Defending literal meaning

Conversation, speech acts, and memory

“…I use this terminology rather than the distinction between direct and indirect speech acts in order to avoid some of the controversy surrounding that distinction (e.g., Dascal, 1987;Gibbs, 1984). I simply define all explicit speech acts as those containing the performative verb and all implicit speech acts as those not containing the performative verb.…”

The demise of a unique concept of literal meaning

“…According to the classical definition (see Katz, 1977;Searle, 1978;Dascal, 1987), linguistic meaning is direct, grammatically specified, sentential, necessary, and context-free (as defined by Katz's, 1977: 14 'anonymous letter criterion'). It is, therefore, assumed to be invariant in all contexts.…”

“…However, it is also taken to be conventional, i.e., in opposition to indirect or inferred (Lewis, 1983). The problem is that it has become clear that some figurative language (hence, nonliteral in one sense) is conventional (hence, literal in another sense), e.g., dead metaphors (Dascal, 1987). And some nonfigurative meanings (hence, literal in one sense) are inferred (hence, nonliteral, in another sense), e.g., cases of sense constructions (Re´canati, 1995) and conversational implicatures (see also Bach, 1994a: 135).…”

“…And these background assumptions are indefinite, and they vary from one sentence to another. Dascal (1987), Gibbs (1984Gibbs ( , 1994, ), Re´canati (1995, Clark (1996), andCarston (1998) Carston (1998) mentions concept narrowing and strengthening (e.g., 'The steak is raw', understood as 'not cooked enough', rather than as 'uncooked'). In addition, Searle (1978) and Gibbs (1994) show that conventionality (literality) and context-dependence (nonliterality) are not mutually exclusive.…”

As metáforas da produção: reflexões sobre o discurso de operárias

“…Vereza, 1998;Gibb, 1994;Dascal, 1987). Algumas vezes, porém, substituíram-se apenas os nomes dos dois pólos, sem levar em consideração que existe uma gradação entre eles e que o grau maior ou menor de dificuldade na compreensão da metáfora não depende do enunciado em si, mas de seu contexto de uso em situações concretas de leitura ou de comunicação.…”