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International Conference
The Communication of Certainty and Uncertainty
Linguistic, Psychological, Philosophical Aspects

3rd-5th October 2012


Organized by
University of Macerata, Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism

In collaboration with
University of Verona, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and University of
Wrzburg, Department of English Linguistics

Under the auspices of
University of Verona, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures


President:

Prof. Andrzej Zuczkowski
(University of Macerata, Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism)


Co-Presidents

Prof. Sibilla Cantarini
(University of Verona, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures)

Prof. Anita Fetzer
(University of Wrzburg, Department of English Linguistics)


Organizing Committee

Andrzej Zuczkowski, Ilaria Riccioni, Ramona Bongelli, Carla Canestrari
(Research Centre for Psychology of Communication, University of Macerata).

Sibilla Cantarini
(University of Verona)

Anita Fetzer
(University of Wrzburg)

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Welcome !

On behalf of the Universities of Macerata, Verona and Wrzburg, it is a great pleasure to welcome
you as a participant at the Conference The Communication of Certainty and Uncertainty:
Linguistic, Psychological, Philosophical Aspects. We are very pleased about the large number of
excellent responses to the Call for Papers. Thank you for your interest and for making the journey to
Macerata! We sincerely hope that all the authors of the contributed papers get value from the event.

It is a great joy and privilege to welcome our invited plenary speakers as well: Professor Elisabeth
Leiss (Ludwig-Maximilians University of Mnchen - Germany), Professor Werner Abraham
(University of Wien - Austria & Ludwig-Maximilians University of Mnchen - Germany),
Professor Jan Nuyts (University of Antwerp - Belgium). We are delighted that they also agreed to
be chairpersons in the sessions. Our sincerest thanks also go out to the other colleagues who
accepted to have this role.

This is a truly international event, with over 150 speakers from around 40 different countries and 5
continents, and is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. The numerous parallel sessions in
English fall into 20 different topics, and we also have 3 sessions in Italian, German and French.

At the same time, the theme of the conference the communication of certainty and uncertainty
pulls together the wealth of topics to be discussed into a coherent whole. We are promised fruitful
discussion in all the sessions and hope that the conference proves a fertile ground for new
collaborations to be forged between complementary areas.

Once again, a very warm welcome to one and all! We hope that you really enjoy your time with us.





The Organizing Committee

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CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
____________________________________________________________________
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Wednesday 3rd October


8,00-9,00
HALL

REGISTRATION
(Also Tuesday 2nd October 17,00 -19,30)


9,00-10,00
AULA BLU

CONFERENCE OPENING AND PRESENTATION

Welcome by Prof. Michele Corsi, Dean of the Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism and by the Convenors

Jnos Sndor Petfi, Andrzej Zuczkowski, Ramona Bongelli: Conference origins and aims

SESSIONS
AULA VIOLA
SESSIONS
AULA ROSSA
SESSIONS
AULA GIALLA
SESSIONS
AULA BLU
CHAIRPERSONS Leonor Scliar-Cabral Gill Philip Alessandro Antonietti Agns Celle




10,00





10,30
RELIGION



Salvato Lucia Amelia,
The communication of
certainty and uncertainty
within Gospel dialogues


Scardigno Rosa, Mininni
Giuseppe, Rhetorics of
(un)certainty in religious
discourse
SPECIFIC LANGUAGES



Marsili Neri, The
concealment of certainty and
uncertainty in assertions



Colella Gianluca, Riccioni
Ilaria, Canestrari Carla,
Bongelli Ramona,
Zuczkowski Andrzej,
Come se [As if]: evidential
and epistemic aspects
MEDIA



Pellegrino Elisa, Salvati Luisa, The
expression of certainty and
uncertainty in social communication
campaigns


Giancaspro Maria Luisa, Manuti
Amelia, Talking about us: hedges as
uncertainty markers in
organizational discourse
FRENCH SESSION
(oral communications in
French) [LITERATURE]

Degani Salah, The stakes of
the communication through
the sets of the certainty and
the uncertainty in the written
dialogue

Goga Yvonne, Paul
Guimard, entre humour et
ironie
11,00-11,30 coffee break
CHAIRPERSONS Giuseppe Mininni Elisabeth Leiss Liliana Ionescu-Ruxndoiu Alexandrina Mustatea


MUSIC

SPECIFIC LANGUAGES

MEDIA

FRENCH SESSION
(oral communications in
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11,30




12,00




12,30



Caterina Roberto, Incasa
Iolanda, Certainty and doubt
in musical expressions


Curinga Luisa, Mu es
sein? Es mu sein!.
Certainty and uncertainty in
Music

Heimonen Panu, Dialogue
in Beethovens An die Ferne
Geliebte: epistemic
perspectives on
communication


Harmes Ingeborg, Should I?
A linguistic analysis of the
Dutch auxiliary zou


Helmer Henrike, Reineke
Silke, Coding (un)certainty:
displaying epistemic stance
by glauben and wissen




Clark Caroline, Acknowledging
knowledge in media discourse: a
study of evidentiality


El Saj Hala, Discourse Analysis of
mood structures in Oprah Winfrey
Show


Meier Simon, Hauser Stefan,
Formulaic authentication of self-
assessments in German media
interviews
French) [LITERATURE]

Mitu Mihaela, The
representation of
(un)certainty in Robinsons
Universe of Beliefs

Mustatea Alexandrina,
Panglosss Certainties



Zarnescu Crina-
Magdalena, The drama of
modern consciousness
between knowledge and truth

13,00-14,00 lunch

14,00-15,00
AULA BLU

PLENARY SESSION
Elisabeth Leiss, Modes of modality in an Un-Cartesian framework
chairwoman: Anita Fetzer

CHAIRPERSONS Ilaria Riccioni Isabella Poggi Mihaela-Viorica Constantinescu Thierry Herman




15,00






15,30
LAW



Ponterotto Diane, Hedging
in rape trial discourse





Mininni Giuseppe,
Scardigno Rosa,
MULTIMODALITY



Diana Barbara, Zurloni
Valentino, Elia
Massimiliano, Unmasking
prepared lies: a recurrent
temporal pattern detection
approach

Wollermann Charlotte,
Schrder Bernhard, Schade
MEDIA



Antonietti Alessandro, Cantoia
Manuela, Knowledge uncertainty:
how epistemological beliefs are
influenced by communication
technology


Scliar-Cabral Ethel Jane, Scliar-
Cabral Leonor, KONY 2012, from
FRENCH SESSION
(oral communications in
French)

Lorda Clara Ubaldina,
Miche Elisabeth,
Probability and certainty
markers in French and in
Spanish


Salinas Agns, Avram
Carmen, Psycholinguistics
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Grattagliano Ignazio,
It must be so. The dialogic
construction of (un)certainty
in legal contexts
Ulrich, Audiovisual prosody
of uncertainty: an overview
certainty into uncertainty


management of uncertainty
in the co-construction of the
communication
16,00-16,30 coffee break
CHAIRPERSONS Diane Ponterotto Carla Canestrari Giolo Fele Yvonne Goga




16,30






17,00






17,30





18,00

LAW



Motta Monte-Serrat
Dionia,
Verdiani Tfouni Leda,
Equality as sense effect and
uncertainties of the legal
discourse

Salas Camillia, Deschenaux
Amlie, Towards a
crystallization of the events
certainty: Formal
Testimony in the courtroom


MULTIMODALITY



Maglie Rosita Belinda, For
the sake of appearances: the
multimodal communication
of (un)certainties in fashion
advertising


Poggi Isabella, Vincze
Laura,
DErrico Francesca,
Multimodal communication
of precision and vagueness


Ricci Bitti Pio E.,
Bonfiglioli Luisa, Melani
Paolo, Caterina Roberto,
Garotti Pier Luigi, Facial
expression of doubt

Savino Michelina, Matera
Grazia, Mininni Giuseppe,
Perceiving speakers (degree
of) certainty in spoken
discourse: the role of
intonation
COMMUNICATIVE
INTERACTION


Judge Kate, Epistemic uncertainty
and the syntax of speech acts





Smith Sara, Jucker Andreas,
Maybe, but probably not:
negotiating likelihood and
perspective



Caronia Letizia, What if uncertainty
is the data? Pursuing statement-like
responses as an epistemic resources
in research interviews


Davitti Elena, Exploring shifts in the
communication of certainty and
uncertainty via upgrading renditions
in dialogue interpreting

FRENCH SESSION
(oral communications in
French)

Mohamed Allayl, Ludwig
Wittgenstein. The persuasive
view




Jaouad Zerrad, Nonverbal
communication in
professional perspective: the
case of managers



Mougenot Lucie, Learning
motor communication at
school: the communication of
certainty and uncertainty.
Example in team sport

Sebkhi Habiba, The modal
operators in the fantasy
genre: an empty shell?
18,45 -19,45 RECTOR AND MAYOR WELCOME AND DRINKS RECEPTION
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Thursday 4th October


9,00-10,00
AULA BLU

PLENARY SESSION
Jan Nuyts, Notions of subjectivity
chairman: Andrzej Zuczkowski

SESSIONS
AULA VIOLA
SESSIONS
AULA ROSSA
SESSIONS
AULA GIALLA
SESSIONS
AULA BLU
CHAIRPERSONS Paola Nicolini Christoph Schubert Rafael Jimnez Catao Norbert Dittmar




10,00






10,30
THEORY OF MIND



De Iaco Moira, The certainty of the
Ego, the doubt about the Other





Passanisi Alessia, Di Nuovo Santo,
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and
pragmatic impairments

POLITICS



Ionescu-Ruxndoiu
Liliana, Strategic uses of
certainty and uncertainty in
a political debate



Constantinescu Mihaela-
Viorica, Conveying
certainty and uncertainty in
the Romanian
parliamentary debates
ITALIAN SESSION
(oral communications in
Italian)

Massimi Marina,
Persuasive communication
and construction of
certainty in colonial Brazil



Croce Michel, Subjective
certainty, testimony and
knowledge: ordinary
context and philosophical
context
GERMAN SESSION
(oral communications in German)


Bucciarelli Paola, Berthold
Christine, Zuczkowski Andrzej,
Cantarini Sibilla, Uncertainty
linguistic markers in a corpus of
biomedical articles in German
language

Cavagnoli Stefania, The language
of the law as expression of power
11,00-11,30 coffee break
CHAIRPERSONS Roberto Caterina Anita Fetzer Klaus Hlker Sibilla Cantarini



11,30


HUMOUR


Stame Stefania, Whats
conversational humor got to do with
humor?
POLITICS


Reber Elisabeth, Obama
said it. Quotations as
evidentials in online
SPECIFIC
LANGUAGES

Janssens Karolien, Nuyts
Jan, The diachrony of the
Dutch idiom me dunkt me
GERMAN SESSION
(oral communications in German)

Hoffmann Sabine, Measuring
something that cannot be grasped.
Reflections about spoken competence
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12,00





12,30


Fleury Arnaud, The paradox of the
rain and the weather




Matsuoka Rieko, Smith Ian,
Linguistic relativity and universality
of zero-pronouns in rakugo
translation
comments

Roibu Melania, Uta
Oana, Discursive
un/certainty aimed at
manipulating opinions. A
case study

tefnescu Ariadna,
Forms and strategies of
political discourse
evidentials

thinks

Kaiser Anna, Cognitive
verbs at the interface of
epistemic modality and
evidentiality


Kleiber Judit, Alberti
Gbor, Uncertainty in
polar questions and
certainty in answers?


Dittmar Norbert, Parentheses
commenting discourse segments:
epistemic meaning and interactive
function
13,00-14,00 lunch

14,00-15,00
AULA BLU

POSTER SESSION
(see poster titles and author names on page 14)

CHAIRPERSONS Pietro Boscolo Elisabeth Reber Bruce Fraser Marina Mizzau



15,00







15,30

SCIENTIFIC WRITING


Buldorini Cinzia, Bongelli
Ramona, Riccioni Ilaria,
Canestrari Carla, Pietrobon
Ricardo, Zuczkowski Andrzej, A
corpus of biomedical texts annotated
for uncertainty with a historical
perspective

Oliver del Olmo Sonia, Certainty
and uncertainty across disciplines
and languages in book reviews

POLITICS


Sandvik Margareth, The
epistemicity of broken
promises in political
discourse




Schubert Christoph,
Evidentiality in White
House Press briefings: a
discourse-analytical
approach
SPECIFIC
LANGUAGES

Fetzer Anita,
Evidentiality in context - or
how to import evidence
into (English) discourse




Hlker Klaus, Knowledge,
belief, certainty, and
Indirect interrogatives in a
pragmatic capacity

ITALIAN SESSION
(oral communications in Italian)

Molteni Marzia, Sbattella Fabio,
Tettamanzi Marilena Social
emergency representations





Franchi Maura, Between truth and
truthfulness. Certainty and
uncertainty in the language of social
networks

16,00-16,30 coffee break
CHAIRPERSONS Werner Abraham Maria Pietronilla Penna Jan Nuyts Stefania Stame
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16,30





17,00





17,30










18,00
SCIENTIFIC WRITING


Pinto Maria da Graa, Osrio
Paulo,
Martins Fernanda, A contribution
to tackling certainty and uncertainty
in science

Tarantino Maria,
Ethnopragmatic/axiological
meaning strands in the modals of
scientific texts


Pic Elsa, Furmaniak Gregory,
Questioning certainty: a case-study
of modalised wh- questions








Romelli Katia, Frigerio
Alessandra,
Colombo Monica Giancarla
Roberta, Constructing certainty
through authoritativeness in
psychiatric discourse: an analysis
of DSM over time
LITERATURE


Dirtu Evagrina, The
unlikely sure thing in
magical realist fiction



Chiaretti Paula, Verdiani
Tfouni Leda, Syntax and
Pcheuxs 2nd illusion: an
analysis of self-help books
discursive generics

Philip Gill, Bongelli
Ramona,
Canestrari Carla, Riccioni
Ilaria, Zuczkowski
Andrzej,
Introducing, reinforcing
and mitigating Known,
Unknown and Believed in
Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows

Sharma Sandeep,
Certainly uncertain:
metaphorical meaning in R
K Naryans The Guide
COMMUNICATIVE
INTERACTION

Alberti Gbor, Kleiber
Judit, Ideal and deviant
Interlocutors in a formal
interpretation system


Fraser Bruce, Mediation
and the uncertainty of
meaning



Fele Giolo, Requesting
help with null or limited
knowledge: entitlements
and responsibility in
emergency calls






Gao Yanmei, Negotiating
certainty in post-to-post
communication

ITALIAN SESSION
(oral communications in Italian)

Gianfreda Gabriele, Volterra
Virginia, Zuczkowski Andrzej,
Expression of uncertainty in Italian
Sign Language (LIS)


Mizzau Marina, Markers of
uncertainty in novel




Machetti Sabrina, Vagueness,
uncertainty, certainty. Reflections on
native and non-native speakers








Jimnez Catao Rafael, The scale
certain/uncertain in the politeness
polarity clear/delicate

18,30-19,30 NETWORKING TIME


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Friday 5th October


9,00-10,00
AULA BLU

PLENARY SESSION
Werner Abraham, (Inter)Subjectification or foreign consciousness / Others mind alignment as synchronic and diachronic concepts of
change? Conceptualizations and data fidelity

chairman: Vincenzo Lo Cascio

SESSION
AULA VIOLA
SESSION
AULA ROSSA
SESSION
AULA GIALLO
SESSION
AULA BLU
CHAIRPERS
ONS
Jrg Meibauer Maria Tarantino Etsuko Oishi Jac Conradie



10,00





10,30

DECISION MAKING


Matveeva Ekaterina,
Possibility and
uncertainty in young
people's decision
making

Nyan Thanh,
Certainty,
argumentation, and
decision making
INTERACTION AT SCHOOL


Barros-Martnez Juan
Fernando, Interaction in the
classroom in a science learning
process


Nicolini Paola, When uncertainty
is a value: the case of observation
processes in Developmental and
Educational Psychology

SPECIFIC LANGUAGES


Pandarova Irina, Epistemic
adverbs and pragmatic variation
across varieties of English



Philip Gill, Knowing and not
knowing: expressing (un)certainty in
the Italian subjunctive
SECOND LANGUAGE AND
CONTRASTIVE STUDIES

Artese Marina, Decision making in
Italian L2 university class
interactions



Kawate-Mierzejewska Megumi,
The concept of complaints in
Japanese and English
11,00-11,30 coffee break
CHAIRPERS
ONS
Ramona Bongelli Amelia Manuti Franca Orletti Yanmei Gao



(UN)CERTAINTY
ACROSS AGE

INTERACTION AT SCHOOL


COMMUNICATIVE
INTERACTION

SECOND LANGUAGE AND
CONTRASTIVE STUDIES

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11,30






12,00






12,30

Barbieri Maria Silvia,
The expression of
certainty/uncertainty in
Italian speaking
children


Nicolini Paola,
Cherubini Luisa,
Awareness of self
through the analysis of
cognitive verbs: a study
on teens self report

Muntigl Peter, Hoedl
Stephanie, Ransmayr
Gerhard, Managing
insufficient knowledge
with frontotemporal
dementia

Frster Rosalie, Expressing
certainty and uncertainty in
parent-teacher conferences.
Effects on legitimacy and role
fulfillment


Tumino Raffaele, Do not be
seduced by words. A reading on
the educational values of
"certainty" and "uncertainty" in
the human formation


Castillejos Lpez Willelmira,
Linguistic insecurity of higher
education students

Meibauer Jrg, Bullshitting and
the certainty/uncertainty dimension





Paul Christine, The epistemic and
the functional side of retrospective
utterances





Salvati Luisa, Persuasion pragmatic
strategies in L1/L2 Italian
argumentative speech




Slootmaekers An, To what extent
non-linguistic features create
uncertainty when constructing the
meaning of an oral discussion in a
foreign language?



Ahlsn Elisabeth, Allwood Jens,
DErrico Francesca, Poggi
Isabella, Vincze Laura,
Intercultural differences in the
lexicon of vagueness and
approximation

13,00-14,00 lunch
CHAIRPERS
ONS
Vincenzo Lo Cascio Renata Galatolo Flavia Stara Stefania Cavagnoli




14,00






14,30
ACADEMIC/INSTIT
UTIONAL
DISCOURSE

Klein Gabriella B.,
Dossou Koffi M.,
Pasquandrea Sergio,
Embodying epistemicity:
the role of objects in
institutional interaction

Boscolo Pietro,
DOCTOR-PATIENT
INTERACTION


Baruzzo Mattia, Alby Francesca,
Zucchermaglio Cristina
Decisional practices in medicine
between polyphonic narratives and
small talks


Fatigante Marilena, Orletti
PHILOSOPHY



Boncompagni Anna, On trying to
say what goes without saying





Chiffi Daniele, A pragmatic
SECOND LANGUAGE AND
CONTRASTIVE STUDIES


Celle Agns, Lansari Laure,
Uncertainty as a result of
unexpectedness




Conradie Jac, From adverbs of
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15,00







15,30


References in academic
discourse as a means of
constructing/communica
ting certainty

Emeksiz Zeynep Erk,
Turan Umit Deniz,
Uzun Glsn Leyla,
Epistemic stance
markers and certainty in
Turkish academic
discourse

Velea Adina, Linguistic
formulations of
(un)certainty in
Romanian meeting talk

Franca, Bafaro Saverio, Giving
advice to pregnant patients:
strategic uses of certainty/
uncertainty

Pasquandrea Sergio, Negotiated
epistemicity: assessments in
interpreter-mediated healthcare
interaction




Gavioli Laura, Baraldi Claudio,
Doctors questions and uncertainty
in healthcare interpreter-mediated
interaction

framework for hypothetical
reasoning in decision making



Gili Luca, Aristotle and Alexander
on the truth of temporal modal
sentences





Verducci Daniela, The certainty of
being alive. A transcendental
condition of communication?
time to modals of certainty and
uncertainty



Torrent Aina, Evidentiality,
subjectivity and
grammaticalisation: Spanish idioms
and their German translation




Fu Tzu-Keng, On Translation of
linguistic-dependent institutional
facts
16,00-16,30 coffee break
CHAIRPERS
ONS
Jens Allwood Marilena Fatigante Francesco Orilia Sara Smith



16,30






17,00





ARGUMENTATION
AND PERSUASION

Lo Cascio Vincenzo,
Counter-argumentation
and modality




De Conti Manuele,
Undermining absolute
certainty in debate
contexts


DOCTOR-PATIENT
INTERACTION

Galatolo Renata, Margutti Piera,
Cirillo Letizia, The co-
construction of the observable and
the evaluation activity in specialist
visits conducted by a team of
practitioners

Pino Marco, Epistemic struggles:
how knowledge distribution matters
in healthcare interactions



PHILOSOPHY


Laktionova Anna, Certainty and
knowledge





Penna Maria Pietronilla, Agus
Mirian, Per-Cebollero Maribel,
Gurdia-Olmos Joan, Pessa
Eliano, The application of graphical
representations in estimation of
probabilistic events
SPECIFIC LANGUAGES


Oishi Etsuko, Evidentials in
discourse





Schrickx Josine, Latin
commitment-markers




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17,30




18,00





18,30






Dufour Michel, The use
of explanation as a mark
of certainty in
argumentative dialog

Hutton Nancy,
Certainty/Uncertainty:
womens persuasive
strategies regarding the
Woman Question

Herman Thierry,
From arguments
appealing to authority
to authoritarian
assertions



Ticca Anna Claudia, Decision
making in the medical consultation:
an interactional approach


Plastina Anna Franca, Del
Vecchio Fabrizia, Diagnostic news
delivery: a micro-analysis of the
use of shields


Muntigl Peter, Horvath Adam,
Negotiating epistemic stance in
family therapy

Stara Flavia, Phenomenology of
certainty and belief. Reading
William James


Russo Luca, Uncertainty and
underdetermination of indexical
terms: an inferential approach



Bailin Sharon, Battersby Mark,
Argumentation, warranted judgment
and the communication of
certainty/uncertainty

Topka Larisa V., Uncertainty:
pragma-semantic aspect of
research


Turan mit Deniz, Certainty
adverbs and evidential perfectives
in Turkish




19,00-19,30
AULA BLU

CONFERENCE CLOSE



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POSTERS

Canestrari Carla, Dionigi Alberto, Zuczkowski Andrzej, Humor comprehension and knowledge. What is the relationship between them?

Cantarini Sibilla, The expression of certainty/uncertainty and the attenuated use of negation in Italian and German interrogative constructions

Fiuk Ewa, From epistemic to pragmatic? The meaning evolution of the Dutch adverb misschien (maybe)

Majmutova Saniya, Acquisition of Russian grammar cases by Spanish-speaking students

Pavy Adriana Isabel, Ziegler Mnica Beatriz, Teacher learners beliefs about certainty and uncertainty in communication

Polenta Stefano, Certainty and Uncertainty in pedagogical counselling

Riccioni Ilaria, Lo Bue Silvia, Bongelli Ramona, Zuczkowski Andrzej, Uncertainty and hedging in troubles talk situations: the giving advice activity

Scopesi Alda Maria, Rosso Anna Maria, Viterbori Paola, Panchieri Erika, Mental vocabulary and markers of uncertainty in childhood and preadolescence

Sievers Miriam, Uncertainty in a conditioned world. Certainty in the unconditional

Verdiani Tfouni Leda, Carvalho Pereira Anderson, Salvador Mosca Lineide, The uncertainty of saying and otherness: uses of epistemic modality

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ABSTRACTS
________________________________________________________________________________


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PLENARY SESSIONS
________________________________________________


Abraham Werner, University of Wien (Austria) & Ludwig-Maximilians University of Mnchen
(Germany), werner.abraham@lmu.de

(Inter)Subjectification or foreign consciousness / Others mind alignment as
synchronic and diachronic concepts of change? Conceptualizations and data
fidelity

The concepts of (Inter)Subjectification / (I)S and of Theory of Mind / ToM or Foreign Consciousness
Alignment / FCA (or Others Mind Alignment) are contrasted and evaluated with respect to their potential of
descriptive adequacy and explanative efficiency in synchronic and diachronic linguistic change and their
methodological grounding. (I)S plays a determining role in the cognitively grounded theories developed by
Lang acker and Traugott in describing and explaining linguistic change both in synchrony and diachrony:
e.g. to explain processes of me taphorization or the emergence of epistemic meaning from prior full verb
status and root meanings of modal verbs. The concept of ToM / FCA was developed within child psychology
and has recently been employed to grasp processes of modalization as the creation of Common ground
between Speaker and Hearer (Abraham 2009, Leiss 2009; Abraham & Leiss 2011) and their diverse possible
world anchors. In essence, FCA simply bundles several linguistic categories and techniques based on
insights developed by Bhler, Peirce, Jakobson, Sperber &Wilson, and modern ToM work to get aligned
with problems of mood and modalization. After presenting definitions and sample illustrations the
conclusion is drawn that FCA handles cases of description and explanation in processes of epistemization
and, more generally, modalization far better than assumed by proponents of (I)S and simple Speaker
orientation (Narrog) in contexts described by modern theories of rhetoric, dialogue and discourse sciences.
FCA establishes links to the semantics of possible worlds and the wide field of hedging all sorts of categories
(not only in terms of mood and modalization, but also polarity mechanisms and indefinite pronominals
(veridicality) it is, thus, anchored solidly in methodologically well calibrated areas of modern linguistic and
psychological research allowing for direct links to syntax, semantics, and a systemic ally analytic pragmatics.



Leiss Elisabeth, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Mnchen (Germany), elisabeth.leiss@lmu.de

Modes of modality in an Un-Cartesian framework

The central aim is to show that Certainty as encoded by the linguistic means of epistemicity and evidentiality
differs in essential ways form Certainty in metalinguistic terms (Objectivity). The talk starts with a
presentation of the epistemic and evidential functions of the modal verbs in German. In fully
grammaticalized modal verb systems such as in German, we find that the speaker is split up into Source (of
evidence) and Assessment (of evidence).

Table 1: Three sources of evidence in epistemic modal verbs in German
muss Source: locutionary subject (Eigenbewusstsein ones own consciousness): internal source
Certainty: high
will Source: propositional subject (Fremdbewusstsein foreign consciousness): external source
Certainty: low
soll Source: illocutionary subject (intersubjective consciousness): external source
Certainty: medium

In declaratives that are modalized by the epistemic/evidential use of modal verbs, utmost Certainty is
achieved whenever the speakers mind is the source of evidence. In other words, Certainty is attributed to an
17

internal source, not to external sources. Summing up the linguistic means of encoding certainty, we have to
state the paradox that the more subjectivity is involved, the more Certainty is achieved. In the words of
Carnap, the speaker relies on his Eigenbewusstsein more than on any other source. This differs completely
from metalinguistic modeling of Certainty as proposed by Karl Popper or Donald Davidson. They maintain
that Certainty cannot be based on subjectivity. Certainty can be achieved only by negotiating continually the
views of different speakers in order to achieve (more and more) objectivity. How can this clash between the
linguistic means of encoding Certainty (via a maximum of Subjectivity) and the metalinguistic view of how
to achieve Certainty (via a maximum of Objectivity) be resolved? Is language a means to misguide speakers
and hearers in serious ways when it comes to understand each other as well as the world in which we live?
There is a way out of this dilemma when we take into account the difference between experience and
knowledge. Epistemicity and evidentiality, as encoded by linguistic means, are based on experience. The
inferences made by the speaker are based on his experiences, which are located in place and time.
Experiences are processed by a specific component of Long Term Memory (LTM) the Episodic Memory.
The very difference to objectivity is that the latter is based on knowledge. The very characteristic of
knowledge is that it has no time-place-index. In contrast to experience, knowledge is processed by Semantic
Memory, another component of LTM. How can we link these different means of assessment of the truth of
statements? We propose that there is a bridge between subjective certainty and objective certainty. It
consists of the linguistic means of negotiating common ground as, for instance, by modal particles in
German or their functional equivalents in other languages. This means that Certainty as well as Objectivity
are based on linguistic techniques. The human language offers a technique that transforms unquestioned
individual experience (Certainty) into knowledge (Objectivity). This technique is transitive modalization, a
notion introduced by Abraham (see Abraham/Leiss (2012:18 and 47).



Nuyts Jan, University of Antwerp (Belgium), jan.nuyts@ua.ac.be

Notions of subjectivity

In this conceptual talk I will try to further clarify and elaborate the notion of (inter)subjectivity proposed in,
e.g., Nuyts (2001a, b). This notion has been introduced in the context of an analysis of modal categories, and
is defined in terms of whether the speaker presents an assessment (e.g. a deontic or epistemic one) of a state
of affairs as being exclusively his/her own (i.e., the speaker assumes strictly personal responsibility for it;
subjectivity), or whether (s)he presents the assessment as being accepted by a wider group of people (i.e., the
speaker shares the responsibility for the assessment with others), possibly including the hearer
(intersubjectivity). Part of the talk will be devoted to explicating some aspects of the notion which have
remained vague so far, and to correcting some unfortunate elements in the original presentation. Most
notably, it will correct the original assumption that this would involve an evidential category. But the major
part of the talk will be devoted to clarifying this notions relation to two other notions of subjectivity
prominently present in current cognitive and functional semantics, viz. the notion underlying Traugotts
(2010, Traugott and Dasher 2002) concepts of (diachronic) subjectification and intersubjectification, and
Langackers notion of subjectivity vs. objectivity (or subjective vs. objective construal; Langacker 1990,
1999). There have been several attempts in the literature to bring any two or even all three of these notions to
bear on each other (including by Langacker and Traugott themselves), and this is sometimes accompanied by
the suggestion that they (or some of them) might basically concern the same phenomena. In fact, one
sometimes even notices a tendency to use these different notions interchangeably. I will argue that these
different notions are not interchangeable at all. They do not constitute alternative (be it mutually compatible
or incompatible) construals of the same phenomenon, they refer to really different, even if not entirely
unrelated, phenomena (hence the fact that they are denoted by the same terms is a somewhat unfortunate
coincidence), and they each deserve their own place in a conceptual and/or linguistic semantic theory. The
differences and relations between the three notions will be clarified by situating them in, or relating them to,
a conceptual (semantic) model of the structure of states of affairs and the system of qualifications of them
(the hierarchical/layered model of qualificational or tense-aspect-modality categories; cf. Nuyts 2001a).
18

ORAL COMMUNICATIONS and POSTERS
_____________________________________________________


Ahlsn Elisabeth, University of Gteborg (Sweden), eliza@ling.gu.se
Allwood Jens, University of Gteborg (Sweden), jens@ling.gu.se
DErrico Francesca, University of Roma 3 (Italy), fderrico@uniroma3.it
Poggi Isabella, University of Roma 3 (Italy), poggi@uniroma3.it
Vincze Laura, University of Roma 3 (Italy), laura.vincze@gmail.com

Intercultural differences in the lexicon of vagueness and approximation

When we provide information to others, we often also inform about the epistemic status of the information
conveyed: if we are precise or vague, generic or specific, exact or approximate. On the cognitive side(Poggi
& Vincze 2011), precision may be characterized as providing sufficient information to distinguish the
aspects of a topic from each other, vagueness as the opposite of this, while approximation as a lack of
specificity in the field of quantity or intensity. Specificity usually involves set inclusion, e.g. dachshound is
more specific than dog and the set of dogs includes the set of dachshounds. The vague-precise dimension
may be opposed to the generic-specific one, the former being a matter of exact description, the latter of exact
classification. So, if what we say is below the expected level of specificity or precision, in some way
violating the Gricean norms of quality or quantity, we may communicate this by conveying I am being
vague, this is an approximation, or I am speaking in general through verbal or body signals: words,
gestures, gaze, facial expressions. Our work presents a comparative lexical analysis of the words and idioms
that convey this kind of information in Italian, Romanian and Swedish, focusing on the semantic areas of
vagueness and approximation. For all three languages, based on our semantic intuition, we first listed a set of
words and idioms in these areas. Then we collected all the occurrences of the listed verbal items in
transcriptions of speech corpora anddescribed their meaning in those contexts. We first investigated the
relative frequency of the various types of words: those for approximation (Italian circa, quasi, pi o meno,
intorno a..., attorno a...., grosso modo, approssimativamente, o gi di l, suppergi, pressappoco; Romanian
aproximativ, mai mult sau mai putin, cam, cam pe-acolo, in jur de, circa, Swedish circa, ungefr, typ, i
storleksordningen, runt, I stort) , and those for vagueness or unspecificity (Italian vago, vagamente, a grandi
linee, tipo, per sommi capi; Romanian vag, in linii mari, de genul, Swedish typ, liknande, ngon, ngot,
ungefr). An interesting category in this domain are some words and idioms like Italian per cos dire, per
farla breve, fra virgolette, insomma, praticamente; Romanian in fine, in sfarsit, ca sa spunem asa, practice,
Swedish praktiskt taget), partly corresponding to Lakoffs (1975) hedges, that have a self-justifying
function: e.g.,by saying fra virgolette (=quotes), the Speaker lowers his responsibility for what he is saying,
and anticipates a self-justification for his imprecision, communicating: I do not completely commit myself
to what I say, but, though I know this is not exactly so, exactness concerning this topic is not relevant here.
Some theoretical questions we are interested in are: (i) the extent to which it is possible to differentiate
vagueness, specificity, hesitation and uncertainty in discourse. (ii) the extent to which the semantic fields for
the examined concepts are different in the three languages.



Alberti Gbor, alberti.gabor@pte.hu
Kleiber Judit, kleiber.judit@pte.hu
University of Pcs (Hungary)

Ideal and deviant interlocutors in a formal interpretation system

In a conversation, the participants ideal information states can be specified at any point: their knowledge
(about the world and each other), beliefs (with different certainty degrees), desires, intentions, etc.; which
can serve as a basis for various possible deviations from these standards. Present paper discusses a number of
19

verbs which express particular deviations. The analysis is presented in a formal interpretation system (called
eALIS), which allows us to demonstrate how these meanings emerge by changing only a single parameter.
Let us consider a simple assertion: Mary is at home. The ideal speakers initial information state (
s
0
)
encodes that he knows (has maximum belief) that eventuality e (Mary is at home) is true. In the formal
approach of eALIS this knowledge is represented as a worldlet (inside the speakers mind) which
contains e, and has the following label: BEL,max,s,,+, where the first value is a modality parameter
(belief in this case), max shows its intensity (certainty), s stands for speaker (direct host), is a time
parameter, and + is the value of polarity (
1
) (two further parameters, style and sentiment, are currently
irrelevant). The ideal interpreters initial information state (
i
0
) reveals that she does not know if e is true
(=0), and that she desires to acquire the information (0 means + or ):
i
0
={BEL,max,i,,0,
DES,great,i,,+BEL,max,i,,0}. In the next level of representation the interlocutors information
states contain assumptions about their conversation partners internal world. The speaker intends to let the
interpreter know that e is true, and also, he has a somewhat less certain belief about the hearers initial
information state:

s
1
={INT,max,s,,(
2
=)+BEL,max,i,,+}{BEL,great,s,,+}
i
0
(: Cartesian product,
which generates ordered pairs with first elements from the first set, and second elements from the second
set). Similarly, the interpreters information state can be described as follows:

i
1
={BEL,great,i,,+}(
s
1

s
0
). Generally, the n
th
level of representation can be calculated on the
basis of these formulas via simultaneous recursion:
s
n
={BEL,1/n,s,,+}
i
n-1
and

i
n
={BEL,1/n,i,,+}
s
n-1
. The intensity (certainty level) of these beliefs correlates with the depth of
the recursion (1/n). In actual conversations, participants rarely need n>2; however, if required, any depth can
be evoked. A union of these sets constitutes the interlocutors information states. The table above presents a
few possible deviations from the ideal case (from the speakers point of view), which can be captured by
changing the value of one or more polarity parameters (
3
is is desire-parameter in
s
1
).

Polarity
change
Explanation (meaning) Verb
(noun)

1
= s knows that e is false lie

1
=0 s has no knowledge about e bluff

2
= s does not want i to find out about e blab out

1
= ,
2
=0,

3
=0
s knows that e is false, but has no actual intention of misleading i; he believes i has
no desire to find out about e (irrelevant information)
fib (white
lie)

These examples serve only as illustrations; changing other parameters, investigating the interpreters point of
view, or examining more complex sentences (e.g. Mary is probably at home) provide several more instances
(withhold, mislead, misunderstand, elicit, waffle, etc.).


Antonietti Alessandro, alessandro.antonietti@unicatt.it
Cantoia Manuela, manuela.cantoia@unicatt.it
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milano (Italy)

Knowledge uncertainty: how epistemological beliefs are influenced by
communication technology

Epistemological beliefs refer to ideas people develop about the nature and the sources of knowledge, the
ways to acquire it, the degree of truth of information, and the criteria to justify ones statements. According
to Marlene Schommer, people with sophisticated epistemological beliefs maintain that the most part of
knowledge is uncertain and evolving. On the contrary, individuals with nave conceptions think that the most
part of knowledge is indubitable and immutable. If we consider the contextual conditions in which subjective
representations develop, it is worthy highlighting possible relations between epistemological beliefs and
cultural factors, since the intellectual atmosphere in which one lives affects the development of beliefs
about knowledge. Hence, it is important to place epistemological beliefs in a frame considering the relations
between individuals and the tools through which information is communicated. The use of press, television
20

broadcastings, internet websites, multimedia tools, etc. puts the subject in relation with cultural objects
which transmit knowledge with different degrees of certainty. The aim of this study is to connect
epistemological beliefs to students experience of mass-media tools. Three instruments were administered:
(i) Epistemological Questionnaire by Schommer; (ii) How I Know: it assesses the way students would collect
information if they had to take part to a contest and had to write an essay on a given topic. Questions focus
on the ways to look for information, the material to be consulted, reactions to different opinions, the
possibility to change ones mind, and the possibility that the same linguistic term could refer to different
meanings; (iii) Media Use Questionnaire: it consists of 83 items clustered in the following categories:
television, video recorder and/or DVD, computer, radio, audiotape and/or musical compact-disk, books,
newspapers and/or magazines, brochures; a further category considers the experience of movies, concerts,
exhibitions, museums, and the use of education tools at school. The three instruments have been
administered to 768 students (275 males and 493 females) of which 87 attending junior high school (37
males and 50 females), 446 attending high school (136 males and 310 females) and 235 attending university
(102 males and 116 females). Analyses highlighted that the use of communication technologies which
present information as a set of incontrovertible facts are associated to less sophisticated views of knowledge,
which is conceived mainly as a series of undoubted statements about reality. On the contrary, familiarity
with cultural tools which stress that knowledge depends on ones point of view and is always developing and
debatable, is associated to critical epistemological beliefs.



Artese Marina, University of Macerata (Italy), marina.artese@unimc.it

Decision making in Italian L2 university class interactions

The purpose of this contribution is to present and discuss how the notions of certainty and uncertainty play a
role in verbal and non-verbal interactions in the didactic communication. This issue is part of an in-progress
PhD research on the institutional discoursive constructions of identities in a specific institutional setting:
Italian as a second language (L2) University courses. Within the above mentioned L2 context, identities can
be transmitted, put to use by means of individuals' actions and inter-actions. More specifically, in the
communication in a foreign language, there are a great variety of linguistic and extra-linguistic strategies
adopted to construct interactional identities, the most important ones can be classified as non-linguistic
symbolic practices, code-switching, narrations, choice and negotiation of conversational topics [Ciliberti,
2007:73]. Starting from the assumption that the interaction among agents shapes their identities, identity
interactional strategies can be found in the University second language class situations as constructing
signals of the institutional social actors' interactional identities. I therefore pose the following questions: If
certainty and uncertainty can be considered features of the interactants' identities, how important are they in
the construction of the interactional identities in the institutional context of L2 teaching/learning?
Considering the process of decision making and the choice and negotiation of conversational topics in the
teaching/learning context as one of its playground, can decision making be explained by linguistic,
paralinguistic and/or extralinguistic markers of certainty and uncertainty in the teaching/learning
interactions? To this end, the discourse analysis of video recorded data collected in Italian Universities -
will be analyzed and presented. Through the analysis of the didactic interactions, I will present how both the
teacher and the learners will highlight their explicit and/or implicit process of decision making in
interactions. In the classroom, interactions are mainly teacher-directed, and are triggered especially by
teacher's questions, but apparently s/he does not always gets an answer. Whether the teacher obtains a
verbalized answer to his/her questions or not, s/he must anyhow interpret the classroom reaction as an
answer, that is, as the result of the interaction. I hypothesize that the teacher tendencially perceives and
understands the learners' reaction as a form of communication of teaching needs. Regardless of certain or
uncertain verbal markers, the classroom's reaction is mainly considered as the expression of linguistic or
communicative needs linked to the matter at issue in the teaching/learning institutional context. In brief, the
importance of the social institutional context provides the needed frame for interpreting the ongoing
interaction and for making and, finally, taking decisions.


21


Bailin Sharon, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada), bailin@sfu.ca
Battersby Mark, Capilano University, Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada),
mbatters@capilanou.ca

Argumentation, warranted judgment and the communication of
certainty/uncertainty

Argumentation has been conceptualized as a socio-cultural activity in which arguments are constructed,
presented, interpreted, criticized, and revised (Hitchcock 2002, p. 291) with the purpose of reaching a
reasoned judgment on an issue of controversy or concern (Bailin & Battersby 2010). Argumentation in this
sense is not a matter of making conclusive arguments or arriving at conclusions which can be asserted with
epistemic certainty. Rather, the judgments emerging from the process of argumentation will of necessity be
fallible and provisional, open to revision on the basis of new arguments or evidence and/or a re-evaluation of
the weighing of various considerations. Because of the open, non-conclusive, dynamic nature of the
evaluation process, the strength of the judgments warranted by particular argumentative exchanges will vary
(Battersby & Bailin 2011). Engaging in the activity of argumentation entails not only presenting arguments
justified by the available evidence, offering appropriate objections and responses, and revising ones initial
position. It also entails apportioning the confidence of ones judgment to the strength of the reasons and
communicating the appropriate degree of certainty or uncertainty in ones judgments. Given the socio-
cultural and interactive nature of the practice of argumentation, communicating the appropriate degree of
certainty is important for contributing productively and responsibly to the process and moving the exchange
forward. The following schema outlines a way of construing the level of confidence and certainty warranted
by different weights of reasons: (i) A very confident judgment is warranted when the weight of reasons
clearly supports the judgment and the issue is considered settled. A very confident judgment implies a high
level of certainty and would be marked linguistically by such phrases as I am very confident that, it is
clear that, theres little doubt that, the evidence strongly indicates that. (ii) A reasonably confident
judgment is warranted when the weight of reasons strongly supports the judgment but the issue is still
controversial. A reasonably confident judgment implies a moderately high level of certainty and would be
indicated by such phrases as I am reasonably sure that, it seems very likely that, the evidence by and
large indicates that. (iii) A tentative judgment is warranted when the weight of reasons is not overwhelming
but is supportive of one position, and we can make a judgment on balance. A tentative judgment implies
some degree of uncertainty, although not enough to preclude making a judgment. A tentative judgment
would be indicated by such phrases as it appears on balance that, the weight of evidence tips somewhat in
favour of, my tentative conclusion is that. (iv) A suspended judgment is warranted when the reasons for
different positions are closely balanced or when there is insufficient evidence to make a judgment. A
suspended judgment implies a high level of uncertainty and would be indicated by such phrases as there is
not enough evidence to make a judgment, the reasons on both sides seem equally balanced, the judgment
will have to be deferred until more evidence is available. (Bailin & Battersy 2010).



