Pragmatics concerns the material function of language use in the world, and thus touches on profound questions about the relationship between our cognition and the environments in which we operate. Both psycholinguistics and evolutionary linguistics have afforded greater attention to pragmatics in recent years. Though the potential of evolutionary psycholinguistics has been noted for over twenty-five years (e.g. Tooby & Cosmides, 1990; Scott-Phillips, 2010a), there has arguably been little dialogue between these two fields of study. This thesis explicitly acknowledges and investigates the adaptationist nature of functional claims in psycholinguistics, and attempts to demonstrate that psycholinguistic inquiry can provide evidence that is relevant to theories of how the cognitive architecture of linguistic communication evolved. Chapter two reviews a broad polarisation in the pragmatic and psycholinguistic literature concerning the relative roles of linguistic convention and contextual information in comprehension. It makes explicit the theoretical approaches that reliably give rise to these polar positions across scholarly domains. It goes on to map each model of comprehension to the adaptationist particulars it may entail, and in doing so illustrates two different pictures of how linguistic cognition has developed over phylogeny. The Social Adaptation Hypothesis (SAH) holds that linguistic comprehension is performed by relevance-oriented inferential mechanisms that have been selected for by a social environment (i.e. inference-using conspecifics). In particular, the SAH holds that linguistic conventions are attended to in the same way as other ostensive stimuli and contextual information, and because of their relevance to communicative interactions. The Linguistic Adaptation Hypothesis (LAH) holds that linguistic comprehension is performed by specialised cognition that has been selected for by a linguistic environment (i.e. language-using conspecifics) that was established subsequent to, and as a consequence of, the emergence of inferential communication. In particular, the LAH holds that linguistic conventions are a privileged domain of input for the comprehension system. The plausibility and congruence of both accounts with the current state of knowledge about the evolutionary picture necessitates empirical psycholinguistic evidence. The remainder of the thesis presents a series of experiments investigating referential expressions relevant to the contrastive predictions of these two adaptationist accounts. The broad question that covers all of these experiments is: how sensitive is the comprehension process to linguistic input qua linguistic input, relative to various other grades of relevant contextual information? Chapter three presents a reaction time experiment that uses speaker-specific facts about referents as referring expressions, in a conversational precedent paradigm. The experiment measures the relative sensitivity of comprehension processing to the knowledge states of speakers and the consistent use of linguistic labels, and finds greater sensitivity to linguistic labels. Chapter four introduces a further contextual variable into this paradigm, in the form of culturally copresent associations between labels and referents. The experiment presented in this chapter compares the relative sensitivity of processing to culturally copresent common ground, the privileged knowledge state of speakers, and the consistent use of linguistic labels. The results indicated greater sensitivity to linguistic labels overall, and were consistent with the LAH. Chapter five turns to visual context as a constraint on reference, and presents two pairs of experiments. Experiments 3 and 4 investigate the comprehension of referring expressions across congruous, incongruous, and abstract visual contexts. The experiments measured reaction time as subjects were prompted to identify constituent parts of tangram pictures. The results indicated a sensitivity to the visual context and the linguistic labels, and are broadly consistent with the SAH. If comprehension is characterised by particular sensitivities, we may expect speakers to produce utterances that lend themselves well to how hearers process them. Experiments 5 and 6 use a similar tangram paradigm to elicit referring expressions from speakers for component parts of tangrams. The experiments measure the consistency of produced labels for the same referents across visual contexts of varied congruity. The results indicated some methodological limitations of the tangram paradigm for the study of repeated reference across contexts. Lastly, the thesis concludes by considering the SAH and LAH in light of the empirical evidence presented and its accompanying limitations, and argues that the evidence is generally consistent with the assumptions of the LAH.

The aim of the logic for pragmatics considered in this work is to provide a logical framework that formalises reasoning about the pragmatic forces with which a sentence may be uttered. The concept of pragmatic or illocutionary force comes from speech act theory and plays a crucial role also in certain branches of artificial intelligence, in particular in the development of communication protocols for software agents. Instead of considering the full-blown theory of speech acts, we focus on speech acts that either have the pragmatic force of an assertion or the pragmatic force of an obligation, and on how these speech acts may be related to each other. In particular, we are interested in a principle proposed by Bellin and Dalla Pozza that allows one to promote acts of obligations through causal chains of acts of assertions. The main achievement of this thesis is a sound and complete categorical semantics for a logic for pragmatics incorporating the aforementioned principle. One of the benefits of the proposed semantics is that it allows one to deal with conditional obligations as well, thus extending the framework in a very interesting way. Although the logical framework considered in this work incorporates only two types of speech acts, we hope to be able to show that we have a well-behaved core fragment that can serve as a fruitful basis for further investigations.

