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Social identity information in projection inferences: a case study in social and semantic-pragmatic meaning

Mahler, Taylor
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1658402960706742

Abstract Details

2022, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Linguistics.
This dissertation investigates whether social identity information modulates the interpretation of non-entailed clausal complement content (CC) in utterances of sentences such as (1): (1) Ken didn’t hear that the minimum wage is too high. The focus of this dissertation is the listener’s inference that the speaker is committed to the truth of the CC, e.g., that the minimum wage is too low; to the extent that this inference holds, the CC is said to “project”. I ask whether the social identities and beliefs of the interlocutors — speaker and listener — can influence projection inferences. With respect to the speaker, I ask whether the speaker’s identity modulates these inferences. For example, are listeners more likely to infer that the speaker is committed to a “conservative” CC such as the minimum wage is too high when the speaker is a Republican than when the speaker is a Democrat? With respect to the listener, I first ask whether listeners incorporate their own beliefs into their interpretations. Two types of beliefs are investigated: listener beliefs about the speaker and listener beliefs about the CC. For listener beliefs about the speaker, the question is whether listeners’ beliefs about the speaker’s beliefs, identity, and other social characteristics of the speaker modulate projection inferences. The second type of listener belief that I investigate is the listener’s belief about whether the CC is true. For example, are listeners more likely to infer that the speaker is committed to a “liberal” CC if they themselves believe that the CC is true, compared to listeners who believe that it is false? I investigate these questions in a series of three experiments. Three speaker social identities that are stereotypically associated with political beliefs are explored: the speaker’s political affiliation (Republican vs. Democrat; Experiment 1), regional background (rural Southerner vs. non-rural non-Southerner; Experiment 2) and regional dialect (Southern accented vs. non-Southern accented speakers; Experiment 3). This research contributes to our understanding of how social identity information shapes linguistic interpretation.
Marie-Catherine de Marneffe (Advisor)
Judith Tonhauser (Committee Member)
Ashwini Deo (Committee Member)
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (Committee Member)
235 p.
Linguistics; Sociolinguistics
presupposition, projection, social meaning, experimental semantics, experimental pragmatics

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Mahler, T. (2022). Social identity information in projection inferences: a case study in social and semantic-pragmatic meaning [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1658402960706742

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Mahler, Taylor. Social identity information in projection inferences: a case study in social and semantic-pragmatic meaning. 2022. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1658402960706742.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Mahler, Taylor. "Social identity information in projection inferences: a case study in social and semantic-pragmatic meaning." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1658402960706742

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.