Verbal Communication. Pragmatics, Relevance and Cognition

This book explores current pragmatic theory, focussing on a number of key aspects within utterance interpretation, communication and cognition. It argues against traditional approaches to the study of pragmatic interpretation, such as the Gricean framework, and discusses an alternative account based on the notion of relevance, which integrates the role of context and cognition within verbal communication. This alternative view shows that it is possible to provide a unified account of pragmatics by taking into account two fundamental aspects of human cognition: processing effort and cognitive effects. The interaction between these aspects and communicative cognition provides the basis for a comprehensive account of utterance interpretation, which resolves many of the problems encountered by earlier approaches. In applying and developing these pragmatic concepts, a number of areas are covered within verbal communication. Firstly, the current framework is considered as a general approach to pragmatics. Secondly, the distinction between explicit and implicit meaning is applied to a range of constructions. Thirdly, there is a discussion on the role of pragmatics in disambiguation processes. Finally, the new approach is applied to irony and metaphor, including a discussion on the new research area of lexical pragmatics. ISBN 9783862885879 (Hardcover). LINCOM Studies in Pragmatics 27. 270pp. 2014.