CONTENTS Paper Formal Semantics, Pragmatics, and S

CENTERFORRESEARCHINLANGUAGEJanuary1988Vol.2,No.3ThemonthlynewsletteroftheCenterforResearchinLanguage,UniversityofCalifornia,SanDiego,LaJollaCA92093.[phone];electronicmail:[e-mail]:FormalSemantics,Pragmatics,andSituatedMeaningbyAaronV.Cicourel,DepartmentofSociology,UCSDEDITOR’SNOTEThisnewsletterisproducedanddistributedbytheCENTERFORRESEARCHINLANGUAGE,aresearchcenterattheUniversityofCalifornia,SanDiego,whichunitestheeffortsofresearchersinsuchdisciplinesasLinguistics,Psychology,ComputerScience,ArtificialIntelligence,Commu-nication,Sociology,andPhilosophy,allofwhomshareaninterestinlanguage.Weregularlyfea-turepapersrelatedtolanguageandcognition(1-10pages,sentviaemail)andwelcomeresponsefromfriendsandcolleaguesatUCSDaswellasotherinstitutions.PleaseforwardcorrespondencetoTeenieMatlock,EditorCenterforResearchinLanguage,C-008UniversityofCalifornia,SanDiego92093Telephone:[phone]Email:[e-mail]ONIfyouarecurrentlyreceivingahardcopyofthenewsletteronlyandhaveanemailaddresstowhichthenewslettercanbesent,pleaseforwardthatinformationtoCRL.Canwesendyoutheemailversiononlytosaveprintingandmailingcosts?Ifyourequireahardcopyinaddition,pleaserequestitandwewillbehappytosendyouone.Ifyourequiretheunformattednroffversionofthenewsletter,pleaserequestitfromCRLafteryouhavereceivedthecurrentregularformattedversion.Ifyouknowofotherswhowouldbeinterestedinreceivingthenewsletter,pleaseforwardtheemailorpostalmailingaddresstoCRL.Thankyou.CRLNewsletterJanuary1988Vol.2,No.3BACKISSUESBackissuesofthisnewsletterareavailablefromCRLinhardcopyaswellassoftcopyform.Papersfeaturedinpreviousissuesincludethefollowing:TheCognitivePerspectiveRonaldW.LangackerDepartmentofLinguistics,UCSDvol.1,no.3,February1987TowardConnectionistSemanticsGarrisonW.CottrellInstituteforCognitiveScience,UCSDvol.1,no.4,May1987DimensionsofAmbiguityPeterNorvigComputerScience,UCBerkeleyvol.1,no.6,July1987WhereisChomsky’sBottleneck?S.-Y.KurodaDepartmentofLinguistics,UCSDvol.1,no.7,September1987(2ndprintingofpaperinno.5,vol.1)TransitivityandtheLexiconSallyRiceDepartmentofLinguistics,UCSDvol.2,no.2,December1987__________________________________________RECENTDISSERTATIONSSallyRiceDepartmentofLinguistics,UCSDTitle:TowardsaCognitiveModelofTransitivityRecentColloquia:WilliamMarslen-Wilson(APU-MRC/Cambridge)presentedatalkon1/7entitledSequentialprocessesintherecognitionofspokenwords.2CRLNewsletterJanuary1988Vol.2,No.3FormalSemantics,Pragmatics,andSituatedMeaning*AaronV.CicourelDepartmentofSociology,U.C.S.D.Draft-November,1987;NotforpublicationnorquotationIntroductionRecentworkinlinguisticsseekstolinkconceptsderivedfromanautonomoustheoryofmeaning(compositionalsemantics)tonotionslikeintuition,psychologicalrealitiesormentalmodels,andthespeaker-listener’severydayexperiences.Compositionalsemanticscanbeviewedastheproductofacollectivememorythatrepresentsnormativelyabstractedexperi-enceswithimaginedandactuallanguage.Amajorfocusofthepaperistocontrastethnographicallysituatedon-linedis-courseinsociolinguisticswiththenotionofanautonomous-likecompositionalsemanticsasanidealizedyetsimultaneouslyfunctionalknowledgeresource.Theidealizedaspectsofformalsemanticsderivefromaself-consciousdecompositionoflex-ical,sentential/clausalmeaningthatpermitsformalscrutinyofthecompositionalpropertiesofutterances.Anethnographi-callyorientedsociolinguisticbasisforcompositionalsemanticsreliesontheintuitivereconstructionandpracticaluseofthisidealizedknowledgeresourceinlocallyinstantiatedandmanageddailylifesituationsasguidedandconstrainedbyresource-limitedconditionsofinformationprocessing.Notionslikebackgroundorproceduralknowledgemustbeviewedasempiri-callycontingentresourcesbyspeakers,listeners,andresearchanalystswhencompositionalpropertiesofutterancesordis-courseareusedand/orassignedmeaning.Inthispaper,Iseektoclarifythelinguist’snecessaryuseofintuitivesocioculturalfolkmodelswhileengagedinformalsemanticanalysis.Thefolkmodelsinstantiatethelinguist’stacitethnographicknowl-edgeaspartoftheanalysisofindividualutterances.Threelinguisticproblemsmotivatethepresentpaper.First,howdoweassesstherelevanceofatheoryofspeechactsthatexaminesonlyhalfofwhattakesplaceindiscoursebyusingsingleutterances?Second,underwhattheoreticalandmethodologicalconditionsdolinguistsjustifydecisionsaboutevidencethatforcethemtoembraceanarcheologicallinguis-ticperspectivewhichformallyexcludesdatathatarecontingentonthecircumstancesoflanguageuseandtheconstraintsoflimitedcapacityprocessing?Itwouldbedifficulttoimaginearcheologistsconfiningthemselvestoacavefilledwithartifactsiftheyalsohaveaccesstonativestalkingaboutandproducingthesameartifactsoutsideofthecave.Finally,asconsumersofformalisms,oratleastofaformalnotationsystem,sociolinguistsneedtoknowsomethingabouttheconsequencesofadopt-ingsomeversionofavailableformallinguistictheories.Formalstudiesofsemanticsinwesternspeechareasareinvariablyproducedbynativespeakinglinguistsorlinguistsfamiliarwiththelanguage.LinguistsusingFrench,German,Polish,orRussianexamplesd