Conversing in the Dark�Off-Record Speech Acts �and the Cooperative Creation of Uncertainty
Sam Berstler (MIT)
Presented at BU on 5 Oct 2024
Download the slides: samberstler.com
prologue
This trio of options often exists in everyday speech encounters.
Ignore
Decline to accept
Reject
To do informal talk is to walk a very narrow line, often with no appreciation of how carefully one is walking…
Erving Goffman (1981: 296)
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Q. Should cooperative speakers aim to coordinate on what’s happening within the conversation?
Standard answer. Yes!
Q. Should cooperative speakers aim to coordinate on what’s happening within the conversation?
Standard answer. Yes!
Q. Should cooperative speakers aim to coordinate on what’s happening within the conversation?
Post-Gricean pragmatics: speakers should have a shared sense of where the conversation is going
Formal pragmatics: speakers should aim to make what they mean and why they are communicating common ground and/or common knowledge
Standard answer. Yes!
Q. Should cooperative speakers aim to coordinate on what’s happening within the conversation?
My answer. Cooperative speakers, because they are cooperative, should sometimes aim to fail to coordinate on what’s happening within (some aspect of) their conversation.
Standard answer. Yes!
Q. Should cooperative speakers aim to coordinate on what’s happening within the conversation?
My answer. Cooperative speakers, because they are cooperative, should sometimes aim to fail to coordinate on what’s happening within (some aspect of) their conversation.
Low conversational light is flattering
Creating uncertainty about what’s happening in the conversation is a way to balance our interest in coordinating against our interest in protecting our relationships and preserving social cohesion.
Does it matter?
My analysis sheds new light on the function of indirect speech acts in cooperative contexts.
And it puts serious pressure on some orthodox theories of discourse and speech acts.
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In order to protect our relationships and preserve cohesion within the groups to which we belong:
1. We conceal much of what we know
2. We avoid acting in ways that we otherwise would have acted.
In order to protect our relationships and preserve cohesion within the groups to which we belong:
1. We conceal much of what we know
2. We avoid acting in ways that we otherwise would have acted.
A web of social norms, social practices, and tacit agreements facilitate our ability to do this.
Sharing information can constitutively alter the relationship we have.
Sharing information can constitutively alter the relationship we have.
If I told an overly personal and horrifying story from my grad school days right now, I would immediately foist a form of intimacy on all of you that you might not want.
Sharing information can lead to relationship damaging conflict, distress, or distraction.
Sharing information can lead to relationship damaging conflict, distress, or distraction.
Leah and Marie are close friends. They jointly know that Marie is a conservative Catholic and that Leah is a progressive atheist. They suspect but don’t know that they disagree on abortion policy. They avoid discussing the topic at all with each other.
Seemingly superficial differences in action-type can be relationship-shaping.
Seemingly superficial differences in action-type can be relationship-shaping.
Dave’s colleagues all want to vote “Yes” to hire a job candidate. Dave’s colleagues all know that he doesn’t support the hire. Dave wants to signal serious disagreement with his colleagues but doesn’t want to create a new feud either. Dave votes “Abstain” instead of “No.”
Face-threatening information & acts are a special class of relationship-threatening information & acts. Face-threatening acts threaten our self-image.
[D]uring the period in which the individual is in the immediate presence of others, few events may occur which directly provide the others with conclusive information they will need if they are to direct wisely their own activity. Many crucial facts lie beyond the time and place of interaction or lie concealed within it….[Therefore] the individual will have to act so that he intentionally or unintentionally expresses himself, and the others will in turn have to be impressed in some way by him.
(Goffman 1959: 1-2)
Face is an image of the self delineated in terms of approved social attributes…A person may be said to have, or be in, or maintain face when [the way he behaves in context] presents an image of him that is internally consistent, that is supported by judgments and evidence conveyed by other participants, and that is confirmed by evidence conveyed through impersonal agencies in the situation. At such times the person’s face is clearly something that is not lodged in or on his body, but rather something that is diffusely located in the flow of events in the encounter...
