Istvan Kecskes

A cognitive-pragmatic approach to situation-bound utterances

Abstract This study focuses on a particular type of formulaic expressions called situation-bound utterances (SBUs). Since the meaning of these pragmatic units is shaped by the interplay of linguistic and extralinguistic factors, they can be best accounted for in a theoretical framework which represents a knowledge-for-use conception. A cognitive-pragmatic approach to SBUs reveals that in many cases cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor and conventional knowledge are responsible for the unique situational meaning of SBUs. In this respect, SBUs are similar to other formulaic expressions such as idioms and conventional implicatures whose meaning structure can also be better accounted for if the underlying cognitive mechanisms are examined. It will be claimed that the relationship of SBUs to socio-cultural concepts resembles that of words and concepts as described in Cruse (1992). SBUs will be classified according to their formula-specific pragmatic properties which are either encoded in the expression or charged by the situation. The investigation of the characteristic features of SBUs and the development of their situational meaning necessitates the review of two important theoretical issues: the creative aspect of language use and the role of formulaic expressions in the development of syntax. It will be argued that the formulaic-creative dichotomy makes sense only at sentence level, whereas it loses its significance at discourse level. Not all types of formulaic expressions contribute to syntactic development in an L2, because some of them (including SBUs) are almost never split into constituents by L2 learners. Errors in the use of SBUs can mainly be due to the lack of native-like conceptual fluency and metaphorical competence of adult L2 learners, who rely on their L1 conceptual system when producing and comprehending SBUs in the target language.

Situation-Bound Utterances in L1 and L2

This book focuses on formulaic expressions called Situation-Bound Utterances (SBU). These are highly conventionalized, prefabricated pragmatic units whose occurrence is tied to standardized communicative situations. The unique feature of the book is that it discusses SBUs in a cognitive-pragmatic theoretical framework, focusing on four opposing perspectives: monolingual versus multilingual approach; formulaic and creative language use; literal and figurative language (salient meaning); SBUs in L1 and L2.

On my mind: thoughts about salience, context and figurative language from a second language perspective

This article discusses three claims of the Graded Salience Hypothesis presented in Rachel Giora’s book On our mind. It is argued that these claims may give second language researchers the chance to revise the way they think about word meaning, the literal meaning-figurative meaning dichotomy and the role of context in language processing. Giora’s arguments are related to recent second language research and their relevance is explained through examples. There are also several suggestions made for further research.

Intention, common ground and the egocentric speaker-hearer

This book presents current research that discusses some of the major issues in pragmatics from new perspectives, and directs attention to aspects of fundamental tenets that have been investigated only to a limited extent. Current pragmatic theories emphasize the importance of intention, cooperation, common ground, mutual knowledge, and relevance in executing communicative acts. However, recent research in cognitive psychology, linguistic pragmatics, and intercultural communication has raised questions that warrant some revision of these major tenets. These developments are addressed in the papers of the volume written by prominent scholars representing several disciplines.

The state of L1 knowledge in foreign language learners

AbstractThis paper argues that people with more than one language have different knowledge of their Lis than do monolingual people, and this difference can mainly be due to the effect of subsequent languages on the development and use of the LI skills. In order to investigate the state of the L1 in foreign language learners a longitudinal experiment was conducted with native speakers of Hungarian studying English, French or Russian as a foreign language in different classroom settings. The L2 effect on the LI was analyzed from three aspects: (1) structural well-formedness; (2) use of linguistic and visual memory; and (3) metaphorical density. This study will focus only on issues concerning structural well- formedness.1 The participants of the experiment were tested three times during a two year period. Findings demonstrated that intensive and successful foreign language learning can have a beneficial effect on the development and use of mother tongue skills.

