Inferential pragmatics and epistemic vigilance
Current research on linguistic communication is grounded on the well-established assumption that speakers typically communicate more than they linguistically encode (Grice, 1989). This raises the question of what sources of information and types of cognitive operation drive the recovery of the communicated meaning (or âspeakerâs meaningâ). In this thesis, I argue for the following two claims: (i) pragmatic interpretation is âinferentialâ in the sense that it relies on two distinct stages of âhypothesis formationâ and âhypothesis confirmationâ. While hypotheses about the speakerâs meaning are constructed on the basis of linguistic evidence and available contextual assumptions, they are assessed against a criterion of pragmatic acceptability based on consideration of the speakerâs mental states (i.e. her beliefs and intentions); (ii) This two-stage process is underpinned by the interaction of two distinct systems: a relevance-guided comprehension procedure (Sperber & Wilson, 1995; Wilson & Sperber, 2004) and epistemic vigilance mechanisms, which assess the quality of incoming information and the reliability of the individual who dispenses it (Sperber et al., 2010). On the basis of this
Mazzarella, D.
Inferential pragmatics and epistemic vigilance. Current research on linguistic communication is grounded on the well-established assumption that speakers typically communicate more than they linguistically encode (Grice, 1989). This raises the question of what sources of information and types of cognitive operation drive the recovery of the communicated meaning (or âspeakerâs meaningâ). In this thesis, I argue for the following two claims: (i) pragmatic interpretation is âinferentialâ in the sense that it relies on two distinct stages of âhypothesis formationâ and âhypothesis confirmationâ. While hypotheses about the speakerâs meaning are constructed on the basis of linguistic evidence and available contextual assumptions, they are assessed against a criterion of pragmatic acceptability based on consideration of the speakerâs mental states (i.e. her beliefs and intentions); (ii) This two-stage process is underpinned by the interaction of two distinct systems: a relevance-guided comprehension procedure (Sperber & Wilson, 1995; Wilson & Sperber, 2004) and epistemic vigilance mechanisms, which assess the quality of incoming information and the reliability of the individual who dispenses it (Sperber et al., 2010). On the basis of this
inferential pragmatic epistemic current linguistic communication ground well_established assumption speaker typically communicate linguistically encode grice raise_question source_information type cognitive operation drive recovery communicate meaning speaker meaning argue follow_two claim pragmatic interpretation inferential sense rely two_distinct stage hypothesis formation hypothesis confirmation hypothesis speaker mean construct basis linguistic evidence_available contextual assumption assess criterion pragmatic acceptability base consideration speaker mental_state belief intention two_stage process underpinned interaction two_distinct system relevance guided comprehension procedure and wilson wilson and epistemic mechanism assess quality incoming information reliability individual basis