(Goffman 1967: 5-7)
Whatever his position in society, the person insulates
himself by blindnesses, half-truths, illusions, and rationalizations. He makes an “adjustment” by convincing himself, with the tactful support of his intimate circle, that he is what he wants to be…To protect this [self-conception]…he need only be careful about the expressed judgments he places himself in a position to witness. Some situations and acts and persons will have to be avoided; others, less threatening, must not be pressed too far. Social life is an uncluttered, orderly thing because the person voluntarily stays away from the places and topics and times where he is not wanted and where he might be disparaged for going. He cooperates to save his face…
(Goffman 1967: 43)
Three Notions of Face
Psychological face
Higher-order psychological face
Enacted face
Three Notions of Face
Psychological face: your beliefs
about me; your image of me
I keep my threats in the classroom in order to save face with my students. I don’t want them to acquire believe that I won’t follow through.
Three Notions of Face
Higher-order face: my beliefs about your beliefs about me; my image of your image of me
I take you a restaurant that I insist you’ll like. You hate it, but you keep this to yourself. I’ve damaged my face in one sense (the psychological sense) but not in another (the higher-order psychological sense).
Three Notions of Face
Enacted face: what the common ground entails about me; often expressed via what we do
We jointly know that I just asked you a super offensive question and that I meant it. But in order to resolve the conflict, we both tacitly agree to pretend that I merely misspoke. You let me save face.
Three Notions of Face
Enacted face: what the common ground entails about me; often expressed via what we do
What is common ground can come apart from what we jointly know. We can avoid enacted face-damage by keeping jointly known information off the common ground.
Face & Relationships
We sometimes care about protecting our own and each other’s face for strategic reasons or because we want to avoid causing people distress.
But even more generally, we care about protecting our own and each other’s face to protect our relationship. If I damage or alter your face too much, you may withdraw from our relationship.
Balancing our interest in coordinating our activity against our in saving each other’s face is often a technical challenge.
Good interactants must be effective and subtle information titrators.
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If a speaker S makes some speech act G to A in a context c, then her speech act socially squeezes A iff in G-ing, S makes it the case that A’s only easily available options are:
If a speaker S makes some speech act G to A in a context c, then her speech act socially squeezes A iff in G-ing, S makes it the case that A’s only easily available options are:
If a speaker S makes some speech act G to A in a context c, then her speech act socially squeezes A iff in G-ing, S makes it the case that A’s only easily available options are:
Yuki is discussing how excited she is that she has nothing to do this Friday night. Because he’s incorrectly interpreted her as complaining, Jacob asks Yuki if she wants to hang out.
Yuki’s options…
…Reveal that she doesn’t want to spend time with Jacob and that Jacob has
misinterpreted her
…Hang out with Jacob
If a speaker S makes some speech act G to A in a context c, then her speech act socially squeezes A iff in G-ing, S makes it the case that A’s only easily available options are:
Yuki is discussing how excited she is that she has nothing to do this Friday night. Because he’s incorrectly interpreted her as complaining, Jacob asks Yuki if she wants to hang out.
Yuki’s options…
…Reveal that she doesn’t want to spend time with Jacob and that Jacob has
misinterpreted her
…Hang out with Jacob
Face threatening to Jacob: Yuki reveals and makes common ground that she doesn’t like Jacob as much as he thought
Face threatening to Yuki: Jacob may believe that Yuki is insufficiently concerned with protecting his face and therefore is an untrustworthy interlocutor
If a speaker S makes some speech act G to A in a context c, then her speech act socially squeezes A iff in G-ing, S makes it the case that A’s only easily available options are:
Yuki is discussing how excited she is that she has nothing to do this Friday night. Because he’s incorrectly interpreted her as complaining, Jacob asks Yuki if she wants to hang out.
Yuki’s options…
…Reveal that she doesn’t want to spend time with Jacob and that Jacob has
misinterpreted her
…Hang out with Jacob
Other options exist, but they are too costly or require an excessively high level of social skill.
When we socially squeeze others, we can express insufficient concern for the other person’s face.
