TED | 史蒂芬·平克谈语言和思想

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史蒂芬·平克谈语言和思想

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Steven Pinker

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在他的书《思想的东西》的独家预览中，史蒂文·平克着眼于语言，以及它如何表达我们的思想——以及我们选择的词语如何比我们意识到的更能传达信息。

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00:13

照片里的人是Maurice Druon L'Academie francaise的荣誉终身秘书长，也就是法兰西学院，穿着价值六万八千美元的豪华制服，对法兰西学院来说倒很适合，因为它规范着，法语的正确用法，使这门语言永世长存，法兰西学院有两个主要任务，它编纂官方的法语词典，他们目前在编第九部，从1930年就开始了，现在编到了P字头。他们还规范正确的用法，比如，电子邮件（email）在法语里的正确说法，应该是"courriel"，他们告诉法国人，万维网（World Wide Web），应该被叫做，"la toile d'araignee modiale"--“环球蜘蛛网”，诸如此类法国人民欣然忽略的建议。

01:11

这是语言产生的众多模型之一：也就是说，由一个学院来进行规范，但任何懂得语言的人都意识到，这是愚蠢的自负，语言产生于人类心灵间的互动，而在语言的不停变化中，这是显而易见的，事实上，当法兰西学院完成他们的词典时，它早已经过时了。

01:37

我们看到，俗语和术语不断产生，历史上语言在变化，方言在分支，新的语言在形成，所以语言并不只是创造、塑造人性之物，同样是反映人性的窗口，我正在写的一本书中，我希望能阐明，人性的一些方面，包括认知机能，人们靠这个把世界概念化，还有掌管人类互动的各类关系。今天早上，我将对它们逐一简要介绍。

02:15

让我从一个语言中的技术性问题开始，我研究这个问题已经有一段时间了，希望你们能包涵一下，包涵我对动词，和它们用法的热情，问题在于，哪个动词用于哪个构式？动词是句子的基座，其他部分都安在这个基座上。

02:36

让我提醒你们一下，这是你们早已忘记的东西。不及物动词，比如“用餐”(dine)，不能带有直接的宾语，你得说：“山姆用餐了(Sam dined)",而不是“山姆用餐了比萨饼(Sam dined the pizza."，一个及物动词要求，必须有宾语：“山姆吞吃比萨饼(Sam devoured the pizza)”。你不能只是说“山姆吞吃(Sam devoured)”。有许许多多这类的动词，每个都塑造着句子。所以在解释孩子们如何学习语言时候，有一个问题，同样也是教成人学外语语法时的一个问题，以及给电脑编使用语言的程序时，在哪个构式里该用哪个动词？

03:16

比如，英语中的与格构式，可以说“Give a muffin to a mouse”，前置词与格，或者“Give a mouse a muffin”，双宾语与格，"Promise anything to her”“Promise her anything”等等。上百的动词可以两用。对于孩子，很容易去做的一个归纳，对于大人和电脑来说也一样，就是任何可以在下面这个构式中出现的动词，“主语-动词-物体-to-a，接受者”，也可以表达成“主语-动词-接受者-东西”。这是很顺手的事，因为语言是无穷的，对于你学过的句子不能只是鹦鹉学舌。你必须得做出归纳，这样你才能制造、理解新句子。这就是这样做的一个例子。

03:56

不幸的是，这方面有例外。你可以说，“Biff drove the car to Chicago”。但不是“Biff drove Chicago the car”。你可以说：“Sal gave Jason a headache”，但“Sal gave a headache to Jason”就很别扭了。原因是这些构式，尽管一开始相似，但并不是同义句。当你搬出显微镜，对准在人类认知上，你会看到很多微妙的差别，存在于它们的意思里。所以“Give the X to the Y”，这个构式对应的想法是：“Cause X to go to Y”，而“Give the Y the X”，对应的想法是“cause Y to have X”。

