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Using Language
Herbert Clark argues that language use is more than the sum of a speaker speaking and a listener listening. It is the joint action that emerges when speakers and listeners, writers and readers perform their individual actions in coordination, as ensembles. In contrast to work within the cognitive sciences, which has seen language use as an individual process, and to work within the social sciences, which has seen it as a social process, the author argues strongly that language use embodies both individual and social processes.
432 pages, Paperback
First published May 16, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 31, 2020
Drawing on theories of joint intentionality/action, speech act theory, and areas in linguistic pragmatics Clark presents an approach for understanding language use. His main point is that language use is fundamentally a case of joint activity. Clark examines language use understood as such from his theoretical schemata of multiple levels of embedded actions, multiple 'tracks' of official/explicit v. background/implicit activity, and multiple 'layers' of different semantic meanings. The few ideas in this book were terrific. Unfortunately, the majority of the book involved just applying Clark's few ideas to examining many detailed phenomena that come up in language use; it felt as if Clark had the goal of filling in 400+ pages, and so tried to individuate the most fine-grained linguistic phenomena and standardize them by applying his theoretical framework upon them in the exact same way as with all others.
To expand on Clark's main point, joint activities refer to activities that involve multiple participants and require that in order for the progression of the activity to unfold successfully, the participants must coordinate. This coordination can be further analyzed as the participants having (1) socially normative, regular roles to play in the activity, (2) 'common ground' or shared background knowledge and experience, at cultural and personal levels (experiences which each participant knows all the others also have and understand), and (3) 'Gricean' intentional attitudes towards one another; each participant intends that the other knows what she intends for her to know, which includes intending for the other to know (and so on, in this recursive manner). Paradigmatic joint activities include dancing and padding a canoe; language use is just like these with respect to requirements on the participants to coordinate in the manner specified above. Clark covers these points over chapter 1-4.
Chapter 5-6 present Clark's overall theoretical approach. Here he reviews speech act theory (Austin and Searle) and semiotics (Pierce). He draws from them to create a large taxonomy of different kinds of speech acts, and different components of them (e.g., gestures, pointing, material artifacts utilized). He also proposes a theoretical framework to understand speech acts in terms of different hierarchical, internesting actions (e.g., identifying the speaker's voice; making out single words; deducing the overall meaning; and inferring the overall purpose the speaker has in conveying these meanings); different 'tracks' of activity during language use (e.g., the primary discourse of semantic meaning that is intended to be conveyed vs. the background gestures and utterances that are used as tools or vehicles to get this meaning across); and different 'layers' of semantic meaning (e.g., what is literally said vs. what is metaphorically, imaginatively, or ironically said).
Over chapters 7-12, the rest of the book, Clark examines so many different varieties of speech acts in a standard way: he shows how participants coordinate in the manner of joint action in order to produce each kind of speech act. This bulk of the book is extremely tedious and artificial; I couldn't help but feel that so many speech acts he named are arbitrary or invented just for the sake of filling in space. Clark does not add to or advance his overall theory in any amount over this span of the book.
I'm deeply sympathetic by Clark's overall thesis that language use is a case of joint activity. I also appreciate his analysis of joint activity. I take issue with some features of his theoretical framework, however. Clark over-intellectualizes the activities that make up language use. For example, Clark implies that we actually must first notice people's voices, and then their words, in order to later piece this all together to make out their meanings; clearly, at the level of first-personal experience, we do not do that. We only directly apprehend people's meanings, unless there are unusual disturbances or confusions. What Clark calls 'actions' at these lower levels are not actions, performed by agents, at all. They are rather, potentially, processes generated at subpersonal levels, which are not experienced or performed by us, as agents.
This over-intellectualizing approach also comes out in Clark's analysis of the process of carrying out joint activities. Clark applies a game theoretic framework and argues that every step within a joint activity is taken as to maximize efficiency and to solve informational puzzles. He believes that when a speaker says something, the speaker really proposes a puzzle to the listener, a puzzle of piecing together the speaker's meaning given the words, gestures, contextual info, and so on. I don't think at our first-personal level of using language we do any of this. We aren't out to solve puzzles, when we converse. We are out to recognize one another, to share in each other's experiences, to discover the world together. Clark, again, conflates between processes and features that hold at subpersonal vs. personal levels.
