13 July 2009
Snake in the Grass
Posted by bsypniewski under: surroundings .
Snake in the grassThis paper, which has been published in Language, Communication and Social Environment, Issue 6, Voronezh State University, 2008 and in a slightly reduced version in the fall 2009 edition of Respectus Philologicus (web site), is a thought experiment. The purpose of the thought experiment is to further explore the effects of the surroundings on communicative behavior. The experiment consists of three linkages (field, street, and warehouse). There are two two participants in each linkage who are the same (Able and Baker) and one additional individual (Charlie) in the street linkage who does not participate in any communicative behavior. There is one sentence uttered by Able to Baker: ‘Look! There is a snake in the grass.’ while pointing at an actual snake (in the field linkage), Charlie (in the street linkage) or nothing (in the warehouse linkage).
The experiment postulates the effect of the surroundings on Baker’s understanding of Able’s statement. Professor Coleman has pointed out that the paper can also be read as a paper on vagueness and ambiguity. Frankly, I had not seen that when I wrote the paper but his observation is correct. Discussions of vagueness and ambiguity “fell out” of research on another topic.
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2008. Snake in the Grass. Language, Communication and Social Environment, Issue 6, Voronezh State University, 2008 Click here for the PDF: snake.pdf