Université Libre de Bruxelles (Ladisco), F.R.S.-FNRS Nicolas Ruytenbeek Mikhail Kissine Université Libre de Bruxelles (Ladisco), F.R.S.-FNRS Illocutionary forces and sentence-types: Contradictory experimental evidence?

Introduction Sentence-types and illocutionary forces: two opposite views Literalism: sentence-types encode illocutionary forces Vs. contextualism Empirical issue General issue: how do interpreters assign IF to utterances? Working assumption: illocutionary forces play a role in utterance comprehension Contextualism Literalism Experiments on indirect SAs (Clark, Gibbs) Experiments on SA activation (Holtgraves)

Literalism Speech Act Theory (SAT) Illocutionary force determined by sentence’s morpho- syntactic structure (Searle 1979, Vanderveken 1990) Sentence-types Imperatives  directive force Declaratives  assertive force Interrogatives  asking questions Illocutionary force indicators (ONE SUCH INDICATOR = Sentence-type)

Literalism Major problems of literalism Typological Theoretical Interrogative vs. imperative sentence-types Theoretical Sentence meaning / illocutionary force Rational reconstructions very implausible Empirical Literal force of interrogatives = subset of literal force of imperatives BUT interrogative sentence-types are NOT subset of imperative sentence-types

Contextualism Some varieties of contextualism… Relevance Theory (Wilson & Sperber 1988) Sentence-types encode attitudes (potentiality, desirability) Cognitive Linguistics (Pérez & Ruiz 2002, Pérez 2013) Sentences get illocutionary force if part of illocutionary scenarios Jary & Kissine (2014) A sentence-type encodes a bundle of semantic features FOR RT, Major sentence-types in English hardly identifiable

Experimental data (1): Gibbs Empirical evidence against literalism Sentence meaningfulness task (Gibbs 1983) Context Rod was talking with his psychiatrist. He was having lots of problems in establishing relationships. “Everyone I meet I seem to alienate,” Rod said. “I just turn very hostile for no reason,” he continued. Target remark The shrink said, “Can’t you be friendly?” Probe sentence (literal paraphrase) Are you unable to act friendly?

Experimental data (1): Gibbs ‘Indirect’ context Context Mrs. Norman was watching her kids play in the backyard. One of the neighbor’s children had come over to play. But Mrs. Norman’s kids refused to share their toys. This upset Mrs. Norman. Target remark She angrily walked outside and said to one of her children, “Can’t you be friendly?” Probe sentence (indirect paraphrase) Please be friendly to other people.

Experimental data (1): Gibbs Results Reading times: indirect remarks < literal remarks Judgments times: indirect paraphrases < literal paraphrases in both contexts Suggest that indirect request interpretation does not always entail deriving literal SA Evidence against literalism

Experimental data (2): Holtgraves Empirical evidence for literalism? Lexical decision task (Holtgraves 2008, exp. 2) Context Jane is late for class and doesn’t have a watch. She needs to know the time. So she approaches someone and says to them: Target remark Jane: “What time is it?” Probe word Ask

Experimental data (2): Holtgraves Control version Context Jane is late for class and doesn’t have a watch. She needs to know if she has time to get a soda. But her friend Nancy says to her: Target remark Nancy: “It’s time for class.” Probe word Ask

Experimental data (2): Holtgraves Holtgraves’ design Target remarks and SA probes I swear I will… (promise) vs. I swear I was… Don’t forget to… (reminder) vs. I’ll bet you forgot to… The bank must pay for the fee (demand) vs. I’m so happy the bank will pay for the fee Results Stronger priming effect for ‘compatible’ remarks and with very short inter-stimulus interval

Experimental data (2): Holtgraves Replication of Holtgraves (2008, exp. 2) Without any context preceding the target remark Found similar differences in priming effects Context / Target sentence Nancy: “What time is it?” Probe word Ask

Experimental data (2): Holtgraves Holtgraves’ experiments: critical discussion Stronger priming effect in ‘compatible’ condition Primes semantically related to illocutionary force: Don’t forget to, I swear I will, … Processing correlates of standardized utterances? Evidence for weak literalism Priming expected for generic illocutionary forces?

Experimental data (2): Holtgraves Inference: lexical priming  “automatic” SA activation Unwarranted: priming could be just a corollary of processing Alternative explanation: SA probes reach higher activation because prototypical uses of target remarks Conclusion: No evidence that SA representation is necessary

Experimental data (3) Personal contribution: follow-up study Investigating generic SAs & major sentence-types Experimental design (French material) Lexical decision task and trials // Holtgraves (2008) BUT sentences not biased towards a specific SA ‘Compatible’ condition: question (interrogative), inform (declarative), command (imperative) 1) That is, investigating STRONG LITERALISM

Experimental data (3) Results of pilot experiments Discussion Absence of significant differences in priming effects between the ‘compatible’ vs. ‘incompatible’ conditions Discussion Evidence against systematic SA activation (strong literalism) BUT difficult to conclude anything from null results

Conclusions Contextualism Literalism Experiments on “indirect speech acts” Holtgraves’ experiments Literalism

Many thanks for your attention !

References Gibbs, R. W. (1983). Do people always process the literal meanings of indirect requests? Journal of experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 9 (3): 524-533. Holtgraves, T. R. (2008). Automatic intention recognition in conversation processing. Journal of Memory and Language 58: 627–645. Holtgraves, T. R., & Ashley, A. (2001). Comprehending illocutionary force. Memory & Cognition 29 (1): 83–90. Jary, M. & Kissine, M. (2014). Imperatives. Cambridge: CUP. Pérez Hernández, L. (2013). Illocutionary constructions: (Multiple source)-in-target metonymies, illocutionary ICMs, and specification links. Language and Communication, 33 (2), 128-149. Pérez Hernández, L., & Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J. (2003). Cognitive operations and pragmatic implications. In K.-U. Panther & L. Thornburg (Eds.), Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing (pp. 23-49). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

References Ruytenbeek, N. (forthcoming). The comprehension of indirect requests: Previous work and future directions. Depraetere, I. & Salkie, R. Semantics and Pragmatics. Drawing a line. Amsterdam: Springer. Searle, J. R. (1975). Indirect Speech Acts. Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press, 59-82. Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: CUP. Vanderveken, D. (1990). Meaning and Speech Acts. Cambridge: CUP. Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (1988). Mood and the analysis of non-declarative sentences. In J. Dancy & J. Moravcsik & C. Taylor (Eds.), Human agency: Language, duty and value. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 77-101.