Re: RT list: Degrees of inference?

I should perhaps have read Robin's conribution , and E.-A.'s further
response before I sent off what I did a few minutes ago!

I find myself in agreement with E.-A.'s comments. I find the matter of
communicator preferences to have just the kind of space needed to
explore relevance of different preferred/dispreferred patterns of
communication in different cultural contexts.

I hope some one else will add some comments?

Ronnie

On 30/11/2013 11:21, ernst-august_gutt@sil.org wrote:
> Below are a couple of observations to Robin Setton's comments.
> Best regards,
> Ernst-August Gutt
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Robin Setton [mailto:robinsetton@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 28 November 2013 17:28
> *To:* ernst-august_gutt@sil.org
> *Cc:* Ronnie Sim; ian mackenzie; relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
> *Subject:* Re: RT list: Degrees of inference?
>
> Hi,
>
> Being in a similar line of business to Ian and Ernst August
> (translation, specifically), perhaps also Ronnie, and working in
> Chinese-Western exchanges among others, I also find this topic very
> interesting, and would like to zero in on some of these concepts more
> closely.
>
> I agree that the (alleged) 'low/high context' distinction is probably
> not in the language; (this might be part of the illusion which Ernst
> August seems to hint the Western observers in question may be under),
> and that a Western observer's judgment of the processing cost demanded
> by the Japanese speech is likely to be skewed by the effort it seems
> to demand of him/her (the outside observer).
>
> So I share Ernst-August (at least provisional) scepticism, but since
> he tantalisingly ends on an upbeat note, saying that this should be a
> testable hypothesis, I'm intrigued about two things:
>
> 1.Methodology: 'studying the content of the cognitive environments'
> would seem necessary (though not easy), and it seems one would also
> have to take a corpus of (e.g.) Japanese addressing Japanese and
> compare it to corpora of say, Americans talking to Americans, Maltese
> talking to Maltese, etc. (In interpreter training we avoid using
> speeches aimed only at local audiences in the same language community,
> for obvious reasons; it's hard enough already).
> EAG: I don't think comparing corpora of communications from different
> cultures is required for testing the hypothesis put forward. What one
> would need to test is whether in each case there is a (plausible)
> mutual cognitive environment in which the stimulus provided could be
> shown to be consistent with the communicative POR. One should remember
> that cognitive environments in general and mutual cognitive
> environments in particular are quite "fluid" - they can change from
> moment to moment; they include more stable elements ("culture"), but
> are by no means limited to them.
>
> 2. The implications of the 1995 proviso about 'the communicator's
> abilities and preferences". Leaving aside varying expressive abilities
> (another bane for interpreters), surely the more 'sophisticated'
> operators in all (surviving, successful) cultures would have evolved
> different ways of keeping valuable information to themselves, while
> 'keeping things going'?
>
> Might the generalisation turn out to be that *linguistic*
> communication is given a more ritual/social, less informative role in
> some cultures, in the shared understanding (generating appropriate
> expectations in participants of that culture) that whatever
> *information* one prefers to make accessible is derived and conveyed
> by other means (perhaps encoded in some other dimension of the event -
> aesthetic, visual, choreographic, etc. [cf. as suspected by Barthes]).
> EAG: There is no reason why recognisable "patterns" of communication
> should not develop in certain groups to safeguard their interests
> while communicating. International diplomacy, work testimonials, or
> descriptions of properties for sale would seem to be good contemporary
> examples. (Or take the sophisticated patterns of
> classical rhetoric.) However, the development of such patterns would
> arguably be consequences of the communicative POR in cognitive
> environments that shared certain factors. Evidence for
> this could be observations like that the deployment of this kind of
> communication is not dependent on the pre-existence of established
> patterns, that individuals are capable of modifying such patterns on
> the spur of the moment, and are capable of finding idiosyncratic ways
> of saying enough to keep the addressees interested while keeping
> thoughts to themselves.
>
> With apologies for seeming to delve into ostensibly non-RT frameworks
> like functions of language or semiotics - but as Ernst August says,
> none of this would contradict RT or the POR. Only a
> culturally-determined 'default setting for processing effort' doesn't
> seem plausible, if as we believe, RT is universal.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Robin
>
> Robin Setton
> Interprète de conférence
> Conference Interpreter (AIIC), OECD
>
>
> On 28 November 2013 17:40, <ernst-august_gutt@sil.org
> <mailto:ernst-august_gutt@sil.org>> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> This discussion is interesting but I think Ronnie Sims'
> observation that somehow "it doesn't hit the spot" is very
> pertinent here. It seems that too little attention is paid to a
> couple of important points of RT. .