04:34

许多时候我们都有理解偏差，类似于经典的“形象-背景”颠倒的幻术，你要么吧注意力放在，某个物体上，使周围的空间从注意力中退去，要么你集中注意观察空间的构造，这样前景中的物体就从意识中退去，这些理解如何反应在语言当中？在两种情况里，那个被解释为受影响的东西，被表达成了直接宾语：动词之后的名词。当你想到“使蛋糕去某处”时，当你对蛋糕实施动作时，你说：“Give the muffin to the mouse.”，当你理解成“使老鼠拥有某物”，你对老鼠实施动作，所以你把它表达成：“Give the mouse the muffin.”，

05:22

所以，在哪个构式里用哪个动词，我一开始提出的问题，取决于动词是否指出某种运动，或者某种所有权的变化，"给出某物“当中包含"使某物前往"，也包含”使某人拥有“，开车只能使某物走开，因为芝加哥不是那种能拥有某物的东西。只有人才能拥有东西。“令人头痛”使人具有头痛，但你并不会把头痛从手里给出去，让它到另一个人那里去，然后再放进对方脑袋里。你只可能是说话太大声，或者讨人厌，或者用其他的方法使对方头疼。所以，这是我工作内容的一个例子。

06:04

那为什么有人要在乎这工作呢？这是因为有许多有趣的结论，从这个例子，还有类似的，对很多英语动词的分析中可以得出。首先，存在着一个精细的概念结构，我们自动、无意识地计算产生它，每当我们想到或者说出一个主导我们对语言的使用的句子，你可以把它理解成“思想的语言”，或者“思想语”。

06:29

它看上去是建立在一套固定的概念之上，这套概念管理着数十个构式和数千个动词，不仅仅是英文的，而是所有语言的，最基本概念，比如空间，时间、因果以及人的意愿，比如，什么是手段，什么是目的？这些跟康德所主张的，构成人类思想的基本框架的，那些范畴很相似，很有趣的是，我们对语言的无意识的使用，好像在折射着这些康德主义的范畴，不在乎感官的性质，比如颜色、材质、重量和速度，上述这些都几乎从不区分，动词在不同构式中的用法。

07:08

此外，英语中的所有构式，不仅仅有字面意义，还有准隐喻的用法。就拿与格来说，不仅用来转移事物，还用来比喻思想的转移，比如，"She told a story to me"，或者"told me a story"，"Max taught Spanish to the student"或者"taught the students Spanish."，这都是完全一样的构式，但里面没有蛋糕或者老鼠。完全没有运动。这使人想起语言交流中的"容器隐喻"，在这里面我们把想法理解成实物，句子就像容器，语言交流就像快递，当我们说"gather"（收集）我们的想法，并"'put' them 'into' word"（把它们付诸语言），如果我们说的话并不"empty"(空)或者"hollow"（空洞），我们就可以把意思传达“过去”(“across")，让一个能够”拆解“("unpack")我们的语言而提取“内涵”("content")。

07:56

诸如此类的修辞法不是个例，而是广泛规则，想找到纯抽象的，而非实物隐喻的表达的例子难之又难，譬如说，你可以用动词"go"，以及介词"to"和"from"，来表达字面意思：“信使从巴黎去了伊斯坦布尔。”("The messenger went from Paris to Istanbul.")，你也可以说”比夫从病中康复。("Biff went from sick to well."，)，他哪里都没”去“，而是可能一直呆在床上，但是我们说话时仿佛他的健康状况是空间中的点，你给它一种动的概念，或者，“会从3点一直开到4点”("The meeting went from three to four")，这里我们把时间想成分布在一条直线上，与此相似地，我们用力的概念来表示，不仅仅是物理的力，比如，"Rose forced the door to open,"（罗斯用力把门打开），也包括人际间的作用力，比如，"Rose forced Sadie to go"（罗斯把萨蒂逼走了）--不一定要推推搡搡的，而是通过威胁，或者"Rose forced Sadie to go"（罗斯逼她自己离开），仿佛罗斯的头脑里有两个东西，在进行拔河。

