Abstract
In this paper we are going to show that error coping strategies play an essential role in linguistic pragmatics. We study the effect of noisy speaker strategies within a framework of signalling games with feedback loop. We distinguish between cases in which errors occur in message selection and cases in which they occur in signal selection. The first type of errors affects the content of an utterance, and the second type its linguistic expression. The general communication model is inspired by the Shannon–Weaver communication model. We test the model by a number of benchmark examples, including examples of relevance implicatures, quantity implicatures, and presupposition accommodation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Beaver D. (1997) Presupposition. In: van Benthem J., ter Meulen A. (eds) Handbook of logic and language. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 939–1008
Benz A. (2006) Utility and relevance of answers. In: Benz A., Jäger G., van Rooij R. (eds) Game theory and pragmatics. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp 195–214
Benz A. (2011) How to set up normal optimal answer models. In: Benz A., Ebert C., Jäger G., Rooij R. (eds) Language, games, and evolution, Vol. 6207 of Lecture notes in artificial intelligence. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 14–39
Benz A., van Rooij R. (2007) Optimal assertions and what they implicate: A uniform game theoretic approach. Topoi—an International Review of Philosophy 27(1): 63–78
Blutner R. (2000) Some aspects of optimality in natural language interpretation. Journal of Semantics 17: 189–216
Clark, R. (2009). Meaningful games: Exploring language with game theory. Book Ms., USA: University of Pennsylvania.
Franke, M. (2009). Signal to act: Game theory in pragmatics. PhD thesis, Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam. ILLC Dissertation Series DS-2009-11.
Grice H. P. (1989) Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Jäger, G., & Ebert, C. (2009). Pragmatic rationalizability. In A. Riester & T. Solstad (Eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (Vol. 13, pp. 1–15).
Kamp H., Reyle U. (1993) From discourse to logic. Introduction to modeltheoretic semantics of natural language, formal logic and discourse representation theory. Kluwer, Dordrecht
Parikh P. (2001) The use of language. CSLI Publications, Stanford
Parikh P. (2006) Pragmatics and games of partial information. In: Benz A., Jäger G., van Rooij R. (eds) Game theory and pragmatics. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp 101–121
Parikh P. (2010) Language and equilibrium. The MIT Press, Cambridge
Ross, I. (2006). Games interlocutors play: New adventures in compositionality and conversational implicature. PhD thesis, USA: University of Pennsylvania.
Sauerland U. (2004) Scalar implicatures in complex sentences. Linguistics and Philosophy 27: 367–391
Shannon C. E., Weaver W. (1949) The mathematical theory of communication. University of Illinois Press, Urbana
Zaefferer D. (1977) Understanding misunderstandings: A proposal for an explanation of reading choices. Journal of Pragmatics 1: 329–346
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) (Grant Nr. 01UG0711). It greatly profited from discussions in the conference series on Optimality Theory and interpretation organised by the editors of this special issue.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Benz, A. Errors in Pragmatics. J of Log Lang and Inf 21, 97–116 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10849-011-9149-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10849-011-9149-6