We sometimes say that someone who social squeezes us is someone who…
…was presumptuous
…put us on the spot
…was cringe, awkward, tactless
one strategy:�a case study
A speaker S’s goes off-record with her speech act G (with respect to an interlocutor I and a context c) iff in G-ing, S intends that:
(i) I knows in c that S made G;
(ii) S doesn’t know in c whether (i); and
(iii) I knows in c that (iii).
Going off-record
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Melanie suspects but doesn’t know that Arthur has been flirting with her and wants to date. She wants to avoid socially squeezing him. You’re Melanie. What should you do?
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Option 1:
Be more aggressive about flirting and hope he asks you.
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Option 1:
Be more aggressive about flirting and hope he asks you.
Avoids the social squeeze.
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Option 1:
Be more aggressive about flirting and hope he asks you.
Avoids the social squeeze.
Inefficient! Arthur probably wants to avoid socially squeezing her, so this could take forever.
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Option 2:
Use a standard implicature.
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
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Option 2:
Use a normal implicature.
Mitigates any possible social squeeze.
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
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Wanna…uhhh…have dinner sometime
She is asking me on a date.
Common knowledge: Melanie is asking Arthur on a date.
Suppose that you’re Arthur, and you don’t want to date Melanie. What are your options?
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Wanna…uhhh…have dinner sometime
She is asking me on a date.
Common knowledge: Melanie is asking Arthur on a date.
Suppose that you’re Arthur, and you don’t want to date Melanie. What are your options?
1. Decline: “I’m just not that into you.”
2. Play dumb: “Can I bring my friend Bob?”
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Wanna…uhhh…have dinner sometime
She is asking me on a date.
Common knowledge: Melanie is asking Arthur on a date.
Suppose that you’re Arthur, and you don’t want to date Melanie. What are your options?
1. Decline: “I’m just not that into you.”
2. Play dumb: “Can I bring my friend Bob?”
Since it’s common knowledge what Melanie meant, playing dumb still reveals that Arthur doesn’t want to date Melanie. This preserves Melanie’s enacted face. But it damages Melanie’s image of Arthur’s image of her. She still loses face in at least one sense of the term.
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Option 2:
Use a normal implicature.
Mitigates any possible social squeeze.
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
Still carries a risk of some squeeze.
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Option 3:
Go off-record.
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
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Option 3:
Go off-record.
If Arthur is conversationally
competent, this should avoid the
risk of a social squeeze.
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
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Melanie knows (i).
Arthur knows (i).
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
(i) Melanie asked Arthur on a date.
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Melanie doesn’t know (iii).
(iii) Arthur knows (i).
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
(i) Melanie asked Arthur on a date.
(ii) Melanie knows (i).
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(iv) Melanie doesn’t know (iii).
(iii) Arthur knows (i).
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
(i) Melanie asked Arthur on a date.
(ii) Melanie knows (i).
Arthur knows (iv).
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Wanna…uhhh…have dinner sometime
Suppose that you’re Arthur, and you don’t want to date Melanie. What are your options?
1. Decline: “I’m just not that into you.”
2. Play dumb: “Can I bring my friend Bob?”
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Wanna…uhhh…have dinner sometime
Suppose that you’re Arthur, and you don’t want to date Melanie. What are your options?
1. Decline: “I’m just not that into you.”
2. Play dumb: “Can I bring my friend Bob?”
If Arthur is a good actor and plays dumb, Melanie won’t know whether he’s rejecting her or actually just being dumb. There is no face damage!
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Wanna…uhhh…have dinner sometime
Suppose that you’re Arthur, and you don’t want to date Melanie. What are your options?
1. Decline: “I’m just not that into you.”
2. Play dumb: “Can I bring my friend Bob?”
(Arthur is also relying on the assumption that Melanie will, temporarily at least, live with the uncertainty!)
Melanie has engineered a situation in which Arthur has the opportunity to “ignore” her request without revealing that he is intentionally ignoring it.
Ignore
Decline to accept
Reject
Melanie meaningfully risks the possibility that Arthur won’t receive her message. Nonetheless, we often judge that speakers who intentionally go off-record are…
…gracious
…tactful
…avoided putting us on the spot
We sometimes go off-record for straightforwardly strategic reasons.