08:51

第二个结论是用不同方式，构思同一事件的能力，比如，“使某物到某人那里”，和“使某人拥有某物”，我认为这是人类思维的基本特点，而且是人类论辩的基础，论辩中人们争议的一般不是事实，而是应该如何理解它们，这里是一些例子：是“终止怀孕”还是“杀死胚胎”，“一个细胞聚合的小球”还是“一个尚未出生的孩子”，“侵略伊拉克”或是“解放伊拉克”，“收入重新分配”抑或“没收财产”，而整个图景中最显著的一部分，是要看到一点：就是我们对抽象事件的描述，大多都是基于实体的隐喻，这反映出人类智能本身，是由一整套概念组成，比如物体、空间、时间，因果关系与意图，对我们这种群居的、知识密集型的种群非常有用，我们能想象人类的进化，和语言的隐喻抽象化过程齐轨并行，慢慢地这些概念里，原先的实际内容就淡化了，空间、时间和力，而它们却被用在全新的抽象领域里，如此就使得我们这个原本是进化出来，和石头、工具与动物打交道的种群，能够形成数学、物理、法律等等概念，涉足其他抽象的领域。

10:14

我曾说过我要谈谈人性的两扇窗户，我们用来概念化世界的知性机能，现在我要说说几种人际关系，它们支配着人类的社交活动，同样，这些都体现在语言里，我要从间接话语行为这个谜题开始，我相信你们中大多数人都看过《冰血暴》(或译为法哥镇）这部电影，你们可能还记得其中的一段：一个警官要绑匪把车开到路边，叫他出示驾照，绑匪把钱包拿出来，有一张50美元的钞票，以一个小角度从钱包里伸出来，然后绑匪说，“我在想，或许在法哥镇这个鬼地方我们俩得共同保管这个”，每个人，包括观众，都理解为含蓄地提出贿赂，这种间接表意在语言中泛滥，比如说在礼貌地提要求时，如果有人说，“如果你把鳄梨色拉酱递过来，就太棒了”，我们太清楚他是什么意思了，尽管字面上表达出来是个，很别扭的概念。

11:16

“您愿意来看一下我的蚀刻版画吗？”，我想大多数人，理解这么说的意图，同样的，倘若有人说，“呦，你的店真不错。要是发生了点什么事儿可就不好了”，（笑），我们知道这是个委婉的威胁，而不是在思考假设的可能性，所以我们说的谜题就是：为什么贿赂，礼貌的要求、恳请、威胁经常要遮遮掩掩的？没人是傻子，双方都知道谈话人说的是什么，谈话人也知道听者心里清楚，谈话人知道听者心里清楚，等等，等等，所以这是在干嘛呢？

11:52

关键是在于语言，是磋商人际关系的一种途径，而人际关系分为许多种，人类学家Alan，Fiske给出了一个关于影响力的分类法，其中人际关系可以被或多或少地归为，“公社性”，它的作用原则是，“我的就是你的，你的就是我的”，家庭内部的一种心态，例如，统治心态，其原则就是“别惹我”，互惠心态：“你帮我挠背，我帮你挠背”，性心理：如Cole，Porter的不朽名言所说，“来吧”。

12:27

人际关系的类型是可以通过磋商决定的，尽管经常有某种默认情况，指定了上面心态中的一种，人际关类型可以被拉伸、调整，比如说“公社性”，在家庭和朋友们中最自然，但它可以被用来，把分享的心态转移给，平时并不习惯于分享的群体，例如帮派或者男生联谊会，女生联谊会，像“男人之家”这样的表达法，这样就让非亲非故的人们，能够采用一般都是，近亲之间才有的关系类型。

13:06

可是当一方采用某一种关系类型，而另一方用了另一种，搭配错误的时候就尴尬了，假如你走过去随手就，从你老板的盘子里弄了一只虾吃，打个比方的话，这就是一个尴尬的情况，或者是餐后有一位客人，掏出钱包说要付钱给你，这也会相当尴尬，在不那么明显的例子中，还是有一种磋商在进行着，比如说在工作场所，在员工是否能和老板套近乎这一点上，都有一点紧张不安，或者是称呼他或她，首名（而不是叫XX先生或女士），如果两个朋友，进行一笔交易，比如卖一辆车，大家都知道这可能是，紧张和尴尬的来源，比如约会中，从友谊到性关系的过度，众所周知，可能导致各种各样的尴尬局面，工作场所的性也是，我们把两种关系类型，支配关系和性关系--间的冲突叫做“性骚扰”。

