From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Mon Feb 5 05:17:45 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 22:17:45 -0700 Subject: Filipino/Tagalog Position at UCLA Message-ID: The Program in South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA seeks applicants for a full-time lecturer position in Filipino/Tagalog for the academic year 2001-2002 with possibility of renewal (pending budgetary approval). The lecturer will be responsible for first and second year instruction in Filipino/Tagalog. Applications are invited from qualified individuals. Candidates with native or near-native fluency in the target language, advanced degrees, some background in Linguistics, and previous experience in teaching Tagalog to both heritage and non-heritage students, are preferred. Review of candidates will begin March 1, 2001. Applications should include a letter of interest, CV, and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be sent to: Shoichi Iwasaki, Director of South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures Program, c/o Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 290 Royce Hall, Box 951540, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540. UCLA is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. AA/EOE. From bls at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU Tue Feb 6 19:34:31 2001 From: bls at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (Andrew Simpson) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:34:31 -0800 Subject: BLS 27 Announcement Message-ID: The 27th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society Friday, February 16 - Sunday, February 18, 2001 Berkeley, California **************************************************** INVITED SPEAKERS - Parasession on LANGUAGE & GESTURE **************************************************** SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 'The Two Faces of Gesture' SCOTT LIDDELL, GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY 'Grammar and Gesture in American Sign Language: implications for constructing meaning' SUSAN DUNCAN, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 'Perspectives on the co-expressivity of speech and co-speech gestures in three languages' **************************************************** INVITED SPEAKERS - General Session **************************************************** LEONARD TALMY, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, BUFFALO 'The Representation of Spatial Structure in Spoken vs. Signed Languages' ELISABETH SELKIRK, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST TBA SARAH THOMASON, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 'Pronoun Borrowing' The complete schedule of talks may be found at: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/BLS/bls27sched.html Registration information: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/BLS/register27.html Questions? Please contact: .............................. Berkeley Linguistics Society 1203 Dwinelle Hall University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 Phone/Fax: 510-642-5808 find information on BLS meetings and availability of proceedings at: http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/BLS/ .............................. From swellsj at BGNET.BGSU.EDU Fri Feb 9 19:10:50 2001 From: swellsj at BGNET.BGSU.EDU (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 14:10:50 -0500 Subject: xenolinguistics: sum Message-ID: Hello, Folks, A few weeks ago, I posted a question about references in xenolinguistics for an up-coming summer seminar. Here's a summary. There is lots of good stuff; thanks to all of you for your help. any errors in the citations are a result of inaccurate bibliographic work on my part. The only reference I was completely unable to track down was an interview that Chomsky gave to Omni magazine. If anyone knows how to get a hold of that intriguing, little gem, do let us all know! My (randomly) annotated bibliography will certainly grow by quite a bit in the next few weeks. If anyone would like the whole thing once it's done, let me know and I'll be happy to send it along. ** ** ** My thanks to: E. O. Batchelder Alan Dench Holger Diessel Suzette Haden Elgin Victor Golla Clayton Gillespie Paul J Hopper Sunny Hyon Esa Itkonen William Mann Rick Morneau David Nash Dianne Patterson Noel Rude Jess Tauber Marina Yaguello Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew. 1999. The origins of complex language. New York: Oxford University Press. CONLANG (constructed languages discussion list( subscribe at LISTSERV at brownvm.brown.edu Dembski, William. 1998. The design inference: eliminating chance through small probabilities. New York: Cambridge University Press. Elgin, Suzette haden. 1984. Native tongue. Daw. Elgin, Suzette Haden. The Linguistics and SF Newsletter. Elliott J, Atwell, E and Whyte B. 2000. Language identification in unknown signals. in Proceeding of COLING'2000, 18th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, pages 1021-1026, Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) and Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco. Elliott J, Atwell, E and Whyte B. 2000. Increasing our ignorance of language: identifying language structure in an unknown signal. in Daelemans W (ed) Proceedings of CoNLL-2000: International Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning, Lisbon, Portugal. Elliott J and Atwell E. 1999. Language in signals: the detection of generic species-independent intelligent language features in symbolic and oral communications. in Proceedings of the 50th International Astronautical Congress, paper IAA-99-IAA.9.1.08, Amsterdam. International Astronautical Federation, Paris. Elliott J and Atwell E. 2000. Is anybody out there?: the detection of intelligent and generic language-like features. In Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, volume 53 no.1/2 pages 13-22, British Interplanetary Society, London. Frawley, William. Linguistic Semantics. Freudenthal, Hans. 1960. LINCOS. Design of a language for cosmic intercourse. Amsterdam: North-Holland Hockett, C. F. 1960. The origin of speech. Scientific American. V203 #3, 88-96. Laycock, Donald C. 1987. The languages of Utopia, in Utopias, ed. by Eugene A Kamenka. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. p144-78. Lewis C. S. 1990. The cosmic trilogy. London : Pan in association with Bodley Head. (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength) Nossal, Gustav J V 1993. Life, death and the immune system. Scientific American, September, p. 52-62. Pepperberg, Irene. The Alex studies: cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrots. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Pinker, Steven. 1994. The language instinct. New York: W. Morrow and Co. Tomasello, M. 1999. The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Whaley, Lindsay. 1996. Introduction to linguistic typology. Sage Publications Inc. Yaguello, Marina. 1993. Lunatic lovers of language. London: Athlone Press. Two websites: http://www.ali.unimelb.edu.au/course/outline/newbro.htm and http://www.stardancer.org/panel." *--------------------* Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen 423 East Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio 43402 (419) 372-8935 swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ From Ted.Sanders at LET.UU.NL Mon Feb 12 15:53:57 2001 From: Ted.Sanders at LET.UU.NL (Ted Sanders) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:53:57 +0100 Subject: workshop on sentence and discourse processing, Utrecht Message-ID: Workshop FROM SENTENCE PROCESSING TO DISCOURSE INTERPRETATION: CROSSING THE BORDERS Utrecht University, Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS Utrecht (The Netherlands), 2-3 July 2001 CALL FOR PAPERS The aim of this workshop is to foster the interaction of two areas in psycholinguistics that have traditionally been pursued quite independently of one another: sentence and discourse processing. Discourse processing research has dealt primarily with issues like relational and referential coherence - i.e. conceptual issues, whereas sentence processing has traditionally focused on the analysis of sentence structure. Recently, however, signs of a movement to-wards convergence can be noticed. In sentence processing, issues pertaining to interpretation are gradually assuming a more prominent position on the research agenda. In the field of dis-course processing, the conviction is gaining strength that in order to develop adequate models, detailed analyses of linguistic factors, including grammatical properties of sentences, as "processing instructors" are necessary. It would seem then, that the traditional border between the discourse level and the sentence level is being crossed increasingly often from both sides. Researchers from the two traditions are beginning to recognize each other's contributions to the field at large, as well as their interdependence. The workshop aims at and intends to stimulate and inspire researchers from both fields to share and discuss their ideas and empirical results. Particularly, the focus will be on issues that are at the interface of sentence and discourse processing. A few examples of the kinds of topics that would fit in the workshop are: · Are processing operations at the level of discourse and sentence processing principally different, or does the same computation system subserve the two domains? · Is Logical Form (the interface between syntax and the conceptual system in the generative framework) a psycholinguistically viable concept? · Does discourse context always interfere with sentence parsing, or are there examples of genuinely autonomous sentence-level processes? · How can linguistic characteristics of discourse (grammatical structure, connectives, anaphora) be further specified as processing instructions for discourse processing? Invited Speakers Jos van Berkum, University of Amsterdam Lyn FrazierUMass, Amherst Alan Garnham, University of Sussex Ted Gibson,MIT Leo Noordman, Tilburg University Tony Sanford, University of Glasgow Wietske VonkMax Planck Institute Submission of Papers The programme of the workshop comprises 10 - 20 slots for oral (25 minutes, including discussion time) and poster presentations, which will be selected on the basis of abstracts submit-ted to the organizing committee. Your abstract should clearly summarize the aim of your study, its theoretical motivation and the principal results. Abstracts should not exceed one page (A4 or Letter) in length. Set linespacing to 1.5 (minimally), and use a 12-point font. Add your name, address, affiliation, e-mail address, and telephone number on a separate page. Send a soft copy of your abstract by electronic mail to: processing at let.uu.nl, and state "submission workshop" in the subject header. The deadline for submissions is: March 30, 2001 Notification of acceptance: April 20, 2001 Organizing committee Ted Sanders, Frank Wijnen, Sergey Avrutin, Frank Jansen, Gerben Mulder, Iris Mulders, Eric Reuland (all UiL OTS) Utrecht University Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS Trans 10 3512 JK UTRECHT, The Netherlands ------------------------------------------------------------- Ted Sanders Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS / Opleidingsinstituut Nederlands Universiteit Utrecht Trans 10 NL - 3512 JK Utrecht The Netherlands e-mail: Ted.Sanders at let.uu.nl Tel. +31 30 253 60 80 / 80 00 Fax + 31 30 253 60 00. =========================================================== From ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Tue Feb 13 21:36:24 2001 From: ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Cecilia E. Ford) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:36:24 -0800 Subject: verbs of existence/possession, speaking/thinking,sensual perception Message-ID: Please Reply-To: "David S. Danaher" I am currently working with a corpus of verbs in Czech and have determined that 80% of these verbs fall into roughly three categories: verbs of existence/possession, verbs of speaking/thinking, and verbs of sensual perception. I would like to investigate this regularity in my corpus further, and I know that there is literature on the roles that one or more of these three general verbal groupings play in various linguistic phenomena. However, I am having trouble locating specific sources which take up this theme. I thought perhaps someone out there might have done some work in this area and might have ready suggestions for what I should read. I would appreciate any help! Thanks in advance, David ********************************* David S. Danaher, Assistant Professor Slavic Languages, 1432 Van Hise University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706 Cecilia E. Ford Department of English 600 N. Park St. University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison WI 53706 USA ceford at facstaff.wisc.edu From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Sat Feb 17 21:21:37 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:21:37 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: What is Communication? -- a summary In November I posted an inquiry about the literature on the nature of communication, in particular: human communication using language. I want to identify sets of assumptions that are explicitly stated and are used in building theories. Several of you sent interesting replies, and I have begun to sort out the ideas, mostly represented in references. I really have appreciated the thoughtful replies from responders. Special appreciation goes to Herbert Clark, Ad Foolen, Paul Hopper, George Lakoff, Brian MacWhinney, Tom Payne and Olga Yokoyama. The overview that resulted has two kinds of parts. The first kind involves various alternative sets of assumptions found in the literature of linguistics, broadly conceived. The various positions within this set are comparable as alternatives, or in the terms of (Kuhn 1970), “commensurable.” They form a single collection. There is a more encompassing view, introduced at the end of the paper, in which this collection of positions can be viewed as a single member of a larger collection of incommensurable views of communication. The larger collection is sometimes discussed under an umbrella term - “Communication Theory.” This memo touches on both levels. All who responded to my inquiry (including some rather notable responders), sent references and ideas that are found in some part of the literature of linguistics or closely related fields, including psychology and sociology. I read the references and noted the ideas. The first outcome, a genuine surprise, was the impression that the explicit identification of the nature of communication in the literature (linguistics, psychology, sociology, other related fields) is very rare. The literature just seemed to have very few things to say on this particular topic. To come to this conclusion I had to sort through various concepts. Communicating is seen as a process that predictably has certain kinds of effects. A major reason that people communicate is the aim of producing such effects. For cases in which the process of communication succeeds (i.e. produces the desired effects), the central issue concerning the nature of communication is to identify the nature of these effects, rather than how the effects were produced. We might ask: Are these effects in essence propositions in mind, acts, a shared body of knowledge, or something else? This sparse characterization of the nature of communication effects stands in contrast to the abundant literature concerning the process of how communication is accomplished. The use of symbols, inference, lexical processes and resources, the formation and interpretation of sound patterns, discourse creation and comprehension, people affecting each other in interpersonal interaction, reading, writing, translation, grammar and a host of other topics each have an abundant literature that covers numerous alternative approaches. The distinction between What is Language and What is A Language is also elaborately discussed, and each one (in different places) is taken as logically prior to the other. There is a widespread tendency to take the notion of communication for granted, in no need of identification. Similarly, the loaded terms “meaning” and “message” are often used without explanation. It is assumed that communication is easy and the concept of communication is unproblematic. Reddy, in The Conduit Metaphor, shows ways that these assumptions may fail (Reddy 1979). He discusses the common tacit assumptions that arise from the metaphor, including the notion that communication is typically simple and effortless. This assumption is seen as the source of destructive misunderstandings in ordinary interaction. It may be the source of misunderstandings in more technical studies as well. Recognizing Reddy’s substantial contribution, it is still important to recognize a difference between two questions: What metaphors are commonly used as starting points in thinking about communication? What explicit or implicit assumptions are used in forming technical accounts of the nature of communication? Reddy’s paper is principally about the metaphors, while the question under discussion is principally about theoretical assumptions. There is a widespread tendency to see communication as exchange or transmission of ideas. Generally, the assumption is implicit. In non-technical contexts it has an established and often unquestioned place, at least in Western culture. In linguistics and other communication sciences the view of communication as exchange is also used, but there is also widespread dissatisfaction with this view. The roots of the assumption can be traced back through Saussure and Locke, stopping (perhaps for convenience) at Plato. In the light of the narrowness of this assumption, and the flood of reactions against it, one wonders how it could have become so dominant. In this regard it has been genuinely helpful to consider the history of the assumptions. They are shaped not only by the technical issues, such as compatibility of assumptions or the derivation of one set of assumptions from another, but also by social and political factors, such as the conditions that led to the names of nations becoming names of languages. Another aspect of this dominant view is that technical views of communication using language overwhelmingly focus on the middle regions of interactions, where the “meaning” and the “message” are. Examples include the part of a letter that occurs after the greeting and before the salutation, the part of a dialogue that occurs after the mutual greetings and before the leave taking, or even the part of an email message found after the subject line and before the signature block. In a letter “Dear John: I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Love, Alice,” focus is on “I hate you.” The assumptions that are most often used are commonly called “The Code Model”. In my initial inquiry, I identified The Code Model as follows: “Communication is exchange of ideas, and those ideas can be represented as propositions. Further, exchange of an idea from one person to another takes place by encoding the proposition(s) in language, transmitting that encoded linguistic product to another person, and that person decoding the given language and thus recovering (a copy of) the proposition(s).” In this paper we are focusing on the idea exchange part and the possible role of propositions, rather than the role of any code in enabling exchange. Many approaches to language would say that any sort of decoding is in general insufficient for interpreting or coming to understand an interval of language use that a person has received. Instead, inference of various sorts, including use of context, is seen as a necessary part of this interpretation step. We should notice that addition of inference does not change the character of the expected result, although it may greatly expand the quantity and import of it. (Inference proceeds from propositions to propositions.) Rather, inference seems simply to change the means by which the result is found. Thus the posited nature of communication, exchange of ideas as represented by propositions, is unchanged. Along with the focus on middle regions and on the role of propositions, there is a third aspect. This is a focus on language that is declarative or generally expository, along with a focus on how to determine what uses of language are warranted to be called true or false. In various approaches there is also recognition of propositional attitudes, which are stances taken by the language producers toward propositions. Not mentioned directly by those who responded to me, but clearly an open issue, is the use of any non-propositional construct that promises to do things comparable to the suggested roles of propositions. Use of prototypes rather than mathematical set theory is a starting point for one group of such approaches. Conceptually distinct, there are approaches to representation that make extensive use of the word “image.” I don’t know whe ther the nature of communication has been identified explicitly in this literature. There is another fundamentally different conception coming into more prominence. It involves shared conceptions, in contrast to exchange. It is easiest to explain using an example of dialogue. Suppose someone (A), who is engaged in dialogue with (B), attempts to communicate something (X) to B. They do so by bringing X from the status of being known by A into the status of being mutually known by both A and B. The activity of doing so is a joint activity, including not only the expression of X but also questions, clarifications, expressions of confirmation of understanding and more. Creating mutual knowledge is sometimes called grounding. There are (controversially) distinctive logical operations involved, such as a rule that that if (X is expressed by A, and B does not indicate any difficulty), then (X is grounded), i.e. mutually known by A and B. The participants each maintain an estimate of what is grounded relative to the other participants, and conversation typically operates in a way that makes these estimates converge. In approaches with this sort of grounding, communication is creation of mutual knowledge, and what is communicated is simply what becomes grounded. There is much more to the subject than I am mentioning. Another orientation to communication is based on speech acts. Speech act theory and various similar approaches expand the conception of the elementary units of communication so that communication is based on acts rather than propositions. Searle, for example, has said “The unit of linguistic communication is not ... the symbol, word or sentence, but rather the production ... of the symbol, word or sentence in the performance of a speech act.” ((Searle 1969), p. 16, quoted in (Clark 1996), p. 137.) Searle’s view has been amended and revised in many ways, but the distinctive notion that the fundamental units of communication consist of acts has generally been retained. One kind of amendment, for dialogue, is to replace the speech act by an act that has two active participants, a “dialogue act.” Treatment of acts as fundamental may lead to a very different understanding of the nature of communication than those cited earlier. This orientation can be reconciled to either a mutual knowledge view or an exchange of ideas view. For example, (Clark 1996) uses both mutual knowledge and speech acts as basic. It is also possible to blend all three, using formal, propositional, truth-valued notations to deal simultaneously with grounding and speech acts. A surprisingly powerful scheme of this sort was presented in (Kamp 1999). Perhaps the most striking aspect of this search is that it did not encounter, except implicitly, the notion of that which is communicated. In common understanding, after a dialogue is concluded or after a text has been read, the persons involved are affected. The use of language has communicated something. We can readily produce summary statements about what particular things have been communicated (i.e. that John will sell me his car for $3000 or that Gore advocates a selective tax cut.) Promises, beliefs, doubts, accusations or other effects are commonly recognized as representing, in summary form, results of interaction. Yet there seems to be little reflection in the literature of this notion, nor of how participants have been affected, nor of the connection between the words used and the effect produced. Surely this recognition is not really absent in the literature, but my expectation that I would find discussions of it was mistaken. All of this study suggests to me that there might be a substantial gain from being explicit about these assumptions in our theories. Explicitly identifying such assumptions would help to clarify how they differ from the naive conceptions commonly used. It would also facilitate improvement of the sets of assumptions we use. Making assumptions explicit would illuminate in a new way how various frameworks differ, and it would strengthen the study of how communication happens. After working through responders’ suggestions and others that came up in the process, I was nearly ready to accept that the state of the literature is as described above. But I was then led to a much broader view, in which definitions of communication are abundant. R. T. Craig’s paper, Communication Theory as a Field (Craig 1999), encompasses a much broader range of approaches, which Craig presents in distinct groups. These groups of approaches (in Kuhn’s terms again) are incommensurable. They function in isolation from each other. Craig characterizes various approaches under six collective terms: rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, sociopsychological, sociocultural and critical. He cites (Littlejohn 1992) as giving a schematic overview. (He also includes a seventh term “cybernetic,” but that group, under his identification, does not deal substantively with the human source.) Craig does not treat linguistics as one of the collections of approaches. The collection which is most similar to linguistics is called semiotics. However, semiotics is unrepresentative of linguistics today. He notes (p. 125) that most of these groups tend to define themselves partly by reaction and contrast with the dialectical opposite, the Code Model (which he calls the “transmission model”). In gathering these groups, Craig cites the literature richly. For example, he notes that (Dance 1970) analyzes ninety five definitions of communication from the 1950s and 1960s, and that (Anderson 1996) reviewed seven textbooks of communication theory and found 249 distinct theories mentioned, most only once. So, in this view, definitions of communication are abundant. Of course, it is unlikely that many of these definitions would be applicable as part of any sort of linguistic framework. Many attempts at various sorts of reconciliation between theories or groups have been made, with discouraging results. Eclectic approaches (of building a theory by selecting parts from various sets) have also generally failed. Craig suggests (p. 135) that the various theoretical groupings are incommensurable because there are conflicts between their epistemologies. A finding in one cannot be seen as a finding in another. So in Craig’s view, as seems quite credible, definitions of communication are abundant outside of the linguistic neighborhood. I commend his works to your attention; my representation of his paper has necessarily been extremely selective. Since this is an email topic summary, perhaps some personal reactions may be in order. Imagine a situation in which the object of study is chess games rather than language, in which the rules are not provided but must be identified by study of game transcripts, and the study addresses not only the rules but why particular sorts of moves tend to be chosen. The rules might be fairly easy to discover, but the reasons for choices of moves, and the constraints on choices, might not. Then imagine the effect of replacing the notion “Here is where they stopped” with clear notions of “Checkmate” and “This player wins” and “Each player wants to win.” These are stronger notions of the outcomes of chess games, and of the basis on which players select moves. Making such information available would revolutionize the study. There are analogies from this fictional exercise to the present. Study of language use is frequently without clear and satisfactory notions either of the outcomes or the status of language use as communication. The disciplines that are labeled as “linguistics” are collectively perhaps the only ones of the “communication sciences” that have the wide array of conceptual power tools necessary to take on creation of a detailed scientific account of human communication. If linguistics does not produce a strong and credible account, perhaps no other discipline will. The references given by those who responded to my message were (in author order): Clark, H. H. (1999). On the origins of conversation. Verbum, 21, 147-161. Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, Roy (1980) The Language Makers. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. (Unavailable:) Harris, Roy, ed. -- a new book series 'Communication and Linguistic Theory" , including the first book, also by Harris, entitled "The Language Myth in Western Culture", forthcoming in 2001 from Curzon Press. http://psyling.psy.cmu.edu/Brian/papers/index.html (a paper by Brian MacWhinney on shared mental spaces (in contrast to exchanged things.) Reddy, Michael J. (1979). The Conduit Metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language In A. Ortony (eds,). Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 41. Yokoyama, Olga, The Transactional Discourse Model in Discourse and Word Order, Benjamins, 1987. Additional References Anderson, J. A. (1996). Communication Theory: epistemological foundations. New York: Guilford Press. Craig, Robert T. (1999). Communication Theory as a Field. Communication Theory 9(2): 119-161. Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The "concept" of communication. Journal of Communication 20: 201-210. Harris, Roy, (1996), Signs, Language and Communication, Routledge, New York. Kamp, Hans, (1999) oral presentation on advances in truth-valued representation of dialogues, Amstelogue: Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, Amsterdam. Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Littlejohn, S. W. (1992). Theories of Human Communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Searle, John R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John R., (1992), Conversation Reconsidered, in (On) Searle on Conversation, Searle, John R., ed., Pragmatics and Beyond, New Series: vol. 21, John Benjamins. ============================= William C. Mann SIL in USA 6739 Cross Creek Estates Road Lancaster, SC 29720 USA (803) 286-6461 bill_mann at sil.org G o e From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Sun Feb 18 10:53:55 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 02:53:55 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Isn't it absolutely amazing how linguists (like all academics) can take the simplest thing and complicate it beyond recognition? If you have demonstrated nothing else, Bill, you have certainly demonstrated that, once again. Good show, TG ================= William Mann wrote: > > What is Communication? -- a summary > > In November I posted an inquiry about the literature on the nature of > communication, in particular: human communication using language. I want to > identify sets of assumptions that are explicitly stated and are used in > building theories. Several of you sent interesting replies, and I have > begun to sort out the ideas, mostly represented in references. I really have > appreciated the thoughtful replies from responders. Special appreciation > goes to Herbert Clark, Ad Foolen, Paul Hopper, George Lakoff, Brian > MacWhinney, Tom Payne and Olga Yokoyama. > > The overview that resulted has two kinds of parts. The first kind involves > various alternative sets of assumptions found in the literature of > linguistics, broadly conceived. The various positions within this set are > comparable as alternatives, or in the terms of (Kuhn 1970), “commensurable.” > They form a single collection. There is a more encompassing view, > introduced at the end of the paper, in which this collection of positions > can be viewed as a single member of a larger collection of incommensurable > views of communication. The larger collection is sometimes discussed under > an umbrella term - “Communication Theory.” This memo touches on both levels. > > All who responded to my inquiry (including some rather notable responders), > sent references and ideas that are found in some part of the literature of > linguistics or closely related fields, including psychology and sociology. > I read the references and noted the ideas. > > The first outcome, a genuine surprise, was the impression that the explicit > identification of the nature of communication in the literature > (linguistics, psychology, sociology, other related fields) is very rare. > The literature just seemed to have very few things to say on this particular > topic. > > To come to this conclusion I had to sort through various concepts. > Communicating is seen as a process that predictably has certain kinds of > effects. A major reason that people communicate is the aim of producing > such effects. For cases in which the process of communication succeeds > (i.e. produces the desired effects), the central issue concerning the > nature of communication is to identify the nature of these effects, rather > than how the effects were produced. We might ask: Are these effects in > essence propositions in mind, acts, a shared body of knowledge, or something > else? > > This sparse characterization of the nature of communication effects stands > in contrast to the abundant literature concerning the process of how > communication is accomplished. The use of symbols, inference, lexical > processes and resources, the formation and interpretation of sound patterns, > discourse creation and comprehension, people affecting each other in > interpersonal interaction, reading, writing, translation, grammar and a host > of other topics each have an abundant literature that covers numerous > alternative approaches. The distinction between What is Language and What > is A Language is also elaborately discussed, and each one (in different > places) is taken as logically prior to the other. > > There is a widespread tendency to take the notion of communication for > granted, in no need of identification. Similarly, the loaded terms > “meaning” and “message” are often used without explanation. It is assumed > that communication is easy and the concept of communication is > unproblematic. Reddy, in The Conduit Metaphor, shows ways that these > assumptions may fail (Reddy 1979). He discusses the common tacit > assumptions that arise from the metaphor, including the notion that > communication is typically simple and effortless. This assumption is seen > as the source of destructive misunderstandings in ordinary interaction. It > may be the source of misunderstandings in more technical studies as well. > > Recognizing Reddy’s substantial contribution, it is still important to > recognize a difference between two questions: > > What metaphors are commonly used as starting points in thinking about > communication? > > What explicit or implicit assumptions are used in forming technical accounts > of the nature of communication? > > Reddy’s paper is principally about the metaphors, while the question under > discussion is principally about theoretical assumptions. > > There is a widespread tendency to see communication as exchange or > transmission of ideas. Generally, the assumption is implicit. In > non-technical contexts it has an established and often unquestioned place, > at least in Western culture. In linguistics and other communication > sciences the view of communication as exchange is also used, but there is > also widespread dissatisfaction with this view. > > The roots of the assumption can be traced back through Saussure and Locke, > stopping (perhaps for convenience) at Plato. In the light of the narrowness > of this assumption, and the flood of reactions against it, one wonders how > it could have become so dominant. In this regard it has been genuinely > helpful to consider the history of the assumptions. They are shaped not > only by the technical issues, such as compatibility of assumptions or the > derivation of one set of assumptions from another, but also by social and > political factors, such as the conditions that led to the names of nations > becoming names of languages. > > Another aspect of this dominant view is that technical views