peter kissed Hank. 3. Question: What did John and Peter do? Answer: John kissed Annet and Peter on the cheek. Keywords: Psycholinguistics; Gricean Maxims, Implicature, Coordination, Pragmatics, Topic Structure, ERP. Introduction When taking part in a conversation, speaker and listener act upon specific assumptions about shared and private knowledge, and about the informativeness of the utterances that are exchanged. Grice (1975) formulated a framework in which these conversational assumptions are realized as four maxims: 1 a. Quality: Be truthful b. Quantity: Be as informative as required c. Relation: Be relevant d. Manner: Be clear It is sometimes thought that the maxims are a kind of overly detailed puritan recipe for successful conversation. Indeed, Horn (2004) quotes a contemporary linguist exclaiming: “Would we want to have dinner with such a person, such an impeccably polite maxim observer?”. A more fruitful approach, however, is to view these maxims as identifying a It is obvious that crucial information is missing, namely an answer to the partial question “What did Peter do?” By withholding this information, the speaker is violating the Maxim of Quantity. There are different ways in which one can violate the Maxim of Quantity. For instance, someone can answer the question about how many children she has, with “two”, when in fact she has three, or incorrectly say that the water is “not cold”, while it is piping hot. These are called scalar implicatures, as they involve the computation of the intended meaning (i.e., what is implicated) from a semantic hierarchy or scale (e.g., cold - warm - hot). In another situation, a speaker wanting to refer to a specific object should refrain from giving too much or too little information describing it. For instance, Engelhardt, Bailey, & Ferreira (2006) present eye-tracking evidence suggesting that listeners are acutely sensitive to overdescription, even though they are not consciously aware of any processing problems. The example that we are looking at in (3), however, takes place at a different level, and is closely related to the