Dual and multilanguage systems

Abstract Since ‘multicompetence’ was proposed by Cook, there have been debates about the nature of distinction between monocompetence and multicompetence, the distinctiveness of languages in the mind and the homogeneity of language knowledge across speakers and contexts. The paper will address these issues from a linguistic perspective and make an attempt to define multicompetence. The paper claims that trends in linguistics have affected bi and multilingualism research either directly or indirectly. Consequently, in order for us to understand approaches to multicompetence we should review the latest changes in linguistics research. All debates about multicompetence boil down to three major issues: (1) The interplay of the linguistic level and conceptual level in multilingual development and language use, (2) nature of difference (qualitative or quantitative or both) between monocompetence and multicompetence and (3) methods of analysing differences between monocompetence and multicompetence. Addressing these issues I will argue that there is not only quantitative but also qualitative difference between monolinguals and multilinguals, which is reflected mainly in the nature and organisation of knowledge in the multilingual mind. I will also argue that it would be a mistake to overemphasise the role of usage in multilingual development. Language is both structure and usage. Both are equally important: structure develops as a result of usage and structure serves as one of the underlying factors of usage. ‘Community practices’ exist within and across languages so they cannot substitute what we understand by ‘language’. In the first part of the paper I discuss the relationship between current trends in linguistics research and approaches to multicompetence. In the second part I have taken a stand on the major issues of the debate about multicompetence.

On the Dynamic Relations Between Common Ground and Presupposition

The common ground theory of presupposition has been dominant since the seventies (Stalnaker 1974, 1978, 2002). This theory has resulted from a view of communication as transfer between minds. In this view interlocutors presume that speakers speak cooperatively, they infer that they have intentions and beliefs that are necessary to make sense of their speech acts, and treat such entities as pre-existing psychological ones that are later somehow formulated in language. Common ground is considered as a distributed form of mental representation and adopted as a basis on which successful communication is warranted (Arnseth and Solheim 2002; Kecskes and Zhang 2009). However, the theory has not gone without objection and criticism (e.g. Abbott 2008; Beaver and Zeevat 2004; von Fintel 2001, 2006; Simons 2003) because it is based on “an oversimplified picture of conversation” (Abbott 2008), and as a consequence the relationship between common ground and presupposition has also been oversimplified. In this approach presupposition is often considered as a conventional or conversational constraint of common ground, or requirement on common ground that must be satisfied in order to make an appropriate utterance. The problem of accommodation is a critical issue that has been raised against this view, and caused great challenge to the theory by stimulating diverse alternatives. The goal of this paper is to redefine the relationship between common ground and presupposition within the confines of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA). SCA (Kecskes 2008; Kecskes and Zhang 2009; Kecskes 2010a, b) adopted in this paper offers an alternative view on communication, which claims that communication is not an ideal transfer of information, and cooperation and egocentrism (Barr and Keysar 2005; Colston 2005; Keysar 2007), are both present in the process of communication to a varying extent. The SCA emphasizes the dynamics of common ground creation and updating in the actual process of interaction, in which interlocutors are considered as “complete” individuals with different possible cognitive status being less or more cooperative at different stages of the communicative process. Presupposition is a proposal of common ground, and there is a vibrant interaction between the two. They enjoy a cross relation in terms of content and manners in which they are formed, and their dynamism is inherently related and explanatory to each other. This claim has important implications to the solution to presupposition accommodation. After the introduction Sect. 2 describes the socio-cognitive approach. Section 3 reviews the assumed common ground, and Sect. 4 introduces the speaker-assigned presupposition. Section 5 discusses the dynamism of presuppositions and common ground, and claims that their dynamic observations are coherent and explanatory to each other. Section 6 readdresses the accommodation problem with redefinition of the relations.