of > communication using language overwhelmingly focus on the middle regions of > interactions, where the “meaning” and the “message” are. Examples include > the part of a letter that occurs after the greeting and before the > salutation, the part of a dialogue that occurs after the mutual greetings > and before the leave taking, or even the part of an email message found > after the subject line and before the signature block. In a letter “Dear > John: I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Love, Alice,” focus is on “I > hate you.” > > The assumptions that are most often used are commonly called “The Code > Model”. In my initial inquiry, I identified The Code Model as follows: > “Communication is exchange of ideas, and those ideas can be represented as > propositions. Further, exchange of an idea from one person to another takes > place by encoding the proposition(s) in language, transmitting that encoded > linguistic product to another person, and that person decoding the given > language and thus recovering (a copy of) the proposition(s).” > > In this paper we are focusing on the idea exchange part and the possible > role of propositions, rather than the role of any code in enabling exchange. > > Many approaches to language would say that any sort of decoding is in > general insufficient for interpreting or coming to understand an interval of > language use that a person has received. Instead, inference of various > sorts, including use of context, is seen as a necessary part of this > interpretation step. > > We should notice that addition of inference does not change the character of > the expected result, although it may greatly expand the quantity and import > of it. (Inference proceeds from propositions to propositions.) Rather, > inference seems simply to change the means by which the result is found. > Thus the posited nature of communication, exchange of ideas as represented > by propositions, is unchanged. > > Along with the focus on middle regions and on the role of propositions, > there is a third aspect. This is a focus on language that is declarative or > generally expository, along with a focus on how to determine what uses of > language are warranted to be called true or false. In various approaches > there is also recognition of propositional attitudes, which are stances > taken by the language producers toward propositions. > > Not mentioned directly by those who responded to me, but clearly an open > issue, is the use of any non-propositional construct that promises to do > things comparable to the suggested roles of propositions. Use of prototypes > rather than mathematical set theory is a starting point for one group of > such approaches. Conceptually distinct, there are approaches to > representation that make extensive use of the word “image.” I don’t know whe > ther the nature of communication has been identified explicitly in this > literature. > > There is another fundamentally different conception coming into more > prominence. It involves shared conceptions, in contrast to exchange. It is > easiest to explain using an example of dialogue. Suppose someone (A), who > is engaged in dialogue with (B), attempts to communicate something (X) to B. > They do so by bringing X from the status of being known by A into the status > of being mutually known by both A and B. The activity of doing so is a > joint activity, including not only the expression of X but also questions, > clarifications, expressions of confirmation of understanding and more. > Creating mutual knowledge is sometimes called grounding. There are > (controversially) distinctive logical operations involved, such as a rule > that that if (X is expressed by A, and B does not indicate any difficulty), > then (X is grounded), i.e. mutually known by A and B. The participants > each maintain an estimate of what is grounded relative to the other > participants, and conversation typically operates in a way that makes these > estimates converge. > > In approaches with this sort of grounding, communication is creation of > mutual knowledge, and what is communicated is simply what becomes grounded. > There is much more to the subject than I am mentioning. > > Another orientation to communication is based on speech acts. Speech act > theory and various similar approaches expand the conception of the > elementary units of communication so that communication is based on acts > rather than propositions. Searle, for example, has said “The unit of > linguistic communication is not ... the symbol, word or sentence, but > rather the production ... of the symbol, word or sentence in the > performance of a speech act.” ((Searle 1969), p. 16, quoted in (Clark > 1996), p. 137.) Searle’s view has been amended and revised in many ways, > but the distinctive notion that the fundamental units of communication > consist of acts has generally been retained. One kind of amendment, for > dialogue, is to replace the speech act by an act that has two active > participants, a “dialogue act.” > > Treatment of acts as fundamental may lead to a very different understanding > of the nature of communication than those cited earlier. This orientation > can be reconciled to either a mutual knowledge view or an exchange of ideas > view. For example, (Clark 1996) uses both mutual knowledge and speech acts > as basic. It is also possible to blend all three, using formal, > propositional, truth-valued notations to deal simultaneously with grounding > and speech acts. A surprisingly powerful scheme of this sort was presented > in (Kamp 1999). > > Perhaps the most striking aspect of this search is that it did not > encounter, except implicitly, the notion of that which is communicated. In > common understanding, after a dialogue is concluded or after a text has been > read, the persons involved are affected. The use of language has > communicated something. We can readily produce summary statements about > what particular things have been communicated (i.e. that John will sell me > his car for $3000 or that Gore advocates a selective tax cut.) Promises, > beliefs, doubts, accusations or other effects are commonly recognized as > representing, in summary form, results of interaction. Yet there seems to > be little reflection in the literature of this notion, nor of how > participants have been affected, nor of the connection between the words > used and the effect produced. Surely this recognition is not really absent > in the literature, but my expectation that I would find discussions of it > was mistaken. > > All of this study suggests to me that there might be a substantial gain from > being explicit about these assumptions in our theories. Explicitly > identifying such assumptions would help to clarify how they differ from the > naive conceptions commonly used. It would also facilitate improvement of > the sets of assumptions we use. Making assumptions explicit would > illuminate in a new way how various frameworks differ, and it would > strengthen the study of how communication happens. > > After working through responders’ suggestions and others that came up in the > process, I was nearly ready to accept that the state of the literature is as > described above. But I was then led to a much broader view, in which > definitions of communication are abundant. R. T. Craig’s paper, > Communication Theory as a Field (Craig 1999), encompasses a much broader > range of approaches, which Craig presents in distinct groups. These groups > of approaches (in Kuhn’s terms again) are incommensurable. They function in > isolation from each other. Craig characterizes various approaches under six > collective terms: rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, > sociopsychological, sociocultural and critical. He cites (Littlejohn 1992) > as giving a schematic overview. (He also includes a seventh term > “cybernetic,” but that group, under his identification, does not deal > substantively with the human source.) > Craig does not treat linguistics as one of the collections of approaches. > The collection which is most similar to linguistics is called semiotics. > However, semiotics is unrepresentative of linguistics today. He notes (p. > 125) that most of these groups tend to define themselves partly by reaction > and contrast with the dialectical opposite, the Code Model (which he calls > the “transmission model”). > > In gathering these groups, Craig cites the literature richly. For example, > he notes that (Dance 1970) analyzes ninety five definitions of communication > from the 1950s and 1960s, and that (Anderson 1996) reviewed seven textbooks > of communication theory and found 249 distinct theories mentioned, most only > once. So, in this view, definitions of communication are abundant. Of > course, it is unlikely that many of these definitions would be applicable as > part of any sort of linguistic framework. > > Many attempts at various sorts of reconciliation between theories or groups > have been made, with discouraging results. Eclectic approaches (of building > a theory by selecting parts from various sets) have also generally failed. > Craig suggests (p. 135) that the various theoretical groupings are > incommensurable because there are conflicts between their epistemologies. A > finding in one cannot be seen as a finding in another. > > So in Craig’s view, as seems quite credible, definitions of communication > are abundant outside of the linguistic neighborhood. I commend his works to > your attention; my representation of his paper has necessarily been > extremely selective. > > Since this is an email topic summary, perhaps some personal reactions may be > in order. > > Imagine a situation in which the object of study is chess games rather than > language, in which the rules are not provided but must be identified by > study of game transcripts, and the study addresses not only the rules but > why particular sorts of moves tend to be chosen. The rules might be fairly > easy to discover, but the reasons for choices of moves, and the constraints > on choices, might not. > Then imagine the effect of replacing the notion “Here is where they stopped” > with clear notions of “Checkmate” and “This player wins” and “Each player > wants to win.” These are stronger notions of the outcomes of chess games, > and of the basis on which players select moves. Making such information > available would revolutionize the study. > > There are analogies from this fictional exercise to the present. Study of > language use is frequently without clear and satisfactory notions either of > the outcomes or the status of language use as communication. The > disciplines that are labeled as “linguistics” are collectively perhaps the > only ones of the “communication sciences” that have the wide array of > conceptual power tools necessary to take on creation of a detailed > scientific account of human communication. If linguistics does not produce > a strong and credible account, perhaps no other discipline will. > > The references given by those who responded to my message were (in author > order): > > Clark, H. H. (1999). On the origins of conversation. Verbum, 21, > 147-161. > > Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University > Press. > > Harris, Roy (1980) The Language Makers. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, > New York. > > (Unavailable:) Harris, Roy, ed. -- a new book series 'Communication and > Linguistic Theory" , including the first book, also by Harris, entitled "The > Language Myth in Western Culture", forthcoming in 2001 from Curzon Press. > > http://psyling.psy.cmu.edu/Brian/papers/index.html (a paper by Brian > MacWhinney on shared mental spaces (in contrast to exchanged things.) > > Reddy, Michael J. (1979). The Conduit Metaphor: A case of frame conflict > in our language about language In A. Ortony (eds,). Metaphor and Thought, > Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 41. > > Yokoyama, Olga, The Transactional Discourse Model in Discourse and Word > Order, Benjamins, 1987. > > Additional References > > Anderson, J. A. (1996). Communication Theory: epistemological > foundations. New York: Guilford Press. > > Craig, Robert T. (1999). Communication Theory as a Field. Communication > Theory 9(2): 119-161. > > Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The "concept" of communication. Journal of > Communication 20: 201-210. > > Harris, Roy, (1996), Signs, Language and Communication, Routledge, New York. > > Kamp, Hans, (1999) oral presentation on advances in truth-valued > representation of dialogues, Amstelogue: Workshop on the Semantics and > Pragmatics of Dialogue, Amsterdam. > > Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: > University of Chicago Press. > > Littlejohn, S. W. (1992). Theories of Human Communication. Belmont, CA: > Wadsworth. > > Searle, John R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University > Press. > > Searle, John R., (1992), Conversation Reconsidered, in (On) Searle on > Conversation, Searle, John R., ed., Pragmatics and Beyond, New Series: vol. > 21, John Benjamins. > > ============================= > William C. Mann > SIL in USA > 6739 Cross Creek Estates Road > Lancaster, SC 29720 > USA > (803) 286-6461 > > bill_mann at sil.org G o e From HSINTL at AOL.COM Sun Feb 18 00:13:02 2001 From: HSINTL at AOL.COM (HSINTL at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 19:13:02 EST Subject: Unsub Message-ID: Unsub -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI Mon Feb 19 15:49:57 2001 From: matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI (Matti Miestamo) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 17:49:57 +0200 Subject: Calls: Endangered Languages Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS The Linguistic Association of Finland is organizing a symposium on LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES to be held at the University of Helsinki, August 29 - September 1, 2001. The symposium will bring together linguists interested in questions relating to endangered languages. We invite papers addressing general linguistic questions as well as papers taking the viewpoint of one (or more) particular language(s). Themes include documentation of endangered languages, standardization of language corpora, and the possible effects of endangerment on the grammar of a language. Other topics relating to language endangerment are also welcome. Invited speakers: David Harrison (University of Pennsylvania), Nomads on the internet: Documentation, endangered languages and technologies William McGregor (Aarhus Universitet), Structural changes in language shift/obsolescence: a Kimberley (Australia) perspective Marja-Liisa Olthuis (Sámi Assizes, Finland): The Inarisaami language as an endangered language Tapani Salminen (University of Helsinki), Linguists and language endangerment in north-western Siberia Stephen A. Wurm (The Australian National University), Languages of the world and language endangerment Activities: Lectures by invited speakers Presentations by participants (20 min + 10 min for discussion) Demonstrations by participants Abstracts: The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words) is March 30, 2001. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the following address . The abstract should be included in the body of the message. Participants will be notified about acceptance by April 20, 2001. The accepted abstracts will be published on the webpage of the symposium . Demonstrations The participants are also encouraged to give demonstrations of their projects (research, revitalization, documentation etc). If you are interested in giving a demonstration, please contact the organizers at . Registration: The deadline for registration for all participants is June 21, 2001. Register by e-mail to the address above. Registration fees: general: FIM 200 members of the association: FIM 100 undergraduate and MA students free send by giro account no 800013-1424850 to The Linguistic Association of Finland (SKY)/Symposium. For participants coming from abroad we recommend payment in cash upon arrival. However, it is possible to pay via Eurogiro or SWIFT to our account (number 800013-1424850) with Leonia Bank plc, Helsinki, Finland. SWIFT-address: PSPBFIHH; Telex 121 698 pgiro sf Accommodation: The organizers will provide a list of hotels later. For further information, please contact or visit our homepage . The organizing committee: Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Langnet Graduate School, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Seppo Kittilä, Dept of General Linguistics, Hämeenkatu 2 A 7-8, FIN-20014 University of Turku, e-mail: Leena Kolehmainen, Dept of German, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Matti Miestamo, Dept of General Linguistics, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Krista Ojutkangas, Dept of Finnish Language and General Linguistics, Fennicum, FIN-200014 University of Turku, Finland, e-mail Esa Penttilä, Dept of English, University of Joensuu, P.O. Box 111, FIN-80101 Joensuu, e-mail Pirkko Suihkonen, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Linguistics, Inselstrasse 22, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany, e-mail From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Tue Feb 20 17:01:32 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 12:01:32 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: [In a message dated 2/17/2001 5:58:34 PM, tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU forwarded:] William Mann writes, regarding the mass of assumptions and definitions in his summary, "What is Communication?": << Promises, beliefs, doubts, accusations or other effects are commonly recognized as representing, in summary form, results of interaction. Yet there seems to be little reflection in the literature of this notion, nor of how participants have been affected, nor of the connection between the words used and the effect produced.>> Nor of the effect intended? Nor of how the history of effects in the past determine the future effects expected? (Please forgive what may be obvious observations, but William Mann is talking about basic assumptions here. And so it seems pertinent to write:) Whether communication might make more sense conceptualized as something like "promises, beliefs, doubts..." or as "saying, gesturing, writing to get somebody else or myself to do or feel something," the startling absence from William Mann's survey is the absence of focus on the intended effect in defining communication. Unless we are all Walt Whitman, by himself shouting Homer in Greek at the waves on an empty Long Island beach, communication must have something to do with the results of using language or gesture. (Of course, Whitman did tell everybody about it afterwards, so even that piece of apparently effectless interaction had other intended effects.) If I say the same words -- "Stop that" -- loudly, softly, matter-of-factly, questioningly ("Stop that"?), laughingly, pleadingly or just with an upraised hand , am I "communicating an idea?" Or am I exercising my options in trying to getting an intended result from the listener, based on my past experience in using those options? Can we even be sure of what these words 'mean' if we are just observers and don't know that history? ("She said "stop" but she didn't mean it..." - E. Hemingway) Which of the two approaches is a more useful way to study this matter? Traditional linguistics, without looking at intended consequences first, has a devil of a time knowing what counts as communication and what doesn't. A classic question is whether a phoneme is "productive" (and not just a random additional sound that someone gives off "just for effect.") I suppose that is a kind of structural definition of communication, versus just making random sounds, gestures or squiggles on a piece of paper. Verrazano, in navigating the New England coast, encountered some locals on high, unreachable cliffs baring their bottoms to the crew. Was this gesture "productive?" Was their intention to "communicate an idea"? Or is it more accurate to say that they were attempting to effect action -- or frustration -- in their audience, without regard to a specific 'idea'? Consistent with the "funk" in Funknet, one might see the problem as a function first problem. Human organisms need to eat and if they can use their mouths (communicate) in strikingly complex ways to get food, they will. When Whitman told everybody about reciting Homer to the ocean, they bought his book and that paid for his daily bread. So I'd like to humbly suggest that the problem in defining communication just might be the same old problem, an over-emphasis on structure as opposed to hard scientific cause-effect. The definition of communication might be the function of communication. "The meaning of a word is the effect it has." In this regard, perhaps William Mann's bibliography might have also included something as basic as Skinner's Verbal Behavior, where communication is called of course quite basically, "behavior." Regards, Steve Long From gvk at ciaccess.com Wed Feb 21 05:20:57 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 00:20:57 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Steve Long wrote > So I'd like to humbly suggest that the problem in defining communication just > might be the same old problem, an over-emphasis on structure as opposed to > hard scientific cause-effect. The definition of communication might be the > function of communication. "The meaning of a word is the effect it has." It is simplistic to define communication only by its effect. Just because it is so difficult to get at the "intention" of the speaker or actor, is no reason to avoid it. As an analogy consider that all law is based in trying to ferret out the real intentions of the actor. We have to discover as best as we can what those intentions were to make a reasonable judgement as to what action to take. Whether he/she killed another because of forgetting to take the ammunition out of the weapon before cleaning it, was insane, trying to take a short-cut to an inheritance or was only five years old, makes no difference to the person who died, but it makes all the difference to the jury, and the attitude towards the killer by the deceased's survivors. It's the same in everyday life. We are constantly trying to get a sense for the other's intentions. When you cut "intention" out of communication, you aren't left with much more than a corpse to consider... gvk From wilcox at UNM.EDU Wed Feb 21 06:00:51 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 23:00:51 -0700 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: <3A935038.4C6532B0@ciaccess.com> Message-ID: On 2/20/01 10:20 PM, Gerald van Koeverden said: > It's the same in everyday life. We are constantly trying to get a sense for > the other's intentions. When you cut "intention" out of communication, you > aren't left with much more than a corpse to consider... Maybe that's true if you're facing forward and looking only at human communication. But when you turn and face the other way and gaze into our evolutionary past, I think we must at some point cut intention out of communication. Because if we don't, if we limit communication to that which is intentional, I don't see how we will ever understand how communication evolved. How can we understand how intentionality got bound up with perceptible behaviors (basically, doing something with our body in a way that produces some perceptible signal -- moving our body for audible and visible signals) to produce intentional communication, if we don't consider unintentional communication? -- Sherman Wilcox From fjn at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Feb 21 17:12:04 2001 From: fjn at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Frederick Newmeyer) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 09:12:04 -0800 Subject: Research question (please assist). (fwd) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, Below is an enquiry from a law student at the University of Washington. Hopefully one of you can apply your expertise to helping him. Please reply directly to him (his e-mail address is below). Thanks, --fritz newmeyer Message from: J. Rollin On Mon, 5 Feb 2001, J. Rollin wrote: > > Hello. My name is Joseph Rollin. I am a third year student at the UW law > school, and I am working on my graduating thesis. I am dealing with a > statute interpretation questions that deals with some fairly heavy > linquistic concepts, and I would very much appreciate your help. There is > a small chance that this work will be published. > > > My question in the abstract is: How should time (in terms of days and > years) be counted: as discreet units (like apples) or as a continuous > physical abstraction (like distance). > > > My question concerns an immmigration law statute that defines a set of > offenses considered to be 'aggravated felonies' for deportation > purposes. In a number of places within the 'aggravated felony' > definition appears language like the following: > > "The term 'aggravated felony' means - > ... > (G) a theft offense...for which the term of imprisonment [is] at least > one year [sic];" > > (note: the [is] is missing from the statute, but courts have decided > that [is] is the correct verb.) > > Four federal circuit courts have interpreted the 'for which the term of > imprisonment [is] at least one year' language to include jail sentences of > 365 days (or one-year). > > Traditionally (for a few hundred years at least) the diving line between > misdemeanor offenses and felony offenses has been the one-year mark. Any > term of imprisonment up to and including 365 days is considered a > 'misdemeanor' in federal law and all state law (except possibly > Louisiana). Any term of imprisonment EXCEEDING 365 days denotes a > 'felony'. > > However, because of the new language in the statute (which used to read > 'for which the term of imprisonment is at least five years'), a 365 day > sentence is considered to be an 'aggravated felony' for immigration > purposes even though it is only a 'misdemeanor' under federal and state > criminal law. Since the law also disregards any suspension of sentence, a > person is sentenced to 365 days with 365 days suspended (thus spending no > actual time in jail) is considered to be an 'aggravated > felon'. Immigrants who have committed very minor offenses (pulling a > person's hair, for example) are being deported and are permanently barred > from re-entering the U.S. (20 years in jail if they try) because of this > interpretation of the statute. > > > My question is whether the phrase, 'at least one year' means (or must > necessarily mean) 'one year or more' or 'more than one year'. > > One person has argued that since time is a 'physical abstraction' the > language must mean 'more than one year': > > If a person promises to give another 'at least five oranges,' that person > can expect to receive five oranges or more. This is how Graham views the > phrase 'at least one year'. If each day were considered to be a discrete > object, 365 days would be 'at least one year' because one would have 365 > days or more. On the other hand, "A person who promises to arrive in 'at most' five minutes, and one who > promises not to arrive for 'at least' five minutes, do not intent their > arrivals to overlap. If they do overlap there has been a technical breach > of promise by one or the other or both. 'At least' five minutes has a > lower limit, a 'floor,' which must be exceeded. 'At most' five minutes > has an upper limit, a 'ceiling,' which cannot be exceeded. The moment > when exactly five minutes fishes has no duration itself. It is simply the > dimensionless point that divides the two periods before and after it. > Anyone who has watched the clock at midnight on New Year's Eve knows that > the moment when one year ends and the next year begins does not itself > last for a minute or even a second. Midnight is a dividing line, having a > location but lacking any duration itself, just as the boundary between two > countries has location but no thickness. It simply serves to demarcate > what is on one side from what is on the other[A] 'year' is a limiting > concept whose importance derives from which side it is approached > from. 'At most one year' and 'at least one year' butt into one another > but do not overlap, not even for the smallest fraction of a second, just > as the U.S. and Canada do not overlap at the boarder for the smallest > fraction of an inch. > A person who walks 'at most' to the boarder with Canada is absolutely and > positively still in the United States, while a person who walks 'at least' > to that boarder is absolutely and positively in Canada. Respondent's > sentence of 'at most' one year is like a walk 'at most' up to the boarder, > as close as one may measure, but not across it. Congress's threshold of > 'at least' one year requires crossing that boarder, even if by the most > minute amount. [T]he correct construction of 'at least one year' in > 101(a)(43) is 'more than one year,' not 'one year or more.'" > > Do you agree with this argument? I am looking for your opinion as an > authority in the field of linguistics. If you agree, is there any > technical explaination or linguistic rule that would support this > argument? Are there any published sources that might be relied upon for > support? > > Thank you very much for your help, > > J.J. > > > P.S. If you wish, I can forward to you arecent article (Feb 2, Atlanta > Journal-Constitution) that discusses the consequences of this language. > > > > From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Feb 22 05:36:08 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:36:08 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Not so fast, Sherm ol' buddy, Whoa, Hold your horses for just a spell. If you read Irene Pepperberg's experimental work with Alex (African Grey Parrot) even cursorily, you'd conclude that you could not take 'intention' out of avian communication. No bloody way. If you read Ristau's collection on Cognitive Ethology, you'll also conclude the same about communicating Vervet Monkeys and Chicken (yes, dumb chicken). If you ever had a dog or a horse and seriously communicated with them or study their frustrated attempts to communicate with you (yes, they *do* think we are dumb, we are a very puzzling experience to them, you couldn't possibly leave intention out of communication. Indeed, the whole notion of communication rises and falls on 'intention', nothing species-specific about that. So if this business of ruling 'intention' out in earlier evolutionary stages goes anywhere, it goes back to the Cartesian prejudice about some animals (but not us!) being deterministic automata. Besides, how can 'intention' spring forth evolutionarily, just like that? And when? And is 'intention' all that specific to communication? There are plenty of self-directed 'secular' behaviors in very 'low' organisms that are awefully hard to explain without 'intention' either... Also, it is good to remember that the neurological seat of 'intention' is sub-cortical, in the *limbic* area, a very old intermediate part of the brain that predates mammals. It is coinnected both to the lower brain (for automatic body-sensory feed) but also the the cortical frontal lobe (in mammals). The coinnection to the frontal lobe is of course interesting in mammals, since that's where got the consscious, attentional mediators of 'intention'. But 'intention' itself, apart from self-consciousness, is much older. And unlike the brain-stem component, it is *not* fully automated, but rather an instrumrent of choice-making, and highly context-sensitive even in pre-mamalian vertebrates. There remain, of course, legitimate questions about degree of consciousness, self-consciousness, focal/executive attention, degree of automaticity etc. But I think you can do *exactly* the same logical proof that Quine did on *induction* to show that there is no bloody way in the work meaningful 'communication' can take place without thge intention to communicate. The fine, constant context-sensitive adjustment that Peter Marler showed in chicken communication (yeah, them dumbest-of-the-dumbest pea-brain aves) cannot be interpreted without 'intention to communicate'. Sure, animals can extract information from the 'secular' behavior of their conspecifics without invoking any intent on the part of that conspecific. But the minute 'secular' behavior shifts into communicative behavior, 'intention' is, at least in principle, on the table. Of course, when you go down the complexity ladder of species (say Apis Mellifera), questions of degree of automaticity and degree of both consciousness and self-consciousness do arise, and are not easy to resolve. But even there, if you look at James Gould's work on the historical evolution of Apis Mellifera communication, you find subtle conrewxtual adjustments of behavior that are not easy to explain, at least at the initial pre-automated stage, without invoking some species of intention. But we don't need 'intention' only to explain *communication* in 'lower' animals. We also need it to explain a variety of other 'secular' behaviors that again, are so contextually-sensitive and contingent--often on subtle interpretation of shades-and-gradations of the unpredictable behavior of 'intending' prey and predator--that we're going to get into the same Quinean induction bind here. You look at the way hoofed prey animals on the Veld watch a cheeta sneaking toward them in plain view. They have to decide when to run for dear life. They don't just run on an automatic visual trigger of either Cheeta form, Cheeta position, Cheeta distance, Chgeeta crouching etc. Their computations are extremely subtle and complex and, again, irreducible to toital reflexive automaticity. I seems to me that in the interest of real science (rather than Positivist "show me an absolute proof"), we ought to unload the legacy of "fear of anthropomorphism" that Positivists philosophers have been chastizing us about. After all, that is the very fear that was used to knock the whole idea of Functionalism, if you read back about 30 years in the P. of Sci. collections of the 1960s-1970s. And when you dig down into the earliest roots of Functionalism--Aristotle's founding of functionalist Biology--you see *some* species of 'teleology' staring you at the face right there, from the very start. Of course, you can always argue that Aristotle's 'purpose' should be interpreted as "it looks as if they are behaving purposefully", "it looks as if the organ was specifically designed for its 'work'". But I doubt it that in the long run this gambit will get you too far off the hook. It is not all that respectable, tho it does echo our abiding, recalcitrant sense of (Cartesian) arrogance. Best regards, TG ========================== Sherman Wilcox wrote: > > On 2/20/01 10:20 PM, Gerald van Koeverden said: > > > It's the same in everyday life. We are constantly trying to get a sense for > > the other's intentions. When you cut "intention" out of communication, you > > aren't left with much more than a corpse to consider... > > Maybe that's true if you're facing forward and looking only at human > communication. But when you turn and face the other way and gaze into our > evolutionary past, I think we must at some point cut intention out of > communication. Because if we don't, if we limit communication to that which > is intentional, I don't see how we will ever understand how communication > evolved. > > How can we understand how intentionality got bound up with perceptible > behaviors (basically, doing something with our body in a way that produces > some perceptible signal -- moving our body for audible and visible signals) > to produce intentional communication, if we don't consider unintentional > communication? > > -- Sherman Wilcox From nrude at UCINET.COM Thu Feb 22 00:59:19 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 16:59:19 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: <3A94A548.F50D1592@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Yes, Surely information without intention is not information. So what's the point of trying to talk about it devoid of intention? Try to imagine information on some planet where there has never been any intention. No, I don¹t mean the information you might acquire were you able to observe the situation -- I mean information completely devoid of all intention. Seems to me that linguistics and mathematics and computer science and semeotics and just about everything else is concerned with information -- and if it ain't intentional it ain't information. If we think we are dealing with information it just may be that even philosophically there is no other way to define it than by intention. Even algorithms such as the laws of physics are now being being discussed as intentional -- with apparently the only alternative (to the much discussed