Barbieri Maria Silvia, University of Trieste (Italy), barbieri@units.it, msbarbieri47@gmail.com

The expression of certainty/uncertainty in Italian speaking children

Epistemic modality expresses the speakers attitude of certainty, predictability or uncertainty toward the
fact/event mentioned in the proposition.
E.g.: It may rain tomorrow. / I am sure that tomorrow it will rain.
In conversational exchanges a speakers use of epistemic modality informs the listener on how much s/he
should rely on the piece of information offered. Languages can express epistemic modality in many ways. In
the Italian language epistemic modality is expressed by the auxiliary modal verbs dovere (must) and potere
(may, can), but also by other grammatical devices: nouns (possibilit), adjectives (possibile), adverbs
(possibilmente, forse). Childrens use of modal verbs has been the most extensively investigated issue in the
22

study of modality acquisition. However, modal verbs may not be the linguistic means most extensively used
by children in order to express epistemic modality meanings. In fact, the modal verbs dovere and potere are
used even by young preschoolers to encode deontic modality (e.g. You must come for dinner, You may go for
a walk). Therefore, given childrens avoidance of assigning more than one meaning to a word, even during
school years, we may expect that children will use linguistic forms other than modal verbs, in order to
express the epistemic modality. The present study investigates the elicited production of expressions of
certainty/uncertainty in typically developing children. Subjects: 150 children, divided into six age groups (3,
4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 years) attending nursery and elementary schools in a small municipality in the province of
Udine. Task: Children had to identify the objects depicted in six series of five pictures each. The pictures
were very blurred at the beginning and become progressively clearer up to full visibility. Children had to
identify each picture in the series. They were also requested to justify their identification and to explain why
they were certain/uncertain about it. Results: Childrens productions were analysed according to type of
answer (Certainty/Uncertainty). Descriptive analyses were also run on the linguistic means used to express
Certainty/Uncertainty, and on childrens justifications. The main results show a significant interaction Age
by Picture on both Certainty (F(20, 576) = 3.22, p < .0000), and Uncertainty (F(20, 576) = 6.57, p < .000)
answers. By 5 years, childrens answers are modulated by the picture, and this effect increases with age. The
analysis of the linguistic means used to express uncertainty shows a progressive enrichment of the lexicon
and the use of an increasingly larger number of lexical and grammatical categories which appear in the
course of development in the following order: Mental Verbs; Future and Past tenses in the indicative mode;
Adverbs; Modal verbs; Modal Adjectives: Conditional and Subjunctive modes. Mental verbs and Adverbs
remained the most frequent linguistic means used at all ages to express Uncertainty. The analysis of
justifications shows that since very early ages children can mention Evidence to justify their identifications,
but that even ten-year-olds find it difficult to justify properly their mental states.



Barros-Martnez Juan Fernando, School of Engineering of Antioquia (Columbia),
pfjubar@eia.edu.co

Interaction in the classroom in a science learning process

Social dialogue is subject to many conditions which can be motivators or inhibitors of conversation.
Developing dialogue which can progress through the depths of ideas allows for a better understanding
between the parties involved and an enrichment of individual ideas. This paper puts forward argumentation
practice by means of verbal interaction in the science classroom as a means for building the students
knowledge. The exercise was carried out with engineering students. The study in the classroom was
proposed from a narrative text about a fluid static situation. The text was read out loud, so that it would be
followed by everyone, interruptions were permitted (such as a request for clarification) and the reading was
halted for content analysis and discussion of the ideas in the text. With respect, trust, ideas opening a greater
interaction by participants was achieved. Sessions are analyzed by means of three methods: 1) identifying
elements arising from the ASAC protocol (Assessment of Scientific Argumentation in the Classroom)
(Enderle et al., 2010); 2) learning acts identified during the session; y 3) speech acts in accordance with the
critical discussion rules of pragma-dialectic (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2006). The analysis is carried
out for a session attended by the teacher and five students. Elements and acts of each of the previous
methods are identified in this session. Thus, for example, are identified in the case of acts of learning: partial
clarification, conclusion, confusion, skepticism, assessment, inconsistent assessment, interpretation, opposite
positions, claim of foundations, and request for clarification. 19 identifying elements resulting from the
ASAC protocol, which are grouped into three categories of analysis are used as well, like this: 7 for the
conceptual-cognitive category (statement of validation of declarative explanation, alternative statement,
statement of claim of inconsistency, statement of claim of skepticism, statement of support, statement of
inappropriate support, and statement of validation of alternative explanation); 7 for the epistemic category
(rhetorical element, statement of evidence, statement of evidence examination, statement of data evaluation,
use of theories, laws and models, statement of inference identification or observation, and language of
science element); and 5 for the social category (statement of self-reflection, statement of respect, statement
of ideas opening, openness to criticism, and statement of reinforcement). Also some moments of the session
23

following the rules of the critical discussion of pragma-dialectics and identifying fallacies. Particularly in the
analyzed moments of the session have been recognized acts of rule 1 (of freedom), rule 2 (of burden of
proof), rule 3 (of viewpoint), rule 4 (of relevance), rule 6 (of starting point), rule 7 (of argumentation
scheme), rule 9 (of closing), rule 10 (of use), and fallacies like: Argumentum ad misericordiam, Argumentum
ad verecundiam, Secundum quid, Straw man, and Vagueness. There will be emphasis on the elements and
moments related to the certainty and uncertainty.



Baruzzo Mattia, mattia.baruzzo@gmail.com
Alby Francesca, francesca.alby@uniroma1.it
Zucchermaglio Cristina, cristina.zucchermaglio@uniroma1.it
University of Roma 1 La Sapienza (Italy)

Decisional practices in medicine between polyphonic narratives and small talks

The present study analyzes decision-making processes concerning the making of medical diagnoses and
therapeutic procedures emerging during the interactions between various specialist medical practitioners and
between physicians and nurses. The research project was conducted in a medium size hospital in Rome.
Fieldwork methods were practiced: the oncologist, who was our major referent, wore a microphone to audio-
record, and one researcher accompanied him (shadowing) and took field notes. The observations occurred in
the morning, chiefly: 1) in the nurses room, which the oncologist visits day by day to be informed about the
clinical situation of the patients and the possible appointments to come for that day or the following ones; 2)
in the courtyard of the hospital, where the physicians meet each other before the actual beginning of the
working day and pause for chat. Other observations took place in the hospital departments where the
oncologist went and talked through with other doctors and in the coffee shop. Two successive observation
periods, one of five and one of four days, at eight months distance, resulted in eight hours of audio-
recordings. Apart from our main reference (the oncologist), the other voices belong to a total number of 26
persons among nurses and diverse specialist medical practitioners. The transcriptions were written using the
Jeffersons notation system and were read thoroughly and repeatedly by the three authors. Hence were
identified those portions of conversational exchanges between participants which are more illustrative of the
actual decision making processes. Two are the properties of the decision-making processes we emphasize
here: 1) Rather than being individual and general cognitive activities of rational planning that precede the
action, decision processes are social practices which develop interactively through narrations polyphonically
constructed by the participants that each time take part in it. 2) The narrations produced in this way are
circumstantial detective stories circumscribed to the patient and the disease, with regard not only for the
outcomes of the clinical exams and symptoms but also for details different from those strictly medical such
as psychological and biographical information regarding the person; these not-clinical particulars emerge
as essential in contributing for the decisional practice in act.



Boncompagni Anna, University of Roma 3 (Italy), anna.boncompagni@uniroma3.it

On trying to say what goes without saying

Is it possible to meaningfully say what ordinarily goes without saying, and, if so, what happens in a
conversation when a person expresses such an utterance? These are the questions around which rotates this
paper. The framework for our reflections is provided by Ludwig Wittgensteins ber Gewissheit. If
someone doubted whether the earth had existed a hundred years ago, I should not understand, for this reason
affirms the philosopher I would not know what such a person would still allow to be counted as evidence
and what not. The fundamental certainties of our Weltbild, picture of the world, are platitudes that usually
go unmentioned and that constitute the background of all our judgments. These statements are like the
hinges, that must stay put in order for the door to turn. Wittgensteins starting point are George E. Moores
24

common sense propositions, but, differently from Moore, he does not retain that we have an epistemic
relation with what these propositions assert. After an introduction on Wittgensteins attitude towards
certainty and knowledge, the paper will offer a brief survey of the secondary literature on hinge propositions,
which will touch some well-known positions as well as recent developments Winch, McGinn, Stroll,
Moyal-Sharrock, Coliva and the most debated controversies, such as the different kinds of hinges, their
logical or empirical status, the propositionality or not of certainties. This will supply a more articulated
standpoint from which to deal with our questions. It will then be argued that there are some peculiar
circumstances and general contexts in which to explicitly communicate a truism is possible and even
important. Among these: elucidatory and learning contexts; medical treatments; contact or conflict between
different Weltbilder; deep cultural changes. In these cases what is at stake is the possibility of a change in
the background certainties which shape a persons or a communitys Weltbild. To put the background on the
foreground, challenging its previously unshakable limits, is what may allow the understanding of the other
and a self-conscious process of change. In ordinary contexts, conversely, hinges must work tacitly. If a
certainty which goes without saying is explicitly said, the situation paradoxically results in uncertainty. If a
person says, with no peculiar reasons nor philosophical intentions, There are physical objects, or This is a
tree, or the like, her interlocutor would start doubting. But this doubt, typically, would not regard the
content of the proposition, rather, the mental health of the speaker. In connection with Wittgensteins
remarks about mental disturbance, some hints will be made to the psychopathologic studies on common
sense and the loss of natural evidence (Blankenburg, Stanghellini). The paper will conclude that, except for
limited, though relevant, contexts, hinge certainty is not explicitly but implicitly communicated, or, using the
early Wittgensteins words, it is not said but shown; and only by not being said, it can be shown.



Boscolo Pietro, University of Padova (Italy), pietro.boscolo@unipd.it

References in academic discourse as a means of constructing/communicating
certainty

According to the APA Publication manual (6th edit., 2010), the reference list at the end of a journal article
provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source (p. 180). The function of references
in a scientific paper should be considered from both the readers and writers perspectives they help a
reader identify the sources, while the writer uses them to show his or her indebtedness to other scholars and
to share responsibility for what is written. On the one hand, the writer officially relates to the community of
psychological discourse as an author, on the other he or she affirms the relevance or plausibility of a
statement, hypothesis or interpretation. Although the writer may be sure about what is being written, citing
somebody else may make him or her more confident of the truth of his/her discourse. For instance, when
stating the hypotheses of a study, citing previous research on the topic helps confirm the theoretical
foundation of the study. Therefore, through references the author tries to make his/her writing more plausible
or certain. For undergraduate students learning how to write their Masters dissertation in a psychological
discipline, the use of references is an important question, not only from a formal point of view (when and
how to cite, if and how extensively to quote, and so on), but for two more substantive reasons. First, it is
through references that a writer makes apparent his/her indebtedness to the thoughts of other scholars, thus,
students come to realize the intertextual nature of writing, including, in particular, scientific writing. Second,
for the younger writer, connecting to other texts is a way to raise awareness of his/her identity as a writer
(Ivani, 1998). In the presentation, the communication of certainty through referencing will be clarified and
exemplified.




25

Bucciarelli Paola, University of Macerata (Italy), paola.bucciarelli@unimc.it
Berthold Christine, University of Macerata (Italy), berthold@unimc.it
Cantarini Sibilla, University of Verona (Italy), sibilla.cantarini@univr.it
Zuczkowski Andrzej, University of Macerata (Italy), zuko@unimc.it

Uncertainty linguistic markers in a corpus of biomedical German papers from
Spektrum der Wissensehaft

Many researches have been published during the last years about studies on certainty/uncertainty,
evidentiality/epistemicity concernig the German language (Abraham 2009, hlschlger,1985) throughout
grammar, linguistic, structural and historical development of modal verbs, modal Partikel, Satzkonnettoren,
Konjunktoren, epistemic weil, adverbs, verbs, wenn sentences, (Diewald 1999, Ktz,1981, Heibig 1982,
Werner 1999) while only a few results have been indicated about nouns as expression of
certainty/uncertainty as native german speakers do not use many of them in this context either in written and
spoken language (Droessiger 2009). To the best of our knowledge there is no study based on a
comprehensive cognitive and linguistic theory of Certainty an Uncertainty Communication through
Biomedical articles. Goals, corpus and research method: In the following investigation, a corpus of 40
biomedical articles in German language has been analyzed. They were chosen in a random way from the
German monthly generic scientific publication magazine Spektrum der Wissenschaft in order to point out
what and how many are the lexical and morphosyntactic uncertainty markers and their scope. Spektrum
der Wissenschaft is the only scientific magazine publishing articles in german language, while other
scientific ones as Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde, Langenbecks archives of surgery, and Virchow's
Archiv have been publishing articles only in English since 1993. Spektrum der Wissenschaft has been
available on line (http://www.spektrum.de/) since 1993, therefore the analyzed bio-medical articles are those
published since then until today. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the 40 papers was performed by
two language specialists (one of them is a german native speaker). Results: The total amount of occurrences
in the corpus has been grouped in the following five classes: verbs, non verbs, modal verbs, modal verbs in
conditional and subjunctive mood, if clauses. Epistemic verbs are scheinen, glauben, meinen.., epistemic
adjectives and adverbs are mglich, wahrscheinlich, vielleicht.., epistemic modal verbs are knnen,
mssen.., in conditional are knnten, mssten, sollten..and if clauses are sentences with wenn and
Konjunktiv II/ wrden.). Observer agreement was then evaluated through non-weighted kappa coefficients,
measuring overall agreement (0,8). The most frequent Unsicherheitsfaktoren (uncertainty markers) are the
verb scheinen (to seem ), modal verbs are knnen (can), knnten (could), sollten (should), mssten (would
have to), wren (were/was), wrden (would), adverbs vielleicht (perhaps), mglicherweise (possibly),
wahrscheinlich (apparently), vermutlich (presumably), adjective mglich (possible), if sentences with wenn
(if) while the most frequent noun in the 40 articles is Mglichkeit (possibility). A decrease or increase in
linguistic uncertainty markers has not been found in the course of the different years in articles published
since 1993 up to now.



Buldorini Cinzia, University of Macerata (Italy), cbuldorini@gmail.com
Bongelli Ramona, University of Macerata (Italy), ramona.bongelli@unimc.it
Riccioni Ilaria, University of Macerata (Italy), i.riccioni@unimc.it
Canestrari Carla, University of Macerata (Italy), c.canestrari@unimc.it
Pietrobon Ricardo, Duke University (North Carolina, USA), rpietro@duke.edu
Zuczkowski Andrzej, University of Macerata (Italy), zuko@unimc.it

A corpus of biomedical texts annotated for uncertainty with a historical
perspective

Uncertainty language - that manifests itself through a series of linguistic markers - characterizes biomedical
research (Crompton 1997, Hyland 1994, 1998, Salager-Meyer 1994). The detection of Certainty/Uncertainty
26

markers and their linguistic scope has been receiving increasing attention in the Natural Language
Processing (NLP) community (Vincze et al., 2008, Kim et al., 2009, Farkas et al., 2010). Distinguishing
certain and uncertain information in texts is of crucial importance in Information Extraction (IE). Although
there are a few analysis of corpora annotated for Certainty and Uncertainty language, as far as we know these
annotations are not based on a comprehensive cognitive and linguistic theory of Certainty and Uncertainty
communication. In addition, these corpora tend to be small in their number of full-text scientific articles,
making the validation of computational algorithms challenging (for example, Vincze et al.s BioScope
corpus is the largest one annotated both for Uncertainty Markers and their linguistic scopes, but it is made up
of only nine full text articles). Our study investigated how Uncertainty is communicated in a corpus of 80
articles from the British Medical Journal randomly sampled from a 168-year period (1840-2007), in order
to detect trends over time. We annotated Uncertainty Markers in the corpus, setting the analysis on the
Theory of the Known, the Unknown, the Believed (Bongelli, Zuczkowski 2008) and taking into account the
international linguistic literature on evidentiality and epistemicity. The qualitative and quantitative analysis
of the 80 papers was performed by five language specialists from the Research Centre for Psychology of
Communication at the University of Macerata. The total amount of occurrences in the corpus has been
accordingly group into five classes (verbs, non verbs, modal verbs, modal verbs in conditional and
subjunctive mood, if clauses). Observer agreement was then evaluated through non-weighted kappa
coefficients, measuring overall agreement (0.89). The main results of the investigation reveal that, on the one
hand, out of the 2,758 Uncertainty Markers which were detected, 1,801 were lexical and 957 were
morphosyntactic: examples of the first class are epistemic verbs such as I think, we believe, epistemic
adjectives and adverbs like perhaps, likely while examples of the second class are the conditional and
subjunctive mood of modal verbs and if clauses; on the other hand, authors usually tend to hedge the force of
their scientific statements by means of Uncertainty Markers in order to minimize the face threatening acts
that are involved in the making of claims. The statistical tests show that Uncertainty markers in the corpus
tend to remain stable in the length of period examined. We have also applied Machine-Learning techniques
to the recognition of uncertainty markers obtaining encouraging results of almost all the elements of our
classification. Future research should apply this new classification beyond the realm of scientific article,
possibly applying it to electronic health record texts toward the creation of decision support systems.



Canestrari Carla, c.canestrari@unimc.it
Dionigi Alberto, dionigialberto@libero.it
Zuczkowski Andrzej, zuko@unimc.it
University of Macerata (Italy)

Humor comprehension and knowledge. What is the relationship between them?
(poster)

Understanding a humorous stimulus is the result of a series of cognitive processes. To be funny, things have
to be inconsistent, surprising, unique, unusual or different from what we normally would expect in general
and generic terms. Then comprehending a humorous stimulus means to switch from a normal and expected
meaning to an uncommon and unexpected one. In order to do that, we need to look for such pieces of
information and their special incongruous relationships from where we have stored it mentally. According to
the Theory of the Known, Unknown, Believed (KUB) (Bongelli, Zuczkowski 2008; Zuczkowski, Bongelli,
Riccioni 2011; Riccioni, Bongelli, Zuczkowski forthcoming), the comprehension of a piece of information is
based on the understanding of its epistemic and evidential aspects, which can ultimately be reduced to three
areas of information, namely the Known, the Unknown, and the Believed. In KUBs perspective theory, it
can be hypothesized that a humorous stimulus is understood when all its incongruous meanings are detected
simultaneously by the listener/reader (subject) with certainty within the area of what s/he knows (the
Known). On the contrary, when the incongruous meanings are missing in the subjects mind (the Unknown)
s/he might not be able to understand the humorous stimulus at all. Furthermore the uncertain detection of
some pieces of knowledge (within the area of the Believed) should not be enough to make the humorous
stimulus comprehensible to the subject . Only in the first case should a humorous stimulus succeed, whereas
27

in the second case the humorous stimuli partially should necessarily or totally in the third case. These
hypotheses are consistent with literature (e.g. Attardo 2001; Norrick 1993), but to the best of our knowledge
their investigation from an empirical point of view remains almost unexplored. In particular, this study is
focused on discovering how the incongruous meanings involved in the comprehension of a humorous
stimulus are detected and whether they are understood with certainty or uncertainty by the subject.
Moreover, we are interested in verifying whether the same knowledge activated on the basis of the same
stimulus is detected by different people. To test our hypothesis we involved a sample of Italian native
speakers who were presented with some humorous stimuli (jokes and cartoons). The participants were asked
to explain and to describe the reasoning and what knowledge they activated to understand the humorous
stimuli during (when presented with cartoons) and after having read/seen them. The reports and the thinking
aloud by the participants were audio-recorded in order to allow us an in depth semantic qualitative analysis.
In this way we were able to understand which cognitive processes were used and which knowledge they
referred to when doing the task and to analyze the degrees of certainty or uncertainty of such knowledge.
The results of this study are generally consistent with the hypothesis and they provide an example of
empirical and qualitative investigation on the cognitive processes involved in understanding humor.



Cantarini Sibilla, University of Verona (Italy), sibilla.cantarini@univr.it

The expression of certainty/uncertainty and the attenuated use of negation in
Italian and German interrogative constructions
(poster)

In my work I will focus on the meaning of several occurrences of the negation non in Italian interrogative
sentences, drawn from various types of dialogues, that have the characteristic of not inverting the polarity of
the clause expressed in the linguistic act. I will evaluate the possibility of translating the mentioned
occurrences of the negation non in Italian with the occurrences of the negation nicht in German, starting
from the observation that the negation non in Italian can express either certainty or uncertainty, depending on
the context. In light of several studies into the Italian and German languages [cf. Sornicola (2006),
Bazzanella (2005), Kappus (2002) etc.], as well as the pioneering work of Cantarini (2000), several
properties of the negations non and nicht will be analyzed, and corresponding classes of sentences in the two
languages in which the negations non and nicht seem to express the same meaning of certainty/uncertainty
identified. Three main types of Italian and German interrogative sentences will be examined, one after the
other, from the aspect of their illocutive force, namely: yes/no-interrogatives, wh-interrogatives, and
parenthetical interrogatives. In conclusion, it will be shown that the negations non and nicht occur with an
analogous function in the classes of interrogative sentences identified and compared in Italian and German,
that is to say attenuated rather than expletive, since omission of the negation would bring about the
construction of sentences whose meaning is considerably changed with respect to the original.



Caronia Letizia, University of Bologna (Italy), letizia.caronia@unibo.it

What if uncertainty is the data? Pursuing statement-like responses as an
epistemic resource in research interviews

This paper focuses on the manufactured character of data in social science research. It concerns the practice
of hiding the interactional construction of statements supposedly corresponding to what informants do or
think in the world out there. The aim is to reflect upon the crucial consequences this practice has in the
shaping of scientific knowledge. It is argued that the aura of certainty that suitably characterises most
findings in social science research results from underestimating the interactional details occurring in even the
most standardized inquiries. After an excursus on the cultural premises within which we have historically
28

established what scientific knowledge should be to be relevant for collective praxis, the paper provides an
empirical illustration of the point. The case under scrutiny is a collection of question/answer sequences from
standardized research interviews. Questions and answers are paired linguistic actions that are the primary
tools in most social research. Despite the dramatic differences among scientific paradigms, methods and
even techniques (Corbetta, 2003), researchers in social sciences do ask some types of questions and rely on
answers to build theories, generalized nomothetic descriptions or thick interpretations of single idiosyncratic
cases. The ways researches cope with the linguistic and interactive dimensions of their main tools strictly
depends on their epistemological paradigms and related assumptions on the relationship among language,
reality and knowledge (Caronia, 1997; 2010; 2011). The analysis shows the conversational and interactional
work accomplished by the interviewer in his turn of reception to cope with the respondents dispreferred
replies (SPP), i.e. responses that are not type-conforming responses (Raymond, 2003) and challenge the
request of providing clear cut answers to the questions. Face to the conversational tactics used by
respondents to frame their replies as situated, provisory and even uncertain, interviewers routinely engage in
the work of pursuing statement-like responses (Pomerantz, 1984). This work is also and ultimately a way of
treating uncertain responses as inadequate (Antaki, 2002) and the interviewers major contribution in
transforming almost any type of response into a declarative statement. In the discussion we contend that
ignoring the conversational details of answering and turning almost any reply into a declarative statement are
precise and even useful techniques through which a survey produces that kind of knowledge we expect from
scientific research. Once carefully crafted as declarative statements, responses about the issues at stake in the
interview are the perfect bricks upon which researchers can built those second order declarative statements
that we call scientific knowledge of a given phenomenon. Policies, decisions and practices that rely on such a
knowledge of reality are allowed to consider themselves are reasonably based on evidence . Yet these
evidences are carefully constructed by systematically ignoring the conversational features of answering
and the cues signalling the respondents epistemic stances. Fuzziness, perplexity, doubts, hypotheses are
epistemic stances routinely displayed by people in talk in interaction, as much as certainty. As these and
other findings (Houtkoop-Steenstra, 2000) suggest, talking in survey does not make any exception. Yet in
these cases, the professional interviewer and the analyst act as the epistemic authority (Heritage & Raymond,
2005) which marginalises and even suppresses alternative perspectives. What could be decision making
based upon a fragile and fuzzy knowledge that preserves its marks of uncertainty?



Castillejos Lpez Willelmira, Chapingo Autonomous University (Mxico),
williecastillejos@hotmail.com

Linguistic insecurity of higher education students

Although incipient, the study of linguistic insecurity is gradually gaining the interest of sociolinguists
throughout the world. Defined as the set of language attitudes in which speakers have negative feelings
about their native variety, or certain aspects of it, and feel insecure about its value or correctness (Trudgill
2003: 81), linguistic insecurity does have an effect on the speakers performance, particularly when this
performance occurs at certain speech events and speech situations. On this basis, this piece of research was
intended to feature the signs of linguistic insecurity among higher education students at a multiethnic and
multicultural university in Mexico. The study was part of a doctoral project and took place in the classrooms
of Universidad Autnoma Chapingo, which accepts students from different cultural and linguistic national
backgrounds, mostly indigenous. The gathering of accents, dialects and languages in one same scenario
offered the opportunity to observe the display of attitudes during linguistic interactions, many of which were
asymmetrical when they implied the relation of a speaker to a determined ethnical origin and sociocultural
background. The specific forms of linguistic insecurity may have appeared as hypercorrection or attempts of
the speakers to accommodate to higher status speech forms, but they were also showed in their silence or
scarce willingness to talk. In order to identify specific forms of linguistic insecurity, the method included the
design of a test to measure the students readiness for oral answer during the progress of a class activity. In
another stage of the experiment, students self-evaluated their performance in class on the basis of a recorded
oral exercise. This latter form of testing was inspired in Bucci and Baxter self-correction measure (1984). In
this way, students were able to objectively attribute a certain value to their linguistic production, but also to
29

express linguistic insecurity signals without their noticing. For subsequent analysis, the data obtained in the
experiment was correlated to aspects such as ethnicity, sociocultural background and academic year of
subjects. This methodological model tackled the study of linguistic insecurity under both subjective and
objective perspectives. The ultimate objective of the work consisted in setting out linguistic insecurity not
only as a sociolinguistic phenomenon which influences language variability (Labov, 1966 and 1972), but
also as a psychological condition which affects the linguistic behavior of speakers. This aspect is crucial
when it involves students and institutions since many answers to academic failure may be found in the heart
of linguistic insecurity symptoms.



Caterina Roberto, roberto.caterina@alice.it
Incasa Iolanda, iolandai@libero.it
University of Bologna (Italy)

Certainty and doubt in musical expressions

Many studies have been done so far on the emotional aspects of musical language. Music may either
represent emotions (according to the formalist point of view) or induce emotions (as in Gabriellson model of
peak emotions). According to our hypothesis music may represent and induce certainty. Music may also
represent doubt, but very seldom music induces doubt as in musical structure and grammar we may find
many tools to solve uncertainty. As the concept of certainty is often related to truth some religious musical
expressions such as gospel musics are related to the expression of Gods certainty. These musics represent
certainty and may communicate, induce certainty in the listeners. When music is united to verbal language
ad interpreters gestures such as in Opera, ironic and deceptive situations may be brilliantly supported by
music. In the Agrippina by Handel for example the queens capacity of lying to other people and deceiving
them is strongly associated with a type of music that makes her more confident with herself. On the other
hand the power of music -as testified by recent works on dopamine release during listening to music or as
expressed by a rather long music therapy tradition- may be seen in terms of improving self confidence and
therefore certainty. Even when music represents uncertainty, doubt, a delayed fulfilment is somehow
predictable. In music tonal harmony dissonance resolution plays a role to give listeners a sense of problem
solving and helps them in this task.



Cavagnoli Stefania, University of Macerata (Italy), stefania.cavagnoli@unimc.it

The language of the law as expression of power

This presentation examines Italian legal language in normative texts under the perspective of asymmetrical
communication. The theoretical framework for the analysis is provided by sociolinguistics and textual
linguistics. Speech is always, as language in general, but legal language in particular, an act of power. This is
particular true for the vertical relationship between those who know and those who do not know, those who
decide and those who have to obey and to adapt. In fact, knowledge is the distinctive and discriminating
element of speech which is particular evident in written texts. In this sense, legal language might be
considered, per definition, as very concise and certain. Certainty and power, for sustaining a clearly defined
communication. In reality, however, the representation of law is rather based upon certainty through power,
but not necessarily in communication. Vagueness of concepts necessitating interpretation, characteristic for
law, often makes certainty appear uncertain. The analysed corpus of texts contains different levels of
legislative texts in order to demonstrate the hypothesis that normative legal language expresses not only
communicative power, but also social power at syntactic, morphological and vocabulary-terminological
levels. The examples presented will also focus on gender issues: in legal language in particular, the usage of
gender language is still rare (reference is typically made to the male forms, such as cittadini, imputati,
30

and un giudice even if the latter is a woman). These expressions of power in language can mostly be found
at lexicographic level and support the thesis that words shape the world as well as the vision of it.



Celle Agns, agnes.celle@univ-paris-diderot.fr
Lansari Laure, laure.lansari@voila.fr
Paris-Diderot University (France)

Uncertainty as a result of unexpectedness

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of unexpectedness on the emergence of uncertainty. Our study
is based on a sample of instances of dialogue in English and French where a surprising factor, be it an event
or a verbal element, triggers verbal reactions of uncertainty. In these dialogue sequences, some fact is
expressed by a participant but disclaimed by the co-participant because this fact runs counter to his/her
expectations. In English, uncertainty is likely to be introduced by interrogative sentences containing would, a
modal auxiliary in the preterite marking modal remoteness (Celle, to appear) and calling into question
factual evidence:

(1)
Zach: Those guys in my band, they're not my friends. I'm hiring them to hang out with me.
Gaby: So stop doing it. Stop buying people.
Zach: Yeah, right. And then I'd have no one at all.
Gaby: That's not true. You'd have me. As a friend. A friend friend, not a girlfriend. I really cannot overstress
that.
Zach: Come on. Why would you wanna be my friend? We have zero in common.
Gaby: I don't know. Maybe it's because I think we're both adrift. It'd just be nice to have a pal who gets what
I'm going through. (Desperate Housewives, Season, Episode 13)

(2)
Lynette: Do you still want me to look at that book report?
Penny: Daddy helped me yesterday. You weren't home.
Lynette: Oh... OK.
Penny: Daddy does everything lately. How come you always come home so late?
Lynette: Well, I'm really busy at the restaurant. Believe me, I come home to Daddy just as soon as I can.
Penny: You're lying.
Lynette: What?
Penny: You always laugh like that when you're telling a lie.
Lynette: Why would you say that?
Penny: Because it's true.
Lynette: I stay late because there's a lot of work to do. I'm the only person who can do it. I have to go to the
grocery store because I'm the only person who can do that. So why don't you go upstairs and finish your
homework?
Penny: OK. But it is what you do. (Ibid., Episode 20)

In French, no verbal equivalent to the modal auxiliary would is to be found. The conditional mood may,
however, mark modal remoteness in some of the questions under scrutiny (pourquoi voudrais-tu tre mon
ami?, but *pourquoi dirais-tu a? is infelicitous in (2)) Despite these differences, we argue that in both
languages surprise brings about some sort of uncertainty that forces the speaker to adjust his/her discourse.
S/he is forced to justify his/her statement, and the justification may be either tentative (see the repetition of
epistemic phrases in example (1)) or very assertive as in (2), which may paradoxically weaken the
justification. Our data are drawn from American series (Desperate Housewives, In Treatment, etc.) and their
French translations and analysed from a pragmatic perspective.
31

Chiaretti Paula, chiaretti.paula@gmail.com
Verdiani Tfouni Leda, lvtfouni@usp.br
University of So Paulo (Brazil)

Syntax and Pcheuxs 2
nd
illusion: an analysis of self-help books discursive
generics

The discursive generic is characterized by its natural and non-social sense. This type of discourse can be
distinguished from others by its specific syntactic formulation which allows few possibilities of
reformulation. When trying to produce sense between interlocutors, the discourses formulation has the
limits of the syntax. Besides, the syntax can indicate one specific functioning of the discourse: as it gives us
clues about the relation between subject and history. According to Lacan (1998 [1964], p. 70), the syntax,
exactly, is preconscious: the subject does not manage to control totally the arrangement of his
enouncements elements (subject, predicate, etc.). This definition is close to Pcheuxs illusion number 2
(that what he says has an equal correspondence to what he thinks) once Pcheux decided to appeal to Freuds
first topography, which distinguishes the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious, to relate this illusion to
the preconscious. Its detection by the subject that speaks is not only possible but also can create another trial
when the subject decides to reformulate what is just been said (using paraphrases). However, this act is not
able to guarantee the correspondence language- thought. The rhetoric tries (in vain) to put out the illusion
number 2 by putting the speaker in the position supposed to his listener which could allow the anticipation of
the sense yet to be produced. The analysis that follows intends to illustrate how syntax can give us clues
about the discourses specific functioning. Self-help books titles compose the corpus of analysis, such as:
How to be efficient; How to make friends and influence people (CARNEGIE, 2003); How to avoid
preoccupation and start to live (CARNEGIE, 1995). Here can be found a fixed synthetic formula in which
how is followed by a verb in the infinitive producing an effect de sense: this will be answered by the book.
Once paraphrased, how can be substituted by in what way, which steps to take, producing an effect
of method or recipe. The culinary recipe, as the discursive generic, has a fixed structure: the
Ingredients are followed by the preparation, in which session can be found a prescriptive discourse and
basically two verbals conjugation: imperative and infinitive. The syntaxs analysis is able to allow
comprehending the order of discourse. This syntaxs repetition leads to a presence of a mold, in other words,
a model of which one can hardly escape due his subjection not only to the grammatical norms but also to the
linguistics and historical mechanisms working through a significant materiality. (FAPESP, CAPES, CNPq).



Chiffi Daniele, University of Padova (Italy), daniele.chiffi@unipd.it

A pragmatic framework for hypothetical reasoning in decision making

Axin (1966) observed that an hypothesis p can be not only accepted or rejected but it is also possible to fail
to accept or to fail to reject p. Hypothetical reasoning in decision making can be represented in a square of
oppositions. Note, in fact, that being p an hypothesis, #II and #III as well as #I and #IV are contradictories;
#I and #II are contraries since they cannot be both true but they can be both false, #III and #IV are
subcontraries since they cannot be both false but they can be both true. Finally #I and #IV as well as #II and
#III are subalterns, namely when it is the case that a proposition is related to another and the first proposition
is implied by the second but the second is not implied
by the first.

32

#I Reject p #II Accept p

#III Fail to Accept p # IV Fail to Reject p

One might wonder what logic for such decisions about hypotheses is required. I maintain that a fragment of
Dalla Pozza and Garola (1995) Logic for Pragmatics (LP) can handle the logical structure of hypothetical
decision reasoning. LP is composed by two sets of formulas: radical and sentential. Every sentential formula
contains a radical formula as a proper subformula. Radical formulas are semantically interpreted by
assigning them a (classical) truth value, while sentential formulas are pragmatically evaluated by assigning
them a justification value (justified, unjustified), defined in terms of the intuitive notion of proof. Truth is a
semantic notion, while justification a pragmatic one. Assertive connectives have a meaning which is
explicated by the BHK (Brouwer, Heyting, Kologorov) intended interpretation of intuitionistic logical
constants, even if the fragment we are interested in only contains ~ as a pragmatic connective for negation.
The set of radical formulas corresponds to propositional formulas of classical logic, while the set of
sentential formulas is obtained applying the sign of assertion to radical formulas. An assertion is justified
by means of conclusive evidence and in case of a mathematical statement by an (intuitive) proof. p is
justified if there is a proof of the truth of p, while ~p is justified when there is a proof showing that a proof
of the truth of p is not the case. Note that is the classical truth functional negation which appears in the
radical part of the formula, while ~ is a pragmatic (intuitionistic) negation for assertions.

#1 p #2 p

#3 ~p #4 ~ p

After a rigorous presentation of the pragmatic rules which I will outline during the presentation, I will show
that #1and #4 are pragmatic contradictories since if #1 is justified #4 cannot be justified and if #1 is
unjustified then #4 is justified. The same holds for #2 and #3. #1 and #2 are pragmatic contraries since they
cannot be both justified but they can be both unjustified (for instance when p is undecided, namely there is
neither a proof of p nor a proof of p). #3 and #4 are pragmatic subcontraries, since they can be both
justified (for instance if p is an undecidable sentence, namely when there is no proof that p can be proven and
there is no proof that p can be proven) but not both unjustified, otherwise a contradiction follows. Finally,
#1 and #3 are subalterns since from #1 it is possible to infer #3 (if the assertion of p is justified then it is
also justified the assertion that p cannot be proven) and #2 and #4 are also subalterns since if the assertion of
p is justified, then the assertion that p cannot be proven is also justified. I will indicate how to improve the
communication of hypothetical reasoning by means of this pragmatic framework which is capable to
properly handle some forms of hypothetical reasoning in decision making.



33

Clark Caroline, University of Padova (Italy), caroline.clark@unipd.it

Acknowledging knowledge in media discourse: a study of evidentiality

Newspapers assume a key role in the transfer of knowledge of events and states of affairs to a wide and
disparate audience. This knowledge may be intact, as recounted or witnessed, or be manipulated by the
reporter. Despite claims to the contrary, particularly from within the industry itself, inherent in news
reporting is the potential to influence the readers beliefs and knowledge of the world, the way it is and the
way it ought to be. In this passage from source to writer to reader, knowledge is, necessarily, revised and
the selection, attribution and rewriting of story content, leads the reader to view the content and claims as
highly warrantable, and to take a positive or negative evaluative position towards the participants, events and
states of affairs. The reader can be positioned to consider propositions within a story as true and credible
according to how the knowledge is presented, that is, its evidential status, intended as a general term for if,
and how, knowledge of, or evidence (or lack of evidence) for a particular statement or utterance is indicated,
the nature of this evidence, how it is encoded, and how it was acquired. Evidentiality is particularly relevant
to news stories where it has important pragmatic and evaluative functions. This paper brings together aspects
of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis to investigate two large corpora of British quality newspapers
(100m and 145m words) for the expression of evidentiality, including how the writer signals knowledge, how
the source of this knowledge is marked and how the knowledge was acquired (whether it was on the basis of
perception, hearsay, inference, and so on).



Colella Gianluca, Dalarna University (Sweden), gco@du.se
Riccioni Ilaria, University of Macerata (Italy), i.riccioni@unimc.it
Canestrari Carla, University of Macerata (Italy), c.canestrari@unimc.it
Bongelli Ramona, University of Macerata (Italy), ramona.bongelli@unimc.it
Zuczkowski Andrzej, University of Macerata (Italy), zuko@unimc.it

Come se [As if]: evidential and epistemic aspects

In the traditional Italian grammar the subordinate structures usually introduced by the complex connective as
if (The Dervisci are dancing as if they were spinning tops) are called hypothetical comparative propositions
(HCP). This label is based on the fact that in a statement p as if q a comparison between the main clause p
and a hypothetical clause q is established. In accordance with this/By virtue of this, such propositions are
interpreted as composed of a comparative proposition and of an if clause with understood apodosis (The
Dervisci are dancing in the way [they would dance] if they were spinning tops = If the dancers were spinning
tops, they would dance in the way they are dancing). The as if has been studied by few authors and
predominantly from a philosophical (Vaihinger 1911, trad. ingl. 1952, trad.it. 1967), logical (Pizzi 2006),
linguistic (Letuchii 2008, Bender & Plickinger 1999, Huddleston 2002, Colella 2010) point of view.
Linguists are mainly interested in the grammatical and syntactic level. In particular, there are no studies on
the functions of HCP, let alone studies with an evidential and/or epistemic cut. The objective of this work is
to show that "as if" can be considered as a linguistic indicator with not only evidential (knowledge / beliefs)
and epistemic (certainty / uncertainty) aspects but also different cognitive and pragmatic functions. This was
achieved through the quantitative and qualitative analysis - performed by 5 authors, all native Italian
speakers of an Italian corpus of 780 texts, written by 260 subjects after they had watched three short videos
of dance. Overall, in the corpus 101 occurrences of "as if" were identified. The qualitative analysis led to
pinpoint two main types of as if (AI): (1) Controfactual AI: it has to do with the communication of
certainty (knowledge): The dancers had their eyes closed and their head tilted as if they were asleep. From
the perspective of the writer, the first part of the statement ("The dancers had their eyes closed and their head
tilted") refers to the Gestalt perceived by the writer, which evokes at a cognitive level a second Gestalt ("the
dancers were asleep") that is hypothetically compared ("as if") to the first. The writer knows, however, that
the dancers are not asleep, so the sentence should be paraphrased as follows: I see that the dancers have their
eyes closed and their head tilted, as they would if they were asleep, but I know that they are not. (2)
34

Conjectural AI: it has to do with the communication of uncertainty (belief): "The dancers dance as if they
wanted to communicate a message." The verb to want attributed to the dancers assigns intentionality to their
movements; being a case of intentionality of others, the writer does not know if this is so or not. The as if
assumes the function of a conjecture (belief) about the intentions of the dancers and the utterance can be
paraphrased as follows: I see the dancers are dancing in a certain way, it evokes in me a comparison with a
second Gestalt (the dancers want to communicate something), but I do not know if it is so or not. Besides,
the qualitative analysis led to the determination of symbolic-metaphorical uses of the as if.



Conradie Jac, University of Johannesburg (South Africa), jacc@uj.ac.za

From adverbs of time to modals of certainty and uncertainty

Examples are found in many languages of epistemic, modal or discourse particles coexisting with or deriving
from temporal adverbs or expressions, such as French enfin from at last, finally to anyway, all the same,
etc. and Dutch soms from from time to time to perhaps and a mitigator of directives. The main question to
be addressed here is whether a relationship can be established between the type of temporality involved and
the output value, modal or otherwise, and which diachronic mechanisms might be involved. It is expected
that the link between between the temporal and non-temporal usages can be reduced to two main types, with
brevity/futurity/repetitiveness linked to uncertainty, the mitigation of directives, etc., and past reference or
perfectivity to certainty, emotive assertiveness, the reinforcement of utterances, etc. Deictic and non-deictic
examples are found in both categories. The temporal antecedents of the epistemic value of perhaps,
possibly may, for example, be the immediate future (deictic), e.g. Greek , Afrikaans dalk (< Dutch
dadelijk), netnou, and repetition (non-deictic), e.g. Dutch soms, Frisian faeks, jamk. A variety of assertive
values expressing the speakers confidence in the truth or relevance of his/her statement, conclusion or
insight, such as definitely, indeed, actually, finally, after all, tend to be based on references to the past
(deictic), e.g. Italian allora, French alors, German einmal, Afrikaans hoeka, and perfectivity (aspectual), e.g.
German schon, halt, schlielich, French dj, enfin, Polish ostatecznie, Swedish nd, isiZulu impela (<
phela come to an end), Afrikaans reeds. Both of these temporal types have the thrust of established fact
and give rise to evaluative particles. The paper attempts to analyse the motivation of some of these changes,
taking into account metaphorical and metonymic processes and subjectification in general.