> 1) Optimal relevance is not universally defined, but always
> context dependent - which means, in effect, dependent on the
> mutual cognitive environment of the communication partners. The
> point from which this discussion started, however, seem to be
> cross-cultural judgments: in this case, scholars from one culture
> comparing the processing effort, esp. that incurred by inference,
> in acts of communication in another culture. This means, however,
> comparing two most likely non-commensurate things if the cognitive
> environments of both acts of communication are not the same, which
> in these cases they hardly will be. So what seems to be happening
> in these evaluations is something like the following: one is
> trying to compare the processing cost [e.g. steps of inference]
> that would one would have to spend in one's own cognitive
> environment to obtain an utterance considered satisfactory in
> one's own cognitive environment with the effort it takes one
> to process, in one's own cognitive environment, the utterance
> actually offered in quite a different cognitive environment. For
> example, a Western person considers the processing cost he/she
> would need to invest in processing the utterance of an
> East-African person to obtain the information a Western person
> would expect to be told, and comes to the conclusion that this
> information is either only very weakly implied or requires a lot
> of inferencing, which could have been avoided by a more direct
> answer, of the kind expected in a Western cognitive environment.
> From an RT point of view, this does not make sense. Optimal
> relevance, with both processing cost and cognitive effects
> involved, have to evaluated relative to the cognitive environment
> in which they take place.
> 2) Also,
> the 1995 version of optimal relevance includes a very significant modificationin
> its second part, bringing in the preferences of the communicator:
> "b) The ostensive stimulus is the most relevantcompatible with the
> communicator's abilities and preferences" (Sperber, D., and D.
> Wilson. 1995:270). This means, among other things, that the
> communicative POR does not oblige the communicator to supply,
> without unnecessary processing effort, the information the
> addressees might like to get but a) only information that is in
> line with the abilities of the communicator - e.g. the
> communicator can't supply info she does not have or can only come
> up with as good a stimulus as her particular skills allow - and b)
> information that the communicator is prepared to supply
> (preferences).
> This has far-reaching implications for the topic under discussion
> here. Suppose the mutual cognitive environment of a group contains
> the belief that information is a very valuable, and potentially
> also risky, commodity: one never knows what others might do with
> that information. When a person with that cognitive environment is
> asked by a stranger how far it is to a certain place or where such
> and such a person lives, then that person would, if indeed he felt
> he had to answer, tend to keep the information quite vague: "Oh,
> it's over there, quite far" - even if he was in a position to give
> a much clearer answer. While the vagueness of the answer probably
> would not surprise a person sharing a similar cognitive
> environment - it's only what any stranger could expect to be told
> - an outsider to the culture might conclude that either these
> people don't know how to be precise - how to formulate an optimal
> stimulus - or that they expected the addressee to work hard to
> figure out from that answer where they'd have to go. In the latter
> case, in the spirit of the discussion going on here, one might
> conclude that this is a culture that generally demands higher
> processing efforts from the audience than some other cultures.
> Similarly with business negotations, perhaps in an Asian context:
> if it is customary to reveal only as little of one's own
> interests to the other party as possible in order to get the best
> deal for oneself and to keep open as many options as possible,
> then, again, one will naturally tend to be rather vague, saying
> only as much as one feels one has to say to remain polite and to
> keep things moving. The other party, if they share the same
> cognitive environment, will interpret the answers given along
> these lines - probably also trying to figure out what the first
> party is trying to hide. Such interaction obviously involves a lot
> of mental work. This would not be needed in another group with
> less sophisticated conventions where one is quite ready to reveal
> information.
> The important point is that, in all these cases, people are
> actually guided by the communicative POR (adequate cogn. effects
> with minimal processing effort) - keeping in mind the preferences
> of the communicator, and the mutual cognitive environment in which
> the communication takes place. To take the observable difference
> in processing cost as evidence for cultural parameters that
> somehow - arbitrarily? - determine a sort of "default level" of
> processing effort or inference for that group that is e.g. higher
> than the "default level" of some other group would be missing the
> point entirely. It would be much more useful to study the
> "contents" of the cognitive environment concerned and find out
> what cultural assumptions there are in that cognitive environment
> that would make the information and the stimulus used to convey it
> optimally relevant. That would actually help outsiders to better
> understand those communications - and the culture in which they
> take place.
> Personally I believe there is no reason to assume that there are
> groups that set "minimal processing cost" as such at a higher
> level than perhaps some other groups, or put more "responsibility"
> on the audience than other groups do. I would expect that in all
> and every case it will turn out that such differences arise not
> from culturally set default values for these two parameters but
> are natural consequences of beliefs and values of the cognitive
> environments concerned - whether this concerns just two
> individuals or large cultural or ethnic groups. (So this should
> actually be a testable hypothesis.)
