37.2979, Confs: Panel at IPC20: Speech Acts of Cooperation and Conflict (Finland)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2979. Thu Sep 17 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2979, Confs: Panel at IPC20: Speech Acts of Cooperation and Conflict (Finland)

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Date: 16-Sep-2026
From: Frank Liedtke [liedtke at uni-leipzig.de]
Subject: Panel at IPC20: Speech Acts of Cooperation and Conflict


Panel at IPC20: Speech Acts of Cooperation and Conflict
Short Title: IPC20
Theme: Speech Acts of Cooperation and Conflict

Date: 27-Jun-2027 - 02-Jul-2027
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact: Frank Liedtke
Contact Email: liedtke at uni-leipzig.de
Meeting URL: https://pragmatics.international/page/IPC20Helsinki

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Philosophy of Language;
Pragmatics; Semantics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Submission Deadline: 15-Oct-2026

Speech Acts of Cooperation and Conflict
Panel at the 20th International Pragmatics Conference Helsinki
Claus Ehrhardt (Università degli Studi Urbino)
Frank Liedtke (Leipzig University)
In performing speech acts, utterers aim at being understood by their
ad-dressees, and in addition they intend (mostly) that they believe
what was stated or fulfil what was ordered etc. The former effect is
called illocution-ary uptake by J.L. Austin (Austin 1976, 117; Sbisà
2009, 2024) or illocution-ary effect by J.R. Searle (Searle 1974, 45),
the latter is specified as perlocu-tionary consequence (Austin 1976,
118) or effect (Searle 1974, 46). In order to realize the
illocutionary uptake or effect, utterers and addressees have to share
a minimal basis of cooperation, as H.P Grice has pointed out (Grice
1975). It otherwise seems that a mutual understanding is impossible.
Cases of dissent, dispute and conflictual communication constitute a
chal-lenge for this model of mutual understanding (s. Locher 2004;
Chalmers 2011; Cap 2017; Oswald 2023). At first sight, a distinction
between illocu-tion (cooperative) and perlocution (conflictual) seems
to suggest itself, but in many cases even the illocution is affected
in the sense that the illocution-ary effect is not accepted by all
participants of a talk exchange (s. van Eemeren/Grotendorst 1984;
Goodwin/ Innocenti 2019; Bermejo Luque/Moldovan 2021). These are not
merely cases of misunderstanding, but of divergent opinions of what
was said or stated.
What does this mean for basic pragmatic notions such as illocution,
under-standing and cooperation? With regard to the latter, do
conflicting parties cease to cooperate mutually, or is there a
technical sense of cooperation that allows to attribute cooperation to
them even in cases of dissent, dispute or conflict (s. Goodwin 2001)?
As Allwood (2007) points out, in cases of coop-eration, competition
and even conflict a ‘cognitive consideration’ of the oth-er party’s
cognitive attitude (which may be mutual or not) is constitutive. In
competition and conflict however, a joint goal may be individually
in-compatible or even defocused, and in conflictual situations ethical
consid-erations and trust may be completely absent (s. Allwood 2007, 8
ff.).
Following the gradual model of Allwood’s, one may look on the Gricean
con-versational maxims in a new light: Thus one may ask which of the
maxims are so basic that they have to be followed in all cases of
cooperation, compe-tition and conflict, and which may be competed or
conflictual themselves. Furthermore, the question of the limits of
understanding in nonconsensual communication arises. If mutual
understanding in the sense of illocutionary uptake is not a
prerequisite, but the object of a dispute, a basic problem arises:
What are the criteria for deciding in a dispute that the utterance of
the counterpart was a speech act of a certain type and not of a
competing one? In this case, elements of the utterance context play a
decisive role.
The aim of the panel is to review fundamental concepts such as e.g.
illocu-tion and cooperation in the light of conflictual communicative
situations, and to explore what might constitute a conception that
does justice to the complexity of non-consensual communication.
Literature:
Jens Allwood (2007): Cooperation, Competition, Conflict and
Communication. Gothenburg Papers in Theoretical Linguistics (GPTL),
94. Department of Linguis-tics, Göteborg University.
John L. Austin (1976): How to do things with Words. Ed. by J.O.
Urmson/M. Sbisà. Ox-ford.
Lilian Bermejo Luque/Andrei Moldovan, Eds. (2021): Speech Acts and
Argumentation. Special issue. Informal Logic 41 (3).
Piotr Cap (2017): Studying ideological worldviews in political
Discourse Space: Criti-cal-cognitive advances in the analysis of
conflict and coercion. Journal of Pragmat-ics, 108, 17-27.
David J. Chalmers (2011): Verbal Disputes. The Philosophical Review
120 (4), 515–566.
Frans van Eemeren/Rob Grootendorst (1984): Speech Acts in
Argumentative Discus-sions: A Theoretical Model for the Analysis of
Discussions Directed towards Solving Conflicts of Opinion. Dordrecht:
Foris publications.
Jean Goodwin (2001): The Noncooperative Pragmatics of Arguing.
Pragmatics in 2000:
Selected Papers from the 7th International Pragmatics Conference, Vol.
2, edited by
E. T. Németh, 263–277. Antwerp: International Pragmatics Association.
Jean Goodwin/Beth Innocenti (2019): The Pragmatic Force of Making an
Argument. Topoi 38 (4), 669–680.
H. Paul Grice (1975): Logic and Conversation. P. Cole/J. Morgan
(eds.), Syntax and Se-mantics, Vol. 3, New York u.a., 41-58.
Miriam Locher (2004): Power and Politeness in Action. Disagreements in
Oral Com-munication. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Steve Oswald, (2023): Pragmatics for Argumentation. Journal of
Pragmatics 203 (Jan-uary),144–156.
Marina Sbisà (2009): Uptake and conventionality in illocution. Lodz
Papers in Prag-matics, 5, 2009, 33-52.
Marina Sbisà (2024): Austinian Themes. Illocution, Action, Knowledge,
Truth, and Phi-losophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
John R. Searle (1974): Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of
Language. Cam-bridge.



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