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Understanding the correct intention of a speaker is critical for social interaction. Speech prosody is an important source for understanding speakers' intentions during verbal communication. However, the neural dynamics by which the human brain translates the prosodic cues into a mental representation of communicative intentions in real time remains unclear. Here, we recorded EEG (electroencephalograph) while participants listened to dialogues. The prosodic features of the critical words at the end of sentences were manipulated to signal either suggestion, warning, or neutral intentions. The results showed that suggestion and warning intentions evoked enhanced late positive event-related potentials (ERPs) compared to the neutral condition. Linear mixed-effects model (LMEM) regression and representational similarity analysis (RSA) analyses revealed that these ERP effects were distinctively correlated with prosodic acoustic analysis, emotional valence evaluation, and intention interpretation in different time windows; The onset latency significantly increased as the processing level of abstractness and communicative intentionality increased. Neural representations of intention and emotional information emerged and parallelly persisted over a long time window, guiding the correct identification of communicative intention. These results provide new insights into understanding the structural components of intention processing and their temporal neural dynamics underlying communicative intention comprehension from speech prosody in online social interactions.

Social media platforms, such as Twitter (now X), are a major source of communication. Identifying communicative intentions is useful, as it encapsulates the latent motivations that drive text creation. This intention is also helpful in understanding the message, context, and audience. This study proposes a method for detecting communicative intentions in tweets using Jakobson’s language functions. We constructed a meticulously annotated dataset, drawing from the extensive RepLab2013 corpus. Our dataset underwent rigorous scrutiny by linguistic annotators who analyzed over 12,000 tweets individually. These experts identified the dominant language function within each tweet by employing diverse strategies to ensure precise labeling quality. The outcome demonstrated a noteworthy Kappa agreement score of 0.6, reflecting a strong inter-annotator reliability. Subsequently, these functions were mapped to the corresponding intention categories. We employed logistic regression and support vector machines (SVM) algorithms to classify intention in tweets and explored various pre-processing techniques, incorporating n-grams and bag-of-words representations. Furthermore, we expanded our research using pre-trained large language models, incorporating the latest state-of-the-art techniques in natural language processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Mann et al.1 proposed the use of “personalized” Large Language Models (LLMs) to create professional-grade academic writing. Their model, AUTOGEN, is first trained on a standard corpus and then “fine-tuned” by further training on the academic writings of a small cohort of authors. The resulting LLMs outperform the GPT-3 base model, producing text that rivals expert-written text in readability and coherence. With judicious prompting, such LLMs have the capacity to generate academic papers. Mann et al. even go so far as to claim that these LLMs can “enhance” academic prose and be useful in “idea generation”1. I argue that these bold claims cannot be correct. While we can grant that the sample texts appear coherent and may seem to contain “new ideas”, any appearance of coherence or novelty is solely “in the eye of the beholder” (Bender et al.2). Since the generated text is not produced by an agent with communicative intentions (Grice 19573) our ordinary notions of interpretation – and, derivatively, of such notions as coherence – break down. As readers, we proceed with the default assumption that a text has been produced in good faith, naturally trusting what it says to be true (absent indications to the contrary) and expecting these truths to form a coherent whole. But this default assumption is misplaced in generated texts and, if unchecked, will allow both falsehoods and inconsistencies to pass under our radar. Whatever one thinks of the use of LLMs to help create content for commercial publications, their use in generating articles for publication in scientific journals should raise alarms.