14:04

这个和语言有什么关系呢？语言作为一种社会相互作用，必须满足两个条件，你得传达内容，这里我们又回到容器的隐喻，你想表达贿赂、命令、许诺的意思，恳请以及其他，但是你还得磋商，并保持，你和那个人的关系，我认为解决的答案是我们在两个层面上使用语言，字面意思表达的是，与听者的最安全的关系，而引伸义，我们留给听者自己去领会的言外之意，则使他发掘出，这个语境中最恰当的解释，而这有可能促成一种新的人际关系。

14:46

最简单的例子出自于礼貌的要求，倘若你用一个条件句表达请求：“您要是能开一下窗子就太好了”，尽管内容是祈使句，仅仅因为你没有用祈使语态，就显示出你并没有按照一种支配的人际关系行事，你并没有假设他人必须服从，可另一方面，你想要那个该死的鳄梨沙拉酱，用一个“如果—那么”巨型，你把意思说清楚了，却不会让人觉得你在指使他。

15:19

我认为这样挺微妙，效果也不错，种种含蓄的言行，保留了拒绝的可能：贿赂、威胁、提议，恳请等等，有一种理解方式就是想象，当语言只能表达字面义，你可以把它当作，博弈论中的得失矩阵来思考，把你放在，那个想贿赂警官的绑匪的位置上，全部的赌注，都压在这两种可能性上：警官不老实或者他是老实人，假如你不贿赂他，你得吃罚单，或者，就像《冰风血》中的情况一样，那更糟，不管那个警官，到底老实不老实：爱拼才会赢，这种情况下，后果很严重，换一方面，你要是掏出钱来，如果警官吃贿赂，你全身而退，讨了个大巧，如果警官是老实人，你因为行贿，被逮起来，所以情况挺复杂的。

16:22

然而，你要是含沙射影地说，如果你含蓄地提出给钱，那么不老实的警官，可以把它理解为你要使银子，你就可以走了，而诚实的警官也不能硬说你贿赂他，因此你领一张讨厌的罚单，不过你两种可能中都受益最大化了，我觉得同样的分析方法，可以用在可能出现尴尬的，提出性的要求的时候，以及其他的当保留拒绝可的能性对你有利的情况，这就应证了，一个外交官们早已深谙的秘密，那就是：语言的模糊，根本不是什么故障或缺憾，而很可能是语言的特征，一个我们能在社交中善加利用的特征。

17:06

总而言之：语言是人类的集体发明，它折射出人性，我们如何用概念理解现实世界，如何互相沟通交流，通过分析语言的许多微妙、繁复之处，我认为我们能向着人类的生存之道打开一扇窗户，谢谢大家。

The End

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英文讲稿

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00:13

This is a picture of Maurice Druon, the Honorary Perpetual Secretary of L'Academie francaise, the French Academy. He is splendidly attired in his 68,000-dollar uniform, befitting the role of the French Academy as legislating the correct usage in French and perpetuating the language. The French Academy has two main tasks: it compiles a dictionary of official French. They're now working on their ninth edition, which they began in 1930, and they've reached the letter P. They also legislate on correct usage, such as the proper term for what the French call "email," which ought to be "courriel." The World Wide Web, the French are told, ought to be referred to as "la toile d'araignee mondiale" -- the Global Spider Web -- recommendations that the French gaily ignore. 

01:11

Now, this is one model of how language comes to be: namely, it's legislated by an academy. But anyone who looks at language realizes that this is a rather silly conceit, that language, rather, emerges from human minds interacting from one another. And this is visible in the unstoppable change in language -- the fact that by the time the Academy finishes their dictionary, it will already be well out of date. 

01:37

We see it in the constant appearance of slang and jargon, of the historical change in languages, in divergence of dialects and the formation of new languages. So language is not so much a creator or shaper of human nature, so much as a window onto human nature. In a book that I'm currently working on, I hope to use language to shed light on a number of aspects of human nature, including the cognitive machinery with which humans conceptualize the world and the relationship types that govern human interaction. And I'm going to say a few words about each one this morning. 

