Language as a Window into Social Relations

Opening Puzzle from Fargo

• Scene Description: Kidnapper caught without plates, policeman asks for license
• Kidnapper's Response: Offers a $50 bill and says "Maybe we should take care of it here in Brainard"
  • A veiled bribe; linguistically an "indirect direct speech act"

Indirect Direct Speech Acts

• Definition: Not directly stating intentions but using innuendo
• Example Statements:
  • "If you could pass the guacamole, that would be awesome."
  • "Fundraising euphemistic language" = "Give us money."
  • E.g., "Would you like to come up and see my etchings?" (sexual connotation)
• Purpose: To veil true intent while making it understood

Why Veil Intentions?

• Two Jobs of Language:
  • Convey content (e.g., bribe, request)
  • Negotiate relationship type
• Double-Level Communication
  • Speaker hints subtly while allowing listener to infer true intent
  • Example: polite request avoids perceived dominance

Three Major Human Relationship Types (Anthropologist Alan Fisk)

• Dominance: Hierarchical; inherited from primates
  • Logic: Don't mess with me
• Communality: Sharing resources; evolved via kin selection and mutualism
  • Logic: Share and share alike
• Reciprocity: Tit-for-tat exchanges; reciprocal altruism
  • Logic: You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours

Context-Dependent Acceptability

• Examples:
  • Helping yourself to food from a partner's plate (Communality), not from a boss's plate (Dominance)
  • Paying a friend for dinner (Reciprocity) vs. a host at a dinner party (Communality)
• Awkwardness: When relationship types are ambiguous
  • E.g., addressing a boss by first name, inviting them for a beer
  • Major business transactions between friends (Reciprocity vs. Communality)

Concept of Mutual Knowledge

• Definition: Different from individual knowledge; everyone knows that everyone else knows, ad infinitum
• Implications:
  • Freedom of assembly; political revolutions
  • "The Emperor's New Clothes"; public realization
• Language's Role: Explicit language creates mutual knowledge

Innuendos vs. Direct Speech

• Illustration: When Harry Met Sally scene
• Direct Speech: Creates mutual knowledge; more awkward
  • E.g., "Would you like to come up and have sex?" vs. "See my etchings?"
• Hypothesis: Innuendos provide individual knowledge; direct speech creates undeniable mutual knowledge

Conclusion

• Moral: Explicit language affects the perception and reality of relationships because it creates mutual knowledge.