A unitary approach to Lexical Pragmatics: Relevance, Inference and Ad hoc concepts

Abstract

According to recent work in the new field of lexical pragmatics, the meanings of words are frequently pragmatically adjusted and fine-tuned in context, so that their contribution to the proposition expressed is different from their lexically encoded sense. Well-known examples include lexical narrowing (e.g. 'drink' used to mean ALCOHOLIC DRINK), approximation (or loosening) (e.g. 'flat' used to mean RELATIVELY FLAT) and metaphorical extension (e.g. 'bulldozer' used to mean FORCEFUL PERSON). These three phenomena are often studied in isolation from each other and given quite distinct kinds of explanation. In this chapter, we will propose a more unified account. We will try to show that narrowing, loosening and metaphorical extension are simply different outcomes of a single interpretive process which creates an ad hoc concept, or occasion-specific sense, based on interaction among encoded concepts, contextual information and pragmatic expectations or principles. We will outline an inferential account of the lexical adjustment process using the framework of relevance theory, and compare it with some alternative accounts.

The Big Concepts Paper: A Defence of Hybridism

“…3 This is the case, for instance, of the ad hoc concepts posited by Relevance Theory (Wilson and Carston [2007]). 4 Note, however, that different conceptual structures are typically non-coreferential.…”

“…To mention an influential model, let us consider Relevance Theory (RT). According to RT (see Carston [2002]; Wilson and Carston [2007]), the process of understanding consists in accessing an encoded atomic concept and then narrowing or widening its extension in order to satisfy the presumption of relevance. We have argued elsewhere 25 (Vicente and Martínez-Manrique [2010]) that its commitment to atomism is not justified and it actually poses problems to understand how the processes of narrowing and widening are to be understood.…”

“…What matters for our present purposes is that narrowing and widening require accessing the encyclopaedic information associated with the encoded concept, and selecting the relevant information: "lexical comprehension involves a process of ad hoc concept construction, based on information readily accessible from the encyclopaedic entries of the encoded concepts and constrained by expectations of relevance (…) In each case, the comprehension process works in the same way, by selection of an appropriate set of encyclopaedic assumptions to act as premises for the derivation of the expected contextual implications". (Wilson and Carston [2007], p. 245).…”

What words mean and express: semantics and pragmatics of kind terms and verbs

“…In many cases, we add features, like when we say 'drink' to mean 'alcoholic drink' (Wilson and Carston, 2007). However, there is no apparent reason to believe that feature-addition requires a kind of representation not needed in feature-suppression.…”

The Life and Death of a Metaphor, or the Metaphysics of Metaphor

“…But both of these cases differ from the once-metaphor that has now mutated to a polyseme whose (sole or incremental) meaning is what had originally been the content of a metaphorical use or interpretation. To return to Wilson and Carston's (2007) example discussed at the end of the previous section, ANGEL* may be the same concept expressed by the novel www.thebalticyearbook.org…”