Language and Consciousness

Abstract

The notion of consciousness is seen as being important to linguistics as well as psychology, and specifically to the linguistic distinction between GIVEN and NEW information. Given information is suggested to be that which the speaker assumes to be already present in the addressee's consciousness at the time of an utterance, and an example is discussed at length. Some attention is then given to contrastiveness, a separate phenomenon which is apt to be confused with new information. There follows a brief sketch of some related work in linguistics, together with a few remarks on the status of consciousness within the mainstream of modern psychology, as contrasted with the status of the notion in earlier times. Attention is then turned to the question of why a speaker treats certain information as given, and various grounds for doing so are illustrated. The converse question of why a speaker may stop treating something as given is also discussed. Finally, it is noted that, in certain definable instances, speakers exhibit a mild degree of egocentrism in their assumptions regarding the addressee's consciousness. This point is illustrated with reference to quotations and shallow memory.

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