18.06.1998: 7 Reports -- Hypertext pragmatics: types of web interaction

A useful start to the notion of web interaction can be found in functional models of language in context.

For further information on approaches to language functions and their relation to hypertext, see Functions of language.

• Katrin Sonnenschein asked me to post the following on behalf of the group preparing a paper on speech acts; please prepare accordingly:

  concerning the session on Thursday 18th May of the Hauptseminar 
  "Semantics and Pragmatics of Hypertexts":
  the group doing a presentation on "Speech Act Theory and Hypertext" 
  thought that it might be useful that the other students would have some 
  knowledge about the theory of Speech Acts. We would be grateful if 
  you could scan in the internet on the website for the next session the 
  following information:
  "Please read one or both of the following chapters:
   - Ch. 3 in: D. Schiffrin 1994, Approaches to Discourse, Blackwell 
  Oxford. (steht im Semesterapparat 15 bei Horstmann) 
  - Ch. 8 in: J. I. Saeed 1997, Semantics, Blackwell, London. (steht im 
  Semesterapparat 15 bei Gramley)   
  and try to get some idea about what a Speech Act/Hypertext Act could 
  be."

• Tom Alby and Michael Becker have provided a Web link for the topic ``Types of Web Interaction''.
• Kerstin Stuke and Katrin Sonnenschein have also asked me to include the following:

  Hypertext pragmatics: Speech Act/ Hypertext Act

  1. Pragmatics
     1. Introduction: Pragmatics
        • deals with three concepts, namely meaning, context and communication
        • most common definitions in the early 1980`s: meaning in use or meaning in context
        • concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader)
        • is the study of speaker meaning, contextual meaning, how more gets communicated than is said, the expression of relative distance

     2. Gricean Pragmatics
        • general principle of rationality rules communication
        • the Cooperative Principle and its four maxims: Functions of language.
        • good evidence in naturally occurring communication that participants are aware of the Gricean maxims: caution notes or hedges
        • when literal meaning of an utterance seems to violate some maxim, participants in communication still assume that the CP is in operation and seek to figure out what is implicated

  2. Speech Act Theory
     1. Austin

        In saying something we are normally also performing an action, making a request, an offer, an apology or a promise etc.

        Utterances consist of three related acts:

        1. Locutionary act (literal meaning)
        2. Illocutionary act (social function)
        3. Perlocutionary act (the result or effect produced by the utterance
           • may be intended or not)
           • conditions on the successful and appropriate performance of a speech act: felicity conditions

     2. Searle
        • speech act is defined by a set of rules; rules for the speech act of promising: Functions of language.
        • extended rules to eight other speech acts: requesting, asserting, warning, greeting, questioning, thanking, advising, and congratulating
        • Indirect speech acts: one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another
        • meaning of indirect speech acts is understood within a general framework of speech act theory, the principles of cooperative communiacation (Grice) and shared background information

  3. How to do things with hypertext?
     1. Introduction
     2. Problems with the application of Searle's theory
     3. How to identify an illocutionary act/ hypertext act?
        1. Constitutive rules
        2. Illocutionary force indicating devices here
        3. Conclusion

     4. Examples of hypertext acts browsing: is a link a hypertext act? Internet book shop
        • illocutionary force indicating devices
        • conditions/rules
        • multiple functions: offer, promise ....? Discussion

  4. References:

     Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: University Press

     Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and Conversation. In: Davis (ed.) 1991 Pragmatics: A Reader. New York: Oxford University Press.

     Saeed, John I. 1997. Semantics. London: Blackwell.

     Schiffrin, Deborah 1994. Approaches to discourse. London: Blackwell.

     Searle, John R. 1969. Speech acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: CUP.

     Searle, John R. 1979. Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: CUP.

     Thomas, Jenny.1995. Meaning in Interaction. New York: Longman.

     Wunderlich, Dieter 1979. Was ist das für ein Sprechakt?, in:

     Grewendorf, Günther (ed.), Sprechakttheorie und Semantik, Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp.

     Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: University Press.