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3.2.2. Group games. In the case of a group game, the game is shared by a more-or-lessrestricted circleofpeople,and thesepeople havenormally shared the experience of structuring the game themselves. Examples of groups of this nature include Harvard Law School graduates, the Sicilian mafia, andVietnam War veterans.
3.2.3. Couplegames. Couplegamesareplayedbytwopeopleandarevalid only for those two particular people. The game played by a couple may be extended into a group game. Typically, two friends, two colleagues, or a married couple may create the new game’s structure.
Groups personalize cultural games, whereas couples personalize both culturalgamesandgroupgames,constructingrecognizablevariants.Forinstance, the way two friends greet each other may turn into a playful insult instead of theusualexchangeofwell-wishes.Itmakesuseofexactlythesamemechanism bywhichadialectofasubgroupisformedfromthenationalstandardlanguage.
Onemightaskifwidergamesexistthanthosedescribedabove,akindofset of universal games, applicable to humankind as a whole. There certainly exist behavioral schemas common to all human beings — think, for example, of a mother protecting her young who is looking for care — but to be such they must be genetically determined, hardwired into our brain right from birth. It is precisely for this reason that behaviors of this type do not come within our definition of a game.Agame remains a structure that must be learned, one that may be negotiated and rejected. For this reason, if some behavioral pattern is innate,itcannotbeconsideredabehaviorgame.Ofcourse,anyspecificaction, innate or learned, may be utilized as a move within a game.
3.3. Playing a game
An actor will play a game, provided two conditions come about: that the game beplayable,andthattheactorisinterestedinplayingthegame.Oncethevalidity conditions are guaranteed, a game must be negotiated, that is, it must be proposedandacceptedbyallthosewhocommitthemselvestotakingpartinit. Once the game has begun, it will be played by the participants for the entire course of its logical lifespan, until it reaches its natural conclusion.
3.3.1. Bidding. Bidding may take the form of a communication act or of a behavioral act corresponding to the first significant move in the game. The communication act mentions the game itself, either by name or as a metonym, that is, by referring to any of the constituent parts of the game, for instance by mentioning one of the validity conditions or one of the moves.
Once the game has been opened, it remains active until it is formally closed. Generally, it is the players themselves who indicate that the game they priorly
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agreed to play is to continue through their behavior. Not all the moves made needtobeattributedtothegame,butwhengamescontinueforalongtime,the players ensure they periodically confirm the meaning to be attributed to their actions.
In the case of competitive games, the participants must be satisfied with the way the procedures have been carried out, seeing that both parties cannot be satisfied with the results. The concept of “knowing how to lose” refers to respecting “fair play” even in defeat. This concept is greatly valued in highly competitiveenvironments,whereinterpersonalrelationshipsmustsurviveboth victory and defeat. My daughter Helen bursts into tears every time she loses at cards,takingoffenseinequalproportionatfateandatthewinner:At10yearsof age, she has not yet developed the concept of making do with the happiness providedbytheprocedure,giventhatitisdifficulttoalwaysbehappyattheresult.
3.3.2. Moves. A behavior game specifies the moves that constitute that game,atthehighestlevelofdetailpossibleinordertoavoidobligingtheactors to employ one sole mode of execution.
Broadly speaking, participants must agree as to whether a specific realization of a move may be held valid with respect to the context and the players’ goals. If a move in the game lays down that something must be done that will please one’s partner, then the action chosen by the actor will depend on what she believes will make her partner happy on that given occasion. A Havana cigar, a bottle of port, two tickets to the concert or to Polynesia: anything will do, provided it is appropriate to the situation.
3.4.Breaking of a game
Having begun a game does not necessarily mean one has to finish that game. Nevertheless, an actor who withdraws from a game is subject to social sanctions whose severity is proportionate to the importance the game has for the community. Breaking off a game does not include a person’s desire not to play that game in the first place, an option that is always open to a person. Instead, the term refers to an actor beginning a game and then withdrawing when it is her turn to make a given move.
Sometimes it is the law that guarantees a contract will be respected. In other cases, it is the social group that penalizes the individual who does not respect the rules by attempting to avoid the commitments taken on.
Theessenceofsocialpenalizationisbeingconsidereduntrustworthy.Thisis why in many cultures “losing one’s honor” is so often associated with death, eitheratone’sownhandoratthehandofanother.Thepunishmentfornothaving kept one’s word is therefore always significant, and correlated with the value that the given commitment has in that cultural context.
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From an evolutionistic point of view, the cooperative style typical of human beings obliges the group to discourage free-riders, those who benefit from participating in mutualistic endeavors without doing their part. In addition to the bad reputation that a free rider earns for himself, and which makes him a second-choice partner for the others, the honest members of the group are ready to sacrifice a part of their resources for the satisfaction of seeing him punished.Tomasello (2009) claims that both norms of cooperation and conformity are cemented by guilt and shame (“I judge myself badly before others do, if I misbehave”). I doubt that critical self-judgment be a universal human trait, but together with ill fame and threats of punishment it definitely strengthens social norms and institutional respect.
3.5. The relationship between the players
For two players to be in a position to play a game, the first issue to be cleared up is whether the nature of the relationship between them is of the type that will enable them to interact through engaging in that particular game. One static definition of the relationship between two people consists in listing the types of games they mutually recognize they may play together.
Cultural games are open to all those who share the same culture: It is generally sufficient that both people speak the same language to ensure that they can both adequately play a game of this type.
