Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

An introduction to the language-action perspective

An introduction to the language-action perspective An Introduction to the Language-Action Perspective Mareike Schoop Informatik V (Information Systems), RWTH Aachen, Germany schoop@cs.rwth-aachen.de THE LANGUAGE-ACTION PERSPECTIVE The Language-Action Perspective was first introduced in the field of information systems (IS) in 1980 by Flores and Ludlow [14] who argued that human beings are fundamentally linguistic beings and act through language. It was argued that language is not only used for exchanging information as in reports, statements etc. but also to perform actions, e.g. promises, orders, declarations etc. The conventional perspective on information systems stresses the contents of messages rather than the way they are exchanged [18]. For example, data flow diagrams are used as primary design tools. Thus, the focus is on the form and structure of messages [12]. In contrast, the Language-Action Perspective emphasises what people do while communicating, how language is used to create a common reality for all communication partners, and how their activities are coordinated through language. Here, the focus is on the pragmatic aspect of language, i.e. how language is used in particular contexts to achieve practical goals such as agreements or mutual understandings. This new approach argues that as social action is mediated through communication, the main role of an http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png ACM SIGOIS Bulletin Association for Computing Machinery

An introduction to the language-action perspective

Schoop, Mareike
ACM SIGOIS Bulletin , Volume 22 (2) – Aug 1, 2001
Download PDF
6 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/an-introduction-to-the-language-action-perspective-j3Re3Q4Xys

References (37)

Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by ACM Inc.
ISSN
0894-0819
DOI
10.1145/605676.605677
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

An Introduction to the Language-Action Perspective Mareike Schoop Informatik V (Information Systems), RWTH Aachen, Germany schoop@cs.rwth-aachen.de THE LANGUAGE-ACTION PERSPECTIVE The Language-Action Perspective was first introduced in the field of information systems (IS) in 1980 by Flores and Ludlow [14] who argued that human beings are fundamentally linguistic beings and act through language. It was argued that language is not only used for exchanging information as in reports, statements etc. but also to perform actions, e.g. promises, orders, declarations etc. The conventional perspective on information systems stresses the contents of messages rather than the way they are exchanged [18]. For example, data flow diagrams are used as primary design tools. Thus, the focus is on the form and structure of messages [12]. In contrast, the Language-Action Perspective emphasises what people do while communicating, how language is used to create a common reality for all communication partners, and how their activities are coordinated through language. Here, the focus is on the pragmatic aspect of language, i.e. how language is used in particular contexts to achieve practical goals such as agreements or mutual understandings. This new approach argues that as social action is mediated through communication, the main role of an

Journal

ACM SIGOIS Bulletin – Association for Computing Machinery

Published: Aug 1, 2001

There are no references for this article.