Anthropic Principle) being the Many Worlds Hypothesis. But I suppose the hard core materialists would want to propose a mechanistic model of intention. Is it fundamental, say, some kind of "quantum weirdness" (as Roger Penrose might speculate), or does it "emerge" at a higher level? If the latter then have the neurologists described it yet? I mean such that we might one day be able to program our machines with it? Interesting stuff here folks! Noel on 2/21/01 9:36 PM, Tom Givon at tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > Not so fast, Sherm ol' buddy, > > Whoa, Hold your horses for just a spell. If you read Irene Pepperberg's > experimental work with Alex (African Grey Parrot) even cursorily, you'd > conclude that you could not take 'intention' out of avian communication. > No bloody way. ... ... From jsidnell at NWU.EDU Thu Feb 22 02:06:15 2001 From: jsidnell at NWU.EDU (Jack Sidnell) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 20:06:15 -0600 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: Message-ID: An Austinian question: What exactly is the term "intention" referring to? (See Austin "Three ways of spilling ink") Also relevant to this discussion are a number of papers in a volume called _Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse_, in particular a paper by Jack DuBois "Meaning Without Intention: Lessons from Divination" Crucially, just because hearers make inferences about a speaker's "intent" (and, it should be emphasized, much else besides e.g. his "real" underlying, subconscious, psychological motive) it does not follow that something like "intention" exists as a unified, integrated psychological mechanism. Anyway there is a basic philosophical problem here that goes like this (See Peter Winch _The Idea of a Social Science_ for further discussion): If I must form an intention prior to my execution of any act (scratching my noise, taking a drink, asking a question) then, logically, I must form an intention to form an intention - it's infinite regression and my nose remains itchy, my thirst unquenched, my question unanswered. The only solution to this problem is to see intentions as psychological primitives but then how do the differ from drives? A thought experiment: try to conceptualize how an intention is actually formed. How will you sort out suggestions, directives, admonitions from others, a knowledge of the circumstances in which the act is going to be executed, a reflexive sense of the effect the act is likely to have and how others will respond to it (see Heritage _Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology_). Intention cannot be neatly abstracted out of this immensely complex bundle of act-relevant factors (much less "located" in the brain!). Just because some hearers on some occasions make inferences about a speaker's inner psychogical state (intention) it does not follow that some such thing exists as a unified category. In fact there is some evidence (from Duranti and Ochs among others) to suggest that members of non middle-class, English-speaking etc. etc. do not operate with these same assumptions. In short - it might be dangerous to mistake a descriptive term, used in everyday sense making activity, for some mysterious psychological/social phenomena. Jack Sidnell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG Thu Feb 22 07:57:13 2001 From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 02:57:13 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Noel Rude writes: "Surely information without intention is not information." I don't at all see that as self-evident! The information that someone is blushing is information, even though it is very unlikely to be intentional, at least on their part. On God's part? or whose? The information that someone's voice stopped or went rough in midsentence is information, even if it was totally unintended by the speaker, as sometimes happens. But then you added, Noel, "No, I don't mean the information you might acquire were you able to observe the situation -- I mean information completely devoid of all intention." Why shouldn't we/one mean the information we acquire through observation? Must it linguistically irrelevant? I was noticing this morning (in an odd context) the use, in a sort of soft-rock or half-rock singing style, of an aspiration before an initial "I", so it sounds like "hi". The lead female singer used this repeatedly, and I remember having heard it elsewhere. I am quite sure that it is a sort of indicator of deep feeling or great sincerity. I wouldn't doubt at all that it arose from something in many ways like a blush or a frog in the throat, perhaps as an unintentional sigh or near-sob emitted at the same time as beginning a phrase about strongly felt emotions, beginning with the word "I" or some other vowel-initial word. It was understood (acquired through observation) as a natural indicator of deep feeling. But it is becoming linguistic: it is now well on its way towards conventionalization in this particular genre at least. It originally was not intentional, I am guessing, but now, I'm pretty sure, it often is intentional in some degree. It almost surely is even consciously chosen for effect sometimes, perhaps even when no strong emotion is really being felt. (If anyone hears echoes of some of John Haiman's ideas about the inherent "insincerity and inconsequentiality of language", they've got it right. I think such cynicism often is warranted, though it's not the whole story.) So it seems to me the sort of thing I think Sherman was alluding to isn't limited to the genesis of communication in whatever prehistoric or prehuman epoch--it happens now too. --David Tuggy From wilcox at UNM.EDU Thu Feb 22 07:57:20 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 00:57:20 -0700 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: <3A94A548.F50D1592@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Somehow, I knew when I hit that "Send" button Tom would come back at me! Tom, I actually don't think we're saying very different things. I certainly never meant that no animal communication is intentional. If horses and chickens exhibit intentional communication, I have no problem with that. If intentionality is deeply rooted in our brain's evolutionary history, that's fine too. The one place I think you might have overstated the case is where you say "there is no bloody way in the work [world?] meaningful 'communication' can take place without the intention to communicate." You'll have to explain the qualifier 'meaningful', of course, but it seems to me that some pretty meaningful communication *can* take place without the intention to communicate. At least that's the possibility I'd like to leave open for now. When Noel says, "Surely information without intention is not information" it makes my head hurt (in a good way). I'm not trying to be difficult, but I think we need to be careful with what we mean by information. I've been trying to teach myself to think of information not in terms of *instructionist* models but rather as *selectionist* (the distinction is made by G. Edelman and H. Plotkin). And, as for my skepticism about the impossibility of communication taking place without the intention to communicate, I think I'm skeptical that information without intention is not informative. (And I just now see that David Tuggy might also question this claim.) So, all I really meant in my original post was that I think it's worthwhile to investigate intentionality and communication separately (I haven't read the DuBois article, but I bet I'll like it when I do), to distinguish intentionality from intentional communicate. For example, I'm not sure I want to say that from the start infants intend to communicate. I think intention to communicate develops, quite possibly because caregivers treat infants' vocal behavior *as if* it were intentionally communicative. It's not communication because the child intended it to be, it's communication because the caregivers sanctioned it to be. In other words, I think it's worthwhile to consider the possibility that intentional communication develops ontogentically. And if so, that it develops phylogenetically. So it becomes then a matter of looking for precursors. I take it this is what Matt Cartmill (physical anthropologist) is talking about when he says: "To understand the origin of anything, we must have an overarching body of theory that governs both the thing itself and its precursors. Without such a body of theory, we have no way of linking the precursor to its successor, and we are left with an ineffable mystery, like the one that Chomsky and Lenneberg have always insisted must lie at the origin of syntax." Apply this to the emergence of intentional communication and I think it leads us to consider a concept behavioral ecologists rely on when they discuss the evolution of communication, that of 'intention movements': "many signals have evolved from incidental movements or responses of actors which happened to be informative to reactors. Selection favoured reactors who were able to anticipate the future behavior of actors by responding to slight movements which predicted an important action to follow" [the quote is from "Behavioural Ecology : An Evolutionary Approach" by J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies]. I want to entertain the hypothesis that this ability "to anticipate the future behavior of actors" is a precursor to intentional communication. While these movements communicate, and are intentional (although I bet some of them aren't), they are not intentionally communicative (which is why the authors above use the phrase "happened to be informative"). What I like about this view, though I don't see that the animal communication people ever recognize this, is that it places the emphasis not on production, the intention to communicate, but on comprehension, the ability to garner information (I might even say the ability to generate information on the part of the perceiver/reactor) from signals produced, intentionally or not, by others. Not unlike the child example above, the reactor "treats" the actor's behavior as if it is communicative. A pleasant side effect of focusing on comprehension rather than production is that it shifts our perspective from a monologic to a dialogic one. If we dwell too much on production, we too easily forget that information is in the eye of the beholder (it's that instructionist/selectionist difference again). But by focusing on the comprehender, the reactor who is selected because she was able to "put meaning into" the movements of actors, or the caregiver who treats the child's behavior as if it were intentionally communicative, we necessarily have to consider the dyad. And I'll be darned if I don't think all of this leads to the work of Rizzolatti that's getting so much press these days, on mirror neurons and the link between action, the capacity to recognize action, vision, and gesture. Thanks, folks. This is fun! -- Sherman From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Feb 22 08:08:25 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 03:08:25 EST Subject: Communication and Intent Message-ID: In a message dated 2/21/2001 12:21:46 AM, gvk at ciaccess.com writes: <> Intention is like electricity. We can't see it, but we know its there because of its effects. Lightbulbs, tv sets and electric shocks. We have no trouble making the inference from the obvious effects that electricity has. Intention is rather telltale, too. "Some inferences are as obvious as a trout in the milk pail." << As an analogy consider that all law is based in trying to ferret out the real intentions of the actor. We have to discover as best as we can what those intentions were to make a reasonable judgment as to what action to take. >> Law is a good reality check because it can be so practical about intention. IN FACT, in many, many cases in American law, intent is an element to prove but never really at issue. That's because judges and juries are allowed to and are even mandated to infer intention from the defendant's action, unless the defendant can give some acceptable explanation. There's the common concept in tort law of "res ipsa loqitur" - the thing speaks for itself. Except in capital murder cases, intent is only relevant if you can somehow show "additional" evidence that you really didn't "mean to do it." With regard to communication, Justice Holmes in a famous statement used the example of (falsely) shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. (He said it was not constitutionally protected free speech, but shouting "Fire!" is certainly communication.) What's interesting about the example is that Holmes didn't even bother to explain what happens when you do that. He assumed his readers knew what the effect would be - people panicked and possibly being injured in trying to escape. "Common experience" is an important concept in the law. It allows judges and juries to infer your intention if, e.g., you shout fire! or shoot a gun at someone. And it even allows a defense that you come from somewhere where there are no guns (or fires, I suppose) and you didn't know what the effect would be. In that case, the assumption is rebutted and the "intended effect" can't be automatically inferred. The law generally treats intention as something that can be known or at least confidentially surmised from the usual, expected effects of what was done. And from that we get a good practical - if not physiological - definition of intention. Intention is what we expect to happen (future effect) next time because of what happened (future effect) last time. Intention is using history to effect the future. An old twist on the Holmes example illustrates how this relates to communication: A man at a chocolate factory falls into a vat of chocolate. He yells "fire! fire!" Some people hear him and come and rescue him. One of them asks him after they pull him out, "Why did you yell 'fire! fire!'?" And he says, "If I yelled 'chocolate! chocolate!', do you think anyone would have come?" The intended effect defined the communication. If the antagonist in the joke had intended his dying words to be an accurate communication about the cause of his death, "chocolate! chocolate!" would have worked fine. But we can confidentially infer that was not the effect he was after, not his intention. And if the joke is funny to us (or some of us), it is because "common experience" tells us why his communication achieved its "intended effect" despite its literal inaccuracy. Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Thu Feb 22 15:01:37 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:01:37 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Dear Funknetters: I am glad to see that an interesting discussion is coming from this message. I have several reactions, perhaps the most useful of which is to clarify the reason for the absence of "intention" in that message. I am very sympathetic with the research that explores models of intention in language. I do some of it myself, and benefit from others' work. I deliberately left it out, because I am trying to survey sets of assumptions about language that are explicit in the literature. True, many people make assumptions about intention and its role in language use. Often the assumptions are implicit, or not part of an articulated framework that identifies Communication. My reason for leaving it out is that I think that it can be treated in a much stronger way, a way that answers some of the discussion questions. If we ASSUME a role for intention, it is stipulated. Work that rests on the assumption is subject to the accusation "Well, of course you found intention. You assumed it." (Often followed by "I don't.") I think the uses of intention can have a much stronger status, that of FINDINGS. We can study language use and see whether intention can be a vital concept in accounting for it. My judgment is that it can, and that a number of people have already done so. Gibbs, in psychology, makes a very strong defense that is consequential far beyond the borders of psychology. Michael Bratman, in philosophy, makes a nearly completely independent case as well. References could be multiplied. I see the status of intention, taken broadly, to be a verified FINDING. A model for this, an analogical story, is the intentionalism that was created by Grice. He examined uses of language, and what could be said about them, and carefully defined a mode of understanding received language (text, speech...) in which understanding depends vitally on recognizing producer's intentions. His term was meaning-NN. What Grice did primarily at an utterance level can be paralleled at many other scales, both in monologue and in interaction. People are currently working it out. I think that this status of "intention" -- that there is a FINDING that it has a vital role, is very much preferable to treating it as an assumption. So I left it out. I look for a fruitful discussion to continue. Everyone: Please make your intentions clear. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Mann" To: "Funknet" Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 4:21 PM Subject: Re: Assumptions about Communication > What is Communication? -- a summary > > In November I posted an inquiry about the literature on the nature of > communication, in particular: human communication using language. I want to > identify sets of assumptions that are explicitly stated and are used in > building theories. 2/17/01 message truncated here. See the archives for the entire message. From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Thu Feb 22 15:54:43 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:54:43 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: All: I should have included in my previous message these references: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (1999). Intentions in the Experience of Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bratman, Michael (1987). Intention, Plans and Practical Reason. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Sorry for the omission. Bill Mann From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Feb 22 16:16:10 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:16:10 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: In a message dated 2/22/2001 3:00:33 AM, wilcox at UNM.EDU writes: << And, as for my skepticism about the impossibility of communication taking place without the intention to communicate, I think I'm skeptical that information without intention is not informative. (And I just now see that David Tuggy might also question this claim.) >> This brings up the question of definitions again, doesn't it? Is communication so clearly different from other ways of getting an intended effect that the difference is qualitative rather than quantitative? My cat has at least two ways of getting the door to the outside balcony open. One is to pry the slightly ajar door open with her paw. The other is to sit at the door and meow distinctively until I come by and open the door. I can't say if she meows if I am not around, but if I am around I will predictably show up and open the door just to shut her up. Her meow in this situation is distinct morphologically and I suppose linguistically. I know where she is and what she wants when I hear it. Two ways of achieving what is plainly her intended effect. One is more effective than the other (if the door is shut slightly too tight she cannot get it open herself.) But what varies is the manner in which she gets the same results. If the wind were to blow the door open, both the cat and I would be able to gather that information from our senses -- to use as our intentions dictated. She would not need to meow or pry the door open and I would not need to get up to open it for her. The absence of her meow informs me that the wind may have blown the door open or that she opened it herself, but she did not "communicate" that to me. It was the absence of communication, the absence of her meow, that gave me that information. So I have the information that the door is probably open without her communication -- to use as my intentions dictate. In formal information theory, there is the concept of redundancy. Each repeated occurrence of all of the above increases the probability that I can predict the outcome the next time. As far as communication goes, it is one of my cat's tools. Why she wants to go out on the balcony is another matter. But how she gets there can include an information interchange with me, though that's not her exclusive method. Unlike the man drowning in the chocolate vat and needing to be rescued, she does not however have to rely on the action of others to achieve the intended effect. Cats seem to prefer that. <> Another joke. The family is sitting around the table and suddenly Johnny says, "The mashed potatoes are cold." Everybody drops their forks and look at him, stunned, Dad says, "Johnny! This is amazing. For all of your twelve years, you've haven't said one word! We were sure you were deaf and dumb! And now for the first time you talk - and all you can say is, the mashed potatoes are cold?" And Johnny says, "Well, up to now, everything has been okay." Heiddegger, the German phenomenologist, wrote that one of the essential elements of being is CARE (I guess this is how it is best translated.) He spoke of this not as a "drive", but rather the cumulative concept of or what is behind all biological drives. Why do I even notice or attend to the cat's meow? Why do I bother to gather and store the information about whether the door is opened or closed? I think logically intention needs to precede "comprehension." I have to "care" enough about outcomes to attend to and gather and process and store and retrieve information. Just like communication, comprehension seems to be driven by intended effects. I did not understand what the man speaking Spanish loudly at the next table was saying. And I had little reason to care about comprehending what he was saying and no intention to have an effect from him. There was little or no comprehension or communication. What if I have on the other hand no intention to effect anything? Let's say I am comatose or ultimately disheartened. I may have the information from past experience stored in my brain to foresee all kinds of ways that I could effect my world in the future. I may have the capacity to communicate and comprehend. But I will not be communicating or comprehending. Because I just don't "care", I have no intentions in any direction. Communication and comprehension in this situation are not present or even observable. And some people may unkindly metaphorically move me over to a phylum that perhaps evolved earlier than intention, calling me a "vegetable." Regards, Steve Long From akbari_r at YAHOO.COM Thu Feb 22 17:41:20 2001 From: akbari_r at YAHOO.COM (Ramin Akbari) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 09:41:20 -0800 Subject: Intention Message-ID: Dear netters, Greetings I have been following the discussion on communication and intention closely and I have found it quite stimulating. However, as an applied linguist with some background in psychology I would like to look at the question from another perspective. In educational research, one of the important concerns for the researcher is establishing the psychological reality of the construct being investigated. That is, there should be some objective, preferably quatinfiable method for approaching a construct. If intention is part of any authentic communication ( which I am sure it is) what real, objective, data- based support do we have for its existence as a research construct ? If we can "prove" the psychological reality of intention objectively, then we can hope to have better tests of language ability and probably some new approaches to teaching foreign languages. Sincerely, Ramin Akbari, English Language Teaching Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From lexes at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Feb 22 19:40:23 2001 From: lexes at MINDSPRING.COM (Clifford Lutton) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 14:40:23 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: IMHO FWIW, communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being. Clifford Lutton 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, Georgia 30030-2823 (404) 371-8935 lexes at mindspring.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CCharJan at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 03:27:54 2001 From: CCharJan at AOL.COM (Janet Wilson) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 22:27:54 EST Subject: Communication & Intension Message-ID: Intent is a very important part of communication by means of language--I haven't studied other kinds of communication very much (not academically, anyway). However, it is true that the speaker's intended effect is not always the effect that results. I sometimes think of (speech) communication as a little like a ouija board: each speaker has his or her input, and if nobody intended to have any effect, the little thing on the board (I don't spend much time with ouija boards) wouldn't go anyplace. But I have also had the experience that my contribution to the discourse takes the discourse anyplace but where I intended it to go. Communication does take place without language, of course, but nobody in this discussion has yet persuaded me one way or the other about how intension figures into that kind of communication. This is the kind of discussion that got me interested in the Funknet in the first place, though. Janet Wilson U Texas Arlington From tomas at EVA.MPG.DE Fri Feb 23 06:29:38 2001 From: tomas at EVA.MPG.DE (Michael Tomasello) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 07:29:38 +0100 Subject: chimpanzee communicative intentions Message-ID: The way we have analyzed intentions in chimpanzee gestural communication is as follows: 1. Sometimes a youngster intends to crawl up on Mom's back and tries to do so. 2. After a few attempts, Mom anticipates what is coming at the first touch on the back and so lowers her back immediately. 3. The youngster notices the effectiveness of the first touch only, and so now just touches Mom's back lightly and waits for her to respond (the touch is what is referred to as an 'intention movement' - it is 'ritualized'). The youngster originally had an intention - to get on Mom's back - but the process of (ontogenetic) ritualization transformed that into a communicative intention - to get Mom to lower her back. Please note that none of this means that the youngster is trying to manipulate Mom's intentions - which would be still another additional involvement of intentionality. Our take is that the chimp youngster, unlike human infants from about one year of age, has communicative intentions concerning Mom's behavior only. In contrast, human infants from very early have communicative intentions towards the intentions and attention of others, and these are manifest first in gestures and then in language. There are lots of references, but two reviews (that cite the original research) are: Tomasello, M. & Camaioni, L. (1997). A comparison of the gestural communication of apes and human infants. Human Development, 40, 7-24. Tomasello, M. (1998). Reference: Intending that others jointly attend. Pragmatics and Cognition, 6, 219-234. Mike Tomasello From mew1 at SIU.EDU Fri Feb 23 15:50:36 2001 From: mew1 at SIU.EDU (Margaret E. Winters) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 09:50:36 -0600 Subject: intent Message-ID: I've been reading the postings on communication and intent and (because of my day job) thought of some place to look at an application: there should be a good-sized literature on the interpretation of contracts, including faculty union contracts, where intent is pivotal but agreement on intent, and therefore meaning, is all too often missing. Margaret ----------------------- Dr. Margaret E. Winters Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research Southern Illinois University Carbondale Carbondale, IL 62901-4305 tel: (618) 453-5744 fax: (618) 453-1478 e-mail: mew1 at siu.edu From gvk at ciaccess.com Fri Feb 23 17:37:02 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 12:37:02 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Clifford Lutton wrote: "communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being." Not close enough to the mark. You are taking only part of the meaning. Our concept of "communication" predicates a concept of mutuality, of 'union' or 'comm-union'; in our everyday use of the word, what we mean is that the two participants involved understand the same thing. If the other doesn't understand what we are trying to communicate, then we are back to Cool Hand Luke (remember the movie with Paul Newman?) "What we have here is a failure to communicate!" gerry van koeverden From w.croft at MAN.AC.UK Fri Feb 23 17:24:26 2001 From: w.croft at MAN.AC.UK (Bill Croft) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 17:24:26 +0000 Subject: "Explaining Language Change" Message-ID: I would like to announce that my book "Explaining Language Change" is finally available outside the UK---it is now listed as available at a major Internet bookseller, listed at US$22 paperback (the UK price is 19.99 pounds). I am sending this announcement because the publisher (Longman) was bought up by Pearson, who terminated linguistics publication, is not marketing their recent linguistics books, and has not answered correspondence. I have appended the jacket description of the book. My apologies to those who receive multiple copies of this announcement. Bill Croft "Explaining Language Change" William Croft, University of Manchester ISBN 0-582-35677-6 (paperback), June 2000. Pp. xvi, 287. Ever since the origins of both linguistics and evolutionary biology in the 19th century, scholars have noted the similarity between biological evolution and language change. Yet until recently neither linguists nor biologists have developed a model of evolution general enough to apply across the two fields. Even in linguistics, the field is split between the historical linguists who study change in language structure, and the sociolinguists who study social variation in the speech community. "Explaining language change" represents the first thoroughly worked out framework for language evolution, building on the pioneering ideas of Richard Dawkins and David Hull in biology and philosophy of science. Its central thesis is that the locus of language change is the utterance in social intercourse. Linguistic innovations emerge from the remarkable complexity of communication in social interaction. Once innovations occur, they are propagated through the equally complex social structures of the speech communities we participate in. "Explaining language change" provides a framework for assessing current theories of language change, and advances new ideas about grammatical reanalysis, conventional and nonconventional use of language, the structure of speech communities, language mixing, and the notion of "progress" in language change. "Explaining language change" reintegrates sociolinguistics and historical linguistics, weaving together research on grammatical change, pragmatics, social variation, language contact and genetic linguistics. From lexes at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Feb 23 18:22:47 2001 From: lexes at MINDSPRING.COM (Clifford Lutton) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 13:22:47 -0500 Subject: My Failure to Communicate Message-ID: Yesterday I attempted to describe, IMHO, what happens when communication occurs. Last night, when I should have been sleeping, I realized that the attempt had failed to be explicitly as inclusive as it should have been. So what was a HO is now a VHO: Communication occurs in events. Natural languages are not its only media. Often these events require reciprocal participation - output and input exchanges - between communicators and communicatees; often they do not. Communication events occur when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of communicators are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by communicatees. Communicators are animate (botanical?) and inanimate (e.g. people, pets, works of art, clouds, etc.). Their participation in communication events may be intentional or not intentional. Communicatees are animate (and botanical?) individuals capable of participating in and interpreting communication events. Their interpretations may be accurate or inaccurate. If I'm wrong here, I'll appreciate being set straight. Best to all, Clifford Lutton 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, GA 30030-2823, USA 404-371-8935 lexes at mindspring.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From akbari_r at YAHOO.COM Fri Feb 23 19:08:09 2001 From: akbari_r at YAHOO.COM (Ramin Akbari) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 11:08:09 -0800 Subject: Intention in communication Message-ID: Dear netters, It seems that my previous posting had some ambiguities, as it is clear from some of the off list messages I have received. I would like to rephrase and summarize my previous message. If we talk about intention as an indispenible part of communication, then how can we measure it ? That is, how would you show that someone has more intention than another ? Is there any quantifiable method for measuring intention ? Sincerely, Ramin Akbari __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 19:29:01 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:29:01 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Clifford Lutton wrote: <<..communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being.>> On its face, this appears to have me "communicating" if someone (or something) peeks at me through the window as I'm taking a shower. I'm "present" and my "appearance" is being perceived and "assigned significance" (hopefully) by another being. This definition appears to make sharing my physical existence a communication, if it is perceived so in the eye of the beholder. An interesting definition, but I wonder how operational. In a message dated 2/23/2001 12:48:08 PM, gerry van koeverden replied to Clifford Lutton's definition: <> If we go strictly by the Latin (> communicare, to partake or impart) I'm communicating if I share MY sandwich with someone. To share my understanding of something with another certainly also qualifies -- there is no need for reciprocity, at least by the original word's meaning. But I guess the net result are two people are "sharing" the understanding or the sandwich. I guess, from a functional point-of-view, we might bring back the question: to what end? Am I communicating - strictly speaking - if I share my ham sandwich with a vegetarian? Am I communicating if I "impart" my flawed knowledge of omelet-making to a real cook who really knows how to make an omelet? Am I communicating if I am arguing and tell someone to "go jump in a lake"? Am I communicating if I talk it over with myself and decide something should be done about something? Once again, I'd humbly suggest that we would find the use of the word "communication" incomplete if we also do not keep an eye on the actual effect or intended effect of our attempt to communicate. If the information goes "in one ear and out the other", has the "imparting" taken place? <> Good example. Actually Old Luke understood what the Boss Man was saying, alright. Those who know the movie know Luke's problem was not understanding. He just didn't care. He had other intentions. Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 19:51:45 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:51:45 EST Subject: Intention in communication Message-ID: In a message dated 2/23/2001 2:10:45 PM, akbari_r at YAHOO.COM writes: << If we talk about intention as an indispensable part of communication, then how can we measure it ? That is, how would you show that someone has more intention than another ?