T Holtgraves
Biographic Data
| ID | 57953 |
|---|---|
| NAME | T Holtgraves |
| GIVEN NAMES | T |
| FAMILY NAME | Holtgraves |
| SIGNATURE | HOLTGRAVES T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ball State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0764-6923 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 364 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Interpreting Microaggressions: The Role of Discourse Context, Recipient Status, and Observers’ Political Orientation
Microaggressions require an inferential process for their aggressive intent to be recognized. Using approaches from pragmatics, especially relevance theory, we conducted experiments to examine factors predicted to influence perceptions of an utterance as a microaggression. Participants read scenarios describing an interaction between two people and indicated their perceptions of a target remark. We expected and found that an utterance was more li…
A study of linguistic mitigation, writer empathy and recipient personality in requesting and bringing bad news via email
The role of emoji in the communication of specific emotions
This study investigated the role of emoji in the implicit communication of specific emotions in digital contexts. Sender participants (N = 46) created text messages designed to communicate 22 specific emotions. Senders were not allowed to name the emotion being conveyed but were allowed to include emoji with their message. Receiver participants attempted to identify the emotions being conveyed, with either a free-response (N = 46) or multiple-cho…
Emoji, Speech Acts, and Perceived Communicative Success
Unlike prior research examining how emoji communicate emotions and modify intended meanings, the present research examined whether emoji can perform specific speech acts (remind, etc.), and how well users are able to accurately assess their ability to do so. In four experiments senders were asked to assume that they would send a specific emoji to perform a certain speech act, or to choose which emoji they would use to perform that speech act. Sen…
Experimental Pragmatics
Experimental techniques (e.g., reaction time and EEG) are now frequently used to study a variety of pragmatic phenomena. In this entry, I provide an overview of how these techniques have been used to empirically examine how adults comprehend nonliteral meaning. The specific pragmatic phenomena reviewed include indirect requests, indirect replies, figures of speech (metaphors and idioms), scalar expressions, politeness, speech act recognition, and…
Microaggressions in Context: Linguistic and Pragmatic Perspectives
In this commentary I provide a review of the microaggression construct within a linguistic-pragmatic framework. From this perspective, microaggressions can be viewed as nonconventional indirect speech acts, that is, utterances that, because of their aggressive meaning, require some type of inferential processing on the part of the hearer. This inferential process requires a consideration of the remark in the context within which it occurs, includ…
How people perceive and talk about miscommunication
Digitally saving face: An experimental investigation of cross-cultural differences in the use of emoticons and emoji
Texting and the Language of Everyday Deception
Two experiments were conducted to examine the production and detection of common, everyday deception. Experiment 1 was a naturalistic study in which participants provided their most recent truthful and deceptive (both sent and received) text messages. Participants in Experiment 2 were asked to generate text messages that were either deceptive or truthful. Messages in both experiments were analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)…
Politeness
This chapter reviews the major experimental approaches to politeness and considers the theoretical implications of these approaches for the domains of semantics and pragmatics. After a brief overview of the major theoretical orientations to politeness, a detailed review of empirical research on Brown & Levinson’s (B&L) politeness theory, as well as the issues raised by this research, is provided. Major critiques of the B&L model, and alternative …
Speech act recognition in Spanish speakers
Interpreting uncertainty terms
Uncertainty terms (e.g., some, possible, good, etc.) are words that do not have a fixed referent and hence are relatively ambiguous. A model is proposed that specifies how, from the hearer's perspective, recognition of facework as a potential motive for the use of an uncertainty term results in a calibration of the intended meaning of that term. Four experiments are reported that examine the impact of face threat, and the variables that affect it…
Celebrating Thirty Years of the JLSP: Analyses and Prospects
The Journal of Language and Social Psychology has been publishing articles for 30 years. In this article, three different kinds of analyses (viz., content codings, word clouds, and a textual procedure) examining trends over and between the three decades are reported. Drawing on these, future directions for the journal and the field in general are anticipated and proposed
Text messaging, personality, and the social context
