Chapter 3
The Psychological Foundations
of the Grammar
Chapter 3 situates the assumptions which underpin Brazil’s grammar within
the wider literature. Section 1 considers if the division of used language
into telling and asking exchanges provides a realistic description of what
people do when they engage in conversation. As the division of used
language into telling and asking exchanges is ultimately dependent on the
interlocutors’ apprehension of the state of speaker/hearer understanding,
Section 2 reviews the literature on the kind and amount of shared know-
ledge^1 required for successful communication. Brazil (1997: 70) argues
that speakers frame their messages on the basis of their assumption of
the state of ‘speaker-hearer convergence’ but does not develop a formal
mechanism explaining how speakers are able to assess the state of speaker-
hearer convergence. Section 2 shows that the apparently intuitive concept
of shared knowledge is in fact problematic. A defi nition of shared know-
ledge which appears suffi ciently robust to explain what people do when
they communicate, and immune from the criticisms levelled at the concept
of shared knowledge is proposed.
Sections 3 to 6 situate the premises which underpin Brazil’s theory within
the literature. Each one of Brazil’s four premises, described in the previous
chapter, is evaluated. First, the premise that speech is purposeful, a belief most
closely associated with speech act theorists, is evaluated by describing the
principles underlying speech act theory and evaluating claims that intona-
tion signals illocutionary force and that intonation can disambiguate the
illocutionary force of utterances. Then the premise that speech is interactive is
examined. Discourse intonation is compared and contrasted with two infl u-
ential theories which explore the discoursal function of intonation. Section 4
also reviews recent work which suggests that some instances of level tone are
‘used language’ and considers how such instances of level tone should be
coded in the grammar. Section 5 evaluates the premise that speech is cooperative.
It describes Grice’s maxims, draws a connection between Grice’s seminal
work and the subsequent work of Sperber and Wilson, and shows how, despite