Constantinescu Mihaela-Viorica, University of Bucharest (Romania),
mc_tinescu2000@yahoo.com

Conveying certainty and uncertainty in the Romanian parliamentary debates

The parliamentary debate as an institutional adversarial communicative practice provides what Zarefsky
called means of quality control (2002), as the critical analysis of an opponent ensures the validation of
strong arguments. Within the Parliament, a simultaneous competitive and cooperative arena, our aim is to
analyse, in a pragma-rhetorical perspective, the argumentative connection between certainty and uncertainty.
The examples of our corpus are excerpted from Romanian parliamentary debates. Our focus is on the way
Romanian MPs convey certainty and uncertainty concerning their own and their opponents standpoints and
arguments. We shall use examples ranging from the old to the present-day Romanian Parliament in order to
define culturally specific aspects. We shall tackle one of the evaluation parameters, status or degree of
certainty (Hunston/Thompson 2001, Hunston 2011). In our paper, we intend to present some frequent
rhetorical means used to convey a higher degree of certainty or to contest the degree of certainty claimed by
the opponent; the means vary from metalinguistic devices (e.g., lexical items, adverbials, restrictive
constructions, etc.) to discursive means of enhancing ethos (e.g., narratives to state the MPs experience,
using the argument from authority). We are also interested in observing the protagonists indications of their
awareness of a future possible criticism or doubt raised by the antagonist. Our analysis is built upon one of
35

the Aristotelian criteria of certainty, the epistemic criterion (social and psychological criteria will not be
discussed in depth). The epistemic criterion is usually based on background knowledge, the arguments being
addressed to an audience that shares both practical and theoretical knowledge with the speaker, as the
Parliament is a community of practice. We are aware of the fact that the epistemic relevance varies both in a
diachronic and in a synchronic perspective. The doxa provides a framework where relevance is established
and validated. A shared cultural model offers MPs the possibility to construe relevance relations among
persons, events, facts etc. and to use these as arguments to support their standpoints. Parliamentary debates
are frequently dominated by controversy, which does not exclude a positive value (Perelman, Popper, etc.) as
it involves the possibility of testing opinions; by means of controversy, opinions (political ones included) are
exposed to criticism and objections (Govier 1999). As a culturally engrained communication system
(Williams, Young 2007), democracy is based on political freedoms. Democratization institutionalizes
uncertainty (van Eemeren 2002) by allowing forces to compete against each other without excluding
cooperation.



Croce Michel, University of Genova (Italy), michel.croce@alice.it

Subjective certainty, testimony and knowledge: ordinary context and
philosophical context

The subject of this work is to research on the relations that link subjective certainty to propositional
knowledge in those cases in which the communication between speakers increases mutual knowledge. The
aim is to demonstrate that in the ordinary context, unlike the philosophical context, subjective certainty
performs a crucial role in the testimony. Suppose that Michel asks to his friend Angela the name of the girl
she was talking earlier and that she is answered p: Her name is Chiara. To say that Michel knows that p,
we need to respect three conditions: 1) p is true (truth); 2) Michel believes that p (belief); 3) Michel has good
reasons to believe that p (justification). Since 1) is independent from epistemic subjects, in the philosophical
context Michel should verify the truth of p, for example asking to Chiara her name or asking her to check the
ID. Obviously this looks amiss in the ordinary context, where usually we suppose p is true following Reids
principle of veracity and Grices conversational maxims, because actually there wouldnt be neither
epistemic progress nor the chance of living a normal life, if we personally had to check every justified
belief that we trust every day. Considering 3) we can distinguish two possible criteria: the reidian one of
innocent testimony, according to Michel is justified believing that p is true, if he hasnt reasons for
believing that Angelas belief is unjustified and the humean one of guilty testimony, according to Michel is
justified if he has good reasons to believe that Angelas belief is justified. In the philosophical context
Michel has to respect the latter criterion: Chiara is a relative, a friend, Angelas schoolmate, Angelas brain
works properly and Michels language is perfectly understood by her. Instead in our daily life subjective
certainty that Angela communicates in her answer (in this case using simple present, in other cases using
markers or a particular attitude/vocal tone) achieves a dual result: on one hand it allows us to believe that
Michel is justified according to the reidian criterion, even if he hasnt particular reasons for his belief, on the
other hand it satisfies also 2), since according to the reidian principle of credulity we are naturally inclined
to believe what we are told, moreover if the speaker has the proper subjective certainty. In the philosophical
context instead, the certainty is sufficient for satisfying 2), but it has nothing to do with 3): it isnt truth-
conducive and it is communicated either when p is true or when p is false. So since it is necessary to limit the
risk of convincing ourselves of false beliefs, you should use the humean criterion. In conclusion we can
notice that subjective certainty has different roles in both contexts, because they have different purposes: the
philosophical context aims to save the possibility of knowledge from the skeptic hypothesis, while in the
ordinary context we want to save the possibility of acquiring and communicating knowledge through
testimony and here the certainty is crucial.




36

Curinga Luisa, University of Macerata (Italy), luisa.curinga@unimc.it

Mu es sein? Es mu sein!. Certainty and uncertainty in music

In 1826, a few months before his death, Beethoven added two mottoes, both musical and textual, to the last
movement of his final work, the String Quartet op. 135: the first, Mu es sein?, refers to an answering
motif (Grave), while the second, Es mu sein! (Allegro), corresponds to a musical motif with an
affirmative character. With these enigmatic epigraphs, a sort of philosophical will, Beethoven also makes
clear the peculiar attitude of music to be involved in the concepts of Certainty and Uncertainty in a profound
and structural way. Music, as a non-verbal language which generally aims to express and communicate
emotions, is ruled by an alternation of tension (Uncertainty) and distension (Certainty) shared by most
musical styles of all periods. My paper aims to point out some meaningful aspects related to the expression
of these concepts in music, a subject barely faced by scholars at the moment. For example, in tonal music the
certainty given by form (intended as a recognizable structure), by pitch centres (tonic, dominant), by themes
(intended as recognizable melodic successions of sound) is continually counterbalanced by elements of
instability, such as transitions from one key to another, cadenzas, and harmonic ambiguity. In this sense, the
structure of the classical sonata form is an illuminating example: the certainty expressed in the exposition by
the affirmation of the two themes is endangered by the uncertainty of the development, with its moving
through different keys and its elaborations of the materials of the exposition. The recapitulation resolves this
uncertainty thematically and harmonically, and the certainty is restored. In non-tonal music, for instance in
the serialism of XXth century, the uncertainty of the listener in face of the dissolution of melody, is indeed
the result of a compositional process based on numerical series of sounds set out in a particular order, strictly
and certainly defined. In the domain of jazz, the concept of Uncertainty assumes a peculiar role: jazz
players are requested to manage the uncertainty, because the performance based on improvisation is not
planned, and the musicians have to interact with each other in real time. They dont fear uncertainty, on the
contrary they are attracted by the prospect of finding original answers without a plan, and without the
certitude of the result. For this reason, jazz performance courses have been recently organised for business
managers in order to acquire strategies and ability in managing the uncertainty typical of the business world.
Some aspects of computer music, such as Granular Synthesis and Just In Time Coding, can also be
discussed in terms of uncertainty [Rohrhuber - de Campo, Waiting and Uncertainty in Computer Music
Networks, Ann Arbor, 2004] with reference to the audition, to the perception of self and others, and to the
dialectic between compositional control and independent artistic behaviour. Recently, the reflection on
Certainty and Uncertainty has also been partially introduced in Music Education [Barrett - Stauffer,
Narrative Inquiry in Music Education. Troubling Certainty, Springer 2009], a reflection that is worthy of
going into thoroughly.



Damonte Marco, University of Genova (Italy), marco.damonte@unige.it

Newmans assent and Wittgensteins flies

At the beginning of On Certainty, Wittgenstein, commenting the sentence if you know that here there is a
hand, then we will allow you everything else, quotes Newmans An Essay in Aid of A Grammar of Assent.
Most annotators hold that here the question is about common sense, but I propose to consider the relevance
of this argument for what concerns the problem of certainty. In the first part of my paper I will explain
Wittgensteins position starting from the grammar of to know, to believe, to prove and to give
evidence for. Certainty is not only relevant to cognition, but above all to the possibility of communication,
so it has also something to do with education, rules and linguistic games. Another relevant point is
Wittgensteins argument against private language, because it makes it clear that evidence is socially
established and that it is not only a subjective feeling or resolution. Moreover, with an analogical argument I
show that as scepticism is intelligible only aknowledging the existence of truth, uncertainty is possible only
through certainty. I will propose to read the riverbed metaphor in this context. Then, I will take Newmans
position into consideration. For him, certainty is a sort of feeling that couples with the assent or the inference
37

of a sentence. I will examine in detail what sort of feeling this is and I will conclude that is has an objective
part, in fact it has to do with the conscience of a person and with his responsibility. To understand their
positions and to evaluate the possibility of a convergence, I will consider as a paradigmatic example the
assent to religious beliefs and the degrees of their certainty, using Wittgensteins Lectures on Religious
Beliefs and Newmans last part of Grammar of Assent. I will conclude that the most relevant contributions of
these two scholars about certainty are: (1) connecting certainty with intersubjectivity; (2) connecting
certainty with linguistic dimensions; (3) examining certainty avoiding mere epistemological issues, the
subjective / objective dualism and the internalism / externalism distinction. To appreciate their reflections it
is necessary to formulate a new (anti-cartesian) notion of rationality and a new (anti-dualistic) anthropology.
At the end, I will conclude with a conter-example, considering how certainty acts in the cases of self-
deception (defined as being mistaken through ones own fault) and akrasia (defined as lack of self-control).
In both events, what is relevant is the social context and the concrete actions: using Wittgensteins words, to
show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.



Davitti Elena, University of Manchester (United Kingdom), elena.davitti@manchester.ac.uk

Exploring shifts in the communication of certainty and uncertainty via
upgrading renditions in dialogue interpreting

This paper explores the shifts in the degree of certainty or uncertainty of a source utterance as a result of
specific moves produced by dialogue interpreters in triadic exchanges as well as the impacts of such shifts on
the unfolding interaction. The data used consists of a small corpus of authentic, video-recorded, mediated
parent-teacher meetings (PTMs) carried out in English and Italian. An interdisciplinary, interactionist and
multimodal approach encompassing conversation analysis and multimodal analysis is adopted to explore
how interactants orient to both verbal and non-verbal activities in the production and monitoring of each
others actions, the initiation and maintenance of social encounters, and in the co-construction of meaning
and mutual trust. One underlying assumptions is that actions are laminated, i.e. composed of different layers
(linguistic structures and embodied displays) complementing each other in accomplishing coherent courses
of action. Assessments are the basic structural unit adopted to analyse the verbal component; these are
frequently found in the interactions collected, possibly by virtue of the dominant evaluating nature of PTMs,
and provide a stable and identifiable structural unit within the stream of talk. Through assessments, speakers
express their stance and convey their individual degrees of certainty or uncertainty towards a referent or state
of affairs. Assessments appear therefore as a fruitful notion to explore how displays of knowledge, epistemic
authority and positioning are achieved, albeit their production in institutional and mediated scenarios is still
underresearched. Assessments are considered within their sequence of occurrence; they are widely used by
participants, mainly teachers, as interactional resources to package specific actions, namely reporting and
recommending. Emphasis is placed on the formulation of utterances embedding assessments produced by
interpreters in their renditions. In particular, I focus on a common practice implemented by interpreters in my
data, i.e. the production of future-oriented upgrading renditions, mainly via rendition final position (RFP)
assessments. The name highlights the specific sequential positioning in which these assessments occur; they
reflect the information imparted by teachers, even though they are produced independently by interpreters,
and seem to serve a number of functions, namely explicitating, reassuring and moving the interaction further.
My argument is that upgrading renditions affect the degree of certainty and uncertainty of the source
utterance; through them, interpreters seem to claim epistemic rights to evaluate the childs future while
communicating the information related to it as certain. The impact of such moves in terms of construction of
knowledge and trust among the parties-at-talk, alignment, affiliation and involvement is investigated. The
role of multimodal factors in the co-construction and negotiation of certainty or uncertainty and epistemicity
is accounted for in this study. Gaze is integrated in the analysis of talk as a additional variable which plays
fundamental expressive, monitoring and regulatory functions in interaction, thus heightening accessibility of
the event by strengthening or mitigating the import of certainty or uncertainty of a specific piece of
discourse. To enable its investigation, gaze is encoded alongside specific conversational cues via the ELAN
software, which interfaces audio-video input in a user-friendly hypertextual transcription.
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De Conti Manuele, University of Padova (Italy), manueledeconti@hotmail.com

Undermining absolute certainty in debate contexts

In the theory and practice of school and academic debate, debating is considered as an effective way for
people to explore and change others opinions. Many scholars have argued for this position. However, only a
few have dealt with the important psychological outcome of polarization. Polarization, moving in the
direction of ones own initial position, can occur between debaters as well as among the audience. It is only
when a person has no sound beliefs, persuasion occurs. In light of these elements, the purpose of this paper
will be to review the conditions of certainty and uncertainty, as well as to highlight the argumentative and
communicative strategies that undermine absolute certainty in an opponents or audiences beliefs, thus
enabling persuasion to occur. Reviewing philosophical and psychological research will permit us to
understand what makes someone hold certain or uncertain beliefs; the rhetorical, argumentation, debate and
communication literature will enable us to identify proper strategies with which to lead our opponents or an
audience from absolute certainty to a more problematic stance.



De Iaco Moira, University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), moiradeiaco@libero.it

The certainty of the Ego, the doubt about the Other

The first and only certain idea, which is certain because it is a clear and distinct product of an inner
movement of thought, is that the Ego exists. This idea implies the doubt about the existence of the Other,
often formulated in the so-called problem of existence of other minds besides his own. The question is:
"How do I know that there are other minds than mine?". Which is to ask: "How do I know that others suffer,
hope, fear, desire, think?" or "How can I prove that there are other minds, and that others have not only a
body?". At first sight the issue appears epistemological because it seems to affect the way we know things or
the way we can demonstrate some beliefs. To justify the existence of other minds is difficult as much as the
existence and contents of its own seem immediate and transparent. Therefore, the way we think about the
mind of the Ego gives rise to difficulties: the thinking Ego, in the dominant metaphysical solipsistic view
that sees the progress of thought in complete isolation in the Ego mind, is certain to have an authoritative,
privileged and private access to the objects, states or processes, of his own mind. In fact, only the Ego seems
to have immediate knowledge of his own inner contents. Behind this view there is the belief in the
misleading image inner/exterior: the inner is always true and therefore certain, because each Ego, and only
the Ego, can have a first-hand knowledge of it, so it is synonym of depth; the exterior comes from the inner
and is its the surface, like a faded picture of inner. We think that each Ego can only observe the surface of
the Other, but not the depth. The inner of the other remains invisible and we can observe only signs which
come from it. The signs represent the inner, but they are not exhaustive and often the correspondence
between outer signs and the inner is not certain. The existence of internal objects of others is essentially
inaccessible: it can only be inferred through the analogy that the Ego observes between self and other
humans. So the Other, with his own interior, remains exposed to doubt. Doubts about Others arise because
we begin to reflect on the mind, what is considered a private inner, always reflecting in first person.
Therefore each Ego reflects on his own mind. We propose to show the misunderstandings hidden in the
belief that what we call mind is immediately accessible to the Ego, while the existence of one of the Others
remains doubtful. To do this we discuss what we call 'mind'. So, following Wittgenstein, we look-through the
grammar of the word 'mind'. The epistemological problem concerning the existence of Others becomes a
conceptual problem concerning the way we think about the mind and, therefore, the way we talk about it,
because thought is by signs.




39

Degani Salah, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne (France) & University of Manouba (Tunisia),
salah1degani@yahoo.fr

The stakes of the communication through the sets of the certainty and the
uncertainty in the written dialogue

To qualify the dialogue as "shape of problematic communication" could surprise several persons, in
particular those who consider it under the primary aspect ("authentic dialogue"). Yet, it is necessary to
remind that the written dialogue cannot be likened to a "simple"/the oral conversation. From the oral to the
paper, there are several realized operations which require that the analysis of this shape has to take into
account several levels, mainly semantic and syntactic levels. It is on what insist all the methodological
approaches of the interactive exchanges. The written dialogue is, also, a discursive complex activity as far as
she answers a double postulate: it is a monologic and dialogical shape at the same time. Thus, the analyst
who attacks this shape has to understand, from the beginning, this ambivalence; who explains besides the
indifference, the sidelining, even the rejection and the belittlement characterizing the behavior of several
critics and writers. When we read the dialogues of Julien Gracq (hes a big French writer, born in 1910 and
died in 2007), the attention is focused on the frequency of the misunderstandings and the difficulties being
understood between the character and his speaker. These discursive phenomena come along with recurring
references to the certainty and/or to the uncertainty characterizing the behavior of the speaker and/or the
interlocutor. This communicative "behavior" based on the certainty-uncertainty are "attitudes" adopted really
or feigned by the speaker (or his interlocutor) for diverse reasons. The frequency and the systematic return of
these communicative positions constitute real descriptive moments on the plans of the argumentation and the
meaning in Julien Gracq's novels. Our main concern in the present work consists in analyzing the functioning
and the mechanisms of these communicative positions based on the certainty and the uncertainty and to try,
within the limits of the present study, to pull the real semantic stakes. It will allow us to understand some
difficulties relative to the meaning inside the written dialogue (which is a problematic discursive shape-
activity).



Diana Barbara, b.diana2@campus.unimib.it
Zurloni Valentino, valentino.zurloni@unimib.it
Elia Massimiliano, m.elia5@campus.unimib.it
University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy)

Unmasking prepared lies: a recurrent temporal pattern detection approach

Achieving high information assurance is complicated due to human fallibility in detection of deception.
Different studies reveal that, although people show a statistically reliable ability to discriminate truths from
lies, overall accuracy rates average 54% or only a little above chance. The average total accuracy rates of
professional lie catchers (56%) is similar to that of laypersons. Moreover, cues to deception are typically
faint and unreliable. A contributing factor is that the underlying theoretical explanations for why such cues
occur, like nervousness and cognitive load, also apply to truth tellers. Studies in the past have focused on
eliciting and amplifying emotions for example by asking specific questions, but it is uncertain whether this
procedure will necessarily raise more concern in liars than in truth tellers. Conversely, only a few efforts
focused on unmasking the liars by applying a cognitive lie detection approach. The present study tested the
hypothesis that the differences between liars and truth tellers will be greater when subjects report their stories
in reverse order than when they do it in chronological order. We argue that recalling stories in reverse order
will produce cognitive overloading in subjects, because their cognitive resources are already partially spent
on the lying task; this should emphasize nonverbal differences between liars and truth tellers. During the
experiment, we asked participants to report specific episodes about the last time they had been to a party and
the last time they went out for pizza. We videotaped them as they reported their stories in chronological
order or in reverse order after asking to lie about one of the stories. We focused in analyzing how people
organize their communicative styles during both truthful and deceptive interactions. Such influences on the
40

organization of behavior will be explored within the framework of the T-pattern model. The term T-pattern
stands for temporal pattern; it is based on the timing of events, relative to each other. T-pattern detection was
developed for finding temporal and sequential structure in behavior. A minimal T-pattern consists of two
event types. An event type is a category of observable behavior whereas an event is an instance of behavior
occurring at a particular time unit without a duration. Two event types are considered a T-pattern if they both
occur at least twice in the behavior record in the same order and their occurrence times are invariantly
distributed over time, i.e. their time distances are unlikely random. We coded the video recordings, after
establishing the ground truth, using Theme Coder software. We are currently analyzing datasets using Theme
5 software. The algorithm implemented in the software detects repeated patterns of intra- or inter-individual
behavior coded as events on one-dimensional discrete scales.



Dirtu Evagrina, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania), evagrinad@yahoo.com

The unlikely sure thing in magical realist fiction

The paper focuses on the narrative modalities to convey certainty in a magical realist literary construction,
whose major challenge is the insertion of unnatural/unrealistic elements among the ones composing an
ordinary realistic framework. I am particularly interested in the literary categories of voice and perspective,
as well as in the markers of authorship, which I follow in an illustrative contemporary novel by the French
author Marie Darrieussecq, Truismes.



Dittmar Norbert, University of Napoli LOrientale (Italy) & FU-Berlin (Germany),
ndittmar@unior.it, nordit@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Parentheses commenting discourse segments: epistemic meaning and interactive
function

My contribution will focus on about 500 epistemic parentheses in the so called Wendekorpus (narratives
and argumentations of east and west berliners after the fall of the wall at the beginning of the nineties) which
comment on discourse fragments in different ways (wissen, denken, glauben, meinen mostly in the form of
Berlin vernacular). I will describe their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic forms and functions in terms of
constructions. I will compare the communicative functions of these parentheses with utterances (phrasal
discourse segments) which consist of a proposition modalised by an epistemic operator in form of a verb (i.e.
meinen, denken, glauben, wissen) or an adverbial (vielleicht, sicher, klar, offensichtlich, meiner Meinung
nach etc.). I will describe these expressions on a scale of epistemicity. Are these modal operators discourse
markers? Semantic and pragmatic functions will be distinguished. The contribution aims at the discovery of
communicative patterns which can be understood as a Propdeutik of a construction grammar oriented
description.



Dufour Michel, University of Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle (France), mdufour@univ-paris3.fr

The use of explanation as a mark of certainty in argumentative dialog

In the field of argumentation studies a distinction is currently made between argument and explanation. It is
based on the cognitive status of the thesis discussed in an exchange. This very distinction is based on the
previous presupposition that an explanation, like an argument, is an inferential structure from some reasons
(premises) to a conclusion or a stand point. If this standpoint is held as certain by the agents concerned by the
41

exchange, the structure is an explanation. If they disagree about it, it is an argument. This is what I call
Hempels principle because it is a central and explicit assumption of the famous Deductive Nomological
(DN) model of scientific explanation developed by the philosopher C.G Hempels during the 60s. This
model is based on deterministic physical laws used as inferential rules linking the explanatory considerations
(the explanans) to the fact or event to explain (the explanandum). Hempel himself stressed that explaining a
past or a future event changes an explanation into an argument, for past and future events are uncertain. To
account for the increasing use of statistical laws in science, Hempel developed another theory: the Inductive-
Statistical (IS) model. But besides the temporal effect already stressed in the case of the DN model, this one
leads to a problem of epistemic relativity which plagues Hempels theory and is still a challenge for
contemporary philosophy of (scientific) explanation. I claim that the IS model also challenges the usefulness
of the standard distinction between argument and explanation and that it is especially blatant in the context of
an explanatory/argumentative dialogue. And I shall suggest that the distinction between explanation and
argument is often a rhetorical intimidating device used by an agent to postulate, before any discussion, that
her standpoint is true.



El Saj Hala, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (Lebanon), hala_saj@hotmail.com

Discourse Analysis of mood structures in Oprah Winfrey Show

This article examines a meaningful part from the interview of Oprah Winfrey with Queen Rania of Jordan.
The dialogue is explored from a critical discourse analysis approach; it focuses on Functional Systematic
Linguistics and on grammatical approaches. The transcript of the episode was analyzed to investigate the
type of sentences used by Oprah throughout her conversation. The results suggest that in her central role as a
host of the program, Oprah uses various types of sentences in order to dig more information. Oprah
especially employed probing questions such as confirming, clarifying, exemplification, nonverbal probes,
echo probes, accuracy probes and exploring points. Another interesting way of asking questions is by using
emotional questions where Oprah tries to uncover a common feeling she and her guest experienced. Oprah
used rhetorical questions indicated by gaining agreement and multiple questions. Another finding is that
Oprah shares with Queen Rania same values despites both women come from different cultures.



Emeksiz Zeynep Erk, Anadolu University, Eskisehir (Turkey), zeemeksiz@anadolu.edu.tr
Turan mit Deniz, Anadolu University, Eskisehir (Turkey), udturan@anadolu.edu.tr
Uzun Glsn Leyla, University of Ankara (Turkey), gulsunleylauzun@hotmail.com

Epistemic stance markers and certainty in Turkish academic discourse

The aim of this paper is to investigate the epistemic stance, i.e. commitment, judgment and evaluation of the
writers towards the facts and suggestions presented in Turkish academic discourse. Epistemic stance is
marked through a continuum between the highest certainty assertions to uncertain possibility. The continuum
from the highest to the weakest certainty in that order is as follows (adapted from: Sauri, et.al.): 1) factual
predicates (e.g. understand, observe, etc.), 2) reporting predicates (certain according to a source in the
literature) (e.g. state, show, etc.), 3) reporting predicates (certain based on self observation), Certainty
morphemes (-DIR, in Turkish) 4) necessity predicates and modality morphemes (e.g. necessitate, must, etc.),
5) Weak assertive predicates: (think, believe, suppose, etc.), 6) possibility predicates, modality morphemes
(to be likely, can, etc.). In addition to these lexical and grammatical units, adverbial modifiers, including
disjuncts, such as obviously, really, apparently, as easily understood, on one hand and hardly ever, possibly,
perhaps, etc. on the other, can be used as epistemic stance devices for boosting or hedging. While the higher
certainty structures denote high commitment of the author and strength of the proposition, weak certainty
structures denote detachment and a tendency to avoid strong commitment. Thus, the author reflects his/her
epistemic stance either through boosting or hedging the propositions. Boosting shows an authoritative stance
42

put forward by the author, whereas hedging indicates that the author distances himself from what is stated.
Hedging is a strategy to avoid challenge to the claim made and making a generalization that is too strong and
therefore liable to potential falsification. An analysis of Turkish academic discourse in linguistics and
educational sciences shows that Turkish academic discourse tends to consist of a high degree of lexical and
grammatical structures that mark certainty. These structures include a high ratio of factual predicates,
reporting predicates, and certainty tense, aspect and mood morphemes. Modality morphemes are used to
mark impossibility, which is also taken to be within certainty stance. The ability / possibility modal
morpheme Ebil (can) is generally used to mark the probability of an alternative among existing facts rather
than marking the possibility of a claim. Thus, this morpheme does not appear to function as a hedging
device. For example, in an article in linguistics out of 189 propositions only 2 include hedging devices. Our
observations illustrate that Turkish academic discourse includes more boosting than hedging. Another
boosting strategy observed in our data is that authors prefer to stativize an event predicate. As is well known,
stative predicates denote permanent properties, while activities, accomplishments, achievements denote
temporary events. Permanent situations can hardly be challenged for falsification because they do not cease
to exist over time or go through a change. A state denotes almost an inherent nature of the subject under
discussion. On the other hand, temporary events do not perpetuate as such. As a result, states rather than
events are stronger boosting devices. We elaborate on this line of thinking in our study and present a
quantitative analysis of the stance devices in 40 Turkish academic texts, 20 in linguistics and 20 in
educational sciences.



Fatigante Marilena, University of Roma 1 La Sapienza (Italy), marilena.fatigante@uniroma1.it
Orletti Franca, University of Roma 3 (Italy), orletti@uniroma3.it
Bafaro Saverio, University of Roma 1 La Sapienza (Italy), saveriobafaro@libero.it

Giving advice to pregnant patients: strategic uses of certainty/uncertainty

Conversational studies on medical interaction (cf. Heritage and Maynard 2006) have increasingly
acknowledged that medical activities, traditionally considered in the hands of the doctor only, are the product
of a collaborative conversational enterprise between the doctor and the patient. With regards decision
concerning treatment, Byrne and Long (1976) had already evidenced how the so called consideration
stage, ie, the stage in which the patients physical conditions are examined and options for treatment are
assessed, includes the contribution of both actors of the consultation. Stivers (2005) has shown in pediatric
encounters how parents have several resources to affect the doctors choices and negotiate for a treatment
options that are in line with their own preferences. Few studies have examined, though, in detail the ups and
downs of the doctors certainty in the course of these negotiations. The paper we present deals with the
doctor-patients management of certainty and uncertainty during the activity of seeking and providing
advice/prescriptions in gynecological consultations with pregnant patients. The corpus includes 20 audio and
video- recorded interactions between doctors and pregnant patients, collected in an outpatient department of
obstetrics and gynecology in a public hospital in Rome, Italy. Medical visits were fully transcribed according
to the jeffersonian conventions (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974). We rely on Conversation Analysis as
for the analysis of the distinctive activities sequentially unfolding in the consultation. We selected episodes
from the corpus in which patients solicit advice for a number of concerns related to their health and overall
life habits during their pregnancy. Analyses show the sequential transformation of advice-giving sequences
onto activities of shared decisionmaking, in which the expression of certainty/ uncertainty plays a pivotal
role. Particularly, it is shown how the doctor and the pregnant patient arrive at a decision throughout several
rounds in which the doctors displays of certainty/uncertainty in delivering, for instance, dietary instructions,
body exercise, or medical prescriptions, sequentially adjust to the patients expression of resistance toward
the recommendation. Whereas earlier works have dealt with physicians uncertainty as a source of anxiety
and, as such, as something to be concealed from the patients (Fox 1957; Katz 1984; quoted in Maynard and
Frankel 2006), we show how uncertainty is dealt as a strategic resource by both the doctor and the patient in
order to build consensus and negotiate a shared course of action. We discuss the analyses as relevant to
highlight how models of shared decision making advocated in clinical practice (Charles et al. 1997) are
enacted in conversation and what are the implications for medical education and training.
43

Fele Giolo, University of Trento (Italy), giolo.fele@unitn.it

Requesting help with null or limited knowledge: entitlements and responsibility
in emergency calls

It is assumed that the caller to an emergency number is in a privileged position relative to the facts that have
occurred and that require some type of emergency intervention. This position in relation to the events enables
the caller to provide relevant information that may be required by the operators. As is known, the simple
request for intervention is not considered by the operators a reason to provide the service unless some
additional communicative work is done. The operators try to get the best possible information about the type
of the event and the place where the event took place, through a series of questions addressed to the caller.
The series of questions the operator asks is directed to ascertain in particular the reliability and accuracy of
the information provided by the caller. In other words, the description that the caller produces (regarding the
type of event, what happened, where, etc.) may be subject to doubt and suspicion (Whalen & Zimmerman
1990). For this reason, the operators explore in particular the relationship between caller and event (what
Whalen & Zimmerman 1990 called "practical epistemology"). My presentation deals with cases in which the
caller lacks the information required in an emergency call for assistance. Many works have been devoted to
the task of collecting information by the call-taker, and the ways in which the caller responds to questions
asked from the call-taker. Yet, a number (not small) of emergency calls is done in conditions of relative
knowledge or no knowledge at all, by the caller, regarding the circumstances of the case. Often this is due to
the fact that the caller is not directly involved or direct witnesses of the events but a person delegated from
some other parties to make the call. The presentation will analyze what happens in emergency calls when a
person cannot provide the fundamental information of an event. What happens when the caller cannot
answer questions from the call-taker regarding the details of what has happened and where? The knowledge
of the facts and events is fundamental to the delivery of service by the emergency organization. To be
authoritative, and therefore to receive attention and the service required as soon as possible, the caller must
be a credible witness of the events, have a first hand knowledge of what has happened. But what happens
when the caller has no knowledge or a second hand knowledge of what has happened and the caller is not a
direct witness of the events? The presentation will deal in particular to the problems connected to the absence
of knowledge or limited knowledge for requesting an emergency service for the sequential organization of
the call. If the caller has no relevant knowledge of the facts, then the progressivity of the call will be
impaired: that is, the call would soon be brought to a close. In which way knowledge and progressivity are
connected?



Fetzer Anita, University of Wrzburg (Germany), anita.fetzer@uni-wuerzburg.de

Evidentiality in context - or how to import evidence into (English) discourse

This contribution examines the theoretical concept of evidentiality in a cognitive-pragmatic frame of
reference supplemented by interactional sociolinguistics, comparing and contrasting it with epistemic
modality in order to identify its prototypicality conditions as regards the following features: (1) +/-
subjective, (2) +/- social, (3) +/- speaker-oriented, (4) +/- other-oriented. It is based on the premise that in
some languages the linguistic coding of evidentiality is obligatory (cf. Aikenvald 2004), while in others, for
instance English, it is not. In those languages, it is the communicators who may refer to explicitly or
implicitly, thereby assigning it the status of being relevant at a particular stage in discourse for a particular
purpose or communicative goal. Things seem similar for the linguistic coding of epistemic modality, but
there is a decisive difference between the linguistic coding of the two. To express epistemic modality in
English, communicators do not only have a closed set of modal verbs with the corresponding epistemic
meanings at their disposal, but also an open set of linguistic devices containing modal adverbs, epistemic
parentheticals and other grammaticalized items. To express evidentiality, however, they have only an open
set of linguistic devices with a less determinate evidential meaning at their disposal which contains modal
verbs, modal adverbs and other expressions of evidentiality. Moreover, these devices do not have an
44

exclusively evidentiality-marking function but are also used to express epistemic modality and to intensify
the pragmatic force of a conversational contribution and the speakers commitment towards its validity in
discourse. The communicators evaluation of knowledge, of its source and of its degree of reliability is a
constitutive part of epistemic modality and of evidentiality. It is at the stage of the speakers assessment of,
or attitude towards, the potentiality of a state of affairs (Radden & Dirven 2007: 233), and his / her lack of
sufficient knowledge (Radden & Dirven 2007:234) where epistemic modality and evidentiality meet and
interface. The speakers evaluation of knowledge is necessarily based on her / his subjective evidence which
are used as arguments in her / his reasoning processes. It may conflate with the coding of epistemic modality
with respect to necessity, possibility and probability. Against this background, the paper argues for
evidentiality to be assigned a presuppositional status in English discourse. This is in accordance with the
Gricean cooperative principle, in particular with the maxim of quality: Under the category QUALITY falls
a supermaxim - "Try to make your contribution one that is true"- and two more specific maxims: 1. Do not
say what you believe to be false. 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence (Grice 1975: 46).
Consequently, explicit references to evidentiality in discourse which make the source of the information
explicit (e.g., naming the source of a quotation or of a logical conclusion), and implicit references to
evidentiality in discourse (e.g. discourse connectives with an argumentative force) are assigned the status of
a contextualization cues (Gumperz 1996) and invite conversational implicatures making explicit that the
speaker may infringe on the maxim of quality. To illustrate the underlying theoretical claims references to
evidentiality and epistemic modality and possible co-occurrences are identified in scientific discourse.



Fiuk Ewa, University of Antwerp (Belgium), ewa.fiuk@student.ua.ac.be
(poster)

From epistemic to pragmatic? The meaning evolution of the Dutch adverb
misschien (maybe)

My poster presentation is based on a research on Dutch epistemic adverbs and adjectives and their meaning
evolution from Old Dutch until Present Day Dutch. The analysis is an empirical corpus based study which
uses written corpora from four periods: Old Dutch (all texts - overwhelming of religious nature - until 1200),
Early Middle Dutch (Corpus Gijsseling; religious, administrative, scientific and literary texts from the period
1200-1300), Early New Dutch (own corpus made up using de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse
Letteren; prose texts and plays from the period 1550-1650) and Present Day Dutch (with newspaper texts
from ConDiv Corpus and essays and reader letters from own corpus made up with text material available on
the internet). The Old Dutch Corpus contains texts which are considered by the Instituut voor Nederlandse
Lexicologie as Old Dutch and are digital available, the corpus Early Middle Dutch contains texts from the
whole area of Dutch dialects in the 13th century, the Early New Dutch corpus is composed of texts from the
Northern and Southern Low Countries and corpus Present Day Dutch consists of text material from the
Netherlands and from Belgium what gives a good picture of the usage of misschien in both varieties of
Dutch. The form misschien has its origin in the complementary sentence (he)t mach (ghe)schien (dat) (it can
happen that) which had a dynamic situational reading (dynamic modality according to Nuyts 2006) in the
Old Dutch. There is a potential in the situation which makes the state of affairs possible: (1) di maeght es
ende cuesch ende sonder blame.../ Di macht soen vffent hi nyet allene/ omdat hijt vlesch wilt maken onrene/
maer omdad coyme dit mach geschien/ en ga voert opte ziele van dien... (Sinte Lutgard A 1276-1300)
Because this woman is pure and without any blame, it can hardly happen that the devil will make her
unclean. After the fusion and reduction of tmachschien into the adverb misschien, this form got an epistemic
meaning and was used to express speakers low judgment of the likelihood of the proposition (<50% of
chance that the state of affairs occurs). This was and still is the most common meaning of the adverb
misschien: (2) Oc hebbedi masschin gelesen/ Of horen seggen ()/ Dat () (Sinte Lutgard K 1265-
1270) Or you have perhaps read or heard reading () Also the latter language stages the epistemic meaning
is still the most common one but the adverb misschien is being used more often (4,5% in Early Middle Dutch
and 13% in Present Day Dutch written texts; this percentage may be even higher in spoken language) as a
speech act modifier to make a polite request or a suggestion or when the speaker expects a positive answer
45

on his/her yes/no question: (3) Begrijpen de arme schepsels misschien dat ik n van hen ben? (De
Standaard 1998) Do the poor creatures think perhaps that I am one of them? (4) Nu dat zware werk achter
de rug is kan u misschien wat meer tijd in uw kinderen steken. (Laatste Nieuws 1998) Because this hard
work is done now, you can/ should perhaps spend some more time with your children. It seems that the
Dutch form misschien undergoes the pragmaticalization where a modal adverb becomes a speech act
modifier (discourse marker). This seems very much the case also for the other Dutch epistemic adverb zeker
(Byloo/ Kastein/ Nuyts 2006) what shows that it can be a more common process in language in general.



Fleury Arnaud, University of Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle (France), agc.fleury@hotmail.fr

The paradox of the rain and the weather

We propose to establish a model able to describe empirical phenomena related to the understanding of
human languages, to through a thorough study of linguistic constraints imposed by the different meaning of
language units, the construction and the overall interpretation of the meaning humorous and ironic statements
(in a strictly argumentative dimension of humor); but this original and ambitious of empirical semantic
description, as a second plane, to account for these linguistic constraints, due to the meaning of words in the
language and phrases. Quite the contrary, this new model is essentially to describe the process of referential
interaction between the linguistic meaning of words, on the meaning of iron language constitution. The
establishment of such a model must necessarily understand the nature of concessional false statements in the
argument, while characterizing the influence of particular connectors between several referents in conflict (in
the case of irony as a false category of humor). I therefore propose to define two distinct planes, humor and
irony, through the completion of these two diametrically opposed discursive movements, whose study will
be measured by the range of interpretation between the various connectors discursive (like but and
then), as soon as they opposite referents which are not very compatible or consistent (from the point of
receipt of the first, towards the start of the second). We note finally, under the approach of metamorphic, the
fundamental differences in terms of updating the various cognitive form of isomorphy and mesomorphy (as
the special case of the words "same" and "other" in French) that can co-refer: to the such linguistic meaning
of words in the lexicon of reference (eg, interpretation of the meaning of the word "raven" referring to the
bird); a speech where the meaning of this word, once updated by semantically logical connectors and
determinants (eg.: interpreting the meaning of the statement "The crow picked up the pen" referring to the
identification of an individual, without changing the meaning of the word "raven"). Pragmatics being used as
a discursive analysis of linguistic markers of enunciation, it is therefore the epicenter of our theoretical
argument, which accounts for the phenomenon of co-reference discursive between two viewpoints
represented in conflict over interpretation ambiguous and uncertain of the reference. The suspended time of
ambiguity and uncertainty because of the speech before the emergence of understanding. This preliminary
phase of free interpretation at the thought of each, allows to "feed, one after another, two contradictory
certainties. So we set up a body of a priori statements incongruous in terms of their interpretation by the
reader-listener, through a typological sketch of understanding the meaning.



Frster Rosalie, University of Ghent (Belgium), rosalie.foerster@ugent.be

Expressing certainty and uncertainty in parent-teacher conferences. Effects on
legitimacy and role fulfillment

Parent teacher conferences represent a setting in which the social institutions school and family meet and are
able to intersect and interact. They can be studied as one of several forms of institutional interaction,
organized as a specialized system of turn-taking based on questions and answers. On first sight these
meetings seem pre-defined and they seem to follow fix structures that allocate specific roles to the teacher
and the parent(s). Teachers in their position as the professional are expected to deliver precise accounts of
46

the performance of the children at school. Parents on the other hand can be perceived as experts
concerning their individual child. Due to these positions and their knowledge, parents and teachers can
deliver particular certain pieces of information. Nevertheless teachers and parents are confronted with
various challenges and uncertainties in these talks, prominently with instances concerning legitimacy and the
ability to fulfill their role as a teacher or a parent. We might for example think of a teacher advising certain
strategies to improve the childrens performance, whose effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. The question is,
how can potential uncertainty be expressed without endangering ones legitimacy? How do parents and
teachers frame their uncertainties, e.g. by referring to non-present persons? And how can the expression of
certainty, e.g. by reference to professional knowledge, on the other hand be used to strengthen ones role in
the conversation? Our data consists of audio recordings of parent-teacher conferences at German primary
schools. We are analyzing them using conversation analytical methods (Sacks, 1992) in order to investigate
how the conferences are interactionally regulated and controlled, what techniques can be used to deal with
the expression of certainty and uncertainty and how these work in the situation turn by turn. The goal is to
uncover and document systematic practices through which participants accomplish their social actions and
manage their roles, and in this way make the situation work.



Franchi Maura, University of Parma (Italy), maura.franchi@unipr.it

Between truth and truthfulness. Certainty and uncertainty in the language of
social networks

Social networks highlight contemporary changes in the language of communication. In social networks the
information is subject to a process of constant change: the meaning of the messages changes passing from
hand to hand. Above all, the message is filtered by a narrative device that requires the gaze of others and is
aimed at the construction of identity. Facebook - the prototype of the new language of "social" - can be
interpreted as a means of reducing uncertainty at the ground level? While the abundance of information in
the network can produce dysfunctional effects linked to excess, the device helps to reduce social uncertainty.
Such an outcome is based on two complementary elements of narrative: the first, biographical, assumes the
gaze of others as a unifying element of individual identity, the second, based on testimony, provides a model
of authentic and exemplary behaviour. The witness takes the value of exemplary history, authentic and, at the
same time, paradigmatic. Facebook can then be treated as a device for the production of forms of mass
reassurance in which truthfulness takes the place of truth. This happens not because of any intentional
directing medium but by virtue of the mechanism implicit in the network: People ask the same network to
provide a "mirror device", the identification and construction of shared meanings. Through what kind of
language such a device is operating? The language of Facebook has some peculiar features: (i) it runs in the
first person (expressed in the form of experience: the testimony is understood as a subjective truth, not as a
means for fact reconstruction; (ii) it is synthetic rather than analytic, since it is based on a predominant use of
the images that have a strong ability to solicit identifications; (iii) it is the language of sharing, which offers
mobile identifications with the different objects proposed; (iv) it is the language of emotions, which reduces
the critical sense in favour of emotional rationality; (v) it is a narrative language, in which the particular
example provides the frame of a pattern of behaviour. Its own peculiar form of language makes Facebook a
place of social contagion that is quick and fleeting at the same time, in which conversations build a body of
social representations. For this reason the social networks indicate a social process of reducing uncertainty
through the transition from an "objective certainty" to an emotional certainty, based on sharing. The paper
aims to argue the hypothesis both from a theoretical point of view and through the empirical analysis of
conversations exchanged in the social network.




47

Fraser Bruce, Boston University (Massachusetts, USA), bfraser@bu.edu

Mediation and the uncertainty of meaning

Mediation is a form of conflict resolution where there are typically two disputing parties and one mediator,
who relies on skill to both discern the underlying interest of each disputant, based on what is said, and
convey to the disputants messages which are designed towards moving the process of resolution forward.
Unlike an argument, where the messages are normally direct and clear, messages in mediation are often
phrased as questions and contain implications as well as hedges which may or may not be intended. These
messages are not intended to be deceptive, but rather are designed to keep options open until the interests of
both parties is well established. Based on my 30 years as a professional mediator as well as transcriptions of
actual mediations, I will show the types of utterances made by both parties as well as the mediator, where the
intended meaning cannot be determined on the basis of what has been said, but must be held in abeyance
pending further elaboration.



