Article published in:
Interaction Studies
Vol. 18:1 (2017) ► pp. 142–160

A sociobiological account of indirect speech

| University of Genoa | Roma Tre University
Indirect speech is a remarkable trait of human communication. The present paper tackles the sociobiological underpinnings of communicative indirectness discussing both socio-interactional and cognitive rationales behind its manifestation in discourse. From a social perspective, the use of indirect forms in interactions can be regarded as an adaptive response to the epistemic implications of transacted new information in small primary groups, representing – in Givón’s terms – our “bio-cultural” descent. The design features of indirect strategies today may therefore be explained in terms of a form-function mapping in which indirect communicative expressions allowed a “safer” transaction of contents and a more cooperative attitude of speakers in both face-to-face and public contexts of communication. The unchallengeability effects notably induced by underencoded meanings have now received extensive experimental backing, unveiling intriguing underlying cognitive mechanisms such as the well-known cognitive illusions or fallacies.
Keywords: Theory of Mind, exaptation, political discourse, cognitive fallacies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Societies of intimates
  • 3.Pragmatic foundations and cognitive prerequisites for indirect communication
  • 4.Reasons and linguistic manifestations of indirect communication
  • 5.Indirect communication in political speeches
  • 6.Indirect communication and cognitive fallacies
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 10 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18.1.07mas
References
Bambini, V., Gentili, C., Ricciardi, E., Bertinetto, P. M., & Pietrini, P
(2011) Decomposing metaphor processing at the cognitive and neural level through functional magnetic resonance imaging. Brain Research Bulletin, 861, 203–216. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S
(1991) Precursors to a theory of mind. In A. Whiten (Ed.), Natural theories of mind: Evolution, development, and simulation of everyday mindreading (pp. 233–252). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bianchi, C
(2003) Pragmatica del linguaggio. Roma-Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Brocca N., Garassino D., & Masia, V
2016). Politici nella rete o nella rete dei politici? L’implicito nella comunicazione politica italiana su Twitter. PhiN-Beiheft, 11(2016), 66–79.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C
(1987) Politeness: Some universals in language usage. New York: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Burkhardt, P
(2006) Inferential bridging relations reveal distinct neural mechanisms: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Brain and Language, 981, 159–168. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chen, R
(1990) Verbal irony as conversational implicature. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Muncie (Indiana), Ball State University.Google Scholar
Cooley, C. H
(1897) The process of social change. Political Science Quarterly, 121, 63–81. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1909) Social organization: a study of the larger mind. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Coolidge, F. L., & Wynn, T
(2012) Cognitive prerequisites for the evolution of indirect speech. In K. R. Gibson, & M. Tallerman (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language evolution. Oxford: Oxord University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ferretti, F
(2010) Coevoluzionismo senza se e senza ma. Rivista di estetica, 44(2), 29–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Frith, U
(2003) Autism: Explaining the enigma. 2nd Edition. UK: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Givón, T
(1973) The time-axis phenomenon. Language, 49(4), 890–925. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1991) Some substantive issues concerning verb serialization: Grammatical vs. cognitive packaging. In C. Lefebvre (Ed.), Serial verbs: grammatical, comparative, and cognitive approaches (pp. 137–184). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2002) Bio-Linguistics. The Santa-Barbara lectures. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2005) Context as other minds. The pragmatics of sociality, cognition and communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2009) The genesis of syntactic complexity: diachrony, ontogeny, neuro-cognition, evolution. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J., & Vrba, E
(1982) Exaptation: A missing term in the science of form. Paleobiolgy, 8(1), 4–15. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Grice, P. H
(1975) Logic and conversation. In P. Cole, & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grottanelli Vinigi, L
(1966)  Ethonologica . Luomo e la civilt. Vol. III1, Milano: Edizioni Labor.Google Scholar
Hagoort, P., & Levinson, S. C
