Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36470125›Full record

ReviewBrain and language2023

Linguistic signs in action: The neuropragmatics of speech acts.

Rosario Tomasello

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Brain and language, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Pragmatics: Exploring language use by younger generations in Pedi families.The South African journal of communication disorders = Die Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir Kommunikasieafwykings · 2025
    Article
  4. Theory of Mind and the brain substrates of direct and indirect communicative action understanding.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  5. Article
  6. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Rosario TomaselloBrain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence 'Matters of Activity. Image Space Material', Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: Tomasello.R@fu-berlin.de.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

What makes human communication exceptional is the ability to grasp speaker's intentions beyond what is said verbally. How the brain processes communicative functions is one of the central concerns of the neurobiology of language and pragmatics. Linguistic-pragmatic theories define these functions as speech acts, and various pragmatic traits characterise them at the levels of propositional content, action sequence structure, related commitments and social aspects. Here I discuss recent neurocognitive studies, which have shown that the use of identical linguistic signs in conveying different communicative functions elicits distinct and ultra-rapid neural responses. Interestingly, cortical areas show differential involvement underlying various pragmatic features related to theory-of-mind, emotion and action for specific speech acts expressed with the same utterances. Drawing on a neurocognitive model, I posit that understanding speech acts involves the expectation of typical partner follow-up actions and that this predictive knowledge is immediately reflected in mind and brain.

Indexed as

LinguisticsSpeechBrainCommunicationComprehensionHumansLanguageCommunicative functionsContextDialogue structureEEGfMRILanguage gamesNeuropragmaticsPragmaticsSocial interactionSpeech acts

Identifiers

PMID36470125
PMCPMC9856589

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.