Fu Tzu-Keng, University of Bremen (Germany), tzukeng.fu@gmail.com

On translation of linguistic-dependent institutional facts

Various attempts have been made to state the non-dependent fundamental bruit facts for someones
accessing the given institutional facts. The attempts have often been such that the relation can be stated in a
form of status function to the following: (Status Function) Y= f (X), where Y, f, X denote the institutional
facts, status functions, and brute facts, respectively. John Searle has held that the following gives the similar
functional rules for institutional facts: (Searle) X counts as Y in C, where X, Y, C denotes the brute facts, Y
institutional facts, and contexts, respectively. There is surely something right about Searles view: we are
likely to succeed in any attempt to analyze the away brute facts to institutional facts in a particular
institutional context. In this paper, I share argue that this idea could be extended to the situations about the
transformations between institutions. Moreover, we discuss what will be preserved between two institutions,
while we consider any two institutions or we say for any given some brute facts that are institutionalized. In
this way, we will see that Searles claim might be incomplete, since the truth invariance was swamped by the
institutional value preservation between the interactions of institutions. I shall begin by noting two points.
First, in the sense of institutionalized, a brute fact being institutionalized in the organizational contexts is a
necessary condition of interoperability of ordinary commerce and related applications. It is possible for a
person to be justified that some brute facts is valueable after institutionalizing a brute fact that is valueless
before. Secondly, for any institutionalized fact P, if it is justified in institutionalizing, and a subject S
transfers P from P and accepts P as a result of this transformation, then S is justified in institutionalizing P.
Keeping these two points in mind, I shall present two levels of formulations, in which the equation stated
above are assumed for some brute facts.



Galatolo Renata, University of Bologna (Italy), renata.galatolo@unibo.it
Margutti Piera, University for Foreigners of Perugia (Italy), piera.margutti@unibo.it
Cirillo Letizia, University of Bologna (Italy), letizia.cirillo@unibo.it

The co-construction of the observable and the evaluation activity in specialist
visits conducted by a team of practitioners

Research on interaction in medical settings has mainly dealt with doctor-patient talk in primary care
consultations (cf. Heritage and Maynard 2006) and doctor-doctor talk in communication among experts (cf.
Atkinson 1995). The present study explores a third setting by investigating observation and evaluation
48

activities in specialist consultations where the patient sees a team of practitioners. Moving from an
ethnographic approach, the study discusses ten first visits taking place in a centre specialized in prosthesis
construction and application. The visits were video recorded and subsequently transcribed and analysed
using Conversation Analysis and Discursive Psychology. The study investigates the stages of the medical
consultation in which the practitioners simultaneously conduct history taking and physical examination of
the limb which will be applied a prosthesis or, alternatively, undergo surgery. The presence of a team of
practitioners is relevant to the interaction in that it establishes the need for them to express to each other and
negotiate evaluations and, furthermore, what is the very object of their (medical) observation, in order to
make a common decision. As data show, during the observation of the patients limb, practitioners are
engaged in showing one another relevant cues for assessing the limbs conditions and functionality, in a
process in which the evidence for what they treat as relevant gradually surfaces in talk (evidentiality). The
studys main concern is to document the way in which practitioners define, together with the patient, the
limbs features that are relevant to the evaluation of its conditions and, therefore, to related therapeutic
decision-making. Moving from a detailed analysis of both verbal and non-verbal interactional features
(gesture, gaze, posture, etc.), the study illustrates recurring sequential formats used by practitioners to define,
with their colleagues as well as with the patient, what has to be observed and assessed in order to make a
therapeutic decision. The analysis thus sheds light on the joint, gradual construction and identification of the
diagnostic object as a precondition for the choice of a therapeutic path.



Gao Yanmei, University of Peking (China), ymgao@live.com

Negotiating certainty in post-to-post communication

Certainty is understood as the speaker/writers confidence in or commitment to the truthfulness/reliability of
the information s/he communicates. Uncertainty refers to the lack of commitment to the reliability of the
information conveyed. In face-to-face communication, certainty and uncertainty can be expressed through
both linguistic and paralinguistic devices. In written discourses, however, certainty and uncertainty can only
be expressed through linguistic expressions, explicit or implicit. In this paper, we focus on online post-to-
post communication, aiming to find out how post writers negotiate their certainty through explicit certainty
markers, perspective, time, and sentence type. By modifying Rubin et al.s (2005) and Rubins (2010)
certainty models, the present study evaluates the certainty of a text along four dimensions: i) the levels of
certainty; ii) perspectivethe writers point of view, or the third parties; iii) timelinepast, present, and
future; and iv) sentence typedeclarative, imperative, interrogative, if-clause, or exclamatory. The texts for
analysis were drawn from the category of education of Yahoo! Answers, with the homeschooling as the
shared topic. Altogether 61 answers to 9 questions are chosen. All the explicit certainty markers are
identified and categorized. Perspective and time were judged within the main clause in each sentence,
especially in complex sentences. Certainty values of sentences were assessed on a holistic basis, taking into
account factors like explicit certainty markers, negation, and sentence type. The study found that post writers
at Yahoo! Answers employed limited certainty markers in their communication. Among the four types of
explicit certainty markers, answerers prefer low certainty markers (0.25 per sentence). A great majority of
answerers took the first person perspective. Among the three categories of time, post writers used
significantly more present tense to express their ideas. As for sentence type, a great majority of the sentences
were declaratives. Contrary to our hypothesis that declarative sentences usually convey high and absolute
certainty, the certainty levels of declarative sentences in posts have been drastically undermined by low
certainty markers or negation. This study reveals that in post-to-post communication, answerers do not give
strong, serious commitment to what they write. Although they use high certainty perspective and sentence
type, they prefer to keep their commitment at low or moderate levels.




49

Gavioli Laura, laura.gavioli@unimore.it
Baraldi Claudio, claudio.baraldi@unimore.it
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy)

Doctors questions and uncertainty in healthcare interpreter-mediated
interaction

Doctor-patient interactions are types of talk where the management of uncertainty is particularly delicate. On
the one hand, identifying the symptoms of the patients precisely is crucial for the doctor to make an accurate
diagnosis. On the other hand, expressing symptoms in a way that they are doctorable (Heritage &
Robinson 2006) may take quite a complex interactional work. To improve the possibility that patients
answers about their symptoms are indicative of their diseases, doctors design their questions in a way as to
pursue assessments with a likely degree of certainty. In interpreter-mediated interaction, where doctors
questions need to be interpreted for patients, the conditions of uncertainty in question design are numerous.
In their renditions, the interpreters in fact need to: (1) address both the content of the doctors question and
the purpose that is projected through that question, (2) re-design content and project in a way that it is likely
to be taken up by the patient. Therefore, in interpreter-mediated interaction, doctors question design is a
different interactional achievement as compared to monolingual interaction, and requires close coordination
activity between the doctor and the interpreter. Our study regards a corpus of 250 bilingual interpreter-
mediated interactions between Italian doctors and migrant patients, from West Africa (Ghana and Nigeria)
and Arabic countries (mainly Morocco), mediated by six interpreters, three of them speaking West African
English and three speaking Arab. Our presentation concerns the ways in which the doctors manage
uncertainty in designing their questions for the interpreters. In particular, we analyze the relationship
between the types of doctors questions and the sequences following them, in which doctors questions are
addressed by interpreters and patients. Our analysis shows that different ways of designing questions project
different sequences (e.g. a short confirmation answer or a long history of illness) and that doctors and
interpreters negotiate question design together. Different types of question-sequences show different levels
of complexity and uncertainty in the provision of translation and in the management of talk. The simplest
sequence that is projected includes the interpreters translation, the patients answer and the interpreters
rendition of this answer (or sometimes a confirmation of doctors understanding). Expansions of this type of
sequence include patients provision of additional information after the interpreters rendition, and doctors
new questions, showing lack of satisfaction for the interpreters rendition. More complex, expanded
sequences are achieved by interpreters attempts to translate doctors projects particularly when patients
hesitate to provide their answers or tell their stories. From this analysis, we conclude that different types of
question-sequences highlight different patterns of interaction with different levels of uncertainty: (1) doctors
primary authority as questioners (lowest uncertainty), (2) doctors and interpreters negotiated authority in
coordinating question design (intermediate uncertainty), (3) interpreters taking up of authority, e.g. in
dealing with the question in their own terms (highest uncertainty).



Giancaspro Maria Luisa, maria.giancaspro@uniba.it
Manuti Amelia, a.manuti@psico.uniba.it
University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy)

Talking about us: hedges as uncertainty markers in organizational discourse

In recent years, research on hedging has proliferated in a wide variety of disciplinary fields. Much of the
research on hedging has traditionally approached the phenomenon from mainly textual and pragmatic
dimensions, which has often meant separating out elements of communication for their analysis. Thus,
studies have had three main foci: variety of lexico-grammatical items which can signal a hedge (Grabe &
Kaplan, 1997; Varttala, 2001), textual and rhetorical strategies used in hedging (Meyer, 1997; Minna-Riitta
& Markkanen, 1997; Namsaraev, 1997), and functions hedges can fulfill (Mauranen, 1997; Namsaraev,
1997). By contrast, many researchers advocate adapting a cognitive approach to such phenomena as hedging
50

(Roldn, 1999). Accordingly, this paper proposes viewing hedging from a holistic perspective, concurrently
integrating textual, pragmatic, cognitive and social factors which simultaneously work together in
communication. In this sense, hedging is considered as one of the most salient index of uncertainty. Hedging
could then be very useful to organizational research as to investigate the meanings individuals attach to their
work experience, considering linguistic uncertainty as a pragmatic cue to detect the emotional dimension of
the person/organizational relationship. In view of the above, the main aim of the paper is to investigate how
individuals adopt hedging strategies conveying uncertainty to listeners while talking about the meaning they
attached to their organization. The context of the research is that of a peculiar kind of organization: a
volleyball team. The corpus of data is made up by a sample of 12 interviews which have involved all players.
The thematic areas explored were group cohesion, group climate and communication. Data have been
transcribed and analysed adopting discourse analysis.



Gianfreda Gabriele, ISSR Istituto Statale per Sordi di Roma (Italy), g.gianfreda@issr.it
Volterra Virginia, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, CNR (Italy),
vvolterra@teletu.it
Zuczkowski Andrzej, University of Macerata (Italy), zuko@unimc.it

Expression of uncertainty in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Aim of the study is to explore the communication of Certainty and Uncertainty in Italian Sign language (LIS)
focusing on dimensions already explored for Verbal Languages (VL) and for which theoretical constructs
such as epistemic modality and evidentiality have been proposed (see, between others, Bybee et al., 1994;
van der Auwera & Plungian, 1998; Nuyts, 2001; Plungian, 2001; Pietrandrea, 2005). The related linguistic
expressions have been considered also as indicators of the perceptual-cognitive attitudes of speakers
(Bongelli & Zuczkowski, 2008). In particular, our analysis focuses on the linguistic forms through which
LIS signers realize these specific communicative functions. Few previous studies conducted in other Sign
Languages (SL) have considered mainly the expression of epistemic modality (see, between others, Ferreira
Brito, 1990; Wilcox & Shaffer, 2006; Wilcox, Rossini & Antinoro Pizzuto, 2010). The present analysis aims
to expand the investigation on this topic. In the present study conversations in Italian Sign Language (LIS)
between deaf people communicating through a video-chat software have been collected and analyzed.
Focusing on these interactions we have been able to observe linguistic units typical of LIS as they
spontaneously emerge in effective situations of language use. The corpus consisted of six exchanges: four
completely free and two on a suggested topic. The time duration range of conversations was from 23 to 51
minutes. Conversational exchanges in which signers were expressing certainty and/or uncertainty have been
identified and transcribed through Sign Writing (SW: Sutton, 1999), a tool for both composing sign language
written texts and for transcribing corpora of face-to-face SL discourse. A textual qualitative analysis has
been conducted to better identify and describe the linguistic forms used by the LIS signers. One first
exploration of the collected corpus showed that, similarly to what happens in VL, LIS signers normally dont
need to use lexical forms to communicate what they consider known or presumptively certain. The
Lexematic Units (LU) used to express epistemic certainty are produced in discourse mainly to reinforce
statements. Furthermore, some facial expressions and, optionally, manual movements (produced with special
strength) have the effect of intensifying the semantic value of a LU. In the case of LU expressing possibility,
different facial expressions are crucial to distinguish various nuances in the certainty/uncertainty dimension.
In particular they help understanding if the signer thinks that his communicative content is going to happen
or not. In some cases other facial expression can precede or even substitute the LU carrying on an
autonomous meaning. According to a cross-cultural comparative perspective, facial expressions can play
functions similar to those expressed by hearing speakers in face-to-face conversations, in conjunction with
intonational contours. But the use of facial expressions for linguistic purposes is a peculiarity of SL: in this
case, they regularly convey morphosyntactic information and sometimes constitute lexical elements.



51

Gili Luca, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), luca.gili.1987@gmail.com

Aristotle and Alexander on the truth of temporal modal sentences

As is well known, Aristotle develops in his Prior Analytics a modal logic, which has puzzled interpreters
for centuries. One of the core puzzles is that whilst rules of conversion seem to require a de dicto reading of
the modal operator, some syllogisms are valid only if the modality is de re. In order to avoid this
inconsistency, Aristotle introduces in Prior Analytics A15 a particular kind of sentences, which are said to
be necessary proposition, but which are true only at the present instant of time. This thesis is puzzling for
two reasons: (a) it seems to imply that Aristotle is referring to utterances, whilst syllogistic premises are
usually treated as propositions; (b) Aristotle holds that necessity propositions are those were the relation
between the subject and the predicate is always true; how can there be propositions which are both necessity
proposition and true at a single instant of time? I will examine Aristotles reasons for saying that there is this
kind of propositions, and I will tackle Alexanders approach, in his commentary upon this text, in order to
make sense of Aristotles claims. I will outline Aristotles (and Alexanders) conception of a proposition as a
bearer of truth, and I will dwell on the issue of the temporal semantics, which Aristotelian modal logic seems
to presuppose. My claim is that Aristotle consistently considered the premises of syllogisms as propositions,
rather than as utterances, even though these propositions have a temporal semantics, and thus refer to the
flow of time. My idea is that Aristotle uses indexical terms in his examples of propositions in order to refer
to the fact that there is a precise and univocal interpretation of the relation expressed by the sentence between
the subject and the predicate and the instant(s) of the flow of time in which the (real) relation holds between
the thing referred to by the subject and the one referred to by the predicate. However, I will try to explain
why we should resist the temptation to consider Aristotles premises, even where we find indexical terms
like now, as utterances, rather than propositions.



Goga Yvonne, University Babes Bolyai Cluj-Napoka (Romania), yvonne_goga@yahoo.fr

Paul Guimard, entre humour et ironie

Writer belonging to the second half of the 20th century, aware of the limits of the autobiographic writing
that, according to him, deforms the truth of the fact or eliminates the details, Paul Guimard pleads for the
novel as a product of fiction based on the everyday facts. Even though he presents the fundamental
problematic of the novel of the human condition in our contemporary age (the difficulty of communication,
the defence of the tradition against the alienation of the human being, the modern civilization running away
from the truth and hiding in the myths, the effects of the consumerist society on the civilization and the inter-
human relations) and of the auto-referential novel (the development of a theory of the novel and the act of
writing), the writer bases his literary communication on humour and irony, which leads to the transformation
of the fictional universe into the equal of life. Through this modality of creating fiction, the writer offers his
reader a convenient place, as he is included in the act of literary communication



Harmes Ingeborg, University of Mnster (Germany) & University of Antwerp (Belgium),
iharmes@uni-muenster.de

Should I? A linguistic analysis of the Dutch auxiliary 'zou'

Modal auxiliaries typically express modal meanings, but the Dutch modal zullen ('shall') is a special case in
this regards, since next to some modal meanings it also expresses, and even predominantly, a temporal
meaning (future). The preterite form zou ('should') is even more special since it serves as the past time of
zullen in only a relatively small percentage of its occurrences. Instead, it serves functions which zullen does
52

not, including the marking of evidentiality and counterfactuality. In addition, zou very often functions as a
modifier of another modal, as for example in zou kunnen 'should can', or zou moeten 'should must'. All of this
indicates that zou functions as a separate auxiliary, independently of zullen. Although there are some detailed
studies on the modal auxiliaries kunnen ('can'), moeten ('must'), and mogen ('may'), there are hardly any
studies on zullen or its preterite form zou. This paper focuses on the latter. It will offer an analysis of the
different meanings and uses of zou in Modern Dutch (1980 and onwards) and of their position in the
grammatical system. And it will aim to figure out whether these meanings and uses correlate with specific
grammatical patterns of their host clause, such as patterns of indirect speech, embedding under mental state
predicates, or the occurrence in the protasis or apodosis of conditional structures. The study is corpus based:
I have analyzed a sample of 400 instances, 200 instances of spoken and 200 of written language. The spoken
sample was drawn from the representative Corpus Gesproken Nederlands (Nederlandse Taalunie 2004). The
written sample was drawn in part from the CONDIV Corpus (containing newspapers, Grondelaers et al.
2000) and in part from the online Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren (http://www.dbnl.org)
and other reliable internet sources for non-fictional prose. All instances have been analyzed in terms of their
meaning or function, as well as in terms of a range of structural and functional features of the clause in which
they appear (e.g. grammatical pattern, type of state of affairs, temporal structure, presence of other modal
forms, etc.). The findings will be discussed in relation to the analysis of qualificational and of illocutionary
categories as proposed in a cognitive-functional model (see Nuyts 2001, 2008).



Heimonen Panu, University of Helsinki (Finland), panu.heimonen@helsinki.fi

Dialogue in Beethovens An die Ferne Geliebte: epistemic perspectives on
communication

In this paper a framework is developed where epistemic modalities in music and in poetic language interact
in order to create a narrative trajectory in Beethovens song cycle An die Ferne Gelibte. This trajectory leads
from a state of non-communication to an active dialogue between the interlocutors. The uncertainty that
prevails between the interlocutors is equated in poetic terms with the great distance to be found in
surrounding landscape. The concept of epistemic possibility and along with it one of uncertainty plays a
major role in the song cycle. A conjecture will be put forward according to which a Greimassian narrative
lack serves as a starting point for the narrative trajectory of the entire cycle which is here interpreted as
specifically a lack of available knowledge. In the course of the cycle mental belief states are found that are
simultaneously able to hold both the desired state of things and its negation. Thus either one of the
interlocutors can state that p, but at the same time believe that p (an equivalent of Moores paradox) or
expressed in modal terms that it might be that p. This state of affairs is reflected in the cycle in that a
network of tonal expectations is built up that consists of both dysphoric (c-, Ab-minor) and euphoric (Eb-
major) tonal goals. In this way one is able to have simultaneous awareness of a threatening unhappiness and
a state of flourishing unification between the interlocutors. Interpreted as epistemic notions one proceeds
from weak modalities of might in songs no. 2-5 to the strong modality of must in the song no. 6. A
transformation in the mental states of the interlocutors takes place in the course of the song cycle where the
role of the belief state represented by negation p with all its varieties of shading are first allowed to grow
into considerable proportions only to be demolished at the end. A central source of uncertainty is the
unfolding of tonality in the cycle coupled with the trajectory of modalities in the poem. There are several
moments where the music is on the verge of falling into the tragic fate (c-, Ab-minor; p). Each time this
destiny is however deferred, while yet a shadow of the undesired lies constantly over each of the songs.
When the Beloved finally emerges in the form of a piano melody (b. 258) over an Ab-major chord in an
unstable position the sense of uncertainty starts to develop into remarkable proportions. In a masterful way
Beethoven is able to transform this threatening misfortune into a unanimous certainty (Du singst was ich
gesungen, b. 283) concerning the communication between the interlocutors. Together epistemic modality in
music and in linguistic expressions of the poem are able to gain the momentum sufficient to overcome even
the most severe obstacles that time and place may provide. The narrative lack of epistemic nature that was
observed at the outset has now reached its fulfillment.

53

Helmer Henrike, helmer@ids-mannheim.de
Reineke Silke, reineke@ids-mannheim.de
Institute for the German Language, Mannheim (Germany)

Coding (un)certainty: displaying epistemic stance by glauben and wissen

Verba sentiendi are one linguistic device to display the certainty of utterances. Our paper deals with verb
complementation patterns of two German epistemic verbs, glauben 'to believe' and wissen 'to know'. We will
show that different degrees of epistemic (un)certainty are not only determined by semantic and contextual
factors but also encoded grammatically (cf. Leiss (2009) for grammatically encoded
epistemicity/evidentiality). 1) We will examine the realisation vs. omission of the verbs' complements in 1
st

person singular instances that occur in second pair parts (responsive actions after questions, proposals or
assertions). In uses of (nicht) glauben 'to (not) believe' a speaker's display of (un)certainty varies depending
on the realisation or omission of the object complement ("[das] glaube ich auch/nicht"; cf. Giorgi/Pianesi
(2005) on "non [lo] credo"): When a direct object is produced, greater certainty regarding the truth of the
preceding utterance is being displayed than in ellipses which omit the object. In uses of nicht wissen 'to not
know', the realisation of the direct object indicates the inability/unwillingness to provide an answer while
potentially closing the sequence whereas constructions without a direct object rather tend to frame possible
following propositions as uncertain. 2)We will deal with the use of glauben and wissen as discourse markers.
In spoken German both verbs can occur as a discourse marker (Imo 2007); the phonologically reduced
construction "glaub" works like a modal particle (ibid.). In English, "I don't know" is a marker of epistemic
stance whose function differs when it is realized as "I dunno" (e.g. Scheibmann 2000) and depends on its
position within a turn (cf. Weatherall 2011). Similarly, we will argue that the German verbs (nicht) glauben
and nicht wissen can also be used as "prepositioned epistemic hedge" (Weatherall 2011) or "prefatory
epistemic disclaimer" (Schegloff 1996) if produced without object complement. They mark the following
utterance as not being based on certain knowledge, thus pre-empting potential face-threats of the addressee
and reducing the speaker's liability for warranting the claim. Our analysis draws on a corpus of 34 hours of
spoken interaction including different interaction types. The study rests on a conversation analytical
approach taking into account sequential position, grammatical form and pragmatic function.



Herman Thierry, University of Neuchtel & University of Lausanne (Switzerland),
Thierry.Herman@unine.ch

From arguments appealing to authority to authoritarian assertions

Principles of argument from authority are so well analyzed that it seems difficult to bring something new to
its description (Doury 1999 : 1). If argument from authority (or ad verecundiam argument scheme) is
indeed one of the most well-known and studied scheme, our talk would like to point out nevertheless a
problem to whom one cant find much satisfactory explanations. Considering for example a model of
argument from authority such as : Since Dr. Phil says that tipping lowers self-esteem, dont tip this waiter
(example inspired from Waltons textbook (2008)), authority seems to justify argumentations premise, not
its conclusion. The role of argument from authority seems to impose a vision of the world as certain rather
than building an argumentation with it. Hence, an argumentation from authority is nearly tautological :
Expert X says A, so A. This kind of argumentation is hard to find in ordinary argumentation. This kind of
thought urges us to think of uses of authority in a broader sense than a structural argumentation from
authority in which expert assures a relationship between premise and conclusion. Id like to argue that the
certainty of example 1 (below) isnt really higher than examples 2 and 3. Moreover, example 3 seems even
to be less open to questioning than example 2.
1. Dr. Phil, a well-known physician, says that every human needs 8 hours of sleep.
2. Phil says that every human needs 8 hours of sleep.
3. Every human needs 8 hours of sleep.
54

Id like to show the relationship between arguments from authority and what I call authoritarian assertions
(example 3). My aims first to pick out linguistic marks of authoritarian assertions : potential evidentiality,
gnomic present tense, epistemic modalities etc. These signs of authority lead indeed to question authority in
a less local way than classical argumentation theories do. Examples of news and political discourses should
point out - this is my second aim - rhetorical effects of authoritarian assertions: communicating certainty,
avoiding intrusive fact-checking, make fuzzy notions (Perelman) look like obvious, etc.



Hoffmann Sabine, University of Calabria (Italy), sabine.hoffmann@unical.it

Measuring something that cannot be grasped. Reflections about spoken
competence

The focus of this paper is on reflections about methodology and the methodical choices in an empirical
research into the role of consciousness in the acquisition of spoken competence in German as second or
third foreign language. The study was realized in the school year 2010/2011 in two parallel classes at the
Goethe-Institut in Palermo. It refers to the noticing hypothesis of Richard W. Schmidt as a theoretical
model, which investigates consciousness and intentional learning. Many studies based on this approach
point out that attention leads often but not always to language acquisition. Identifying interest as the
determining variable, we created a theoretical construct that correlates awareness and interest in language
learning using the motivation model of Heckhausen, which has found many applications in foreign
language research in recent years. Therefore, in the on-going discussion about explicit and implicit
learning, we take the position that explicit learning and knowledge could potentially lead to performance
and some kind of know-how in a foreign language; although spoken competence is strongly driven by
implicit processes both in the intake- and in the output-phase. Oral competence is an extremely difficult
object of research, because it eludes a precise definition and elicitation. This is the reason why we quickly
reach our limits in choosing the right or proper approach, moving from the elicitation to the interpretation
of the data in directions which are not unequivocally established. The reflections proposed in this paper
begin with the pilot study that wants to demonstrate how small changes in proceeding will influence the
process of cognition in the development of the research project, and is followed by the description of the
multi-methodical approach of this study. As the first step in the field, both courses were given a
questionnaire about interest in German language learning. Afterwards, a test of spoken language was
given, the competence which defined the most important scope of learning in this course. In the
experimental group, language counselling was carried out three times and the participants were asked to
write a diary. The lessons were video-taped. At the end of the course, and again six weeks later, the test
was repeated in both groups and an interview with both teachers took place. The data were transcribed
following the conventions of GAT (transcription system of conversation analysis) and qualitatively
analysed. The assessment of the tests followed criteria of B1 as described by the Goethe-Institut. In this
hermeneutic approach to the research object, the single methods are intercorrelated, therefore cognition is
constructed through their relationship. In particular, attention in the triangulation of methods is reserved
for the audio data of the counselling and the video data which aims to show the process from the intention
of learning through its elicitation and realization in the classroom until the final evaluation. The focus is
also directed to the difficult measurement of oral achievement and its value in this research project. In the
last step we will explain some aspects of an adequate transcription of the verbal, nonverbal and actional
performance, while the qualitative analysis examines the results through the interaction of data- and
theory-driven formation of categories.




55

Hlker Klaus, Leibniz University of Hannover (Germany), hoelker@rph.uni-hannover.de

Knowledge, belief, certainty, and indirect interrogatives in a pragmatic capacity

The semantics of epistemic expressions (epistemic taken in a broad sense) is, as is well known, full of
thought-provoking puzzles. One of these is the question of why verbs of knowledge can freely combine with
indirect interrogatives, whereas other expressions (e.g. believe) cannot combine with indirect interrogatives
at all or are subject to heavy restrictions with regards to this type of embedded sentences (e.g. be sure, it is
certain). The question has mainly been discussed in linguistics and (erotetic) logic as a semantic one. How
ever, as has been pointed out by Sb (2007), it becomes more and more clear that a satisfactory answer
cannot be given in purely semantic terms. It rather seems that the restrictions on the use of indirect
interrogatives are to a large extent also pragmatic in nature. After a short account of the semantic solutions
proposed in the literature, the talk will pre sent a possible answer to the question within a framework that is
both semantic and pragmatic.



Hutton Nancy, Harvard University (Massachusetts, USA), nan.hutton@post.harvard.edu

Certainty/Uncertainty: womens persuasive strategies regarding the Woman
Question

In 19
th
-century American exchanges and interactions regarding the woman question(the nature, capacities,
and roles of women), women were deemed as so unequal in authority and intellect that rhetorical strategies
and presentations were different for men and women. Influenced, in part, by popular scientific discourses to
believe that they were inferior to men, or constrained by legal and social structures that limited their
autonomy and equal participation in economic, political, and religious domains, or by Biblical injunctions to
be silent and to defer to male authority, womens sense of certainty was compromised. In fact, one might
say that for many women, what was certain was their uncertainty (Stone, 1995) Consequently, womens
persuasive strategies often conformed to ideals of appropriate behavior, particularly in mixed audiences (of
males and females). Their effectiveness could be undone if their expressions of certainty were deemed
unseemly or inappropriate in the context of their authority. Since womens uncertainties seemed more
natural or familiar within their lived experience, expressions of certainty and uncertainty were deployed
within their persuasive strategies. These differences were evident in exchanges around womens access to
higher education in the 1870s. The publication of Dr. Edward Clarkes Sex in Education, Or, A Fair Chance
for Girls (1873), challenged womens biological fitness to engage in coeducational pursuits. Clarke, a
former professor at Harvard Medical School, added to other scientific assessments of womans nature
(including those by Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer), as well as to religious interpretations of womans
roles. Although the sciences that questioned womens participation in higher education were questionable
and problematic, men had the social authority to assert certainty despite dubious truth claims. Womens
rights activists Antoinette Brown Blackwell (The Sexes Throughout Nature, 1875) and Julia Ward Howe
(Sex and Education, 1874) presented rebuttals to Dr. Clarkes assertions regarding womens capacities to be
educated in the same manner as men. These texts and their contexts revealed how women nuanced their
arguments, employing both certainty and uncertainty, within their persuasive strategies.



Ionescu-Ruxndoiu Liliana, University of Bucharest (Romania), lilianarux@gmail.com

Strategic uses of certainty and uncertainty in a political debate

The paper examines the role played by the forms expressing certainty and uncertainty in connection with the
persuasive function of the political discourse, be it directly or indirectly achieved, via a certain presentation
56

of the politicians ethos. The introductory section of the paper deals with a set of concepts concerning the
individual image of the political actors (self, face, identity, ethos) and their relationships. Some specific
aspects of the ways epistemicity and truthfulness function in the political discourse are also brought forward.
The main section analyses the data provided by a TV debate from the last presidential election campaign in
Romania (Cluj, November 14, 2009). The confrontation involved Traian Bsescu, the President in office
running for a second term, and Crin Antonescu, the newly elected president of the National Liberal Party. In
the considered discourses, certainty and uncertainty are expressed mainly by epistemic or deontic modal
forms (modal verbs, adverbs, tenses and moods) manifesting an obvious preference for one of these two
types of modals (Traian Bsescu for deontic modals, Crin Antonescu for epistemic modals). The paper
attempts to propose an explanation of this fact, taking as a starting point the differences in status between the
two candidates. Traian Bsescu wants to preserve his dominant position in the political space, trying to
construe an ethos of power for the audience. The use of deontic modals reflects a manipulative technique of
equivalating certainty with truthfulness. Crin Antonescu intends to subvert the position of his adversary.
Lacking Traian Bsescus political experience, he cannot present certitudes, but only subjective opinions
about a Presidents position and duties. Epistemic modals function as marks of an assumed subjectivity.
Unlike Bsescus tendency of conferring an absolute value to his opinions and solutions, Crin Antonescu
leaves more space to audiences judgment, since his viewpoints are presented as not compulsory. Crin
Antonescu tries to change the balance in relation to his opponent transferring the dominance from the
political space into the discourse space.



Janssens Karolien, karolien.janssens@ua.ac.be
Nuyts Jan, jan.nuyts@ua.ac.be
University of Antwerp (Belgium)

The diachrony of the Dutch idiom me dunkt me thinks

Topic: In Middle Dutch the verb dunken no doubt originating in the full (mental state) verb denken think
was very frequent and grammatically and semantically comparable to the semi-auxiliary appear (1). In
Present Day Dutch, however, it has been reduced to the idiomatic and archaic impersonal expression me
dunkt me thinks, which is rare in actual language use, and which predominantly occurs as an adverb-like
parenthetical and usually serves as a pure subjectivity marker (2).
1. Lucas dinct also orconden alsof iudas vd hadde ghegaen.
Lucas appears to claim that Judas did it.
2. En ik ben terechtgekomen bij een heel goede okkasie me dunkt;
And I found a very good second hand car me thinks
Our research question is: How did this evolution happen precisely, semantically and grammatically? Method:
The investigation is corpus based. The properties of dunken are compared across 4 stages of the language:
Old Dutch, Early Middle Dutch, Early New Dutch and Present Day Dutch. For each period we have
analyzed 200 instances, or as many as available (for PDD 2 separate sets of instances are used, one of
written, one of spoken data), selected on the basis of the criteria of representativity (e.g. in terms of text
genres) and comparability across the periods. Preliminary results: Semantically, dunken turns out to be an
excellent case to reflect on the relations between epistemic modality, evidentiality, and subjectivity marking,
since these all play a role in the history of this verb (cf. e.g. Nuyts 2012 on modality and subjectivity).
Grammatically, dunken already appears in parenthetical structures in Early Middle Dutch and it occurs
remarkably often in semi-parenthetical structures (conjunction omission, preposing of its complement,
raising, etc.). As such it also offers an excellent case to reflect on the process of parenthetization, and on
the question to what extent this involves grammaticalization. Thus, Palander-Collin (1997) considers
methinks to be strongly grammaticalized, and the notion of grammaticalization also figures centrally in
Thompson & Mulacs (1991) and Brintons (2008) sketch of the developmental path from (English) full
predicates to adverbial parenthetical phrases. And also the semi-auxiliary raising verbs, such as seem or
appear (to which dunken in Middle Dutch shows a clear resemblance), are considered to be the result of
processes of grammaticalization (Diewald 2001, De Haan 2007, Aijmer 2009, Vliegen 2011). Our empirical
findings offer food for thought regarding these different assumptions.
57

Jaouad Zerrad, National School of Business and Management, Settat (Morocco),
zerradjaouad@gmail.com

Nonverbal communication in professional perspective: the case of managers

Introduction The concept of communication and the underlying practices have gradually spread to
professional life. This begs the following questions: how do managers give meaning to their nonverbal
communication? How do they manage this new resource in its professional context? The uncertainty about
its effectiveness is not a handicap to its use in the workplace. As a result, we discover a new managerial skill:
strategic nonverbal communication.
1 Nonverbal communication in a professional perspective At first glance, there is skepticism as to the
usefulness of nonverbal communication for managers and staff. We performed an informal survey of
leadership behavior (by observing management training courses), and observed that managers conduct
themselves differently according to their location in the workplace, namely the office, the hallways, or when
visiting different departments. This suggests the existence of a body schema inherent to the communication
situation. For instance, the nonverbal communication of an authoritative manager takes place through a
highly codified ritual in a bounded bubble with limited access. The movements are characteristically rapid
and stiff, using gestures of authority that are tighter and less verbose. The tone is often monotone, the
gestures are strong and vertical, indicating the domination implicitly experienced but not explicitly stated.
Eye contact from this type of manager is intense yet reserved. On the other hand, the communicative
manager has very open, attentive eye-contact, a higher mobility of the face as a sign of interest in the
audience, wider flowing gestures, and a reassuring, engaging voice. The communicative manager favors
open gestures to help optimize dialogue.
2 Nonverbal communication as a skill Is nonverbal communication a skill that managers acquire as they
advance in their professional life? That is our main research question. In fact, the notion of body language as
a communication skill is relatively new. The claim that we can make is that nonverbal language among
decision-makers accounts for a specific type of skills but not the full management skill set. However, this
leads us to the following question: can the nonverbal behaviors of managers at work be considered specific
to the workplace? What is certain is that nonverbal communication contributes significantly to the success of
work activities. It is therefore a useful, consensual skill for taking action using diverse and integrated
abilities: eye-contact, gestures, posture, voice. Standardizing nonverbal communication has not prevented
individuals from creating their own code dictated by the situation and context. We find instances of this
creative mode in the workplace, for example, in situations where leaders are required to communicate on
their personality, their profile and their psychological motivations. By adopting a forward-looking
perspective on nonverbal communication in the workplace, namely in leadership roles, one could argue that
nonverbal communication tends to dissipate with the prevalence of communication technology, i.e. ICT
(information and communication technologies). Opportunities of face-to-face communication with
observable behaviors are diminishing gradually. This reflects a fundamental change in the workplace: the
intranet and video-conferencing for example.



Jimnez Catao Rafael, University of the Holy Cross, Roma (Italy), jimenez@pusc.it

The scale certain/uncertain in the politeness polarity clear/delicate

I have a good experience in explaining politeness to undergraduate students of communication in the course
of rhetoric and argumentation. They find in it an immediate tool both for persuasion and understanding, that
is, as hermeneutic means. It is necessarily a synthetic exposition where the use of three polarities has been
effective: positive/negative, clear/delicate, direct/indirect. I will not try to elucidate if all three polarities can
be explained through the theory of Brown-Levinson. I find it relevant that all combinations are possible and
most of them clearly recognizable in real profiles of people. My interest in the polarity clear/delicate
originally came out from the differences existing between the dominant politeness profile of Spaniards and
Mexicans, which are both positive. There are regional differences both in Spain and Mexico where politeness
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profiles show an opposition clear/delicate. For example, Galicia is more delicate than the rest of Spain, and
the North of Mexico is clearer than the rest of the country. The entire Latin America appears to be more
delicate than Spain, but there are regional oppositions as well, for example in Nicaragua and Costa Rica
people are aware to be related like clear/delicate. Among other resources of clarity and delicacy, the use of
certainty and uncertainty is very characteristic. The stereotype of Spaniards in Latin America is that of being
very assertive people, up to the level of arrogance in extreme cases. The stereotype of Latinos in Spain is
often that of doubtful people, which in extreme cases create the impression that they dont know what they
will. Something similar could be said in the regional oppositions I have mentioned.



Judge Kate, University of Sydney (Australia), kjud0681@uni.sydney.edu.au

Epistemic uncertainty and the syntax of speech acts

This paper seeks to examine the notion of a speech act as a syntactic element and the repercussions this has
for the semantics of modality. Hacquard, 2011 proposes that modal expression may be relativised to events
(as individual-time pairs) rather than worlds (as time-world pairs) with epistemic modals being relativised to
the speech act or speech event and thus quantifying over the proposition set of speaker or (attitude holders)
beliefs. This solves a number of problems regarding the semantics of modality, removing the potential
arbitrariness of Cinques hierarchy, and offering a more convincing explanation for the different implicative
behavior of different modal types. However, in conceptualizing the assertion speech event as itself
inherently modal (as quantifying over the set of worlds compatible with speaker beliefs) there arises a
potential conflation of the semantics of non-modal assertions and necessity epistemics. Thus sentences like
It must be raining and It is raining have an identical looking semantics, despite having very different
restrictions on their accepted usage and interpretation. I contend that this is because this analysis overlooks
the fundamental uncertainty regarding the actual that is implied in the semantics of epistemic modality.
Where contextual factors provide certainty an epistemic interpretation is unavailable, because the actuality of
the proposition is automatically updated in the information state, and epistemic modals are incompatible with
certainty. Thus something akin to actuality entailments (Bhatt 1999, Hacquard 2009, 2010) for root modals
appears to hold for epistemic modals: but epistemic modals entail uncertainty regarding the actual. This
means that the modal proposition may be added to the information state or belief set, but its non-modal
version cannot be. This is problematic for and the conceptualization of modality as quantification over
worlds, (as accessed by the modal base provided by the belief set of the speaker). Rather, epistemic modality
appears to interact with the proposition set of the speech event in a manner akin to entailment or implicature,
rather than as a quantifier over worlds. Because uncertainty/certainty distinctions cannot be calculated with
the blunt instrument of truth value calculation, this implicative behavior is difficult to capture using standard
truth conditional frameworks. The implicative behavior of epistemic modality, in communicating
uncertainty, arises from the interaction of pragmatic and interpersonal factors, as well as syntactic and
semantic structures.



Kaiser Anna, Julius-Maximilians University of Wrzburg (Germany), anna.kaiser@stud-mail.uni-
wuerzburg.de

Cognitive verbs at the interface of epistemic modality and evidentiality

The focus of this paper is to describe the relation between evidential and epistemic meaning in spoken
English with a special focus on cognitive verbs such as think, know, believe, suppose, guess and the linguistic
context in which they are frequently used. Examples will mostly be taken from the BASE (British Academic
Spoken English) corpus. According to Palmer (2006) [t]he essential difference [] is [] that with
epistemic modality speakers express their judgments about the factual status of the proposition, whereas with
evidential modality they indicate the evidence they have for its factual status. (Palmer 2006: 8) Although
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many linguists would argue for such a clear-cut distinction between epistemicity and evidentiality, a strict
separation is not possible or suitable for all languages and fails to take into account the rich interrelationship
that exists between notions such as certainty/uncertainty, reliability, and source of knowledge. In actual
language use, there are many borderline cases that show traits of both these categories or that may fulfill
more than one function in certain contexts. The Longman Grammar subsumes various meanings under the
heading of epistemic stance: expressions of certainty/doubt, actuality, precision, limitation, source of
knowledge, and perspective (Biber et al. 1999: 972). Nevertheless it also mentions instances of overlap: For
example the verb think controlling a that-complement clause not only marks the degree of certainty (being
less certain than verbs like know but more certain than verbs like suspect), but also indicates the source of
knowledge. (Biber et al. 1999: 972). This is true also for other cognitive verbs, because they all introduce
someone (in most cases the speaker I) who is named explicitly as the source of knowledge. Thus they can
be analyzed as expressions that supply the answer to the question: How was the information obtained? and
fall clearly into the functional category of evidentiality. On the other hand, as the source of knowledge in this
case is the subject of the sentence him/herself, the utterance is highly subjective and consequently contains
an evaluation of the proposition as well. Thanks to this intrinsic quality, cognitive verbs are also typical
expressions of the epistemic range of meaning. This relation between epistemic and evidential function,
between the expression of degree of certainty and source of knowledge, might also be observed in larger
stretches of discourse (or language in general) where the context serves to give an utterance a primarily
evidential or epistemic reading.



Kasper Gabriele, University of Hawaii at Manoa (HI, USA), gkasper@hawaii.edu
Ross Steven, University of Maryland (MD, USA), sross@umd.edu

Tales of remembering and forgetting: social epistemics in US Senate Judiciary
Committee hearings

Recent work in conversation analysis has given focus to social (or mundane) epistemics, the practices
through which participants manage knowledge in their talk and their social and moral implications. Stivers,
Mondada and Steensig (2011) distinguish three dimensions of social epistemics: Epistemic access (knowing
vs. not knowing, the strength (certainty) of knowledge), epistemic primacy (relative rights and authority to
knowledge), and epistemic responsibility (norms of knowing and not-knowing, recipient design). Social
epistemics is thus bound up with membership categories, identities, and morality. It also interfaces with
categorization and formulation (Bilmes, 2011), and hence the grammatical resources through which
epistemic stances and statuses are constructed. Since epistemics is built into sequence organization and turn
design, it is omnipresent in interaction (Heritage, 2012a, b). Building on Lynch and Bogens (1996)
ethnomethodological investigation of the Iran-Contra hearings (1987), the study adopts the framework of
social epistemics to an analysis of episodes during the 2007 US Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the
firing of eight US attorneys. Specifically, it examines how the witnesses formulate avowals of nonrecall at
specific moments in the hearings and what interactional consequences the claims to memory failure and their
formats engender in the responses of the questioning senators and overhearers. The moral and political
implications for a social epistemics of memory in action will be discussed.



Katelhn Peggy, University of Torino (Italy), peggy.katelhoen@unito.it

Linguistic coding of sources of information: evidential markers in German and
Italian

German and Italian as languages belonging to the center of SEA are said to be languages which do not use
fixed grammatical markers in order to express evidentiality, i.e. the information about the source of the
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speakers knowledge (Haler 2001). Nevertheless, contrastive studies have shown that the lack of a certain
grammatical category in the description of a single language has often to be ascribed to monolingual,
traditional categorization criteria (Katelhn 2005) and it does not actually correspond to the real lack of that
category in language use. Since 80s, evidentiality has been the focus of several linguistic disciplines, among
them language typology (Barnes 1984, Anderson 1986, Chafe/Nicholson 1986). German and Romance
linguistics have taken into consideration this field of interest over the past few years (Dendale/Tasmowski
1994, Diewald/Smirnowa 2010a/b, 2012; Haler 2002, Katelhn 2001, Squartini 2008), arguing that also
western European languages like German and Italian have a range of evidential markers. A corpus-driven,
onomasiological contrastive analysis will show the lexical and grammatical means, by which German and
Italian express evidentiality. Evidence will be presented that these means correspond to forms which the
traditional grammars have in the past categorized with ambiguous labels such as verbal mood, verbal time, or
through textual-pragmatic labels such as modal particles, discourse markers, boosters and hedges, etc.
Particular attention will be drawn on the indirect evidential means through which secondary knowledge
sources are expressed (Willett 1988). In order to overcome the above mentioned monolingual bias in
grammatical description, a set of classification criteria will be developed such as deictic referential shift,
conditions of truth about the proposition etc. This set of criteria should help to draw a line between similar
categories such as evidentiality, epistemic modality, reported speech. The concluding comparison based on
evidence from the corpus (Germ.-It.) will show the different degrees of grammaticalization of evidential
markers in both languages.



