Slide ENGLISH SEMANTICS MEANING AND INTENTIONS

Slide 1 Group 6 Meaning intentions PRESENTERS 1 Tran Thi Thu Hien 2 Vo Thi My Hanh 3 Hoang Le Hanh 4 Nguyen Thi Huong 5 Pham Phuong Hoa 6 Nguyen Duong Ha 7 Do Thi Hong Diep 8 Le Ngoc Han 9 Vu Lan Huong 10 Hoang Thi Diem Hang Instructor Dr HA CAM TAM OUTLINE PART I INTRODUCTION Communication Accidental information transmission Intentional Communication PART II MEANING(NN) AND INTENTIONS Meaning Intentions The link between Meaning (NN) and Intentions The first hypothesis The second hypothesis The.

Group 6 Meaning- intentions

 1 Tran Thi Thu Hien

 2 Vo Thi My Hanh

 3 Hoang Le Hanh

 4 Nguyen Thi Huong

 5 Pham Phuong Hoa

 6 Nguyen Duong Ha

 7 Do Thi Hong Diep

 8 Le Ngoc Han

 9 Vu Lan Huong

 10 Hoang Thi Diem Hang

Instructor: Dr HA CAM TAM

PART I : INTRODUCTION

II Accidental information transmission

III Intentional Communication

PART II : MEANING(NN) AND INTENTIONS

II Intentions

III The link between Meaning (NN) and Intentions

1 The first hypothesis

2 The second hypothesis

3 The third hypothesis

PART III : CONCLUSION

MEANING AND INTENTIONS

PART I: INTRODUCTION

HOW DO HUMANS COMMUNICATE?

I

I Communication

☺ Humans: capable of inferring (‘working out’, ‘reasoning’) and decoding a

speaker’s intended meaning.

inferential recognition of those intensions

A quizzical look and a

glance at 2 tables

↓

“Which table do you

want to sit at?”

What is communication?

Communication as something like

“the transmission of information”

TYPES OF INFORMATION

TRANSMISSION

 Jack and Lily

meet for a coffee

II Accidental information tranmission

1 What is accidental

information transmission ?

 In linguistics, accidental information

transmission is the additional information we gather when someone speaks — from their

word choice, their syntax, their body

language, etc — which was not part of what was actually said and which the speaker may have intended to conceal

(Deirdre Wilson, Relevance and Understanding,

in Language and Understanding, Oxford

University Press, 1992)

Accidental information transmission.

 e.g information about

age, social origins,

mood, attitudes,

betrayed by accent,

intonation, facial

expression, vocabulary,

etc This need not

involve any speaker’s

intentions, or be part of

what the speaker wanted

to share with us.

2.Non-linguistics communication and

AIT

 Lily: How do you feel about this

dish? (Lily has just cooked this)

Jack ( faking a smile, and lying): It’s absolutely delicious, really….

 Jack: How are you enjoy your

geography course?

Lily: So so ( looks at Jack and sighs)

Non-linguistic communication and

AIT

 (Ekman 1989: 159).

“There is no evidence about precisely what type of information is conveyed when, during an on-going social

interaction, one person sees a facial

expression of emotion on another

person’s face”

III Intentional Communication

1 Covert intentional communication

2 Overt intentional communication

Features of covert communication Definition of covert communication

1 Covert intentional communication

Definition of Covert

communication

 Covert communication has been defined as a

“case of communication where the intention of the speaker is to alter the cognitive environment

of the hearer, i.e to make a set of assumptions more manifest to her, without making this intention mutually manifest” (Tanaka, 1994:41)

Features of covert

communication

Features of overt intentional

Definition of Overt

Intentional Communication

 Overt means ostensive, not secret or hidden;

done or shown openly

 What is overt intentional

communication (Ostensive-inferential

the communicator intends, by

means of this stimulus, to make

manifest or more manifest to the

audience a set of assumptions (D Wilson, & D Sperber (ed.)

2000 Metarepresentations OUP, Oxford)

Features of Overt Communication

Show the communicator’s informative intentions

The force of an utterance recognized by the audience

Involve the use of an ostensive stimulus

Overt communication: an overt

form of communication where there

is, on the part of the speaker , an

intention to alter the mutual

cognitive environment of the

speaker and the hearer (Keiko

Tanaka 1994: 39)

Covert communication: a case of communication where the intention of the speaker is to alter the cognitive environment of the hearer i.e to make a set of assumptions more manifest to him, without making this intention mutually manifest (Keiko Tanaka 1994: 40)

OVERT INTENTIONAL

COMMUNICATION

COVERT INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION

 The speaker wants to

convey a certain

convey a certain

message, is actively

helping the hearer to

recover it and would

inform the hearer

without showing his informative intention.

