Using language

 

Herbert H. Clark

Stanford University

Abstract

Communicating is a social activity – a joint activity – that requires people to coordinate with each other as they speak and listen. I will take up some of the consequences of this view. I will begin by arguing that people use language in order to coordinate with each other on other things. That is, dialogue arises because it is used to coordinate other joint activities. I will then take up a few of the linguistic devices people use in dialogue. But communication relies on a range of signaling devices in addition to speech, including pointing gestures, iconic gestures, placement, and orientation. So, finally, I consider how people combine these methods in communication.

Lecture 1: Why people use language

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Chapter 1

Clark, H. H. (2006). Social actions, social commitments. In S. C. Levinson & N. J. Enfield (Eds.) Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition, and human interaction. Oxford: Berg Press.

Lecture 2: Doing things with language

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Chapters 5

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Chapters 7

Lecture 3: Coordinating speaking and listening

Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361–382.

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Chapter 8

Clark, H. H. & Krych, M. A. (2004). Speaking while monitoring addressees for understanding. Journal of Memory and Language, 50(1), 62-81.

Lecture 4: Methods of signaling, modes of thinking

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Chapter 6

Clark, H. H., & Gerrig, R. J. (1990). Quotations as demonstrations. Language, 66, 764-805.

Lecture 5: Material communication

Clark, H. H. (2003). Pointing and placing. In S. Kita (Ed.), Pointing. Where language, culture, and cognition meet (pp. 243-268). Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.

Clark, H. H. (2005). Coordinating with each other in a material world. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 507–525.

Goodwin, C. (2003). Pointing as situated practice. In S. Kita (Ed.), Pointing. Where language, culture, and cognition meet. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.

Requirements

1. The assigned readings

2. Participation in the discussions that follow each class

3. Three (3) one-page commentaries; each should take up an issue of one of the lectures and its associated readings.

Herbert H. Clark

Stanford University

Stanford, California

U.S.A.

Herbert H. Clark (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University) is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. He has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, and a James McKeen Cattell Fellow and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is best known for his work on pragmatic issues. These include, for example, how we manage disfluencies in spontaneous speech (e.g., uh and um, repetitions, and the pronounced as “thee”); how referring to things in conversation is a collaborative process; and how we establish and make use of common ground in coordinating with each other in joint activities. He is the author (with Eve V. Clark) of Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics (1977), and of Arenas of Language Use (1992) and Using Language (1996).