1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Pragmatics & Cognition
  4. Volume 28, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 28, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0929-0907
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9943
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

or have been argued to voice the speaker’s attitude towards the referent of the noun with which they co-occur, even though the attitude may be felt to be expressed about the referent of another sentential constituent or the state of affairs alluded to in the sentence where they are inserted. A previous pragmatic approach suggests that this is possible because these expletives perform an individual speech act, while a syntactic approach posits a feature whose detachment from a particular constituent enables the speaker’s attitude to target the referent of another sentential constituent or even on the entire proposition expressed. This paper proposes an alternative relevance-theoretic account of the interpretation of utterances containing expressive expletives, which considers pragmatic factors and the cognitive processes in comprehension. It is grounded in contributions on the output of lexical pragmatic processes and the role of paralinguistic clues in utterance comprehension.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/pc.21008.pad
2022-06-27
2024-10-08

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/pc.21008.pad
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Bayard, Donn & Sateesh Krishnayya
    2001 Gender, expletive use, and context: Male and female expletive use in structured and unstructured conversation among New Zealand university students. Women and Language24(1). 1–15.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Blakemore, Diane
    1987 Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. 1992 Understanding utterances. An introduction to pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. 2002 Relevance and linguistic meaning. The semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511486456
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486456 [Google Scholar]
  5. 2011 On the descriptive ineffability of expressive meaning. Journal of Pragmatics43(14). 3537–3550. 10.1016/j.pragma.2011.08.003
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.08.003 [Google Scholar]
  6. 2015 Slurs and expletives: A case against a general account of expressive meaning. Language Sciences52. 22–35. 10.1016/j.langsci.2014.06.018
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2014.06.018 [Google Scholar]
  7. Börjars, Kersti & Kate Burridge
    2001 Introducing English grammar. London: Arnold.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Bross, Fabian
    2021 On the interpretation of expressive adjectives: Pragmatics or Syntax?Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics6(1). 1–13. 10.5334/gjgl.1214
     https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1214 [Google Scholar]
  9. Carston, Robyn
    2000 Explicature and semantics. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics12. 1–44.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. 2002 Thoughts and utterances. The pragmatics of explicit communication. Oxford: Blackwell. 10.1002/9780470754603
     https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470754603 [Google Scholar]
  11. 2013a Word meaning, what is said and explicature. InCarlo Penco & Filippo Domaneschi (eds.), What is said and what is not, 175–204. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. 2013b Implicature, explicature, and truth-theoretic semantics. InMaite Ezcurdia & Robert J. Stainton (eds.), The semantics-pragmatics boundary in philosophy, 261–283. Peterborough: Broadview Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Clark, Billy
    2007 “Blazing a trail”: Moving from natural to linguistic meaning in accounting for the tones of English. InRandi A. Nilsen, Nana A. Appiah Amfo & Kaja Borthen (eds.), Interpreting utterances: Pragmatics and its interfaces. Essays in honour of Thorstein Fretheim, 69–81. Oslo: Novus.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Collins, Peter & Carmella Hollo
    2000 English grammar. An introduction. London: Palgrave.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Daly, Nicola, Janet Holmes, Jonathan Newton & Maria Stubbe
    2004 Expletives as solidarity signals in FTAs on the factory floor. Journal of Pragmatics36(5). 945–964. 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.12.004
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2003.12.004 [Google Scholar]
  16. De Klerk, Vivian
    1991 Expletives: Men only?Communication Monographs58(2). 156–169. 10.1080/03637759109376220
     https://doi.org/10.1080/03637759109376220 [Google Scholar]
  17. Frazier, Lyn, Brian Dillon & Charles Clifton
    2015 A note on interpreting damn expressives: Transferring the blame. Language and Cognition7(2). 291–304. 10.1017/langcog.2014.31
     https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2014.31 [Google Scholar]
  18. Greenbaum, Sidney & Randolph Quirk
    1993 A student’s grammar of the English language. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Grice, Herbert P.
    1957 Meaning. Philosophical Review66. 377–388. 10.2307/2182440
     https://doi.org/10.2307/2182440 [Google Scholar]
  20. Gutzmann, Daniel
    2019 The grammar of expressivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oso/9780198812128.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198812128.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  21. Haegeman, Liliane & Jacqueline Guéron
    1999 English grammar. A generative perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Hall, Alison
    2017 Lexical pragmatics, explicature and ad hoc concepts. InIlse Depraetere & Raphael Salkie (eds.), Semantics and pragmatics: Drawing a line, 55–100. Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978‑3‑319‑32247‑6_6
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32247-6_6 [Google Scholar]
  23. Hopper, Robert, Larry G. Coleman & John A. Daly
    1980 Expletives and androgyny. Anthropological Linguistics22(3). 131–137.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Huddleston, Rodney
    1988 English grammar. An outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139166003
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139166003 [Google Scholar]
