Speech Act Theory
From CS260SP09
Reading
Chapter 5 "Speech acts" from "Pragmatics" Stephen C. Levinson, Cambridge U. Press, 1969.
Background
Can speech acts walk the talk? Bill Curtis, CSCW 2005.
Discussions
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Seth Horrigan 20:54, 9 March 2009 (PDT)
Levinson's "Pragmatics" was first published in 1983, not 1969. Searle's work was published in 1969. Keeping that in mind when reading Levinson changes how I understand the text.
I read some other materials about speech acts and it seems that it was influential in the early work in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). The supplementary reading from Curtis (1995), specifically discusses Winograd's "The Communicator" built on Speech Act Theory. I have not read much recent CSCW literature, but I wonder how influential it is at present. The few discussions of Speech Act here seem to say "here is speech act theory (or something built on it), but it may not be what we need in the long run."
KetrinaYim 11:55, 10 March 2009 (PDT)
I can't help wondering if the structures and categories described in the reading apply to all languages, particularly since the text only analyzes the English language. With all the different languages that exist, as well as different dialects of the same language, it seems possible that at least one will evade such discretization to some extent. On the other hand, all languages do serve a common purpose.
David (Tavi) Nathanson 19:29, 10 March 2009 (PDT)
I found it interesting that expressives (such as thanking, apologizing, welcoming, congratulating, etc.) are said to "express a psychological state." It is true that oftentimes, when apologizing to someone, I am truly sorry. However, sometimes I am simply appeasing them. The same goes for thanking them: I often thank people simply out of politeness, irrespective of my psychological state. Thus, it seems overly presumptuous to assume that the usage of expressives always express a psychological state. On the other hand, perhaps they are always expressing *a* psychological state, but that psychological state is not always that of the person uttering the expressive. Rather, it might be a psychological state "worn" by that person as a disguise.
I was also intrigued by the notion of "speech events," but I am not entirely clear what they are. The chapter mentions that teaching in a classroom would be a speech event, but how about a situation where speech isn't *always* the sole focus, but can be very important? For example purchasing an item at a store (and possibly needling to consult a salesman)?
Brian Tran 02:54, 11 March 2009 (PDT)
I wish that the literature had some concrete examples of how Speech Act Theory applied to HCI. I understood that speech act theory centered around the influence of speech in behavior. It was just difficult for me to think of how I could apply this knowledge in an HCI context.
An example that I think communication could influence actions in software is when a program collects data and calculates predictions on what a customer would want. A customer would click on the "Recommended For Me" tab or button and follow the program's procedure for using the recommendations.
Simon Tan 08:32, 11 March 2009 (PDT)
@Brian - Through most of the paper, I wondered much the same thing. It was very hard to step back from the deep linguistical theory to see why certain sentence stuctures were so significant.
There was only one part of the paper that brought me back to reality and made me remember which class I was in - the context-change theory of speech acts. Remembering the previous lecture on the importance of context in a language, I was more prepared to absorb this particular part of the paper. It's almost mathematical - how speech acts can change one context into another. And quite straightforward - by asserting something, I am including my commitment to it in the context of the conversation.
It's really quite quaint how these things happen in almost every conversation, but we never notice. With more awareness, perhaps one could become more skilled in the art of manipulating the flow of conversations for one's advantage.
Kenrick Kin 17:55, 11 March 2009 (PDT)
I thought Levinson's section on indirect speech acts (ISA) was interesting. We often don't respond to questions literally. For example, if someone asked me, "Do you have the time?" I would look at my watch and respond with the current time. If I were to answer his question precisely, I would just say, "Yes." But I know that in the context of the situation, when a stranger asks me for the time because I wear a watch, that is the information he is looking for. ISAs are a more polite or passive aggressive approach to getting someone to do something. I wonder if this is a cultural thing. Are we, as Americans, so afraid to offend someone or to sound rude that we must wrap our requests in a neat little package? It could be that people are less resistant to a request if they feel like the decision is theirs to make.
Nicholas Kong 23:45, 11 March 2009 (PDT)
Playing catchup a bit lately...
@Kenrick I also agree the ISA section was intriguing. In reference to your postulate that ISAs may be culturally based, I would have to agree. I grew up in the Netherlands, where people tend to be more direct. They use less ISA, and in fact beating around the bush and being long-winded is seen as slightly rude, in contrast to Canadians or Americans. We're not the only ones to equate indirectness with politeness: Japanese has a system practically codified in their language. The more polite you are, the longer and more indirect your speech and verb conjugations become.
Like the others, I couldn't identify a direct way to apply speech act theory to HCI. In the class discussion we talked about using speech act theory to localize intelligent agents. I think ISA might play an important role in creating a conversing agent, especially as I would assume many agents will be expected to speak in a formal, polite manner.
Priyanka Reddy 03:06, 16 March 2009 (PDT)
@Kenrick and Nicholas, I also liked the section on indirect speech acts (ISA), and is definitely something I can relate to. Whenever delegating tasks to others, I always make sure to phrase it in the form of a question even though I'm assuming the answer will be yes. I do this mostly because that's how I would like to be asked, and I think that's because of what Kenrick mentioned - it sounds like the decision is still mine to make. I think another reason people might use ISA's is because of the proliferation of email. When writing email, it's really hard to convey the right tone, and because of this, people might be more cautious and err on the side of being extra polite in case others misinterpret what they're saying.