>> The first problem, I think, is that the subject may have plenty of intention, but not to do what we think or would like him to do. <> Just a quick sidebar on maybe what the problem could be here. How much can we infer from actual behavior what the intended behavior or intended effect was? This is a key question. Not only because it reflects our lack of ability to observe "intention" directly as a private event, but also because it reflects how much we can control the variable of intention in order to test it. Let's say we are simply asking the subject to do a task. We assume it is his intention is to do the task and his intended effect is to get the task done. But what can interfere with that assumption? Motivation - is the subject actually intending to attempt to complete the task? Attention - is the subject being somehow distracted away from his intended goal? Skill - is the intended effect beyond the subject's physical skills? Deception (the Cool Hand Luke Effect) - does the subject honestly have the intention of completely the task? Emotion - will the setting induce a panic or other interfering level of emotion? Inexperience - is the subject untrained in achieving the intended effect? Mechanical behavior - is the subject intending to do the actions without regard to whether or not the actions are appropriate to achieve the goal? And, of course, Unintended Results - including the adjustments made over numerous trials in the process we call learning, where the subject only approaches the intended effect over time. If we assume a 1 to 1 correlation between intention and action or consequence, these are all factors that can reduce that ratio. The gap between what the subject intends and the real world outcome is one thing. The gap between what he intends and what we think or hope he intends is another. One solution may be to look to what might be a highly co-dependent variable - attention? Can there be continuous intention without collateral attention? Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Fri Feb 23 20:08:20 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 15:08:20 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: Responding to Margaret Winters' message about intent and contracts: I think you are on the trail of something. At a more primitive level, I recall a concept from a contract law course. It was called "meeting of minds." An example: If A and B create a sale contract, so that A is selling a boat named "Happy Trails," a barge, but B is buying a boat named "Happy Trails," a schooner, and it can be established that these were the thoughts that were being thought when the contract was signed, then by law there was no "meeting of minds." The law then says, there is no enforceable contract. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margaret E. Winters" To: Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 10:50 AM Subject: intent > I've been reading the postings on communication and intent and (because of > my day job) thought of some place to look at an application: there should > be a good-sized literature on the interpretation of contracts, including > faculty union contracts, where intent is pivotal but agreement on intent, > and therefore meaning, is all too often missing. > > Margaret > ----------------------- > Dr. Margaret E. Winters > Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research > > Southern Illinois University Carbondale > Carbondale, IL 62901-4305 > > tel: (618) 453-5744 > fax: (618) 453-1478 > e-mail: mew1 at siu.edu > From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 21:27:43 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 16:27:43 EST Subject: intent Message-ID: In a message dated 2/23/2001 3:09:39 PM, bill_mann at SIL.ORG writes: << I recall a concept from a contract law course. It was called "meeting of minds." An example: If A and B create a sale contract, so that A is selling a boat named "Happy Trails," a barge, but B is buying a boat named "Happy Trails," a schooner, and it can be established that these were the thoughts that were being thought when the contract was signed, then by law there was no "meeting of minds." >> But there is plenty of judicial dicta (official judge talk) that makes it clear that the trier of fact (e.g., jury) cannot try to read minds. This is from the "seminal" (often cited) case quoted in Black's Law Dictionary: "The 'meeting of the minds' required to make a contract is not based on secret purpose or intention on the part of one of the parties, stored away in his mind and not brought to the attention of the other party, but must be based on the purpose and intention that has been made known or should have been known ... from the circumstances." McClintock v. Skelly Oil Co., 232 Mo. App. 1204, 114 S.W. 2d, 181, 184 So as a matter of evidence, what tells us that there might be no contract in the example you gave was NOT what was going on in A and B's heads, but the fact that there were two different ships by the same name. Of course, the parties must give their reports of what they were thinking. But that would only stand up if there were two different ships or some other OBJECTIVE reason for a lack of common intent. Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Fri Feb 23 22:03:09 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 17:03:09 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: Funknetters: I was glad to see Steve Long's clarification of my line of thinking about "meeting of minds." Yes, that's how they do it, and we can use comparable methods. Of course, the objective existence of two boats by the same name is essential in the example. For us, it is this pair of boats that makes credible the two sets of intentions involved, and makes it credible that they disagreed in crucial details, in spite of the fact that such conversations generally converge in terms of what each one thought the other's intentions were. So we might say that the need for this legal doctrine arises from the fact that "grounding" and establishing of "mutual knowledge" tend not to fail, and so a rule is needed about the exceptional cases where they do fail. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Long" To: Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 4:27 PM Subject: Re: intent > In a message dated 2/23/2001 3:09:39 PM, bill_mann at SIL.ORG writes: > > << I recall a concept from a contract law course. It was called "meeting of > minds." An example: If A and B create a sale contract, so that A is selling > a boat named "Happy Trails," a barge, but B is buying a boat named "Happy > Trails," a schooner, and it can be established that these were the thoughts > that were being thought when the > > contract was signed, then by law there was no "meeting of minds." >> > > But there is plenty of judicial dicta (official judge talk) that makes it > clear that the trier of fact (e.g., jury) cannot try to read minds. This is > from the "seminal" (often cited) case quoted in Black's Law Dictionary: > > "The 'meeting of the minds' required to make a contract is not based on > secret purpose or intention on the part of one of the parties, stored away in > his mind and not brought to the attention of the other party, but must be > based on the purpose and intention that has been made known or should have > been known ... from the circumstances." McClintock v. Skelly Oil Co., 232 > Mo. App. 1204, 114 S.W. 2d, 181, 184 > > So as a matter of evidence, what tells us that there might be no contract in > the example you gave was NOT what was going on in A and B's heads, but the > fact that there were two different ships by the same name. > > Of course, the parties must give their reports of what they were thinking. > But that would only stand up if there were two different ships or some other > OBJECTIVE reason for a lack of common intent. > > Regards, > Steve Long > From ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Sat Feb 24 20:36:42 2001 From: ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Cecilia E. Ford) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 12:36:42 -0800 Subject: meaning & intention Message-ID: In addition to looking at Du Bois' work, I would urge scholars of meaning and intention to look at the ambiguities that follow from Charles Goodwin's observations regarding the organization of perturbations in the flow of speech and the gaze behavior or potential recipient/addressees of that speech. One thing that follows is that although sound perturbations and cut-offs of sound production may occur without intention, they can also be "deployed" to interactional ends. Now this has to do with the purposeful (though not premeditated or self-conscious) organization of the joint social action in and around which language functions (overwhelmingly, if one takes the ontogenetic or phylogenetic perspective). Charles Goodwin 1981 Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. Academic Press. -Ceci Cecilia E. Ford Department of English 600 N. Park St. University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison WI 53706 USA ceford at facstaff.wisc.edu From gvk at ciaccess.com Sun Feb 25 04:32:49 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 23:32:49 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: > Good example. Actually Old Luke understood what the Boss Man was saying, > alright. Those who know the movie know Luke's problem was not understanding. > He just didn't care. He had other intentions. Luke knew what the Boss Man meant, but he refused to attach the same caring to those ideas that the Boss Man did. In effect Luke refused the Boss Man's urging to share the coupling of a particular idea with the same feelings. We only feel we are really communicating with someone when it becomes apparent that we are both associating the same type of positive or negative feelings or reinforcement with the same particular subject or idea. In effect we can say that the Boss Man was successful in the transmision of his message, and Luke was successful in receiving it. But overal communication-which also includes intention-failed because Luke refused to accept its validity. It's the same in commercials. The advertiser tries to associate some postive feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this results in a purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular feelings with that product, we say that the communication has failed. gvk From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET Sun Feb 25 13:51:50 2001 From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 07:51:50 -0600 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Gerald van Koeverden wrote: "It's the same in commercials. The advertiser tries to associate some postive feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this results in a purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular feelings with that product, we say that the communication has failed." It seems to me that if commercials are to be part of this discussion we would need to consider the evidence -- which tells us that when commercials establish positive feelings people often remember the commercial but not the name of the product it was selling or the company/brand responsible. By contrast, when commercials establish negative feelings -- including disgust or repulsion -- they almost always remember the product's name/brand/company, and it's well established that this leads to higher sales. In terms of "success" or "failure" of the communication, this sets advertising communication significantly apart from most other human language interactions. Mingling the two forms is likely to lead to substantial confusion. Suzette Haden Elgin From gvk at ciaccess.com Sun Feb 25 19:28:00 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 14:28:00 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Suzette, You are partly correct. There are always negative feelings associated with a successful commercial, but there are also postive feelings. It is the mix of these two in how the viewer interprets them that determines whether the commercial is successful or not, in whether it induces positive (buying) or negative (cynicism) responses. For example, an advertisement on Caribean cruises might first focus on evoking negative feelings, eg. a sense of jealousy on the part of the viewer. The viewer is trapped between his feelings of vicariously enjoying the cruise and his realization that he or she can't afford it or the time. Then the ad by advertising cheap rates for short cruises gives him or her a way of being able to do it, and overcome this chasm between fanatsy and reality. Sales pitches for cruises and arguments by mothers to get their children to brush their teeth, work on the same principles. gvk Suzette Haden Elgin wrote: > Gerald van Koeverden wrote: > "It's the same in commercials. The advertiser tries to associate some postive > feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this > results in a > purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. > However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular > feelings with > that product, we say that the communication has failed." > > It seems to me that if commercials are to be part of this discussion we > would need to consider the evidence -- which tells us that when commercials > establish positive feelings people often remember the commercial but not > the name of the product it was selling or the company/brand responsible. By > contrast, when commercials establish negative feelings -- including disgust > or repulsion -- they almost always remember the product's > name/brand/company, and it's well established that this leads to higher > sales. In terms of "success" or "failure" of the communication, this sets > advertising communication significantly apart from most other human > language interactions. Mingling the two forms is likely to lead to > substantial confusion. > > Suzette Haden Elgin From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG Sun Feb 25 21:22:06 2001 From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 16:22:06 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke In-Reply-To: <3A988AF1.4EF7EDCD@ciaccess.com> Message-ID: Gerald VK wrote: "The advertiser tries to associate some postive feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this results in a purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular feelings with that product, we say that the communication has failed." I never thought I would feel like congratulating those who are hard to communicate with. In this case, I think I do! (I think it was C.S. Lewis who commented somewhere about how what a triumph of language it is that logical thought, common sense, self-control, and thrift, can be lumped together under the rubric of "sales resistance".) --David Tuggy From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET Sun Feb 25 22:33:03 2001 From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 16:33:03 -0600 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Gerald van Koeverden writes: "Suzette, You are partly correct. There are always negative feelings associated with a successful commercial, but there are also postive feelings. It is the mix of these two in how the viewer interprets them that determines whether the commercial is successful or not, in whether it induces positive (buying) or negative (cynicism) responses. For example, an advertisement on Caribean cruises might first focus on evoking negative feelings, eg. a sense of jealousy on the part of the viewer. The viewer is trapped between his feelings of vicariously enjoying the cruise and his realization that he or she can't afford it or the time. Then the ad by advertising cheap rates for short cruises gives him or her a way of being able to do it, and overcome this chasm between fanatsy and reality. Sales pitches for cruises and arguments by mothers to get their children to brush their teeth, work on the same principles." **Partly correct or not, I'm not communicating. Let's try this again. I'm not talking about subtle negative feelings like a "sense of jealousy on the part of the viewer." I mean that tasteless and tacky and even vulgar laxative commercials, diarrhea remedy commercials, toilet paper commercials, beer commercials, sexual "vigor" commercials [I'm trying hard to be neither subtle nor obscure] -- commercials that people find literally, overtly disgusting -- sell more product than elegant and tasteful commercials that people love. You know that commercial where the little girl stands trustingly as the rhinoceros charges at her across the savannah? It's lovely; it's irresistible. And nobody can remember what product or brand or company is associated with it. This is different from the effect that a gross-out human being has on other human beings in noncommercial language interactions, and is not recommended as a way to get your kids to brush their teeth. Suzette From gvk at ciaccess.com Sun Feb 25 23:07:09 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 18:07:09 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Suzette, Obviously, whether or not consumers are brain-washed into buying the product has absolutely nothing with their esthetic appreciation of the commercials themselves as being tacky or tasteful. I agree with that totally. What I'm I'm trying to get at is the under-lying unconscious emotional dynamics that do the real work of selling. Why do you think those ads work? Or are you totally mystified by the phenomena? Maybe these companies are buying billions of dollars annually for advertising for nothing? gerry Suzette Haden Elgin wrote: > **Partly correct or not, I'm not communicating. Let's try this again. > > I'm not talking about subtle negative feelings like a "sense of jealousy on > the part of the viewer." I mean that tasteless and tacky and even vulgar > laxative commercials, diarrhea remedy commercials, toilet paper > commercials, beer commercials, sexual "vigor" commercials [I'm trying hard > to be neither subtle nor obscure] -- commercials that people find > literally, overtly disgusting -- sell more product than elegant and > tasteful commercials that people love. From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Sun Feb 25 23:59:32 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 18:59:32 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: In a message dated 2/25/2001 8:32:01 AM, ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET writes: << It seems to me that if commercials are to be part of this discussion we would need to consider the evidence -- which tells us that when commercials establish positive feelings people often remember the commercial but not the name of the product it was selling or the company/brand responsible. By contrast, when commercials establish negative feelings -- including disgust or repulsion -- they almost always remember the product's name/brand/company, and it's well established that this leads to higher sales.>> Well, I think the ad managers of Budweiser and McDonald's will tell you that simply isn't true. Political campaigns are another thing. SOME BACKGROUND: I think all you have to do to get a clear picture of what drives the actual creators of (at least American and British) tv commercials is get a hold of an issue of "Creativity", a magazine published by AdAge for that group. You'll see the value system among the upper echelons of that group that permeates through most of the "creative types" at advertising agencies is pretty transparent. You don't get star status by "establishing positive or negative feelings" or even necessarily "higher sales." TV especially is all about the shock of "awareness", where your commercial is remembered, talked about, featured in USA Today and TV Guide. Those who add to the mammoth ratings of the SuperBowl regularly vote the commercials more interesting than the game in the press, where the "favorite" commercial is always a prestige matter. Big corporate marketing machines, whether they like it or not, must compete. But a "blockbuster" ad campaign is often associated with good sales and positive corporate image on Wall Street. The key of course is to create a 30 second story where the product or service or corporate image has a role in that story. (Just like the Reeses Pieces (candy) that Spielberg had E.T., the lovable alien, find so delicious.) Telling a good cinematic story with the product interwoven is obviously the motif of the commercials that win the "best ever" polls - Coke's "Mean Joe Green" (hurt but scary football player thanks kid for giving him a Coke by tossing him a game jersey), Apple's "1984" (woman with war hammer smashes Big Brother's screen symbolizing introduction of Macintosh and that Orwell's1984 will not happen in 1984) - and earn the writers and directors - Ridley Scott (Gladitor), Joe Pitka (Spaceballs) - a walkin to the Hollywood feature film business. Both Mean Joe and 1984 were felt to have an enormous positive, but hard to measure, impact on sales. That said, the other element in the ad business is called 'Research', considered antithetical to the 'Creatives' and you can guess what profession they come from. Research would prefer tv commercials to be aimed at "persuasion" but often lose in the battle with the "Creatives" because people will often say they will buy a product NOT based on what the commercial says but because they just plain like a commercial and the way it treats them. Research-designed commercials tend to overemphasize the product and so the commercials lose their sense of entertainment. These are the kinds of ads that use special effects to demonstrate the product (which modern audiences are not as amazed by anymore) or mundane problem-solution situations (that modern audiences are bored by.) For a fair number of conservative product categories or advertisers, these research-driven commercials are the norm (e.g., headache remedies, toilet bowl cleaners). These situations are considered the equivalent of Siberia to the Creative crowd. RESEARCH AND ADVERTISING Given the above, there are researchers who have strong track record in the business. The "success" of a commercial depends on its objective. New products must first achieve "awareness" or "top-of-mind awareness" which may have as much to do with how often they run as with what they say, except that product ID is critical. "Motivation-to-buy" is measured by some researchers, while with commonly used products, "attitude' measurements can signal the kind of nudge that gets people "switching" between two comparable brands. There are thousands of commercials run every day on American tv, so that "memorability" and "attention" are also separate values. The bad feelings you mention generally occur in "problem-solution" commercials, where as with pain relievers the interest is considered high among potential users. Image advertising (or brand image advertising) is used to fill in or sustain a general good feeling about a product. Some of us feel that so-called "negative political advertising" against opposing political candidates is a solid case of manipulation. Rich (often republican) candidates particularly can assert things over and over again on air which even the press cannot bring balance to, if they had the heart, because the air waves are truly inundated. HOW DOES ADVERTISING WORK? Well, on its basic level, advertising doesn't make me want toilet paper or instant mash potatoes. Toilet paper and instant mashed potatoes make me want them when I understand what they do. My life is a lot better because of both. The basic intended effect of advertising is to let me know those items exist and I cannot argue with that, as I never knew them, my life would be the worse for it. There is however advertising that alludes to benefits that may be imaginary and that I as a user cannot confirm. Some herbal health products are like this. They prey on fear and may do nothing and I think they deserve strong government interdiction. Then there is the whole issue of congruent self-image and product image, as in beer or a kind of a car, where the label is a badge for the user. A Bud or Chevy man versus "imported beer drinkers" or BMW drivers and such. The whole notion of fashion, social acceptance, "conspicuous consumption" (Thorstein Veblen, for those who don't read anything ten years old or more) is beyond the topic of advertising and well into the arena of social phenomena that existed long before tv commercials and outdoor billboards. All that includes perhaps communication on its most subtle plain. <> I think a close look will show only that advertising, like motion pictures and popular music, is different only in the amplification of its effects by the power of mass electronic media. Hope this helps, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Mon Feb 26 02:08:20 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 21:08:20 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: In a message dated 2/24/2001 11:34:19 PM, gvk at CIACCESS.COM writes: << In effect we can say that the Boss Man was successful in the transmision of his message, and Luke was successful in receiving it. But overal communication-which also includes intention-failed because Luke refused to accept its validity. >> Going back to the definition of communication and the suggested element of "intended effect": The Boss's "failure to communicate" could be seen as the failure of the communication to have the intended effect. The Boss was not after simple common understanding - we know that he succeeded at that. However what he actually wanted was for Luke not to attempt an escape. But Luke kept on attempting to escape. The Boss's "communications" failed - did not achieve the actual effect he intended. Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Mon Feb 26 18:45:17 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 13:45:17 -0500 Subject: Intention Message-ID: I am replying to Ramin Akbari's message about intention. (I have included portions of it below.) I certainly recognize the focus in educational research and other branches of psychology of "establishing the psychological reality of the construct being investigated." Psychology as a discipline could not continue without something like this. In fact for any of our disciplines, there needs to be a distinction, or a tendency toward a distinction, between the established, well justified terminology and that which is not. I take the central concern in Ramin Akbari's message to be whether "intention" is in the well justified group or not, and if not whether it can be brought into the well justified group for a particular subdiscipline of psychology. Psychology functions as several fields with the same name, and often it is necessary to specify whether Clinical Psychology, Experimental Psychology or any of a half dozen others is intended. Such is inevitable given the complexity and importance of the subject matter. Here I believe he is addressing a need of researchers in Experimental Psychology -- a need to wait for justification before using the term freely. But for the rest of us, I think that we need not wait. I think that the important general issue is not "establishing the psychological reality of the construct being investigated." but rather: "establishing the reality of the construct being investigated. " For that end, other sorts of evidence are usable. In fact, other fields may have a larger body of experience with some particular concept than professional psychologists can assemble. I find it significant that there is, in the Western nations that I know something about, a tradition of multiple centuries of trial transcripts, applying notions of intention found in laws. It is impressive that the concept survives despite the fact that in every trial there is one side that would win if the concept could be shown to be unreal. Often those adversaries are paid even more than scientists to argue such cases. Yet in law, intention continues to be regarded as real. Ramin Akbari continues: "If > intention is part of any authentic communication ( > which I am sure it is) what real, objective, data- > based support do we have for its existence as a > research construct ? If we can "prove" the > psychological reality of intention objectively, then > we can hope to have better tests of language ability > and probably some new approaches to teaching foreign > languages." The real problem here seems to be spurious requirements in the research methods, requiring proofs of reality for things that are well known to be real. We could even quote Ramin Akbari's message, saying "If intention is part of any authentic communication (which I am sure it is) ..." It is unfortunate that these research methods, which have been in place for a long time before Ramin Akbari had to struggle with them, force him to prove that which he is sure of. This is going far beyond ordinary caution. Rather it deals with a closed intellectual world that does not grant full reality to what is known, even to its practitioners. The risk for other intellectual communities is that somehow this limited closed-world treatment of reality will become licensed to tell, with the authority of science, what is real and what is not. Michael Reddy, in the paper referenced below, is suggesting that there are terms that have been inappropriately treated as being well justified. The list might include "content," "meaning," "code," "message" and even "languages." Caution in using such terms is well justified. In the case of 'intention," Raymond W. Gibbs in his 1999 book <> makes a good defense of the term and a good constructive case for prospective benefits of using it. I think we can treat it as a worthy term, but it is certainly worthwhile to be explicit about what our usage entails. Bill Mann The first reference below was in a previous message. Reddy, Michael J. (1979). The Conduit Metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language In A. Ortony (eds,). Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 41. Gibbs, Raymond W. (1999) Intentions in the Experience of Meaning: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. From lexes at MINDSPRING.COM Mon Feb 26 21:54:36 2001 From: lexes at MINDSPRING.COM (Clifford Lutton) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 16:54:36 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Bill Mann has written: "Clifford: "... what would you say about a predator-prey situation (e.g. wolf and rabbit) where the rapid approach of the wolf is being perceived, interpreted and assigned significance by the rabbit, who then runs away. How is that communication? "Perhaps on some dependency scale, interaction is more basic than communication. "If you wish to take this up, please bring it back to the list. "Best wishes. "Bill Mann" To which I reply to Bill and all interested: Whether by nature or by nurture, experienced rabbits generally fear wolves (and a great many other animals including most humans). Your wolf's presence, was perceived and interpreted by your rabbit which did what rabbits do if they able and wish to survive. The rabbit had no illusions about wolves communing with rabbits. Whether the wolf intended to communicate its presence to the rabbit or not, it did so; perhaps even silently, your rabbit got the message. ************ I can think of no communication event in which a "receiver" (accidentally or volitionally) perceives input from a sender and does not volitionally interpret (accurately or inaccurately) the "sender's" message . Not to interpret would preclude there being a communication event. (Yes, ole' taciturn Luke was an cool communicator. Recall how he intentionally caused his captors and other inmates (communicatees) to perceive and misinterpret his speech and actions so he could escape?) Perceiving may be unintentional, and communication may be precluded by a possible receiver ignoring intended percepts. However, volitional (intentional and/or instinctive) interpretation is a necessary part of each communication event. From the point of view of the receiver, volition is not a variable because there is no communication event if there is no interpretation. It appears to me that many attempts to clarify the concept, communication, fall short because they approach the matter more from the perspective of the sender than of the receiver. Because "intention" is a problem when attempting to define communication (as recent list postings indicate). Because it is less a problem when the concept is approached from the receiver's point of view than from the senders, I approach the task from the perspective of the former rather than the latter. Best, Clifford Lutton lexes at mindspring.com 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, GA 30030-2823, USA Clifford: Off the record (and off of the list), what would you say about a predator-prey situation (e.g. wolf and rabbit) where the rapid approach of the wolf is being perceived, interpreted and assigned significance by the rabbit, who then runs away. How is that communication? Perhaps on some dependency scale, interaction is more basic than communication. If you wish to take this up, please bring it back to the list. Best wishes. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: Clifford Lutton To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 2:40 PM Subject: Re: Assumptions about Communication IMHO FWIW, communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being. Clifford Lutton 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, Georgia 30030-2823 (404) 371-8935 lexes at mindspring.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Tue Feb 27 00:05:55 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 19:05:55 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 2/26/2001 5:26:11 PM, lexes at MINDSPRING.COM writes: << Because "intention" is a problem when attempting to define communication (as recent list postings indicate). Because it is less a problem when the concept is approached from the receiver's point of view than from the senders, I approach the task from the perspective of the former rather than the latter. >> Of course, the well-intended question here is whether this solves the problem or avoids it. If the rabbit sees the wolf and runs (having volitioned and interpreted and based on that ran), is that a communication? Not matter what the wolf's intentions were? If the rabbit doesn't see the wolf and gets caught, is that a failure to communicate? If the rabbit sees a dead tree about to fall on it and volitions and interprets and runs, is that a communication? If a rabbit fails to see the dead tree falling and gets crushed, is that a failure to communicate? The presence of another "being" isn't really necessary to these scenarios if w e avoid the intention of the sender. If a sender can communicate by an "unintended" act (e.g., myself being spied on in the shower, the wolf being seen by the rabbit) then there is no reason to separate the unintending sender from the sender that is incapable of intending. If I "read" the weather or the water, I can get very meaningful messages, highly functional in terms of my future safety or comfort. If "communication" resides entirely in the receiver without the need for intention in the sender, then all the world's a sender. "Signatures of all things I am here to read." - James Joyce Regards, Steve Long From CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG Tue Feb 27 06:40:20 2001 From: CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG (CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 14:40:20 +0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Status Distribution February 27, 2001 06:40:03 The message regarding "Assumptions about Communication, etc." sent on February 27, 2001 06:40:03 was sent by Status Recipient Type To Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Foreign Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu\n\n\nSMTP Recipients Status Reporters Type From Name Domain NOTES Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV at SINGOV Foreign Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV\nSINGOV\n\n Organization SINGOV Org Unit 1 SPF Last Name CHEW First Name Jian Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book From CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG Tue Feb 27 06:52:35 2001 From: CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG (CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 14:52:35 +0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Status Distribution February 27, 2001 08:15:26 The message regarding "Re: Assumptions about Communication, etc." sent on February 27, 2001 08:15:26 was sent by Status Recipient Type To Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Foreign Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu\n\n\nSMTP Recipients Status Reporters Type From Name Domain NOTES Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV at SINGOV Foreign Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV\nSINGOV\n\n Organization SINGOV Org Unit 1 SPF Last Name CHEW First Name Jian Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Tue Feb 27 14:14:11 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:14:11 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 2/27/2001 1:58:53 AM, CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG writes: << Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book >> A failure to communicate. From iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU Mon Feb 5 05:17:45 2001 From: iwasaki at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU (Shoichi Iwasaki) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 22:17:45 -0700 Subject: Filipino/Tagalog Position at UCLA Message-ID: The Program in South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA seeks applicants for a full-time lecturer position in Filipino/Tagalog for the academic year 2001-2002 with possibility of renewal (pending budgetary approval). The lecturer will be responsible for first and second year instruction in Filipino/Tagalog. Applications are invited from qualified individuals. Candidates with native or near-native fluency in the target language, advanced degrees, some background in Linguistics, and previous experience in teaching Tagalog to both heritage and non-heritage students, are preferred. Review of candidates will begin March 1, 2001. Applications should include a letter of interest, CV, and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be sent to: Shoichi Iwasaki, Director of South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures Program, c/o Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 290 Royce Hall, Box 951540, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540. UCLA is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply. AA/EOE. From bls at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU Tue Feb 6 19:34:31 2001 From: bls at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (Andrew Simpson) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 11:34:31 -0800 Subject: BLS 27 Announcement Message-ID: The 27th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society Friday, February 16 - Sunday, February 18, 2001 Berkeley, California **************************************************** INVITED SPEAKERS - Parasession on LANGUAGE & GESTURE **************************************************** SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 'The Two Faces of Gesture' SCOTT LIDDELL, GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY 'Grammar and Gesture in American Sign Language: implications for constructing meaning' SUSAN DUNCAN, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 'Perspectives on the co-expressivity of speech and co-speech gestures in three languages' **************************************************** INVITED SPEAKERS - General Session **************************************************** LEONARD TALMY, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, BUFFALO 'The Representation of Spatial Structure in Spoken vs. Signed Languages' ELISABETH SELKIRK, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST TBA SARAH THOMASON, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 'Pronoun Borrowing' The complete schedule of talks may be found at: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/BLS/bls27sched.html Registration information: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/BLS/register27.html Questions? Please contact: .............................. Berkeley Linguistics Society 1203 Dwinelle Hall University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 Phone/Fax: 510-642-5808 find information on BLS meetings and availability of proceedings at: http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/BLS/ .............................. From swellsj at BGNET.BGSU.EDU Fri Feb 9 19:10:50 2001 From: swellsj at BGNET.BGSU.EDU (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 14:10:50 -0500 Subject: xenolinguistics: sum Message-ID: Hello, Folks, A few weeks ago, I posted a question about references in xenolinguistics for an up-coming summer seminar. Here's a summary. There is lots of good stuff; thanks to all of you for your help. any errors in the citations are a result of inaccurate bibliographic work on my part. The only reference I was completely unable to track down was an interview that Chomsky gave to Omni magazine. If anyone knows how to get a hold of that intriguing, little gem, do let us all know! My (randomly) annotated bibliography will certainly grow by quite a bit in the next few weeks. If anyone would like the whole thing once it's done, let me know and I'll be happy to send it along. ** ** ** My thanks to: E. O. Batchelder Alan Dench Holger Diessel Suzette Haden Elgin Victor Golla Clayton Gillespie Paul J Hopper Sunny Hyon Esa Itkonen William Mann Rick Morneau David Nash Dianne Patterson Noel Rude Jess Tauber Marina Yaguello Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew. 1999. The origins of complex language. New York: Oxford University Press. CONLANG (constructed languages discussion list( subscribe at LISTSERV at brownvm.brown.edu Dembski, William. 