Social Psychology and Language: Words, Utterances, and Conversations
Parkinson's Disease and Politeness
Prior research suggests that people with Parkinson's disease (PD) display certain deficiencies in their use of language. In this research, the authors used a role-playing technique to examine their ability to say things politely and to vary their level of politeness as a function of the social context. PD participants, relative to control participants, produced less polite strategies and failed to vary their politeness as a function of the size o…
Evaluating the Problem Gambling Severity Index
Second Language Learners and Speech Act Comprehension
Recognizing the specific speech act (Searle, 1969) that a speaker performs with an utterance is a fundamental feature of pragmatic competence. Past research has demonstrated that native speakers of English automatically recognize speech acts when they comprehend utterances (Holtgraves & Ashley, 2001). The present research examined whether this occurs for participants learning English as a second language. Participants read conversational utteranc…
Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and Linguistic Politeness
Politeness can be viewed as a theoretical construct existing at the intersection of cultural, social, cognitive, and linguistic processes. Because of this, an understanding of politeness requires an understanding of its social-cognitive underpinnings, and conversely, an understanding of many social-cognitive phenomena can be improved by considering the role played by politeness in those processes. In this article I review research on the social-c…
The production and perception of implicit performatives
The Role of Different Markers of Linguistic Powerlessness in Persuasion
This research examined the unique effects of different markers of linguistic powerlessness (hedges, hesitations, and tag questions) on persuasion. Participants read (Experiment 1) or listened to (Experiment 2) a communication advocating comprehensive exams. Under high message relevance, messages containing powerless markers resulted in less favorable attitudes and more negative perceptions of the message and source than did the control message. T…
Social Desirability and Self-Reports: Testing Models of Socially Desirable Responding
The present research investigated the cognitive processes involved in responding to self-report items under varying conditions of social desirability. Participants in three experiments judged the extent to which a set of items (personality traits in Experiments 1 and 2; behaviors in Experiment 3) described them under instructions that either increased or decreased concerns with social desirability. Under most conditions, instructions that produce…
Repressors and memory: Effects of self-deception, impression management, and mood
Comprehending Speaker Meaning
This paper reviews research on the comprehension of speaker meaning. The starting point for this review is Grice’s (1975) theory of conversational implicature, an extremely heuristic approach but one that is incomplete in several respects. The present review centers on the processes that are involved in the generation of conversational implicatures, and the specific inferences that recipients will tend to generate. In terms of processing, researc…
Preference Organization and Reply Comprehension
In conversations, turns that are dispreferred (e.g., refusing an offer) are marked in various ways (e.g., with delays, prefaces, more complex syntax, etc.). The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of one such marker-a "well" preface-on the comprehension of nonliteral meanings. One possible psychological function of dispreferred markers is that they signal the operation of face management concerns. As a result, the presence of dispr…
Language structure in social interaction: Perceptions of direct and indirect speech acts and interactants who use them
Speech acts (Searle, 1975) can be performed either directly or in various indirect ways. It is argued that the appropriateness of this choice is affected by the process of face management and the relative status of the speaker, and the choice of how to perform speech acts will encode social information. A written scenario format was used, and in Experiment 1, subjects rated direct and indirect questions and replies as a function of the status of …
Politeness as universal: Cross-cultural perceptions of request strategies and inferences based on their use
Interpersonal underpinnings of request strategies: General principles and differences due to culture and gender
Styles of language use: Individual and cultural variability in conversational indirectness
People differ in terms of whether they express their meanings directly or indirectly and whether they look for indirect meanings in remarks of others. Although many researchers have noted these differences, empirical research on this topic has been rare. This article reports the development and validation of a measure that assesses the production of indirectness (the extent to which a person phrases his or her remarks directly or indirectly) and …
The Linguistic Realization of Face Management: Implications for Language Production and Comprehension, Person Perception, and Cross-Cultural Communication
