On the Dynamic Relations Between Common Ground and Presupposition

The common ground theory of presupposition has been dominant since the seventies (Stalnaker 1974, 1978, 2002). This theory has resulted from a view of communication as transfer between minds. In this view interlocutors presume that speakers speak cooperatively, they infer that they have intentions and beliefs that are necessary to make sense of their speech acts, and treat such entities as preexisting psychological ones that are later somehow formulated in language. Common ground is considered as a distributed form of mental representation and adopted as a basis on which successful communication is warranted (Arnseth and Solheim 2002; Kecskes and Zhang 2009). However, the theory has not gone without objection and criticism (e.g. Abbott 2008; Beaver and Zeevat 2004; von Fintel 2001, 2006; Simons 2003) because it is based on ‘‘an oversimplified picture of conversation’’ (Abbott 2008), and as a consequence the relationship between common ground and presupposition has also been oversimplified. In this approach presupposition is often considered as a conventional or conversational constraint of common ground, or requirement on common ground that must be satisfied in order to make an appropriate utterance. The problem of accommodation is a critical issue that has been raised against this view, and caused great challenge to the theory by stimulating diverse alternatives. The goal of this paper is to redefine the relationship between common ground and presupposition within the confines of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA). SCA (Kecskes 2008; Kecskes and Zhang 2009; Kecskes 2010a, b) adopted in this paper offers an alternative view on communication, which claims that communication is not an ideal transfer of information, and cooperation and egocentrism (Barr and Keysar 2005; Colston 2005; Keysar 2007), are both present in the process of communication to a varying extent. The SCA emphasizes the dynamics of common ground creation and I. Kecskes (&) University at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA e-mail: [email protected] F. Zhang East China University, Shanghai, China A. Capone et al. (eds.), Perspectives on Linguistic Pragmatics, Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology 2, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-01014-4_15, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013 375 updating in the actual process of interaction, in which interlocutors are considered as ‘‘complete’’ individuals with different possible cognitive status being less or more cooperative at different stages of the communicative process. Presupposition is a proposal of common ground, and there is a vibrant interaction between the two. They enjoy a cross relation in terms of content and manners in which they are formed, and their dynamism is inherently related and explanatory to each other. This claim has important implications to the solution to presupposition accommodation. After the introduction Sect. 2 describes the socio-cognitive approach. Section 3 reviews the assumed common ground, and Sect. 4 introduces the speaker-assigned presupposition. Section 5 discusses the dynamism of presuppositions and common ground, and claims that their dynamic observations are coherent and explanatory to each other. Section 6 readdresses the accommodation problem with redefinition of the relations.