Using Language Herb Clark, 1996, Cambridge University Press
Grounding in Communication: Clark & Brennan
JOINT ACTIVITIES
p31 DIMENSIONS OF VARIATION
scripted vs unscripted; formal vs informal; verbal vs. non-verbal; cooperative vs. competitive
egalitarian vs. autocratic
p37-38 GENERAL CLAIMS ABOUT JOINT ACTIVITIES
Participants - a joint activity is carried out by 2 or more participants
Activity roles - the participants in a joint activity assume public roles that help determine their
division of labor
Public goals - the participants in a joint activity try to establish and achieve joint public goals
Private goals - the participants in a joint activity may try individually to achieve private goals
Hierarchies - a joint activity ordinarily emerges as a hierarchy of joint actions or joint activities
Procedures - the participants in a joint activity may exploit both conventional and non
conventional procedures
Boundaries - a successful joint activity has an entry and exit jointly engineered by the participants
Entry. A & B go from not being in J to being in J.
Body. A & B are in J.
Exit. A & B go from being in J to not being in J.
Dynamics - joint activities may be simultaneous or intermittent, and may expand, contract, or
divide in their personnel
p38 ADVANCEMENT IN JOINT ACTIVITIES == COMMON GROUND
p61 INDIVIDUAL VERSUS JOINT ACTION
Individual A is doing individual action k iff
0. the action k includes 1;
1. A intends to be doing k and believes that 0.
Ensemble A-and-B is doing joint action k iff:
0. the action k includes 1 and 2;
1. A intends to be doing A’s part of k and believes that 0;
2. B intends to be doing B’s part of k and believes that 0
PROBLEM OF COORDINATION
Examples: Airport, Moving a Couch, Appointment with teacher
p62-63 SCHELLING GAMES
COORDINATION DEVICES
p64 definition of coordination devices (defn- key Schelling; term Lewis & Clark)
"What is necessary is to coordinate predictions, to read the same message in the
common situation, to identify the one course of action that their expectations of
each other can converge on. They must "mutually recognize" some unique
signal that coordinates their expectations of each other.
….
Most situations-perhaps every situation for people who are practiced at this kind
of game --- provide some clue for coordinating behavior, some focal point for
each person's expectation of what the other expects him to expect to be expected
to do. Find the key, or rather find a key --- any key that is mutually recognized
as the key becomes the key --- may depend on imagination more than on logic;
it may depend on analogy, precedent, accidental arrangement, symmetry,
aesthetic or geometric configuration, casuistic reasoning, and who the parties
are and what they know about each other."
p64 COORDINATION DEVICES
examples: explicit agreement, precedent, convention
p67 PRINCIPLE OF JOINT SALIENCE (example p. 66)
The ideal solution to a coordination problem among two or more agents is the solution that is
most salient, prominent, or conspicuous with respect to their current common ground.
CONVENTION
p70-72 convention
A convention, according to Lexis (1969), is a community’s solution to a recurrent coordination
problem.
LEWIS DEFINITION:
A convention is:
1. a regularity r in behavior
2. partly arbitrary
3. that is common ground in a given community C
4. as a coordination device
5. for a recurrent coordination problems
MORE ON COORDINATION
p82 CONTINUOUS COORDINATION
periodic - waltzing, paddling a canoe (cadence or rhythm)
aperiodic - shaking hands, eating dinner together, helping each other
with coats
p83 PHASES, e.g., shaking hands:
1 extend hands 2 shake hands
3. withdraw hands
(2.1 grasp hands
2.2 pump hands
2.3 release hands)
p84 a phase is really a joint action with an entry, a body, and an exit
synchrony of action requires coordination on the entry and exit time to
each phase
p84 THREE MAIN COORDINATION STRATEGIES:
Cadence strategy: participants agree on 3 features
1. and entry time t
2. a duration d
3. for all participants I, the participatory action p(i) that I is to perform in d
*Entry strategy (e.g., shaking hands moving from extending to grasping)
coordinate on 2 features:
1. an entry time t
2. for all participants i, the participatory action p(i) that i is to perform in the phase
these conditions hold for many unbalanced aperiodic activities
most aperiodic activities have jointly salient entry times, e.g., playing catch p85
Boundary strategy (e.g. final phase of shaking hands) must coordinate on three features:
1. an entry time t
2. an exit time u
3. for all participants i, the participatory action p(i) that i is to perform in the phase
SYNCHRONY PRINCIPLE
p86 for all 3 strategies, synchrony is achieved by the participants projecting entry time and
participatory actions for each phase, synchrony principle
In joint action, the participants synchronize their processes mainly by coordinating on the entry
time and participatory actions for each new phase. (Entry Strategy)
** Put simply, joint actions are largely organized around entries and expected participatory
actions
COMMON GROUND
p 43 common ground
What accumulates in a joint activity is the common ground of the participants. For most
activities, the common ground at any moment divides into three parts:
1. initial common ground. This is the set of background facts, assumptions, and beliefs the
participants presupposed when they entered the joint activity.