Thomas Holtgraves, The Linguistic Realization of Face Management: Implications for Language Production and Comprehension, Person Perception, and Cross-Cultural Communication, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 2, Special Issue: Theoretical Advances in Social Psychology (Jun., 1992), pp. 141-159
The Role of Different Markers of Linguistic Powerlessness in Persuasion
This research examined the unique effects of different markers of linguistic powerlessness (hedges, hesitations, and tag questions) on persuasion. Participants read (Experiment 1) or listened to (Experiment 2) a communication advocating comprehensive exams. Under high message relevance, messages containing powerless markers resulted in less favorable attitudes and more negative perceptions of the message and source than did the control message. T…
Yes, but: Positive Politeness in Conversation Arguments
This article describes some of the linguistic mechanisms people use when engaging in disagreements with one another. Unacquainted students discussed an issue on which they had opposing views. These disagreements were then transcribed and examined for the occurrence of politeness strategies. There was evidence for many of the positively polite strategies described by Brown and Levinson, as well as several previously undocumented strategies that ap…
Linguistic Power and Persuasion
This study examined the role of linguistic power in persuasion. Participants listened to a persuasive message conveyed in either a powerless style (frequent hedges, hesitations, and tag questions) or a powerful style (the absence of these features). In addition, the ability of participants to process the message and speaker gender were manipulated. Participants who heard the powerless version perceived the speaker and the arguments more negativel…
Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill: The Effects of Label and Beliefs
Labeling theory posits that people labeled mentally ill experience negative societal reactions. Past research on this question is contradictory, due primarily to methodological problems. This study overcomes some of these problems by having respondents indicate their willingness to interact with a person with a specific mental disorder, or with an identically behaving person with a specific physical disorder. As expected, respondents reject the m…
Conversation memory: The effects of speaker status on memory for the assertiveness of conversation remarks
We conducted three experiments to examine the effects of information about a speaker's status on memory for the assertiveness of his or her remarks. Subjects either read (Experiments 1 and 2) or listened to a conversation (Experiment 3) and were later tested for their memory of the target speaker's remarks with either a recognition (Experiment 1) or a recall procedure (Experiments 2 and 3). In all experiments the target speaker's ostensible statu…
The Form and Function of Remedial Moves: Reported Use, Psychological Reality and Perceived Effectiveness
Three studies were conducted to examine the form and function of remedial moves. In the first study, the remedial moves that subjects reported using and receiving were analysed for frequency of occurrence. A surprisingly large percentage (55%) of these moves involved a combination of concessions and accounts. Subjects in the second study sorted into categories a sample of these remedial moves. A hierarchical cluster analysis of these sorts provid…
Digitally saving face: An experimental investigation of cross-cultural differences in the use of emoticons and emoji
Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and Linguistic Politeness
Politeness can be viewed as a theoretical construct existing at the intersection of cultural, social, cognitive, and linguistic processes. Because of this, an understanding of politeness requires an understanding of its social-cognitive underpinnings, and conversely, an understanding of many social-cognitive phenomena can be improved by considering the role played by politeness in those processes. In this article I review research on the social-c…
Text messaging, personality, and the social context
The production and perception of implicit performatives
Perceptions of unresponsive others: Attributions, attraction, understandability, and memory of their utterances
Celebrating Thirty Years of the JLSP: Analyses and Prospects
The Journal of Language and Social Psychology has been publishing articles for 30 years. In this article, three different kinds of analyses (viz., content codings, word clouds, and a textual procedure) examining trends over and between the three decades are reported. Drawing on these, future directions for the journal and the field in general are anticipated and proposed
Second Language Learners and Speech Act Comprehension
Recognizing the specific speech act (Searle, 1969) that a speaker performs with an utterance is a fundamental feature of pragmatic competence. Past research has demonstrated that native speakers of English automatically recognize speech acts when they comprehend utterances (Holtgraves & Ashley, 2001). The present research examined whether this occurs for participants learning English as a second language. Participants read conversational utteranc…
