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8/2/2019 Heritage Ipra
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Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and
Territories of Knowledge
John Heritage, UCLA
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A Basic Problem in Action Ascription: Giving vs. requestinginformation
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A Basic Problem in Action Ascription: Giving vs. requestinginformation
Polar questions can be produced in declarative form (Quirk et al
1975 )
'Declarative questions' comprise a majority of questions in Englishconversation (Stivers 2010)
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A Basic Problem in Action Ascription: Giving vs. requestinginformation
Polar questions can be produced in declarative form (Quirk et al
1975 )
'Declarative questions' comprise a majority of questions in Englishconversation (Stivers 2010)
16% of the world's languages lack interrogative morphosyntax to
index polar requests for information (Dryer 2008)
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A Basic Problem in Action Ascription: Giving vs. requestinginformation
Polar questions can be produced in declarative form (Quirk et al
1975 )
'Declarative questions' comprise a majority of questions in Englishconversation (Stivers 2010)
16% of the world's languages lack interrogative morphosyntax to
index polar requests for information (Dryer 2008)
Solution to the problem of which declaratives assert informationand which declaratives request information is unlikely to be found
in linguistic form.
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WHAT ABOUT INTONATION?
Final Rising intonation is said to index questioning in declarative
utterances
But!!!.
The issue is far from conclusive1
And!!!
1. Geluykens, Ronald (1988). "On the myth of rising intonation in polar questions." Journal of Pragmatics 12: 467-485.Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. In press. Some truths and untruths about prosody in English question and answer sequencesIn Questions, ed. J. P. de Ruiter. CUP.)
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WHAT ABOUT INTONATION?
Final Rising intonation is said to index questioning in declarative
utterances
But!!!.
The issue is far from conclusive.1
And!!!
Final rising intonation is also said to index continuation.
1. Geluykens, Ronald (1988). "On the myth of rising intonation in polar questions." Journal of Pragmatics 12: 467-485.Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. In press. Some truths and untruths about prosody in English question and answer sequences
In Questions, ed. J. P. de Ruiter. CUP.)
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WHAT ABOUT INTONATION?
Final Rising intonation is said to index questioning in declarative
utterances
But!!!.
The issue is far from conclusive.1
And!!!
Final rising intonation is also said to index continuation.
And!!!
to mobilize response (Stivers and Rossano 2010)
1. Geluykens, Ronald (1988). "On the myth of rising intonation in polar questions." Journal of Pragmatics 12: 467-485.Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. In press. Some truths and untruths about prosody in English question and answer sequences
In Questions, ed. J. P. de Ruiter. CUP.)
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Epistemics: Background
Bolinger (1957) blinds up/blinds down negative interrogatives
A-events and B-events (Labov and Fanshel 1977)
Type 1 and Type 2 Knowables (Pomerantz 1980)
'Territories of Information' (Kamio 1997)
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Epistemic Status:
Epistemic status involves relative epistemic access to a domain of
information, stratified between interactants such that they occupy
more knowledgeable [K+] or less knowledgeable [K-] positions vis a
vis the information domain.
1) Inherently relative to a co-participant
2) Varies by domain of knowledge
3) Can be based in experience or social rights (or both)
4) Is a more or less settled matter
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Speaker Domain !"#$%$"&' Domain
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Epistemic Stance:
The moment by moment expression of epistemic status, as
indexed through the design of turns at talk.
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Epistemic Stance:
The moment by moment expression of epistemic status, as
indexed through the design of turns at talk.
Persons design turns at talk to take up epistemic stances which are
congruent or incongruent with their epistemic status
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Declarative Speaker Domain = Assertion
Ex. 1
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Declarative
Recipient Domain = "Question"
Ex. 2
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Declarative
Recipient Domain = "Question"
Speaker 1 ------|--------------------------- 0
Hearer 1 --------------------|------------- 0(Kamio, 1997))
Ex. 3: Type 2 knowable (Pomerantz 1980)
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Declarative
Recipient Domain = "Question"
Speaker 1 ------|--------------------------- 0
Hearer 1 --------------------|------------- 0(Kamio, 1997))
Ex. 4: My side telling (Pomerantz 1980)
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NegativeInterrogative
Recipient Domain = "Question"
Ex. 5, line 11
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Common Domain = Assertion
NegativeInterrogative
Ex. 6
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Common Domain = Assertion
NegativeInterrogative
Ex. 7, lines 7 and 8
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Common Domain = Assertion
NegativeInterrogative
Ex. 8
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Interrogative Recipient Domain = "Question"
Ex. 9
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Speaker Domain= Rhetorical
Question
Interrogative
Ex. 10
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Speaker Domain = Exam Question
Interrogative
Ex. 11
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Speaker Domain= Unanswerable
Question
Interrogative
Ex. 12
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DeclarativeSpeaker/Common
Domain= Question or
Assertion
Ex. 13 IE begins by treating the declarative content as knownin common before, the frame leads him to doubt it.