This article deals with the problem of using declarative speech acts in an advertising discourse. The introduction of the "speech act" notion has caused the necessity of classifying utterances according to their communicative function, taking into account the illocutionary content of utterances, that is, the speaker's communicative intention; the type of the speaker's exposure and the way the speaker expresses his intention. The usage of the declarative speech act is aimed at changing the state of affairs. The author notes the polyintentional nature of the declaratives, paying attention to the role of situational context that refers to every non-linguistic factor and the meaning of a phrase. Linguistic pragmatics and the theory of speech acts are regarded as a research method being effective for analyzing communicative intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies show that social cues are processed preferentially by the human visual system and that perception of communicative intentions, particularly those self-directed, attracts and biases attention. However, it is still unclear when in the temporal hierarchy of visual processing communicative cues exert impact on perception and whether their effects are automatic or volitional. Therefore, in the present study, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the pattern of neural activity associated with processing communicative and individual gestures. Participants (N = 24) were shown animations depicting either biological (BM) or scrambled motion (SM) and were asked to categorize them accordingly. Additionally, BM depicted either communicative or individual actions. The results showed that while early components (N1, N2) are sensitive to differences between BM and SM, the differentiation of neural activity related to the type of action performed by point-light agent (individuals vs. communicative) is observed only for late components such as posterior late positive potential (>500 ms). The findings of the current study show that even in the absence of any top-down effects, social intentions produce long-lasting attentional effects at the later stages of stimuli processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Human emotions can be complex to interpret as they have multiple sources and are often times ambiguous, for example, when the signals sent by different channels of communication are inconsistent. Our study investigates the interaction of linguistic and facial expressions of emotions. Methods: In two experiments, participants read short scenarios in German containing a direct utterance with positive or negative emotive markers, in combination with different facial expressions as still images of the speaker (i.e., the protagonist in the story). They answered questions about their perception regarding the intensity of the emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness), the properties of the expresser (e.g., honesty, warmth, likeability) and their relation to the addressee (e.g., closeness), as well as the expresser intention (e.g., irony, joke). Results: The findings suggest that facial expressions have a more dominant role in the emotion perception in comparison to emotive markers. Furthermore, consistent and inconsistent combinations of emotive markers and facial expressions convey distinct social meanings and communicative intentions. Conclusion: This research points to the importance to consider emotive markers in the emotional context that they occur in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often claimed that infant communication is premised on the recognition of Gricean communicative intentions. This picture rests on an equivocation between features of communication and features of cognition. Following Bart Geurts, I argue that the notion of common ground is best conceptualised as a normative condition. The overtness of a communicative act is the publicity inherent to shared commitments, and since commitments can be shared unknowingly, communicative intentions are not necessary for communicating. I discuss two key experiments with infants and I argue that, for the prelinguistic case, giving a commitment-based interpretation is always possible, and so communicative intentions are here explanatorily dispensable. Therefore, there is no obvious way of proving experimentally that infant communication is Gricean. • Gricean approaches equivocate between theories of communication and theories of cognition. • Prelinguistic communication is explained in terms of shared commitments. • Infants' behaviour is explained in terms of an increasing preparedness to act in light of shared commitments. • For prelinguistic communication and infant cognitive development, Gricean intentions are explanatorily idle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Competent execution of business letters is one of the important factors in conducting successful business activities. With the widespread use of video communication, voice messages and instant messengers, written business correspondence remains relevant. Electronic business correspondence, which determines the social and cultural specifics of the modern world community in the field of business, management and material production, is considered in the article as a linguistic phenomenon. Purpose. To reveal the pragmalinguistic features of the texts of English-language electronic commercial letters and consider the specifics of the English-language electronic commercial letter. Materials and methods. To solve the tasks set, a set of scientific research methods was used: analysis of scientific literature on the research problem and texts of English-language electronic commercial letters, continuous sampling method, descriptive method, comparative method. Results. Particular attention is paid to business letters as a traditional way of communication between organizations, enterprises, associations and bodies. It was revealed that each business letter has its own communicative purpose, pragmatic essence. The pragmalinguistic aspect of the texts of electronic business correspondence is carried out through the implementation of a specific communicative intention with a specific goal. Practical implications. The results of the research can be useful for further research in the field of communication technologies: problems of communication efficiency, public relations, advertising, speech etiquette, theory and practice of translation.