Speech act recognition in Spanish speakers
Interpreting uncertainty terms
Uncertainty terms (e.g., some, possible, good, etc.) are words that do not have a fixed referent and hence are relatively ambiguous. A model is proposed that specifies how, from the hearer's perspective, recognition of facework as a potential motive for the use of an uncertainty term results in a calibration of the intended meaning of that term. Four experiments are reported that examine the impact of face threat, and the variables that affect it…
Preference Organization and Reply Comprehension
In conversations, turns that are dispreferred (e.g., refusing an offer) are marked in various ways (e.g., with delays, prefaces, more complex syntax, etc.). The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of one such marker-a "well" preface-on the comprehension of nonliteral meanings. One possible psychological function of dispreferred markers is that they signal the operation of face management concerns. As a result, the presence of dispr…
Interpreting Questions and Replies: Effects of Face-Threat, Question Form, and Gender
Research shows that face management (Goffman 1967) is an important variable affecting how speakers phrase their remarks. The present research examines the possibility that face concerns also could affect the interpretation of remarks
Repressors and memory: Effects of self-deception, impression management, and mood
Repressors: What Do They Repress and How Do They Repress It
The Muhammad Ali effect: Differences between African Americans and European Americans in their perceptions of a truthful bragger
Perceptions of unresponsive others: Attributions, attraction, understandability, and memory of their utterances
Language structure in social interaction: Perceptions of direct and indirect speech acts and interactants who use them
Speech acts (Searle, 1975) can be performed either directly or in various indirect ways. It is argued that the appropriateness of this choice is affected by the process of face management and the relative status of the speaker, and the choice of how to perform speech acts will encode social information. A written scenario format was used, and in Experiment 1, subjects rated direct and indirect questions and replies as a function of the status of …
Conversation memory: The effects of speaker status on memory for the assertiveness of conversation remarks
We conducted three experiments to examine the effects of information about a speaker's status on memory for the assertiveness of his or her remarks. Subjects either read (Experiments 1 and 2) or listened to a conversation (Experiment 3) and were later tested for their memory of the target speaker's remarks with either a recognition (Experiment 1) or a recall procedure (Experiments 2 and 3). In all experiments the target speaker's ostensible statu…
The Form and Function of Remedial Moves: Reported Use, Psychological Reality and Perceived Effectiveness
Three studies were conducted to examine the form and function of remedial moves. In the first study, the remedial moves that subjects reported using and receiving were analysed for frequency of occurrence. A surprisingly large percentage (55%) of these moves involved a combination of concessions and accounts. Subjects in the second study sorted into categories a sample of these remedial moves. A hierarchical cluster analysis of these sorts provid…
Ordered and unordered retrieval strategies in person memory
Politeness as universal: Cross-cultural perceptions of request strategies and inferences based on their use
Interpreting Questions and Replies: Effects of Face-Threat, Question Form, and Gender
Research shows that face management (Goffman 1967) is an important variable affecting how speakers phrase their remarks. The present research examines the possibility that face concerns also could affect the interpretation of remarks
Depression and processing information about others
The Linguistic Realization of Face Management: Implications for Language Production and Comprehension, Person Perception, and Cross-Cultural Communication
Thomas Holtgraves, The Linguistic Realization of Face Management: Implications for Language Production and Comprehension, Person Perception, and Cross-Cultural Communication, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 2, Special Issue: Theoretical Advances in Social Psychology (Jun., 1992), pp. 141-159
Interpersonal underpinnings of request strategies: General principles and differences due to culture and gender
Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill: The Effects of Label and Beliefs
Labeling theory posits that people labeled mentally ill experience negative societal reactions. Past research on this question is contradictory, due primarily to methodological problems. This study overcomes some of these problems by having respondents indicate their willingness to interact with a person with a specific mental disorder, or with an identically behaving person with a specific physical disorder. As expected, respondents reject the m…
The Muhammad Ali effect: Differences between African Americans and European Americans in their perceptions of a truthful bragger