02:15

Let me start off with a technical problem in language that I've worried about for quite some time -- and indulge me in my passion for verbs and how they're used. The problem is, which verbs go in which constructions? The verb is the chassis of the sentence. It's the framework onto which the other parts are bolted. 

02:36

Let me give you a quick reminder of something that you've long forgotten. An intransitive verb, such as "dine," for example, can't take a direct object. You have to say, "Sam dined," not, "Sam dined the pizza." A transitive verb mandates that there has to be an object there: "Sam devoured the pizza." You can't just say, "Sam devoured." There are dozens or scores of verbs of this type, each of which shapes its sentence. So, a problem in explaining how children learn language, a problem in teaching language to adults so that they don't make grammatical errors, and a problem in programming computers to use language is which verbs go in which constructions. 

03:16

For example, the dative construction in English. You can say, "Give a muffin to a mouse," the prepositional dative. Or, "Give a mouse a muffin," the double-object dative. "Promise anything to her," "Promise her anything," and so on. Hundreds of verbs can go both ways. So a tempting generalization for a child, for an adult, for a computer is that any verb that can appear in the construction, "subject-verb-thing-to-a-recipient" can also be expressed as "subject-verb-recipient-thing." A handy thing to have, because language is infinite, and you can't just parrot back the sentences that you've heard. You've got to extract generalizations so you can produce and understand new sentences. This would be an example of how to do that. 

03:56

Unfortunately, there appear to be idiosyncratic exceptions. You can say, "Biff drove the car to Chicago," but not, "Biff drove Chicago the car." You can say, "Sal gave Jason a headache," but it's a bit odd to say, "Sal gave a headache to Jason." The solution is that these constructions, despite initial appearance, are not synonymous, that when you crank up the microscope on human cognition, you see that there's a subtle difference in meaning between them. So, "give the X to the Y," that construction corresponds to the thought "cause X to go to Y." Whereas "give the Y the X" corresponds to the thought "cause Y to have X." 

04:34

Now, many events can be subject to either construal, kind of like the classic figure-ground reversal illusions, in which you can either pay attention to the particular object, in which case the space around it recedes from attention, or you can see the faces in the empty space, in which case the object recedes out of consciousness. How are these construals reflected in language? Well, in both cases, the thing that is construed as being affected is expressed as the direct object, the noun after the verb. So, when you think of the event as causing the muffin to go somewhere -- where you're doing something to the muffin -- you say, "Give the muffin to the mouse." When you construe it as "cause the mouse to have something," you're doing something to the mouse, and therefore you express it as, "Give the mouse the muffin." 

05:22

So which verbs go in which construction -- the problem with which I began -- depends on whether the verb specifies a kind of motion or a kind of possession change. To give something involves both causing something to go and causing someone to have. To drive the car only causes something to go, because Chicago's not the kind of thing that can possess something. Only humans can possess things. And to give someone a headache causes them to have the headache, but it's not as if you're taking the headache out of your head and causing it to go to the other person, and implanting it in them. You may just be loud or obnoxious, or some other way causing them to have the headache. So, that's an example of the kind of thing that I do in my day job. 

06:04

So why should anyone care? Well, there are a number of interesting conclusions, I think, from this and many similar kinds of analyses of hundreds of English verbs. First, there's a level of fine-grained conceptual structure, which we automatically and unconsciously compute every time we produce or utter a sentence, that governs our use of language. You can think of this as the language of thought, or "mentalese." 

06:29

It seems to be based on a fixed set of concepts, which govern dozens of constructions and thousands of verbs -- not only in English, but in all other languages -- fundamental concepts such as space, time, causation and human intention, such as, what is the means and what is the ends? These are reminiscent of the kinds of categories that Immanuel Kant argued are the basic framework for human thought, and it's interesting that our unconscious use of language seems to reflect these Kantian categories. Doesn't care about perceptual qualities, such as color, texture, weight and speed, which virtually never differentiate the use of verbs in different constructions. 