Going off-record
Larry wants to bribe his dissertation advisor, Professor Smith, to write him in a good letter of recommendation. Larry is pretty sure that Smith is corrupt and that Smith trusts Larry. Still, Larry might choose to go off-record. Why?
Suppose that Smith is not corrupt but that he doesn’t like the paperwork associated with reporting students. However, Smith will overlook Larry’s discretion only if he can do so without harming his own reputation—that is, only if Smith can save (psychological) face. By going off-record, Larry enables Smith to do this.
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Sociolinguists have argued that implicatures are polite in virtue of what Fricker calls their “dodgy epistemics.” But they think that implicatures are polite because they are deniable.
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(iii) Arthur doesn’t know whether (i).
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
(i) Melanie asked Arthur on a date.
(ii) Melanie knows (i).
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(iii) Arthur doesn’t know whether (i).
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
(i) Melanie asked Arthur on a date.
(ii) Melanie knows (i).
I’m just not that into you.
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(iii) Arthur doesn’t know whether (i).
Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
(i) Melanie asked Arthur on a date.
(ii) Melanie knows (i).
I’m just not that into you.
Urgh, gross, I didn’t mean like THAT.
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Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
I’m just not that into you.
Urgh, gross, I didn’t mean like THAT.
This is strategically beneficial for Melanie. But why is it beneficial for Arthur? Since we’re looking for an explanation of tact, aren’t we looking for an explanation that appeals to the latter sorts of facts?
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Wanna….uhhhh….have dinner sometime
I’m just not that into you.
Urgh, gross, I didn’t mean like THAT.
This is strategically beneficial for Melanie. But why is it beneficial for Arthur? Since we’re looking for an explanation of tact, aren’t we looking for an explanation that appeals to the latter sorts of facts?
My appeal to off-recordness is a better explanation of the same data point.
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Is Meaning Public?
S and A jointly /commonly know that p iff
S and A know that p,
know that they know that p,
know that they know that they know that p….
Schiffer-style claim
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S intends for all of S’s communicative intentions to become common knowledge between S and A.
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Is Meaning Public?
Schiffer-style claim
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S intends for all of S’s communicative intentions to become common knowledge between S and A.
Stalnaker-style claim
A speaker S asserts that p to an addressee A only if S intends to make it common knowledge between S and A that S asserted that p.
S and A jointly /commonly know that p iff
S and A know that p,
know that they know that p,
know that they know that they know that p….
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Is Meaning Public?
Schiffer-style claim
A speaker S means that p to an addressee A only if S intends for all of S’s communicative intentions to become common knowledge between S and A.
Stalnaker-style claim
A speaker S asserts that p to an addressee A only if S intends to make it common knowledge between S and A that S asserted that p.
The nature of assertion?
If you think that to assert p just is to propose to update a context with, you’ll generally need to assume that to assert p necessarily requires intending to update that context with the information that you asserted p.
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Problem:
In some situations, S knows that it’s impossible for S to make any new information common knowledge with p. But S can still assert that p.
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What is the moral of these cases?
We can weaken the claim:
A speaker S asserts that p to an addressee A only if S doesn’t intend to not make it common knowledge between S and A that S asserted that p.
Or we can accept that the appeal to ideal common knowledge is an idealization. (Harris’ solution)
What do my cases show?
Even these weakened claims fails:
A speaker S asserts that p to an addressee A only if S doesn’t intend to not make it common knowledge between S and A that S asserted that p.
A cooperative speaker S asserts that p to an addressee A only if: if S can easily make new information common knowledge, then S intends to make it common knowledge between S and A that she asserted that p.
Even under conditions of high idealization, a cooperative and rational speaker will not necessarily aim to make her speech act part of any shared body of information. Models that assume otherwise are, inter alia, assuming that speakers lack a desire that robustly affects real world linguistic behavior: namely, their desire to save face.
The moral
Why should I care?
Thanks!
Q&A.
I am slow on email, but emails are always welcome:
berstler@mit.edu