How do we use language? - SM4

Question 1

How often do direct and indirect speech acts happen?

Answer 1

direct <10% of the time, indirect >90%

Question 2

What are the 3 kinds of non-literal speech acts?

Answer 2

• idioms
• metaphor/simile
• irony

Question 3

What is Searle’s (1979) two-stage mechanism of understanding indirect speech?

Answer 3

• start with literal interpretation following normal rules
• then check for other non-literal interpretations

Question 4

What is Gibbs (1986) and Keysar (1989) theories on understanding indirect speech?

Answer 4

• one stage process - parallel processing of literal and non-literal meanings
• mixed evidence - depends greatly on the context and type of indirect speech

Question 5

What is suggested about how we process idioms?

Answer 5

they may get a lexical entry of their own, so are stored more like words than processed as a sentence

Question 6

What is scalar implicature?

Answer 6

• some people don’t mean/interpret the literal meaning
• when people say ‘some’ they generally imply ‘not all’, but really ‘some’ should apply to the instance where you mean ‘all’ as well

Question 7

What happens to scalar implicature when manipulating cognitive load? What does this suggest?

Answer 7

• a difficult load led to fewer pragmatic responses
• suggests memory is involved in pragmatic interpretations, so memory may help you go beyond the literal interpretation

Question 8

What are Grice’s 4 maxims?

Answer 8

• quantity (required information)
• quality (true information)
• relation (relevant to conversation)
• manner (be clear)

Question 9

What are some positives of Grice’s contribution? (3)

Answer 9

• useful for description of conversations
• and for identification of violations
• several offshoots are now research areas in their own right

Question 10

What is an issue with Grice’s theory?

Answer 10

issue of collaboration/common ground - shared information of people in the conversation is not mentioned in the theory

Question 11

What was found in the bat study comparing linguistic and non-linguistic ambiguity?

Answer 11

• good at avoiding non-linguistic ambiguity (size of bat)
• not good at avoiding linguistic ambiguity (type of bat)

Question 12

What was found in the mind reading study with the shelves hidden from the confederate? What does this suggest?

Answer 12

• participant generally picked up the right object - so did understand that confederate couldn’t see the real small candle
• hand movements and eye movements were initially towards the wrong object - initially egocentric
• maybe the egocentric interpretation needs to be inhibited

Question 13

What was the difference between Chinese and Americans in seeing others’ points of view?

Answer 13

Chinese showed better ability to determine the speaker’s point of view (even in initial eye movements)

Question 14

What is the N400 effect?

Answer 14

a response to language 400ms after the onset of a word that occurs when you are struggling to integrate a word into the sentence

Question 15

What is a social N400?

Answer 15

you get an N400 when someone else joins the conversation after context is given and you are aware that they will be confused about that word, even though you know the context

Question 16

What can ASD individuals often have problems with in conversations? What deficit theory does this fit with?

Answer 16

pragmatic inference (e.g. chicken soup example)
fits with a theory of mind deficit

Question 17

What was found when ASD adults were compared with typical adults on pragmatic inference questions? What does this possibly suggest?

Answer 17

• generally well matched on performance
• interpretation here might not depend on mind-reading skills and may be a more automated process (shortcuts to understand)