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Elements of a Plan‐Based Theory of Speech Acts *
Author(s) -
Cohen Philip R.,
Perrault C. Raymond
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1207/s15516709cog0303_1
Subject(s) - plan (archaeology) , operator (biology) , computer science , speech act , linguistics , history , biochemistry , chemistry , philosophy , archaeology , repressor , transcription factor , gene
This paper explores the truism hat people think about what hey say. It proposes that, to satisfy heir own goals, people often plan their speech acts to affect their listeners' beliefs, goals, and emotional states. Such language use can be modelled by viewing speech acts as operators in a planning system, thus allowing both physical and speech acts to be integrated into plans. Methodological issues of how speech acts should be defined in a plan‐based theory are illustrated by defining operators for requesting and informing. Plans containing those operators are presented and comparisons are drawn with Searle's formulation. The operators are show to be inadequate since they cannot be composed to form questions (requests to inform) and multiparty requests (requests to request). By refining the operator definitions and by identifying some of the side effects of requesting, compositional adequacy is achieved. The solution leads to a metatheoretical principle for modelling speech acts as planning operators.