1998. The design inference: eliminating chance through small probabilities. New York: Cambridge University Press. Elgin, Suzette haden. 1984. Native tongue. Daw. Elgin, Suzette Haden. The Linguistics and SF Newsletter. Elliott J, Atwell, E and Whyte B. 2000. Language identification in unknown signals. in Proceeding of COLING'2000, 18th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, pages 1021-1026, Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) and Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco. Elliott J, Atwell, E and Whyte B. 2000. Increasing our ignorance of language: identifying language structure in an unknown signal. in Daelemans W (ed) Proceedings of CoNLL-2000: International Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning, Lisbon, Portugal. Elliott J and Atwell E. 1999. Language in signals: the detection of generic species-independent intelligent language features in symbolic and oral communications. in Proceedings of the 50th International Astronautical Congress, paper IAA-99-IAA.9.1.08, Amsterdam. International Astronautical Federation, Paris. Elliott J and Atwell E. 2000. Is anybody out there?: the detection of intelligent and generic language-like features. In Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, volume 53 no.1/2 pages 13-22, British Interplanetary Society, London. Frawley, William. Linguistic Semantics. Freudenthal, Hans. 1960. LINCOS. Design of a language for cosmic intercourse. Amsterdam: North-Holland Hockett, C. F. 1960. The origin of speech. Scientific American. V203 #3, 88-96. Laycock, Donald C. 1987. The languages of Utopia, in Utopias, ed. by Eugene A Kamenka. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. p144-78. Lewis C. S. 1990. The cosmic trilogy. London : Pan in association with Bodley Head. (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength) Nossal, Gustav J V 1993. Life, death and the immune system. Scientific American, September, p. 52-62. Pepperberg, Irene. The Alex studies: cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrots. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Pinker, Steven. 1994. The language instinct. New York: W. Morrow and Co. Tomasello, M. 1999. The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Whaley, Lindsay. 1996. Introduction to linguistic typology. Sage Publications Inc. Yaguello, Marina. 1993. Lunatic lovers of language. London: Athlone Press. Two websites: http://www.ali.unimelb.edu.au/course/outline/newbro.htm and http://www.stardancer.org/panel." *--------------------* Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen 423 East Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio 43402 (419) 372-8935 swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ From Ted.Sanders at LET.UU.NL Mon Feb 12 15:53:57 2001 From: Ted.Sanders at LET.UU.NL (Ted Sanders) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:53:57 +0100 Subject: workshop on sentence and discourse processing, Utrecht Message-ID: Workshop FROM SENTENCE PROCESSING TO DISCOURSE INTERPRETATION: CROSSING THE BORDERS Utrecht University, Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS Utrecht (The Netherlands), 2-3 July 2001 CALL FOR PAPERS The aim of this workshop is to foster the interaction of two areas in psycholinguistics that have traditionally been pursued quite independently of one another: sentence and discourse processing. Discourse processing research has dealt primarily with issues like relational and referential coherence - i.e. conceptual issues, whereas sentence processing has traditionally focused on the analysis of sentence structure. Recently, however, signs of a movement to-wards convergence can be noticed. In sentence processing, issues pertaining to interpretation are gradually assuming a more prominent position on the research agenda. In the field of dis-course processing, the conviction is gaining strength that in order to develop adequate models, detailed analyses of linguistic factors, including grammatical properties of sentences, as "processing instructors" are necessary. It would seem then, that the traditional border between the discourse level and the sentence level is being crossed increasingly often from both sides. Researchers from the two traditions are beginning to recognize each other's contributions to the field at large, as well as their interdependence. The workshop aims at and intends to stimulate and inspire researchers from both fields to share and discuss their ideas and empirical results. Particularly, the focus will be on issues that are at the interface of sentence and discourse processing. A few examples of the kinds of topics that would fit in the workshop are: ? Are processing operations at the level of discourse and sentence processing principally different, or does the same computation system subserve the two domains? ? Is Logical Form (the interface between syntax and the conceptual system in the generative framework) a psycholinguistically viable concept? ? Does discourse context always interfere with sentence parsing, or are there examples of genuinely autonomous sentence-level processes? ? How can linguistic characteristics of discourse (grammatical structure, connectives, anaphora) be further specified as processing instructions for discourse processing? Invited Speakers Jos van Berkum, University of Amsterdam Lyn FrazierUMass, Amherst Alan Garnham, University of Sussex Ted Gibson,MIT Leo Noordman, Tilburg University Tony Sanford, University of Glasgow Wietske VonkMax Planck Institute Submission of Papers The programme of the workshop comprises 10 - 20 slots for oral (25 minutes, including discussion time) and poster presentations, which will be selected on the basis of abstracts submit-ted to the organizing committee. Your abstract should clearly summarize the aim of your study, its theoretical motivation and the principal results. Abstracts should not exceed one page (A4 or Letter) in length. Set linespacing to 1.5 (minimally), and use a 12-point font. Add your name, address, affiliation, e-mail address, and telephone number on a separate page. Send a soft copy of your abstract by electronic mail to: processing at let.uu.nl, and state "submission workshop" in the subject header. The deadline for submissions is: March 30, 2001 Notification of acceptance: April 20, 2001 Organizing committee Ted Sanders, Frank Wijnen, Sergey Avrutin, Frank Jansen, Gerben Mulder, Iris Mulders, Eric Reuland (all UiL OTS) Utrecht University Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS Trans 10 3512 JK UTRECHT, The Netherlands ------------------------------------------------------------- Ted Sanders Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS / Opleidingsinstituut Nederlands Universiteit Utrecht Trans 10 NL - 3512 JK Utrecht The Netherlands e-mail: Ted.Sanders at let.uu.nl Tel. +31 30 253 60 80 / 80 00 Fax + 31 30 253 60 00. =========================================================== From ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Tue Feb 13 21:36:24 2001 From: ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Cecilia E. Ford) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:36:24 -0800 Subject: verbs of existence/possession, speaking/thinking,sensual perception Message-ID: Please Reply-To: "David S. Danaher" I am currently working with a corpus of verbs in Czech and have determined that 80% of these verbs fall into roughly three categories: verbs of existence/possession, verbs of speaking/thinking, and verbs of sensual perception. I would like to investigate this regularity in my corpus further, and I know that there is literature on the roles that one or more of these three general verbal groupings play in various linguistic phenomena. However, I am having trouble locating specific sources which take up this theme. I thought perhaps someone out there might have done some work in this area and might have ready suggestions for what I should read. I would appreciate any help! Thanks in advance, David ********************************* David S. Danaher, Assistant Professor Slavic Languages, 1432 Van Hise University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706 Cecilia E. Ford Department of English 600 N. Park St. University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison WI 53706 USA ceford at facstaff.wisc.edu From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Sat Feb 17 21:21:37 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:21:37 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: What is Communication? -- a summary In November I posted an inquiry about the literature on the nature of communication, in particular: human communication using language. I want to identify sets of assumptions that are explicitly stated and are used in building theories. Several of you sent interesting replies, and I have begun to sort out the ideas, mostly represented in references. I really have appreciated the thoughtful replies from responders. Special appreciation goes to Herbert Clark, Ad Foolen, Paul Hopper, George Lakoff, Brian MacWhinney, Tom Payne and Olga Yokoyama. The overview that resulted has two kinds of parts. The first kind involves various alternative sets of assumptions found in the literature of linguistics, broadly conceived. The various positions within this set are comparable as alternatives, or in the terms of (Kuhn 1970), ?commensurable.? They form a single collection. There is a more encompassing view, introduced at the end of the paper, in which this collection of positions can be viewed as a single member of a larger collection of incommensurable views of communication. The larger collection is sometimes discussed under an umbrella term - ?Communication Theory.? This memo touches on both levels. All who responded to my inquiry (including some rather notable responders), sent references and ideas that are found in some part of the literature of linguistics or closely related fields, including psychology and sociology. I read the references and noted the ideas. The first outcome, a genuine surprise, was the impression that the explicit identification of the nature of communication in the literature (linguistics, psychology, sociology, other related fields) is very rare. The literature just seemed to have very few things to say on this particular topic. To come to this conclusion I had to sort through various concepts. Communicating is seen as a process that predictably has certain kinds of effects. A major reason that people communicate is the aim of producing such effects. For cases in which the process of communication succeeds (i.e. produces the desired effects), the central issue concerning the nature of communication is to identify the nature of these effects, rather than how the effects were produced. We might ask: Are these effects in essence propositions in mind, acts, a shared body of knowledge, or something else? This sparse characterization of the nature of communication effects stands in contrast to the abundant literature concerning the process of how communication is accomplished. The use of symbols, inference, lexical processes and resources, the formation and interpretation of sound patterns, discourse creation and comprehension, people affecting each other in interpersonal interaction, reading, writing, translation, grammar and a host of other topics each have an abundant literature that covers numerous alternative approaches. The distinction between What is Language and What is A Language is also elaborately discussed, and each one (in different places) is taken as logically prior to the other. There is a widespread tendency to take the notion of communication for granted, in no need of identification. Similarly, the loaded terms ?meaning? and ?message? are often used without explanation. It is assumed that communication is easy and the concept of communication is unproblematic. Reddy, in The Conduit Metaphor, shows ways that these assumptions may fail (Reddy 1979). He discusses the common tacit assumptions that arise from the metaphor, including the notion that communication is typically simple and effortless. This assumption is seen as the source of destructive misunderstandings in ordinary interaction. It may be the source of misunderstandings in more technical studies as well. Recognizing Reddy?s substantial contribution, it is still important to recognize a difference between two questions: What metaphors are commonly used as starting points in thinking about communication? What explicit or implicit assumptions are used in forming technical accounts of the nature of communication? Reddy?s paper is principally about the metaphors, while the question under discussion is principally about theoretical assumptions. There is a widespread tendency to see communication as exchange or transmission of ideas. Generally, the assumption is implicit. In non-technical contexts it has an established and often unquestioned place, at least in Western culture. In linguistics and other communication sciences the view of communication as exchange is also used, but there is also widespread dissatisfaction with this view. The roots of the assumption can be traced back through Saussure and Locke, stopping (perhaps for convenience) at Plato. In the light of the narrowness of this assumption, and the flood of reactions against it, one wonders how it could have become so dominant. In this regard it has been genuinely helpful to consider the history of the assumptions. They are shaped not only by the technical issues, such as compatibility of assumptions or the derivation of one set of assumptions from another, but also by social and political factors, such as the conditions that led to the names of nations becoming names of languages. Another aspect of this dominant view is that technical views of communication using language overwhelmingly focus on the middle regions of interactions, where the ?meaning? and the ?message? are. Examples include the part of a letter that occurs after the greeting and before the salutation, the part of a dialogue that occurs after the mutual greetings and before the leave taking, or even the part of an email message found after the subject line and before the signature block. In a letter ?Dear John: I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Love, Alice,? focus is on ?I hate you.? The assumptions that are most often used are commonly called ?The Code Model?. In my initial inquiry, I identified The Code Model as follows: ?Communication is exchange of ideas, and those ideas can be represented as propositions. Further, exchange of an idea from one person to another takes place by encoding the proposition(s) in language, transmitting that encoded linguistic product to another person, and that person decoding the given language and thus recovering (a copy of) the proposition(s).? In this paper we are focusing on the idea exchange part and the possible role of propositions, rather than the role of any code in enabling exchange. Many approaches to language would say that any sort of decoding is in general insufficient for interpreting or coming to understand an interval of language use that a person has received. Instead, inference of various sorts, including use of context, is seen as a necessary part of this interpretation step. We should notice that addition of inference does not change the character of the expected result, although it may greatly expand the quantity and import of it. (Inference proceeds from propositions to propositions.) Rather, inference seems simply to change the means by which the result is found. Thus the posited nature of communication, exchange of ideas as represented by propositions, is unchanged. Along with the focus on middle regions and on the role of propositions, there is a third aspect. This is a focus on language that is declarative or generally expository, along with a focus on how to determine what uses of language are warranted to be called true or false. In various approaches there is also recognition of propositional attitudes, which are stances taken by the language producers toward propositions. Not mentioned directly by those who responded to me, but clearly an open issue, is the use of any non-propositional construct that promises to do things comparable to the suggested roles of propositions. Use of prototypes rather than mathematical set theory is a starting point for one group of such approaches. Conceptually distinct, there are approaches to representation that make extensive use of the word ?image.? I don?t know whe ther the nature of communication has been identified explicitly in this literature. There is another fundamentally different conception coming into more prominence. It involves shared conceptions, in contrast to exchange. It is easiest to explain using an example of dialogue. Suppose someone (A), who is engaged in dialogue with (B), attempts to communicate something (X) to B. They do so by bringing X from the status of being known by A into the status of being mutually known by both A and B. The activity of doing so is a joint activity, including not only the expression of X but also questions, clarifications, expressions of confirmation of understanding and more. Creating mutual knowledge is sometimes called grounding. There are (controversially) distinctive logical operations involved, such as a rule that that if (X is expressed by A, and B does not indicate any difficulty), then (X is grounded), i.e. mutually known by A and B. The participants each maintain an estimate of what is grounded relative to the other participants, and conversation typically operates in a way that makes these estimates converge. In approaches with this sort of grounding, communication is creation of mutual knowledge, and what is communicated is simply what becomes grounded. There is much more to the subject than I am mentioning. Another orientation to communication is based on speech acts. Speech act theory and various similar approaches expand the conception of the elementary units of communication so that communication is based on acts rather than propositions. Searle, for example, has said ?The unit of linguistic communication is not ... the symbol, word or sentence, but rather the production ... of the symbol, word or sentence in the performance of a speech act.? ((Searle 1969), p. 16, quoted in (Clark 1996), p. 137.) Searle?s view has been amended and revised in many ways, but the distinctive notion that the fundamental units of communication consist of acts has generally been retained. One kind of amendment, for dialogue, is to replace the speech act by an act that has two active participants, a ?dialogue act.? Treatment of acts as fundamental may lead to a very different understanding of the nature of communication than those cited earlier. This orientation can be reconciled to either a mutual knowledge view or an exchange of ideas view. For example, (Clark 1996) uses both mutual knowledge and speech acts as basic. It is also possible to blend all three, using formal, propositional, truth-valued notations to deal simultaneously with grounding and speech acts. A surprisingly powerful scheme of this sort was presented in (Kamp 1999). Perhaps the most striking aspect of this search is that it did not encounter, except implicitly, the notion of that which is communicated. In common understanding, after a dialogue is concluded or after a text has been read, the persons involved are affected. The use of language has communicated something. We can readily produce summary statements about what particular things have been communicated (i.e. that John will sell me his car for $3000 or that Gore advocates a selective tax cut.) Promises, beliefs, doubts, accusations or other effects are commonly recognized as representing, in summary form, results of interaction. Yet there seems to be little reflection in the literature of this notion, nor of how participants have been affected, nor of the connection between the words used and the effect produced. Surely this recognition is not really absent in the literature, but my expectation that I would find discussions of it was mistaken. All of this study suggests to me that there might be a substantial gain from being explicit about these assumptions in our theories. Explicitly identifying such assumptions would help to clarify how they differ from the naive conceptions commonly used. It would also facilitate improvement of the sets of assumptions we use. Making assumptions explicit would illuminate in a new way how various frameworks differ, and it would strengthen the study of how communication happens. After working through responders? suggestions and others that came up in the process, I was nearly ready to accept that the state of the literature is as described above. But I was then led to a much broader view, in which definitions of communication are abundant. R. T. Craig?s paper, Communication Theory as a Field (Craig 1999), encompasses a much broader range of approaches, which Craig presents in distinct groups. These groups of approaches (in Kuhn?s terms again) are incommensurable. They function in isolation from each other. Craig characterizes various approaches under six collective terms: rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, sociopsychological, sociocultural and critical. He cites (Littlejohn 1992) as giving a schematic overview. (He also includes a seventh term ?cybernetic,? but that group, under his identification, does not deal substantively with the human source.) Craig does not treat linguistics as one of the collections of approaches. The collection which is most similar to linguistics is called semiotics. However, semiotics is unrepresentative of linguistics today. He notes (p. 125) that most of these groups tend to define themselves partly by reaction and contrast with the dialectical opposite, the Code Model (which he calls the ?transmission model?). In gathering these groups, Craig cites the literature richly. For example, he notes that (Dance 1970) analyzes ninety five definitions of communication from the 1950s and 1960s, and that (Anderson 1996) reviewed seven textbooks of communication theory and found 249 distinct theories mentioned, most only once. So, in this view, definitions of communication are abundant. Of course, it is unlikely that many of these definitions would be applicable as part of any sort of linguistic framework. Many attempts at various sorts of reconciliation between theories or groups have been made, with discouraging results. Eclectic approaches (of building a theory by selecting parts from various sets) have also generally failed. Craig suggests (p. 135) that the various theoretical groupings are incommensurable because there are conflicts between their epistemologies. A finding in one cannot be seen as a finding in another. So in Craig?s view, as seems quite credible, definitions of communication are abundant outside of the linguistic neighborhood. I commend his works to your attention; my representation of his paper has necessarily been extremely selective. Since this is an email topic summary, perhaps some personal reactions may be in order. Imagine a situation in which the object of study is chess games rather than language, in which the rules are not provided but must be identified by study of game transcripts, and the study addresses not only the rules but why particular sorts of moves tend to be chosen. The rules might be fairly easy to discover, but the reasons for choices of moves, and the constraints on choices, might not. Then imagine the effect of replacing the notion ?Here is where they stopped? with clear notions of ?Checkmate? and ?This player wins? and ?Each player wants to win.? These are stronger notions of the outcomes of chess games, and of the basis on which players select moves. Making such information available would revolutionize the study. There are analogies from this fictional exercise to the present. Study of language use is frequently without clear and satisfactory notions either of the outcomes or the status of language use as communication. The disciplines that are labeled as ?linguistics? are collectively perhaps the only ones of the ?communication sciences? that have the wide array of conceptual power tools necessary to take on creation of a detailed scientific account of human communication. If linguistics does not produce a strong and credible account, perhaps no other discipline will. The references given by those who responded to my message were (in author order): Clark, H. H. (1999). On the origins of conversation. Verbum, 21, 147-161. Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, Roy (1980) The Language Makers. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. (Unavailable:) Harris, Roy, ed. -- a new book series 'Communication and Linguistic Theory" , including the first book, also by Harris, entitled "The Language Myth in Western Culture", forthcoming in 2001 from Curzon Press. http://psyling.psy.cmu.edu/Brian/papers/index.html (a paper by Brian MacWhinney on shared mental spaces (in contrast to exchanged things.) Reddy, Michael J. (1979). The Conduit Metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language In A. Ortony (eds,). Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 41. Yokoyama, Olga, The Transactional Discourse Model in Discourse and Word Order, Benjamins, 1987. Additional References Anderson, J. A. (1996). Communication Theory: epistemological foundations. New York: Guilford Press. Craig, Robert T. (1999). Communication Theory as a Field. Communication Theory 9(2): 119-161. Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The "concept" of communication. Journal of Communication 20: 201-210. Harris, Roy, (1996), Signs, Language and Communication, Routledge, New York. Kamp, Hans, (1999) oral presentation on advances in truth-valued representation of dialogues, Amstelogue: Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, Amsterdam. Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Littlejohn, S. W. (1992). Theories of Human Communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Searle, John R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John R., (1992), Conversation Reconsidered, in (On) Searle on Conversation, Searle, John R., ed., Pragmatics and Beyond, New Series: vol. 21, John Benjamins. ============================= William C. Mann SIL in USA 6739 Cross Creek Estates Road Lancaster, SC 29720 USA (803) 286-6461 bill_mann at sil.org G o e From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Sun Feb 18 10:53:55 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 02:53:55 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Isn't it absolutely amazing how linguists (like all academics) can take the simplest thing and complicate it beyond recognition? If you have demonstrated nothing else, Bill, you have certainly demonstrated that, once again. Good show, TG ================= William Mann wrote: > > What is Communication? -- a summary > > In November I posted an inquiry about the literature on the nature of > communication, in particular: human communication using language. I want to > identify sets of assumptions that are explicitly stated and are used in > building theories. Several of you sent interesting replies, and I have > begun to sort out the ideas, mostly represented in references. I really have > appreciated the thoughtful replies from responders. Special appreciation > goes to Herbert Clark, Ad Foolen, Paul Hopper, George Lakoff, Brian > MacWhinney, Tom Payne and Olga Yokoyama. > > The overview that resulted has two kinds of parts. The first kind involves > various alternative sets of assumptions found in the literature of > linguistics, broadly conceived. The various positions within this set are > comparable as alternatives, or in the terms of (Kuhn 1970), ?commensurable.? > They form a single collection. There is a more encompassing view, > introduced at the end of the paper, in which this collection of positions > can be viewed as a single member of a larger collection of incommensurable > views of communication. The larger collection is sometimes discussed under > an umbrella term - ?Communication Theory.? This memo touches on both levels. > > All who responded to my inquiry (including some rather notable responders), > sent references and ideas that are found in some part of the literature of > linguistics or closely related fields, including psychology and sociology. > I read the references and noted the ideas. > > The first outcome, a genuine surprise, was the impression that the explicit > identification of the nature of communication in the literature > (linguistics, psychology, sociology, other related fields) is very rare. > The literature just seemed to have very few things to say on this particular > topic. > > To come to this conclusion I had to sort through various concepts. > Communicating is seen as a process that predictably has certain kinds of > effects. A major reason that people communicate is the aim of producing > such effects. For cases in which the process of communication succeeds > (i.e. produces the desired effects), the central issue concerning the > nature of communication is to identify the nature of these effects, rather > than how the effects were produced. We might ask: Are these effects in > essence propositions in mind, acts, a shared body of knowledge, or something > else? > > This sparse characterization of the nature of communication effects stands > in contrast to the abundant literature concerning the process of how > communication is accomplished. The use of symbols, inference, lexical > processes and resources, the formation and interpretation of sound patterns, > discourse creation and comprehension, people affecting each other in > interpersonal interaction, reading, writing, translation, grammar and a host > of other topics each have an abundant literature that covers numerous > alternative approaches. The distinction between What is Language and What > is A Language is also elaborately discussed, and each one (in different > places) is taken as logically prior to the other. > > There is a widespread tendency to take the notion of communication for > granted, in no need of identification. Similarly, the loaded terms > ?meaning? and ?message? are often used without explanation. It is assumed > that communication is easy and the concept of communication is > unproblematic. Reddy, in The Conduit Metaphor, shows ways that these > assumptions may fail (Reddy 1979). He discusses the common tacit > assumptions that arise from the metaphor, including the notion that > communication is typically simple and effortless. This assumption is seen > as the source of destructive misunderstandings in ordinary interaction. It > may be the source of misunderstandings in more technical studies as well. > > Recognizing Reddy?s substantial contribution, it is still important to > recognize a difference between two questions: > > What metaphors are commonly used as starting points in thinking about > communication? > > What explicit or implicit assumptions are used in forming technical accounts > of the nature of communication? > > Reddy?s paper is principally about the metaphors, while the question under > discussion is principally about theoretical assumptions. > > There is a widespread tendency to see communication as exchange or > transmission of ideas. Generally, the assumption is implicit. In > non-technical contexts it has an established and often unquestioned place, > at least in Western culture. In linguistics and other communication > sciences the view of communication as exchange is also used, but there is > also widespread dissatisfaction with this view. > > The roots of the assumption can be traced back through Saussure and Locke, > stopping (perhaps for convenience) at Plato. In the light of the narrowness > of this assumption, and the flood of reactions against it, one wonders how > it could have become so dominant. In this regard it has been genuinely > helpful to consider the history of the assumptions. They are shaped not > only by the technical issues, such as compatibility of assumptions or the > derivation of one set of assumptions from another, but also by social and > political factors, such as the conditions that led to the names of nations > becoming names of languages. > > Another aspect of this dominant view is that technical views of > communication using language overwhelmingly focus on the middle regions of > interactions, where the ?meaning? and the ?message? are. Examples include > the part of a letter that occurs after the greeting and before the > salutation, the part of a dialogue that occurs after the mutual greetings > and before the leave taking, or even the part