 Copyright 2004 Digital Enterprise Research Institute. All rights reserved. 1 Speech Acts and Communication Lars Ludwig

2 Speech acts Origin and reception: -Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl) -Jurisprudence (Adolf Reinach) -Psycholinguistics (Karl Bühler) -Ordinary language philosophy, hermeneutics (Ludwig Wittgenstein, John L. Austin*, John Searle, Kent Bach, Jürgen Habermas) -Information Technology (Terry Winograd) * How to Do Things With Words (Austin, 1961)

3 Components of a Speech Act Speech Act = illocutionary function(proposition) -Locutionary act (what we say – say something) -Lexical meaning, utterance -Illocutionary act (what we mean when we say it – act in saying something) -Intended meaning, intention, attitude -Perlocutionary act (what we (think we) do by saying it – act by saying something) -Effect of saying something; what we think we will accomplish by saying something; purpose -The perlocutionary act is essentially a matter of trying to get the hearer to form some correlative attitude and action -Layers of higher order attitude / intention

4 Dimensions of speech acts? -Locutionary act 1.„It is cold here.“ 2.„Close the door!“ 3.„Yes!“ -Illocutionary act 1.„I feel cold in office!“ OR „I feel cold alone“ 2.„Close the door right now!“ OR „Close the door when you come back from the shower“ 3.„Yes, I want to be maried to …!“ OR „It is better for me.“ -Perlocutionary act 1.I want you to close the window OR I want you to hug me 2.I don‘t want to be seen with him/her OR I want nobody to listen 3.I give official permission to be pronounced as being maried OR I want to convince myself of getting maried

5 Pragmatics and Semantics The theory of speech acts underscores the importance of the distinction between language use and linguistic meaning (pragmatics versus semantics)

6 Meaning extensions in speech acts -„implicature” is used for what a speaker means but does not say -„implicating“ is stating or meaning one thing and meaning something else as well, not meaning something else instead -Furthermore, the speaker‘s meaning can be an expansion or completion of what she said

7 Meaning extension in speech acts A speech act can fail for many reasons -Any purely indicative statement is a weak performance of a speech act as it does not explicit it's attitude/intention directly (role of intonation, gestures and facial expressions in spoken language) -In written language, illocutionary indicators are often only found in the context of indicative sentences („I strongly believe in it!“, „And that is how she feels about it!“) -Often, we will understand the intented meaning and purpose of speech acts only by situational, cultural, and habitual knowledge, or knowledge about the speaker -Speech acts have specific preconditions (e.g., understanding the language, understanding what is said, understanding the intention, motivational state of mind (in question/answer) willingness to answer, socio-economic pre-conditions (being president to declare war, being in the position to sign a contract), etc.

8 What is meant by illocutionary force/point? illocutionary force*  a type of intention 1.Assertive/constative speech act (tell about one’s/the world) -statement that may be judged true or false 2.Commisive speech act (adapt the world by doing) -statement which commits the speaker to a course of action as described by the propositional content 3.Declarative speech act (adapt the world by saying) -statements that attempt to change the world by representing it as having been changed 4.Expressive speech act (show one's inner feelings) -statements that express the sincerity condition of the speech act 5.Directive speech act (let others adapt the word) * Speech Acts (Searle, 1969)

9 Examples of illocutionary forces/points? 1.Assertive speech act (tell about the world) -“Peter is tall”, “The world is flat”, “The beer is cold” 2.Commisive speech act (adapt the world by deeds) -“I invite you to come”, “I promise you to go for a walk” 3.Declarative speech act (adapt the world by speech) -“I pronounce you as man and wife” 4.Expressive speech act (show one's inner feelings) -“I feel good”, “I am hungry“ 5.Directive speech act (let others adapt the word) -“I beg you to answer the phone.”

10 What is communication in speech act philosophy? - If the auditor understands our intended illocutionary point (illocutionary force) in its relation to the propositional content, we can be said to have communicated. -An utterance can succeed as an act of communication even if the speaker does not possess the attitude he is expressing: communication is one thing, sincerity another.

11 Some philosophical concerns! -False dualism: Is there really a difference between indicative and intentional statements? [counter-argument: factual statements are mere illusion, objectivism is untenable (Maturana)] -False categories: Is there really something like intentional force/point? [counter-argument: most speech acts are non- intentional, conditional/conditioned actions – action- accompanying talking instead of talking accompanied by actions]

12 Some philosophical concerns! -Falsely presupposing meaning: Does intention/meaning mean that we actually/consciously mean [counter- argument: meaning is talking about meaning, speech is speaking (Wittgenstein)] -False focus: Focus on those who speak [counter- argument: a) communication is founded in the act of understanding, not in the speech act; b) speech acts are part of interactions, speech act is a non-appropriate isolation of communication part-acts]

13 Are there neglected dimensions of speech acts? -Higher array intentions, attitudes, motives (layered goals, plans) -Impulses / motivational forces (sexuality, anxiety etc.) -Unintentional speech; speech as happening, unplanned, not acting (see Freudian slip)

14 Why speech acts then? -Restriction to assertoric/inidcative/factual sentences in rationalism/logics (can have true and false values) -Restriction to objectivistic ontologies (characteristic: thing class as root class) -Ignorance of speech / communication (knowledge bases) Quintessence: „Saying something is one thing, stating or otherwise meaning it is another“ (J. L. Austin)

15 Question Why are speech acts important for the Semantic Web?

16 Some ideas Information: -Need for formalizing pragmatics -Explication of personal motivational structures (person-centred, AM) -Explication of intention (interaction-centred, AM) -Explication of interpretation -Explication of (legal, moral, factual) effects -Associating information to intentions (intention channels, intention information flows) Processing: -Motivational and intentional reasoning (multi-valued instead of two-valued, hypothetical instead of factual) -Motivational clarification, hypothetical modus: role playing -Formalized communication -Flexible intentional matching (not restricted to network nodes, specialized websites (as now)) -Semi-automatic communication!!! -Offering interaction schemes, communication patterns -Communication failure analysis -… (just rethink about the whole semantic web idea)