2. current state of the joint activity: This is what the participants presuppose to be the state of the
activity at the moment
3. public events so far. These are the events the participants presuppose have occurred in public
leading up to the current state
CLARK’S DEFINITION OF COMMON GROUND:
For two people A and B, it is common ground that p iff;
1. A and B have information that some basis b holds;
2. b indicates to A and B that A and B have information that b holds;
3. b indicates to A and B that p;
This definition always includes a caveat that p is believed sufficient for the current purposes.
GROUNDING CRITERIA:
The contributor and his or her partners mutually believe that the partners have understood what
the contributor meant to a criterion sufficient for current purposes.
GROUNDING CHANGES WITH MEDIUM (p229)
Eight Constraints:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Copresense: a and b share the same physical environment
Visibility: A and B are visible to each other
Audibility: A and B communicate by speaking.
Cotemporality: B receives at roughly the same time as A produces.
Simultaneity: A and B can send and receive at once and simultaneously.
Sequentiality: A's and B's turns cannot get out of sequence.
Reviewability: B can review A's messages.
Revisability: A can revise messages for B.
COSTS OF GROUNDING: Formulation costs, production costs, reception costs, understanding costs,
start-up costs, delay costs, asynchrony costs, speaker change costs, display costs, fault costs,
repair costs
GROUNDING IN CONVERSATION
CONTRIBUTING TO A CONVERSATION HAS TWO PHASES (p224):
Presentation Phase: A presents utterance u for B to consider. He does so on the assumption that,
if B gives evidence e or stronger, he can believe that she understands what he mans by u.
Acceptance Phase: B accepts utterance u by giving evidence e that she believes she understands
what A means by u. She does so one the assumptions that, once A registers that evidence, he will
also believe that she understands.
Alan:
Barbara:
Alan:
Barbara:
Now, - um, do you and your husband have a j- car.
- have a car?
Yeah.
No -
presentation
acceptance
acceptance
acceptance
P224 Grounding becomes most evident in the acceptance phase. By the end of A's presentation
of some utterance u, the partner B may believe she is in one of these states for all or part of u:
State 0: B didn't notice that A uttered any u.
State 1:
B noticed that A uttered some u (but wasn't in state2)
State 2:
B correctly heard u (but wasn't in state 3)
State 3: B understood what A meant by U.
Barbara thinks she is in state 3 for the first part of Alan's presentation but in state 2 for the final
phrase.
EVIDENCE IN GROUNDING
Negative evidence: evidence that we have misheard or misunderstood.
Positive Evidence:
1. Acknowledgements (back-channel responses: uh huh, yeah, British m) (also assessments like
gosh, really, good God)
2. Initiation of relevant next turn (adjacency pairs: answer to question, response to request,
acceptance of invitation)
a. Did you know mother had been drinking - I don't think, mother had be drinking at all.
3. Continued Attention.
LEAST COLLABORATIVE EFFORT (p226)
In conversation, the participants try to minimize their collaborative effort --- the work that both
do from the initiation of each contribution to its mutual acceptance.
Speakers often realize that it will take more collaborative effort to design a proper utterance than
to design an improper utterance and enlist their addressees' help. Speakers, for example, can
present a provisional utterance and add try markers to ask for confirmation. They can present a
difficult utterance in installments and check for understanding after each installment. They can
invite addressees to complete an utterance they are having trouble with. …