> Well, this is my two cents' worth.
> Ernst-August Gutt
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
> <mailto:owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk>
> [mailto:owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
> <mailto:owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk>] *On Behalf Of
> *Ronnie Sim
> *Sent:* 28 November 2013 10:20
> *To:* ian mackenzie
> *Cc:* relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
> <mailto:relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk>
>
> *Subject:* Re: RT list: Degrees of inference?
>
> Now you speak of
> "the SIL linguists with knowledge of Africa, and the various
> Japanese linguists working in RT. Then again, they tend to analyse
> specific particles, connectors, discourse markers, etc., i.e. do
> /real/ work, rather than trade in airy generalisations like I do!"
>
> I'd add three points:
> 1. Procedural meaning came out of RT work, and a number of us are
> applying it in analysing those particles &c ... I think with
> useful results, particularly in turning up particles in Greek,
> Hebrew and African languages that mark a string as
> metarepresentational.
>
> 2. "Trading in airy generalisations" is in fact where the new
> insights come, that the detail work can pick up. don't deprecate
> the theoretical developments you guys uncover; I don't-- and a
> reason for speaking to the issue you raise is the hope for some
> new thinking.
>
> 3. "Ranking languages according to levels of inference, or the use
> of implicatures" doesn't hit the spot, though, does it? It would
> presumably not be IN the language, but in how it is used for
> communicating in different interpersonal contexts, some of which
> would rely more on shared assumptions, or if Yoshikawa goes
> further, some of which pay less attention to shared assumptions
> and require audiences to spend more processing effort than RT
> suggests. I assume that all communities have situations in which
> speaking is deliberately less plain, and, if you are correct, that
> some communities spread this across many contexts, and make the
> assumption that the audience will make effort to understand. If
> that roughly represents the kind of societal contexts you have in
> mind, I then want to ask two further questions.
>
> a. How would RT be affected if the "minimal processing effort"
> side is weakened? I guess the affect can be tolerated, since all
> societies do communicate in situations where more effort is
> required [by some in the audience]. It presumably links up with
> the three strategies in Dan Sperber's paper /Understanding Verbal
> Understanding/, which also accepts audiencescan jack up the effort
> side.
>
> b. What kind of evidence would be required to show that community
> A typically uses language in ways that lay more responsibility on
> hearers/readers? Not from less benevolence or to obfuscate
> communication, but for some other reason.
>
> Coming back to eastern Africa, yes, I "see" communities that
> apparently lay more responsibility on audiences, and do not utter
> to minimise processing costs. And, yes, I see literature that
> requires more processing. Isn't it the case that much modern
> English literature is more open-ended than RT has allowed for?
>
> I'd really like to hear discussion from those in RT who are in a
> good position to speak to these questions.
>
> Ronnie
>
>
>
>
>
> On 27/11/2013 18:08, ian mackenzie wrote:
>>
>> Thank you, Ronnie Sim.
>>
>>
>> It's not only the Horn of Africa. John Hinds (1987) quotes
>> Yoshikawa(1978) (I can give the refs. to anyone who wants them)
>> saying "the basic principle of communication in Japan, the fact
>> that what is verbally expressed and what is actually intended are
>> two different things, is something that Japanese people are
>> supposed tobe aware of."
>>
>>
>> S&W do of course argue that language use (in any natural
>> language) is almost never literal, and that inference is almost
>> always involved, but I'm still surprised that no-one seems to
>> have tried to rank languages according to levels of inference, or
>> the use of implicatures. Especially with all the SIL linguists
>> with knowledge of Africa, and the various Japanese linguists
>> working in RT. Then again, they tend to analyse specific
>> particles, connectors, discourse markers, etc., i.e. do /real/
>> work, rather than trade in airy generalisations like I do!
>>
>>
>> Ian MacKenzie
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 12:48 PM, Ronnie Sim <ronnie_sim@sil.org
>> <mailto:ronnie_sim@sil.org>> wrote:
>>
>> Ian, you asked
>> "Can anyone tell me whether any work has been done on RT and
>> /degrees of inference/ considered to be necessary in
>> different languages/cultures?"
>> The short answer from me is a nagative ... but I hope others
>> on the RT list will have something more positive.
>>
>> What I can do is agree on the basis of anecdotal evidence.
