Do discourse connectives encode concepts or procedures?

Hall, Alison

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2005.10.003

Cited by 54 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…This work laid the foundations for an important theoretical distinction between conceptual and procedural encoding, which has played a major role in relevance-theoretic accounts of both verbal and non-verbal communication (Blakemore, 1987(Blakemore, , 2002Wharton, 2009;Wilson and Sperber, 1993). On this approach, conceptual encoding yields conceptual representations that figure directly in the explicatures that provide the input to further inferential computation, while procedural encoding places constraints on the types of representations to be constructed or the computations that are to take place (Blakemore, 1987(Blakemore, , 2002(Blakemore, , 2007Hall, 2007;Wharton, 2003Wharton, , 2009Wilson, 2011). As Blakemore puts it, expressions that encode procedures 'do not encode a constituent of a conceptual representation (or even indicate a concept), but guide the comprehension process so that the hearer ends up with a conceptual representation ' (2002:91).…”

Section: Procedural Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since this idea was first developed there have been various attempts to characterise the individual procedures encoded by different forms of expression (Blakemore, 2000(Blakemore, , 2002Hall, 2007;Hedley, 2007;Iten, 2005;Wharton, 2003;Wilson, 2011). As Wilson and Sperber point out, this is no easy matter, since we "have direct access neither to grammatical computations nor to the inferential computations used in comprehension" (1993:16).…”

Section: Procedural Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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This and that: A procedural analysis

Scott

2013

Lingua

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In this paper I present a reanalysis of the English demonstrative determiners this and that. I assume a relevance-theoretic (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/95) approach to utterance interpretation in general and to reference resolution in particular, and argue that demonstratives encode procedural rather than conceptual meaning. In some cases this procedural meaning contributes to reference resolution directly and so affects the propositional content of an utterance. In other cases, however, the procedural information encoded by the determiner contributes to what is implicitly communicated by an utterance. This aspect of their use and interpretation has been largely overlooked by previous analyses, and taking it into consideration allows us to develop a unified account of the various and disparate roles they play.

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Section: Procedural Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Procedural Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

This and that: A procedural analysis

Scott

2013

Lingua

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“…Her ideas were also celebrated years later with the publication of another volume that showed their explanatory potential (Soria and Romero 2010). Quite similarly, the evolution of the theory subsequently encouraged other scholars to revisit issues like literary communication (Pilkington 2000;Unger 2006), evidentiality (Ifantidou 2001), particles (Iten 2002), humour (Yus Ramos 2003, 2008, 2016Solska 2012), discourse markers (Blakemore 2002;Hall 2007), figurative speech (Vega Moreno 2007), intonation or paralanguage (Wilson and Wharton 2006;Wharton 2009). The resulting adjustments of the theory have also been presented in a series of works by Wilson and Sperber (2002, 2012.…”

Section: Research Within Relevance-theoretic Pragmaticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three decades of relevance theory

Cruz

2016

Pragmatics &Amp; Beyond New Series

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Almost three decades have elapsed since the publication of Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson's (1986) seminal and most influential book Relevance. Communication and Cognition, and exactly two since the publication of its second edition (Sperber and Wilson 1995). In them, the authors presented and revised a series of claims and principles about human verbal communication and the foundational postulates of what is now known as 'relevance theory'. Over all these years, their two books and numerous subsequent publications have given rise to a strand of research in pragmatics with a psychological basis and cognitive orientation. Often alluded to as 'relevance-theoretic pragmatics', this strand seeks to unravel how the mind processes utterances -and, more widely, discourse-the contribution of diverse linguistic elements (e.g., discourse markers, particles, adverbials, intonation, etc.) to comprehension, why the mind arrives at a particular interpretation and the effects that may follow from understanding utterances in one way or another.Relevance theory has certainly awoken the interest of many pragmatists and linguists in general by posing many intriguing problems and thought-provoking questions. Relevance theorists' continuous challenging of often-taken-for-granted assumptions, claims, generalisations, and even whole models, has also brought fresher air to those disciplines. Indeed, they have analysed in depth a wide variety of linguistic and communicative phenomena from a different perspective and with a new theoretical apparatus, which has shed much light onto underexplored or overlooked issues.This book celebrates these happiest anniversaries and, most importantly, the fact that relevance theory still continues to appeal to researchers, who find in it a very valuable model for understanding the intricacies of linguistic communication. This is a collection of papers, which very sincerely acknowledges the extensive work carried out not only by the authors of the theory themselves, but also by a large number of researchers who have elaborated on some of its postulates and distinctions, empirically tested some of its predictions or applied the theory to diverse domains or neighbouring fields, thus expanding its scope. Consequently, a tribute of deepest gratitude is paid to all of them for their brave efforts to answer questions related to an incredibly complex human activity.Ten papers are collected here. Five of them elaborate on issues that have traditionally concerned practitioners in relevance theory: the intentional nature of communication, how speakers guide hearers to recover intended meaning, how specific types of utterances or linguistic elements are interpreted, or the consequences of communication. Two papers apply the relevance-theoretic apparatus to account for features of some linguistic varieties or languages, thus helping to understand how they are structured and function. The remaining three papers present recent developments and further applications of the theory, as they consider epistemic vigilance m...

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“…In (1b), the inferential use of moreover can be analysed as indicating that the propositions expressed by the preceding and following clauses provide evidence for a common conclusion in a context available to the addressee (Blakemore, 1987:91-97);and in (1c), the 'denial of expectation' use of but can be analysed as indicating that the proposition expressed by the following clause should be understood as inhibiting a conclusion potentially derivable from the first clause (Blakemore, 1987:125-41;Hall, 2007). This procedural approach has been used to analyse a wide variety of inferential connectives in different languages (e.g.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, Bach (1999) argues that P but Q expresses the proposition that P contrasts with Q, which in his view contributes to the truth-conditional content of the utterance although it is often not salient enough to affect truth-value judgements. Hall (2007) discusses several problems with this proposal. Consider (8), for instance:…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reassessing the conceptual–procedural distinction

Wilson

2016

Lingua

112

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My aim in this paper is to reassess the conceptual-procedural distinction as drawn in relevance theory in the light of almost thirty years of research. In section 1, I make some comparisons between approaches to semantics based on a conceptual-procedural distinction and those based on a distinction between truth conditions and conditions for appropriate use. In section 2, I present a brief history of the conceptual-procedural distinction as drawn in relevance theory. In section 3, I consider the nature of procedural encoding and discuss whether it is best seen as semantic or pragmatic. In section 4, I outline some parallels and differences between procedural and use-conditional accounts of interjections. In section 5, I discuss the implications of the conceptual-procedural distinction for lexical pragmatics and consider some recent proposals about how it might be extended. In section 6, I reassess the conceptual-procedural distinction in the light of current evolutionary approaches to cognition and point out some future directions for research.

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Do discourse connectives encode concepts or procedures?

Cited by 54 publications

References 18 publications

This and that: A procedural analysis

This and that: A procedural analysis

Three decades of relevance theory

Reassessing the conceptual–procedural distinction

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