Dogs discriminate human direction of attention cues, such as body, gaze, head and eye orientation, in several circumstances. Eye contact particularly seems to provide information on human readiness to communicate; when there is such an ostensive cue, dogs tend to follow human communicative gestures more often. However, little is known about how such cues influence the production of communicativ...

Pragmatic ambivalence refers to a linguistic phenomenon in which the communicator uses vague or ambiguous words convey illocutionary force other party in specific context. It is an indispensable communicative strategy for successful communication daily activities. Relevance theory can explain pragmatic ambivalence from three aspects: intentional relevance, contextual relevance and reasoni...

Communication can be seen as the main ingredient in medical care. In reviewing doctor-patient communication, the following topics are addressed: (1) different purposes of medical communication; (2) analysis of doctor-patient communication; (3) specific communicative behaviors; (4) the influence of communicative behaviors on patient outcomes; and (5) concluding remarks. Three different purposes ...