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

2. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 15 Question Why are speech acts important for the Semantic Web?

16. 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)