Kawate-Mierzejewska Megumi, Temple University Japan Campus, Tokyo (Japan),
megumik@tuj.temple.edu

The concept of complaints in Japanese and English

This paper attempted to examine to what extent Japanese English speakers (JESs)s concept of a speech act
of complaining differs from that of native American English speakers. In addition, the paper tried to
investigate the difference between cases in producing complaints and those in comprehending complaints.
Participants of the study were more than 50 native speakers of Japanese (NSJs) studying English at the
American and Japanese universities in and around Tokyo, Japan. In addition more than 50 native speakers of
American English (NSAEs) studying and living in Japan were also participated in this study. Many Japanese
participants had lived in the English speaking communities by the time the study was conducted. The data
were gathered by distributing a questionnaire consisting of two parts, demographic information and
questions such as Write down typical utterances that you think are complaints about academic courses you
are taking both when you speak and when you hear. and the like. In analyzing the data, two categories,
production, and comprehension, were created. Each category was further divided into five sub-categories,
HW and class work, instructor(s), classmate(s), course syllabus & schedule, and others. A non-parametric
statistical test was used to discover the different concept of complaints between NSJs and NSAEs. The
data were also qualitatively analyzed to introduce participants voices on the issue. The results indicated that
the concept of complaint in English is different from that in Japanese. It is assumed that this different may
create misunderstandings and eventually may break up cross-cultural marriages. The issue of teaching
pragmatics will be briefly discussed as well.




61

Kleiber Judit, kleiber.judit@pte.hu
Alberti Gbor, alberti.gabor@pte.hu
University of Pcs (Hungary)

Uncertainty in polar questions and certainty in answers?

The exact form of a polar question and the choice between several possible answers to it can express various
degrees of certainty about our knowledge of the external world and, more importantly, about the
knowledge/assumptions of the interlocutors internal worlds (beliefs, desires, intentions, sentiment, etc.)
Accounting for these mental states (mentalization) plays a crucial role in the way utterances are understood.
This requires a formal description, especially if ones goal is to provide a computational system for language
understanding. eALIS is a formal interpretation system which can fulfill this task. It is a representational
framework where the different mental states are all part of a world model, and where the evaluation of
intentional contexts is in fact an extensional operation. The present abstract gives an insight into polar
questions and answers in Hungarian, which the paper will elaborate on in more detail, along with formal
analyses of dialogues. Several factors determine the true meaning of a polar question. These include
intonation which differentiates between real questions and exclamations, negation, the particle ugye in tag
questions which expresses bias, or the particle -e if which implicates neutrality. Certain contradictory and
redundant combinations of these forms do not exist at all (e.g. -e with negation), while others are associated
with particular uses (e.g. simple question with negation). All possible instances, however, involve different
mental states in the speaker: a different knowledge of the world (including the assumed mental state of the
interpreter), or different intentions, etc. In interpreting the message, the ideal hearer maps these mental states
onto his own mind. This mapping, of course, may show slight differences depending on the interpreters
credulity. As for the answers, an even greater complexity can be observed since the speaker can
communicate vast amounts of information about his beliefs/intentions/sentiment/etc. Besides the simple
information-giving yes/no answers, further possible answers include hogyne or persze absolutely, dehogy
by any means, a unique -ni infinitive construction, and sentences with is also or ht well the latter
with two different syntactic patterns conveying completely different additional meanings. As an illustration,
below is an example featuring is. (Here, mr already and st furthermore may also appear).
(1) Pter meg akarja hvni Marit?
Peter-nom verb-modifier want-sg3 invite-inf Mary-acc
Is Peter going to invite Mary?
(2) Mr meg is hvta.
already verb-modifier also invite-past-sg3
He already has.
An answer like (2) to a question like (1) means very true. Here, both the intention and its fulfillment can be
verified, while other instances might involve future vs. past, desire vs. intention, etc. The common element in
all these instances is that they trigger the statement of a higher degree of certainty in the hearer-interpreter,
which makes it infelicitous for him to simply say yes (which would qualify as withholding the truth even
though not as a lie.) In eALIS, one piece of information can be represented in several places, just like in a
light-scattering prism, and the expected answer will always be the one at the upper level.



Klein Gabriella B., University of Perugia (Italy), gabriella.klein@tiscali.it
Dossou Koffi M., Key & Key Communications, Deruta (Italy)
Pasquandrea Sergio, University for Foreigners of Perugia (Italy), sergio.pasquandrea@yahoo.it

Embodying epistemicity: the role of objects in institutional interaction

In institutional interaction, negotiating the certainty of the information provided by both parties (i.e., the
institutional agent and the client) is a precondition for the fulfilment of the task at hand. For this purpose,
documents (i.e., all those objects on which the personal data of the client and other data relevant to the case
are mentioned, i.e. documented) are essential in order to validate the epistemic ground of statements and
62

assumptions, repair misunderstandings, and help negotiating the reliability of a piece of information. This
study builds on a corpus of encounters between migrants (defined as adults-in-mobility, AM) and Italian
civil servants (adults-in-contact-with-mobility, ACM). Data have been collected within two European
Grundtvig projects: SPICES (224945-CP-1-2005-1-IT- GRUNDTVIG-G11, www.trainingspices.net) and
BRIDGE-IT (510101-LLP-1-2010-1-IT-GRUNDTVIG-GMP, http://bridge-it.communicationproject.eu).
Both projects focus on interaction within bureaucratic settings, such as public service; their main aims are to
point out the communicative difficulties emerging in such contexts and to develop educational material
through which overcome and prevent communicative barriers. During the interactions, objects such as forms,
passports, ID cards, computers, sheets of papers are employed as documents; they are handled, pointed,
passed, looked at, read, or simply mentioned, in order to provide and assess the information. Besides, the
whole encounter cooperatively produces a final artifact (e.g., a filled form), which constitutes the basis for a
public service to be provided, according to the norms, rights and duties of the social system they are part of.
Such intermediary objects (Latour, 1987) are both related to, and constitutive of, the activities performed.
They are called into existence by the interactants and are strictly dependent on the temporal development
and spatial arrangement of the interactions (Brassac et al.2008; Goodwin 2000; Luff et al 2000). Through the
methodology of Conversation Analysis and Multimodal Analysis, this study intends to analyse: the semiotic
resources deployed by the interactants for dealing with the objects; the patterns of actions in which objects
are involved, and particularly their relevance for locally negotiating the certainty of information; the role of
objects in constructing an interaction as an institutional one. Besides enhancing our understanding of the
dynamics affecting communication in institutional contexts, this study also aims at elaborating proposals for
improving the efficiency and efficacy of such interactions, especially in multilingual/multicultural settings.



Laktionova Anna, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine),
laktionovaanna@yahoo.com

Certainty and knowledge

How 'certainty' gets its significance? Is this significance only epistemic in its nature? Can knowledge be
reduced to certainty, rationality, possession of information or other attitude relation? Can certainty, opposite
to knowledge, have degrees? Does certain differ from justified? Trying to answer such philosophical
questions could involve heritage of L. Wittgenstein, particularly his work On Certainty. I am going to refer
to some paragraphs of this work. Assertoric sentence, which functions as a statement, is a hypothesis, and is
formulated as implicitly isolated from doubt (p. 87). A hypothesis is not a formulated picture of the world. A
world-picture does not need to be mentioned, formulated, invented, it is a matter-of-course foundation
(p.167). Belief is a relation between its bearer and the sense of a proposition that express the content of belief
(p.90). Knowledge is a relation between its bearer and a fact; to know means that a fact is taken into my
consciousness, I acquire this fact. We know sense-data, not outer world; our imagination presents knowledge
as a certain for me projection by sense-organs of outer world into my consciousness. A certain for me
projection by sense-organs of outer world is perception. So, at the bottom of representation lies perception.
In p.91-93 Wittgenstein criticizes Moor's viewing of knowledge as a conviction. A conviction needs a right
ground, evidence, but not reasons, should support it. I get my picture of the world by distinguishing between
true and false propositions; they are descriptions of my world-picture (p. 94). True propositions are learned
practically as implicit 'rules of games' (p. 95). They are hard but might be exchanged by fluid (p. 96). Thus
they are empirical propositions, can be doubted, false. Wittgenstein agrees that doubt is secondary, opposite
to knowledge. At the same time, doubt concerns a particular belief, but not a system of beliefs. Knowledge
forms a system, within it a particular belief gets its value (p. 410). System presupposes interdependency (p.
274). Something that is know can be relied on, but not vise versa: I can rely on something does not entail I
know it (p.561). Mentioned gives reasons to state complementary character of 3 main strategies of
justification foundationalism, coherentism (that are internal) and reliabilism (external). Justification as a
feature of knowledge presupposes sureness not as a mere subjective certainty.


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Ltourneau Alain, University of Sherbrooke (Qubec, Canada),
Alain.Letourneau@USherbrooke.ca

Uncertainty and affirmative statements in scientific articles about adaptation to
climate change

We might think that uncertainty about issues of climate change (and adaptation to it) is only expressed
among skeptics, people who work for the Oil industry or other similar venues. But it might be that scientific
expression of doubt is just genuine consciousness of knowledges limits on the part of the concerned
scientist, as was shown recently to us in a specialized conference (ACFAS, Montreal 2012, Lepage and Milot
organizers). And this doubt expression can also be a required rhetorical device, as a way of ascertaining
credibility in a context where concurrence in research is important; here the destinataire (to take back
Greimass and Jakobsons term) is of the utmost importance. We surmise that there is a little of both, and the
important issue, in that particular debate about adaptation to climate change, becomes how relative
uncertainty can enter a complex assertion without destroying its force, as opposed to texts as meaning
distributions where it occurs as a means to nullify the knowledge value of some assertion or set of assertions.
Of course, this could be looked at interestingly if we were to analyze receivers interpretations, but for now
we will focus on the meaning content and its verisimilar effects. We plan on selecting a few scientific articles
and book chapters, aiming at localizing the area of expression of doubt and its relative importance in the
whole of the examined papers. Markers of doubt and uncertainty certainly will be used in that process. Now
this discussion of uncertainty statements must be balanced with assertive statements that seem out of doubt
inside the larger meaning distribution unit such of the same texts, possibily with in-between statements, the
quality of which still have to be determined. This qualitative reading is relevant for issues of expertise in the
public spheres discussion of science and technology problems, and will refer to rhetorical analysis and
hermeneutics, in a pragmatist perspective influenced in particular by Peirces vision of probability as
something that, to say the least, is not devoid of lawfulness.



Lo Cascio Vincenzo, University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), v.locascio@online.nl

Counter-argumentation and modality

Argumentation is a procedure and a strategy for stating and evaluating the validity of some claim. As a
matter of fact it can be considered, together with temporality, the most fundamental form for establishing the
modality of a text. Argumentation is a form of epistemic modality, since it questions the truth of some
statement. Counter-argumentation is a special form of modality since it aims to find out restrictions and
conditions on the validity of some reasoning. Two types of counter-argumentation can be distinguished: 1)a
dialogical form, i.e. a counter-argumentation in a discussion, where possible objections and doubts come
from the antagonist as a real opposition to the arguer, and 2)a monological argumentation where the same
protagonist and arguer introduces in his reasoning some (possible) counter arguments and alternative
conclusions either as a matter of presentation of a critical reasoning, and as such an example of a reasoning
in progress, or as a strategy in order to make his/her statements stronger by anticipating possible objections
which he/she rejects, or as a means of preventing possible counter-arguments from his/her audience (the
antagonist). In other words by counter-argumentation, either the speaker builds up his argumentation by
using possible counter-arguments which are presented as weak or unacceptable in order to make his
statements stronger, or he reports the argumentation of somebody else with the possible counter-
argumentation of the protagonist whose argumentation is reported. It can also be a kind of reaction to the
argumentation of somebody, the protagonist or writer,by questioning the truth. Counter-argumentative
categories as: rebuttal (i.e. unless sentences), reinforcement (i.e. althoughsentences); alternative (i.e.
nevertheless sentences), specification and precision, but also qualifiersand backing (the authorizing form of
information), seem always to impose a modal interpretation upon the argumentation which they refer to or
which they react upon (see Lo Cascio 2009). All counter-argumentative tools are in short elements which are
intended to induce refinement of an argumentative message. In all those cases the validity of a reasoning is at
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stake and the procedure is intended to find a solution about the uncertainty of a truth. The same can also be
said in particular for the inferential procedure necessary to recover what is not explicit mentioned, which is
typical of a lot of dialogues and conversation. In my paper I am in particular interested in the monological
counter-argumentation. I want to analyze in particular a set of (counter-argumentative) complementizers
which function as modal operators, sometimes allowing that a part of information in a message remains
covert since it is possible to recover it on the basis of implication and inferential rules at the interpretative
level. I want therefore to consider which modal scale form those counter-argumentative connectives
(operators), by which specific rules their behaviour is driven and in which way it should be accounted for
their semantic value and syntactic behaviour in a linguistic theory.



Lorda Clara Ubaldina, clara.lorda@upf.edu
Miche Elisabeth, elisabeth.miche@upf.edu
University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain)

Probability and certainty markers in French and in Spanish

The French markers sans doute and assurment (Spanish sin duda and seguramente) express diverse degrees
of commitment with regard to the certainty value of the speaker's statement. Some of these markers express a
high degree of reliability while others remain in the probability domain. The goal of the present study is to
assess the primary role that the enunciative and the pragmatic parameters play in the instructions given by
the French and the Spanish adverbs. Our hypothesis is that the given pairs of adverbs do not provide the
same instructions in the two languages; in spite of their formal similarities, there is not a functional
correspondence between the French and the Spanish counterparts. The analysed data come from a corpus of
different text genres (advertising, political, conversational) that contain a profuse number of discourse
strategies used to present opinions and predictions. Preliminary results show that the findings could be
extremely useful for translation studies.



Machetti Sabrina, University for Foreigners of Siena (Italy), machetti@unistrasi.it

Vagueness, uncertainty, certainty. Reflections on native and non-native speakers

The paper analyzes the apparent uncertainty caused by vagueness in the language spoken communication.
Vagueness is regarded as a semiotic attribute. A powerful and natural force inherent in languages due to its
coexistence with articulation and syntax. Concerning the regulation of vagueness itself and everything it
represents (increase and decrease of lexicon, grammar and metalinguistic reflexivity) there is still even more
to explore within the field of linguistic and semiotic studies. The paper analyzes a corpus of spoken Italian as
L2, from the database CILS - Certificate of Italian as a foreign language (University for Foreigners of
Siena). The paper examines the strategies through which vagueness, in interaction with other semiotic
attributes, manifests itself on the pragmatic dimension. The paper closes by showing how vagueness
balances certainty / uncertainty of linguistic interaction, and can be used as a guarantee of the effectiveness
of communication between native and non-native speakers.




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Maglie Rosita Belinda, University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), rosita.maglie@libero.it

For the sake of appearances: the multimodal communication of (un)certainties
in fashion advertising

Given the nature of post-modern culture which involves forms of signification that purposefully defy any
linear interpretation, this paper examined the enigmatic fashion advertisement which, through pictorial and
written means, resists conventional interpretation. The mysterious advertising landscape was thus explored
to discover how the highly persuasive language of fashion communicates with absolute certainty the right
dress for success. Specifically, the strategies fashion language uses to persuade consumers to purchase were
analysed in advertisements shown in the British and Italian versions of Vogue, the classic fashion magazine,
according to a trans-linguistic/cultural codification in order to see clearly whether, and to what extent,
fashion changes to best speak to the target audience. By bringing together different approaches to explore
the enigmatic language(s) of fashion in Vogue advertising, this study aims to promote an additional vision of
fashion which reveals the overlooked and underestimated depth of absolute (un)certainties behind
contemporary mainstream advertising, drawing on the work of linguists such as De Saussure (2009), Sinclair
(1991), Halliday (2004), Kress and van Leeuwen (2001), semiologists such as Barthes (1991) and Calefato
(2004, 2009), sociologists such as Barthel (1988) and fashion historians and illustrators such as Hill (2004).
To achieve such goal, a corpus was thus created ad hoc, comprising all advertisements from the May 2009 to
March 2012 issues of British Vogue and Vogue Italia. In June 2009 Vogue India and in August 2010
Deutsch Vogue were also added to the Vogue corpus to see if there are differences in the types of
communication (visual and verbal) and degrees of certainty women of these two other countries receive in
comparison with those in Italy and the UK. The pervasive influence of Vogue advertising accounts for the
decision to select fashion clothing advertising as the primary source of investigation for this study aimed at
better understanding how - across languages and cultures - we become prisoners of fashion and how our
ideas, fantasies and (un)certainties about our (well)being become inseparable from the clothes we buy and
wear. However, in all such cases most of the power of fashion advertising is derived from the consumers
implicit belief that what s/he is looking at is an unmanipulated image and that what s/he is reading is a
disinterested piece of advice. But of course they are not. More often than not images are manipulated to
create a false visual statement and words are skilfully chosen to tell a deliberate lie since ultimately both the
images and words only serve to generate maximum sales. Although everyone knows the truth about the
manipulative advertising campaigns, we still accept them unquestioningly and buy the advertised product
unthinkingly. Dress in fashion advertising thus shapes our dreams and offers itself as a powerful, playful and
subversive communicator when words fail or are absent. In such cases, dress becomes a text/fabric to be
read and admired, which not only shapes womens bodies and dreams but is at the same time shaped by
social processes and phenomena such as beauty, time, class, gender and religion. As Calefato (2004) affirms,
the clothed body becomes a physico-cultural territory which provides opportunities for the manifestation
of individual, social and cultural traits that draw on such elements as gender, taste, ethnicity, sexuality, sense
of belonging to a social group or, conversely, transgression against convention.



Majmutova Saniya, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City (Mexico)
smajmutova@yahoo.com

Acquisition of Russian grammar cases by Spanish-speaking students
(poster)

This poster deals with the area of second language acquisition and presents advances in the study of the
difficulties during the processing and acquisition of Russian grammar cases by Spanish-speaking students. In
particular, we focus on the acquisition of the accusative and dative cases in their prototypical functions of
direct and indirect object, respectively. Based on classroom observations, our hypothesis is that for Spanish-
speaking students the grammar cases of the Russian language constitute a problem of learning that lies in the
specific morphology of the declinations in Russian, as well as in the syntactic function of the nominal
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phrases in the sentence. We observed that students still have difficulties with the appropriate use of the cases
even in advanced levels, although in those levels there is a gradual improvement in their performances. Here
it is important to mention that Spanish language uses other linguistic means to express the syntactic relations
of the nominal phrases such as the structures with prepositions. The study is based, on the one hand, on
linguistic theories such as the Case Theory of Generative Grammar (1991, 1993), and on the other hand, on
several studies in the field of psycholinguistics, among which are the works of McLaughlin (1987, 1990) and
MacWhinney (1989) on language acquisition, as well as that of VanPatten (1996, 2007), whose model of
processing of language is part of the cognitive explanations of the acquisition of L2. This poster discusses
the results of an exploratory study that was carried out with the students of the Foreign Languages Center,
which provided enough information to confirm our hypotheses. Also, it presents examples of the activities
included in the instrument and some didactic suggestions in order to facilitate the acquisition of grammar
cases, emphasizing on the need to direct learning towards the connection between grammar form and its
syntactic function.



Marino Toni, University for Foreigners of Perugia (Italy), tonimarino@hotmail.com

Journalistic strategies in health information: the case H1N1 flu
(poster)

This paper examines the journalistic communication and the different ways to organize information in terms
of cognitive mode, that can be synthesized, according to the semiotic approach linked to the school of
Greimas, in: (i) subjectivizing and (ii) objectifying strategies. In the first case, the uncertainty prevails and
the news is shown as a personalized form of knowledge , where the authority of who speaks has a value
greater than the thing that says. In the second case, certainty prevails and a depersonalization of knowledge
related to the news. This depersonalization can be realized with the fragmentation of viewpoints on the same
subject in order to show all possible views of a fact, or showing the news as a fact of real life, as an empirical
truth (it occurs for example in scientific communication). Subjectivizing and objectifying strategies are two
ways to turn an event of the real world into a news, that is a type of communication useful to orient opinions
on facts, and the consent or the dissent about the most relevant opinions. These strategies can be analyzed
both in the expression level (spatial mounting of the news, plotting on the space, installation of audio-visual
services, etc..) and in the content level (semantic fields, figures, the vocabulary and recurring themes). They
are always at work in the construction of an informational text, be it political events, social or cultural, or
simply related to ordinary news as the weather, TV shows or the ranking of the most widely read books.
However, there are some types of news which by their nature bring out, more than others, the strategic
choices connected to the transmission of knowledge. They are scientific news connected to the transmission
of scientific data, as in the case of the business communication, medical or technological. Paradoxically the
subjects that are considered analyzable as true or false, also are more easily representable by the categories
of certainty and uncertainty, because in this case the cognitive strategies are the unique possibility to guide
the opinions. This paper analyzes a case of journalistic communication of health information: the H1N1 flu
in September / October 2009, in the Europe and especially in Italy. It starts from a statistic study derived
from the database PressDisplay.com, which shows the dichotomy of European newspapers in the use of a
scientific language or more familiar about the new flu. Deepening the statistical results we discover how the
Italian newspapers use two basic strategies: fear or reassurance. The first based on uncertainty and
subjectivizing strategies, the second on the certainty and objectifying strategies. This paper reconstructs the
two strategies by analyzing the vocabulary of the titration and linked articles, and semantic associations
established through both verbal constructs and verbo-pictorial phrases (i.e. multimodal methaphors realized
with the aid of high-impact emotional images). In this way, the paper aims to explain the difference between
certainty and uncertainty as a kind of reading competence that is based on the distinction between
subjectivizing and objectifying cognitive strategies.



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Marsili Neri, University of Torino (Italy), nerimarsili@gmail.com

The concealment of certainty and uncertainty in assertions

In a conversation, we are generally supposed to clarify the degree of certainty and uncertainty of our beliefs.
This is the main function of the so called modifiers of illocutionary force, such as mitigation and
reinforcement: we say that it is probably true that p, that it is certainly true that p, etc. (Sbis 2001).
Modifiers of illocutionary force can be used in a deceitful way, to omit or hide our uncertainty (or certainty)
about the truth of what we say: I will call these phenomena concealment of certainty and concealment of
uncertainty (CoC for both). In my presentation I will compare genuine lying and the CoC, in order to clarify
if it is possible to lie through modifiers of illocutionary force. My analysis will focus on a specific speech
act, the act of asserting. Several attempts have been made to provide a definition of lying in terms of
necessary and sufficient conditions (cfr. Mahon 2008); many rule out the CoC, while some rule it in.
Recently, Fallis (2009) argued that lying is asserting something that you believe to be false; more precisely,
that is uttering a believed-false assertion while believing that Grice's first maxim of quality (viz., "Do not say
what you believe to be false ") is in effect as a norm of conversation. Fallis definition lays the groundwork
for my comparison of lying and concealment of uncertainty. In my view, lying and CoC are easily confused
because they are both a deceptive covert violation of a gricean maxim. Concealing your uncertainty goes in
facts against the second maxim of quality: do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. If this is
true, the CoC does not count as a lie: when concealing your uncertainty, you intend to deceive your audience
about your believing what you say rather than about what you say. Thus, the CoC is to be classified as
doxastic misdirection (Fallis 2011), or positive deception (Chisholm and Feehan 1997).



Massimi Marina, University of So Paulo, Campus Ribeiro Preto (Brazil),
mmassimi3@yahoo.com

Persuasive communication and construction of certainty in colonial Brazil

Persuasive communication is object of this research in the field of cultural history. It was made by preachers
(especially those who belonged to the Society of Jesus, operating in Brazil of the Modern Age, with
emphasis on psychological and rhetorical dimensions of the construction process of certainty achieved
through this cultural practice. The sources chosen for our analysis are preaching performed in Brazil which,
due to their importance recognized at the time, were also printed, after being given orally, and also
instruction manuals of rhetoric kind and of ecclesiastical rhetoric widespread in the West Catholic and in
Brazil of the Modern Age and used for the writing of sermons. For example, the sermons of Father Antonio
Vieira, the famous Luso-Brazilian preacher, are analyzed. The historical analysis of the sources reveals that
preaching is the result of a complex process of construction that, through the ordained use of the word
according to the precepts of Rhetoric, obtains the effect of mobilizing the psychic dynamism of the
recipients and thereby leads to intellectual certainty concerning the transmitted doctrinal content and to
moral certainty concerning the pertinence of the reform of customs proposed by the speaker. The objectives
of the rhetorical art (to delight, to move, to instruct) imply the person of the recipients in all dimensions
themed by psychological and anthropological knowledge of the time: body, psychological, and spiritual.
External and internal senses (memory, imagination, common sense, and cogitative power), appetitive
(sensory and intellectual), and cognitive powers should be involved in an integrated motion that proves
essential to persuade listeners and construct certainty in an effective and lasting way. The long tradition of
word art and philosophical knowledge about the dynamics of the person effectively converge to this scope,
from the contributions of classical and medieval authors, such as Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, and Augustine,
and their modern interpreters (for example, Luis de Granada and Cipriano Soares SI). This operation of
construction of certainty through the art of the word is articulated with a realistic theory of knowledge which
states that the process of rational knowledge is based on the evidence.


68

Matsuoka Rieko, National College of Nursing, Tokyo (Japan), rieko.matsuoka@yahoo.com
Smith Ian, British Council, Tunis (Tunisia)

Linguistic relativity and universality of zero-pronouns in rakugo translation

In the process of translating culturally colored discourse, important features of a society can be
revealed. In this study, rakugo, which is the traditional Japanese performance art of telling comic
stories, is used as data for analysis. According to linguistic relativity, differences in perspectives on
reality often manifest themselves as specific features of language use in speech communities, and these
differences seem to cause complications in translation because some words are specific to a particular
language and cannot be translated literally. Translating a culturally-colored script, therefore, may
necessitate the in-depth examination of given cultures or worldviews including the level of certainty
and uncertainty. By examining the data of a rakugo script written by Sannyuutei Kyoraku with the
notion of linguistic relativity and universality in mind, the first and second person pronouns are
highlighted as focal points. Based on the frequency of first-person pronouns uttered or not uttered in
Japanese where they are uttered in English, and the frequency of second-person pronouns uttered or
not uttered in Japanese where they are uttered in English, the meanings of the absences of first or
second personal pronouns, i.e., zero personal pronouns, will be investigated. This is related to
linguistic relativity hypothesis, including the specific examples exploited, such as in Halls notion of
high-context and low-context societies. Also, how zero personal pronouns and Japanese sense of self
are related in terms of seken (lifeworld) is discussed. Therefore, the research questions are posited as
follows: (1) Under what circumstances do zero first-person pronouns appear in Japanese? (2) Under
what circumstances do zero second-person pronouns appear in Japanese? And (3) In what way can
zero personal pronouns and Japanese sense of self be related? Does linguistic relativity explain this
relationship? For each research questions the results are: (1) First-person pronoun omissions appear in
more than half the cases where the English translation needs first-person pronouns. Moreover, half of
the omitted first-person pronouns cannot be uttered in the natural Japanese dialogic interaction. In the
rest of the cases where the first-person pronouns are used, approximately half of them cannot be
omitted. Japanese may use zero first-person pronouns when the situation is obvious and it is not
necessary to utter them. (2) Second-person pronoun omissions appear more frequently than first-
person pronoun omissions. Japanese seem to use zero second-person pronouns wherever they are not
mandatory. Additionally, the second-person pronouns in Japanese are occasionally regarded as
derogative and names or social roles are used instead to address the dialogic interlocutors. (3)
Linguistic relativity, including the notion of the high- and low-context society, and the way of
constructing the Japanese sense of self with the powerful effects of seken, seems to interpret the
linguistic phenomena of first- and second-person pronoun-use revealed in the process of translating the
rakugo script. In brief, the linguistic feature of zero pronouns may support the notion of the high
context society and facilitate the way of constructing the Japanese sense of self based on contingency
logic, involving seken.



Matveeva Ekaterina, International Cognitive Linguistics Association (Russian Federation),
matveevaekaterina@ymail.com

Possibility and uncertainty in young people's decision making

Dwell in possibility Emily Dickinson
Many young people have a very strong fear of decision making. Being one them I came to the conclusion
that there is little difference between the words possibility and uncertainty because they both deal with an
unpredictable future. The difference is that uncertainty incites fear, while possibility creates excitement.
Rather than focusing on that uncertainty, we are retraining ourselves to think in terms of possibilities and try
to keep them positive. We can be stunted by thinking, 'Oh my God. I do not know what will happen next.
How can I plan if I do not know what is around the bend?' or we can say, 'The future is undecided, but that
69

means that I am left with choices.' The uncertainties can make us cautious, cause us to self-censor, or stop us
from acting freely. Of course, taking a risk is part of the game. But we should also remember that the
possibilities are infinite. Possibility allows for creativity. There are many verbs that imply possibility through
such as imagination and exploration, such as: believe, consider, challenge, discover, examine, experiment,
explore, find, imagine, etc. They can help us to lead a person's thoughts from uncertainty to enlightenment of
possibility. People often make judgments and decisions in which they conclude that things are not possible,
acceptable or reasonable. As a result, they stop thinking about these things and never really consider the
many possible ways they could achieve their goals by other means. By bringing up possibility in language,
we ask them to think about things that they either have quickly dismissed or perhaps have never even
thought about. Possibility language reverses the assumptions that others hold, creating a new assumption that
something is possible rather than impossible. When viewed as a spectrum of possibility, impossible exists
only at the very end -- the rest of the spectrum is various possibilities. Possibility can also be created by
rethinking goals. For example if you re-frame a goal of 'getting to work on time' as 'getting work done on
time', then you may find new ways of avoiding the morning rush. Uncertain about my future I was
conducting my research on people's emotional feedback to the possibility\uncertainty language collecting the
information with the help of a survey among young people worried about their own future.



Meibauer Jrg, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany), meibauer@uni-mainz.de

Bullshitting and the certainty/uncertainty dimension

Harry G. Frankfurts essay On Bullshit was a worldwide success when reedited in 2005. In this work,
Frankfurt tried to distinguish the act of bullshitting from its relatives, namely humbugging and lying.
According to Frankfurt, bullshitting is an act where the bullshitter has a loose concern with truth and has a
faked intention (phonyness). From a linguistic point of view, it may be asked whether bullshit is a
reasonable pragmatic category. In my talk, I will point out some difficulties in this respect, drawing on
Frankfurts analysis and embedding it into a speech act framework. Bullshitting is analysed as a special case
of asserting, where the usual felicity conditions for asserting are exploited. This is demonstrated on the basis
of several clear cases of bullshitting. (Note that Frankfurt is quite reluctant to present concrete examples.)
What I would like to add to the analysis as a further parameter is that bullshitters present the propositional
content of their assertions with far more certainty than would be adequate with respect to their epistemic
state. This may lead the addressee either to more certainty (if the addressee trusts the bullshitter) or to more
uncertainty (if the addressee is indifferent with respect to the bullshitters claims). What Frankfurt did not
see, is the occasionally entertaining quality of bullshit (presumably, this is the reason for why we are more
tolerant against bullshitting than against lying). However, when the addressee is sensitive to the discrepancy
between the presented certainty of the bullshitter and a reasonable epistemic norm, bullshit may be funny.



Meier Simon, meier@germ.unibe.ch stefan.hauser@ds.uzh.ch
Hauser Stefan, stefan.hauser@ds.uzh.ch
University of Bern & University of Zrich (Switzerland)

Formulaic authentication of self-assessments in German media interviews

Being exposed to public interest, sportsmen/women and politicians are increasingly subject to presenting
themselves actively and openly to the public. Unlike in statements on their standpoints concerning
objective issues, which can be warranted by reference to, say, statistics, the credibility of self-assessments
must be communicated in more subtle ways (Fetzer 2002). In recent years, the formula wer mich kennt, der
wei, dass ich (approximately those who know me, know that I) has become a routine formula
(Coulmas 1979) in German media interviews. This formula works as an authentication strategy of the
interviewees self-assessments by invoking an indefinite set of non specified witnesses. The formula
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therefore entails presenting the interviewees utterances as reliable and the task of maintaining face. In our
presentation, we take a close look at the use and the communicative function of this formula in a large set of
written German-language media interviews in the areas of sports and politics. Special attention will be given
to the sequential position of the formula as a response strategy for specific types of questions as well as to
the interactional organization of the underlying authentication strategy in the particular context of media
interviews. We will show how the use of the formula fits in with the journalists neutralistic stance (Clayman
& Heritage 2002), for it often responds to third-party attributed critique by assigning the witnessing of the
own statement to an indefinite third-party as well. Thus, our presentation aims at a better understanding of
the context-bound linguistic means of communication of credibility and authenticity of self-assessments.



Merdanova Solmas, merdanov@rambler.ru
Yavetskiy Alexey, alexyavetski@hotmail.com
Moscow State University of Psychology and Education (Russian Federation)

Evidentiality and the communication of certainty in Indo-European and Nakh-
Daghestanian languages

The category of evidentiality has been explored for many typologically various languages, see (Chafe and
Nichols 1986; Bybee, Perkins and Pagiuca 1994). In some Indo-European languages indirect evidentiality is
grammaticalized in verbal constructions expressing irreality (which involve, for instance, the mood of
Konjunktiv in German and Conditionnel in French), whereas in a number of Caucasian languages this
category is instantiated in special verbal forms with resultative meaning, as shown in (Maisak and
Merdanova 2002). Generally, the study and description of evidentiality in language poses certain problems
due to multiple pragmatic implications of this category, which sometimes make it difficult to separate
evidentiality from the speakers epistemic attitudes (such as certainty / uncertainty). This paper examines
grammatical ways of expressing evidentiality and certainty in English, German and French in comparison
with some typologically and genetically distant Nakh-Daghestanian languages, especially Agul and Lezgin.
We establish and verify the hypothesis that objective certainty is closer to the category of evidentiality
than subjective certainty. For instance, objective certainty, as expressed by Indo-European modal verbs
(e.g., Eng. must, Ger. mssen, Fr. devoir), is compared with the Resultative verbal form in Agul which
assumes strong inferential meaning in certain discoursive environment and hence partially correlates with the
category of evidentiality. On the other hand, weak inferential meaning, as expressed by verbal constructions
of irreality in Indo-European languages and the Past Resultative Factual Tense in Agul, is brought in
correlation with subjective certainty and, thus, with a weaker degree of evidentiality. Special attention is
paid to an Agul verbal form that is semantically close to epistemic modality the Mirative, which expresses
the speakers subjective attitude towards the discovery of some unexpected state of affairs. The grammatical
indicator of the Mirative, the auxiliary verb xas to become, is able to assume the meaning of objective
certainty in specific discoursive environment, and can be considered close to its German semantic and
functional counterpart the verb werden to become.



Mininni Giuseppe, g.mininni@psico.uniba.it
Scardigno Rosa, r.scardigno@psico.uniba.it
Grattagliano Ignazio, i.grattagliano@criminologia.uniba.it
University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy)

It must be so. The dialogic construction of (un)certainty in legal contexts

The great tradition of Occidental philosophy is enlivened by the obsession with (un)certainty (Wittgenstein
1969). It inspired several theories concerning ways and limits of knowledge as a form of control over the
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world by human beings (McBurney e Parsons 2001) as well as refined models about the degrees of
plausibility of trust as basic justification for human relations. In a such cultural horizon, the psycholinguistic
perspective aims to get in the common speech dynamics (Mininni, 2000). One of them is evidentiality, that is
a wide range of stances the enunciator can take on the nature of information proposed by his textual world
assertion, belief, opinion, inferences, etc. and on its quality reliability, pertinence and so on (Wesson &
Pulford 2009). The contexts of legal communication are characterized by the maximum strain between the
spread of doubtfulness and the aspiration to certainty (Bruner 2005). The distance between the versions of
events proposed by prosecution and defense is a clear evidence of the sense-making dynamic that marks
human condition as insecuritas (Semerari 1980). The analysis of legal contexts allows to catch the
complex process of discursive construction of (un)certainty, that interweaves references on both epistemic
and value axis typical of a specific sense-enunciative community. In the discursive sphere of the court
institution, all the enunciative positioning acted by those who incriminate, defend, testify, guarantee and
judge, disclose the several ways to relate to (un)certainty of their textual worlds. As a consequence, the
meaning of evidentials (Jakobson 1956; Haviland 1989) is overdetermined by specific rhetoric structures
that set up a wide range of personal styles in the (un)certainty management. The analysis of texts produced in
different phases of various judicial debates aims to display the dialogical principle (Bakhtin 1981) pertaining
to a specific modulation of evidentiality expressed by deontic forms (e.g. it must be so). They can be
interpreted as a trace of the opportunity to emphasize the ethical roots of each claim for certainty (Hermeren
2011).



Mitu Mihaela, University of Pitesti (Romania), mihaelamitu@yahoo.com

The representation of (un)certainty in Robinsons Universe of Beliefs

From the epistemic to the evidential values, the discursive forms of the verb devoir contribute to the
achievement of the representation of the universe of beliefs of the actors involved in the plot of the novel
Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique. Robinsons reflexive movement goes first from absolute certainty to
quasi-certainty and relative certainty, and then the other way round. Our undertaking, having as a theoretical
basis the researches done by P. Dendale, H. Kronning, J.P. Bronckart, will try to illustrate how the
underlying interventions of the narrator and of the character make themselves felt and how, through them,
the author manages to transmit to the reader a pre-established point of view, letting him at the same time into
the reflexive meanders of the protagonists thinking. These are several issues that we shall try to address by
means of a thorough analysis of the 102 occurrences of the verb devoir whose pragmatic-interpretative
values are revealed only when we take into account the situational co(n)text.



Mizzau Marina, University of Bologna (Italy), marina.mizzau@unibo.it

Markers of uncertainty in novel

To express their individual degrees of certainty or uncertainty towards the piece of information
communicated, speaker/writer may use specific markers, for example, adverbs and verbal forms that
indicate Uncertainty such as maybe, it could be, I am not sure that, probably. These linguistic
practices, and others similar, may be present in everyday conversation and scientific language, as well in
novel. I will talk about this case, that is about epistemic markers that create the effects of narrators
uncertainty about the story he/she is telling. These forms of epistemicity adumbrate the presence of narrator
and create a collusion between the author and the reader. In some cases the author use of markers of
uncertainty interferes with the convention that suspend the matter about reliability while recounting and
reading a novel. In this study I will present an example of some marks of uncertainty authorship that could
be present in different forms of narration, both in the first-person narrative and in omniscient author
narrative (e.g. Tolstoj, Manzoni) The presence of uncertainty markers looks more problematic in the latter
72

type of narration, creating, through a enunciative debrayage a splitting effect between the teller and empirical
author. While the first-person narrative(e.g., Proust), where the narrator and the character combine makes the
explanation of the doubt most plausible.



Mohamed Allayl, University of Agadir (Morocco), allaylmohamed@yahoo.fr

Ludwig Wittgenstein. The persuasive view

The written works of Ludwig Wittgenstein seem to have as a significant intention an upper equilibration
whose main beneficiary is but the reader. In many respects, Wittgenstein is this orator whose aphoristic
speech moves out Man from his intimist sphere and jostles the system of evidence. Through sinuous paths,
the author of certainty tries to involve his interlocutor in a universe of signs, which keeps on delivering its
oscillatory and paradoxical poles varying from certainty to uncertainty, doubt and conviction ,belief and
knowledge established on fixed hinges; communication and silence leading to the limit of language. From
the writing and reflection of Wittgenstein, the aim will be to highlight this persuasive and transitive view
trying by this improbable exercise to raise the reader to a habitable sphere of language which will never be
conquered.



Molteni Marzia, marzia.molteni@unicatt.it; unita.psicoemergenza@unicatt.it
Sbattella Fabio, fabio.sbattella@unicatt.it; unita.psicoemergenza@unicatt.it
Tettamanzi Marilena, marilena.tettamanzi@unicatt.it; unita.psicoemergenza@unicatt.it
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milano (Italy)

Social emergency representations

Every emergency is an intense experience of life that springs from the encounter between an unexpected
event, and groups of individuals who try to face him. The emergency break the order pre-made and undo the
sense of control, opening to the uncertainty and the unknown (Sbattella, 2009).
Aim The study explores cognitive and emotional representations of such emergency situations differ and lead
professionals in the field of emergency and the so-called man of the street. The study analyzes also the
expected script behavior in an emergency and the influence exerted on them and on the representations from
direct experience and the culture transmitted by the media, especially through the disaster movies (Malatesta,
Rondinone, 2011). Method It assumes the presence of significant differences in the performances and the
expected script behavior in response to emergency situations by experts in the field and not experts. We
expect also more accurate and detailed representations, less emotional and less influenced by film culture by
the response professionals and volunteers, compared to more idealized representations, emotional and
heavily mediated by culture media from the common man . The study involved 120 subjects, divided into
expert and non experts in emergency situations. Each subject provided a narrative description of the
emergency in general and / or specific contexts-emergency and expected behavioral scripts and compiled a
data form a questionnaire on disaster movies . The narratives were analyzed through the use of LIWC of
Pennebacker (2001). Conclusion The results confirm the assumptions made. Emergencies experts have a
strong predilection for disaster movies but their representations and behavioral scripts emergence are poorly
influenced by them. Have a prevalence of cognitive and behavioral elements orderly and predictable. The
representations of non-experts and scripts are generic, strongly influenced by film culture and centered on
the emotional dimension.




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Motta Monte-Serrat Dionia, di_motta61@yahoo.com.br
Verdiani Tfouni Leda, lvtfouni@usp.br
University of So Paulo (Brazil)

Equality as sense effect and uncertainties of the legal discourse

The study about the concept of subject according to the theories of Discourse Analysis (PCHEUX, 1988),
of the Literacy (TFOUNI, 2005) and of the Lacanian psychoanalysis (LACAN, [1949]1998) led us to
understand it as sense effect. On this line of thought, the subject, when observed in the relations of power
specified by the Law (during an audience of the Judiciary in which the court judge listens to the deponents,
cuts out their speeches and dictate to the clerk what he understands that must be a part of the written
document), gets a political dimension that allow us to differentiate the concept of juridical subject (while an
effect of language) from the concept of subject of law (one that is for the law HAROCHE, 1992). We
bring for analysis linguistic and enunciative facts that, disregarded by the legal system, bring evidence of the
important role that the syllogistic thought has on the discourse of the Law, which imposes the appropriate
manner of writing to, supposedly, avoid uncertainties and ambiguities. On the discourse of the Law we
observe a language supposed to be transparent and a subject measurable and predictable; on the juridical
discourse (narrative of the deponents) there is an opaque meaning and a subject susceptible to failures.
Thereby, contrary to the proclaimed equality before the Law, we may detect places where it is exactly the
inequality that settles in (CAPES 4394/10-0, FAPESP 09/54417-4; CNPq).



