Sparks of Interest in Situations Ignite Discourses. |
Introduction:
Contingent interests are tracable in the discourse itself as it underlying "motivation." If I say, "please open the door," the implication of this request is that I have some sort of interest invested in having the door opened. Expressions reveal cognitive motives in the representation of cognition.The "spark of interest" in the situation is contingent, that is, determined by conditions or circumstances not yet established, hence sparking interested discourse. If I say, "please open the door," the contingency in the situation is that the door is closed and will only open if I say "please open the door."
As a speech act, the example above is a request. Such speech acts have obvious contingent interests that motivate them. But what about other types of speech acts: "I now pronouce you husband and wife," for example. The contingent interests here are also rather obvious. The man and woman are not married. Saying, "I now pronounce you huband and wife" alters the situation which implies an interest in being married.
What about, "It's a nice day"? This expression can only be understood in terms of the contingency that it could NOT be a nice day if the weather changed. It also implies an interest in nice days as opposed to not-nice days, given the idiomatic character of the expression. Whoever utters this sentence has an investment in its being a nice day.
Let's take a familiar sentence in philosophic discussions—"the cat is on the mat." Why make this remark? There must be some contingent interest in the situation to provoke it. Taking the sentence in an ordinary context, one person, by saying it, would be pointing this circumstance out to another person. Even though we don't know exactly what the motive might be (not knowing much about the situation), the contingency implied is that it is to the other persons's interest that "the cat is on the mat."
Borrowing another sentence form J. L. Autin's How To Do Things With Words, "All John's children are bald," the same argument can be made—it is in the audience's interest to know this circumstance and therefore it is in the interest of the speaker to inform them. Of course, the more we know about the situation, the more we understand what motivated the remark.
What counts as Interest?
Wordnet defines interest in the following way:
1. (306) interest, involvement -- (a sense of concern with and curiosity about someone or something; "an interest in music")
2. (164) interest, interestingness -- (the power of attracting or holding one's attention (because it is unusual or exciting etc.); "they said nothing of great interest"; "primary colors can add interest to a room")
3. (164) sake, interest -- (a reason for wanting something done; "for your sake"; "died for the sake of his country"; "in the interest of safety"; "in the common interest")
4. (111) interest -- (a fixed charge for borrowing money; usually a percentage of the amount borrowed; "how much interest do you pay on your mortgage?")
5. (68) pastime, interest, pursuit -- (a diversion that occupies one's time and thoughts (usually pleasantly); "sailing is her favorite pastime"; "his main pastime is gambling"; "he counts reading among his interests"; "they criticized the boy for his limited pursuits")
6. (57) interest, stake -- ((law) a right or legal share of something; a financial involvement with something; "they have interests all over the world"; "a stake in the company's future")
7. (25) interest, interest group -- ((usually plural) a social group whose members control some field of activity and who have common aims; "the iron interests stepped up production")
So, in ordinary language terms, what counts as interest is: involvement, concern, curiosity, attraction, excitement, wanting something done, or preventing something from happening, diversion, rights, legal share, common aim. Only the fourth meaning has not been included, a fixed charge for borrowing money; but of course, being chared with a fee or penalty is of considerable interest.
Underlying all of these actions is the notion that something of interest captures one's attention. Thus, the situation obtains a speaker's attention (a cognitive ability). In this sense it is a condition of representing the thoughts occasioned by the act of attending to something in a situation.
It is not remarkable, then, that the representation reveals (directly or indirectly) what sparked the attention.
Dis course Structures
In "Discourse," Grosz, Pollack, Sidner argue that discourse structure is a composite of three interrelated structures; in addition to linguistic structure there are a structure of intentions and an attentional state" (Foundations of CS, 442).
The attentional state structure involves the ways in which the audiences attention is directed by following changes in attentional states marked in it. Cue phrases such as "that reminds me" indicate a shift in attentional states in their view of discourse as "doing something" not merely "saying something" (452).
As Alan Allport writes:
Many authors have suggested that the selectivity of attention is in some way related to or dependent on the need for coherent control of action. ...
Any goal-directed action requires the pecification of a uniques set of (time-varying) parameters for its execution—parameters thatdetermine the outcome as this particular action rather than any other; as this particular vocalic or manual gesture, this particular diectional saccade, and so forth (Foundations of CS, 648).
Putting these two perspectives (discourse & visual attention) together, the picture that emerges is one in which visual attention governed by a "need for coherent conrol of action, structures a discourse in a way that the "attentional states" in a discourse, saying a conversation in which a speaker is directing a hearer's attention in a task oriented manner. Having a task imposed upon one tends to spark one's attention.
Attention and Reference:
Obviously one means of directing attention is by way of "reference." This brings us to the notion of "mental spaces" which fits well with Grosz, Pollack, Sidner's view of changes in attentional states (Foundations of CS, 442).
Attentional state reflects the focus of attention ofdiscourse participants as the discourse progresses. It is modeled as a (pushdown) stack of focus spaces, one for each segmentof the discourse. The focus spaces contain representaitons of the discourse segment-purpose and th entities referred to in the segment. The stack grows when segments are introduced into a dscourse and shrinks as the intentions ofthe segments are satisfied. Following standard terminology, we say that a new space is pushed onto the stack when a new segment is introduced, and that a space is popped when its purpose is satisfied.
There is surely a relation between maintaining an audiences' attention by referring to situations and the extent to which those references spark interest.
focus:
Another key concept in this discussion is "focus" (Foundations of CS, 446). This can be related to Langacker on focus. See page 448 near the citation of Fillmore
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jjs
Notes:
.In instances of lying or giving mis-information, the motives revealed represent the situation in a false manner. Other factors have to be brought into the exchange of meanings to unconver the duplicity.
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last revised:
June 13, 2007
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