Those in the Gricean tradition take it that successful human communication features an audience who not only arrives at the intended content of the signal, but also recognizes the speaker’s intention that they do so. Some in this tradition have also argued that there are yet further conditions on communicative success, which rule out the possibility of communicating by luck. Supposing that both intention-recognition and some sort of anti-luck condition are correctly included in an analysis of human communication, this article asks what the value of events satisfying these conditions is. I present a puzzle concerning the value of intention-recognition which is analogous to the Meno Problem in epistemology, but ultimately argue that this puzzle is solveable: the signaling-relevant value of intention recognition can be vindicated. However, I argue that the version of this puzzle that concerns the further proposed luck-proofing conditions on communication can not be answered. I argue therefore that communication, as analyzed by many, is no more valuable qua signal than a proper subset of its conditions. Human communication is then not a uniquely valuable signaling event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Intention comprehension from prosody involves multiple levels of neural representations. • Intentional level of representation is likely to emerge later than acoustic and emotion levels. • Emotional evaluation persists until late to guide the interpretation of intentions. Understanding the correct intention of a speaker is critical for social interaction. Speech prosody is an important source for understanding speakers' intentions during verbal communication. However, the neural dynamics by which the human brain translates the prosodic cues into a mental representation of communicative intentions in real time remains unclear. Here, we recorded EEG (electroencephalograph) while participants listened to dialogues. The prosodic features of the critical words at the end of sentences were manipulated to signal either suggestion, warning , or neutral intentions. The results showed that suggestion and warning intentions evoked enhanced late positive event-related potentials (ERPs) compared to the neutral condition. Linear mixed-effects model (LMEM) regression and representational similarity analysis (RSA) analyses revealed that these ERP effects were distinctively correlated with prosodic acoustic analysis, emotional valence evaluation, and intention interpretation in different time windows; The onset latency significantly increased as the processing level of abstractness and communicative intentionality increased. Neural representations of intention and emotional information emerged and parallelly persisted over a long time window, guiding the correct identification of communicative intention. These results provide new insights into understanding the structural components of intention processing and their temporal neural dynamics underlying communicative intention comprehension from speech prosody in online social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Статья посвящена выявлению интенционального плана жанра англоязычных массмедийных светских слухов. Речевой жанр представлен как коммуникативная единица, в которой воплощается интенциональность, образующаяся набором интенций продуцентов текстов. Интенциональность проявляется во всех аспектах текстотипа (содержательном, формальном, стилистическом) и рассматривается как жанроформирующий фактор. Речевой жанр англоязычных медиаслухов о селебрити в рамках содержательно-тематического уровня обладает комплексной интенциональной структурой. Сумма типичных коммуникативных интенций исследуемого текстотипа включает ряд установок, связанных с информирующей, развлекающей, оценивающей и воздействующей функциями. Доминантной целеустановкой выделена макроинтенция фатики, соединяющая рекреативную и гедонистическую функции его текстовых репрезентантов. Интенциональная модель исследуемого жанра формируется посредством как экстралингвистических, так и языковых средств.

The paper is a critical reaction to Christopher Gauker’s general attack on the Gricean way of thinking about linguistic communication and, in particular, on the role it assigns to the phenomenon of recursive mindreading. The author rejects the claim that the Gricean analysis of meaning something by an utterance is psychologically totally unrealistic, in particular because of the role which the element of recursive mindreading plays in the conditions in definiens. In this connection, the author defends a certain account of philosophical analysis, its functions and the proper interpretation of its results (Ch. 2). On the same basis, the author critically examines Gauker’s rejection of Grice’s analysis of conversational implicatures, as well as of the very reality of Gricean implicatures as a communicative phenomenon (Ch. 3). He concludes that Gauker’s alternative to Grice’s theory of implicatures, leaving no space for recursive mindreading, does not address the same questions as Grice’s theory, and its contribution to the explanation of the nature of communicative interaction is rather limited (Ch. 4). In opposition to a widely shared view, the author argues that Gricean semantics is compatible with the assumption that higher-order thoughts, required by recursive mindreading, are inaccessible to autistic speakers. There is still a good sense in which they can be regarded as meaning something by their utterances and performing speech acts (Ch. 5). The last part of the discussion concerns Gauker’s criticism of the “generalized Griceanism” in M. Tomassello’s work, in particular of the role that Tomassello assigns to the recursive mindreading in his analysis of coordination problems. Concerning this role, the author arrives at rather sceptical conclusions, for different reasons than those underlying Gauker’s criticism (Ch. 6).

В статье рассматривается эмоциональность как одна из основных характеристик медиадискурса. Эмоциональность описывается как константа любой осознанной человеческой коммуникации. Медиатекст рассматривается как один из наиболее эмоциогенных типов текста благодаря одной из основополагающих функций медийного текста – функции воздействия. Приводится классификация медиадискурсов согласно их коммуникативной интенции. Выделяются информационный, публицистический и развлекательный субдискурсы, описывается их воздействие на адресата. В качестве вывода отмечается, что реципиент информационного текста свободен в умозаключениях, и такой тип коммуникации можно признать наиболее экологичным в медиа-пространстве.