For group games to constitute part of the games two players may engage in together,bothpartnersmustrecognizetheconditionthattheybelongtothesame group.Indeed,theinitialstageofanencounterbetweentwostrangersisusually devoted to determining whether there are groups that both people belong to:
(10) Are we by chance both linguists, or vegetarians, or supporters of Milan Football Club, or card-carrying members of the Republican Party, or opera fanatics, or ex-convicts, or both divorced?
The set of groups the two people are both members of defines the type of games that will be mutually recognized, even though it does not automatically follow that a game that is known will have to be played. Group membership always creates some degree of reciprocity among people.
Furthermore, as we have already seen, acquaintance with a game does not imply that both people will wish to engage in that game with each other. This emergesinanevenstarkerfashionwhenweconsidergamesplayedbycouples, which are connected to two specific individuals. We may be willing to accept physicalcontactwithafriendthoughwefindsuchbehaviorinothersintolerable.
The relationship thus becomes the generator of constraints and affordances, startingfromgamesthathavebeenplayedorthatunquestionablybelongtothe sphere of common culture, to arrive at those games that may potentially be
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played, but whose execution depends on the reciprocal perception of the two actors. Thus, in asking the other person something, the actor implies that she believes that both parties consider the relationship such that it justifies the question she has just asked.
3.6.Conversation game
A conversation game may be defined as a set of tasks that each participant in theconversationhastofulfillinagivensequence.Eachtaskischaracteristicof a phase in the generation/comprehension process that will be described in the next session. Furthermore, a conversation game specifies how the different phases have to be linked up both in standard and in nonstandard cases.
In each phase, the task associated with that phase is carried out employing a set of inference rules called base-level rules. The conversation game may be epitomized as a set of metarules that define both the task to be carried out in each phase and which task is to be activated next. The concept of a rule is employed in formalizing an analytical description. Naturally, nothing of the sort exists in the brain. Everything is realized through neuronal activity.
In each phase, the metarule associated with that phase defines the task by means of a logical formula that is obtained from the application of the baselevel rules. In addition, the metarule also establishes what must be done both when the task is completed and when it is not executed.
Thusitistheconversationgamethatestablisheshowadialogue(asequence of speech acts) is carried out.Adialogue is a highly structured activity involving at least two agents.
Cognitivepragmaticsviewstheglobalstructureofdialoguesasderivingfrom sharing the knowledge of an action plan. Consequently, the global structure of adialoguedoesnotderivefromlinguisticrules,butfrombehaviorgames.Insum, the behavior game governs the interaction as a whole, whereas the conversationgameisresponsiblefortheharmoniouslocaldevelopmentofthedialogue.
4. Generation and comprehension of communication acts
Idonotintendtoanalyzeanelementaryexchangeinadialogueinformalterms, but to explain the scheme of conversation in its entirety, since the latter is a special and fundamental case of communication among humans. Conversation is not so much a game of table tennis, in which the agents alternatively exchangeinformation,asacommunalandsimultaneousefforttobuildsomething together.
Awarenessofthisfactdoesnot, however,exemptusfromanalyzing conversation down to its smallest unit, for a microscopic decomposition of the com-
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munal construction brings out the alternating nature of the dialogic structure, a structure that is also composed of intervals between the recognizable alternating turns.The construction of meaning takes place in parallel fashion, not consecutively.Analysis,however,hasitsownsetofrequirements,anddecomposition into constituent units is just as useful as the reconstruction of the full complexity of the natural state of conversation.
The general scheme is as follows: the actor produces an utterance; the partner builds a representation of its meaning. The mental states of the partner pertaining to the topic of the conversation may be modified by com prehension of the utterance(s). The partner then plans the next move in
the conversation, |
which he then generates. The rules proposed comprise |
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model of communication acts that range from comprehension to |
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thatis,fromthereconstructionofthemeaningintendedbythespeaker |
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to the establishment of the high-level intentions required to generate the response .
AssumingthatactorAproducesanutteranceaddressedtopartnerB,wemay distinguish five logically connected steps in B’s mental processes:
Stage1.Expressionact,whereA’smentalstateisreconstructedbyBstarting from the locutionary act.
Stage 2. Speaker meaning, where B reconstructs A’s communicative intentions, including the case of indirect speech.
Stage 3. Communicative effect, which consists of two processes:
(a) attribution, where B attributes toAprivate mental states such as beliefs and intentions; and
(b) adjustment, where B’s mental states concerning the topic of the conversation may be altered as a result ofA’s utterance.
Stage 4. Reaction, where B produces the intentions he will communicate in his response.
Stage 5. Response, in which B produces an overt communicative response.
The linking together of these five stages is managed by the conversation game: stated more formally, it is the equivalent of a set of metarules.The standard sequence is that described, from stage 1 through to stage 5. However, if any one of the first three stages fails to complete its task, the normal chain is interruptedandtheprocessmovesdirectlyontotheresponsestage.Thisisdue to the fact that the conversation game lays down the rule that the partner will reacttotheactor’sutterance,evenwhenhedoesnotunderstandit.Thishemay do, for instance, by asking for clarification. The global outline of these five stages is sketched out in Figure 5.
The execution of each task is governed by a set of base-level rules that de- finewhichdominion-dependentinferencesaretobeemployedtocarryoutthat task.Theseruleshavedifferentrolesinthevariousprocesses.Imuststressthat
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