Clark, H. and Haviland 1977

Clark, Herbert H., and Susan E. Haviland. 1977. "Comprehension and the given-new contract." In Freedle 1977. Interest level: academic.

Defines conversation as a cooperative enterprise and discusses conventions people follow to ensure smooth give and take of information. Refers to Grice's unpublished 1967 lectures (Logic and conversation) and quotes four ways the speaker is expected to be cooperative:

• quantity
• quality
• relevance, and
• manner.

Discusses an unspoken agreement between speaker and listener called the given-new contract, and shows how it plays a central role in the process of interpreting sentences in English. Three important requirements of the given-new contract are

• appropriateness
• uniqueness (one antecedent, not two or more), and
• computability.

Discusses constraints on sentences that can follow one another in good prose. Shows the contribution to comprehension if the speaker gives a general idea of the context of sentences, before giving details. Basic goal of strategies is to help listeners integrate new information into what they already know.

• Bibliography module: Clark, H. and Haviland 1977
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): C
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 May 1999

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