The illocutionary complex that determines the pragmatic meaning of text units with purpose semantics as part of the question-answer dialogue was analyzed. Using the methods of conversation analysis, introspection, linguistic modeling and observation, a multifarious analysis of the adjacent pairs in the political interview and talk show fragments was carried out. The factors that define the generation of purpose-related judgments and the choice of indirect ways to convey the communicative intentions of the addresser were singled out, as well as the aspects that are important for understanding the perceived content by the addressee. The organization of the communicative continuum within the framework of interaction was investigated. The functionality of the pragmatic context (the background of spoken interaction) was revealed. The factors influencing the quality of the illocutionary profile of text units (clarity/blur) as it is perceived and interpreted by the addressee were established. The signals of the communicative intentions generated by the addresser were considered. The choice of spoken response in the situations of harsh pressure was discussed. It was demonstrated that the pragmatic context plays a leading role in perceiving of the illocutionary complex during the communicative interaction.

The ostensive-inferential model is a model of communication, an alternative to the code model of communication, based on pragmatic competence: it explains human communication in terms of expression and recognition of informative and communicative intentions, founding comprehension on the distinction between literal meaning and the speaker's meaning. Through informative intentions we try to make evident the content of a message to a receiver, or to make evident what we want to communicate to him/her: communicative intentions are used to make evident the very fact that we intend to communicate. One hypothesis is that ostensive-inferential communication is what makes human language possible. Since an extensive literature has highlighted the role of the Theory of Mind in ostensive-inferential communication, this hypothesis fits with the idea that a mechanism for mentalizing underlies human communication. The aim of the present paper is to stress the role of lower-level mechanisms, specifically of motor simulation, in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions, in order to outline an embodied account of ostensive communication. Specifically, the hypothesis is that this process is involved in language acquisition during development, and that it plays a role in the associative learning process involved in language acquisition during childhood. To this aim, in future research it may be useful to test the involvement of motor simulation (specifically, phono-articulatory and semantic) in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions in toddlers. Since some models of language evolution focus on the role of motor simulation, a supplementary goal is to deepen its role in the biological evolution of language, focusing on the specific link between motor simulation and intentions in the framework of ostensive-inferential model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children of all languages use their first lexical items to express a variety of meanings or communicative intentions. The phase during which young children start to use their first lexical items is commonly characterised from a usage-based approach as a holophrastic stage because these lexical items, although just a single linguistic unit, are often used to fulfil more complex communicative intentions. The meaning of the lexical item is therefore mostly derived from the communicative context in which the utterance takes place. A holophrase is defined as one linguistic symbol that functions as a whole utterance and expresses more than the conventional meaning of that symbol. Studies on the communicative functions of children’s holophrases do exist, but this phenomenon has not yet been studied in Afrikaans first language acquisition. Tomasello (2003: 37) provides a list of what young children from around the world normally do with their language (i.e. intentions typically expressed), and this study investigates to what extent these communicative intentions can also be applied to novel usage-based data of 20 Afrikaans-speaking children’s first lexical items. This study reveals that the communicative intentions as expressed by Tomasello also describe the Afrikaans data set although some of the descriptions of the categories are expanded to include a larger variety of samples from the Afrikaans data. Furthermore, two other types of communicative intentions are identified in the Afrikaans data, namely to express an emotion/feeling, and to respond to a conversation partner by means of imitation. Other studies done on children’s expression of emotions and imitations of words provide further evidence that children also use their language to communicate these intentions. As such, this article contributes to the body of literature on Afrikaans first language acquisition as an under-researched field.

Manipulative verbal influence is an immanent feature of modern international communication. Successful realization of the suggestive aspect allows the speaker to exert influence on the recipient’s worldview and ingrain certain ideological attitudes in their mind. This situation is characteristic of various types of discourse: political, advertising and media. However, the most dangerous for political stability and safety is utilization of persuasive linguistic devices by extremist groups and terrorist organizations. Thus, research in this field has become extremely relevant. The article presents linguistic analysis of such manifestations of destructive manipulation in the Islamic State (IS) speech, found in their official video messages. The analysis was carried out on the material of the official IS video messages, obtained through the selective sampling method on the video hosting website YouTube. Within the framework of the research we distinguish, classify and subject to a thorough linguistic analysis of conceptual metaphors which are used by the terrorists. The data obtained enables us to make a conclusion regarding the key role of conceptual metaphor in realization of the IS speaker’s communicative intention, which presupposes attracting the recipient’s attention to their activities and creating a radicalized ideological attitude in the minds of the audience. Furthermore, we prove that the metaphor is deliberately used by the terrorists to successfully fulfill their pragmatic intention, which involves manipulating the recipient. The provisions developed as part of the study and the results of the analysis can be further applied in modelling the mechanisms to confront and counteract terrorist suggestion in cyberspace and mass media.