The dual language model to explain code- switching: A cognitive-pragmatic approach

Abstract The present paper seeks to explain code-switching produced by Spanish- English bilingual speakers from the community of Gibraltar from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective new perspective based on the dual language system developed by Kecskes (1998) and Kecskes and Papp (2000) to account for bi- and multilingual language development and language use. The reasons for code-switching in Gibraltar are provided in Moyer (1992, 1998) in terms of social and culture specific information, conversation and context creating devices used in discourse, and structural or syntactic constraints on the way the two languages are combined in a sentence. The advantage of the dual language model (DLM) is that it integrates linguistic, conceptual, and socio-cultural information into a single model, provides a theoretical framework—from a psycholinguistic perspective—to explain the way speakers from a bilingual community such as Gibraltar combine two languages as a productive and regular communicative practice, and postulates that the primary cause for code-switching is conceptual-pragmatic rather than syntactic. The DLM is a bilingual production model that integrates the dual language system (DLS), the language production model of Levelt (1989; 1995), and the bilingual language mode theory of Grosjean (1998, 2001). The focus of the model is on conceptualization and the manner in which conceptual knowledge is lexicalized or mapped onto linguistic forms (i.e., words, phrases, sentences, utterances) and grammatically formulated. The main contribution of the DLM is the way it enables conceptual knowledge acquired along with each language in the case of members of a bilingual community to interact by means of the dual language system consisting of the common underlying conceptual base (CUCB) and two distinct language channels. Switching is made possible by the CUCB that is responsible for the operation of both language channels (Kecskes 1998; Kecskes & Papp 2000). In this first attempt to adapt the DLM to code-switching, the primary goal is to present an alternative model to the existing ones and demonstrate its explanatory potential on data collected by ethnographic fieldwork (Moyer 1992; 1998). Special emphasis is placed on the interplay of conceptual, social, and linguistic factors in the selection of the codeswitching patterns of insertion, alternation, and congruent lexicalization proposed by Muysken (2000). The paper begins with the presentation of the DLM model and its key theoretical assumptions. The adaptations of Levelts model and Grosjeans language mode theory are also discussed in the first section. The next part gives a brief introduction to the language community of Gibraltar, which is followed by the presentation of data relevant to the subject matter of the paper. The main code-switching patterns in Gibraltar are introduced in terms of Muyskens three-way classification of code-switching (i.e., insertion, alternation, and congruent lexicalization). In the following section, instances from the database are used to demonstrate how the DLM accounts for code-switching in the community of Gibraltar as well as the dynamics of meaning creation in bilingual language use. Finally, the conclusions highlight the main advantages of the model and suggest some lines for further research.

Intracultural Communication and Intercultural Communication: Are They Different?

The paper discusses the differences between intracultural communication and intercultural communication from a socio-cognitive perspective that treats this relationship as a continuum rather than a dichotomy. Movement on the continuum, and differences between the two phenomena are affected by different factors that will be discussed in the paper. The hypothetical left end of the continuum is intracultural communication and the right end is intercultural communication. Neither exists in pure form. The question is to which end a given communicative situation is closer to and what characteristics it is dominated by. While moving on toward the right end communication becomes less dependent on standards, norms, frames, core common ground and formulaic language and is characterized more by emergent common ground, ad hoc generated rather than formulaic expressions, norm creating attempts and individual creativity in solving communication problems.

Can Intercultural Pragmatics Bring Some New Insight into Pragmatic Theories

This chapter argues that the main difference between intracultural and intercultural communication is that the latter, to some extent, shifts the emphasis from the communal to the individual. What standard pragmatics assumes about how things work in communication depends on there being commonalities, conventions, standards, and norms between speakers and hearers. This, however, may not be exactly so in intercultural communication. Commonalities, conventions, common beliefs, norms, shared knowledge, and the like, all create a core common ground on which intention and cooperation-based pragmatics is built. (Of course, there are plenty of varieties within those commonalities.) However, when this core common ground appears to be limited, as is the case in intercultural communication, interlocutors cannot take it for granted; rather they need to co-construct it, at least temporarily. So what is happening here is a shift in emphasis from the communal to the individual. It is not that the individual becomes more important than the societal. Rather, since there is limited common ground, it should be created in the interactional context in which the interlocutors function as core common ground creators rather than just common ground seekers and activators as is the case in intracultural communication.