The study compared 10 fluent second language learners (L2Ls) and 10 heritage learners of Russian (HLs) to monolingual controls (n=20) in their judgments of the subtle nuances of aspectual usage in direct positive and negative imperative structures. The participants were asked to rate the appropriateness of pairs of imperative sentences differing in the aspectual form of the verb against the suggested discourse context. The analysis of the ratings revealed assumed deviations from the baseline in L2Ls. The HLs also revealed deviations, but unexpectedly, did not follow the baseline tendencies of the control monolingual group. Frequency and learning experience are some of the possible explanations of these finding and implications for pedagogy.

(Im)politeness research has often focused on either the importance of social norms or on the intentions of the speaker, overlooking the active role played by the recipient(s) in assigning social meaning. This limitation pertains particularly to so-called “discernment languages” such as Korean and Japanese. This work addresses this gap by focusing on recipient agency in interpretations/evaluations of impoliteness. Two sets of data are drawn from the naturally occurring computer-mediated communications that appeared in two popular internet portal sites in South Korea. Both sets of data contain metapragmatic discussions of impoliteness that involve recipient evaluation of a speaker’s actions and language use as offensive or not. I focus on how the recipients in the data agentively evaluate the language used by speakers, including inconsistent evaluations of non-honorific language, or panmal. The results show that variability in the interpretation of (im)politeness cannot be explained solely by social norms or intentions, and must also include the socially-mediated agency of the recipient(s). / 2021-04-30

This thesis is an investigation of phenomena at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, with the aim of arguing for a view of semantic interpretation as lexically driven yet contextually dependent. I examine regular, generative processes which operate over the lexicon to induce verbal sense shifts, and discuss the interaction of these processes with the linguistic or discourse context. I concentrate on phenomena where only an interaction between all three linguistic knowledge sources can explain the constraints on verb use: conventionalised lexical semantic knowledge constrains productive syntactic processes, while pragmatic reasoning is both constrained by and constrains the potential interpretations given to certain verbs. The phenomena which are closely examined are the behaviour of PP sentential modifiers (specifically dative and directional PPs) with respect to the lexical semantic representation of the verb phrases they modify, resultative constructions, and logical metonymy. The analysis is couched in terms of a lexical semantic representation drawing on Davis (1995), Jackendoff (1983, 1990), and Pustejovsky (1991, 1995) which aims to capture “linguistically relevant” components of meaning. The representation is shown to have utility for modeling of the interaction between the syntactic form of an utterance and its meaning. I introduce a formalisation of the representation within the framework of Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard and Sag 1994), and rely on the model of discourse coherence proposed by Lascarides and Asher (1992), Discourse in Commonsense Entailment. I furthermore discuss the implications of the contextual dependency of semantic interpretation for lexicon design and computational processing in Natural Language Understanding systems.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

In traditional tasks of formal reasoning, participants are asked to evaluate the validity of logical arguments. While this research tradition has contributed in many ways to our understanding of human reasoning, the extent to which this body of research generalizes to everyday, or informal, reasoning is unclear (e.g., Evans & Thompson, 2004; Galotti, 1989). The main goal of this dissertation was to illustrate the benefits of applying an informal approach to the study of conditional reasoning. In six experiments, everyday conditionals in the form of inducements (promises and threats) and advice (tips and warnings) were investigated. The results support three main conclusions. First, people recruit a substantial amount of background knowledge when interpreting and reasoning with these conditionals. Specifically, inducements were found to be different from advice on several pragmatic variables (Experiment 1); these variables also predicted differences in inference patterns (Experiment 2). Second, these studies provide further support for a probabilistic interpretation of conditionals (e.g., Evans & Over, 2004; Oaksford & Chater, 2001). Thus, in Experiments 3-5, estimates of different conditional probabilities predicted a number of judgments people make about inducements and advice. A particularly interesting finding was that the effectiveness of these conditionals in changing behaviour did not seem to depend on how likely they were perceived to be true. Finally, Experiment 6 adopted a decision-theoretic analysis (e.g., Over, Manktelow, & Hadjichristidis, 2004), showing that the effectiveness and quality of inducements and advice were tied to perceptions of subjective utility and preferences among possible outcomes. This dissertation concludes with a theoretical discussion of the nature of the relationship between formal and informal reasoning.