The article deals with a communicative-pragmatic analysis of the participants in dialogue, facts, communication situation, conditions and linguistic integrity and their content. The degree of the elements of the systemic signals, the equilibrium between them, the communication are emphasized in the systemstructural approach. The choice of linguistic units, the reasons for assigning them to a particular communicative, emotional-expressive role, are seen. In the communication process, the pragmatic submission of participants is exposed through unique forms of arrangement of the general and universal laws of communication, in particular in film stories, through dialog between fact, the addressee and the addressee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines persuasion and communicative intentions in Pentecostal sermons in Nigeria. Notwithstanding the high scholarly inputs in religious discourse, no single work has examined the devices employed to achieve persuasion and conviction as well as communicative intentions in Pentecostal sermons in Nigeria. This work examines twelve sermons of selected Pentecostal preachers in Nigeria by drawing insights from rhetoric and pragmatic act to account for persuasion and communicative intentions in the data. Findings reveal that preachers strategically deploy rhetorical question; direct address and direct command; metaphor; repetition and structural parallelism; and they develop convincing arguments through logic/reason. It is also revealed that preachers share experiences with their listeners and they assume divine role by speaking authoritatively to convince their listeners into accepting their propositions. Preachers perform pragmatic acts of asserting/stating, encouraging, assuring, directing, commanding, praising, etc. The study has further confirmed that Pentecostal sermons can be used for public mobilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using speech to communicate pragmatic functions is challenging among individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Given the role language plays in developing everyday skills, we traced the unique pragmatic profile of early words, seeking comparison to typically developing (TD) toddlers at similar lexical stages. Twenty-four mother-toddler dyads participated (9 ASD and 15 TD). Dyads were video recorded when toddlers reached a productive lexicon of 40–70 words. These recordings were captured three times during naturalistic interaction and at two consecutive visits with a 2-month interval. Seven thousand three hundred seventy-six productions were analyzed and classified into four communicative intentions (Declaratives, Requests, Objections, and Non-Communicative speech). ASD toddlers were delayed in the emergence of words compared to TD toddlers, with a greater within-group variability (median 28 months, IQR 24.5–35, median 17 months, IQR 17–18, respectively, p < 0.001). In both groups, the most common communicative intention was Declarative. However, the percentage of Declaratives was higher among TD toddlers across visits compared to ASD toddlers. In both groups, most productions were directed toward the communicative partner, but ASD toddlers used Non-Communicative speech more often than TD peers. Non-Communicative speech gradually decreased over time. We conclude that while TD toddlers begin to talk with an already-established knowledge of the main communicative functions of words, ASD toddlers seem to have only a partial understanding and gradually improve communicative use as they expand their lexicon. These findings bear theoretical and practical implications for early intervention in ASD. We suggest that communicative profiles are affected by individual characteristics and by the interaction style.