Mougenot Lucie, University of Paris Descartes (France), lucie.mougenot@laposte.net

Learning motor communication at school: the communication of certainty and
uncertainty. Example in team sport

Without being a special school discipline in France, the communication is part of educational issues for the
achievement of social skills and preparation for the future life (Simonpoli, 1991). Interact, adapt to the other,
reveal his ideas, learning communication in schools is most often written or oral, but there is another form
that is taught more original communication by the body. As early as kindergarten, express himself with his
body appears as a fundamental issue (school program, 2008). Indeed, Physical Education, and especially
when teaching group activities, students learn to communicate and interact with their bodies. Success in
these activities depends on learning of cognitive resources and motricity, that is to say the students' ability to
communicate some certainty to their partners, and uncertainty to their opponents (Ripoll 2008), in a
constrained and defined situation by the rules of the game. However, this ability to communicate has both a
very rapid decision-making about the motor action and its implementation in the respect for communications
codes, specific to the game. In collective activities with cooperation and opposition, uncertainty is indeed
manipulated by opponents: theres an ambiguity of adverse actions to hide his intentions, mislead or delay
the adverse reaction. We conducted a search starting work in motor praxeology introduced by Parlebas
(1998). This science of motor action allows us to define a situation (the team play) all actions, gestures and
signs of individuals based on their roles and sub roles defined by the game. We present a study group games
in high school; we were interested in learning non-verbal communication. The goal is to defeat the opponent,
the teacher teaches students to create certainty among partners, and uncertainty to his opponents by
spreading false information or delaying up signs announcing its intention. All communicative actions of the
players were listed and classified by deferred observing from their motor actions to cooperate or oppose.
Progress is assessed during the cycle of eight sessions. Our results show that students progress in achieving
the competencies defined by the curriculum through better communication (Abric, 1996). We observe such
an increase in motor actions to communicate his intentions to partners (help, support ...) and create
uncertainty to deceive the enemy. Communication through the body, and reading the body of the others are
at the center of learning. Even if the motor action is fundamental to succeed, information or concealment of
his intentions is also essential. The novelty and difficulty of this learning is on the appropriate decision
74

making and motor execution in a very short time. The individual in situation of the game is forced to act
immediately, and the in vivo observation allows us to identify their skills in action.



Muntigl Peter, University of Ghent (Belgium), peter.muntigl@ugent.be
Hoedl Stephanie, UZ Gent (Belgium), stephanie.hoedl@uzgent.be
Ransmayr Gerhard, AKh Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Linz GmbH (Austria),
gerhard.ransmayr@akh.linz.at

Managing insufficient knowledge with frontotemporal dementia

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), unlike Alzheimer type dementia, is not typically characterized by a decline
in cognitive ability or memory, but rather by a marked decline in social and emotional functioning (Neary et
al. 1998). Although memory impairment may not be prevalent in FTD, especially in the early stages of the
disease, various deficits in knowledge do become present and noticeable. Many patients, for example, are
largely ignorant of any changes in their behaviour, displaying a lack of insight concerning the effects that
FTD is having on them and their caregivers. FTD patients are also considered to be impaired in their capacity
to construe an appropriate theory of mind (ToM) concerning others beliefs and intentions. Some patients
also have difficulty in recognizing familiar faces (i.e., friends and relatives), as for example on photographs
(prospopagnosia). Although much research has focused on studying these deficits from a medical standpoint,
very little work has been done to uncover the interactional processes by which these deficits are realized and
managed in dialogue. For this paper, we examine the discursive practices through which FTD patients
display insufficient knowledge with respect to 1) a lack of insight concerning their disease; 2) an inability to
display an understanding of others knowledge; and 3) an inability to recognize familiar faces. Our data are
taken from video-recordings of 7 FTD patients. These recordings are part of a larger study in which patients
(FTD, Alzheimer or healthy) were interviewed at home or in the hospital by two researchers in the
presence of family and/or caregivers. Patients were involved in two activities: In the first activity, patients
were given a wordless picture story (composed of 6 frames) and asked to narrate the story; for the second
activity, patients looked at a family photo album, together with one of the researchers, and were asked to talk
about the pictures. All video-recorded conversations were transcribed and analyzed using the methods of
conversation analysis (Sacks 1992; Schegloff 2007). We found that patients would draw from a range of
interactional resources to display no knowledge: Whereas some not knowing formulations would be
expressed definitively (I dont know), others expressed uncertainty (Is that you on the picture, Mary?)
and some even functioned to preserve an illusion of primary knowledge (This picture was taken in-;
Thats not me on the picture). Patients would also at times mobilize others present in the room, such as
family members, to help them to recall. In a few instances, these attempts by patients revealed their inability
to properly grasp another persons domain of knowledge. Thus, we conclude that, by examining FTD
patients in natural conversations, a more comprehensive picture of their epistemic abilities and deficits may
be obtained. A patients knowledge state is by no means static, but is, to a degree, shaped by the participating
interlocutors.



Muntigl Peter, University of Ghent (Belgium) & Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (British
Columbia, Canada), peter.muntigl@ugent.be
Horvath Adam, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) & Catholic
University of Chile, Santiago (Chile), horvath@sfu.ca

Negotiating epistemic stance in family therapy

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.~ Sigmund Freud ~ An important dimension of therapeutic
interactions involves the therapists epistemic stance. A stance may be realized from a knowing or
75

expert perspective in which access and rights to knowledge lie outside the clients grasp or, alternatively
from a not knowing or uncertain perspective in which client ownership to knowledge is preserved and
the therapist takes the position as a fellow searcher in the quest for understanding (Yalom 2002). While the
risks and advantages of these epistemic positions have been debated theoretically (Anderson & Goolishan
1992), relatively little research effort has been invested in the examination of how therapist certainty or
uncertainty is realized in therapeutic interactions and what therapeutic consequences result when therapists
deploy knowing and not knowing stances in different interactional contexts. For our paper, we examine
interactional practices that convey different degrees of therapist certainty/uncertainty. Our analysis is based
on two tape-recorded family therapy interviews conducted by the renowned family therapist Salvador
Minuchin. To examine the epistemic quality of Minuchins utterances in context, we drew from the methods
of conversation analysis/CA (Heritage & Raymond 2005; Sacks 1992; Schegloff 2007) and from Goffmans
concept of footing (Goffman 1981). Whereas CA allows us to capture the ways in which the clients and
therapist construct and negotiate epistemic claims in a sequential context, footing allows us to capture the
changes in the [epistemic] alignment we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way
we manage the production or reception of an utterance. (Goffman 1981:128). For example, by saying to
someones daughter your mother just said that the therapist moves the source (and responsibility) of
knowledge towards another participant. The results of our analysis showed that the therapist used not
knowing practices involving questions and summary or upshot formulations (Antaki et al 2005) on many
occasions. More specifically, not knowing was realized through 1) epistemic modal expressions (I think,
probably), 2) claims of not knowing (I dont know), 3) prefacing questions with expressions of
uncertainty (let me try to understand, what Im interested in is) and 4) changes in footing in which
one family member is asked to clarify what the other family member had said (does she make sense to
you?, is that true). These not knowing utterances established the legitimacy and safety of controversial
topics, which led to client reflections on these topics and expressions of repressed emotional content.
However, we also found that, on certain occasions, the therapist would make claims of certainty in which he
would contradict the clients or make interpretations about clients prior talk. When the therapist assumed a
knowing epistemic stance, he often made explicit that this stance referred to his subjective position,
thereby protecting the clients rights to ownership of experience. Thus, we argue that the therapists
modulation of his/her epistemic stance (between knowing and certainty and not knowing and uncertainty)
and his sensitivity to preserve the clients epistemic rights can be used effectively to foster and promote
therapeutically important processes.



Mustatea Alexandrina, University of Pitesti (Romania), alexandrinamustatea@yahoo.com

Panglosss Certainties

Candide ou LOptimisme is a story with a thesis, by means of which Voltaire aims at ridiculing Leibnizs
philosophy, the theories of the pre-established harmony and of the sufficient reason, which lead to the
conclusion that we live in the best of all possible worlds. For this purpose he uses the literary formula of the
anti-fairy tale, subjecting his heroes to a series of trials, more precisely of misfortunes, on their long way
from unjustified optimism to disillusionment, respectively from the epistemological certainty to doubt. To
the rationalists of the century of Enlightenment, unhappiness is the same with false judgment. Thus, Voltaire
will build his text as a perfect illustration of this conception, making the lack of reason of his characters the
cause of their ill-being. The first chapter of the story will be a true pilot episode, presenting, implicitly, the
causes of the misfortunes that will follow. In this context, Panglosss directly reported discourse, which will
be the main object of our analysis, is the very model of the characters manner of reasoning, a model
followed faithfully by his disciple Candide and constantly applied by the narrator, this false alter ego of the
author. Under the appearance of the scientific, demonstrative discourse, there hides a collection of false
reasonings that have a comic effect. The contrast between the scholarly form of the discourse,
accompanied by the attitude of the locutor, who manifests his certainty regarding the truth of the information
that he communicates, and its hilarious content, highlights in a caricatural manner the ridiculousness of the
character, serving perfectly the sarcastic purpose of the author, who turns Leibnizs philosophy into a huge
mockery. The addressees dedublation is another specific mark of Voltaires irony: we have, on the one
76

hand, the addressee of the narration, as naive as its narrator, Pangloss and Candide themselves joining this
real chorus of stupidity, and therefore incapable of noticing the implications of the text, and the model
reader, belonging to the aristocracy of the spirit, the true addressee of the story.



Nicolini Paola, University of Macerata (Italy), nicolini@unimc.it

When uncertainty is a value: the case of observation processes in Developmental
and Educational Psychology

Along the last ten years we were involved in conducting the Workshop for observing children at school
(WOCS). WOCS is aimed to train the students preparing themselves to be future teachers at infant and
primary school. In fact teachers' competence in observing children and their abilities is crucial in learning-
teaching interactions. We studied hundreds of protocols in which the trainees had to describe what they
observed in a video, showing children doing something at school. Through the linguistic analysis of their
written texts we had the possibility to study the passage from a nave way to observe to an expert one. And
we discover that expressions of doubts and uncertainty is strictly linked to an expert way to conduct and
write down an observation. We will illustrate the main differences and discuss the main issues of our
research.



Nicolini Paola, nicolini@unimc.it
Cherubini Luisa, luisa.cherubini@unimc.it
University of Macerata (Italy)

Awareness of self through the analysis of cognitive verbs: a study on teens self
report

We are interested in the developmental task of identity building in adolescence (Erikson 1968). Adolescence
represents a privileged moment in which individual realizes to possess a complex and structured inner world,
which characterizes and identifies her/him with respect to others (Inhelder & Piaget 1955). Thanks to the
ability to reflect on themselves, adolescents may use the psychological lexicon with more awareness than in
previous stages of life. Studies in this field (Hendry & Kloep 2002) also state that the process of identity
construction involves stable parts as well as new parts, so that certainty and uncertainty need to be side by
side in the process of identity construction. For these reasons we collected self-report questionnaires among
adolescents aged between 14 and 17. We asked them to write a brief narrative sketch, following the
suggestion: About you: how do you think you are? For the purposes of this study, we conducted an
analysis on the self-report texts, to find the most quoted cognitive verbs. We found that cognitive verbs used
to express certainties represent the majority of cases (eg: to be aware, to know). We also found that cognitive
verbs involving expression with a certain degree of doubt and uncertainty (eg. to believe, to hope) are also
present in adolescent self reports. We can conclude that a certain degree of uncertainty is functional to the
development of self image and identity. We also will show what are the main areas on which certainty and
uncertainty are applied in adolescent's self report.




77

Nyan Thanh, University of Manchester (United Kingdom), t.nyan@manchester.ac.uk

Certainty, argumentation, and decision making

This paper is concerned with the possibility of a link between certainty as construed from an adaptive
perspective, and certainty as found in argumentative discourse. From an adaptive perspective, where survival
is paramount, decisions concerning action selection must be swift, and carried out in response to insufficient
contextual cues, if necessary. In such situations, where a high level of certainty (certainty
1
), though desirable,
comes at too high a price, expectations must be lowered to meet the requirement of efficiency (as embodied
in the mode of categorization involved). The outcome of this compromise I will term certainty
2.
Assuming
that what is found in argumentative discourse is similar to certainty
2
, the question arises as to how this could
have come about. In terms of organisation, I begin by setting out how adaptive values influence perception,
category formation, the categorization process, and action selection. This will provide the basis for
understanding why certainty
1
has to give way to certainty
2
. Following this, I explain in what way we are
dealing with certainty
2
in the case of argumentative discourse. Finally, I turn my attention to the possibility
of a link between the linguistic and non-linguistic levels under consideration. This involves invoking shared
mediating systems. Two key assumptions I will be relying on are:
1. Language is grounded in our neurobiology (which means that the language system is, at least in part,
mediated by existing systems)
2. Evolution is thrifty and tends to appeal to existing solutions, whenever possible.



Oishi Etsuko, Fuji Womens University, Sapporo (Japan), etsuko@fujijoshi.ac.jp

Evidentials in discourse

The notion of evidentiality is credited to Boas (1911)[2002]. Jakobson (1957) uses evidentials as a term for a
grammaticalized information source rather than as a generic label for which there is evidence, and this
definition is accepted by Aikhenvald (2004). However, if evidentials indicate how one has knowledge of
what one is saying, as Hardmans (1986: 115) definition shows, they can include optional lexical markings
of an information source. Evidentials do not contribute to the truth-conditional content of the utterance. Even
if the information source indicted by an evidential turns out not to be the source the speaker got the
information from, this does not falsify what s/he said. Imagine that a speaker says The Dean has decided not
to run for reelection, I hear, and s/he did not learn of the Deans decision by hearsay. Our general feeling is
that the utterance is still true if the Dean has decided not to run for reelection. Evidentials imply the
speakers epistemic attitude toward the information. The evidential I hear in the above example implies that
the speaker is not certain about the credibility of the information or does not fully commit her/himself to the
truth of it. This epistemic attitude toward the information is indicated more explicitly by modal expressions
such as It is likely and probably. How does marking of (i) how one has knowledge of what one is saying,
i.e., evidentials, and (ii) the epistemic status of what one is saying, i.e., modals, contribute to
communication? I am going to show that evidentials and modals work as discourse management strategies
(or information management strategies, if we follow Weber (1986: 137)). Evidentials and modals work as the
ground/validity of introducing the information, or the stipulation under, or the specification with, which the
information is introduced. They are often used in illocutionary acts whose aim is to bring about an effect on
the ongoing discourse, such as expounding views, conducting arguments, and clarifying usages and
references, which Austin (1962[1975]: 161-163) classifies as expositives. That is, when evidentials and
modals are used in the expositive act, not only is a proposition introduced, but the ground/validity of
providing the proposition or the stipulation/specification under/with which the proposition is provided is also
introduced as something that the speaker and the hearer share. I explain how the speaker and the hearer share
the ground, validity, stipulation, and specification by using a non-Searlean speech act theory. In the proposed
theory, the addresser (as a performer of an act) is theoretically distinguished from the speaker, the addressee
(as a person to whom the act is performed) is theoretically distinguished from the hearer, and the
78

illocutionary effect is assumed to be obtained when the hearer agrees to be the addressee that the speaker
invites her/him to be.



Oliver del Olmo Sonia, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), sonia.oliver@uab.cat

Certainty and uncertainty across disciplines and languages in book reviews

The growing and generalised use of English in research publication today has created the need for non-native
scholars not only to learn English, but to have a good command of the discourse features of all research
genres (Swales 2004:43). This pressure to publish in English has made visible the existence of certain
rhetorical and epistemological differences across languages and, in particular, between Spanish medical
discourse and that of the Anglophone tradition. As stated by Piqu-Angordans & Posteguillo (2006:383)
Medical English (ME) is a significant area of research in the wider fields of English for Specific Purposes
(ESP) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and much more attention has understandably been paid to
it than to other languages, as is the case of Spanish. Only more recently, due to the increasing interest in the
study of rhetorical patterns both interlinguistically and interculturally, can we find some research based on
the study of Spanish writing (Connor 1996, Valero-Garcs 1996, Moreno 1997, Burgess 2002, Oliver 2004,
Martn-Martn 2005 and Morales et al 2009).Within professional discourses, the appropriate use of hedging
devices is vital for authors presenting their knowledge in their scientific and academic discourse
communities as researchers are expected to modulate their assertions with the appropriate degree of
commitment in order to make their work acceptable for publication(Lafuente Milln 2009:65). Thereby, in
this paper we focus on Spanish and English book reviews (BR) in order to describe and analyse hedging
expressions from a cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary approach. In this sense, we have developed a
corpus of 120 BRs in English and Spanish, 60 in the field of Medicine and 60 in Linguistics. The selection of
randomized samples of international scholars working in medicine was based on the representativity of such
prestigious and highly indexed research journals as, The New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical
Journal (BMJ) and The Lancet and in the case of Linguistics the BRs were selected from the rigorous and
highly indexed journals: English for Specific Purposes, Discourse Studies and Journal of Pragmatics. The
comprehensive analysis of our corpora suggests that hedging devices are more common in English than in
Spanish BRs and that mitigation strategies in Medical discourse may differ from the ones used in the
Linguistics field, indicating, then, a cross-linguistic and a cross-disciplinary variation. Therefore, the results
of the present research might interest those involved in the writing, editing, translating, teaching and learning
of academic and scientific texts.



Pandarova Irina, Leuphana University of Lneburg (Germany), pandarova@leuphana.de

Epistemic adverbs and pragmatic variation across varieties of English

There is a growing awareness nowadays that epistemic modal devices are not solely concerned with
commenting on the truth value of propositions. Recent research has moved beyond purely typological and
semantic treatments of modality and has shown that epistemic modals have a strong pragmatic effect in
communication as well. As Capone (2001: 17) argues, the use of a more prolix, marked expression when a
corresponding unmarked (simpler, less effortful) alternate expression is available tends to be interpreted as
conveying a marked message (one which the unmarked alternative would not or could not have conveyed).
Because communicating always has a purpose, modalisation can be seen as having a rhetorical or
argumentative function (34). Additionally, it has been shown that notions such as Certainty and Uncertainty
cannot be associated firmly with any one communicative purpose, i.e. modal devices are multifunctional and
context-dependent (e.g. Caffi 1999). It is these aspects of epistemic modality that my dissertation project
sets out to investigate further with regard to the morpho-syntactic category of adverbs. The study makes use
of the integrated model adopted by Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007), in which adverbs of Certainty
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are not only indicators of epistemic stance but can also index social, cultural, situational and textual
dimensions of communication. For example, in the exchange below, sure expresses not only Certainty but
also acceptance of an alternative argument which precedes it from the point of view of discourse
organisation. It also prepares the ground for a counter-argument and is typically associated with informal,
spoken language.
A: Oh but thats too expensive.
B: Sure it costs a lot but that doesnt matter.
While this perspective is highly illuminating, little attention has been paid to the possibility that there may be
pragmatic variation in the use of epistemic adverbs across different varieties of English due to characteristic
socio-cultural realities and linguistic histories (cf. Aijmer 2009). Thus, the aim of this paper is to address this
possibility and to compare Irish, British and American English systematically with respect to one particular
adverb, sure. My approach is mainly corpus-based but spoken data (and possibly focus interviews) will be
utilised where corpus transcriptions are inconclusive. So far, the analysis has uncovered significant
differences in terms of frequencies, with sure being much more common in Irish and American English than
in British English. Moreover, sure appears to be mainly a feature of spoken, dialogic language. Several
typical pragmatic functions can be distinguished as well, for instance concession, persuasion, confirmation,
challenge and contrast. Interestingly, these can be linked to different stress and intonation patterns. Finally, a
closer look at the data will reveal that the three varieties, as well as individual registers within them may be
associated with typical discourse-structuring and pragmatic effects of epistemic sure.



Pasquandrea Sergio, University for Foreigners of Perugia (Italy), sergio.pasquandrea@yahoo.it

Negotiated epistemicity: assessments in interpreter-mediated healthcare
interaction

Over the last three decades, several studies (see, among many others, Pomerantz 1984; Goodwin & Goodwin
1987; Lindstrom & Mondada 2009) have demonstrated that assessments are social activities, sequentially
and cooperatively organized. In particular, works like Heritage & Raymond, 2005; Raymond & Heritage,
2006; Stivers et al. 2011; Heritage 2012a, 2012b, have shed new light on the relationship between
assessment and the negotiation of epistemic authority; they have also shown that the management of [...]
rights to describe or evaluate state of affairs can be a resource for invoking identity in interaction (Raymond
& Heritage, 2006: 680). This is particularly relevant in workplace settings, where the negotiation of
epistemicity is strictly related to the displaying of professional expertise. The presence of an interpreter adds
complexity to such dynamics, since, as maintained by a growing body of studies (e.g. Wadensj 1998; Roy
2000; Mason 2001; Gavioli 2009), interpreters can (and often do) act as active and fully-ratified participants
in the interaction, performing a wide range of tasks and significantly influencing the development of the
communicative process. This study takes into account a corpus of interpreter-mediated encounters between
Italian doctors and patients of different ethnicities. During the visits, doctors often formulate assessments,
which interpreters routinely report to the patients. In the process, assessments are often not simply translated,
but rather elaborated and reworked, e.g. by being expanded, summarized, or accounted for. Consequently,
the formulation of the assessment can undergo dramatic changes in the modulation and encoding of
epistemicity (and, therefore, of certainty/uncertainty). Relying on the methodology of Conversation Analysis,
this study analyzes such variations and their influence on the process of decision-making, which constitutes
the main goal of the medical encounter. In so doing, it aims at contributing to research on the negotiation of
epistemic authority and the co-construction of institutional roles in workplace (namely, healthcare)
interaction, particularly within multilingual/multicultural settings.




80

Passanisi Alessia, University Kore of Enna (Italy), alessia.passanisi@unikore.it
Di Nuovo Santo, University of Catania (Italy), s.dinuovo@unict.it

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and pragmatic impairments

Linguistics, in particular pragmatics, is concerned with questions about how the context in which language is
used influences the interpretation of the meaning of what is being said. According to Relevance Theory,
developed by Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995), the comprehension of meaning in different contexts implies
the operation of a processing capacity that is often called Mentalising, Mindreading or Theory of Mind
(TOM) by psychologists (e.g. Frith, 2003), a processing capacity that mediates the ability to represent the
mental states of others in order to understand and interpret their behaviours. A considerable amount of
evidence is now available which suggests that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience
difficulties in the domain of Mentalising (e.g. see Baron-Cohen, 2000 for a review). The strongest indication
for this stems from so-called false-belief tasks in which children are asked to predict the behaviour of a
character who holds a false belief about reality (e.g. the well-known Sally-Anne task, see Baron-Cohen,
Leslie & Frith, 1985). On the basis of the evidence for Mentalising difficulties in ASD, Happ (1993)
suggested that individuals with ASD should experience difficulties in understanding certain linguistic
constructs such as irony or metaphor, since these two rely on the ability to attribute mental states to others.
To test this prediction, she presented children with and without a diagnosis of ASD with short descriptions of
scenarios in which one of two characters said either something ironic, metaphoric or literal. As predicted,
children with ASD experienced difficulties with the interpretation of irony and metaphor but they were as
good as comparison children in making sense of the stories containing literal statements.
Although little doubt remains that individuals with ASD experience difficulties on tasks that involve
Mentalising, not all authors agree that the difficulty is the result of an impairment in the ability to represent
the mental states of others. Bowler et al. (2005), demonstrated that children with ASD who fail the classic
Sally-Anne false belief task also fail a non-mentalistic analogue called the Train Task. Thus, the authors
concluded, that it is not the attribution of mental states that presents difficulties for individuals with ASD but
rather the understanding of how a signal modulates goal-directed behaviours. According to other scholars
(e.g. see Vivanti and Rogers, 2011) impairment in understanding and imitating others actions in autism
might be due to the failure to fully learn skills that are central for cognitive development and adaptive
behaviour, possibly because individuals with ASD dont experience as well as in typical development the
same numbers of social rewards usually related to social interactions. Relevant findings in the field will be
discussed in order to offer a better understanding of the theoretical debate on the difficulties experienced by
individuals with autism and on the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms involved in subjects with and
without ASD related to the concepts of Certainty and Uncertainty in the communication.



Paul Christine, Free University of Berlin (Germany), christine.paul@fu-berlin.de

The epistemic and the functional side of retrospective utterances

In spontaneous conversation, several utterance types seem to display understanding of prior turns differently,
e.g. coproductions (i.e., affiliated utterances or utterance expansions) which are commonly supposed to
demonstrate understanding (cf. Sacks: 1992; Lerner: 2004; Szczepek: 2000) while questions regarding prior
utterances commonly supposed to communicate understanding problems (Rost-Roth: 2006; Selting: 1995).
Within this paper, I emphasize the common ground of these utterance types which are often analyzed with
opposed communicative functions, compiling them under the concept retrospective utterances, since with
these utterance types interlocutors refer back to information verbalized by another speaker previously,
reverbalizing or elaborating (in this talk - spatiotemporal - ) information with different epistemic stances.
Prior research has focused on the utterance types described here concerning how they display (mis-)
understanding in two ways: first independently, focusing on the utterance format (i.e. coproductions and
questions) and secondly together, concerning their communicative goals within the research of other initiated
repair (cf. Drew: 1997; Koshik: 2005; Schegloff et al. 1977, Schegloff: 2000; Svennevig: 2008). I take a
81

different approach: The central argument of this paper is that while the utterance type serves the interlocutor
to express epistemic modality (A), the communicative goals depend primarily on the relationship between
the tokens which are used in order to verbalize spatiotemporal information of the source and the
retrospective turn (B). The analysis is based on 240 instances of restrospective utterances on spatiotemporal
information within a conversational analysts approach. (A) The starting point is Heritage and Raymonds
(forthcoming) observation that all question formats assign ultimate authority for the information to the
respondent, but they differ in their epistemic gradient and in the answer expectations. This scheme can be
amplified and transmitted to retrospective utterances. The different questions types and coproductions can be
organized within one typology regarding the epistemic modality of the understanding process of priorely
verbalized information. (B) Empirical data show that three basic relationships can be described, e.g.
narrowing and broadening spatiotemporal information or transferring it to a semantically similar concept.
These three types are prototypically used with special communicative goals, that is narrowing spatiotemporal
information is used as a understanding check, broadening in order to maintain the conversation and using a
semantically similar spatiotemporal concept serves to thematize the concept itself.



Pavy Adriana Isabel, apavyingles@hotmail.com
Ziegler Mnica Beatriz, monica13ziegler@yahoo.com.ar
I. S. Colegio Modelo Lomas, Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Teacher learners beliefs about certainty and uncertainty in communication
(poster)

Language is communication. When language users express opinions or points of view, they transmit
certainty or uncertainty. This issue varies according to cultural variations and the context in which these
assertions occur, which may make communication difficult, or provoke an understanding failure. Thus, it is
crucial to know if teacher-learners, as foreign language learners, are aware of this process, distinguish
between certainty an uncertainty when communicating, or even, evaluate their assertions. This study
explores the notion/beliefs about communication of certainty and uncertainty in foreign language learning
held by teacher-learners. The information gathered is analyzed within a holistic frame, deriving in a set of
conclusions which help teacher-learners to be aware of expressing certainty or uncertainty, as well as teacher
educators to intervene effectively.




82

Pellegrino Elisa, epellegrino@unior.it
Salvati Luisa, lsalvati@unior.it
University of Napoli LOrientale (Italy)

The expression of certainty and uncertainty in social communication campaigns

Since 1990s private bodies, the Italian government and Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have
relied upon social communication campaigns in order to build in the Italians mind the certainty that social
cohesion, xenophile and collaborative behaviour towards foreigners were the only and most effective ways
of overcoming the human and organizational problems related to the growing immigration phenomenon.
In this study a descriptive-comparative research of print, television and radio advertising campaigns on
issues of racism and immigration, launched both by government and NGOs from 1990 to nowadays is
carried out. The purpose of the study is multifaceted. First of all, the objective is to verify whether there are
detectable diamesic differences in the way the advertising agency express the degree of certainty and
uncertainty towards the message they are conveying to Italian hearers and readers, that it is important to
ensure social integration of immigrants and to promote peaceful cohabitation between Italian and
foreigners. The second step of the research is to verify whether the communicative process, the linguistic
and extra-linguistic features expressing the status of the foreigners, the kind of relationship (symmetrical or
asymmetrical) between Italians and foreigners and the social roles assigned to them in the social
communication campaigns vary in accordance to the kind of the advertising agency (governmental/non
governmental/ private bodies) and to the Italian political context (left wing/ right wing). Of the fourteen
campaigns against racism, discrimination and social exclusion launched from 1990 onwards we conduct
descriptive-comparative research of the television and radio advertisings on 4 campaigns: (1) No to racism,
1990-1991, campaign promoted by Fondazione Pubblicit Progresso; (2) Integration Project, campaign on
social inclusion for immigrants, promoted by the Ministry of Labour, Health and Welfare, in 2008-2009; (3)
Dosta! Campaign against prejudice towards Roma, launched by UNAR- the National Office for the fight
against Racial Discrimination of the Ministry for Equal Opportunities, in collaboration with the NGO
Immigrazione Oggi in 2008 and (4) Do not be afraid! Campaign against racism, indifference and the fear of
the Other, promoted by many national and international NGOs, both religious and lay. For printed
advertising the focus is on the structure of the body copy, the use of visuals and the characteristics of
headline and pay-off between spoken and written advertising campaign. For radio and TV campaigns careful
analyses of suprasegmental features of speech are carried out: articulation rate (AR), speech rate (SR), tonal
range and fluency, percentage of silence/phonation time. The acoustic correlates of certainty, uncertainty and
lie in social communication campaign will be then determined. Data from the survey have highlighted that if
the communicative channel (print, radio, video) changes there are expected linguistic and extra-linguistic
differences in the expressing the certainty towards the advertising message. In addition, most clearly they
revealed the strong ideological and political connotation of social communication. The socio and political
contexts as well as the institutional or non-profit nature of the advertising institution are influential variables
in determining the social status of the foreigners and the type of relationship between them and Italians.



Penna Maria Pietronilla, University of Cagliari (Italy), penna@unica.it
Agus Mirian, University of Cagliari (Italy) & University of Barcelona (Spain),
mirian.agus@unica.it
Per-Cebollero Maribel, University of Barcelona (Spain), mpero@ub.edu
Gurdia-Olmos Joan, University of Barcelona (Spain), jguardia@ub.edu
Pessa Eliano, University of Pavia (Italy), eliano.pessa@unipv.it

The application of graphical representations in estimation of probabilistic events

Objectives. There is conspicuous bibliography on the evaluation of the bias in the assessment of risks and
probabilities of events in everyday contexts. The researchers report differences in the understanding of
probabilistic problems related to the mode of problem presentation: verbal-numerical and pictorial-graphical
83

(e.g. Garcia-Retamero, Galesic, & Gigerenzer, 2011). We explore the responses of subjects in probabilistic
dilemmas, in order to test the facilitating effect of graphical representation by two types of pictorial
illustrations (Eulero-Venn diagram and Iconic diagram) (e.g. Moro, Bodanza, & Freidin, 2011).
Design. We registered the subjects categorical responses to dilemmas (repeated measures in numerical-
verbal/graphical-pictorial forms), in time pressure condition.
Methods. We recruited 229 undergraduate Italian students (female 84.3%). To each subject we submitted two
dilemmas, selected from Garfields Statistical Reasoning Assessment (2003), investigating the reasoning
about odds. The first dilemma investigated the understanding of disease risk related to a surgery, while in the
second dilemma the subjects were requested to evaluate the accuracy of probabilistic weather forecasting.
We prepared two parallel forms of each dilemma (numerical-verbal/graphical-pictorial). We analysed the
frequencies of correct/incorrect responses in two couples of dilemmas. To analyse the obtained data we
applied the McNemar test and the Marginal Homogeneity test.
Findings. We compared correct and incorrect answers given to each item in the two conditions (with and
without graphics). The McNemar test for each pair evidenced a significant difference in performance
between these conditions. However our interest was mainly focused on people who do not work properly
when dealing with a verbal-numerical presentation of evidence, while their performance was good in the
presence of a pictorial-graphical presentation. To highlight this circumstance, we coded the answers through
new categorical variables (one for each pair of items): subjects who didnt give correct answers in
correspondence to both presentation formats, subjects who gave correct answers only in correspondence to
verbal-numerical format, subjects who gave correct answers only in correspondence to pictorial-graphical
format, subjects who gave correct answers in correspondence to both presentation formats. The Marginal
Homogeneity Test showed significant differences between the two pairs of items. In fact the number of
subjects who gave correct answers only in the presence of a pictorial-graphical presentation format was
higher in the first pair of items (using as a pictorial-graphical presentation based on Euler-Venn diagrams),
with respect to the second pair (using a presentation based on an ideogram).
Conclusions. There is an effect of graphical facilitation that, however, depends on the adopted graphical
representation. The probabilistic reasoning under conditions of uncertainty could be helped by highly
meaningful pictorial-graphical presentations (Moro, Bodanza, & Freidin, 2011).



Philip Gill, gill.philip@unimc.it
Bongelli Ramona, ramona.bongelli@unimc.it
Canestrari Carla, c.canestrari@unimc.it
Riccioni Ilaria, i.riccioni@unimc.it
Zuczkowski Andrzej, zuko@unimc.it
University of Macerata (Italy)

Introducing, reinforcing and mitigating Known, Unknown and Believed in
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

According to the Theory of the Known, the Unknown, the Believed (KUB Theory; Bongelli, Zuczkowski
2008, Zuczkowski et al. 2011), the multitude of evidential and epistemic markers (both lexical and
morphosyntactic) can ultimately be reduced to three basic ones (I Know, I do not Know, I Believe) reflecting
three different territories of information. Within this framework, a piece of information is communicated
as belonging to one of these three territories; therefore, dialogic communication can be considered as an
exchange of information originating in one of the three evidential and epistemic territories and directed at a
different one. KUB Theory was developed from the main findings of the analysis of two corpora of non-
dialogical written texts, in Italian and in English (Bongelli et al., in press); subsequently it was applied to a
corpus of Italian political speeches (Riccioni et al., forthcoming, Bongelli et al., submitted), and is now being
tested in the Harry Potter series. The present study continues our recent study (Philip et al. 2012) of Known,
Unknown and Believed in the dialogues in Chapter 10 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This
chapter was identified through key-word analysis as a pivot point in the narrative (Philip 2011), and its
dialogues are a rich source of information regarding both plot and characterization. Yet during our initial
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analysis, we found particular types of structures difficult to classify within KUB Theory. The scope of the
present work is, therefore, to examine these structures imperatives and question tags in more detail, and
to compare them with another less problematic, but still complex structure: introducing verbs and their
dependent clauses. Sentences which feature subordination often involve a combination of Known, Unknown
and Believed elements. These distinct types of information interact and unfold dynamically within dialogue,
the information conveyed in a proposition being reinforced or mitigated by the KUB value of the introducing
verb or question tag. What we have investigated, therefore, is this interplay between types of information, i.e.
how KUB in introducing verbs interacts with KUB in dependent clauses; how KUB in main clauses is
mitigated by KUB in question tags; and how to determine the KUB value of an imperative.
Imperatives appear to presume obedience and therefore the realization of the order as a (future) Known.
Introducing verbs and question tags however, combining as they do with finite verb clauses, drive the
dynamics of information flow. Introducing verbs are usually K, and their presence reinforces K and
strengthens B in the dependent clause (U only occurs with a U introducing verb). In question tags, a similar
effect occurs (K is weakened, B mitigated, and U reinforced). Yet the characters preference for information
types (c.f. Philip et al.) is also at play: only Harry uses U introducing verbs, while Hermione is the originator
of almost all B clauses. The dynamics of dialogue in Hallows Chapter 10 is therefore revealed to be most
complex, at once justifying this more detailed investigation and confirming the need to continue work on
KUB in dialogic interaction.



Philip Gill, University of Macerata (Italy), gill.philip@unimc.it

Knowing and not knowing: expressing (un)certainty in the Italian subjunctive

The subjunctive mode is a source of difficulty for many learners of Italian, in part because the function of the
subjunctive varies from language to language, and in part because guidance regarding its use is misleadingly
exhaustive. At first glance, the subjunctive would appear to occupy an inordinate amount of space in
grammars for Italian learners. In fact, in addition to complete lists of the conjunctions which require a
concessive clause in the subjunctive, the verbs of belief, doubt and sentiment which also require the
subjunctive is typically accompanied by a long list of example verbs, including credere (to believe), pensare
(to think), temere (to fear), etc. Yet what is not explicitly listed nor even mentioned in passing, is how verbs
of certainty, e.g. sapere (to know), behave in the negative, i.e. when the certainty that they express is
reversed. This study investigates the use of the subjunctive when certainty is negated, drawing its data from a
corpus of contemporary spoken and written Italian. Analysis of the corpus data makes it possible to locate
the small details of language which trigger the use of the subjunctive mode, with interesting findings. Taking
as its main focus non sapere (not to know), negated form of the verb of certainty par excellence, the study
isolates the linguistic features which consistently demarcate the grammatical choice between indicative and
subjunctive. One of these is the assertion of fact over opinion: when the dependent clause introduces a fact or
some form of widespread knowledge, the indicative reinforces the certainty of that fact; when the
information presented is not widely known or believed to be a fact, the subjunctive is preferred, fulfilling its
role as indicator of belief, doubt or sentiment. The other feature is the standpoint of the speaker: the negative
particle non reinforces ignorance of the known in indicative clauses, and highlights the unknowable in
subjunctive clauses. By way of contrast, two other verbs were also examined: essere sicuro (to be sure) and
credere (to believe), representing the intermediate and end-points respectively on the cline of subjunctive
use. Essere sicuro is a near synonym of sapere, being a verb of certainty which tends to refer to fact and
accepted knowledge. However, it transpires that even in the positive, it occurs together with subjunctive and
indicative dependent clauses with roughly the same frequencies of occurrence. The addition of the negative
particle effectively converts essere sicuro into a verb of uncertainty, while both positive and negative
interrogative uses also require subjunctive dependent clauses. Credere, the control since it obligatorily
requires the subjunctive, does not fail in its duty: no occurrences of indicative mode were found with this
verb, whether positive, negative or interrogative. This small study raises an important consideration for
language description in general: there are areas of language, such as negation, where grammar and semantics
merge. These must be addressed not only as grammatical features, but also as nuanced expressions of
meaning.
85

Pic Elsa, elsa.pic@univ-paris3.fr
Furmaniak Gregory, gregory.furmaniak@univ-paris3.fr
University of Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle (France)

Questioning certainty: a case-study of modalised wh- questions

This corpus-based investigation of the construction formally realised as wh- would/should/could NP VP
(e.g. But why should that be?) shows how direct or indirect questions of this form are used in research
articles and in popular science to throw doubt on factual propositions, that is, propositions whose truth has
been previously asserted or is presupposed. We first examine the construction per se and how its various
components (the modal, the past morpheme, the interrogative construction, the interrogative pronoun and, in
indirect questions, the embedding clause) contribute to its overall meaning and, in particular, to the
questioning of a factual proposition. A close look at the contexts in which the construction is used reveals
that although it cannot be, strictly speaking, analysed as an apodosis (it rarely combines with an if-clause), it
typically appears in what we might call hypothetical contexts, thus pointing to a semantic connection with
conditionality. We therefore propose that the doubt conveyed by the construction under scrutiny results from
the combination of this sense of conditionality with the interrogative structure the choice of modal (would,
should or could) and of interrogative pronoun (why, how, who, etc.) bringing further nuances. More
precisely, the construction is argued to make reference to an ideal/hypothetical logical world. The
rhetorical status of the question or, in indirect questions, the embedding VP (e.g. it is hard to understand
why) suggest that the previously assumed proposition would not make sense in a logical world. What is
therefore implicated is that it does not make sense in the actual world either, and that its reality-status can be
called into question. The 1,000,000 word-corpus on which this study is based is made up of research articles
and popular science articles in five different disciplines (Philosophy, History, Applied Mathematics,
Astronomy and Economics). It is therefore interesting to examine variations in the use of the construction
across disciplines and across the two main subgenres investigated (academic discourse and popularisation).
The first results show that the construction is highly sensitive to the disciplinary field. Most of its
occurrences in the corpus are to be found in philosophy. It can be surmised that the reference to a logical
world that underlies the use of the construction partly explains its frequency in a discipline where logic and
reason play such a prominent part. However, the data also suggest that the intended audience is a parameter
that should be considered in order to account for the use of the construction. Independently of disciplinary
idiosyncrasies, it appears that the construction is more frequent in RAs than in popular science. We propose
that this may be explained by the socio-pragmatic properties of academic papers which are analysed as inter-
communal (cf. Varttala 2001) rather than interpersonal. As such, they are more likely to discuss other
scholars more or less established views or theories and to question them.



Pino Marco, University of Verona (Italy), marco.pino75@gmail.com

Epistemic struggles: how knowledge distribution matters in healthcare
interactions

Recently, Heritage (2012a, 2012b) has demonstrated that interactants systematically attend to the distribution
of knowledge between them when they construct and interpret specific types of action and when they initiate
and sustain sequences of actions. In this presentation I will argue that the distribution of knowledge in
interaction is one prominent feature that participants in healthcare settings take into account when they
construct and deploy their actions. Specifically, I will show that educators responses to clients reported
problems differ systematically, depending on whether the educators can claim or display a knowing
epistemic position (K+) or whether they cannot claim or display a knowing epistemic position (K)
regarding the empirical circumstances of the clients problems. I will also show that gaining a K+ epistemic
position, as a resource in order to accomplish distinct types of action, can be a matter of struggle. The data
for this inquiry consist of 8 audio-recorded multi-person meetings, collected in a residential rehabilitation
centre for persons diagnosed with mental illnesses and in a daily rehabilitation centre for persons with drug-
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related problems, in Italy. The recordings were transcribed and analysed according to the approach of
Conversation Analysis. The following figure illustrates the type of activity that constitutes the focus of the
present inquiry.

reporting of recent events

[problem / complaint]


response

[remedy / evaluation / advice / correction / others]

In this type of activity, clients problem-presentations or complaints are followed by educators responses,
such as evaluations or recommendations. These responses differ qualitatively depending on whether the
educators can claim or display a knowing (K+) epistemic position. More specifically, educators responses
that are sensitive to the specifics or to the empirical circumstances of the clients problems are associated
with a knowing epistemic position (K+). Conversely, educators responses that are not sensitive to the
specifics or to the empirical circumstances of the clients problems are associated with an unknowing
epistemic position (K). Differently put, when the educators do not have access to the details of the clients
reported problems, they issue generic evaluations or recommendations that anyone could give. However, in
many situations where their knowledge of the clients problems is fragmented or uncertain, the educators
engage in conversational work to gain more information and thus to accomplish a transition from a K to a
K+ position as a preparatory step before delivering a recommendation or an evaluation. For instance, they
may provide for the clients to elaborate on the empirical circumstances of their own problems and thus to fill
the educators information gaps. The clients recurrently orient to the strategic nature of these epistemic
moves, e.g. they can resist the progression of the activity by withholding information and thus by curtailing
the educators transition from a K to a K+ epistemic position. This recurrently leads to struggles in order to
gain epistemic supremacy over the clients problems, with the educators recurring to alternative epistemic
strategies, such as invoking knowledge obtained from other authoritative sources as a warrant for issuing an
evaluation or a recommendation.