 The The aim aim of of the the communicative act

communicative act

isn’t revealed

Mary feels ill When her mother comes into her bedroom, Mary makes a sad facial expression, groans a little and holds out her arms

to her mother.

Mary feels ill She

notices in the mirror

that she is pale She

gets back into bed and

when her mother

comes to wake her,

she pretends to be

asleep She wants her

mother to notice she is

ill and not send her to

PART II: MEANING(NN) AND

INTENTIONS

Natural Non-natural

I Meaning

“natural” vs “non-natural” meaning

means is closely related to the idea

of what it is a natural sign for

Eg: Black clouds mean rain

sense, intentional communication

Eg: That remark means he has

measles

“natural” vs “non-natural” meaning

The fact that he has those

spots means he has measles The fact that he made that

remark means he has

“natural” vs “non-natural” meaning

quotation

Paul Grice theory of

meaning

something and intending to convey

something was

produce a response from an audience (or have some effect on an audience)

by behaving in a certain way.

II Intention

1 Definition of intention

- A higher-conscious thought in

performing an action with specific

purpose Whether an action is

successful or not, the intended result

is brought about

2 Kinds of intention

(Sperber & Wilson – 1986, 1995)

Informative intention

sth (e.g to induce a belief

recognize informative intention  a mark of ostensive communication

A is a passenger in a car A finds the outside scenery attractive

And B sits next to A.

 A form the intention to inform B that A find the scenery attractive by looking out of the window with an

enthusiastic facial expression  A use informative

intention

 A utter: “what beautiful scenery!”

 indicate “ostensively” that A intend to share the

enthusiasm  A use communicative intention

III The link between Meaning NN and Intentions

bag

I intend to have some effect

on Mr X

2 Question about

Scenario 1

Does the photograph, or my putting

the photograph in the bag meanNN

anything?

Analysis of scenario 1

I’m keeping intentions I describe above for myself

I don’t want Mr X to know about my intention to

convey information to him

Not a case of meaningNN

Analysis of scenario 1

 Grice thought that intuitions are all important here The secrecy (or

covertness) of my actions—i.e the fact that I keep my intentions to myself— seem to rule out my meaningNN by them

2 The second hypothesis

“To mean something is to intend to produce a response from an

audience by behaving in a certain way, and, moreover, to have that intention recognized.”

Scenario II:

This time I am a private detective who has been hired

by Mr X, who is suspicious about his wife and Mr Y…

I’ve been following Mrs X, have tracked her and Mr Y down to

a hotel, and have managed to take an incriminating photograph of them kissing in the hotel

lobby.

As soon as I have had the photo developed I pay a call

on Mr X, and when he brings me a cup of coffee I show

it to him. 

Question about Scenario II: Does the

The photo of Mrs Y and Mr X kissing means they are having an affair.

 Intentional communication but not meaningNN.

(1) The fact that there is a photo of them kissing means that Mrs X and Mr Y are having an affair (OK)

(2) The photo means ‘Mrs X and Mr Y are having an affair.’ (Pretty weird)

(3) This photo means that Mrs X and Mr Y are having an

affair, but they are not having an affair (Odd)

Analysis of scenario 2

3 The third hypothesis

“To mean something is to intend to produce a response from an audience by behaving in a certain way, to intend to have that intention recognized, and to intend the recognition of this intention

to play some role in producing in the audience the intended response.”

* Scenario III: I am a private

detective, and again I have been hired

by Mr X to investigate his wife’s activities

Again I follow Mrs X, again I catch her kissing Mr Y, but unfortunately my camera isn’t working What do I do? Well, I know that Mr X will want to know as soon as possible, so I head straight for his house On entering I realize how hard it will be to communicate with him—Mr X can’t speak English and I can’t speak Hungarian What can I do?  Do a quick sketch and show the sketch

to Mr X.

*Question about Scenario III:

does the sketch, or my showing

it to Mr X meanNN anything?

Analysis of scenario 3

 My sketch only meansNN something, and

I only meanNN something by showing it to him, because the recognition of my intention to inform Mr X that his wife is having an affair plays a crucial role in him discovering that is indeed the case.

3rd hypothesis:  the link between meaning

to intend the recognition

of this intention to play

some role in producing in the audience the intended

 Grice, P (1957) Meaning In Philosophical Review 66; 377-88 Reproduced as Chapter 14 of Grice, P (1989) Studies in The Way of Words Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 Sperber, D (1995) How do we communicate? In Brockman, J & K Matson (eds.) How Things Are:

a science tool-kit for the mind. London: Phoenix.

 Recanati, F (1998) Pragmatics In Routledge

Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 7,

620-633. London: Routledge (not in departmental

file)

PART III : CONCLUSION