These criticisms aside, I think it's worthwhile to read chapters 1-4 in this book, and the conclusion chapter. The other chapters could be skimmed or skipped without a problem. I'd recommend these opening chapters to readers interested in approaches to understanding language as a social phenomenon. (P.S. I found this book through citations found in Tomasello's book on language, which I think is much better and more theoretically rich; would recommend readers interested in these topics to read Tomasello's book instead of Clark's, or first before going to Clark's)
To expand on Clark's main point, joint activities refer to activities that involve multiple participants and require that in order for the progression of the activity to unfold successfully, the participants must coordinate. This coordination can be further analyzed as the participants having (1) socially normative, regular roles to play in the activity, (2) 'common ground' or shared background knowledge and experience, at cultural and personal levels (experiences which each participant knows all the others also have and understand), and (3) 'Gricean' intentional attitudes towards one another; each participant intends that the other knows what she intends for her to know, which includes intending for the other to know (and so on, in this recursive manner). Paradigmatic joint activities include dancing and padding a canoe; language use is just like these with respect to requirements on the participants to coordinate in the manner specified above. Clark covers these points over chapter 1-4.
Chapter 5-6 present Clark's overall theoretical approach. Here he reviews speech act theory (Austin and Searle) and semiotics (Pierce). He draws from them to create a large taxonomy of different kinds of speech acts, and different components of them (e.g., gestures, pointing, material artifacts utilized). He also proposes a theoretical framework to understand speech acts in terms of different hierarchical, internesting actions (e.g., identifying the speaker's voice; making out single words; deducing the overall meaning; and inferring the overall purpose the speaker has in conveying these meanings); different 'tracks' of activity during language use (e.g., the primary discourse of semantic meaning that is intended to be conveyed vs. the background gestures and utterances that are used as tools or vehicles to get this meaning across); and different 'layers' of semantic meaning (e.g., what is literally said vs. what is metaphorically, imaginatively, or ironically said).
Over chapters 7-12, the rest of the book, Clark examines so many different varieties of speech acts in a standard way: he shows how participants coordinate in the manner of joint action in order to produce each kind of speech act. This bulk of the book is extremely tedious and artificial; I couldn't help but feel that so many speech acts he named are arbitrary or invented just for the sake of filling in space. Clark does not add to or advance his overall theory in any amount over this span of the book.
I'm deeply sympathetic by Clark's overall thesis that language use is a case of joint activity. I also appreciate his analysis of joint activity. I take issue with some features of his theoretical framework, however. Clark over-intellectualizes the activities that make up language use. For example, Clark implies that we actually must first notice people's voices, and then their words, in order to later piece this all together to make out their meanings; clearly, at the level of first-personal experience, we do not do that. We only directly apprehend people's meanings, unless there are unusual disturbances or confusions. What Clark calls 'actions' at these lower levels are not actions, performed by agents, at all. They are rather, potentially, processes generated at subpersonal levels, which are not experienced or performed by us, as agents.
This over-intellectualizing approach also comes out in Clark's analysis of the process of carrying out joint activities. Clark applies a game theoretic framework and argues that every step within a joint activity is taken as to maximize efficiency and to solve informational puzzles. He believes that when a speaker says something, the speaker really proposes a puzzle to the listener, a puzzle of piecing together the speaker's meaning given the words, gestures, contextual info, and so on. I don't think at our first-personal level of using language we do any of this. We aren't out to solve puzzles, when we converse. We are out to recognize one another, to share in each other's experiences, to discover the world together. Clark, again, conflates between processes and features that hold at subpersonal vs. personal levels.
These criticisms aside, I think it's worthwhile to read chapters 1-4 in this book, and the conclusion chapter. The other chapters could be skimmed or skipped without a problem. I'd recommend these opening chapters to readers interested in approaches to understanding language as a social phenomenon. (P.S. I found this book through citations found in Tomasello's book on language, which I think is much better and more theoretically rich; would recommend readers interested in these topics to read Tomasello's book instead of Clark's, or first before going to Clark's)
August 19, 2009
Oh, I liked this book just fine. The jargon is introduced with examples and ample discussion, and the text never seems overly technical or infuriatingly abstract. That said, the book is for folks who care about the details of discourse and the organization of spoken language. Clark treats discourse as a collection of joint projects between participants and examines the signals that they send to each other to facilitate understanding. If you want an introduction to Clark's grand view of dialog, then this is the place to start.
April 11, 2019
The book introduces and facilitates arguments about how the act of communication with spoken or written language is an instance of joint action between speakers that requires coordination and is based on the exploitation of the mutual expected believes - common ground. It gives convincing arguments with plenty of illustrative examples.
October 10, 2019
A naturalistic approach on language production and it's use. We use language to do things, and it is mostly a joint activity with the addressees. That are the two main points of points of the book.
Levels of action, tracks of cummunications and layer of abstractions are the main take away for speech and language analysis.
Levels of action, tracks of cummunications and layer of abstractions are the main take away for speech and language analysis.
June 7, 2020
It's obvious it's written from a sociological/psychological pov not linguistic, but that makes it more applicable I think than linguistically focused pragmatics
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews