In everyday conversation, understanding the context in which words are spoken is often as crucial as the words themselves. Imagine a scenario where it’s pouring rain, and someone comments on the “lovely weather.” Without recognizing the sarcasm, the true meaning of the statement might be lost. This ability to infer meaning beyond the literal interpretation of words is known as pragmatic language ability. It encompasses skills such as interpreting sarcasm, understanding metaphors, and navigating the nuances of white lies, among other conversational subtleties.
“Pragmatics is trying to reason about why somebody might say something, and what is the message they’re trying to convey given that they put it in this particular way,” explains Evelina Fedorenko, an MIT associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
New Research on Pragmatic Language Skills
Recent research led by Fedorenko and her colleagues has shed light on how these pragmatic abilities can be categorized based on the types of inferences they require. In a study involving 800 participants, the researchers identified three clusters of pragmatic skills, each relying on similar types of inferences and potentially sharing underlying neural processes. These clusters include inferences based on social conventions, knowledge of the physical world, and the ability to interpret tonal differences that indicate emphasis or emotion.
The study, co-authored by Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead authors are Sammy Floyd, now an assistant professor of psychology at Sarah Lawrence College, and Olessia Jouravlev, an associate professor of cognitive science at Carleton University.
The Importance of Context in Language
While much of the past research on language comprehension has focused on processing the literal meanings of words, Fedorenko emphasizes the necessity of context for true understanding. “Language is about getting meanings across, and that often requires taking into account many different kinds of information – such as the social context, the visual context, or the present topic of the conversation,” she notes.
Edward Gibson illustrates this with an example: the phrase “people are leaving” can convey different messages depending on the context. If it’s late at night at a party, it might suggest the event is winding down. However, if it’s early, the same phrase could imply the party is not enjoyable. “When you say a sentence, there’s a literal meaning to it, but how you interpret that literal meaning depends on the context,” Gibson explains.
Exploring Pragmatic Language through Research
About a decade ago, with support from the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, Fedorenko and Gibson embarked on research to distinguish the types of processing involved in pragmatic language skills. While functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a common tool for linking brain activity to different functions, the tasks designed for this study were not easily performed in a scanner. Instead, the researchers employed an “individual differences” approach, studying a large number of participants across various tasks to identify potential shared brain processes.
In the first phase of the study, led by Jouravlev, a comprehensive set of 20 tasks was assembled, requiring participants to understand humor, sarcasm, and intonation. For instance, the emphasis on the word “black” in the sentence “I wanted blue and black socks” implies that the black socks were forgotten. “People really find ways to communicate creatively and indirectly and non-literally, and this battery of tasks captures that,” says Floyd.
Components of Pragmatic Ability
The researchers recruited participants from an online crowdsourcing platform to complete the tasks, which took about eight hours. From the initial group of 400 participants, the tasks were found to form three distinct clusters: social context, general world knowledge, and intonation. To validate these findings, a second group of 400 participants was tested, confirming the robustness of the clusters. The study also determined that differences in general intelligence or auditory processing ability did not affect the outcomes.
Future research aims to use brain imaging to explore whether the identified pragmatic components correlate with activity in specific brain regions. Previous studies have shown that brain imaging often reflects distinctions found in individual difference studies, potentially linking abilities to neural systems such as the core language system or the theory of mind system.
Implications and Future Directions
This research has significant implications for understanding communication difficulties in individuals with autism, who may struggle with certain social cues. Additionally, the study could explore cultural differences in pragmatic language processing, as norms for direct and indirect communication vary across languages. “In Russian, which happens to be my native language, people are more direct. So perhaps there might be some differences in how native speakers of Russian process indirect requests compared to speakers of English,” Jouravlev suggests.
The research was funded by the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation. As the field of pragmatic language research continues to evolve, these findings could pave the way for more targeted interventions and a deeper understanding of how context shapes our communication.