AMBIGUITIES
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DeclarativeSpeaker/Recipient
Domain= Question or
Assertion
Ex. 14 B begins by treating the information as within his domainand corrects it. A then treats the information as within her domain
and corrects B.
AMBIGUITIES
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Speaker/RecipientDomain
= Question orAssertion
Interrogative
Ex. 15 Russ treats Mom interrogative as a pre-sequence that clearsthe way for her to convey information within her domain. His go-
ahead founders when Moms response reveals that her initial
interrogative was a real question.
AMBIGUITIES
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Consequences:
1) Epistemic status dominates morphosyntax and intonation inshaping a fundamental dimension of social action: whether it
asserts or requests information.
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Consequences:
1) Epistemic status dominates morphosyntax and intonation inshaping a fundamental dimension of social action: whether it
asserts or requests information.
2) Morphosyntax provides general guidance that is reliable in
interrogatives, less so in declaratives, but is not definitive in either
case.
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Consequences:
1) Epistemic status dominates morphosyntax and intonation inshaping a fundamental dimension of social action: whether it
asserts or requests information.
2) Morphosyntax provides general guidance that is reliable in
interrogatives, less so in declaratives, but is not definitive in either
case.
3) Role of intonation is limited, and intonation is largely 'released'
as a resource for response mobilization (Stivers and Rossano
2010).
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Consequences:
1) Epistemic status dominates morphosyntax and intonation inshaping a fundamental dimension of social action: whether it
asserts or requests information.
2) Morphosyntax provides general guidance that is reliable in
interrogatives, less so in declaratives, but is not definitive in either
case.
3) Role of intonation is limited, and intonation is largely 'released'
as a resource for response mobilization (Stivers and Rossano
2010).
4) Persons cannot 'code' many (a majority of?) utterances into
actions without keeping track of the relative epistemic status of
speaker and addressee at all times.
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Consequences:
1) Epistemic status dominates morphosyntax and intonation inshaping a fundamental dimension of social action: whether it
asserts or requests information.
2) Morphosyntax provides general guidance that is reliable in
interrogatives, less so in declaratives, but is not definitive in either
case.
3) Role of intonation is limited, and intonation is largely 'released'
as a resource for response mobilization (Stivers and Rossano
2010).
4) Persons cannot 'code' many (a majority of?) utterances into
actions without keeping track of the relative epistemic status of
speaker and addressee at all times.
5) Epistemic status is an unavoidable and fundamental input for
models of the production and recognition of action.
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Consequences: How costly is all this?
1) Deploys a strategy found in other aspects of language use notably the lexicon: save resources at the encoding end and letthe environment take care of ambiguities and specifications.
(
(
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Consequences: How costly is all this?
1) Deploys a strategy found in other aspects of language use notably the lexicon: save resources at the encoding end and letthe environment take care of ambiguities and specifications.
2) Cost at the decoding end is an epistemic ticker possiblyexapted from forms of epistemic vigilance that originally had, and
may still have, more direct value for biological fitness (Sperber etal 2010). May be part of a broader trend associated with group
expansion (Dunbar 2003).
(
(
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Consequences: How costly is all this?
1) Deploys a strategy found in other aspects of language use notably the lexicon: save resources at the encoding end and letthe environment take care of ambiguities and specifications.
2) Cost at the decoding end is an epistemic ticker possiblyexapted from forms of epistemic vigilance that originally had, and
may still have, more direct value for biological fitness (Sperber etal 2010). May be part of a broader trend associated with group
expansion (Dunbar 2003).
3) Environmental knowledge is a given and therefore free from thepoint of view of language function.
(
(
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Consequences: How costly is all this?
1) Deploys a strategy found in other aspects of language use notably the lexicon: save resources at the encoding end and letthe environment take care of ambiguities and specifications.
2) Cost at the decoding end is an epistemic ticker possiblyexapted from forms of epistemic vigilance that originally had, and
may still have, more direct value for biological fitness (Sperber etal 2010). May be part of a broader trend associated with group
expansion (Dunbar).
3) Environmental knowledge is a given and therefore free from thepoint of view of language function.
4) Other costs are small compared with the well documentedcognitive gymnastics of languages deploying cardinal points of the
compass for orientation (e.g. Guugu Yimithirr) or that obligatorily
mark the relative closeness (whether physical or social) of
referents between speaker and recipient (e.g., Korean).
(
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Thank you!
(
(