In traditional tasks of formal reasoning, participants are asked to evaluate the validity of logical arguments. While this research tradition has contributed in many ways to our understanding of human reasoning, the extent to which this body of research generalizes to everyday, or informal, reasoning is unclear (e.g., Evans & Thompson, 2004; Galotti, 1989). The main goal of this dissertation was to illustrate the benefits of applying an informal approach to the study of conditional reasoning. In six experiments, everyday conditionals in the form of inducements (promises and threats) and advice (tips and warnings) were investigated. The results support three main conclusions. First, people recruit a substantial amount of background knowledge when interpreting and reasoning with these conditionals. Specifically, inducements were found to be different from advice on several pragmatic variables (Experiment 1); these variables also predicted differences in inference patterns (Experiment 2). Second, these studies provide further support for a probabilistic interpretation of conditionals (e.g., Evans & Over, 2004; Oaksford & Chater, 2001). Thus, in Experiments 3-5, estimates of different conditional probabilities predicted a number of judgments people make about inducements and advice. A particularly interesting finding was that the effectiveness of these conditionals in changing behaviour did not seem to depend on how likely they were perceived to be true. Finally, Experiment 6 adopted a decision-theoretic analysis (e.g., Over, Manktelow, & Hadjichristidis, 2004), showing that the effectiveness and quality of inducements and advice were tied to perceptions of subjective utility and preferences among possible outcomes. This dissertation concludes with a theoretical discussion of the nature of the relationship between formal and informal reasoning.

The purpose of the study was to investigate Chinese EFL interlanguage request behaviors in terms of both perception and production on the perspective of pragmatic transfer based on theoretical issues of Speech Act Theory, politeness theory and cultural dimension of individualism vs. collectivism. Data were obtained from three groups of participants: 30 native speakers of Chinese college students (CL1s), 30 non-English-major Chinese EFLs college students (Chinese EFLs) and 30 native speakers of English college students (EL1s). Data for analysis consisted of 5400 perception responses collected with the instrument of 5-point Scale-response Questionnaires (SRQ) and 1800 production responses collected with the instrument of 20-item Discourse Completion Task (DCT) varied with contextual factors of Degree of Imposition, Status and Distance. Responses of perceptions were analyzed in terms of Degree of Imposition, Degree of Difficulty, and the Likelihood of Request on performing the act. Responses of productions were coded into two parts: the head act of request strategies consisting of Direct (including Mood Derivable, Explicit Performative, Hedge Performative, Locution Derivable, Want Statement), Conventional Indirect (including Suggestory Formula, Query Preparatory), Non-conventional Indirect strategies (Strong Hint, Mild Hints) and external modifications (i.e. supportive moves) according to the coding schema of CCSARP (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper, 1989). With qualitative and quantitative data analysis, some important findings were obtained. Regarding the perception task, CL1s and EFLs did not differ in their judgment on the Likelihood of Request, which further verified the validity of the questionnaire. However, CL1s generally perceived higher Degree of Imposition and Difficulty than did EL1s on requestive behaviors regardless of the shifting of contextual factors Status, Distance and Degree of Imposition and such perception reflected in their more frequent use of supportive moves than EL1s in all contexts. With regard to strategy use, the three groups yielded the same preference order: Conventional Indirect>Direct> Non-Conventional Indirect strategies in all contexts. Although CL1s were found to use more Direct strategies than did their EL1 counterparts, significant difference lay only in Low Imposition, Low Status and Low Distance situations. As for pragmatic transfer, negative pragmalinguistic transfers were found in Chinese EFLs¡¦ use of linguistic forms of Direct strategies such as Bare-imperative Help, Please+Imperative, Please+help and the Conventional Indirect strategy, Would you let me¡K? Negative sociolinguistic pragmatic transfers were found in Chinese EFLs¡¦ use of Direct strategies in Low Status/Distance situations, and the Conventional Indirect strategy of Can (Could) ¡K? /¯à¤£¯à (Neng bu neng )¡K? in Low Imposition/Distance and May I ¡K? Positive pragmalinguistic and sociolinguistic transfers were also found in either Chinese EFLs¡¦ Direct or Conventional Indiret strategies. The study ends up with some theoretical and pedagogical implications. It is suggested that both participants¡¦ requestive responses of production and perception be considered when analyzing interlanguage speech act behaviors in order to gain a better understanding of speakers¡¦ and learners¡¦ pragmatic awareness of speech act behaviors.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2009. / "Submitted to Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-245)