Using speech to communicate pragmatic functions is challenging among individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Given the role language plays in developing everyday skills, we traced the unique pragmatic profile of early words, seeking comparison to typically developing (TD) toddlers at similar lexical stages. Twenty-four mother-toddler dyads participated (9 ASD and 15 TD). Dyads were video recorded when toddlers reached a productive lexicon of 40–70 words. These recordings were captured three times during naturalistic interaction and at two consecutive visits with a 2-month interval. Seven thousand three hundred seventy-six productions were analyzed and classified into four communicative intentions (Declaratives, Requests, Objections, and Non-Communicative speech). ASD toddlers were delayed in the emergence of words compared to TD toddlers, with a greater within-group variability (median 28 months, IQR 24.5–35, median 17 months, IQR 17–18, respectively, p < 0.001). In both groups, the most common communicative intention was Declarative. However, the percentage of Declaratives was higher among TD toddlers across visits compared to ASD toddlers. In both groups, most productions were directed toward the communicative partner, but ASD toddlers used Non-Communicative speech more often than TD peers. Non-Communicative speech gradually decreased over time. We conclude that while TD toddlers begin to talk with an already-established knowledge of the main communicative functions of words, ASD toddlers seem to have only a partial understanding and gradually improve communicative use as they expand their lexicon. These findings bear theoretical and practical implications for early intervention in ASD. We suggest that communicative profiles are affected by individual characteristics and by the interaction style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents syntactic methods of expressing the legislator’s intentions in the medieval legal document called Kodeks Działyńskich (the Działyński code). The intention is understood by the authors as ‘the goal towards which the action of the legislator is directed’. This type of element of a legislative text does not appear in modern legal texts, apart from the Code of Canon Law. However, in the oldest texts, the purpose of which was to change a functioning custom into binding law, the justification for introducing certain regulations was very important. We also pay attention to the information about the legislator, which is included in the text. The information is expressed by pluralis maiestaticus forms of performative verbs. Three types of syntactic structures serve to express the intention of the legislator: subordinate clauses introduced by the conjunction: aby, participial sentence equivalents based on the verb chcieć, and prepositional phrases with prepositions: na, ku and dla. These structures usually occur in preposition to the superior predicate. The fragments excerpted from the text are characterized by a considerable degree of cohesiveness, not only in terms of meaning but also in structure. A sentence or a participal construction in the semantic relation of the goal functions in a broader context, therefore it becomes necessary to introduce reference indicators and anaphorical elements such as repetitions, pronouns and pronominalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of the norm is not a claim, but a fundamental communicative intention of the linguistic personality. Our ability to express ourselves and to be understood, to understand others as they express themselves is a function of language proficiency and its norms and stays as a proof of this. The culture of our linguistic consciousness means mastering literary norms. Definitiveness is a grammatical phenomenon that requires a profound and categorical analysis which to become a methodology of linguistic consciousness. The science of language should here most of all answer the question “why?” Answers to the questions “what” and “how” we are using noun determiner are not sufficient for the linguistic personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing others’ gaze is most informative during social encounters between humans: We can learn about potentially salient objects in the shared environment, infer others’ mental states and detect their communicative intentions. We almost automatically follow the gaze of others in order to check the relevance of the target of the other’s attention. This phenomenon called gaze cueing can be conceptualized as a triadic interaction involving a gaze initiator, a gaze follower and a gaze target, i.e., an object or person of interest in the environment. Gaze cueing can occur as “gaze pointing” with a communicative or “social” intention by the initiator, telling the observer that she/he is meant to follow, or as an incidental event, in which the observer follows spontaneously without any intention of the observed person. Here, we investigate which gaze cues let an observer ascribe a social intention to the observed person’s gaze and whether and to which degree previous eye contact in combination with an object fixation contributes to this ascription. We varied the orientation of the starting position of gaze toward the observer and the orientation of the end position of a lateral gaze shift. In two experiments participants had to infer from the gaze behavior either mere approach (“the person looked at me”) vs. a social (“the person wanted to show me something”) or a social vs. a private motivation (“the person was interested in something”). Participants differentially attributed either approach behavior, a social, or a private intention to the agent solely based on the passive observation of the two specific gaze cues of start and end position. While for the attribution of privately motivated behavior, participants relied solely on the end position of the gaze shift, the social interpretation of the observed behavior depended additionally upon initial eye contact. Implications of these results for future social gaze and social cognition research in general are discussed.

The relevance of the article is conditioned by the vital need to comprehend prerequisites of the communicative-functional approach to translation in Russian translation studies, which, in its turn, will help reveal the inner logic of the development of translation studies, the logical changes of translation scholars' thinking, predetermined by the turns in the science itself as well as define perspectives of Translation Studies development. Grounded on a thorough analysis of the theoretical provisions voiced in the works of the founders of Russian Translation Studies, the article highlights the essence of the communicative-functional approach to translation: unlike a purely linguistic, text-oriented approach, the communicative-functional approach investigates a translation event in the framework of a specific communicative situation within which the translation is done, taking into consideration both linguistic and extralingual factors (e.g. communicative intention of the Source Text Sender, the character of the communicative effect produced on the Target Text Recipient, etc.) that influence the translation process and its outcome. The diachronic analysis of the basic categories and concepts of the communicative-functional approach is provided, the structure of interlingual and cross-cultural communication is described, the concepts of "communicative intention", "the text's dominant function", "communicative effect" and some others are redefined. The merits of the communicative-functional approach to theoretical investigation and practical realization of various types of translation, including simultaneous interpreting, in specific communicative situations are demonstrated and substantiated.