Repressors: What Do They Repress and How Do They Repress It
Styles of language use: Individual and cultural variability in conversational indirectness
People differ in terms of whether they express their meanings directly or indirectly and whether they look for indirect meanings in remarks of others. Although many researchers have noted these differences, empirical research on this topic has been rare. This article reports the development and validation of a measure that assesses the production of indirectness (the extent to which a person phrases his or her remarks directly or indirectly) and …
Yes, but: Positive Politeness in Conversation Arguments
This article describes some of the linguistic mechanisms people use when engaging in disagreements with one another. Unacquainted students discussed an issue on which they had opposing views. These disagreements were then transcribed and examined for the occurrence of politeness strategies. There was evidence for many of the positively polite strategies described by Brown and Levinson, as well as several previously undocumented strategies that ap…
Linguistic Power and Persuasion
This study examined the role of linguistic power in persuasion. Participants listened to a persuasive message conveyed in either a powerless style (frequent hedges, hesitations, and tag questions) or a powerful style (the absence of these features). In addition, the ability of participants to process the message and speaker gender were manipulated. Participants who heard the powerless version perceived the speaker and the arguments more negativel…
Preference Organization and Reply Comprehension
In conversations, turns that are dispreferred (e.g., refusing an offer) are marked in various ways (e.g., with delays, prefaces, more complex syntax, etc.). The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of one such marker-a "well" preface-on the comprehension of nonliteral meanings. One possible psychological function of dispreferred markers is that they signal the operation of face management concerns. As a result, the presence of dispr…
Comprehending Speaker Meaning
This paper reviews research on the comprehension of speaker meaning. The starting point for this review is Grice’s (1975) theory of conversational implicature, an extremely heuristic approach but one that is incomplete in several respects. The present review centers on the processes that are involved in the generation of conversational implicatures, and the specific inferences that recipients will tend to generate. In terms of processing, researc…
Repressors and memory: Effects of self-deception, impression management, and mood
Social Desirability and Self-Reports: Testing Models of Socially Desirable Responding
The present research investigated the cognitive processes involved in responding to self-report items under varying conditions of social desirability. Participants in three experiments judged the extent to which a set of items (personality traits in Experiments 1 and 2; behaviors in Experiment 3) described them under instructions that either increased or decreased concerns with social desirability. Under most conditions, instructions that produce…
Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and Linguistic Politeness
Politeness can be viewed as a theoretical construct existing at the intersection of cultural, social, cognitive, and linguistic processes. Because of this, an understanding of politeness requires an understanding of its social-cognitive underpinnings, and conversely, an understanding of many social-cognitive phenomena can be improved by considering the role played by politeness in those processes. In this article I review research on the social-c…
The production and perception of implicit performatives
The Role of Different Markers of Linguistic Powerlessness in Persuasion
This research examined the unique effects of different markers of linguistic powerlessness (hedges, hesitations, and tag questions) on persuasion. Participants read (Experiment 1) or listened to (Experiment 2) a communication advocating comprehensive exams. Under high message relevance, messages containing powerless markers resulted in less favorable attitudes and more negative perceptions of the message and source than did the control message. T…
Second Language Learners and Speech Act Comprehension
Recognizing the specific speech act (Searle, 1969) that a speaker performs with an utterance is a fundamental feature of pragmatic competence. Past research has demonstrated that native speakers of English automatically recognize speech acts when they comprehend utterances (Holtgraves & Ashley, 2001). The present research examined whether this occurs for participants learning English as a second language. Participants read conversational utteranc…
Evaluating the Problem Gambling Severity Index
Psychology (39 works) · Social Psychology (28 works) · Linguistics (27 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (24 works) · Cognitive psychology (17 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (16 works) · Perception (16 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Digital Communication and Language (11 works)