Search results for "relevance theory"
showing 10 items of 19 documents
Differentiating among pragmatic uses of words through timed sensicality judgments
2013
Pragmatic and cognitive accounts of figurative language posit a difference between metaphor and metonymy in terms of underlying conceptual operations. Recently, other pragmatic uses of words have been accounted for in the Relevance Theory framework, such as approximation, described in terms of conceptual adjustment that varies in degree and direction with respect to the case of metaphor. Despite the theoretical distinctions, there is very poor experimental evidence addressing the metaphor/metonymy distinction, and none concerning approximation. Here we used meticulously built materials to investigate the interpretation mechanisms of these three phenomena through timed sensicality judgments.…
Comprensione come performance. Modelli pragmatici tra euristiche «fast and frugal»e vincoli biocogntivi
2018
The meaning of an utterance is a logical issue which has to be considered as such regardless of the biocognitive constraints operating in our bodies. This (traditional) thesis assumes a definite notion of rationality that doen’t seem to withstand what we know about the limits of our rationality (Kahneman, Tversky 1979) and what emerges from the empirical evidences of cognitive sciences. These evidences pro- vide a more plausible image of linguistic comprehension, beyond there use in the context of Relevance Theory and in the psycholinguistic perspectives of the Good Enough Approach. Starting from this framework an approach to linguistic compre- hension is outlined where the performative asp…
Default Semantics and the architecture of the mind
2011
In this paper, I explore the relationship between Relevance Theory and Jaszczolt's Default Semantics, framing this debate within the picture of massive modularity tempered by the idea of brain plasticity (Perkins, 2007). While Relevance Theory focuses on processing (see cognitive efforts and contextual effects interplay), Default Semantics focuses on types of sources from which addressees draw information and types of processes that interact in providing it. In particular, I argue that Relevance Theory interacts with default semantics by standardizing inferences which are ultimately compressed (to use a term by Bach, 1998) into a default semantics. I briefly discuss potential obstacles to t…
Leaps and bounds : towards an integrative theory of cultural evolution
2014
Tutkimuksessa pyritään yhdistämään ajatus kulttuurista eräänlaisen luonnonvalinnan alaisena Dan Sperberin näkemyksien (1) kommunikaation taustadynamiikasta tarkoitet-tujen merkityksien päättelynä niiden kontekstisidonnaisen merkittävyyden perusteella ja (2) erilaisten käsityksien eri kohteista leviämisen suhteen. Tällaisen yhdentävän viiteke-hyksen turvin pyritään vastaamaan pätevästi Sperberin kritiikkiin koskien darwinilaisen luonnonvalinnan soveltamista kulttuurin ilmiöihin. Näihin kritiikkeihin lukeutuvat väitteet, että (1) kulttuurin muutostiheys on liian korkea evoluution tuloksien kasautumisen mahdol-listamiseksi, (2) yleistykset koskien sisältöjä ovat kestämättömiä tehtyjen yliyksin…
The interdependence of repetition and relevance in university lectures
2012
Abstract The world of professional communication includes so many innovative practices that a 25-century-old typology on repetition like Aristotle's or even a 40-year-old theory on relevance like Grice's might seem obsolete or hardly appealing for today's lecturers. This research aims to examine and illustrate the interdependence between relevance and repetition in current lecturing by firstly reviewing the main communicative strategies used to indicate relevance in this genre, highlighting the essential role of repetition when understanding and processing relevant information. After providing an account of the most frequent repetition mechanisms lecturers currently employ, a corpus of busi…
On the social practice of indirect reports (further advances in the theory of pragmemes)
2010
Abstract This paper deals with the social practice of indirect reports and treats them as cases of language games. It proposes a number of principles like the following: Paraphrasis/Form Principle The that-clause embedded in the verb ‘say’ is a paraphrasis of what Y said, and meets the following constraints: should Y hear what X said he (Y) had said, he would not take issue with it, as to content, but would approve of it as a fair paraphrasis of his original utterance. Furthermore, he would not object to vocalizing the assertion made out of the words following the complementizer ‘that’ on account of its form/style. Furthermore, it connects such principles with Relevance Theory consideration…
Do discourse markers exist? On the treatment of discourse markers in Relevance Theory
2008
Abstract This paper critically reviews three Relevance Theory (RT) ideas on connectives: the distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning, connectives as strictly procedural elements, and monosemy as the best explanation of multifunctional connectives. These three ideas underlie the description of connectives and related sets of markers within RT. Data from colloquial conversations, however, provide evidence which calls these ideas into question. Therefore, it is argued that conceptual and procedural features can coexist within a single marker, that the concept of apposition markers should be reconsidered, that conceptual expressions can connect two utterances, and that polysemy pr…
Lexical Pragmatics: Relevance Theory and Generalized Conversational Implicatures
2003
maruenda@uv.es
Procedural semantics, metarepresentation, and some particles in Behdini Kurdish
2012
Contemporary studies in the linguistic semantics of particles have been greatly influenced by two ideas: that these items trigger pragmatic processing procedures rather than provide purely conceptual content, and that the procedures that some of them trigger relate to the recovery of metarepresentations. Recent developments in the theory of procedural semantics have introduced some refinements, notably the claim that these procedures may not all relate primarily to comprehension per se but may also relate to the epistemic assessment of communicated claims. This paper discusses three particles in Behdini Kurdish in the light of these theoretical developments: the speech-act particle ka often…
Il triangolo non l'avevo considerato. Metafora, immagini mentali proposizioni tra Relevance Theory e Perceptual Symbol Theory.
2020
In this paper we will show the need for a multimodal approach to the study of metaphorical utterances. We will discuss this hypothesis showing potentials and limits of the metaphor studies conducted within Relevance Theory, which has represented the most authoritative and radical theoretical framework based on the propositional character of metaphorical utterances. In particular, we will focus on the last papers by Carston (2010, 2018), in which it is recognized that the comprehension of complex and poetic metaphors could involve the activation of mental images. We will discuss the problem that the notion of mental imagery poses to Relevance Theory and we will try to overcome these problems…