Discourse op Dinsdag

Date & time: December 15; 15:30-17:00

Location: Utrecht University, Janskerkhof 13, Room 0.06

Arie Verhagen

Leiden University

Intersubjectivity, Subjectivity, and Common Ground

Abstract

In this talk I will explore conceptual connections between the notions of Intersubjectivity as developed in Verhagen (2005, 2007; see also http://www.arieverhagen.nl/Documenten/CoI.html) and some other, related notions, especially Common Ground (cf. Clark 1996), in an attempt to clarify what is special about the grammatical phenomena that I labelled “constructions of intersubjectivity”. An important motivation for such an attempt at clarification is the fact that the term “intersubjectivity” is used in the literature in relation to phenomena (e.g. deixis), that I would not (without further argumentation) consider as linguistically involving intersubjectivity, despite the fact that “mutually shared information” somehow does play a role in their conventional meaning. The discussion will result in a proposal that constructions of subjectivity and of intersubjectivity can sensibly be said to profile and manage different aspects of the common ground in different ways.

References

Clark, Herbert H. (1996), Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Verhagen, Arie (2008), Intersubjectivity and the architecture of the language system. In: Jordan Zlatev, Timothy P. Racine, Chris Sinha, Esa Itkonen (eds.), The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 307-331.

Verhagen, Arie (2005), Constructions of Intersubjectivity. Discourse, Syntax, and Cognition.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.