Speaker: Gerhard Jäger, Universität Tübingen
Time: Friday, February 18, 2011, 3:30pm-5pm
Location: 32-141 (PLEASE NOTE ROOM)
Title: Game Theoretic Pragmatics
Abstract:
Game theory is a mathematical framework that is being used in economics and biology,
but also in philosophy, political science and computer science, to study the behavior of
multiple agents that are engaged in strategic interaction. It has manifold applications
in linguistics as well. In particular, it has been utilized to investigate stability
conditions of linguistic features in a large speech community, and to explore the
strategic aspects of single speech acts.The talk gives an introduction into a particular incarnation of this
research paradigm, the /Iterated Best Response model/ of game-theoretic
pragmatics. It can be seen as a formalization of the neo-Gricean program of
pragmatics. Empirical issues touched upon include exhaustivication, free choice
readings, ignorance implicatures, embedded implicatures and the pragmatics of measure
terms.