of an email message found > after the subject line and before the signature block. In a letter ?Dear > John: I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Love, Alice,? focus is on ?I > hate you.? > > The assumptions that are most often used are commonly called ?The Code > Model?. In my initial inquiry, I identified The Code Model as follows: > ?Communication is exchange of ideas, and those ideas can be represented as > propositions. Further, exchange of an idea from one person to another takes > place by encoding the proposition(s) in language, transmitting that encoded > linguistic product to another person, and that person decoding the given > language and thus recovering (a copy of) the proposition(s).? > > In this paper we are focusing on the idea exchange part and the possible > role of propositions, rather than the role of any code in enabling exchange. > > Many approaches to language would say that any sort of decoding is in > general insufficient for interpreting or coming to understand an interval of > language use that a person has received. Instead, inference of various > sorts, including use of context, is seen as a necessary part of this > interpretation step. > > We should notice that addition of inference does not change the character of > the expected result, although it may greatly expand the quantity and import > of it. (Inference proceeds from propositions to propositions.) Rather, > inference seems simply to change the means by which the result is found. > Thus the posited nature of communication, exchange of ideas as represented > by propositions, is unchanged. > > Along with the focus on middle regions and on the role of propositions, > there is a third aspect. This is a focus on language that is declarative or > generally expository, along with a focus on how to determine what uses of > language are warranted to be called true or false. In various approaches > there is also recognition of propositional attitudes, which are stances > taken by the language producers toward propositions. > > Not mentioned directly by those who responded to me, but clearly an open > issue, is the use of any non-propositional construct that promises to do > things comparable to the suggested roles of propositions. Use of prototypes > rather than mathematical set theory is a starting point for one group of > such approaches. Conceptually distinct, there are approaches to > representation that make extensive use of the word ?image.? I don?t know whe > ther the nature of communication has been identified explicitly in this > literature. > > There is another fundamentally different conception coming into more > prominence. It involves shared conceptions, in contrast to exchange. It is > easiest to explain using an example of dialogue. Suppose someone (A), who > is engaged in dialogue with (B), attempts to communicate something (X) to B. > They do so by bringing X from the status of being known by A into the status > of being mutually known by both A and B. The activity of doing so is a > joint activity, including not only the expression of X but also questions, > clarifications, expressions of confirmation of understanding and more. > Creating mutual knowledge is sometimes called grounding. There are > (controversially) distinctive logical operations involved, such as a rule > that that if (X is expressed by A, and B does not indicate any difficulty), > then (X is grounded), i.e. mutually known by A and B. The participants > each maintain an estimate of what is grounded relative to the other > participants, and conversation typically operates in a way that makes these > estimates converge. > > In approaches with this sort of grounding, communication is creation of > mutual knowledge, and what is communicated is simply what becomes grounded. > There is much more to the subject than I am mentioning. > > Another orientation to communication is based on speech acts. Speech act > theory and various similar approaches expand the conception of the > elementary units of communication so that communication is based on acts > rather than propositions. Searle, for example, has said ?The unit of > linguistic communication is not ... the symbol, word or sentence, but > rather the production ... of the symbol, word or sentence in the > performance of a speech act.? ((Searle 1969), p. 16, quoted in (Clark > 1996), p. 137.) Searle?s view has been amended and revised in many ways, > but the distinctive notion that the fundamental units of communication > consist of acts has generally been retained. One kind of amendment, for > dialogue, is to replace the speech act by an act that has two active > participants, a ?dialogue act.? > > Treatment of acts as fundamental may lead to a very different understanding > of the nature of communication than those cited earlier. This orientation > can be reconciled to either a mutual knowledge view or an exchange of ideas > view. For example, (Clark 1996) uses both mutual knowledge and speech acts > as basic. It is also possible to blend all three, using formal, > propositional, truth-valued notations to deal simultaneously with grounding > and speech acts. A surprisingly powerful scheme of this sort was presented > in (Kamp 1999). > > Perhaps the most striking aspect of this search is that it did not > encounter, except implicitly, the notion of that which is communicated. In > common understanding, after a dialogue is concluded or after a text has been > read, the persons involved are affected. The use of language has > communicated something. We can readily produce summary statements about > what particular things have been communicated (i.e. that John will sell me > his car for $3000 or that Gore advocates a selective tax cut.) Promises, > beliefs, doubts, accusations or other effects are commonly recognized as > representing, in summary form, results of interaction. Yet there seems to > be little reflection in the literature of this notion, nor of how > participants have been affected, nor of the connection between the words > used and the effect produced. Surely this recognition is not really absent > in the literature, but my expectation that I would find discussions of it > was mistaken. > > All of this study suggests to me that there might be a substantial gain from > being explicit about these assumptions in our theories. Explicitly > identifying such assumptions would help to clarify how they differ from the > naive conceptions commonly used. It would also facilitate improvement of > the sets of assumptions we use. Making assumptions explicit would > illuminate in a new way how various frameworks differ, and it would > strengthen the study of how communication happens. > > After working through responders? suggestions and others that came up in the > process, I was nearly ready to accept that the state of the literature is as > described above. But I was then led to a much broader view, in which > definitions of communication are abundant. R. T. Craig?s paper, > Communication Theory as a Field (Craig 1999), encompasses a much broader > range of approaches, which Craig presents in distinct groups. These groups > of approaches (in Kuhn?s terms again) are incommensurable. They function in > isolation from each other. Craig characterizes various approaches under six > collective terms: rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, > sociopsychological, sociocultural and critical. He cites (Littlejohn 1992) > as giving a schematic overview. (He also includes a seventh term > ?cybernetic,? but that group, under his identification, does not deal > substantively with the human source.) > Craig does not treat linguistics as one of the collections of approaches. > The collection which is most similar to linguistics is called semiotics. > However, semiotics is unrepresentative of linguistics today. He notes (p. > 125) that most of these groups tend to define themselves partly by reaction > and contrast with the dialectical opposite, the Code Model (which he calls > the ?transmission model?). > > In gathering these groups, Craig cites the literature richly. For example, > he notes that (Dance 1970) analyzes ninety five definitions of communication > from the 1950s and 1960s, and that (Anderson 1996) reviewed seven textbooks > of communication theory and found 249 distinct theories mentioned, most only > once. So, in this view, definitions of communication are abundant. Of > course, it is unlikely that many of these definitions would be applicable as > part of any sort of linguistic framework. > > Many attempts at various sorts of reconciliation between theories or groups > have been made, with discouraging results. Eclectic approaches (of building > a theory by selecting parts from various sets) have also generally failed. > Craig suggests (p. 135) that the various theoretical groupings are > incommensurable because there are conflicts between their epistemologies. A > finding in one cannot be seen as a finding in another. > > So in Craig?s view, as seems quite credible, definitions of communication > are abundant outside of the linguistic neighborhood. I commend his works to > your attention; my representation of his paper has necessarily been > extremely selective. > > Since this is an email topic summary, perhaps some personal reactions may be > in order. > > Imagine a situation in which the object of study is chess games rather than > language, in which the rules are not provided but must be identified by > study of game transcripts, and the study addresses not only the rules but > why particular sorts of moves tend to be chosen. The rules might be fairly > easy to discover, but the reasons for choices of moves, and the constraints > on choices, might not. > Then imagine the effect of replacing the notion ?Here is where they stopped? > with clear notions of ?Checkmate? and ?This player wins? and ?Each player > wants to win.? These are stronger notions of the outcomes of chess games, > and of the basis on which players select moves. Making such information > available would revolutionize the study. > > There are analogies from this fictional exercise to the present. Study of > language use is frequently without clear and satisfactory notions either of > the outcomes or the status of language use as communication. The > disciplines that are labeled as ?linguistics? are collectively perhaps the > only ones of the ?communication sciences? that have the wide array of > conceptual power tools necessary to take on creation of a detailed > scientific account of human communication. If linguistics does not produce > a strong and credible account, perhaps no other discipline will. > > The references given by those who responded to my message were (in author > order): > > Clark, H. H. (1999). On the origins of conversation. Verbum, 21, > 147-161. > > Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University > Press. > > Harris, Roy (1980) The Language Makers. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, > New York. > > (Unavailable:) Harris, Roy, ed. -- a new book series 'Communication and > Linguistic Theory" , including the first book, also by Harris, entitled "The > Language Myth in Western Culture", forthcoming in 2001 from Curzon Press. > > http://psyling.psy.cmu.edu/Brian/papers/index.html (a paper by Brian > MacWhinney on shared mental spaces (in contrast to exchanged things.) > > Reddy, Michael J. (1979). The Conduit Metaphor: A case of frame conflict > in our language about language In A. Ortony (eds,). Metaphor and Thought, > Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 41. > > Yokoyama, Olga, The Transactional Discourse Model in Discourse and Word > Order, Benjamins, 1987. > > Additional References > > Anderson, J. A. (1996). Communication Theory: epistemological > foundations. New York: Guilford Press. > > Craig, Robert T. (1999). Communication Theory as a Field. Communication > Theory 9(2): 119-161. > > Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The "concept" of communication. Journal of > Communication 20: 201-210. > > Harris, Roy, (1996), Signs, Language and Communication, Routledge, New York. > > Kamp, Hans, (1999) oral presentation on advances in truth-valued > representation of dialogues, Amstelogue: Workshop on the Semantics and > Pragmatics of Dialogue, Amsterdam. > > Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: > University of Chicago Press. > > Littlejohn, S. W. (1992). Theories of Human Communication. Belmont, CA: > Wadsworth. > > Searle, John R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University > Press. > > Searle, John R., (1992), Conversation Reconsidered, in (On) Searle on > Conversation, Searle, John R., ed., Pragmatics and Beyond, New Series: vol. > 21, John Benjamins. > > ============================= > William C. Mann > SIL in USA > 6739 Cross Creek Estates Road > Lancaster, SC 29720 > USA > (803) 286-6461 > > bill_mann at sil.org G o e From HSINTL at AOL.COM Sun Feb 18 00:13:02 2001 From: HSINTL at AOL.COM (HSINTL at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 19:13:02 EST Subject: Unsub Message-ID: Unsub -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI Mon Feb 19 15:49:57 2001 From: matmies at LING.HELSINKI.FI (Matti Miestamo) Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 17:49:57 +0200 Subject: Calls: Endangered Languages Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS The Linguistic Association of Finland is organizing a symposium on LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES to be held at the University of Helsinki, August 29 - September 1, 2001. The symposium will bring together linguists interested in questions relating to endangered languages. We invite papers addressing general linguistic questions as well as papers taking the viewpoint of one (or more) particular language(s). Themes include documentation of endangered languages, standardization of language corpora, and the possible effects of endangerment on the grammar of a language. Other topics relating to language endangerment are also welcome. Invited speakers: David Harrison (University of Pennsylvania), Nomads on the internet: Documentation, endangered languages and technologies William McGregor (Aarhus Universitet), Structural changes in language shift/obsolescence: a Kimberley (Australia) perspective Marja-Liisa Olthuis (S?mi Assizes, Finland): The Inarisaami language as an endangered language Tapani Salminen (University of Helsinki), Linguists and language endangerment in north-western Siberia Stephen A. Wurm (The Australian National University), Languages of the world and language endangerment Activities: Lectures by invited speakers Presentations by participants (20 min + 10 min for discussion) Demonstrations by participants Abstracts: The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words) is March 30, 2001. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the following address . The abstract should be included in the body of the message. Participants will be notified about acceptance by April 20, 2001. The accepted abstracts will be published on the webpage of the symposium . Demonstrations The participants are also encouraged to give demonstrations of their projects (research, revitalization, documentation etc). If you are interested in giving a demonstration, please contact the organizers at . Registration: The deadline for registration for all participants is June 21, 2001. Register by e-mail to the address above. Registration fees: general: FIM 200 members of the association: FIM 100 undergraduate and MA students free send by giro account no 800013-1424850 to The Linguistic Association of Finland (SKY)/Symposium. For participants coming from abroad we recommend payment in cash upon arrival. However, it is possible to pay via Eurogiro or SWIFT to our account (number 800013-1424850) with Leonia Bank plc, Helsinki, Finland. SWIFT-address: PSPBFIHH; Telex 121 698 pgiro sf Accommodation: The organizers will provide a list of hotels later. For further information, please contact or visit our homepage . The organizing committee: Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Langnet Graduate School, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Seppo Kittil?, Dept of General Linguistics, H?meenkatu 2 A 7-8, FIN-20014 University of Turku, e-mail: Leena Kolehmainen, Dept of German, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Matti Miestamo, Dept of General Linguistics, P.O. Box 4, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Krista Ojutkangas, Dept of Finnish Language and General Linguistics, Fennicum, FIN-200014 University of Turku, Finland, e-mail Esa Penttil?, Dept of English, University of Joensuu, P.O. Box 111, FIN-80101 Joensuu, e-mail Pirkko Suihkonen, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Linguistics, Inselstrasse 22, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany, e-mail From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Tue Feb 20 17:01:32 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 12:01:32 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: [In a message dated 2/17/2001 5:58:34 PM, tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU forwarded:] William Mann writes, regarding the mass of assumptions and definitions in his summary, "What is Communication?": << Promises, beliefs, doubts, accusations or other effects are commonly recognized as representing, in summary form, results of interaction. Yet there seems to be little reflection in the literature of this notion, nor of how participants have been affected, nor of the connection between the words used and the effect produced.>> Nor of the effect intended? Nor of how the history of effects in the past determine the future effects expected? (Please forgive what may be obvious observations, but William Mann is talking about basic assumptions here. And so it seems pertinent to write:) Whether communication might make more sense conceptualized as something like "promises, beliefs, doubts..." or as "saying, gesturing, writing to get somebody else or myself to do or feel something," the startling absence from William Mann's survey is the absence of focus on the intended effect in defining communication. Unless we are all Walt Whitman, by himself shouting Homer in Greek at the waves on an empty Long Island beach, communication must have something to do with the results of using language or gesture. (Of course, Whitman did tell everybody about it afterwards, so even that piece of apparently effectless interaction had other intended effects.) If I say the same words -- "Stop that" -- loudly, softly, matter-of-factly, questioningly ("Stop that"?), laughingly, pleadingly or just with an upraised hand , am I "communicating an idea?" Or am I exercising my options in trying to getting an intended result from the listener, based on my past experience in using those options? Can we even be sure of what these words 'mean' if we are just observers and don't know that history? ("She said "stop" but she didn't mean it..." - E. Hemingway) Which of the two approaches is a more useful way to study this matter? Traditional linguistics, without looking at intended consequences first, has a devil of a time knowing what counts as communication and what doesn't. A classic question is whether a phoneme is "productive" (and not just a random additional sound that someone gives off "just for effect.") I suppose that is a kind of structural definition of communication, versus just making random sounds, gestures or squiggles on a piece of paper. Verrazano, in navigating the New England coast, encountered some locals on high, unreachable cliffs baring their bottoms to the crew. Was this gesture "productive?" Was their intention to "communicate an idea"? Or is it more accurate to say that they were attempting to effect action -- or frustration -- in their audience, without regard to a specific 'idea'? Consistent with the "funk" in Funknet, one might see the problem as a function first problem. Human organisms need to eat and if they can use their mouths (communicate) in strikingly complex ways to get food, they will. When Whitman told everybody about reciting Homer to the ocean, they bought his book and that paid for his daily bread. So I'd like to humbly suggest that the problem in defining communication just might be the same old problem, an over-emphasis on structure as opposed to hard scientific cause-effect. The definition of communication might be the function of communication. "The meaning of a word is the effect it has." In this regard, perhaps William Mann's bibliography might have also included something as basic as Skinner's Verbal Behavior, where communication is called of course quite basically, "behavior." Regards, Steve Long From gvk at ciaccess.com Wed Feb 21 05:20:57 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 00:20:57 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Steve Long wrote > So I'd like to humbly suggest that the problem in defining communication just > might be the same old problem, an over-emphasis on structure as opposed to > hard scientific cause-effect. The definition of communication might be the > function of communication. "The meaning of a word is the effect it has." It is simplistic to define communication only by its effect. Just because it is so difficult to get at the "intention" of the speaker or actor, is no reason to avoid it. As an analogy consider that all law is based in trying to ferret out the real intentions of the actor. We have to discover as best as we can what those intentions were to make a reasonable judgement as to what action to take. Whether he/she killed another because of forgetting to take the ammunition out of the weapon before cleaning it, was insane, trying to take a short-cut to an inheritance or was only five years old, makes no difference to the person who died, but it makes all the difference to the jury, and the attitude towards the killer by the deceased's survivors. It's the same in everyday life. We are constantly trying to get a sense for the other's intentions. When you cut "intention" out of communication, you aren't left with much more than a corpse to consider... gvk From wilcox at UNM.EDU Wed Feb 21 06:00:51 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 23:00:51 -0700 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: <3A935038.4C6532B0@ciaccess.com> Message-ID: On 2/20/01 10:20 PM, Gerald van Koeverden said: > It's the same in everyday life. We are constantly trying to get a sense for > the other's intentions. When you cut "intention" out of communication, you > aren't left with much more than a corpse to consider... Maybe that's true if you're facing forward and looking only at human communication. But when you turn and face the other way and gaze into our evolutionary past, I think we must at some point cut intention out of communication. Because if we don't, if we limit communication to that which is intentional, I don't see how we will ever understand how communication evolved. How can we understand how intentionality got bound up with perceptible behaviors (basically, doing something with our body in a way that produces some perceptible signal -- moving our body for audible and visible signals) to produce intentional communication, if we don't consider unintentional communication? -- Sherman Wilcox From fjn at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Wed Feb 21 17:12:04 2001 From: fjn at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Frederick Newmeyer) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 09:12:04 -0800 Subject: Research question (please assist). (fwd) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, Below is an enquiry from a law student at the University of Washington. Hopefully one of you can apply your expertise to helping him. Please reply directly to him (his e-mail address is below). Thanks, --fritz newmeyer Message from: J. Rollin On Mon, 5 Feb 2001, J. Rollin wrote: > > Hello. My name is Joseph Rollin. I am a third year student at the UW law > school, and I am working on my graduating thesis. I am dealing with a > statute interpretation questions that deals with some fairly heavy > linquistic concepts, and I would very much appreciate your help. There is > a small chance that this work will be published. > > > My question in the abstract is: How should time (in terms of days and > years) be counted: as discreet units (like apples) or as a continuous > physical abstraction (like distance). > > > My question concerns an immmigration law statute that defines a set of > offenses considered to be 'aggravated felonies' for deportation > purposes. In a number of places within the 'aggravated felony' > definition appears language like the following: > > "The term 'aggravated felony' means - > ... > (G) a theft offense...for which the term of imprisonment [is] at least > one year [sic];" > > (note: the [is] is missing from the statute, but courts have decided > that [is] is the correct verb.) > > Four federal circuit courts have interpreted the 'for which the term of > imprisonment [is] at least one year' language to include jail sentences of > 365 days (or one-year). > > Traditionally (for a few hundred years at least) the diving line between > misdemeanor offenses and felony offenses has been the one-year mark. Any > term of imprisonment up to and including 365 days is considered a > 'misdemeanor' in federal law and all state law (except possibly > Louisiana). Any term of imprisonment EXCEEDING 365 days denotes a > 'felony'. > > However, because of the new language in the statute (which used to read > 'for which the term of imprisonment is at least five years'), a 365 day > sentence is considered to be an 'aggravated felony' for immigration > purposes even though it is only a 'misdemeanor' under federal and state > criminal law. Since the law also disregards any suspension of sentence, a > person is sentenced to 365 days with 365 days suspended (thus spending no > actual time in jail) is considered to be an 'aggravated > felon'. Immigrants who have committed very minor offenses (pulling a > person's hair, for example) are being deported and are permanently barred > from re-entering the U.S. (20 years in jail if they try) because of this > interpretation of the statute. > > > My question is whether the phrase, 'at least one year' means (or must > necessarily mean) 'one year or more' or 'more than one year'. > > One person has argued that since time is a 'physical abstraction' the > language must mean 'more than one year': > > If a person promises to give another 'at least five oranges,' that person > can expect to receive five oranges or more. This is how Graham views the > phrase 'at least one year'. If each day were considered to be a discrete > object, 365 days would be 'at least one year' because one would have 365 > days or more. On the other hand, "A person who promises to arrive in 'at most' five minutes, and one who > promises not to arrive for 'at least' five minutes, do not intent their > arrivals to overlap. If they do overlap there has been a technical breach > of promise by one or the other or both. 'At least' five minutes has a > lower limit, a 'floor,' which must be exceeded. 'At most' five minutes > has an upper limit, a 'ceiling,' which cannot be exceeded. The moment > when exactly five minutes fishes has no duration itself. It is simply the > dimensionless point that divides the two periods before and after it. > Anyone who has watched the clock at midnight on New Year's Eve knows that > the moment when one year ends and the next year begins does not itself > last for a minute or even a second. Midnight is a dividing line, having a > location but lacking any duration itself, just as the boundary between two > countries has location but no thickness. It simply serves to demarcate > what is on one side from what is on the other[A] 'year' is a limiting > concept whose importance derives from which side it is approached > from. 'At most one year' and 'at least one year' butt into one another > but do not overlap, not even for the smallest fraction of a second, just > as the U.S. and Canada do not overlap at the boarder for the smallest > fraction of an inch. > A person who walks 'at most' to the boarder with Canada is absolutely and > positively still in the United States, while a person who walks 'at least' > to that boarder is absolutely and positively in Canada. Respondent's > sentence of 'at most' one year is like a walk 'at most' up to the boarder, > as close as one may measure, but not across it. Congress's threshold of > 'at least' one year requires crossing that boarder, even if by the most > minute amount. [T]he correct construction of 'at least one year' in > 101(a)(43) is 'more than one year,' not 'one year or more.'" > > Do you agree with this argument? I am looking for your opinion as an > authority in the field of linguistics. If you agree, is there any > technical explaination or linguistic rule that would support this > argument? Are there any published sources that might be relied upon for > support? > > Thank you very much for your help, > > J.J. > > > P.S. If you wish, I can forward to you arecent article (Feb 2, Atlanta > Journal-Constitution) that discusses the consequences of this language. > > > > From tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Feb 22 05:36:08 2001 From: tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Tom Givon) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:36:08 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Not so fast, Sherm ol' buddy, Whoa, Hold your horses for just a spell. If you read Irene Pepperberg's experimental work with Alex (African Grey Parrot) even cursorily, you'd conclude that you could not take 'intention' out of avian communication. No bloody way. If you read Ristau's collection on Cognitive Ethology, you'll also conclude the same about communicating Vervet Monkeys and Chicken (yes, dumb chicken). If you ever had a dog or a horse and seriously communicated with them or study their frustrated attempts to communicate with you (yes, they *do* think we are dumb, we are a very puzzling experience to them, you couldn't possibly leave intention out of communication. Indeed, the whole notion of communication rises and falls on 'intention', nothing species-specific about that. So if this business of ruling 'intention' out in earlier evolutionary stages goes anywhere, it goes back to the Cartesian prejudice about some animals (but not us!) being deterministic automata. Besides, how can 'intention' spring forth evolutionarily, just like that? And when? And is 'intention' all that specific to communication? There are plenty of self-directed 'secular' behaviors in very 'low' organisms that are awefully hard to explain without 'intention' either... Also, it is good to remember that the neurological seat of 'intention' is sub-cortical, in the *limbic* area, a very old intermediate part of the brain that predates mammals. It is coinnected both to the lower brain (for automatic body-sensory feed) but also the the cortical frontal lobe (in mammals). The coinnection to the frontal lobe is of course interesting in mammals, since that's where got the consscious, attentional mediators of 'intention'. But 'intention' itself, apart from self-consciousness, is much older. And unlike the brain-stem component, it is *not* fully automated, but rather an instrumrent of choice-making, and highly context-sensitive even in pre-mamalian vertebrates. There remain, of course, legitimate questions about degree of consciousness, self-consciousness, focal/executive attention, degree of automaticity etc. But I think you can do *exactly* the same logical proof that Quine did on *induction* to show that there is no bloody way in the work meaningful 'communication' can take place without thge intention to communicate. The fine, constant context-sensitive adjustment that Peter Marler showed in chicken communication (yeah, them dumbest-of-the-dumbest pea-brain aves) cannot be interpreted without 'intention to communicate'. Sure, animals can extract information from the 'secular' behavior of their conspecifics without invoking any intent on the part of that conspecific. But the minute 'secular' behavior shifts into communicative behavior, 'intention' is, at least in principle, on the table. Of course, when you go down the complexity ladder of species (say Apis Mellifera), questions of degree of automaticity and degree of both consciousness and self-consciousness do arise, and are not easy to resolve. But even there, if you look at James Gould's work on the historical evolution of Apis Mellifera communication, you find subtle conrewxtual adjustments of behavior that are not easy to explain, at least at the initial pre-automated stage, without invoking some species of intention. But we don't need 'intention' only to explain *communication* in 'lower' animals. We also need it to explain a variety of other 'secular' behaviors that again, are so contextually-sensitive and contingent--often on subtle interpretation of shades-and-gradations of the unpredictable behavior of 'intending' prey and predator--that we're going to get into the same Quinean induction bind here. You look at the way hoofed prey animals on the Veld watch a cheeta sneaking toward them in plain view. They have to decide when to run for dear life. They don't just run on an automatic visual trigger of either Cheeta form, Cheeta position, Cheeta distance, Chgeeta crouching etc. Their computations are extremely subtle and complex and, again, irreducible to toital reflexive automaticity. I seems to me that in the interest of real science (rather than Positivist "show me an absolute proof"), we ought to unload the legacy of "fear of anthropomorphism" that Positivists philosophers have been chastizing us about. After all, that is the very fear that was used to knock the whole idea of Functionalism, if you read back about 30 years in the P. of Sci. collections of the 1960s-1970s. And when you dig down into the earliest roots of Functionalism--Aristotle's founding of functionalist Biology--you see *some* species of 'teleology' staring you at the face right there, from the very start. Of course, you can always argue that Aristotle's 'purpose' should be interpreted as "it looks as if they are behaving purposefully", "it looks as if the organ was specifically designed for its 'work'". But I doubt it that in the long run this gambit will get you too far off the hook. It is not all that respectable, tho it does echo our abiding, recalcitrant sense of (Cartesian) arrogance. Best regards, TG ========================== Sherman Wilcox wrote: > > On 2/20/01 10:20 PM, Gerald van Koeverden said: > > > It's the same in everyday life. We are constantly trying to get a sense for > > the other's intentions. When you cut "intention" out of communication, you > > aren't left with much more than a corpse to consider... > > Maybe that's true if you're facing forward and looking only at human > communication. But when you turn and face the other way and gaze into our > evolutionary past, I think we must at some point cut intention out of > communication. Because if we don't, if we limit communication to that which > is intentional, I don't see how we will ever understand how communication > evolved. > > How can we understand how intentionality got bound up with perceptible > behaviors (basically, doing something with our body in a way that produces > some perceptible signal -- moving our body for audible and visible signals) > to produce intentional communication, if we don't consider unintentional > communication? > > -- Sherman Wilcox From nrude at UCINET.COM Thu Feb 22 00:59:19 2001 From: nrude at UCINET.COM (Noel Rude) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 16:59:19 -0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: <3A94A548.F50D1592@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Yes, Surely information without intention is not information. So what's the point of trying to talk about it devoid of intention? Try to imagine information on some planet where there has never been any intention. No, I don?t mean the information you might acquire were you able to observe the situation -- I mean information completely devoid of all intention. Seems to me that linguistics and mathematics and computer science and semeotics and just about everything else is concerned with information -- and if it ain't intentional it ain't information. If we think we are dealing with information it just may be that even philosophically there is no other way to define it than by intention. Even algorithms such as the laws of physics are now being being discussed as intentional -- with apparently the only alternative (to the much discussed Anthropic Principle) being the Many Worlds Hypothesis. But I suppose the hard core materialists would want to propose a mechanistic model of intention. Is it fundamental, say, some kind of "quantum weirdness" (as Roger Penrose might speculate), or