>> I'd say in Africa generally -- so, at least in the societies
>> I am most familiar with, in eastern Africa and the Horn,
>> speaking directly is not the norm. People tend to talk
>> indirectly about issues, and rely on the audience doing a lot
>> of inferencing to keep track of what is intended. The more
>> serious the issue is, the more care there is in not speaking
>> to it directly. So the western "value" of being up front with
>> what is on our mind is not appreciated, not valued, and may
>> be read as insensitive. Put like that, I can also see
>> indirectness, and consequent reliance on inferencing, at work
>> in western societies in at least some aspects of life.
>>
>> Secondly, especially in the Horn of Africa, it seems to me
>> that explanation [whenever called for] is achieved via the
>> presentation of analogies -- 'parables' if you like. A asks a
>> question about something that is not clear, and B responds by
>> offering an analogy. A has to inference in what way the
>> analogy fits. Again, the west does this, and some tropes
>> depend on analogy, but in the Horn, in some societies at
>> least, it is an art form--a genre, almost. Sometimes the
>> analogy might be fairly 'narrow' and be interpretable in
>> terms of one [or two] quite strong implicatures. At other
>> times, it seems to depend on a range of weak implicatures, no
>> one of which is consciously 'intended'. Again certain
>> [traditional?] negotiations in the west may show similar
>> signs. I think of negotiations that used to involve two
>> families arranging a marriage between one of 'our sons' and
>> one of 'their daughters'. And analogy and indirectness is the
>> means of carrying it out. some time ago now, I heard this
>> done in terms of a young man wishing to harbour his boat, so
>> it can be quite raucous and baudy.
>>
>> Is indirectness something that surfaces in all societies, in
>> some communication, and then, along the lines of your
>> question, do some societies prefer indirectness, and a
>> consequent greater dependence on inferencing?
>>
>> Anthropologist Mary Douglas set up two parameters for
>> understanding societal behaviour -- Group and Grid. The Group
>> parameter involves the bondedness among members of the group;
>> the grid parameter involves stratification of tasks/roles
>> among group members. Low Group/Low Grid would be
>> individualist; High group/High grid is hierarchical
>> societies; High group/Low grid is egalitarian; Low group/High
>> grid is fatalist. The epitomising terms are extremes; most
>> societies presumably show trends not extremes.
>>
>> Communication in different Group/Grid societies might
>> reasonably be predicted to show differences brought about by
>> such cultural factors.
>>
>> There is a correlation between the Group/Grid concept and the
>> concept of high/low Context. Plausibly, communication in high
>> shared context situations relies more heavily on inferencing.
>>
>> I would like to hear from others who have explored more
>> systematically these cultural aspects in which communication
>> takes place. Which is my main reason for saying anything at
>> all, no matter how little! I assume that the work of Helen
>> Spencer-Oatey, Stells Ting-Toomey and those who are
>> associated with the same interests could give us much more.
>>
>> Ronnie [Sim]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 26/11/2013 17:07, ian mackenzie wrote:
>>>
>>> In the 1980s, John Hinds distinguished between
>>> speaker/writer and listener/reader responsible languages. In
>>> the former (e.g. English and French), the speaker/writer is
>>> primarily responsible for effective communication; in the
>>> latter (e.g. Japanese and perhaps Korean) it is the
>>> listener/reader. It is often said that in Japanese what is
>>> expressed and what is intended tend to be two different
>>> things; there is no obligation to give full explanations and
>>> clarifications, to be linear and direct, or to use explicit
>>> coherence markers and transitional statements. Consequently
>>> listeners/readers need to rely heavily on inference.
>>>
>>> In the 1970s, Edward Hall distinguished between high- and
>>> low-context cultures, giving Japan as an example of a
>>> high-context culture in which people tend to have similar
>>> experiences and expectations, allowing many things to be
>>> left unsaid, and inferences to be drawn from implicit shared
>>> cultural knowledge.
>>>
>>> The authors of RT come from speaker/writer responsible
>>> cultures (the French even have the deluded saying /ce qui
>>> n'est pas clair n'est pas français/!). Can anyone tell me
>>> whether any work has been done on RT and /degrees of
>>> inference/ considered to be necessary in different
>>> languages/cultures?
>>>
>>> Many thanks,
>>>
>>> Ian MacKenzie
>>>
>>> Faculté de traduction et d'interprétation, Université de Genève
>>>
>>> ian.mackenzie@unige.ch <mailto:ian.mackenzie@unige.ch>
>>>
>>>
>>> Recently published:/English as a Lingua Franca: Theorizing
>>> and Teaching English/, Routledge, 2013.
>>
>>
>
>
Received on Tue Dec 3 12:41:37 2013