Journal ArticleDOI
Indirect Speech Acts
Nicholas Asher,Alex Lascarides +1 more
TLDR
It is shown how a formal semantictheory of discourse interpretation can be used to define speech acts and to avoid murky issues concerning the metaphysics of action.Abstract:
In this paper, we address several puzzles concerning speech acts,particularly indirect speech acts. We show how a formal semantictheory of discourse interpretation can be used to define speech actsand to avoid murky issues concerning the metaphysics of action. Weprovide a formally precise definition of indirect speech acts, includingthe subclass of so-called conventionalized indirect speech acts. Thisanalysis draws heavily on parallels between phenomena at the speechact level and the lexical level. First, we argue that, just as co-predicationshows that some words can behave linguistically as if they're `simultaneously'of incompatible semantic types, certain speech acts behave this way too.Secondly, as Horn and Bayer (1984) and others have suggested, both thelexicon and speech acts are subject to a principle of blocking or ``preemptionby synonymy'': Conventionalized indirect speech acts can block their`paraphrases' from being interpreted as indirect speech acts, even ifthis interpretation is calculable from Gricean-style principles. Weprovide a formal model of this blocking, and compare it withexisting accounts of lexical blocking.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Singapore English: A semantic and cultural perspective
TL;DR: This article examined some aspects of Singapore English, raising questions about Singaporean culture and national identity, and more generally about the nature of links between language and culture in a multilingual, heterogeneous, and rapidly changing society.
Journal ArticleDOI
Identifying action: Laughter in non-humorous reported speech
TL;DR: The authors examines the construction of a single action in interaction by means of one of its characteristic features: laughter, and finds that laughter plays a pivotal role in the constructions of this particular action; furthermore, there is striking evidence pointing to the fine calibration of the production of laughter.
Journal ArticleDOI
Investigating iraqi efl learners’ use of the speech act of agreement
Abstract: This study investigates Iraqi EFL university learners’ use of the speech act of agreement at the pragmatic level. Additionally, the present study analyzes the productive level of the learners’ use of agreement.The study basically aims at analysing the speech act of agreement at the pragmatic level. It also aims at investigating the most common strategies used by Iraqi EFL learners to issue communicative acts of agreement at the productive level.The study hypothesizes that (1) the students’ performance of the direct strategies for showing agreement is better than the indirect onesat the productive level, and (2) the students’ performance of the explicit performative strategies for showing agreement is better than the implicit ones. To achieve the aims of the study and verify or refute its hypotheses, a sample of twenty Iraqi EFL learners from fourth year-stage in the Department of English Language, College of Education, University of Al-Qadisiya during the academic year (2014-2015) is randomly chosen to answer a questionnaire which consists of twenty different interactional situations requiring from the subjects to respond with agreement. The study verifies the hypotheses and yields that (1) a percentage of (92%) goes to the direct strategies for showing agreement ,whereas (8%) goes to the indirect ones, (2) a percentage of (67%) goes to the learners’ use of explicit performatives for showing agreement ,whereas only (33%) goes to the learners’ use of the implicit ones. So, the study concludes the poor use of indirect strategies and implicit performativesfor showing agreement compared to the direct strategies and the explicit performatives by the Iraqi EFL learners.
Journal ArticleDOI
Interaction Rescaled: How Monastic Debate Became a Diasporic Pedagogy
TL;DR: The authors examines scale as an emergent dimension of sociospatial practice in educational institutions and describes how this educational practice has been placed as a rite of institution within the perimeter of Sera Monastery in India and rescaled into a more expansive diasporic pedagogy by reformers like the Dalai Lama.
Journal Article
Compliments in English and Persian interaction: A cross-cultural perspective
Amin Karimnia,Akbar Afghari +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the politeness of native Persian speakers and native speakers of American English to see if it can provide evidence for applicability of Brown and Levinson's universal politeness model.
References
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Book
How to do things with words
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented a series of lectures with the following topics: Lecture I * Lecture II* Lecture III * Lectures IV* Lectures V * LectURE VI * LectURES VI * LII * LIII * LIV * LVI * LIX
Book ChapterDOI
Logic and Conversation
TL;DR: For instance, Grice was interested in Quine's logical approach to language, although he differed from Quine over certain specific specific questions, such as the viability of the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements.
Book
Head-driven phrase structure grammar
Ivan A. Sag,Carl Jesse Pollard +1 more
TL;DR: This book presents the most complete exposition of the theory of head-driven phrase structure grammar, introduced in the authors' "Information-Based Syntax and Semantics," and demonstrates the applicability of the HPSG approach to a wide range of empirical problems.