Polite language reflects competing informational and social goals
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- We use polite speech every day. We produce simple words of apology ("sorry") or gratitude ("thanks"), and more complex polite utterances ("these cookies could use a bit of salt" or "your dress is gorgeous!"). Why do people speak politely? This thesis proposes a goal-based framework to polite speech: that polite speech arises from competing informational and social concerns such as the speaker's desire to convey information most informatively ("informational goal"), and to be kind and respectful to the interactants ("prosocial goal") and/or present the speaker herself as a particular kind of individual ("presentational goal"). In Chapter 1, I provide an overview of this framework that aims to unify previous theoretical accounts of polite speech, and then I describe existing empirical data on comprehension and production of polite speech in adults and children. Then I present our own empirical studies investigating adults' and children's understanding of polite language. First, I present two sets of empirical studies looking at the development of polite language understanding in children: a study examining 2- to 4-year-old children's judgments for polite requests (Chapter 2), followed by a study probing 5- to 8-year-old children's judgments for polite lies versus blunt truths (Chapter 3). Results from these studies show that children are sensitive to speakers' social concerns behind language use, and that they consider tradeoffs between those goals based on the context at hand. In Chapter 4, we examine adults' understanding of polite speech: We present a computational model that formalizes the notion of goals as utilities that speakers try to maximize through language use, and show that this model successfully captures adults' predictions and judgments for polite lies and indirect speech. Overall, the work presented in this thesis reveals how children's and adults' understanding of polite speech reflects their understanding of speakers' informational and social goals and tradeoffs between them, and helps advance our knowledge of pragmatics and social cognition in general.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Yoon, Erica Jiye |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Frank, Michael C, (Professor of human biology) |
| Thesis advisor | Frank, Michael C, (Professor of human biology) |
| Thesis advisor | Goodman, Noah |
| Thesis advisor | Gweon, Hyowon |
| Thesis advisor | Markman, Ellen M |
| Degree committee member | Goodman, Noah |
| Degree committee member | Gweon, Hyowon |
| Degree committee member | Markman, Ellen M |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Psychology. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Erica J. Yoon. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Psychology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Erica Jiye Yoon
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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