Pinto Maria da Graa, University of Porto (Portugal), mgraca@letras.up.pt
Osrio Paulo, University of Beira Interior & New University of Lisboa (Portugal),
paulosorio@ubi.pt
Martins Fernanda, University of Porto (Portugal), mmartins@letras.up.pt

A Contribution to tackling certainty and uncertainty in science

To tackle certainty and uncertainty in science, namely with regard to scientific communication and writing,
we have to bear in mind that science is a program aimed at trying to get as close to the truth about nature as
possible (Yngve, 1968:5). In other words, as stated by the same author: knowledge obtained through
science is tentative (Yngve, 1968: 6). Hence, scientific findings can only be taken as varying degrees of
certainty/uncertainty. Indeed, when designing a study to answer any order of research questions, the first step
is to thoroughly examine what has already been studied in order to obtain the state-of-the-art on the matter.
However, one can never forget that the findings obtained thus far are not to be taken for granted, i.e., they are
instead the object of constant updating due to research and technological advances, among other factors.
Nowadays, we know just how much influence new technologies have exerted on medicine affording it a
status closer to the exact sciences (see Lobo Antunes, 2012). The point is then to translate into scientific
communication and writing, particularly in articles, the presence of a critical attitude with regard to on-going
scientific research, i.e., the idea that knowledge is in progress and that we are contributing to broadening it
although we are aware of the limitations of our contributions. How then is it possible to convey ones
position on the acceptability of an event or the certainty of knowledge (Vihla, 1999:1)? This paper presents
a study based on a corpus of scientific articles concerning medicine, with the purpose of answering research
questions related to certainty/uncertainty in this domain, such as: (1) What is the researchers position
towards the existing literature in the field under study? (2) To what extent are hypotheses dealing with the
degree of certainty which will be reached? (3) What is the role of the statistical data and terms used to
87

evaluate the results? (4) How far does the discussion go in terms of certainty based on the sample/population
and on the material and procedures taken into account? (5) What kind of modal expressions must be used to
convey the degree of certainty/probability which characterizes scientific articles in this field? This approach
allows us to look at scientific communication and writing from a perspective that highlights the care with
which scientific writers/researchers have to deal with the content of their study. Their endeavours have to be
credible, even though the reader knows that they only convey a certain degree of certainty/uncertainty,
because he/she is expected to be aware that each article is a mere contribution to science as a programme, as
knowledge in progress.



Plastina Anna Franca, annafranca.plastina@unical.it
Del Vecchio Fabrizia, fabrizia.delvecchio@unical.it
University of Calabria (Italy)

Diagnostic news delivery: a micro-analysis of the use of shields

Breaking bad news to a patient is a complex communication task entailing any information which adversely
and seriously affects an individuals view of his or her future (Buckman 1992: 15), whether at the time of
diagnosis, recurrence, disease progression, or transition to palliative therapy (Buckman 2005: 138).
Clinicians often deliver bad news in a factual and abstract way that encourages a reciprocating, emotionally
distanced response (Maynard 2003: 154). This issue has been at the centre of debate in biomedical
communication, where Baile et al. (2000) have proposed the SPIKES Protocol to provide clinicians with
helpful guidelines on disclosing bad news. The acronym SPIKES entails the six steps suggested by the
Protocol: Setting the interview, patient Perception, Invitation from the patient, medical Knowledge, Strategy
of patient collaboration. While the issue of diagnosis has been at the centre of sociological, psychological,
anthropological and linguistic studies (cf. Odebunmi 2008), the actual interactional delivery of diagnostic
news has received limited attention (e.g. Maynard 2003, 2004). Diagnosis itself can be essentially positioned
in patient-doctor interaction on the ground of a patients dysfunction (cf. Hamilton 2004). Its interaction
order (Goffman 1983) is quite uncommon: one party (doctor) tells a recipient second party (patient) bad
news about the recipient self as the central figure of the interaction. Thus, diagnostic news delivery subverts
conventional dialogic interaction, which is organised along the protection of selves during interaction, and
the protection of the interaction order from self interest. In this sense, response cries (Goffman 1978) and
displays of emotion are a potential spontaneous outcome in receiving bad news as the interactional protection
of selves is undermined. It follows that self-talk [is] enough to threaten mutual intelligibility, and
physicians are therefore concerned to contain the scene (Maynard & Frankel 2006: 271) by using
functional hedges. In their study of discourse between physicians, Prince et al. (1982: 86) found the recurring
use of shields which affect the pragmatics by inducing implicatures conveying markedness with respect to
speaker commitment. These were further classified as plausibility shields to indicate different degrees of
uncertainty on the part of the speaker and attribution shields to attribute the degree of uncertainty towards
a proposition to another party (Varttala 2001: 17). This paper reports on a study which investigated how
physicians shield language when breaking bad news to patients. The study was based on the assumption that
it is possible for a speaker to shield different linguistic items (cf. Barton & Stygall 2002) to assert the degree
of commitment to a stated proposition (Murphy 2010). A corpus of sample diagnostic news delivery
interactions was collected and transcribed. The method adopted followed Goffmans (1983) suggestion for
preferring microanalysis of a face-to-face domain. Microanalysis was carried out in three phases to: 1.
identify which linguistic items were mainly shielded and their potential strategic function in relation to the
six-step SPIKES Protocol; 2. categorise identified shields following the classification proposed by Prince et
al. (1982); 3. evaluate these shields as markers of physicians actual uncertainty rather than as devices
serving mitigating purposes.




88

Poggi Isabella, poggi@uniroma3.it
Vincze Laura, laura.vincze@gmail.com
DErrico Francesca, fderrico@uniroma3.it
University of Roma 3 (Italy)

Multimodal communication of precision and vagueness

When we talk to other people, beside informing on the topic we deal with, we also inform about the level of
certainty or uncertainty, specificity or precision of what we are saying, and the logical relations we establish
between pieces of information we are conveying. The need to inform about our level of precision stems from
Grices (1975) norms of quality and quantity, that imposing not to tell more or less than what is relevant
determine the threshold of precision we should stick to. When we keep below the required level of
information, whether because our knowledge is in itself vague or because we might, but we do not want to,
go into details, we may meta-communicate that we are being vague through verbal or bodily signals of
vagueness; and as we keep above the required precision, maybe because details are particularly important in
our discourse, we may meta-communicate our goal of being more precise. Previous works analyzed gestures
conveying such meanings. For Morris (1977), the precision grip gesture, is typically used when the
speaker wants to express himself with delicacy and with great exactness (p.58); for Kendon (2004), it is
related to ideas of exactness, making something precise, or making prominent some specific fact or idea
(p.240); for Lemper (2011) it indicates the focus of discourse, but also has a performative meaning of
making a sharp, effective point, thus finally conveying a self-presentation of the speaker as being
argumentatively sharp (p.241). Poggi and Vincze (2011) analyzed the gestures through which a Sender
meta-communicates s/hes being vague, finding out their recurrent features (easy handshape, curve
movement trajectory, low tension), all bearing a morpho-semantic value of looseness. In this work we
present a study on gestures and other body behaviours conveying vagueness and precision. In a multimodal
corpus of political and judicial debates and oral university examinations, we singled out cases in which the
Speaker is very precise and cases in which s/he remains vague. We used two methods, verbal-to-body and
body-to-verbal. In the former after finding cases of precision or vagueness in the verbal transcription we
looked for and analyzed the co-occurring body signals. But this method highlights only cases where body
signals repeat the meaning of words; so in the latter method, without listening to the verbal content, we
looked for body signals characterized by morph-semantic features of precision and vagueness, then checking
the plausibility of their interpretation in the verbal transcription. For each case, we analyzed the body signals
of vagueness and precision on both the signal and the meaning side, through a coding scheme that for each
signal takes into account, beside its parameters of shape and movement and its semantic nuances, the context
of production, thus differentiating the signals also as to the interactional functions that motivate the use of
precision and vagueness signals. Results highlight differences between oral examinations and political
debates in both frequency and function of the meta-communication of vagueness and precision.



Polenta Stefano, polenta@unimc.it
University of Macerata

Certainty and uncertainty in pedagogical counselling
(poster)

The pedagogical counselling is a helping relationship that is aimed at individuals and families who are going
through a time of crisis or personal or relational difficulties . One of the reasons that lead a person to seek
help is the "uncertainty" he feels for his feelings ot for the decisions concerning a certain issue. The person
does not know how to contain himself, what to feel, what choices to make. This uncertainty can be verbally
communicated to the counsellor or not; in any case the person has an expectation that he will "dissolve" it
with some councils. But the purpose of counselling is not to provide educational "councils", as the term
counselling could misleadingly imply, but it is to assist the person to freely develop an educational project.
This objective is pursued "helping the person to help himself". For this to occur, the counsellor adopts an
89

accepting and empathic style - as Carl Rogers has well pointed out - which aims primarily at legitimizing and
bringing out what the person feels, in order to improve his self-esteem and to draw his internal resources
(empowerment). The uncertainty area is then reduced because the person is able to draw on his own
resources and to "close" the problem in new coordinates of sense. In my contribution I would like to
highlight, through the analysis of dialogues and verbal exchanges between counsellor and client, how this
reduction of uncertainty occurs and whether and how it is verbalized. It is necessary also to highlight that,
frequently, the discomfort seems to be consolidated and perceived by the person as "certain" and unavoidable
(for example: "the things are this way", "I see no way out", "I am done this way" ). This "certainty of
uncertainty" is a major obstacle as it decreases the area of "possible" by which new choices and the
projectuality develop. The theoretical model that I will use for the interpretation of the counselling process is
inspired by the work of Louis Sander. He adopts a relational perspective in which subjects are to be
understood as nonlinear dynamical systems that are "self-eco-organized." In each relationship there are
mechanisms of co-regulation and "being-with" on the one hand, and mechanisms of "self-regulation" and
"being-separate-from" on the other hand. The moments of co-regulation are the result of a "recognition"
facilitated by empathy. For Daniel Stern, these "moments of meeting" are important for the effectiveness of
the helping relationship. Arguably, therefore, the consulting is structured as a "co-regulated" "relational
field" that contains the emotional recognition of feeling of the client. This "transfer" to the relational-field of
the problematic implies a distance from it; the person will be able to re-position himself in respect to the
problem by virtue of the processes of self-regulation. When the field is invested, the counsellor feels more
"inside" the meeting and he feels that it is developing a " two-thought," he notes a greater fluidity of thought
and the client's ability to enlighten more and more aspects, with generation of insights. The moments of
recognition increase the degree of certainty and consistency. It is interesting to observe that not necessarily
such sense of congruence is communicated, but it can remain in the area of implicit communication.



Ponterotto Diane, University of Roma 2 Tor Vergata (Italy), dpontero@yahoo.com

Hedging in rape trial discourse

Hedging is an intrinsic feature of discourse which displays multiple forms and functions. It is essentially a
strategy of mitigation whereby the assertive force of an utterance is downplayed. In conversation, it may be
present as a pause, a hesitation, a repair, a self-interruption, a slowing down of the flux of discourse, a
lowering of the tone of voice, etc. Hedging in conversation may have various cognitive and affective
functions: cognitively, for example, it may be used to gain time to reflect or to avoid the obligation of a
direct response; affectively, it may be activated, for example, as a politeness marker in order to show
deference for the interlocutor or to signal willingness to yield the turn. However, in some contexts, hedging
can be interpreted as a sign of lack of knowledge, certitude or competence, as a signal of insecurity,
confusion or self-doubt, or even as an intent to mislead or lie. Since a Hedge qualifies the speakers
commitment to the certitude of what is being said, its presence or absence in any given interactive moment
will heavily condition the communication process. Consider for example the difference of an affirmation of
innocence when formulated as He didnt do it, or, when formulated as I dont think he did it. This paper will
present an analysis of the forms and functions that a normal conversational strategy like hedging can assume
in an institutionalized form of discourse - in this case, the courtroom, and particularly, in a specific juridical
text-type: the cross-examination of the victim-witness in a rape trial. The analysis is performed on a
specially-designed corpus of rape trial transcripts in Anglo-American contexts. The study will aim to show
how the defence attorney of the accused exploits the hedging strategies of the victimwitness in order to
discredit her testimony and thereby win the case for the defence. By so doing, it will make two theoretical
points. The first point is disciplinary, in that it will demonstrate the powerful contribution of the language
sciences to the identification and unveiling of social injustice. The second point is ideological, in that it will
show how some areas of Anglo-American institutions continue to reflect a social tendency towards leniency
in the face of violence against women.


90

Reber Elisabeth, University of Wrzburg (Germany), elisabeth.reber@uni-wuerzburg.de

Obama said it. Quotations as evidentials in online comments

Online news comments have become an increasingly important feature for participation in political discourse
by virtual communities (Diakopoulos and Naaman 2011). They enable users to discuss and evaluate news
events publicy, but may also affect other users in their perception and attitude towards that event (Walther et
al. 2010: 28). The present paper will be based on a corpus of comments posted in English political blogs and
news sites where the transcript of a news interview is provided. The study of such comments showed that
users may make reference to the interview and other comments through quotations (direct/indirect) and loose
paraphrases, showing alignment/disalignment with the stances taken in the interview and other comments. In
typological work, making quotations (i.e. reported speech) treated as a source of information has been
linked to the grammatical category of evidentiality (Aikhenvald 2004). In contrast to languages where
evidential marking is a must (ibid: 6), such marking is optional in English and may be deployed by
speakers in interaction to make claims to authority (e.g. Clift 2006). Taking thus a functional approach, the
paper will examine the linguistic forms and communicative functions of quotations and their role as
evidentials in users stance-taking in online comments. Given that direct quotations form stronger evidence
than loose paraphrases and thus are potentially more believable (cf. de Haan 1999), it will be discussed how
the different forms of quotations found can be linked to the different communicative functions they serve to
fulfil.



Ricci Bitti Pio E., pioenrico.riccibitti@unibo.it
Bonfiglioli Luisa, luisa.bonfiglioli@unibo.it
Melani Paolo, paolo.melani@unibo.it
Caterina Roberto, roberto.caterina@unibo.it
Garotti Pier Luigi, pierluigi.garotti@unibo.it
University of Bologna (Italy)

Facial expression of doubt

There is wide debate on the mental state of doubt/uncertainty; one wonders whether it is a predominantly
cognitive or emotional state of mind. As with other mental processes, our aim is to verify whether there are
meaningful expressive/behaviors that characterize it. To define the field, we focused only the communicative
aspect of the doubt/uncertainty, trying to identify some typical facial expressions that express the message "I
do not know." To this purpose, we created a series of scenarios in which a subject is in a position to answer
"I do not know" to a specific request. Finally, we identified 3 possible expression configurations, one of them
sends the message "I do not know", in the sense of "I'm sure I do not know"; another one sends the message
I do not know, in the sense of "maybe" ("probably", "I'm not sure"); the third one sends the message I do
not know, in the sense of "let me think" ("I could know ","I should think about it "). Once a large sample of
expressions were performed through a roleplaying technique, we chose 4 facial expressions for each of the 3
possibilities; they were evaluated by decoders in a recognition task and they were also analyzed by FACS
(Facial Action Coding System). The study showed some typical facial expressions in the manifestation of
doubt.



91

Riccioni Ilaria, i.riccioni@unimc.it
Lo Bue Silvia, silvia.lobue@virgilio.it
Bongelli Ramona, ramona.bongelli@unimc.it
Zuczkowski Andrzej, zuko@unimc.it
University of Macerata (Italy)

Uncertainty and hedging in troubles talk situations: the giving advice activity
(poster)

Talking about personal troubles is a typical dialogic situation that frequently recurs in ordinary informal
conversations. Generally, the subjects involved in this kind of conversations are people tied by emotional
relationships (friends, relatives, partners etc.). Since the early 80s, conversation analysts particularly Gail
Jefferson - first became interested in that phenomenon (Jefferson & Lee 1981/1992, Jefferson 1984, 1988).
From then on, other authors have been dealing with it, from different perspectives (among others, Tannen
1990; Traverso 1996; Michaud & Warner 1997; Goldsmith 1999, 2004; Basow & Rubenfeld 2003;
MacGeorge, Graves, Feng, Gillihan & Burleson 2004; Buttny 2004; Korobov & Thorne 2007, 2009). In
recent years, in our Research Center for Psychology of Communication, we have been studying
conversational data, aiming to identify structural and pragma-linguistic features of troubles talk sequences
(Zuczkowski 2004; Riccioni 2005, 2008; Zuczkowski & Riccioni 2010, forth.). The present study aims at
analyzing the conversational dynamics involved in troubles talk situations in a new perspective, i.e. focusing
on the links between both conversational roles (confider and confidant/e) and dialogic actions typical of
these sequences, on one hand, and, on the other, on the expression of epistemic Certainty/Uncertainty in
relation to the communicated piece of information (Dendale and Tasmowski 2001, Nuyts 2001, Gonzlez
2005). We analyzed a corpus of 30 transcripts of everyday conversations belonging to the script of troubles
talk in which the confidant/e resorts to the activity of giving advice. The subjects involved (in most cases
young adults) are tied by intimate relationships (friends, relatives, siblings, partners) and they tackle several
problematic issues (about work and study, love, family etc.). A qualitative analysis was conducted using an
approach that integrates, on one hand, both Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis and, on the other
hand, the Theory of Known, Unknown and Believed (KUB) (Bongelli, Zuczkowski 2008; Bongelli et. al
2009; Zuczkowski et. al 2011). Our analysis is particularly focused on two main aspects: (1) how
conversational partners build up their roles and dialogic actions by sharing and negotiating their knowledge
or belief or lack of knowledge: for example the confider often does not know how to face up the trouble s/he
is talking about; at a communicative level, the confidant/e, offering advice, seems to know or believe what is
better for her/his interlocutor; (2) how the linguistic form through which the piece of advice is communicated
can be related, on one hand, to the advisors epistemic Certainty/Uncertainty and, on the other, to the
illocutionary force of their linguistic actions: for example an advice can be directive or mitigated in
various ways, by implying hedging and politeness strategies.



Roibu Melania, melaniaroibu@yahoo.com
Uta Oana, o_barbulescu@yahoo.com
University of Bucharest (Romania)

Discursive un/certainty aimed at manipulating opinions. A case study

Our paper examines the way the Romanian MPs of the interwar period assess some extraordinary events that
took place throughout their mandate, by resorting to discursive signals of either certainty or uncertainty, as
the case may be. We start from the assumption that the discourse related to crisis displays an inventory of
strategies designed at signalling the speakers attitude towards the information conveyed that is much wider
than any other mode of discourse. The manipulative temptation is prevalent in such a discourse, which
results in the speakers need to certify the interpretation attached to some events that have not met the MPs
agreement or, on the contrary, to introduce a certain reserve whenever the events do not leave room for
interpretation. Consequently, the speakers un/certainty towards the information conveyed is signalled by
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marks placed at various language levels, ranging from the use of adverbs with modal function (desigur,
evident, nendoios certainly, obviously, undoubtedly, foarte clar very clearly, etc), words with
evaluative content placed in the proximity of nominal centres designating either the actions of the Power, or
those of the Opposition (serios serious/ly), modal verbs prefacing the speakers attitude towards the
actions presented (a putea can), the speakers overt positioning in relation to their own discourse (voi
rspunde foarte limpede i franc I shall answer very clearly and sincerely), to the creation of a scenario
where agency/ affectedness is difficult to grasp. We are also interested in identifying the consequences the
speakers use of different discursive un/certainty signals might have at the argumentative level. The more
fallacious the arguments, related rather to affects than to judgments, the more apparent the speakers
insistence to preface it by means of adverbs displaying certainty. Finally, we try to establish to what extent
the strategies used during the interwar period could be activated within the discourses of nowadays MPs,
which might enable us to speak about some discursive universals.



Romelli Katia, k.romelli@campus.unimib.it
Frigerio Alessandra, a.frigerio5@campus.unimib.it
Colombo Monica Giancarla Roberta, monica.colombo@unimib.it
University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy)

Constructing certainty through authoritativeness in psychiatric discourse: an
analysis of DSM over time

The proposed revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by
American Psychiatric Association (APA), and, in particular, the eventual exclusion of Narcissistic
Personality Disorder (NPD) from the upcoming fifth edition, has recently reopened a long lasting debate in
psychiatry and clinical psychology on the criteria adopted in defining pathology/normality. This study is
intended to contribute to a well established scholarly trend that aims both to historicize psychiatrys more
essentialist claims and to challenge the pathologization of individual experience dominating both in clinical
psychology and psychiatry. Taking a critical psychological perspective, the main purpose of this study is to
explore how mental disorders have been constructed and reconstructed throughout the course of different
DSMs editions, from DSM-I to DSM-V, and to uncover the underlying ideological assumptions on which
these definitions are based. In particular, we focus on the construction and legitimization of the authority
position as instruments to convey knowledge and beliefs about the separation between abnormal and normal
behaviour, and the way of shaping what is regarded as normal in society. Critical discourse analysis is used
as a methodological and analytical tool as it regards discourse as a form of social practice, constructed for
particular purposes and serving the interests of particular groups, and permits to analyse structural
relationships of dominance, power and control as they are manifested in language. In our case, it allows for
the understanding of the argumentative and rhetorical strategies used in the DSM to construct and legitimate
its authority in relation to the establishment of evidences for diagnostic criteria. We are particularly
interested in the way in which the psychiatric discourse works to established an objective order that tends to
naturalize its own arbitrariness. Our analysis highlights that the legitimization of the authority is
accomplished via two main strategies. The top-down strategy works to construct the APA as invested by
other relevant public and political institutions with the authority to establish general nomenclature. The
bottom-up strategy serves to characterize the APA as an organism that recognize mental-health
professionals needs and is able to offer solutions. The ways in which the psychiatric discourse has
naturalized the effects of power and ideology is through the adoption of a particular form of what can be
defined technocratic discourse, which implies objectifying the subjective and, through this, to turn
profound human issues into technical issues (McKenna & Waddell, 2006: 213). The more and more
sophisticated classificatory system adopted by the DSM over time can be regarded as a way to establish
control over the subjective experience of psychological distress and to realize the purpose of turning the
subjective experience into an objective collection of certainties.


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Ross Jamie, Portland State University (Oregon, USA), rossj@pdx.edu

Fallacy of antecedent conditions as certainty: Give me that Baby!

Biological theories of emotion are often used to analyze and explain human desires, particularly the desire to
reproduce biologically. The naturalization of such desires into the body and the normalization of biological
theories into culture sustain the pursuit of biological childbearing as a biological necessity (biological
determinism). Aligned with foundational metaphysical and epistemological theories, which lend authority
and urgency to the pursuit, the process of normalization and naturalization has the consequence of focusing
our attention on the development of and adaptive preferences for reproductive technology over alternative
modes of parenting. I suggest that this form of biological urgency rests on what early 19
th
century American
Pragmatist philosopher John Dewey calls a search for certainty. The search for certainty relies on a
constructed knowledge not truth. My work, although predominantly influenced by John Dewey, is also a
reflection of broad feminist methodological critiques for determining what counts as choice as well as what
counts as scientific evidence. I suggest, as Dewey does, that a search for certainty actually misdirects
attention from the ontology of observed facts and rests on a logical fallacy, the fallacy of antecedent
conditions. I hope this analysis provides some insight into the extensive focus on reproductive technology
in general.



Russo Luca, Technical University of Dresden (Germany), lucarusso86@gmail.com

Uncertainty and underdetermination of indexical terms: an inferential approach

Indexical terms and demonstratives are the most important linguistic devices used to link conceptual contents
with spatio-temporally determined situations and entities. They link the occurence of a statement with a
possible truth-maker, and in communicative contexts they link the perspective of the speaker with the
perspective of the hearer. This power is guaranteed by their almost automatic functioning: An index refers to
its denotate object for the very act of being uttered. Yet this functioning presents a certain degree of
uncertainty, which is evident mainly in two fields. First, demonstrative terms need, besides an act of pointing
or equivalent determining device, some description, at least implicit, of the intended thing; just to say this
or to point a finger leaves the reference underdetermined. Pure indexicals, such as now, here and so on,
seems not to suffer of such a flaw, because a minimal description is already included in the definition of the
term (now can refer only to times, etc.), although they can also have ambiguities in scope or application.
Second, the function of an index can be fulfilled also by definite descriptions when they are used
referentially. In this case a source of difficulty lies in the fact that a speaker can use an incorrect description
to refer to a certain individual, and yet the right response in a communication would be to correct the
description and not to take it at its face value. How would the hearer perform this correction and understand
the right reference? Two theories of indexicals will be presented, the theory of David Kaplan and the one of
Charles Peirce. The former claims that indexical terms and demonstratives introduce a determined object
present in a context into the truth condition of a sentence. The latter is stated within a semiotical frame
dealing with the concrete acts of indication more than with the truth conditions of propositions. Kaplans
theory is particularly apt to explain the semantics of indexicals whithin the frame of analytic philosophy, but
it does not deal well with the forms of uncertainty mentioned above, because it postulates the determination
of the correct referent before the truth of the sentence can be evaluated. In particular, Kaplans solution for
the problem of the incorrect descriptions is not satisfactory. In Peirces semiotics indexical signs are
characterized, from one side, by a spatio-temporal connection with the intended object, through the act of
utterance and possibly also other devices; and from the other, by the fact that this connection does not entail
a descriptive content, which must be added to it. Indices are always incomplete signs which needs to be used
and evaluated together with other signs, to refer to something. Their communicative function is to introduce
a certain way to gain access to the object. It is used by the hearer to relate the conceptual part of the
speakers statements with the independent access he can have to the relevant context. In other words, indices
are signals for the application of inferential processes which compare the information given by the speaker
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with the information autonomously gained by the hearer. I will show how this theory is better suited to
account for the forms of uncertainty mentioned above.



Salas Camillia, camillia.salas@unine.ch
Deschenaux Amlie, amelie.deschenaux@unine.ch
University of Neuchtel (Switzerland)

Towards a crystallization of the events certainty: Formal Testimony in the
courtroom

Sharing information involves different kinds of mechanisms that are related to cooperative and manipulative
communication, (Clment, 2006). We can therefore consider that the verbal and nonverbal interactions are
subject to negotiation. These interactions are defined by an enunciative context: the context in this case is the
courtroom. Our proposal seeks to identify several discursive exchanges that occur in a criminal courtroom,
considering public hearings in Switzerland, where various agents in the judicial system (defendant,
complainant, Chief Justice of the Court, judges, general prosecutor, lawyers) can suggest different versions
of the same event. Confronted by this plurality of versions, all the parties of a trial contribute to a co-
construction of the events factuality in order to allow building of a final version, on which the verdict is
based. In the Swiss Criminal Procedure Code (Art.10 al.2), it states that: The court shall be free to interpret
the evidence in accordance with the views that it forms over the entire proceedings. This interpretation, this
conviction intime, leads to the verdict. We can also point out that this conviction intime is related to the
principle of right-thinking certitude (Bnzech, 2007), since it is based on the ascertainment of facts.
Therefore, by focusing on a specific kind of evidence, i.e formal testimony (Coady, 2002), we would like
to determine how it contributes in a way, to the establishment of an events certainty, specifically to its
likelihood. By testimony, we consider the transmission of observed (or allegedly observed) information from
one person to an other (Sperber, 2001) and the person, who initiates the transmission, has totally or partially
experienced the event taking place. This definition allows us to consider other kinds of testimonies that are
not taken into account in the criminal procedure (in the criminal procedure a witness is a person who wasnt
involved in the offense and might make useful statements in order to clarify facts. (Art.162 CPC)). Our
submission will also include character witnesses, eyewitnesses (including also the defendant and/or the
complainant) and specific expert witnesses. For this study, we will make ethnographic observations of
several public hearings at the Criminal Tribunal Chamber of Lausanne, specifically focusing on cases
including direct confrontation (visual, physical, etc.) between the defendant and the complainant. Moreover,
thanks to the audio recordings of public hearings, we propose to associate a comparative discourse analysis
(Adam & Heidmann, 2005) to this ethnographic method. Therefore, our present task is, first, to identify and
compare the communicative mechanisms used by witnesses during the phase of negotiation (corresponding
to the establishment of the events certainty). Secondly, we want to establish how these negotiations are
related to the fluctuation of the degree of certainty of the witness statements. Finally, our major undertaking
is to show how the witnesses negotiate their credibility, contributing to the crystallization of the events
certainty.




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Salinas Agns, agnes.salinas@unicaen.fr
Avram Carmen, carmenavram77@yahoo.fr
University of Caen (France)

Psycholinguistics management of uncertainty in the co-construction of the
communication

The purpose of this communication is to shed light on the way that foreign adults (for example Romanian
students) write politeness formulas or are talking in a dialogue situation in French. It takes into consideration
the problematic of politeness or referentiation codes in written or verbal interactions as well as the issues
regarding the cultural substrata. We are interested in these particular types of formulas used in a cultural and
no longer being a reality following the context in an academic environment, and in a negotiation situation in
French in business. We are also interested in how these adults will face dialogic communication with the use
of cognitive biases. In the first part of this contribution, we discuss a theoretical approach to addressing
systems, stressing the specificity of communication formulas used in Business French communication and
the cultural and linguistic specificity of politeness formulas in several languages (French, Romanian,
English, etc.). Cognitive biases are examined. The second part of our contribution is dedicated to the analysis
of the politeness formulas used by Romanian students at the end of their commercial letters. In particular, we
will turn our attention to complaint letters and to letters in response to complaints, because they convey
cultural information in a more marked manner than the other types of commercial letters. This is due to the
fact that the two interlocutors personalities are brought into play, in a conflictual or quasi-conflictual
situation. Our analysis endeavours to verify to which extent students can fit into the schema of different
contexts, which sometimes cause conflicts. Our hypothesis here is that there is a high degree of incertitude in
choosing politeness or addressing formulas in French, and in accordance with the French politeness norms,
especially because of the influence of their native language and also because of the influence of their second
foreign language. This results in the fact that foreign students, Romanians, in our case, have a tendency to
make up politeness formulas or to mix several communication styles (formal and informal styles). We are
going to deal with the writing of politeness formulas following two different work tasks. Students must
produce politeness formulas in context (at the end of a response to a given complaint letter) and out of
context (politeness formulas imagined for four types of letters). A first work task required Romanian students
in French as a Second foreign Language (n=115), to write a response to a complaint given as an example.
These analyses lead us to undeniably state the influence of the subjects communicative, cultural, linguistic
and cognitive system. Language behaviours are influenced by a complex system and they also undergo
changes entailing choices induced by aesthetic reasons. The questions which can be raised concern less the
level of language command and more the level of acceptance and integration at cultural and cognitive
language levels of the norms prescribed by the French commercial interaction.



Salvati Luisa, University of Napoli LOrientale (Italy), lsalvati@unior.it

Persuasion pragmatic strategies in L1/L2 Italian argumentative speech

According to the pragma-dialectical approach, argumentation is a verbal, social, and rational activity aimed
at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint [...] (van Eemeren & Grootendorst,
2004: 1). When argumentation in not expressed only in L1, but it also involves foreign speakers arguing in
L2, the certainty/uncertainty of a piece of information communicated by speakers, through their arguments,
become even more complex because of sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic factors - linked to different
cultural values speakers refer to - and of cognitive factors - related to language learning process of foreign
speakers. Moreover it involves the intercultural communication: the natives and non-natives skills to interact,
by negotiating meanings, values, symbols, ideas, according to a "common ground" (Fetzer & Fischer, 2006).
Based on these premises, our work aims at describing how it is possible to communicate
certainty/uncertainty in L2 Italian by the argumentative macro-speech act (Lo Cascio, 1991; 1992).
Specifically, in a comparative perspective with L1 Italian, the research aims at identifying the pragmatic
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strategies carried out by non-native speakers when they argue in L2 Italian in order to persuade someone: the
argumentative structures, the type of argumentative speech acts, their distribution within a discourse. We
collected a corpus of argumentative speech in L1 Italian, a corpus in L2 Italian and a corpus in L1/L2 Italian.
For the constitution of the corpus in L1, 8 Italians were asked to participate in a debate to argue for (4) or
against (4) a specific topic. Each speaker argued in order to convince an audience of 19 Italians. As for the
corpus in L2 Italian, we carried out the same procedure with 10 Chinese learners of Italian (with a B2 level),
who argued (5 pros, 5 cons) in front of an audience composed of 8 Chinese. As for the corpus in L1/L2
Italian, 4 Italian speakers (pros) and 4 Chinese learners of Italian (cons) argued in front of 20 native listeners
and 13 non native listeners. We noted that the argumentations in L2 Italian are mainly expressed through
assertive speech acts used to express one's opinion. The commissive and directive speech acts, which require
a more interactive relationship from the speaker towards the interlocutor, are absent, since the non-natives
seem to be skilful in expressing their judgments, but not in expanding or modifying them according to the
other opinions they just heard. This is confirmed by the presence of many silences and hesitation
phenomena. Moreover the Chinese tend to communicate the certainty of their arguments by a frequent use of
quotations from the institutional authority or the classical tradition, as explanation for a statement and to
prove the validity of their opinion on the grounds of the shared repository and as a reference to a shared
wisdom. On the contrary, the Italian speakers tend to give certainty to their arguments, by using thesis
characterized by individualistic values. Further data will be discussed in detail.



Salvato Lucia Amelia, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milano (Italy),
lucia.salvato@unicatt.it

The communication of certainty and uncertainty within Gospel dialogues

This paper explores dialogues taken from the Gospels. The intention is to examine the communication of
Certainty and Uncertainty within the information given by the different speakers, especially in disputes
referring to Jesus actions and words. The study focuses on the way dialogues evolve during the interactional
sequences between the interlocutors; that is how they debate upon their contents communicated as certain or
uncertain, i.e. the way these contents are argued, negotiated or disrupted. Explored is also the way Pharisees
quarrel with Jesus and his followers, switching from Certainty to Uncertainty in order to be able to cling to
their hostile attitude against him. On a deeper level, the analysis investigates the way speakers express their
individual degree of Certainty and Uncertainty toward the information they are giving or receiving. At the
same time, it remarks the different attitude of interlocutors: on one hand regarding the reliability of their
communicated information (Epistemicity), on the other hand regarding all linguistic markers used, which
reveal the source (and its truthfulness) of the information given (Evidentiality). According to Pragmatics, e.g.
Speech Acts and Peirces linguistic theory, the work also aims at pointing out the parallel course of the
twofold functional level of Jesus words: the informative and the performative one. Within this double
development, interlocutors as well as Gospel readers are hence brought to understand the full meaning of
Jesus gestures. On this regard, focus is therefore also on the typical character of dialogues with Jesus: their
inference dynamic, that develops with the help of maieutics, i.e. the Socratic method. Results of this study
contribute to the didactic experience. Following the course of different argumentations in dialogues, the type
of analysis performed may introduce scholars to the interpretive dynamic in communicative contexts, where
different nuances of the described inferential mechanism may emerge.



Sandvik Margareth, Oslo and Akershus University College (Norway), Margareth.Sandvik@hioa.no

The epistemicity of broken promises in political discourse

The paper focuses on how politicians express their degrees of Certainty or Uncertainty towards political
issues at stake in the Parliamentary Question Time in Norway. The analytical starting point is the accusation
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of broken promises and the challenge and defense sequences that evolve from these particular acts.
Standpoints and arguments will be investigated from an interactional perspective, drawing on insights from
argumentation theory, and in particular informal logic (Walton and Krabbe 1995) and rhetorical
argumentation theory (Kock 2009), and from the study of argumentative indicators and their strengths and
forces in political discourse (van Eemeren, Houtlosser, Snoeck Henkemans 2010). Of particular interest are
party political differences in expressing accusations and responses to these, and the following question will
be addressed in the paper: How do right and left wing politicians display attitudes regarding the reliability of
the information embedded in claims and counter-claims? What is the degree of commitment in politicians
challenges and defences? How far are politicians willing to go in their ethos promotion? What are the
interactional effects of sequences where politicians argue and negotiate about what has been promised,
fulfilled or broken in politics?



Savino Michelina, m.savino@psico.uniba.it
Matera Grazia, grazia_matera@alice.it
Mininni Giuseppe, g.mininni@psico.uniba.it
University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy)

Perceiving speakers (degree of) certainty in spoken discourse: the role of
intonation

Recent preliminary studies have shown that intonation plays a crucial role in conveying an epistemic
disposition of (un)certainty in spoken utterances (see Gravano et al, 2008 for American English), and that
even if the contribution of lexical markers is important for conveying/perceiving (un)certainty, it can be
easily overidden by prosodic (and gestural) markers (Borras-Comes et al, 2011 for Catalan language). In
these studies it appears that, as a general trend, a rising/high pitch is related to the expression of uncertainty,
whereas a low/falling pitch is associated with perceived degree of certainty. Such a picture is compatible
with the general idea of some intonation universals for expressing basic attitudinal meanings across
languages and cultures According to this view, high frequency/rising contours signal openess, deference,
submission, lack of confidence, whereas low frequency/falling contours are associated with assertiveness,
authority, aggression, confidence (Bolinger 1964, 1978). The use of such a frequency code is traced back
to that observed in animals, where it is used for giving information about size: high frequencies have the
primary meaning of small vocalizer (i.e submissive, non aggressive, etc.), whereas low frequencies have
the primary meaning of large vocalizer (i.e. dominant, aggressive, etc.) (Ohala 1984). Such a pattern is
also found in Bari Italian confirmatory yes-no questions, where the use of a rising nuclear pitch accent
(phonologically described with L+H*) seems to be associated with speakers uncertainty that information is
given, whereas two different types of falling nuclear pitch accents are described as conveying different
degrees of speakers confidence about information giveness. More specifically, a steep falling H*+L pitch
accent seems to convey a lower degree of certainty with respect to the low falling H+L* pitch accent (see
for example Grice & Savino 2003). Spoken materials analysed here consists of collaborative task-oriented
dialogues. In these previous studies, interpretation of degree of certainty expressed by different pitch accent
types is based on both context analysis and native speakers intuitions. The above mentioned interpretation is
substantially confirmed by a perceptual experiment we carried out, where we asked subjects to rate the
perceived degree of certainty of utterances characterised by rising vs falling pitch accent types, as described
in Bari Italian confirmatory yes-no questions. The experiment and its outcomes are presented and discussed
in this paper.




98

Scardigno Rosa, r.scardigno@psico.uniba.it
Mininni Giuseppe, g.mininni@psico.uniba.it
University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy)

Rhetorics of (un)certainty in religious discourse

In accordance with cultural perspective in psychology, to be religious, as well as all the human activities and
belongings, is embedded in cultural practices (Belzen, 2004). As its relatively independent from the
available empirical information, faith can be defined an emotional attitude that can give believers
particular impressions of the world (Lahno, 2001). As such, religiosity is not based on a certain
experience, rather its a particularly strong form of trust. When this feeling meets a religious system of
meanings (Park, 2005), a culturally situated and subjective perceived relationship can be constructed. It
offers beliefs, significant objectives and a subjective feeling of welling that work as cultural pockets
(Napier, 1998) across lifespan. On the other side, adolescence is a very uncertain stage of life: self and
other, past and future, parents and pairs are the intersecting axis every young person has to place on. The
valuation of self as capable of meaningful and positive relations is an essential step to gain a secure identity
(Erikson, 1959). Religiousness is the mirror of the teen-aged turbulence, going up and down between
confirmation and refusal of traditions and institutional contents. In both domains, discursive psychology
(Harr, Gillett, 1994) acts as a fundamental lens by which interpreting human experience and participation to
social life: learning to talk as a full participant is the key to be a legitimate participant (Lave and Wenger,
1991). Talking about religiosity and adolescence means to face with a double uncertainty: epistemic and
existential uncertainty. How can young try to construct their actual positioning and their participation in the
communities they are part of? This question is the basis of the proposed work, whose aim is to investigate
the discursive construction of religious experience in late adolescence. We asked to 230 university students
(aged from 18 to 21) to write a text about their religious positioning (this general track enabled everybody to
talk about the topic). These texts were analyzed by the means of content analysis (Lancia, 2004) and critical
discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 1993; Mininni et al., 2008). The enunciators, who most of times organized
their texts as story-lives, were divided into four enunciative positioning, in accordance with the opposition
between to believe and to assert and with the sub-opposition between not to assert and not to
believe: the believer, the atheist, the doubter and the agnostic. The construction of a certain
critical attitude, that is most of time Church directed, came from several rhetorical strategies, such us quoting
either precast cultural images or philosophical common sayings, as well as making use of ironic sentences.
On the other side, more uncertain positioning were acted by metadiscursive expressions whose aim is, on
the one side, to highlight how hard is to talk about subjective religiosity and, on the other side, to present
faith as a strictly subjective feeling. The subjectivity, argumentativity and modality markers present
believing as a discursive act that gives life to a social and psychic system based on trust as reducing the
world-environment complexity.



Schrickx Josine, Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Mnchen (Germany),
j.schrickx@thesaurus.badw.de

Latin commitment-markers

In recent years research on the communication of certainty and uncertainty in various modern languages has
much increased. In this paper I will show that its findings can be fruitfully applied to (and further tested by)
the study of a dead language like Latin. Remarkably, there are few markers of staightforward (un)certainty
in Latin: if we exclude the negations, we have only fortasse (maybe) and certe/ certo (certainly). As is
shown in Schrickx (2011), the language has many more possibilities for marking various shades of
commitment, the most important of which are nimirum (surely), plane (assuredly), profecto (actually,
indeed), sane (assuredly), sine dubio (withoud doubt) and vero (indeed). As markers of evidentiality
we have videlicet (evidently) and scilicet (of course). The focus of my paper will be on scilicet, videlicet
and nimirum. Scilicet and videlicet are both evidential commitment markers that indicate the speakers
99

commitment to the content of what he or she is saying and are both often translated with evidently and of
couse. But although they have a comparable origin, they seem to display significant differences in function
and use: scilicet indicates that the evidence is based on expectation (as is to be expected, of course) and is
strongly directed towards the addressee; the use of videlicet, on the other hand, signals that the evidence is
inferable from the context or reasonable (clearly), and is not directed towards the addressee. The
differences can be shown by the different contexts in which they occur. Like scilicet and videlicet, nimirum
is a commitment marker, but seems not to be specifically based on evidentiality. With nimirum the speaker
shows that doubt is not necessary. A fruitful comparison of nimirum with scilicet and videlicet can be made
by means of translation networks as developed by Simon-Vandenbergen & Aijmer (2007). The corpus on
which my analyses are based is the totality of Latin texts between ca. 200 BC and 200 AD. Statistic analyses
are based on the corpus as a whole, more detailed analyses on a representative selection. On the basis of this
research I will try to draw a semantic map of Latin commitment markers in general and to show the
individual use of each commitment marker in the overall domain of commitment. The results of this corpus
based research will be shown to be useful not only for our knowledge of Latin, but also for general theories
of modality and commitment.



Schubert Christoph, University of Vechta (Germany), christoph.schubert@uni-vechta.de

Evidentiality in White House Press briefings: a discourse-analytical approach

White House Press briefings have the function of informing journalists about current activities of the US-
American administration. The details that the press secretary, currently Jay Carney, has at his disposal are
usually based on personal encounters and conversations with the president or other members of the
government. Hence, he can draw on both direct evidence, relying on his personal experience, and indirect
evidence, referring to recent announcements or proposals by officials. Owing to the often critical and
persistent inquiries of investigative journalists, however, the press secretary frequently tends to evade
questions, refusing to use logical inferencing in his function as a mouthpiece of the administration, since
speculations might be potentially harmful when given to the press. On the basis of these premises, the
present paper investigates the possibilities and limitations of evidentiality in this interview genre from a
discourse-analytical perspective. The corpus underlying the study is based on a comprehensive online
archive of transcripts on the White House website, which are updated on a daily basis. On the one hand, I
will discuss formal realizations of giving evidence, which range from modal adverbs and verbs to
collocations of first person pronouns and cognitive verbs (e.g. I think). On the other hand, contextual
functions of such devices will be analysed, as the press secretary's primary communicative goal is to provide
journalists with sufficient and reliable information without committing himself to unconfirmed projections.
A special role in performing such evasiveness is played by metacommunicative acts (e.g. I haven't spoken to
him about that). Moreover, journalists occasionally doubt the secretary's evidence or mention potentially
deviating (counter-)evidence in the form of government declarations or news reports, asking the press
secretary for confirmation or denial, which results in an intricate bilateral negotiation of evidentiality.