07:08

An additional twist is that all of the constructions in English are used not only literally, but in a quasi-metaphorical way. For example, this construction, the dative, is used not only to transfer things, but also for the metaphorical transfer of ideas, as when we say, "She told a story to me" or "told me a story," "Max taught Spanish to the students" or "taught the students Spanish." It's exactly the same construction, but no muffins, no mice, nothing moving at all. It evokes the container metaphor of communication, in which we conceive of ideas as objects, sentences as containers, and communication as a kind of sending. As when we say we "gather" our ideas, to "put" them "into" words, and if our words aren't "empty" or "hollow," we might get these ideas "across" to a listener, who can "unpack" our words to "extract" their "content." 

07:56

And indeed, this kind of verbiage is not the exception, but the rule. It's very hard to find any example of abstract language that is not based on some concrete metaphor. For example, you can use the verb "go" and the prepositions "to" and "from" in a literal, spatial sense. "The messenger went from Paris to Istanbul." You can also say, "Biff went from sick to well." He needn't go anywhere. He could have been in bed the whole time, but it's as if his health is a point in state space that you conceptualize as moving. Or, "The meeting went from three to four," in which we conceive of time as stretched along a line. Likewise, we use "force" to indicate not only physical force, as in, "Rose forced the door to open," but also interpersonal force, as in, "Rose forced Sadie to go," not necessarily by manhandling her, but by issuing a threat. Or, "Rose forced herself to go," as if there were two entities inside Rose's head, engaged in a tug of a war. 

08:51

Second conclusion is that the ability to conceive of a given event in two different ways, such as "cause something to go to someone" and "causing someone to have something," I think is a fundamental feature of human thought, and it's the basis for much human argumentation, in which people don't differ so much on the facts as on how they ought to be construed. Just to give you a few examples: "ending a pregnancy" versus "killing a fetus;" "a ball of cells" versus "an unborn child;" "invading Iraq" versus "liberating Iraq;" "redistributing wealth" versus "confiscating earnings." And I think the biggest picture of all would take seriously the fact that so much of our verbiage about abstract events is based on a concrete metaphor and see human intelligence itself as consisting of a repertoire of concepts -- such as objects, space, time, causation and intention -- which are useful in a social, knowledge-intensive species, whose evolution you can well imagine, and a process of metaphorical abstraction that allows us to bleach these concepts of their original conceptual content -- space, time and force -- and apply them to new abstract domains, therefore allowing a species that evolved to deal with rocks and tools and animals, to conceptualize mathematics, physics, law and other abstract domains. 

10:14

Well, I said I'd talk about two windows on human nature -- the cognitive machinery with which we conceptualize the world, and now I'm going to say a few words about the relationship types that govern human social interaction, again, as reflected in language. And I'll start out with a puzzle, the puzzle of indirect speech acts. Now, I'm sure most of you have seen the movie "Fargo." And you might remember the scene in which the kidnapper is pulled over by a police officer, is asked to show his driver's license and holds his wallet out with a 50-dollar bill extending at a slight angle out of the wallet. And he says, "I was just thinking that maybe we could take care of it here in Fargo," which everyone, including the audience, interprets as a veiled bribe. This kind of indirect speech is rampant in language. For example, in polite requests, if someone says, "If you could pass the guacamole, that would be awesome," we know exactly what he means, even though that's a rather bizarre concept being expressed. 

11:16

"Would you like to come up and see my etchings?" I think most people understand the intent behind that. And likewise, if someone says, "Nice store you've got there. It would be a real shame if something happened to it" -- (Laughter) -- we understand that as a veiled threat, rather than a musing of hypothetical possibilities. So the puzzle is, why are bribes, polite requests, solicitations and threats so often veiled? No one's fooled. Both parties know exactly what the speaker means, and the speaker knows the listener knows that the speaker knows that the listener knows, etc., etc. So what's going on? 

