Multimodal Cues in the Interpretation of Imperative Speech Acts
An Empirical Investigation
Imperatives present a classic form-function mismatch in language since the same imperative utterance can be interpreted as a command, plea, permission, advice, or other speech act, while similar communicative functions can also be expressed through a range of grammatical constructions. A central challenge for linguistic theory is therefore to explain how speakers signal and hearers recognise the intended illocutionary force of an utterance when grammatical form alone does not uniquely determine interpretation. Recent research on sign languages suggests that imperative-related meanings may be associated with systematic combinations of manual and non-manual markers rather than sentence type alone. The present project investigates whether spoken-language communication likewise relies on multimodal cues in the production and recognition of imperative-related speech acts, without assuming that such cues have the same linguistic status or degree of conventionalisation as the markers described for sign languages.
The project combines a production study and a comprehension study to examine how commands, pleas, permissions, and advice are signalled and interpreted in spoken interaction. Participants will produce speech acts in controlled scenarios, allowing the analysis of linguistic form, prosody, gesture, facial expression, gaze, and posture. The resulting recordings will then be used in perception experiments investigating which cues listeners rely on when identifying intended force and how different sources of information contribute to interpretation. By linking speech-act theory, multimodal communication research, and insights from sign language linguistics, the project aims to determine the interaction of linguistic cues, context, prosody, facial expression, and gesture in the marking and recognition of illocutionary force.
The talk presents the theoretical background, research questions, and methodological design of an ongoing project. The first study investigates the production of imperative-related speech acts (commands, pleas, permissions, and advice) and examines whether these categories are associated with recurring patterns in linguistic form, prosody, gesture, facial expression, gaze, and posture. The resulting audiovisual recordings form the basis of a planned follow-up comprehension experiment, which tests which cues listeners use when identifying intended illocutionary force and whether force recognition depends on individual cues, multimodal cue configurations, contextual information, or interactions between these sources.