Scliar-Cabral Ethel Jane, profaethel@hotmail.com
Scliar-Cabral Leonor, lsc@th.com.br
Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil)

KONY 2012, from certainty into uncertainty

Virtual spaces created a new context for dialogic interaction between interlocutors and groups. Nevertheless,
these spaces are not uniform and bring together different environments that enable communication both
synchronous and asynchronous, such as blogs, social media (Facebook, Orkut, Linkdeln, etc.), collaborative
ones (wiki), sites (specialized or not), and dissemination of photos and videos (Vimo, Youtube, Flickr, etc.).
100

Asynchronous way in all these areas has its own characteristics, since it simulates perception of
synchronicity and also an anonymous interactive exposure, which branches itself into multiple directions.
This paper analyzes the video KONY 2012 and the correspondent comments made by Internet users. The
video, uploaded on YouTube, had 100 million hits in one week, raising 15 million dollars in the same period.
At the heart of the issue, there are the construction of the video itself (especially the markers used - or not -
as evidence to support the propositions); the use of indicators (including linguistic ones) that characterize a
certainty discourse to convince the interlocutor of urgency in action, and the written replies of Internet users
to express their opinion on this asynchronous dialogue. Three points are deeply analyzed: 1) how Internet
users endorse what the video shows, without criticism; 2) how they endorse the video, but at the same time
re-contextualizing the discourse, and 3) how they transform certainty into uncertainty. This construction
reveals how information is built to reach a large audience, in which interaction occurs regardless of
geographic location. Informational exchange relations are deeply affected by virtual mediation (Elizabeth
Gross, 2001). These aspects deserve a deeper look and research, to figure out the clues used by Internet users
to switch between certainty and uncertainty in virtual environments.
Keywords: Virtual language, Informational dialogue, Asynchronous dialogue, Linguistic markers.



Scopesi Alda Maria, alda.scopesi@unige.it
Rosso Anna Maria, rosso@unige.it
Viterbori Paola, paola.viterbori@unige.it
Panchieri Erika, erika.panchieri@libero.it
University of Genova (Italy)

Mental vocabulary and markers of uncertainty in childhood and preadolescence
(poster)

The relationship between language and the understanding of epistemic mental states is complex. Language
is not only an open window to the underlying cognitive processes, but is also one of the principal tools
involved in the construction of thought and in the sharing of meanings.
Indexes of an implicit understanding of ones own and others mind do emerge from mental state talk and
other mentalistic uses of language.
In recent years a few studies have analysed the school age and have pointed out either a quantitative increase
in the production of mental terms (Longobardi et al., 2008), or a qualitative change in the use of mental verbs
(to know, to think) (Pepi et al., 2002).
Specifically in preadolescence the change of reasoning capacity, with the acquisition of complex concepts
such as possibility or logical necessity, is linked to an improvement of the mentalisation abilities (Piraut-Le
Bonniec, 1980). Reasoning in terms of logical truth and not only in terms of fact truth implies the faculty
to discriminate among the different aspects of a situation and to select and to evaluate the remarkable
elements. This capability to evaluate ones own knowledge is testified by the presence of explicit references
to decision making processes or to the uncertainty in some contexts.
The current study aims at investigating the use of to know and to think, evaluating their types of use and their
association with verbal IQ, and analyzing the markers of uncertainty that indicate the awareness of the
opacity of mental states. An increase of more advanced uses of mental verbs and of markers of uncertainty
was hypothesized in preadolescents.
Methods.The sample included 138 children, divided into four age groups (8, 9, 10 and 12 years).
The Child Attachment Interview (Shmueli-Goetz et al., 2008) was used to assess mental state language in an
autobiographical narrative. In each narrative the terms to know and to think were identified and classified
based on their type of use: conversational, genuine and metacognitive (Booth et al., 1994). Also markers of
uncertainty which included uncertain mental verbs (e.g. to believe, to suppose), modal adverbs (e.g.
perhaps), modal verbs (e.g. it may be) and modal adjectives (e.g. Im not sure) were coded.
Verbal ability was evaluated by administering the verbal scale of the WISC-III.
Results. Preliminary results indicate that neither markers of uncertainty nor mental verbs were correlated
with verbal IQ. Markers of uncertainty were correlated with both types of mental verbs (to know: r=.46;
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p=.002; to think: r=.27; p<.001). Using a one-way ANOVA, a main effect of age group was found for
markers of uncertainty (F(3, 130) = 3.52; p=.017) and for the mental verb to think (F(3, 130) = 3.10; p=.029).
Post hoc Bonferroni contrasts indicated that preadolescents produced more markers of uncertainty than eight
and nine year old children and more verbs to think than eight year old children. Few children used mental
verbs in a metacognitive way (8% for to know and 16% for to think) and no difference was found across age.



Sebkhi Habiba, University of Jyvskyl (Finland), habiba.h.sebkhi@jyu.fi

The modal operators in the fantasy genre: an empty shell?

The fantasy genre in literature is based on a set of modal operators whose main mechanism is a game
between rational and irrational comprehension of the text; its aim is to destabilize the reader by creating
surprise, fear and/or anxiety. Those modal operators are consequently tools whose function is to blur the
border between certainty and uncertainty.
From a collection of fantasy short stories, we intend first to define and categorize the various forms of modal
operators which are in use in the fantasy fiction. Secondly, we will be asking a question about their real
efficiency: once spotted in the text, do they not become simple tools, "rough" tools, which paradoxically,
mark out only an artificial (in)certainty?



Sharma Sandeep, Himachal Pradesh University (India), profsandeepsharma@gmail.com

Certainly uncertain: metaphorical meaning in R K Naryans The Guide

Since Plato there has been tussle over the literal and metaphorical meanings inherent in metaphor. This
certain uncertainty has fuelled a war between poetic and philosophical metaphors. This paper looks at the
ways in which a discourse in a novel could generate possibilities of meaning. The Guide by RK Narayan
concludes with a certain uncertainty when the swami who was fasting for rain, suddenly told his disciple
waiting for rain, Look Velan its raining in the hills. These lines have become one of the most ambiguous
lines in the history of Indian writing in English. When scrutinized with a structural microscope, the text
appears to be in the following form:
1. Look (L
0
) Velan it is raining (R
0
) in (I
0
) the (A
0
) hills (H
0
) or Look (L
v
) Velan it is raining (R
v
) in (I
p
)
the (A
d
) hills (H
n
).
The sentence (a) Look (L
v
) Velan it is raining (R
v
) in (I
p
) the (A
d
) hills (H
n
) bears the grammatical truth
proper to some literal meaning, unperturbed by ironical or metaphorical extension and closer to diagnostic
value which must be complied with while reading the above lines where look, raining and hills act as
verbs: L
v
, R
v
and H
v
, in as a preposition of space I
p
and the (A
d
) as the definite article.
Whereas in its original, literal sense (if there is one), raining, when acting as gerund (R
g
) gives a feeling of
continuity like philosophical being (which is also a gerund). But gerund distorts the reality of seme be in
being in the same way as raining is being destroyed by its gerund formation and this is its philosophical
and metaphorical value. This paper would try to find out the metaphor of certainty/uncertainty inherent in it.
It will be studied with reference to both elements of philosophical/fictional language, especially through the
helioscope of Jacques Derridas White Mythology.



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Sievers Miriam, National University of San Diego (California, USA), miriamlants3@gmail.com

Uncertainty in a conditioned world. Certainty in the unconditional
(poster)

Certainty floats among the seas of uncertainty.
The interlocutors dialog and spar, swirling between and amongst the frothing waves of uncertainty.
Certainty floats and flows, sure and pure, maybe to be seen, maybe to be unseen, always clear.
Explorations in the revelatory aspects of communications through visual arts with language and sound
overlays and undercurrents. How does structure and anticipation prepare its audience for certainty. A three
dimensional environment will invite and guide viewers to engage in an unconditional encounter with others
through verbal exchange.
Uncertainty is fear.
Certainty is love.



Slootmaekers An, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), an.slootmaekers@ilt.kuleuven.be

To what extent non-linguistic features create uncertainty when constructing the
meaning of an oral discussion in a foreign language?

L2/foreign listening comprehension has been the object of extended research over the past thirty years. The
different experiments show beyond doubt that non-verbal and para-verbal features have an impact on the
capacity of L2/foreign language users to construct the meaning of a verbal input (Vandergrift, 2005). At the
same time, the understanding of their impact remains quite general: the specific function of those features in
relation to the type of input and learners' differences are not systematically taken into account. The goal of
this study has been to determine to what extent foreign langue learners use para- and non-verbal features to
construct the meaning of an authentic input and for what purpose. We used two contradictory debates, with
two politicians in each, to conduct a three step experiment with a limited number of third year university
students in communication. Both debates dealt with the same well known controversial issue in Belgium:
should Muslim women be allowed to wear a scarf as a religious token in public places? One debate lasted
350 minutes and the other 530 minutes. In the first two steps, students had to construct the gist of the
debate. They also had to explain why they had not understood or misunderstood certain parts of the debate in
the secondary data analysis that followed. The task of the third step was to rate the four politicians on two
scales: clarity and appreciation. The outcome suggests that if foreign language learners use para- and non-
linguistic features, they do not use them to the same degree and for the same purpose. Furthermore, it
appears that the way they combine para- and non-verbal features with other parameters, such as processed
information and inferences, can drastically influence their level of certainty as to the meaning of a given
input.



Smith Sara, California State University (California, USA), sasmith@csulb.edu
Jucker Andreas, University of Zurich (Switzerland), ahjucker@es.unizh.ch

Maybe, but probably not: negotiating likelihood and perspective

Expressions of likelihood provide one way of expressing the level of certainty about a state or event. They
convey information both about the expected frequency and also the potential frequency that serves as a
reference point. They can be precise (70% chance of rain); however, many everyday expressions are vague,
conveying likelihood in a variety of ways (Jucker, Smith, & Ludge 2003). For either precise or vague
expressions of likelihood, a model proposed to deal with expressions of quantity or frequency seems to
103

apply. Garrod and Moxey (1995) and Moxey and Sanford (2000) argue that these expressions do more than
convey propositional content. Their laboratory research demonstrates that speakers may use quite different
expressions to describe a given state of affairs and that hearers draw different inferences from them. A few
students passed focuses on those who did, while few passed focuses on those who did not. Expressions
(not many) may also convey whether there were more or fewer than expected by the speaker and/or hearer.
Further, Sanford and Moxey (2011) demonstrate that negative expressions such as not many serve to deny
presuppositions. They suggest that their model applies also to language regarding likelihood. Our study
analyzes the communication of likelihood in natural conversations, with special attention to cases in which
partners negotiate either the likelihood itself or the perspective (focus or expectations) on it. Data consist of
twelve 15-minute conversations by undergraduates at CSULB. They spent 5 minutes chatting freely, then
discussed two assigned topics--movies, opera, sports, karate, or travel. While precise statements of likelihood
were rare, everyday expressions were used in a variety of contexts. In some cases, partners negotiated the
propositional content of an expression. More often, however, they accepted the content but negotiated the
perspective on a given likelihood. It was especially interesting when speakers used these expressions to
acknowledge the hearer's perspective along with expressing their own. In some cases, speakers anticipated
the partners perspective and acknowledged it (sometimes), before providing their own (but not all that
often.) In others, speakers confirmed the partners expression of a given perspective but then presented their
own different perspective. E.g., a speaker was asked would you go to an opera by yourself? and her answer
probably not was met with surprise probably not? She then acknowledged her partners perspective
(maybe) before reiterating her original perspective (but probably not.) She never changed the likelihood
expressed by either, but rather the perspective. Expressions of extreme likelihood like always and never
were also used to convey perspective. They were often used to exaggerate a perspective (I never get any
sleep) or to deny a partners presumed or stated belief (generics always work). We propose that these
expressions function at several levels. (1) They convey information about the likelihood of events. (2) They
indicate where the speaker wants to place the focuson the events that do/may occur or those that do/may
not. (3) They allow the speaker to acknowledge the partners perspective as well as to present his/her own.



Stame Stefania, University of Bologna (Italy), stefania.stame@unibo.it

Whats conversational humor got to do with humor?

As it has been largely remarked, in social interactions humor serves different functions (e. g. Holmes 2000,
Attardo 2001, Stame 2010). These functions could be accomplished otherwise through different indirect
strategies, although many people seem to consider humorous forms as a sort of value-added and afford the
risk of being misunderstood. Thus, one of the main purposes of this paper deals with this value-added of
humor compared with other indirect strategies. Even if humor markers can be found in everyday
conversations, it is not always an easy task to detect it, as humor is tightly context-bound. There are
situations where speakers take on the effort to make their intent more explicit, but this effort can also involve
the pragmatic risk of destroying all the humorous effect of their acts. Therefore, my second purpose is to
explore if the humorous effect can be preserved when contextual clues and shared knowledge are made
explicit. Finally, my third question is: is it possible to convert conversational humor into a more universally
enjoyable joke?



Stara Flavia, University of Macerata (Italy), fstara@libero.it; f.stara@unimc.it

Phenomenology of certainty and belief. Reading William James

How does communication convey certainty? The certainty is linked to the possibility of making a judgment
of truth and this applies only to sentences: we cant tell if dog is true, but we can tell if this dog is black. We
know from classical analytic tradition and the medieval elaborations that some sequences of sentences
104

necessarily lead to certain judgments: these are the construction of words known as syllogisms[] In
language, each word in a sentence has, first of all, a sense compared to the total system of the particular
language to which it belongs. It also gets its sense within the particular phrase in which is used, a specific
position due in part by the functional rules of the particular language. As shown, by the psychologist and
philosopher William James, every word has its conceptual core of meaning that it designates, namely the
one that can be found in dictionaries. This core is surrounded by a halo or system of fringes of different
species. There are, for example fringes of relation, which connect a word-in its particular connection of sense
within a particular arrangement in which it is present- with the terms before and after it. There are other
fringe groups that relate to the situation in which the term is used, to the situation of the speaker and listener
in conversation, to the whole past of a meditation course in which the term presents itself in the thought of a
thinker, and there are emotional fringes, caused by the evocative power of the word and not by its conceptual
character. As regards to the mechanism of knowledge, James gives to the notion of belief an essential
function: it is the constitutive element of human rationality, even if not the sufficient condition. For James-
as it was for Charles Sanders Peirce- the doubt is the engine of search: to doubt means to translate a mental
state of uncertainty to a state of mind of certainty and relaxation. Rationality is primarily emotional
satisfaction of feeling, derived from compliance with the internal world to the outside world. The result of
man from uncertainty to certainty is belief. But for James the belief is not only an inference from other
beliefs, to decide is the result of a creation due to the incidence on inferences of different feelings. And the
selection is an assessment of feelings, arising out of an emotional situation .According to James we might
have two ways to obtain the certainty: an objective way, focused on the introduction of entirely verifiable
beliefs, rational in the strict sense, the other subjective, focusing on 'individual influence of emotions on
beliefs, unverifiable rational in a broad sense, exceptional [...]even when lacks a verifiable belief, the interest
of man is to decide, since are true beliefs that serve us are not true beliefs that do not serve us.



tefnescu Ariadna, University of Bucharest (Romania), ariadna.stefanescu@gmail.com

Forms and strategies of political discourse evidentials

The distribution of information and the attitude towards it in political discourse are very important.
The aims of the paper are: (1) To present the types of evidentials that occur in the political discourse and to
show their diversity and frequency, while approaching them in general terms; (2) To explain the way the
source of knowledge is rhetorically used to legitimize, to attribute responsibility, to mobilize the audience,
etc.; (3) To characterize the cases when the source of knowledge is unknown (in rumours), from a discourse
point of view; (4) To analyze the knowledge sharing reaching agreement by sharing certainties; (5) To
ascertain the role of evidentials in stacetaking.



Tarantino Maria, University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), tarantino@fisica.uniba.it

Ethnopragmatic/axiological meaning strands in the modals of scientific texts

Current studies in linguistics classify modal verbs occurring in scientific discourse either as bearers of
personal stance, or as markers of politeness towards the disciplinary community. In leading paradigms modal
particles are generally qualified as follows:
The light is on, John must be in his office (evidential)
Tomorrow it may rain. (subjective stance)
Heavy smoking can induce lung cancer. (authoritative supposition)
Tomatoes grown in open fields may taste differently than tomatoes grown in a green house. (politeness
towards peers)
If a mercury barometer were set on top of a mountain, the column of mercury would be shorter than one set
at sea level. (irrealis)
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The possibility that the modals may perform ethnopragmatic and axiological functions appears to remain
unattended. Consequently, meaning dimensions which are grounded on evidence, non-linguistic data and
rigorous analysis and which thrive on dialectical reasoning are left underspecified. The presentation focuses
on the ethnopragmatic and axiological meaning strands characterising modals in scientific texts. First, it
touches on subjective/relativistic descriptions of modal elements which tend to constrain scientific
argumentations within models of literary exegesis. Then, it relates to the epistemico-pragmatic revolution
which rooted scientific discourse in natural events, experimental verifications, statistical tabulation and
dialectical argumentation. Besides shifting the salience of rational communication from linguistic and
authoritative stances to the quality of non-linguistic data, the Fathers of modern science substituted the
conceptualisation of truth in terms of certainty/uncertainty with that of probability/plausibility and
progressive verification. Considerations from cognitive linguists, semanticists and philosophers of science
invite a reflection on possible analyses of modal meaning in light of space/time related knowledge as well as
in consideration of the epistemology, ontology, ethics and procedural patterns meshed in the reference
frames of disciplinary worlds. The effort would involve insight into the history, rites, method, attitudes and
interests of thought communities. A more comprehensive awareness of the possible-worlds characterising
scientific domains of discourse may lead to better understanding between the two canonical cultures.



Ticca Anna Claudia, University of Lyon (France), azticca@yahoo.it, ticca@rom.unibe.ch

Decision making in the medical consultation: an interactional approach

The issue of Certainty and Uncertainty is crucial in medical interactions, where doctors are required to build
an understanding of patients general health in order to decide whether s/he warrants receiving medical
assistance, that is, to be treated as doctorable (see Halkowsky 2006, Heritage&Robinson 2006) and, if so,
what treatment is appropriate. Interactionally oriented studies, which base their analysis on the observation
of naturally occurring interactions (see, among many others, Heritage&Maynard 2006) have described how
the medical visit is interactionally co-constructed, organised and carried on, thus emphasizing the
collaborative and emergent dimension of medical encounters as they cope with the uncertainty of diagnosis.
These studies focus on the tasks, goals and activities participants accomplish in the course of their
interaction, and on the verbal and non verbal (i.e., multimodal) resources they mobilize to construct and
interpret each others moves. In this way they manage to describe not only the structure of the medical visit,
but also the problematicities and conflicts doctors and patients face during their encounter. This contribution
utilizes an extensive corpus of videorecorded spontaneous medical interactions in a bilingual setting. The
aim is to describe and understand how doctors decision making regarding the patients diagnosis and/or
treatment is achieved, that is, how the doctor moves from uncertainty towards certainty about what ails the
patient. Using the fine grained analysis of talk- and conduct- in interaction, this study shows the
praxeological and interactive nature of decision making, visibly achieved in the course of the interaction with
the patient. More specifically, the analysis focuses on the practices used by doctors during the visit to
elicitate the problem presentation from the patient and on the dynamics by which the problem presentation
unfolds. It then provides a description of how these practices and dynamics have implications for the
doctors ultimate evaluation and decision making regarding the patients health status and, if warranted, their
eventual treatment. This work contributes, first, to the studies in medical discourse, in that it enhances our
understanding of the relation between interactional practices and medical outcomes. Second, it contributes to
communication studies, in that it shows the interactional dimension of human communicative activity,
accomplished with the intertwined deployment of multimodal resources, constantly monitored, interpreted
and organized by the social actors involved. And finally, it contributes to our understanding of how people
move from conditions of uncertainty toward greater certainty in everyday activities.




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Topka Larisa V., Irkutsk State Linguistic University (Russian Federation), lavtop@list.ru

Uncertainty: pragma-semantic aspect of research

Uncertainty as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon is analyzed from the pragmatic and semantic points
of view in functional linguistics which is concerned with language as an instrument of social interaction.
Since language activity can be investigated through the study and classification of interactions, a tactics-
situational approach to their describing seems to be a more perspective one. Considering speech actions or,
to be more precise, their pragma-semantic correlatives in the lingual formation of which the uncertain
statement takes part, allows us (from the viewpoint of the above-mentioned approach) to unite them in
speech-behavioural tactics forming. Considering each microact as a pragma-semantic correlative of speech
action (as an individual phenomenon) one can make a conclusion that tactics presents a sort of invariant.
Each tactics is included in a speech-behavioural situation in the same way as a semantic segment is included
in a lexical area, if to draw an analogy between a behavioural situation and a word on the one hand, and
between tactics of behaviour and a semantic segment on the other hand. A particular number of tactics, that
comprise verbal and non-verbal clichs which express the same sense a general semantic segment, in its
turn, constitutes different speech-behavioural situations. Thus, a speech-behavioural situation of uncertainty
presents an abstract semantic formation (conceptual structure) or, in terms of cognitive linguistics, a
prototype situation. This semantic model aims at an integrating description of units of different levels on the
basis of the sameness of their categorial meaning meaning of uncertainty. The complexity of uncertainty as
a category of broad semantics and egocentric orientation accounts for the choice of a field approach to its
investigation. Therefore, if a speech-behavioural situation can be considered to be a phenomenon that has a
field structure each of its tactics is a semantic segment which forms its area. The Uncertainty field is formed
by several semantic segments, for instance: (1) The speakers uncertainty in respect to some event, fact or
circumstances; (2) The speakers uncertainty in respect to the third person (an appeal to the addressees
opinion); (3) The speakers uncertainty about propriety, timeliness of his or her further actions that has the
form of reservation. The Uncertainty domain reflects such a situation where the speaker expresses his or her
attitude to some fact or event. The absence of full information, its untrustworthiness and the impossibility to
foresee the events which allow the speaker to make some conclusion, condition the contradiction and
polysemantics of his or her opinion. Uncertainty can be expressed in respect to the addressee, third person, or
event, and to the speaker himself, where the latter is caused by the peculiarities of speakers character or by
the situation itself. Uncertainty appears in communication and is realized on all levels of lingual system. The
means of its textual representation is an uncertain statement which rests on a particular bulk of lingual
expressive means that are perfectly adapted to its realization and affects the addressees behaviour with the
help of restraint, courtesy, uncertainty, probability, and the like.



Torrent Aina, University of Applied Sciences, Kln (Germany) & University of Wien (Austria),
aina.torrentalamany-lenzen@univie.ac.at

Evidentiality, subjectivity and grammaticalisation: Spanish idioms and their
German translation

In linguistics, the term evidentiality refers to the source of knowledge the speaker has access to in relation to
the degree of truth of a proposition. Starting out from the fact that the reality surrounding us is one of our
main sources of knowledge, the aim of this study will be to investigate the processes of grammaticalisation
of certain Spanish phrases built upon the base of evidential lexemes like verdad, hecho or realidad, which
describe the real observable world, as well as the relations between the objective-evidential and the
subjective within those grammaticalisation processes. Our thesis in this respect is that although lexemes like
truth, fact or reality can be considered evidential, they have also given rise to phrases that above all else
express a high degree of subjectivity (a decir la verdad, de hecho or en realidad). Some especially
interesting cases in this context are a number of phrases formed with the verb decir. For example, in the case
of ya me dirs t, which is an expression that, taken literally, expresses a future reality (something that
107

someone will say lit. you will tell me), it is used to accompany a subjective appreciation that must not be
questioned (similar to I mean, what on earth?). In general, we can state that grammaticalisation processes
often entail a process of pragmaticalisation and subjectivisation. In order to reach sound conclusions in this
regard, we will base our work, on the one hand, on the existing theories about the relations between
pragmatics and grammaticalisation, according to which grammaticalisation processes usually involve
inferences. On the other hand, we will perform an analysis of authentic use contexts based on the
terminological tools offered by pragmatic linguistics. Likewise, in our study we are going to analyse the
manifestation of this significant relation between evidentiality and subjectivity from the point of view of how
the Spanish phrases dealt with in the study can be translated into German. We defend the idea that the
essential point is to translate the modal richness enclosed within the use of these units and that their
importance when it comes to translating both the literal meaning of the phrases and the components they are
made up of is relative. Furthermore, to achieve an optimal translation of these units it will be necessary to
conduct a thorough examination of the meaning in the contexts of use of both the Spanish phrases and the
German expressions that could be their equivalents. Especially in relation to numerous German adverbs that
express attitudes, the grammaticalisation processes involve rhetorical strategies that corroborate our main
theses. The material analysed for this study comes from the Internet, as well as from bilingual corpora and
parallel texts. Special attention will be given to texts involving spontaneous interaction, since dialogue is the
kind of text where most subjectivity is manifested.



Tumino Raffaele, University of Macerata (Italy), r.tumino@unimc.it

Do not be seduced by words. A reading on the educational values of "certainty"
and "uncertainty" in the human formation

This paper addresses scientific communication, both in the internal sense that relates to a discipline and also
regarding its transposition onto a didactic plane. Are the analyses, critical points and prospects opened up by
the distinction between "certainty" and "uncertainty" the domain of the psychology of perception,
philosophy, linguistics and literature, or can they also relate, as seems reasonable, to a viewpoint that
characterizes pedagogical science? Both in terms of language pedagogy and in the promotion of a healthy
scientific attitude towards the world. If we take inspiration from the distinction made between certainty and
truth and between uncertainty and falsehood, what opportunities does the learner have to test the reliability of
the information that the science lecturer uses in his/her teaching, given that during the lesson there are all
sorts of verbal and nonverbal traps (tone, facial expression, the ipse dixit, etc..)? Should we presume that
certainty and uncertainty, implicit in the statement, assume a dominant position, so that the learner
uncritically assimilates the content of science imparted by the teacher; so that, advertising and political
propaganda take over? Should we presume that every discourse on education is seriously compromised with
ideology and propaganda? We cannot exclude that the distinction has considerable impact on communication
between teacher and student, psychotherapist and patient, parent and child. With the deliberately provocative
title, Do not let the words seduce you. we wanted to recall Alfred Korzybski ("the map is not the territory")
revisiting the distinction between "model" and "reality"; a pedagogically imbued reflection on the
construction of knowledge (consider Science and health, 1933) if reconsidered in the light of the teachings of
Gaston Bachelard, Gregory Bateson, Richard Bandler, and John Grinder, may contribute further to clarifying
the nature of "epistemological obstacles" that prevent the formation of a healthy scientific attitude, but also
point the way to overcoming them.




108

Turan mit Deniz, Anadolu University, Eskisehir (Turkey), udturan@anadolu.edu.tr

Certainty adverbs and evidential perfectives in Turkish

In this paper, we aim at describing the interaction between the certainty/uncertainty marking adverbs (the
Turkish counterparts of adverbs absolutely, certainly, probably, perhaps/maybe) and the perfective
evidential suffixes '-mI', '-DI' and '-mItIr'. In our analysis we focus on the degree of certainty and the type
of evidence or lack of evidence they may encode. These perfective suffixes mark the following types of
information in finite clauses: -mI indirect evidence based on deduction and hearsay; DI evidence based on
direct and physical evidence; mItIr deduction on conceptual evidence (Slobin, Aksu-Ko, 1982; Aksu-
Ko, 2000; Johanson, 2000, de Haan, 2006). Our observations are based on METU Turkish Corpus, a
collection of 2 million words of post-1990 written Turkish samples. We have observed that while mutlaka
(certainly) can only be used with mItr; kesinlikle (absolutely) and the probability adverbs herhalde / byk
olaslkla (probably) can co-occur with all evidentiality suffixes. On the other hand, belki (perhaps) cannot
be used with mI. Although both are high certainty adverbs; mutlaka (certainly) indicates the speaker has
conceptual evidence; while kesinlikle (absolutely) implies that the speaker may have first hand, physical,
hearsay or conceptual evidence for uttering a proposition. On the other hand, belki marks uncertainty of the
speaker and that the speaker provides only a guess without any kind of evidence. Although DI and mI are
widely considered to have oppositions in terms of marking direct vs. indirect evidence, respectively, in the
literature cited above, DI can be neutral in terms of evidence. This suffix may encode lack of evidence
when used with belki (maybe) as shown in the contrast in the examples below:
(1) Hasan belki erken ayrl-d.
Hasan maybe- early leave-Past (DI).
(Hasan maybe left early).
In (1) the speaker does not have any evidence for Hasans leaving early, but this is only a conjecture.
Otherwise, had the speaker had direct evidence, the utterance would not have contained an adverb expressing
doubt. Hence, we claim that DI is not always specified in terms of evidential meaning. On the other hand,
since mI marks evidence based on hearsay or logical deduction, the use belki with mI results in
ungrammaticality as shown in (2) below:
(2) *Hasan belki erken ayrl-m.
Hasan-maybe- leave-Past (MI)
This indicates that not only mI is always fully specified in terms of its evidential meaning; but also when
the speaker has evidence, the proposition cannot be modified in terms of uncertainty.
The example below shows that phesiz (without doubt) cannot co-occur with mI:
(3) phesiz Ali snav ge-ti.
Without doubt Ali test pass-PAST (DI)
(Without doubt, Ali passed the test)
*phesiz Ali snav ge-mi. (-MI)
The reason is that phesiz is a certainty adverb that can only be used if the speaker has direct evidence.
As a result, we argue that certainty (or uncertainty) adverbs not only mark the degree of speakers doubt or
assurance but also the type or lack of evidence the proposition is based on.



Van de Winkel Aurore, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), avandewinkel@yahoo.com

The defence of the rumour: between certainty and uncertainty markers

Object of belief, the rumour is by definition an unverified information. Its narrator and its propagators would
not have any certainty in its content. They postulate, they interpret. The studies on the rumour present those
who believe in as radical. They oppose them to the sceptics. However, the beliefs do not appear
instantaneously. They result of a slow and by steps construction. It is not always possible for those who
believe to understand they involve progressively in an adhesion. Moreover, the peoples beliefs are not
totally static and they revise, qualify and modify perpetually their interpretations of the rumours, in a way
109

more or less independent of narrators based on their circumstances, their values, their reflections, their
experience, and the discussions with others. Its also exists a range of belief degrees. The belief in a rumour is
not inevitable unconditional but can be partial. The individual can believe in the rumour in the way the
narrator wished it (consciously or not, explicitly or not); it is the dominant belief. He can also believe a part
of it but stay skeptic concerning another one; it is the negotiated belief. And finally, he can not believe the
message of the way the narrator wished it and to develop an alternative belief. The narrator can so spread a
rumour without believing in it radically. This seems to him useful or adequate because it touches on
important issues such as the groups survival. The content will be translated by the use of moderators
which will qualify the narrative (e.g. probably, credibly), and the others that will underline it (exclamation
marks). If the interest of the cause is obvious, it dispenses with verifying the information, especially if it uses
authenticated references. Sometimes, those who diffuse a rumour want only share values and reassure
themselves. The belief in a rumour can also be probabilist: the individual considers probable that the human
being can commit acts similar to those told in the rumour, while questioning the rumour itself. The believers
can insist on the moral pre-eminence of a warning though erroneous. This warning has the effect of taking
action of protecting and unify. Its of a little importance who made what under which condition, where it
happened, when it occurred and how it came about, the important think is: it is possible! The certainty is a
radical belief and the uncertainty is a partial or probabilist belief. In my paper, I would like to present the
discursive indicators (moderators, polyphony, irony, acts of language, ellipses, inferences, scenarii) that
allow to detect the certainty or the degrees of uncertainty in the content of the rumour and in its evolution
during its diffusion and the confrontation with individuals who have other opinions about its veracity. My
corpus consists of twenty rumours and associated discussions collected randomly on Internet (forums, blogs
and social networks) and studied by a semio-pragmatic analysis to determine the use of its indicators.



Velea Adina,Transilvania University of Brasov (Romania), adina.velea@unitbv.ro

Linguistic formulations of (un)certainty in Romanian meeting talk

This paper investigates interaction in Romanian academic meetings, focusing on the design of the turn(s) in
which the chair provides feedback on a piece of writing. The data consist of authentic talk between the chair
and the person whose work is being discussed. The methodology relies on close examination of linguistic
features of feedback turns, using conversation analysis. Generally, feedback is given in three stages: first the
identification, clarification and diagnosis of the problem; second the evaluation of the work; and third a
solution is provided. In the realisation of these stages, at the linguistic level, the chair switches from modals
like can to indicative forms or from affirmative formats to interrogatives. Thus, she displays several degrees
of confidence or certainty that her direction will be followed or adhered to. At the turn design level, through
self-repairs, the chair orients to the appropriate linguistic format of communicating either certainty or
uncertainty.



Verdiani Tfouni Leda, University of So Paulo (Brazil), lvtfouni@usp.br
Carvalho Pereira Anderson, State University of Southwestern Bahia (Brazil),
apereira.uesb@gmail.com
Salvador Mosca Lineide, University of So Paulo (Brazil), lineide@usp.br

The uncertainty of saying and otherness: uses of epistemic modality
(poster)

This work investigates the interpretative maneuvers that mark the mobilization of the discursive memory in
oral narratives produced by a Brazilian illiterate subject. It is especially stressed the way some questionings
parallel to the narrative chain in the form of checking directed to the addressee mark the discursive
heterogeneity (wherein the narrative flow seems to vanish), as well as the irruption of strangeness caused by
110

the other/Others virtual presence, with which the narrator has to deal, at the same time as they help in
sustaining authorship, through the use of epistemic modalities. We elected for analysis some sequences of
the narratives known as meta-enunciative glosae: narrators commentaries and checking, which signalize the
diversity of knowledge standing between the narrator and the Other, as well as the dominant meanings,
belonging to a literate archive. Since the narrator is illiterate, we will also have the opportunity to investigate
the difficulties that the literate organized narrative discourse puts for the construction of narrative. We are
interested particularly in the epistemic modality, which, for Lyons, ... deals with the logical structure of
statements which assert or imply that a particular proposition, or set of propositions, is known or believed.
The approach of these modalities will be made considering also the concepts of archive and subjects
cleavage.The analysis will stress the moments when, within the structure of language, the uses of epistemic
modalities appear in the form of meta-enunciative glosae. By means of stressing linguistic-discursive places
wherein certainty/uncertainty emerges, we will argue that there are virtual constructions that appear in the
form of questions addressed to the other/Other, which follow strategies to bypass the constitutive
heterogeneity. (CNPq)



Verducci Daniela, University of Macerata (Italy), itcalz@tin.it

The certainty of being alive. A transcendental condition of communication?

The need to re-establish at the basis of every movement of our humanity, impoverished by technological-
objectifying Rationalismus, the awareness of and attention to that mysterious but effective intersubjective
understanding, of an almost-transcendental-performative value, the Habermasian Verstndigung, that
manifests itself preliminary to and as a condition for every actuation of communicative intentionality, is
imposing itself with increasing urgency. This understanding is rooted in the existential certainty of being
alive of the subjects of the communication and thus unveils the proto-living being of man, his constitutive
effective being-in-communication of meaning with the world and with his own kind, upon which depends
any philogenetic advance in hominization and to which today as well, the progress of human civilization is
inescapably linked [cfr.: M. Tomasello]. The innovators of modernity derided as superstitious belief the
trust of previous generations in the existence between entities and in entities of a living logos that produces
and communicates being, that reaches consciousness in the individual humans feeling alive: for this reason,
erroneously believing themselves the sole creators of the flowering of scientific and critical rationality,
which instead sank its roots in pre- and pro-rational territories [cfr.: S. J. Jaki], as Kant finally ascertained,
the modernists abandoned to obsolescence the sentiment of living and deprived themselves of the
constructive enjoyment of the spontaneous flow of vital/communicative being, to apply themselves to
corrosive criticism and rationalization of living, in their enthusiasm for reconstructing according to correct
reason the whole of being, which on the contrary proved to be increasingly sectorialized. We owe B.
Malinowski for the twentieth century rediscovery of the profound and ontologically vital dimension of
interhuman communication in phatic communion, the anthropological basis of referential communication,
as Roman Jakobson has also held. Only a darkening or obsolescence of oneself as vortex of the universal
sense, active in the turmoil of a generating progress [] of the immensurable stream of life [A.-T.
Tymieniecka], can therefore explain the vain rush of todays man to evert himself and replace, with systemic
thought [N. Luhmann] and expert systems [A. Giddens], inevitably sectorialized and objectifying, that
original resource productive and communicative of being that emanates from the certainty of being alive,
shown by the phenomenology of life of A.-T. Tymieniecka as the proper basis for every communication of
certainty/uncertainty. This contribution intends to promote the recovery of this certainty of feeling alive.




111

Wollermann Charlotte, University of Duisburg-Essen & University of Bonn (Germany),
charlotte.wollermann@uni-due.de
Schrder Bernhard, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), bernhard.schroeder@uni-due.de
Schade Ulrich, University of Bonn (Germany), ulrich.schade@fkie.fraunhofer.de

Audiovisual prosody of uncertainty: an overview

Speakers and hearers use prosodic cues for signalling and detecting uncertainty in question-answering
situations. We discuss the role of audiovisual prosody of uncertainty in natural conversation and also in
human-machine communication. For natural conversation, it was found that uncertainty is signalled and
perceived by rising intonation, pauses, fillers, and lexical hedges (Smith, Clark, 1993; Brennan, Williams,
1995) and by smiles and funny faces (Swerts, Krahmer, 2005). Pauses and hesitations can also occur as part
of self-repair in speech: covert repairs are characterized by an interruption in production combined with
pauses, editing terms or repetitions of lexical items (Levelt, 1983). Thus, when the speakers detects trouble
in production, she can be uncertain. According to Ward and Hirschberg (1985) a fall-rising intonation
contributes to the interpretation of uncertainty on the pragmatic level in English, e.g. the hearer assumes that
the speaker is uncertain whether an item is linked to a hypothetical scale. Wollermann and Schrder (2008,
2009) assumed that if the speaker signals (un)certainty with respect to her answer, the hearer will use this
prosodic information for decoding the utterance and prefer a (non-)exhaustive interpretation of the answer.
Their interpretation study suggests that a rising intonation combined with pauses can affect exhaustivity,
although the context has a stronger influence. Their later production study shows a tendency that non-
exhaustivity is marked by a peak accent accompanied by a raising of eyebrows or head. The modelling of
uncertainty in speech synthesis can be useful to generate information systems with expressive abilities (e.g.
Marsi, van Rooden, 2007). Lasarcyk and Wollermann (2010) modelled different degrees of uncertainty with
the synthesizer of Birkholz (2005) by varying rising intonation, pause and filler. Their study shows that the
combination of all three cues contributes to a stronger perception of uncertainty than falling intonation alone
or rising intonation combined with a pause. For visual speech synthesis, Oh (2006) found that the variation
of facial expressions and head movements affects the recognition of uncertainty. Marsi and van Rooden
(2007) observe that head movement alone as well as head movement combined with eyebrow movement
influence the perception of uncertainty. The automatic detection of uncertainty by dialogue systems is
particularly useful for systems functioning as tutors. If the system adapts to the student's uncertainty, the
learning can be affected positively (Pon-Barry et al., 2006). For training these systems, corpora consisting of
natural conversations between tutors and students are often used. By using prosodic cues covering
fundamental frequency, intensity, tempo and duration, uncertain utterances have been detected with an
accuracy of ca. 75% (Liscombe et al., 2005; Pon-Barry, Shieber, 2009). We conclude that speakers convey
uncertainty of answers prosodically in the acoustical and visual channel; hearers use these cues for
perception. Furthermore, the expression of uncertainty of epistemic knowledge tends to result in the
preference of interpreting answers (non-)exhaustively. In multi-modal speech synthesis, different degrees of
uncertainty can be expressed and perceived by using prosodic cues. Finally, spoken dialogue systems which
can detect their user's uncertainty can help to improve human-machine interaction.



Zarnescu Crina-Magdalena, University of Pitesti (Romania), crina_zarnescu@yahoo.fr

The drama of modern consciousness between knowledge and truth

The couple of terms certainty vs. uncertainty, so rich in meanings, is related to a problem dramatically felt
by modern philosophy and literature: the individual crisis proper to the split of consciousness which
hinders invariably the sense. The individual may be defined as the reflexibility which renders the subjective
sense; in other words, the individual relates the sense to a meaning bearing subjectivity. The three terms
reflexibility subjectivity sense which constitute the axis of a philosophical definition of the individual are
also operative in every analysis on the loss of identity, on the je destruction in a je sequence and the
(epistemological) split between language and real things. The Renaissance opens the pathway which leads
112

from individual manifestation as integrative unit of the human and of the divineness to his dissolution started
in the effort to overpass subjective individuality (XVIII
th
century) in a desirable intersubjectivity which
aborted however the communication at the time of individual division a guaranty of a balanced relationship
between myself and the world (XX
th
century). (Cf. Habermas, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault). The individual
revocation as cogito and the alteritys tyranny which undermines the identity of the signifier and the
signified in the apprehension of reality appear at philosophical, literary and linguistic level in the same time.
Hrodiade gazing into the depths of the mirror where she looks for the truth of the non-divided self
inaugurates, in our opinion, a literature of the tragical interval stemming form a double source. The
individual tries to regain his consistency in his relationship to the other, but this relationship becomes
problematic because he is not the same anymore: [] Comme des feuilles sous ta glace au trou profond/ Je
mapparus en toi comme une ombre lointaine / Like leaves beneath the deep hollow of your ice/ I saw
myself in you like a distant shadow. Hrodiades Scene where Mallarm puts himself without being
aware of represents in this work the literary caution of a philosophical standpoint. The relationship between
knowledge and truth covers the binary articulation certainty uncertainty which puts into discussion every
relationship with a supposed or expected reality.



Zubeldia Larraitz, University of the Basque Country (Spain) & University College of London
(United Kingdom), larraitzza@gmail.com

The Basque reportative particle omen: certainties and uncertainties

The aim of my proposal is to provide a brief account of the meaning and use of the Basque reportative
particle omen, with a three-fold goal: 1. To give a theoretical basis to the standard view on omen. 2. To
throw new light on theoretical and typological assumptions about evidentiality in the wider literature. 3. To
bring new data to the discussion on the relationship between evidentiality and modality. Two main claims
can be extracted from the standard view on omen: (a) Omen signals that the proposition the speaker
expresses is said by someone else (other than the speaker herself); (b) The speaker expresses uncertainty on
the truth (or falsity) of the proposition expressed. I think that they point to some basic properties of the
meaning and use of omen, but they are misleading in several respects. In this presentation, I will focus on
the second claim (b). It is a general belief in Basque linguistics (e.g. Euskaltzaindia 1987) that the speaker
using an omen-utterance, besides indicating the source of information, expresses uncertainty. I try to show,
however, that the content of uncertainty often attached to omen, if present, belongs to the pragmatic content
of the utterance. Although it is the case that in some examples the speaker implicates uncertainty by using
omen, in many other cases she conveys total certainty that things have (not) happened in the way someone
else reported. Therefore, the uncertainty cannot be part of the meaning of the omen-sentence. Neither can it
be part of what is said by an omen-utterance, since the results of Grices (1967) cancellability test show
that the content of uncertainty can be cancelled, and no contradiction arises. So, I conclude that it is a
conversational implicature; more precisely, a generalized conversational implicature (GCI), that can be
generated by using an omen-utterance. Hence, as far as the nature of the Basque particle omen is
concerned, I propose that we have to keep separate the domains of evidentiality and epistemic modality,
although there are relations between them. Finally, I will defend that the speakers degree of certainty does
not depend on the type of information source (direct vs. indirect), as some researchers argue, but rather on
the credibility the speaker gives to the original source and to the content of her utterance; and on the situation
of the utterance, as well.

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