Displaying 1 - 14 of 14
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Enfield, N. J., Stivers, T., Brown, P., Englert, C., Harjunpää, K., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., Hoymann, G., Keisanen, T., Rauniomaa, M., Raymond, C. W., Rossano, F., Yoon, K.-E., Zwitserlood, I., & Levinson, S. C. (2019). Polar answers. Journal of Linguistics, 55(2), 277-304. doi:10.1017/S0022226718000336.
Abstract
How do people answer polar questions? In this fourteen-language study of answers to questions in conversation, we compare the two main strategies; first, interjection-type answers such as uh-huh (or equivalents yes, mm, head nods, etc.), and second, repetition-type answers that repeat some or all of the question. We find that all languages offer both options, but that there is a strong asymmetry in their frequency of use, with a global preference for interjection-type answers. We propose that this preference is motivated by the fact that the two options are not equivalent in meaning. We argue that interjection-type answers are intrinsically suited to be the pragmatically unmarked, and thus more frequent, strategy for confirming polar questions, regardless of the language spoken. Our analysis is based on the semantic-pragmatic profile of the interjection-type and repetition-type answer strategies, in the context of certain asymmetries inherent to the dialogic speech act structure of question–answer sequences, including sequential agency and thematic agency. This allows us to see possible explanations for the outlier distributions found in ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom and Tzeltal. -
Holler, J., & Levinson, S. C. (2019). Multimodal language processing in human communication. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(8), 639-652. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2019.05.006.
Abstract
Multiple layers of visual (and vocal) signals, plus their different onsets and offsets, represent a significant semantic and temporal binding problem during face-to-face conversation.
Despite this complex unification process, multimodal messages appear to be processed faster than unimodal messages.
Multimodal gestalt recognition and multilevel prediction are proposed to play a crucial role in facilitating multimodal language processing.
The basis of the processing mechanisms involved in multimodal language comprehension is hypothesized to be domain general, coopted for communication, and refined with domain-specific characteristics.
A new, situated framework for understanding human language processing is called for that takes into consideration the multilayered, multimodal nature of language and its production and comprehension in conversational interaction requiring fast processing. -
Levinson, S. C., & Toni, I. (2019). Key issues and future directions: Interactional foundations of language. In P. Hagoort (
Ed. ), Human language: From genes and brain to behavior (pp. 257-261). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (2019). Interactional foundations of language: The interaction engine hypothesis. In P. Hagoort (
Ed. ), Human language: From genes and brain to behavior (pp. 189-200). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (2019). Natural forms of purposeful interaction among humans: What makes interaction effective? In K. A. Gluck, & J. E. Laird (
Eds. ), Interactive task learning: Humans, robots, and agents acquiring new tasks through natural interactions (pp. 111-126). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Thomaz, A. L., Lieven, E., Cakmak, M., Chai, J. Y., Garrod, S., Gray, W. D., Levinson, S. C., Paiva, A., & Russwinkel, N. (2019). Interaction for task instruction and learning. In K. A. Gluck, & J. E. Laird (
Eds. ), Interactive task learning: Humans, robots, and agents acquiring new tasks through natural interactions (pp. 91-110). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (1994). Deixis. In R. E. Asher (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (pp. 853-857). Oxford: Pergamon Press. -
Levinson, S. C., & Brown, P. (1994). Immanuel Kant among the Tenejapans: Anthropology as empirical philosophy. Ethos, 22(1), 3-41. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/640467.
Abstract
This paper confronts Kant’s (1768) view of human conceptions of space as fundamentally divided along the three planes of the human body with an empirical case study in the Mayan community of Tenejapa in southern Mexico, whose inhabitants do not use left/right distinctions to project regions in space. Tenejapans have names for the left hand and the right hand, and also a term for hand/arm in general, but they do not generalize the distinction to spatial regions -- there is no linguistic expression glossing as 'to the left' or 'on the left-hand side', for example. Tenejapans also show a remarkable indifference to incongruous counterparts. Nor is there any system of value associations with the left and the right. The Tenejapan evidence that speaks to these Kantian themes points in two directions: (a) Kant was wrong to think that the structure of spatial regions founded on the human frame, and in particular the distinctions based on left and right, are in some sense essential human intuitions; (b) Kant may have been right to think that the left/right opposition, the perception of enantiomorphs, clockwiseness, East-West dichotomies, etc., are intimately connected to an overall system of spatial conception. -
Levinson, S. C., & Haviland, J. B. (1994). Introduction: Spatial conceptualization in Mayan languages. Linguistics, 32(4/5), 613-622.
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Levinson, S. C., & Haviland, J. B. (
Eds. ). (1994). Space in Mayan languages [Special Issue]. Linguistics, 32(4/5). -
Levinson, S. C., & Senft, G. (1994). Wie lösen Sprecher von Sprachen mit absoluten und relativen Systemen des räumlichen Verweisens nicht-sprachliche räumliche Aufgaben? In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 1994 (pp. 295-299). München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft München.
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Levinson, S. C. (1994). Vision, shape and linguistic description: Tzeltal body-part terminology and object description. Linguistics, 32(4/5), 791-856.
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Levinson, S. C. (1990). Pragmatics [Japanese translation]. Tokyo: Kenkyusha.
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Levinson, S. C. (1990). Pragmatik [German translation of Pragmatics]. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Abstract
This is the German translation of Stephen C. Levinson's »Pragmatics«.
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