11:52

I think the key idea is that language is a way of negotiating relationships, and human relationships fall into a number of types. There's an influential taxonomy by the anthropologist Alan Fiske, in which relationships can be categorized, more or less, into communality, which works on the principle "what's mine is thine, what's thine is mine," the kind of mindset that operates within a family, for example; dominance, whose principle is "don't mess with me;" reciprocity, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours;" and sexuality, in the immortal words of Cole Porter, "Let's do it." 

12:27

Now, relationship types can be negotiated. Even though there are default situations in which one of these mindsets can be applied, they can be stretched and extended. For example, communality applies most naturally within family or friends, but it can be used to try to transfer the mentality of sharing to groups that ordinarily would not be disposed to exercise it. For example, in brotherhoods, fraternal organizations, sororities, locutions like "the family of man," you try to get people who are not related to use the relationship type that would ordinarily be appropriate to close kin. 

13:06

Now, mismatches -- when one person assumes one relationship type, and another assumes a different one -- can be awkward. If you went over and you helped yourself to a shrimp off your boss' plate, for example, that would be an awkward situation. Or if a dinner guest after the meal pulled out his wallet and offered to pay you for the meal, that would be rather awkward as well. In less blatant cases, there's still a kind of negotiation that often goes on. In the workplace, for example, there's often a tension over whether an employee can socialize with the boss, or refer to him or her on a first-name basis. If two friends have a reciprocal transaction, like selling a car, it's well known that this can be a source of tension or awkwardness. In dating, the transition from friendship to sex can lead to, notoriously, various forms of awkwardness, and as can sex in the workplace, in which we call the conflict between a dominant and a sexual relationship "sexual harassment." 

14:04

Well, what does this have to do with language? Well, language, as a social interaction, has to satisfy two conditions. You have to convey the actual content -- here we get back to the container metaphor. You want to express the bribe, the command, the promise, the solicitation and so on, but you also have to negotiate and maintain the kind of relationship you have with the other person. The solution, I think, is that we use language at two levels: the literal form signals the safest relationship with the listener, whereas the implicated content -- the reading between the lines that we count on the listener to perform -- allows the listener to derive the interpretation which is most relevant in context, which possibly initiates a changed relationship. 

14:46

The simplest example of this is in the polite request. If you express your request as a conditional -- "if you could open the window, that would be great" -- even though the content is an imperative, the fact that you're not using the imperative voice means that you're not acting as if you're in a relationship of dominance, where you could presuppose the compliance of the other person. On the other hand, you want the damn guacamole. By expressing it as an if-then statement, you can get the message across without appearing to boss another person around. 

15:19

And in a more subtle way, I think, this works for all of the veiled speech acts involving plausible deniability: the bribes, threats, propositions, solicitations and so on. One way of thinking about it is to imagine what it would be like if language -- where it could only be used literally. And you can think of it in terms of a game-theoretic payoff matrix. Put yourself in the position of the kidnapper wanting to bribe the officer. There's a high stakes in the two possibilities of having a dishonest officer or an honest officer. If you don't bribe the officer, then you will get a traffic ticket -- or, as is the case of "Fargo," worse -- whether the honest officer is honest or dishonest. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. In that case, the consequences are rather severe. On the other hand, if you extend the bribe, if the officer is dishonest, you get a huge payoff of going free. If the officer is honest, you get a huge penalty of being arrested for bribery. So this is a rather fraught situation. 

16:22

On the other hand, with indirect language, if you issue a veiled bribe, then the dishonest officer could interpret it as a bribe, in which case you get the payoff of going free. The honest officer can't hold you to it as being a bribe, and therefore, you get the nuisance of the traffic ticket. So you get the best of both worlds. And a similar analysis, I think, can apply to the potential awkwardness of a sexual solicitation, and other cases where plausible deniability is an asset. I think this affirms something that's long been known by diplomats -- namely, that the vagueness of language, far from being a bug or an imperfection, actually might be a feature of language, one that we use to our advantage in social interactions. 

17:06

So to sum up: language is a collective human creation, reflecting human nature, how we conceptualize reality, how we relate to one another. And then by analyzing the various quirks and complexities of language, I think we can get a window onto what makes us tick. Thank you very much. 

The End

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