(2014) Neuropragmatics. In M. S. Gazzaniga, & G. R. Mangun (Eds.), The cognitive neurosciences, 5th edition (pp. 667–674). Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hamblin, C
(1970) Fallacies. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Hertrich, I., Kirsten, M., Tiemann, S., Beck, S., Whle, A., Ackermann, H., & Rolke, B
(2015) Context-dependent impact of presuppositions on early magnetic brain responses during speech perception. Brain & Language, 1491, 1–12. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hornby, P. A
(1973) Intonation and Syntactic Structure in the Development of Presupposition, paper presented at the Biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(1974) Surface structure and presupposition. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 530–538. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jang, G., Yoon, S., Lee, S., Park, H., Kim, J., Ko, J. H., & Park, H
(2013) Everyday conversation requires cognitive inference: Neural bases of comprehending implicated meanings in conversations. Neuroimage, 811, 61–72. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kierkegaard, S
(1972 [1944]) Training in Christianity. And the edifying discourse that accompanied it. Princeton, translated by Walter Lowrie D. D.. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kiparsky C., & Kiparsky P
(1971) Fact. In D. D. Steinberg, & L. A. Jakobovitz (Eds.), Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader (pp. 345–369). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., & Federmeier, K. D
(2000) Electrophysiology reveals semantic memory use in language comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Science, 121, 463–470. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D
(1979) Scorekeeping in a language game. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8(3), 339–359. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lombardi Vallauri, E
(2009) La struttura informativa. Forma e funzione negli enunciati linguistici. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
Lombardi Vallauri, E., & Masia, V
(2014) Implicitness impact: measuring texts. Journal of Pragmatics, 611, 161–184. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oswald, S., Maillat, D., & Saussure, L. de
2016). Deceptive and uncooperative communication. In L. de Saussure, & A. Rocci (Eds.) Verbal communication Handbooks of communicative science 3 pp. 509 534 Berlin Walter de Gruyter
Philips, S
(1976) Some sources of cultural variability in the regulation of talk. Language in Society, 5(1), 81–95. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S
(2007) The evolutionary social psychology of off-record indirect speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(4), 437–461. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S., Nowak, M. A., & Lee, J. J
(2008) The logic of indirect speech. PNAS, 105(3), 833–838. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Premack, D., & Woodruff, G
(1978) Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, 515–526. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rizzolatti, G., & Arbib, M. A
(1998) Language within our grasp. Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience, 211, 188–194. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Saussure, L. de, & Oswald, S
(2009) Argumentation et engagement du locuteur: pour un point de vue subjectiviste. Nouveaux cahiers de linguistique franaise, 291, 215–243.Google Scholar
Saussure, L. de
(2013) Background relevance. Journal of Pragmatics, 591, 178–189. Crossref.Google Scholar
2014). Prsuppositions discursives, assertion darrire-plan et persuasion. In T. Herman, & S. Oswald (Eds.) Rhetoric and cognition. Theoretical perspectives and persuasive strategies Bern Peter Lang
Sbis, M
(2007) Detto non detto. Le forme della comunicazione implicita. Roma-Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., Clment, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G., & Wilson, D
(2010) Epistemic vigilance. Mind & Language, 25(4), 359–393. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M
(2008) Origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D
(1974) Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Walton, D
(1996) The Straw Man Fallacy. In J. Benthem, F. van Emeren, R. van Grootendorst, & F. Veltman (Eds.), Logic and argumentation (pp. 115–128). Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar
Wang, L., & Schumacher, P
(2013) New is not always costly: evidence from online processing of topic and contrast in Japanese. Frontiers in Psychology. Crossref.Google Scholar

Full-text

A sociobiological account of indirect speech
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

No author info given
2021.  In The Manipulative Disguise of Truth [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 322], Crossref logo
Reboul, Anne
2021. Truthfully Misleading: Truth, Informativity, and Manipulation in Linguistic Communication. Frontiers in Communication 6 Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.