linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

and

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the ...

, the conversational scoreboard is a

tuple In mathematics, a tuple is a finite ordered list (sequence) of elements. An -tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of elements, where is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, referred to as ''the empty tuple''. An -tuple is defi ...

which represents the discourse context at a given point in a

conversation Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...

. The scoreboard is updated by each

speech act In the philosophy of language and linguistics, speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the kimchi; could you please pass it to me? ...

performed by one of the interlocutors. Most theories of conversational scorekeeping take one of the scoreboard's elements to be a

common ground Common Ground may refer to: Books and periodicals * ''Common Ground'' (Lukas book), by J. Anthony Lukas * ''Common Ground'' (magazine), a literary magazine published quarterly between 1941 and 1949 * ''Common Ground'' (memoir), by Canadian po ...

, which represents the propositional information mutually agreed upon by the interlocutors. When an interlocutor makes a successful assertion, its content is added to the common ground. Once in the common ground, that information can then be presupposed by future utterances. Depending on the particular theory of scorekeeping, additional elements of the scoreboard may include a

stack Stack may refer to: Places * Stack Island, an island game reserve in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, in Tasmania’s Hunter Island Group * Blue Stack Mountains, in Co. Donegal, Ireland People * Stack (surname) (including a list of people ...

of questions under discussion, a list of discourse referents available for anaphora, among other categories of contextual information. The notion of a conversational scoreboard was introduced by David Lewis in his most-cited paper ''Scorekeeping in a Language Game''. In the paper, Lewis draws an analogy between conversation and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

, where the scoreboard tracks categories of information such as strikes, outs, and runs, thereby defining the current state of the game and thereby determining which future moves are licit.

Notes

Semantics Pragmatics Formal semantics (natural language) Concepts in the philosophy of language {{pragmatics-stub

See also

Notes