Observing others' gaze is most informative during social encounters between humans: We can learn about potentially salient objects in the shared environment, infer others' mental states and detect their communicative intentions. We almost automatically follow the gaze of others in order to check the relevance of the target of the other's attention. This phenomenon called gaze cueing can be conceptualized as a triadic interaction involving a gaze initiator, a gaze follower and a gaze target, i.e., an object or person of interest in the environment. Gaze cueing can occur as "gaze pointing" with a communicative or "social" intention by the initiator, telling the observer that she/he is meant to follow, or as an incidental event, in which the observer follows spontaneously without any intention of the observed person. Here, we investigate which gaze cues let an observer ascribe a social intention to the observed person's gaze and whether and to which degree previous eye contact in combination with an object fixation contributes to this ascription. We varied the orientation of the starting position of gaze toward the observer and the orientation of the end position of a lateral gaze shift. In two experiments participants had to infer from the gaze behavior either mere approach ("the person looked at me") vs. a social ("the person wanted to show me something") or a social vs. a private motivation ("the person was interested in something"). Participants differentially attributed either approach behavior, a social, or a private intention to the agent solely based on the passive observation of the two specific gaze cues of start and end position. While for the attribution of privately motivated behavior, participants relied solely on the end position of the gaze shift, the social interpretation of the observed behavior depended additionally upon initial eye contact. Implications of these results for future social gaze and social cognition research in general are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to David Olson's The World on Paper, in an oral exchange of information the communicative intention is actualized through non-verbal means and situational contexts; in mature literacy this intention begins to be regained through various formal procedures (graphic design, style, composition, plot elements, etc.). Prejs examines and builds on Olson's argument with reference to early modern genre studies. A writer's mere choice of genre does not always reveal his or her actual communicative intention, and can serve as a camouflage. This is not the case with the breaking of genre conventions, which usually serves to suggest a hidden intention. To highlight this phenomenon Prejs presents the Baroque anti-laments, i.e. texts that have no justification in intertextual relationships to Jan Kochanowski's Laments (Treny). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a neurocognitive system that allows the perceiver to attribute mental states, such as intentions, beliefs, or feelings, to others' actions. The aim of the present work is to analyse the engagement of the ToM system in communication, in particular, in communicative intention processing. To this aim, we propose an Intention Processing Network (IPN) with its own principles and mechanisms, that is, a brain network differentially engaged according to the complex intertwining of the context, goal, and action involved. According to our IPN model, a set of brain regions of the ToM system (i.e. left and right temporoparietal junction, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex) are differentially involved in comprehending different types of intention, such as private or social intentions. We provide independent and convergent evidence on the role of the IPN model in communicative intention processing and we show that the engagement of the IPN does not depend upon the communicative means used, that is, written language, auditory language, or gesture. Evidence deriving from different experimental paradigms, including neuroimaging, lesion, neurodegenerative, and brain stimulation studies are discussed. In our view, this evidence establishes a link between ToM and pragmatics studies and suggests the role of intention processing as a core feature of human communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the pragmatic comprehensibility of indirect reporting. The research problem is to determine how Russian EFL learners (linguists and non-linguists) are able to turn original utterances expressing the intentions of native speakers of American English in direct speech into indirect reports to a third party. Two major issues are analyzed: adequacy of semantic content and preservation of pragmatic enrichment. The study was carried out employing the framework of Kecskes' Socio-Cognitive Approach (2008, 2010, 2014, 2017). Twelve stimulus-utterances belonging to three communicative types (statements, questions, commands/requests) were video-recorded. Qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed that the participants met with some difficulties preserving the speaker's intention while interpreting attached pragmatic enrichment and perlocutionary effect. Both cohorts of Russian EFL learners were able to preserve the semantic content relatively efficiently, but encountered substantial difficulties inferring a complex pragmatic content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentative rhetoric in terms of academic adaptation is seen as a condition for the development of textual-dialogic competence; the paper provides a classification of the tasks on its formation, and an algorithm on the transformation of the primary text