does it "emerge" at a higher level? If the latter then have the neurologists described it yet? I mean such that we might one day be able to program our machines with it? Interesting stuff here folks! Noel on 2/21/01 9:36 PM, Tom Givon at tgivon at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU wrote: > Not so fast, Sherm ol' buddy, > > Whoa, Hold your horses for just a spell. If you read Irene Pepperberg's > experimental work with Alex (African Grey Parrot) even cursorily, you'd > conclude that you could not take 'intention' out of avian communication. > No bloody way. ... ... From jsidnell at NWU.EDU Thu Feb 22 02:06:15 2001 From: jsidnell at NWU.EDU (Jack Sidnell) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 20:06:15 -0600 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: Message-ID: An Austinian question: What exactly is the term "intention" referring to? (See Austin "Three ways of spilling ink") Also relevant to this discussion are a number of papers in a volume called _Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse_, in particular a paper by Jack DuBois "Meaning Without Intention: Lessons from Divination" Crucially, just because hearers make inferences about a speaker's "intent" (and, it should be emphasized, much else besides e.g. his "real" underlying, subconscious, psychological motive) it does not follow that something like "intention" exists as a unified, integrated psychological mechanism. Anyway there is a basic philosophical problem here that goes like this (See Peter Winch _The Idea of a Social Science_ for further discussion): If I must form an intention prior to my execution of any act (scratching my noise, taking a drink, asking a question) then, logically, I must form an intention to form an intention - it's infinite regression and my nose remains itchy, my thirst unquenched, my question unanswered. The only solution to this problem is to see intentions as psychological primitives but then how do the differ from drives? A thought experiment: try to conceptualize how an intention is actually formed. How will you sort out suggestions, directives, admonitions from others, a knowledge of the circumstances in which the act is going to be executed, a reflexive sense of the effect the act is likely to have and how others will respond to it (see Heritage _Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology_). Intention cannot be neatly abstracted out of this immensely complex bundle of act-relevant factors (much less "located" in the brain!). Just because some hearers on some occasions make inferences about a speaker's inner psychogical state (intention) it does not follow that some such thing exists as a unified category. In fact there is some evidence (from Duranti and Ochs among others) to suggest that members of non middle-class, English-speaking etc. etc. do not operate with these same assumptions. In short - it might be dangerous to mistake a descriptive term, used in everyday sense making activity, for some mysterious psychological/social phenomena. Jack Sidnell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG Thu Feb 22 07:57:13 2001 From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 02:57:13 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Noel Rude writes: "Surely information without intention is not information." I don't at all see that as self-evident! The information that someone is blushing is information, even though it is very unlikely to be intentional, at least on their part. On God's part? or whose? The information that someone's voice stopped or went rough in midsentence is information, even if it was totally unintended by the speaker, as sometimes happens. But then you added, Noel, "No, I don't mean the information you might acquire were you able to observe the situation -- I mean information completely devoid of all intention." Why shouldn't we/one mean the information we acquire through observation? Must it linguistically irrelevant? I was noticing this morning (in an odd context) the use, in a sort of soft-rock or half-rock singing style, of an aspiration before an initial "I", so it sounds like "hi". The lead female singer used this repeatedly, and I remember having heard it elsewhere. I am quite sure that it is a sort of indicator of deep feeling or great sincerity. I wouldn't doubt at all that it arose from something in many ways like a blush or a frog in the throat, perhaps as an unintentional sigh or near-sob emitted at the same time as beginning a phrase about strongly felt emotions, beginning with the word "I" or some other vowel-initial word. It was understood (acquired through observation) as a natural indicator of deep feeling. But it is becoming linguistic: it is now well on its way towards conventionalization in this particular genre at least. It originally was not intentional, I am guessing, but now, I'm pretty sure, it often is intentional in some degree. It almost surely is even consciously chosen for effect sometimes, perhaps even when no strong emotion is really being felt. (If anyone hears echoes of some of John Haiman's ideas about the inherent "insincerity and inconsequentiality of language", they've got it right. I think such cynicism often is warranted, though it's not the whole story.) So it seems to me the sort of thing I think Sherman was alluding to isn't limited to the genesis of communication in whatever prehistoric or prehuman epoch--it happens now too. --David Tuggy From wilcox at UNM.EDU Thu Feb 22 07:57:20 2001 From: wilcox at UNM.EDU (Sherman Wilcox) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 00:57:20 -0700 Subject: Assumptions about Communication In-Reply-To: <3A94A548.F50D1592@oregon.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: Somehow, I knew when I hit that "Send" button Tom would come back at me! Tom, I actually don't think we're saying very different things. I certainly never meant that no animal communication is intentional. If horses and chickens exhibit intentional communication, I have no problem with that. If intentionality is deeply rooted in our brain's evolutionary history, that's fine too. The one place I think you might have overstated the case is where you say "there is no bloody way in the work [world?] meaningful 'communication' can take place without the intention to communicate." You'll have to explain the qualifier 'meaningful', of course, but it seems to me that some pretty meaningful communication *can* take place without the intention to communicate. At least that's the possibility I'd like to leave open for now. When Noel says, "Surely information without intention is not information" it makes my head hurt (in a good way). I'm not trying to be difficult, but I think we need to be careful with what we mean by information. I've been trying to teach myself to think of information not in terms of *instructionist* models but rather as *selectionist* (the distinction is made by G. Edelman and H. Plotkin). And, as for my skepticism about the impossibility of communication taking place without the intention to communicate, I think I'm skeptical that information without intention is not informative. (And I just now see that David Tuggy might also question this claim.) So, all I really meant in my original post was that I think it's worthwhile to investigate intentionality and communication separately (I haven't read the DuBois article, but I bet I'll like it when I do), to distinguish intentionality from intentional communicate. For example, I'm not sure I want to say that from the start infants intend to communicate. I think intention to communicate develops, quite possibly because caregivers treat infants' vocal behavior *as if* it were intentionally communicative. It's not communication because the child intended it to be, it's communication because the caregivers sanctioned it to be. In other words, I think it's worthwhile to consider the possibility that intentional communication develops ontogentically. And if so, that it develops phylogenetically. So it becomes then a matter of looking for precursors. I take it this is what Matt Cartmill (physical anthropologist) is talking about when he says: "To understand the origin of anything, we must have an overarching body of theory that governs both the thing itself and its precursors. Without such a body of theory, we have no way of linking the precursor to its successor, and we are left with an ineffable mystery, like the one that Chomsky and Lenneberg have always insisted must lie at the origin of syntax." Apply this to the emergence of intentional communication and I think it leads us to consider a concept behavioral ecologists rely on when they discuss the evolution of communication, that of 'intention movements': "many signals have evolved from incidental movements or responses of actors which happened to be informative to reactors. Selection favoured reactors who were able to anticipate the future behavior of actors by responding to slight movements which predicted an important action to follow" [the quote is from "Behavioural Ecology : An Evolutionary Approach" by J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies]. I want to entertain the hypothesis that this ability "to anticipate the future behavior of actors" is a precursor to intentional communication. While these movements communicate, and are intentional (although I bet some of them aren't), they are not intentionally communicative (which is why the authors above use the phrase "happened to be informative"). What I like about this view, though I don't see that the animal communication people ever recognize this, is that it places the emphasis not on production, the intention to communicate, but on comprehension, the ability to garner information (I might even say the ability to generate information on the part of the perceiver/reactor) from signals produced, intentionally or not, by others. Not unlike the child example above, the reactor "treats" the actor's behavior as if it is communicative. A pleasant side effect of focusing on comprehension rather than production is that it shifts our perspective from a monologic to a dialogic one. If we dwell too much on production, we too easily forget that information is in the eye of the beholder (it's that instructionist/selectionist difference again). But by focusing on the comprehender, the reactor who is selected because she was able to "put meaning into" the movements of actors, or the caregiver who treats the child's behavior as if it were intentionally communicative, we necessarily have to consider the dyad. And I'll be darned if I don't think all of this leads to the work of Rizzolatti that's getting so much press these days, on mirror neurons and the link between action, the capacity to recognize action, vision, and gesture. Thanks, folks. This is fun! -- Sherman From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Feb 22 08:08:25 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 03:08:25 EST Subject: Communication and Intent Message-ID: In a message dated 2/21/2001 12:21:46 AM, gvk at ciaccess.com writes: <> Intention is like electricity. We can't see it, but we know its there because of its effects. Lightbulbs, tv sets and electric shocks. We have no trouble making the inference from the obvious effects that electricity has. Intention is rather telltale, too. "Some inferences are as obvious as a trout in the milk pail." << As an analogy consider that all law is based in trying to ferret out the real intentions of the actor. We have to discover as best as we can what those intentions were to make a reasonable judgment as to what action to take. >> Law is a good reality check because it can be so practical about intention. IN FACT, in many, many cases in American law, intent is an element to prove but never really at issue. That's because judges and juries are allowed to and are even mandated to infer intention from the defendant's action, unless the defendant can give some acceptable explanation. There's the common concept in tort law of "res ipsa loqitur" - the thing speaks for itself. Except in capital murder cases, intent is only relevant if you can somehow show "additional" evidence that you really didn't "mean to do it." With regard to communication, Justice Holmes in a famous statement used the example of (falsely) shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. (He said it was not constitutionally protected free speech, but shouting "Fire!" is certainly communication.) What's interesting about the example is that Holmes didn't even bother to explain what happens when you do that. He assumed his readers knew what the effect would be - people panicked and possibly being injured in trying to escape. "Common experience" is an important concept in the law. It allows judges and juries to infer your intention if, e.g., you shout fire! or shoot a gun at someone. And it even allows a defense that you come from somewhere where there are no guns (or fires, I suppose) and you didn't know what the effect would be. In that case, the assumption is rebutted and the "intended effect" can't be automatically inferred. The law generally treats intention as something that can be known or at least confidentially surmised from the usual, expected effects of what was done. And from that we get a good practical - if not physiological - definition of intention. Intention is what we expect to happen (future effect) next time because of what happened (future effect) last time. Intention is using history to effect the future. An old twist on the Holmes example illustrates how this relates to communication: A man at a chocolate factory falls into a vat of chocolate. He yells "fire! fire!" Some people hear him and come and rescue him. One of them asks him after they pull him out, "Why did you yell 'fire! fire!'?" And he says, "If I yelled 'chocolate! chocolate!', do you think anyone would have come?" The intended effect defined the communication. If the antagonist in the joke had intended his dying words to be an accurate communication about the cause of his death, "chocolate! chocolate!" would have worked fine. But we can confidentially infer that was not the effect he was after, not his intention. And if the joke is funny to us (or some of us), it is because "common experience" tells us why his communication achieved its "intended effect" despite its literal inaccuracy. Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Thu Feb 22 15:01:37 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:01:37 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Dear Funknetters: I am glad to see that an interesting discussion is coming from this message. I have several reactions, perhaps the most useful of which is to clarify the reason for the absence of "intention" in that message. I am very sympathetic with the research that explores models of intention in language. I do some of it myself, and benefit from others' work. I deliberately left it out, because I am trying to survey sets of assumptions about language that are explicit in the literature. True, many people make assumptions about intention and its role in language use. Often the assumptions are implicit, or not part of an articulated framework that identifies Communication. My reason for leaving it out is that I think that it can be treated in a much stronger way, a way that answers some of the discussion questions. If we ASSUME a role for intention, it is stipulated. Work that rests on the assumption is subject to the accusation "Well, of course you found intention. You assumed it." (Often followed by "I don't.") I think the uses of intention can have a much stronger status, that of FINDINGS. We can study language use and see whether intention can be a vital concept in accounting for it. My judgment is that it can, and that a number of people have already done so. Gibbs, in psychology, makes a very strong defense that is consequential far beyond the borders of psychology. Michael Bratman, in philosophy, makes a nearly completely independent case as well. References could be multiplied. I see the status of intention, taken broadly, to be a verified FINDING. A model for this, an analogical story, is the intentionalism that was created by Grice. He examined uses of language, and what could be said about them, and carefully defined a mode of understanding received language (text, speech...) in which understanding depends vitally on recognizing producer's intentions. His term was meaning-NN. What Grice did primarily at an utterance level can be paralleled at many other scales, both in monologue and in interaction. People are currently working it out. I think that this status of "intention" -- that there is a FINDING that it has a vital role, is very much preferable to treating it as an assumption. So I left it out. I look for a fruitful discussion to continue. Everyone: Please make your intentions clear. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Mann" To: "Funknet" Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 4:21 PM Subject: Re: Assumptions about Communication > What is Communication? -- a summary > > In November I posted an inquiry about the literature on the nature of > communication, in particular: human communication using language. I want to > identify sets of assumptions that are explicitly stated and are used in > building theories. 2/17/01 message truncated here. See the archives for the entire message. From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Thu Feb 22 15:54:43 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:54:43 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: All: I should have included in my previous message these references: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (1999). Intentions in the Experience of Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bratman, Michael (1987). Intention, Plans and Practical Reason. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Sorry for the omission. Bill Mann From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Thu Feb 22 16:16:10 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:16:10 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: In a message dated 2/22/2001 3:00:33 AM, wilcox at UNM.EDU writes: << And, as for my skepticism about the impossibility of communication taking place without the intention to communicate, I think I'm skeptical that information without intention is not informative. (And I just now see that David Tuggy might also question this claim.) >> This brings up the question of definitions again, doesn't it? Is communication so clearly different from other ways of getting an intended effect that the difference is qualitative rather than quantitative? My cat has at least two ways of getting the door to the outside balcony open. One is to pry the slightly ajar door open with her paw. The other is to sit at the door and meow distinctively until I come by and open the door. I can't say if she meows if I am not around, but if I am around I will predictably show up and open the door just to shut her up. Her meow in this situation is distinct morphologically and I suppose linguistically. I know where she is and what she wants when I hear it. Two ways of achieving what is plainly her intended effect. One is more effective than the other (if the door is shut slightly too tight she cannot get it open herself.) But what varies is the manner in which she gets the same results. If the wind were to blow the door open, both the cat and I would be able to gather that information from our senses -- to use as our intentions dictated. She would not need to meow or pry the door open and I would not need to get up to open it for her. The absence of her meow informs me that the wind may have blown the door open or that she opened it herself, but she did not "communicate" that to me. It was the absence of communication, the absence of her meow, that gave me that information. So I have the information that the door is probably open without her communication -- to use as my intentions dictate. In formal information theory, there is the concept of redundancy. Each repeated occurrence of all of the above increases the probability that I can predict the outcome the next time. As far as communication goes, it is one of my cat's tools. Why she wants to go out on the balcony is another matter. But how she gets there can include an information interchange with me, though that's not her exclusive method. Unlike the man drowning in the chocolate vat and needing to be rescued, she does not however have to rely on the action of others to achieve the intended effect. Cats seem to prefer that. <> Another joke. The family is sitting around the table and suddenly Johnny says, "The mashed potatoes are cold." Everybody drops their forks and look at him, stunned, Dad says, "Johnny! This is amazing. For all of your twelve years, you've haven't said one word! We were sure you were deaf and dumb! And now for the first time you talk - and all you can say is, the mashed potatoes are cold?" And Johnny says, "Well, up to now, everything has been okay." Heiddegger, the German phenomenologist, wrote that one of the essential elements of being is CARE (I guess this is how it is best translated.) He spoke of this not as a "drive", but rather the cumulative concept of or what is behind all biological drives. Why do I even notice or attend to the cat's meow? Why do I bother to gather and store the information about whether the door is opened or closed? I think logically intention needs to precede "comprehension." I have to "care" enough about outcomes to attend to and gather and process and store and retrieve information. Just like communication, comprehension seems to be driven by intended effects. I did not understand what the man speaking Spanish loudly at the next table was saying. And I had little reason to care about comprehending what he was saying and no intention to have an effect from him. There was little or no comprehension or communication. What if I have on the other hand no intention to effect anything? Let's say I am comatose or ultimately disheartened. I may have the information from past experience stored in my brain to foresee all kinds of ways that I could effect my world in the future. I may have the capacity to communicate and comprehend. But I will not be communicating or comprehending. Because I just don't "care", I have no intentions in any direction. Communication and comprehension in this situation are not present or even observable. And some people may unkindly metaphorically move me over to a phylum that perhaps evolved earlier than intention, calling me a "vegetable." Regards, Steve Long From akbari_r at YAHOO.COM Thu Feb 22 17:41:20 2001 From: akbari_r at YAHOO.COM (Ramin Akbari) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 09:41:20 -0800 Subject: Intention Message-ID: Dear netters, Greetings I have been following the discussion on communication and intention closely and I have found it quite stimulating. However, as an applied linguist with some background in psychology I would like to look at the question from another perspective. In educational research, one of the important concerns for the researcher is establishing the psychological reality of the construct being investigated. That is, there should be some objective, preferably quatinfiable method for approaching a construct. If intention is part of any authentic communication ( which I am sure it is) what real, objective, data- based support do we have for its existence as a research construct ? If we can "prove" the psychological reality of intention objectively, then we can hope to have better tests of language ability and probably some new approaches to teaching foreign languages. Sincerely, Ramin Akbari, English Language Teaching Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From lexes at MINDSPRING.COM Thu Feb 22 19:40:23 2001 From: lexes at MINDSPRING.COM (Clifford Lutton) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 14:40:23 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: IMHO FWIW, communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being. Clifford Lutton 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, Georgia 30030-2823 (404) 371-8935 lexes at mindspring.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CCharJan at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 03:27:54 2001 From: CCharJan at AOL.COM (Janet Wilson) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 22:27:54 EST Subject: Communication & Intension Message-ID: Intent is a very important part of communication by means of language--I haven't studied other kinds of communication very much (not academically, anyway). However, it is true that the speaker's intended effect is not always the effect that results. I sometimes think of (speech) communication as a little like a ouija board: each speaker has his or her input, and if nobody intended to have any effect, the little thing on the board (I don't spend much time with ouija boards) wouldn't go anyplace. But I have also had the experience that my contribution to the discourse takes the discourse anyplace but where I intended it to go. Communication does take place without language, of course, but nobody in this discussion has yet persuaded me one way or the other about how intension figures into that kind of communication. This is the kind of discussion that got me interested in the Funknet in the first place, though. Janet Wilson U Texas Arlington From tomas at EVA.MPG.DE Fri Feb 23 06:29:38 2001 From: tomas at EVA.MPG.DE (Michael Tomasello) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 07:29:38 +0100 Subject: chimpanzee communicative intentions Message-ID: The way we have analyzed intentions in chimpanzee gestural communication is as follows: 1. Sometimes a youngster intends to crawl up on Mom's back and tries to do so. 2. After a few attempts, Mom anticipates what is coming at the first touch on the back and so lowers her back immediately. 3. The youngster notices the effectiveness of the first touch only, and so now just touches Mom's back lightly and waits for her to respond (the touch is what is referred to as an 'intention movement' - it is 'ritualized'). The youngster originally had an intention - to get on Mom's back - but the process of (ontogenetic) ritualization transformed that into a communicative intention - to get Mom to lower her back. Please note that none of this means that the youngster is trying to manipulate Mom's intentions - which would be still another additional involvement of intentionality. Our take is that the chimp youngster, unlike human infants from about one year of age, has communicative intentions concerning Mom's behavior only. In contrast, human infants from very early have communicative intentions towards the intentions and attention of others, and these are manifest first in gestures and then in language. There are lots of references, but two reviews (that cite the original research) are: Tomasello, M. & Camaioni, L. (1997). A comparison of the gestural communication of apes and human infants. Human Development, 40, 7-24. Tomasello, M. (1998). Reference: Intending that others jointly attend. Pragmatics and Cognition, 6, 219-234. Mike Tomasello From mew1 at SIU.EDU Fri Feb 23 15:50:36 2001 From: mew1 at SIU.EDU (Margaret E. Winters) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 09:50:36 -0600 Subject: intent Message-ID: I've been reading the postings on communication and intent and (because of my day job) thought of some place to look at an application: there should be a good-sized literature on the interpretation of contracts, including faculty union contracts, where intent is pivotal but agreement on intent, and therefore meaning, is all too often missing. Margaret ----------------------- Dr. Margaret E. Winters Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research Southern Illinois University Carbondale Carbondale, IL 62901-4305 tel: (618) 453-5744 fax: (618) 453-1478 e-mail: mew1 at siu.edu From gvk at ciaccess.com Fri Feb 23 17:37:02 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 12:37:02 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication Message-ID: Clifford Lutton wrote: "communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being." Not close enough to the mark. You are taking only part of the meaning. Our concept of "communication" predicates a concept of mutuality, of 'union' or 'comm-union'; in our everyday use of the word, what we mean is that the two participants involved understand the same thing. If the other doesn't understand what we are trying to communicate, then we are back to Cool Hand Luke (remember the movie with Paul Newman?) "What we have here is a failure to communicate!" gerry van koeverden From w.croft at MAN.AC.UK Fri Feb 23 17:24:26 2001 From: w.croft at MAN.AC.UK (Bill Croft) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 17:24:26 +0000 Subject: "Explaining Language Change" Message-ID: I would like to announce that my book "Explaining Language Change" is finally available outside the UK---it is now listed as available at a major Internet bookseller, listed at US$22 paperback (the UK price is 19.99 pounds). I am sending this announcement because the publisher (Longman) was bought up by Pearson, who terminated linguistics publication, is not marketing their recent linguistics books, and has not answered correspondence. I have appended the jacket description of the book. My apologies to those who receive multiple copies of this announcement. Bill Croft "Explaining Language Change" William Croft, University of Manchester ISBN 0-582-35677-6 (paperback), June 2000. Pp. xvi, 287. Ever since the origins of both linguistics and evolutionary biology in the 19th century, scholars have noted the similarity between biological evolution and language change. Yet until recently neither linguists nor biologists have developed a model of evolution general enough to apply across the two fields. Even in linguistics, the field is split between the historical linguists who study change in language structure, and the sociolinguists who study social variation in the speech community. "Explaining language change" represents the first thoroughly worked out framework for language evolution, building on the pioneering ideas of Richard Dawkins and David Hull in biology and philosophy of science. Its central thesis is that the locus of language change is the utterance in social intercourse. Linguistic innovations emerge from the remarkable complexity of communication in social interaction. Once innovations occur, they are propagated through the equally complex social structures of the speech communities we participate in. "Explaining language change" provides a framework for assessing current theories of language change, and advances new ideas about grammatical reanalysis, conventional and nonconventional use of language, the structure of speech communities, language mixing, and the notion of "progress" in language change. "Explaining language change" reintegrates sociolinguistics and historical linguistics, weaving together research on grammatical change, pragmatics, social variation, language contact and genetic linguistics. From lexes at MINDSPRING.COM Fri Feb 23 18:22:47 2001 From: lexes at MINDSPRING.COM (Clifford Lutton) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 13:22:47 -0500 Subject: My Failure to Communicate Message-ID: Yesterday I attempted to describe, IMHO, what happens when communication occurs. Last night, when I should have been sleeping, I realized that the attempt had failed to be explicitly as inclusive as it should have been. So what was a HO is now a VHO: Communication occurs in events. Natural languages are not its only media. Often these events require reciprocal participation - output and input exchanges - between communicators and communicatees; often they do not. Communication events occur when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of communicators are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by communicatees. Communicators are animate (botanical?) and inanimate (e.g. people, pets, works of art, clouds, etc.). Their participation in communication events may be intentional or not intentional. Communicatees are animate (and botanical?) individuals capable of participating in and interpreting communication events. Their interpretations may be accurate or inaccurate. If I'm wrong here, I'll appreciate being set straight. Best to all, Clifford Lutton 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, GA 30030-2823, USA 404-371-8935 lexes at mindspring.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From akbari_r at YAHOO.COM Fri Feb 23 19:08:09 2001 From: akbari_r at YAHOO.COM (Ramin Akbari) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 11:08:09 -0800 Subject: Intention in communication Message-ID: Dear netters, It seems that my previous posting had some ambiguities, as it is clear from some of the off list messages I have received. I would like to rephrase and summarize my previous message. If we talk about intention as an indispenible part of communication, then how can we measure it ? That is, how would you show that someone has more intention than another ? Is there any quantifiable method for measuring intention ? Sincerely, Ramin Akbari __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 19:29:01 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:29:01 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Clifford Lutton wrote: <<..communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being.>> On its face, this appears to have me "communicating" if someone (or something) peeks at me through the window as I'm taking a shower. I'm "present" and my "appearance" is being perceived and "assigned significance" (hopefully) by another being. This definition appears to make sharing my physical existence a communication, if it is perceived so in the eye of the beholder. An interesting definition, but I wonder how operational. In a message dated 2/23/2001 12:48:08 PM, gerry van koeverden replied to Clifford Lutton's definition: <> If we go strictly by the Latin (> communicare, to partake or impart) I'm communicating if I share MY sandwich with someone. To share my understanding of something with another certainly also qualifies -- there is no need for reciprocity, at least by the original word's meaning. But I guess the net result are two people are "sharing" the understanding or the sandwich. I guess, from a functional point-of-view, we might bring back the question: to what end? Am I communicating - strictly speaking - if I share my ham sandwich with a vegetarian? Am I communicating if I "impart" my flawed knowledge of omelet-making to a real cook who really knows how to make an omelet? Am I communicating if I am arguing and tell someone to "go jump in a lake"? Am I communicating if I talk it over with myself and decide something should be done about something? Once again, I'd humbly suggest that we would find the use of the word "communication" incomplete if we also do not keep an eye on the actual effect or intended effect of our attempt to communicate. If the information goes "in one ear and out the other", has the "imparting" taken place? <> Good example. Actually Old Luke understood what the Boss Man was saying, alright. Those who know the movie know Luke's problem was not understanding. He just didn't care. He had other intentions. Regards, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 19:51:45 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:51:45 EST Subject: Intention in communication Message-ID: In a message dated 2/23/2001 2:10:45 PM, akbari_r at YAHOO.COM writes: << If we talk about intention as an indispensable part of communication, then how can we measure it ? That is, how would you show that someone has more intention than another ?>> The first problem, I think, is that the subject may have plenty of intention, but not to do what we think or would like him to do. <> Just a quick sidebar on maybe what the problem could be here. How much can we infer from actual behavior what the intended behavior or intended effect was? This is a key question. Not only because it reflects our lack of ability to observe "intention" directly as a private event, but also because it reflects how much we can control the variable of intention in order to test it. Let's say we are simply asking the subject to do a task. We assume it is his intention is to do the task and his intended effect is to get the task done. But what can interfere with that assumption? Motivation - is the subject actually intending to attempt to complete the task? Attention - is the subject being somehow distracted away from his intended goal? Skill - is the intended effect beyond the subject's physical skills? Deception (the Cool Hand Luke Effect) - does the subject honestly have the intention of completely the task? Emotion - will the setting induce a panic or other interfering level of emotion? Inexperience - is the subject untrained in achieving the intended effect? Mechanical behavior - is the subject intending to do the actions without regard to whether or not the actions are appropriate to achieve the goal? And, of course, Unintended Results - including the adjustments made over numerous trials in the process we call learning, where the subject only approaches the intended effect over time. If we assume a 1 to 1 correlation between intention and action or consequence, these are all factors that can reduce that ratio. The gap between what the subject intends and the real world outcome is one thing. The gap between what he intends and what we think or hope he intends is another. One solution may be to look to what might be a highly co-dependent variable - attention? Can there be continuous intention without collateral attention? Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Fri Feb 23 20:08:20 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 15:08:20 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: Responding to Margaret Winters' message about intent and contracts: I think you are on the trail of something. At a more primitive level, I recall a concept from a contract law course. It was called "meeting of minds." An example: If A and B create a sale contract, so that A is selling a boat named "Happy Trails," a barge, but B is buying a boat named "Happy Trails," a schooner, and it can be established that these were the thoughts that were being thought when the contract was signed, then by law there was no "meeting of minds." The law then says, there is no enforceable contract. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margaret E. Winters" To: Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 10:50 AM Subject: intent > I've been reading the postings on communication and intent and (because of > my day job) thought of some place to look at an application: there should > be a good-sized literature on the interpretation of contracts, including > faculty union contracts, where intent is pivotal but agreement on intent, > and therefore meaning, is all too often missing. > > Margaret > ----------------------- > Dr. Margaret E. Winters > Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research > > Southern Illinois University Carbondale > Carbondale, IL 62901-4305 > > tel: (618) 453-5744 > fax: (618) 453-1478 > e-mail: mew1 at siu.edu > From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Fri Feb 23 21:27:43 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 16:27:43 EST Subject: intent Message-ID: In a message dated 2/23/2001 3:09:39 PM, bill_mann at SIL.ORG writes: << I recall a concept from a contract law course. It was called "meeting of minds." An example: If A and B create a sale contract, so that A is selling a boat named "Happy Trails," a barge, but B is buying a boat named "Happy Trails," a schooner, and it can be established that these were the thoughts that were being thought when the contract was signed, then by law there was no "meeting of minds." >> But there is plenty of judicial dicta (official judge talk) that makes it clear that the trier of fact (e.g., jury) cannot try to read minds. This is from the "seminal" (often cited) case quoted in Black's Law Dictionary: "The 'meeting of the minds' required to make a contract is not based on secret purpose or intention on the part of one of the parties, stored away in his mind and not brought to the attention of the other party, but must be based on the purpose and intention that has been made known or should have been known ... from the circumstances." McClintock v. Skelly Oil Co., 232 Mo. App. 1204, 114 S.W. 2d, 181, 184 So as a matter of evidence, what tells us that there might be no contract in the example you gave was NOT what was going on in A and B's heads, but the fact that there were two different ships by the same name. Of course, the parties must give their reports of what they were thinking. But that would only stand up if there were two different ships or some other OBJECTIVE reason for a lack of common intent. Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Fri Feb 23 22:03:09 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 17:03:09 -0500 Subject: intent Message-ID: Funknetters: I was glad to see Steve Long's clarification of my line of thinking about "meeting of minds." Yes, that's how they do it, and we can use comparable methods. Of course, the objective existence of two boats by the same name is essential in the example. For us, it is this pair of boats that makes credible the two sets of intentions involved, and makes it credible that they disagreed in crucial details, in spite of the fact that such conversations generally converge in terms of what each one thought the other's intentions were. So we might say that the need for this legal doctrine arises from the fact that "grounding" and establishing of "mutual knowledge" tend not to fail, and so a rule is needed about the exceptional cases where they do fail. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Long" To: Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 4:27 PM Subject: Re: intent > In a message dated 2/23/2001 3:09:39 PM, bill_mann at SIL.ORG writes: > > << I recall a concept from a contract law course. It was called "meeting of > minds." An example: If A and B create a sale contract, so that A is selling > a boat named "Happy Trails," a barge, but B is buying a boat named "Happy > Trails," a schooner, and it can be established that these were the thoughts > that were being thought when the > > contract was signed, then by law there was no "meeting of minds." >> > > But there is plenty of judicial dicta (official judge talk) that makes it > clear that the trier of fact (e.g., jury) cannot try to read minds. This is > from the "seminal" (often cited) case quoted in Black's Law Dictionary: > > "The 'meeting of the minds' required to make a contract is not based on > secret purpose or intention on the part of one of the parties, stored away in > his mind and not brought to the attention of the other party, but must be > based on the purpose and intention that has been made known or should have > been known ... from the circumstances." McClintock v. Skelly Oil Co., 232 > Mo. App. 1204, 114 S.W. 2d, 181, 184 > > So as a matter of evidence, what tells us that there might be no contract in > the example you gave was NOT what was going on in A and B's heads, but the > fact that there were two different ships by the same name. > > Of course, the parties must give their reports of what they were thinking. > But that would only stand up if there were two different ships or some other > OBJECTIVE reason for a lack of common intent. > > Regards, > Steve Long > From ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Sat Feb 24 20:36:42 2001 From: ceford at FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU (Cecilia E. Ford) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 12:36:42 -0800 Subject: meaning & intention Message-ID: In addition to looking at Du Bois' work, I would urge scholars of meaning and intention to look at the ambiguities that follow from Charles Goodwin's observations regarding the organization of perturbations in the flow of speech and the gaze behavior or potential recipient/addressees of that speech. One thing that follows is that although sound perturbations and cut-offs of sound production may occur without intention, they can also be "deployed" to interactional ends. Now this has to do with the purposeful (though not premeditated or self-conscious) organization of the joint social action in and around which language functions (overwhelmingly, if one takes the ontogenetic or phylogenetic perspective). Charles Goodwin 1981 Conversational organization: Interaction between speakers and hearers. Academic Press. -Ceci Cecilia E. Ford Department of English 600 N. Park St. University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison WI 53706 USA ceford at facstaff.wisc.edu From gvk at ciaccess.com Sun Feb 25 04:32:49 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 23:32:49 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Salinas17 at aol.com wrote: > Good example. Actually Old Luke understood what the Boss Man was saying, > alright. Those who know the movie know Luke's problem was not understanding. > He just didn't care. He had other intentions. Luke knew what the Boss Man meant, but he refused to attach the same caring to those ideas that the Boss Man did. In effect Luke refused the Boss Man's urging to share the coupling of a particular idea with the same feelings. We only feel we are really communicating with someone when it becomes apparent that we are both associating the same type of positive or negative feelings or reinforcement with the same particular subject or idea. In effect we can say that the Boss Man was successful in the transmision of his message, and Luke was successful in receiving it. But overal communication-which also includes intention-failed because Luke refused to accept its validity. It's the same in commercials. The advertiser tries to associate some postive feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this results in a purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular feelings with that product, we say that the communication has failed. gvk From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET Sun Feb 25 13:51:50 2001 From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 07:51:50 -0600 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Gerald van Koeverden wrote: "It's the same in commercials. The advertiser tries to associate some postive feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this results in a purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular feelings with that product, we say that the communication has failed." It seems to me that if commercials are to be part of this discussion we would need to consider the evidence -- which tells us that when commercials establish positive feelings people often remember the commercial but not the name of the product it was selling or the company/brand responsible. By contrast, when commercials establish negative feelings -- including disgust or repulsion -- they almost always remember the product's name/brand/company, and it's well established that this leads to higher sales. In terms of "success" or "failure" of the communication, this sets advertising communication significantly apart from most other human language interactions. Mingling the two forms is likely to lead to substantial confusion. Suzette Haden Elgin From gvk at ciaccess.com Sun Feb 25 19:28:00 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 14:28:00 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Suzette, You are partly correct. There are always negative feelings associated with a successful commercial, but there are also postive feelings. It is the mix of these two in how the viewer interprets them that determines whether the commercial is successful or not, in whether it induces positive (buying) or negative (cynicism) responses. For example, an advertisement on Caribean cruises might first focus on evoking negative feelings, eg. a sense of jealousy on the part of the viewer. The viewer is trapped between his feelings of vicariously enjoying the cruise and his realization that he or she can't afford it or the time. Then the ad by advertising cheap rates for short cruises gives him or her a way of being able to do it, and overcome this chasm between fanatsy and reality. Sales pitches for cruises and arguments by mothers to get their children to brush their teeth, work on the same principles. gvk Suzette Haden Elgin wrote: > Gerald van Koeverden wrote: > "It's the same in commercials. The advertiser tries to associate some postive > feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this > results in a > purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. > However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular > feelings with > that product, we say that the communication has failed." > > It seems to me that if commercials are to be part of this discussion we > would need to consider the evidence -- which tells us that when commercials > establish positive feelings people often remember the commercial but not > the name of the product it was selling or the company/brand responsible. By > contrast, when commercials establish negative feelings -- including disgust > or repulsion -- they almost always remember the product's > name/brand/company, and it's well established that this leads to higher > sales. In terms of "success" or "failure" of the communication, this sets > advertising communication significantly apart from most other human > language interactions. Mingling the two forms is likely to lead to > substantial confusion. > > Suzette Haden Elgin From david_tuggy at SIL.ORG Sun Feb 25 21:22:06 2001 From: david_tuggy at SIL.ORG (David Tuggy) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 16:22:06 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke In-Reply-To: <3A988AF1.4EF7EDCD@ciaccess.com> Message-ID: Gerald VK wrote: "The advertiser tries to associate some postive feelings or reinforcement with the product he is selling. When this results in a purchaser buying the product, we say that that communication was successful. However, if the viewer rejects that association of those particular feelings with that product, we say that the communication has failed." I never thought I would feel like congratulating those who are hard to communicate with. In this case, I think I do! (I think it was C.S. Lewis who commented somewhere about how what a triumph of language it is that logical thought, common sense, self-control, and thrift, can be lumped together under the rubric of "sales resistance".) --David Tuggy From ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET Sun Feb 25 22:33:03 2001 From: ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET (Suzette Haden Elgin) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 16:33:03 -0600 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Gerald van Koeverden writes: "Suzette, You are partly correct. There are always negative feelings associated with a successful commercial, but there are also postive feelings. It is the mix of these two in how the viewer interprets them that determines whether the commercial is successful or not, in whether it induces positive (buying) or negative (cynicism) responses. For example, an advertisement on Caribean cruises might first focus on evoking negative feelings, eg. a sense of jealousy on the part of the viewer. The viewer is trapped between his feelings of vicariously enjoying the cruise and his realization that he or she can't afford it or the time. Then the ad by advertising cheap rates for short cruises gives him or her a way of being able to do it, and overcome this chasm between fanatsy and reality. Sales pitches for cruises and arguments by mothers to get their children to brush their teeth, work on the same principles." **Partly correct or not, I'm not communicating. Let's try this again. I'm not talking about subtle negative feelings like a "sense of jealousy on the part of the viewer." I mean that tasteless and tacky and even vulgar laxative commercials, diarrhea remedy commercials, toilet paper commercials, beer commercials, sexual "vigor" commercials [I'm trying hard to be neither subtle nor obscure] -- commercials that people find literally, overtly disgusting -- sell more product than elegant and tasteful commercials that people love. You know that commercial where the little girl stands trustingly as the rhinoceros charges at her across the savannah? It's lovely; it's irresistible. And nobody can remember what product or brand or company is associated with it. This is different from the effect that a gross-out human being has on other human beings in noncommercial language interactions, and is not recommended as a way to get your kids to brush their teeth. Suzette From gvk at ciaccess.com Sun Feb 25 23:07:09 2001 From: gvk at ciaccess.com (Gerald van Koeverden) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 18:07:09 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: Suzette, Obviously, whether or not consumers are brain-washed into buying the product has absolutely nothing with their esthetic appreciation of the commercials themselves as being tacky or tasteful. I agree with that totally. What I'm I'm trying to get at is the under-lying unconscious emotional dynamics that do the real work of selling. Why do you think those ads work? Or are you totally mystified by the phenomena? Maybe these companies are buying billions of dollars annually for advertising for nothing? gerry Suzette Haden Elgin wrote: > **Partly correct or not, I'm not communicating. Let's try this again. > > I'm not talking about subtle negative feelings like a "sense of jealousy on > the part of the viewer." I mean that tasteless and tacky and even vulgar > laxative commercials, diarrhea remedy commercials, toilet paper > commercials, beer commercials, sexual "vigor" commercials [I'm trying hard > to be neither subtle nor obscure] -- commercials that people find > literally, overtly disgusting -- sell more product than elegant and > tasteful commercials that people love. From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Sun Feb 25 23:59:32 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 18:59:32 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: In a message dated 2/25/2001 8:32:01 AM, ocls at MADISONCOUNTY.NET writes: << It seems to me that if commercials are to be part of this discussion we would need to consider the evidence -- which tells us that when commercials establish positive feelings people often remember the commercial but not the name of the product it was selling or the company/brand responsible. By contrast, when commercials establish negative feelings -- including disgust or repulsion -- they almost always remember the product's name/brand/company, and it's well established that this leads to higher sales.>> Well, I think the ad managers of Budweiser and McDonald's will tell you that simply isn't true. Political campaigns are another thing. SOME BACKGROUND: I think all you have to do to get a clear picture of what drives the actual creators of (at least American and British) tv commercials is get a hold of an issue of "Creativity", a magazine published by AdAge for that group. You'll see the value system among the upper echelons of that group that permeates through most of the "creative types" at advertising agencies is pretty transparent. You don't get star status by "establishing positive or negative feelings" or even necessarily "higher sales." TV especially is all about the shock of "awareness", where your commercial is remembered, talked about, featured in USA Today and TV Guide. Those who add to the mammoth ratings of the SuperBowl regularly vote the commercials more interesting than the game in the press, where the "favorite" commercial is always a prestige matter. Big corporate marketing machines, whether they like it or not, must compete. But a "blockbuster" ad campaign is often associated with good sales and positive corporate image on Wall Street. The key of course is to create a 30 second story where the product or service or corporate image has a role in that story. (Just like the Reeses Pieces (candy) that Spielberg had E.T., the lovable alien, find so delicious.) Telling a good cinematic story with the product interwoven is obviously the motif of the commercials that win the "best ever" polls - Coke's "Mean Joe Green" (hurt but scary football player thanks kid for giving him a Coke by tossing him a game jersey), Apple's "1984" (woman with war hammer smashes Big Brother's screen symbolizing introduction of Macintosh and that Orwell's1984 will not happen in 1984) - and earn the writers and directors - Ridley Scott (Gladitor), Joe Pitka (Spaceballs) - a walkin to the Hollywood feature film business. Both Mean Joe and 1984 were felt to have an enormous positive, but hard to measure, impact on sales. That said, the other element in the ad business is called 'Research', considered antithetical to the 'Creatives' and you can guess what profession they come from. Research would prefer tv commercials to be aimed at "persuasion" but often lose in the battle with the "Creatives" because people will often say they will buy a product NOT based on what the commercial says but because they just plain like a commercial and the way it treats them. Research-designed commercials tend to overemphasize the product and so the commercials lose their sense of entertainment. These are the kinds of ads that use special effects to demonstrate the product (which modern audiences are not as amazed by anymore) or mundane problem-solution situations (that modern audiences are bored by.) For a fair number of conservative product categories or advertisers, these research-driven commercials are the norm (e.g., headache remedies, toilet bowl cleaners). These situations are considered the equivalent of Siberia to the Creative crowd. RESEARCH AND ADVERTISING Given the above, there are researchers who have strong track record in the business. The "success" of a commercial depends on its objective. New products must first achieve "awareness" or "top-of-mind awareness" which may have as much to do with how often they run as with what they say, except that product ID is critical. "Motivation-to-buy" is measured by some researchers, while with commonly used products, "attitude' measurements can signal the kind of nudge that gets people "switching" between two comparable brands. There are thousands of commercials run every day on American tv, so that "memorability" and "attention" are also separate values. The bad feelings you mention generally occur in "problem-solution" commercials, where as with pain relievers the interest is considered high among potential users. Image advertising (or brand image advertising) is used to fill in or sustain a general good feeling about a product. Some of us feel that so-called "negative political advertising" against opposing political candidates is a solid case of manipulation. Rich (often republican) candidates particularly can assert things over and over again on air which even the press cannot bring balance to, if they had the heart, because the air waves are truly inundated. HOW DOES ADVERTISING WORK? Well, on its basic level, advertising doesn't make me want toilet paper or instant mash potatoes. Toilet paper and instant mashed potatoes make me want them when I understand what they do. My life is a lot better because of both. The basic intended effect of advertising is to let me know those items exist and I cannot argue with that, as I never knew them, my life would be the worse for it. There is however advertising that alludes to benefits that may be imaginary and that I as a user cannot confirm. Some herbal health products are like this. They prey on fear and may do nothing and I think they deserve strong government interdiction. Then there is the whole issue of congruent self-image and product image, as in beer or a kind of a car, where the label is a badge for the user. A Bud or Chevy man versus "imported beer drinkers" or BMW drivers and such. The whole notion of fashion, social acceptance, "conspicuous consumption" (Thorstein Veblen, for those who don't read anything ten years old or more) is beyond the topic of advertising and well into the arena of social phenomena that existed long before tv commercials and outdoor billboards. All that includes perhaps communication on its most subtle plain. <> I think a close look will show only that advertising, like motion pictures and popular music, is different only in the amplification of its effects by the power of mass electronic media. Hope this helps, Steve Long From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Mon Feb 26 02:08:20 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 21:08:20 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication/Cool Hand Luke Message-ID: In a message dated 2/24/2001 11:34:19 PM, gvk at CIACCESS.COM writes: << In effect we can say that the Boss Man was successful in the transmision of his message, and Luke was successful in receiving it. But overal communication-which also includes intention-failed because Luke refused to accept its validity. >> Going back to the definition of communication and the suggested element of "intended effect": The Boss's "failure to communicate" could be seen as the failure of the communication to have the intended effect. The Boss was not after simple common understanding - we know that he succeeded at that. However what he actually wanted was for Luke not to attempt an escape. But Luke kept on attempting to escape. The Boss's "communications" failed - did not achieve the actual effect he intended. Regards, Steve Long From bill_mann at SIL.ORG Mon Feb 26 18:45:17 2001 From: bill_mann at SIL.ORG (William Mann) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 13:45:17 -0500 Subject: Intention Message-ID: I am replying to Ramin Akbari's message about intention. (I have included portions of it below.) I certainly recognize the focus in educational research and other branches of psychology of "establishing the psychological reality of the construct being investigated." Psychology as a discipline could not continue without something like this. In fact for any of our disciplines, there needs to be a distinction, or a tendency toward a distinction, between the established, well justified terminology and that which is not. I take the central concern in Ramin Akbari's message to be whether "intention" is in the well justified group or not, and if not whether it can be brought into the well justified group for a particular subdiscipline of psychology. Psychology functions as several fields with the same name, and often it is necessary to specify whether Clinical Psychology, Experimental Psychology or any of a half dozen others is intended. Such is inevitable given the complexity and importance of the subject matter. Here I believe he is addressing a need of researchers in Experimental Psychology -- a need to wait for justification before using the term freely. But for the rest of us, I think that we need not wait. I think that the important general issue is not "establishing the psychological reality of the construct being investigated." but rather: "establishing the reality of the construct being investigated. " For that end, other sorts of evidence are usable. In fact, other fields may have a larger body of experience with some particular concept than professional psychologists can assemble. I find it significant that there is, in the Western nations that I know something about, a tradition of multiple centuries of trial transcripts, applying notions of intention found in laws. It is impressive that the concept survives despite the fact that in every trial there is one side that would win if the concept could be shown to be unreal. Often those adversaries are paid even more than scientists to argue such cases. Yet in law, intention continues to be regarded as real. Ramin Akbari continues: "If > intention is part of any authentic communication ( > which I am sure it is) what real, objective, data- > based support do we have for its existence as a > research construct ? If we can "prove" the > psychological reality of intention objectively, then > we can hope to have better tests of language ability > and probably some new approaches to teaching foreign > languages." The real problem here seems to be spurious requirements in the research methods, requiring proofs of reality for things that are well known to be real. We could even quote Ramin Akbari's message, saying "If intention is part of any authentic communication (which I am sure it is) ..." It is unfortunate that these research methods, which have been in place for a long time before Ramin Akbari had to struggle with them, force him to prove that which he is sure of. This is going far beyond ordinary caution. Rather it deals with a closed intellectual world that does not grant full reality to what is known, even to its practitioners. The risk for other intellectual communities is that somehow this limited closed-world treatment of reality will become licensed to tell, with the authority of science, what is real and what is not. Michael Reddy, in the paper referenced below, is suggesting that there are terms that have been inappropriately treated as being well justified. The list might include "content," "meaning," "code," "message" and even "languages." Caution in using such terms is well justified. In the case of 'intention," Raymond W. Gibbs in his 1999 book <> makes a good defense of the term and a good constructive case for prospective benefits of using it. I think we can treat it as a worthy term, but it is certainly worthwhile to be explicit about what our usage entails. Bill Mann The first reference below was in a previous message. Reddy, Michael J. (1979). The Conduit Metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language In A. Ortony (eds,). Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 41. Gibbs, Raymond W. (1999) Intentions in the Experience of Meaning: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. From lexes at MINDSPRING.COM Mon Feb 26 21:54:36 2001 From: lexes at MINDSPRING.COM (Clifford Lutton) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 16:54:36 -0500 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Bill Mann has written: "Clifford: "... what would you say about a predator-prey situation (e.g. wolf and rabbit) where the rapid approach of the wolf is being perceived, interpreted and assigned significance by the rabbit, who then runs away. How is that communication? "Perhaps on some dependency scale, interaction is more basic than communication. "If you wish to take this up, please bring it back to the list. "Best wishes. "Bill Mann" To which I reply to Bill and all interested: Whether by nature or by nurture, experienced rabbits generally fear wolves (and a great many other animals including most humans). Your wolf's presence, was perceived and interpreted by your rabbit which did what rabbits do if they able and wish to survive. The rabbit had no illusions about wolves communing with rabbits. Whether the wolf intended to communicate its presence to the rabbit or not, it did so; perhaps even silently, your rabbit got the message. ************ I can think of no communication event in which a "receiver" (accidentally or volitionally) perceives input from a sender and does not volitionally interpret (accurately or inaccurately) the "sender's" message . Not to interpret would preclude there being a communication event. (Yes, ole' taciturn Luke was an cool communicator. Recall how he intentionally caused his captors and other inmates (communicatees) to perceive and misinterpret his speech and actions so he could escape?) Perceiving may be unintentional, and communication may be precluded by a possible receiver ignoring intended percepts. However, volitional (intentional and/or instinctive) interpretation is a necessary part of each communication event. From the point of view of the receiver, volition is not a variable because there is no communication event if there is no interpretation. It appears to me that many attempts to clarify the concept, communication, fall short because they approach the matter more from the perspective of the sender than of the receiver. Because "intention" is a problem when attempting to define communication (as recent list postings indicate). Because it is less a problem when the concept is approached from the receiver's point of view than from the senders, I approach the task from the perspective of the former rather than the latter. Best, Clifford Lutton lexes at mindspring.com 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, GA 30030-2823, USA Clifford: Off the record (and off of the list), what would you say about a predator-prey situation (e.g. wolf and rabbit) where the rapid approach of the wolf is being perceived, interpreted and assigned significance by the rabbit, who then runs away. How is that communication? Perhaps on some dependency scale, interaction is more basic than communication. If you wish to take this up, please bring it back to the list. Best wishes. Bill Mann ----- Original Message ----- From: Clifford Lutton To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 2:40 PM Subject: Re: Assumptions about Communication IMHO FWIW, communication occurs when the presence, appearance, and/or act(s) of one being are perceived and interpreted (assigned significance) by another being. Clifford Lutton 300 West Parkwood Road Decatur, Georgia 30030-2823 (404) 371-8935 lexes at mindspring.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Tue Feb 27 00:05:55 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 19:05:55 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 2/26/2001 5:26:11 PM, lexes at MINDSPRING.COM writes: << Because "intention" is a problem when attempting to define communication (as recent list postings indicate). Because it is less a problem when the concept is approached from the receiver's point of view than from the senders, I approach the task from the perspective of the former rather than the latter. >> Of course, the well-intended question here is whether this solves the problem or avoids it. If the rabbit sees the wolf and runs (having volitioned and interpreted and based on that ran), is that a communication? Not matter what the wolf's intentions were? If the rabbit doesn't see the wolf and gets caught, is that a failure to communicate? If the rabbit sees a dead tree about to fall on it and volitions and interprets and runs, is that a communication? If a rabbit fails to see the dead tree falling and gets crushed, is that a failure to communicate? The presence of another "being" isn't really necessary to these scenarios if w e avoid the intention of the sender. If a sender can communicate by an "unintended" act (e.g., myself being spied on in the shower, the wolf being seen by the rabbit) then there is no reason to separate the unintending sender from the sender that is incapable of intending. If I "read" the weather or the water, I can get very meaningful messages, highly functional in terms of my future safety or comfort. If "communication" resides entirely in the receiver without the need for intention in the sender, then all the world's a sender. "Signatures of all things I am here to read." - James Joyce Regards, Steve Long From CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG Tue Feb 27 06:40:20 2001 From: CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG (CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 14:40:20 +0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Status Distribution February 27, 2001 06:40:03 The message regarding "Assumptions about Communication, etc." sent on February 27, 2001 06:40:03 was sent by Status Recipient Type To Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Foreign Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu\n\n\nSMTP Recipients Status Reporters Type From Name Domain NOTES Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV at SINGOV Foreign Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV\nSINGOV\n\n Organization SINGOV Org Unit 1 SPF Last Name CHEW First Name Jian Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book From CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG Tue Feb 27 06:52:35 2001 From: CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG (CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 14:52:35 +0800 Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: Status Distribution February 27, 2001 08:15:26 The message regarding "Re: Assumptions about Communication, etc." sent on February 27, 2001 08:15:26 was sent by Status Recipient Type To Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu Foreign Native Name FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu\n\n\nSMTP Recipients Status Reporters Type From Name Domain NOTES Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV at SINGOV Foreign Native Name CN=Jian Chieh CHEW/OU=SPF/O=SINGOV\nSINGOV\n\n Organization SINGOV Org Unit 1 SPF Last Name CHEW First Name Jian Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book From Salinas17 at AOL.COM Tue Feb 27 14:14:11 2001 From: Salinas17 at AOL.COM (Steve Long) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:14:11 EST Subject: Assumptions about Communication, etc. Message-ID: In a message dated 2/27/2001 1:58:53 AM, CHEW_Jian_Chieh at SPF.GOV.SG writes: << Status 769 Explanation Invalid recipient X.400 Status 769 Explanation User Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV (Jian Chieh CHEW/SPF/SINGOV at medusa.internet.gov.sg) not listed in public Name & Address Book >> A failure to communicate.