  25. Hughes, Susan E.
    1992 Expletives of lower working-class women. Language in Society21(2). 391–303. 10.1017/S004740450001530X
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740450001530X [Google Scholar]
  26. Ifantidou, Elly
    1992 Sentential adverbs and relevance. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics4. 193–214.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Jary, Mark
    2016 Rethinking explicit utterance content. Journal of Pragmatics102. 24–37. 10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.003
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.003 [Google Scholar]
  28. Jay, Timothy B.
    2005 American women: Their cursing habits and religiosity. InAllyson Jule (ed.), Gender and the language of religion, 63–84. London: Palgrave. 10.1057/9780230523494_5
     https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523494_5 [Google Scholar]
  29. Kaye, Barbara K. & Barry S. Sapolsky
    2004 Offensive language in prime-time television: Four years after television age and content ratings. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media48(4). 554–569. 10.1207/s15506878jobem4804_2
     https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4804_2 [Google Scholar]
  30. Kendon, Adam
    1988 How gestures can become like words? In Fernando Poyatos (ed.), Cross-cultural perspectives in nonverbal communication, 131–141. Toronto: Hogrefe.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Madella, Pauline
    2020 Prosodic pointing: From pragmatic awareness to pragmatic competence in Chinese hearers of L2 English. PhD dissertation, University of Brighton.
  32. Mazzarella, Diana
    2013 ‘Optimal relevance’ as a pragmatic criterion: The role of epistemic vigilance. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics25. 20–45.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. McCloskey, Laura A. & Lerita M. Coleman
    1992 Difference without dominance: Children’s talk in mixed- and same-sex dyads. Sex Roles27(5–6). 241–257. 10.1007/BF00289927
     https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289927 [Google Scholar]
  34. McNeill, David
    1992 Hand and mind. What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Murphy, Bróna
    2009 ‘She’s a fucking ticket’: The pragmatics of fuck in Irish English – an age and gender perspective. Corpora4(1). 85–106. 10.3366/E1749503209000239
     https://doi.org/10.3366/E1749503209000239 [Google Scholar]
  36. Padilla Cruz, Manuel
    2009a Towards an alternative relevance-theoretic approach to interjections. International Review of Pragmatics1(1). 182–206. 10.1163/187731009X455884
     https://doi.org/10.1163/187731009X455884 [Google Scholar]
  37. 2009b Might interjections encode concepts? More questions than answers. Łodź Papers in Pragmatics5(2). 241–270. 10.2478/v10016‑009‑0015‑9
     https://doi.org/10.2478/v10016-009-0015-9 [Google Scholar]
  38. 2013 Understanding and overcoming pragmatic failure in intercultural communication: From focus on speakers to focus on hearers. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching51(1). 23–54. 10.1515/iral‑2013‑0002
     https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2013-0002 [Google Scholar]
  39. 2017 Interlocutors-related and hearer-specific causes of misunderstanding: Processing strategy, confirmation bias and weak vigilance. Research in Language15(1). 11–36. 10.1515/rela‑2017‑0006
     https://doi.org/10.1515/rela-2017-0006 [Google Scholar]
  40. 2018a Expressive APs and expletive NPs revisited: Refining the extant relevance-theoretic procedural account. Lingua205. 54–70. 10.1016/j.lingua.2017.12.016
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2017.12.016 [Google Scholar]
  41. 2018b Pragmatic competence injustice. Social Epistemology. A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy32(3). 143–163. 10.1080/02691728.2018.1458351
     https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2018.1458351 [Google Scholar]
  42. 2019 Qualifying insults, offensive epithets, slurs and expressive expletives: A relevance-theoretic approach. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict7(2). 156–181. 10.1075/jlac.00023.cru
     https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00023.cru [Google Scholar]
  43. 2020a Towards a relevance-theoretic approach to the diminutive morpheme. Russian Journal of Linguistics24(4). 774–795. 10.22363/2687‑0088‑2020‑24‑4‑774‑795
     https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-4-774-795 [Google Scholar]
  44. 2020b El malentendido. InVictoria Escandell Vidal, José Amenós Pons & Aoife Kathleen Ahern (eds.), Pragmática, 384–407. Madrid: Akal.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. 2022 Is free enrichment always free? Revisiting ad hoc-concept construction. Journal of Pragmatics187. 130–143. 10.1016/j.pragma.2021.11.006
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.11.006 [Google Scholar]
  46. . In press. Ad hoc concepts, affective attitude and epistemic stance. Pragmatics & Cognition.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. . Submitted. Paralanguage and ad hoc concepts. Pragmatics.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Potts, Christopher
    2005 The logic of conventional implicatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273829.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273829.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  49. 2007a The expressive dimension. Theoretical Linguistics33(2). 165–198. 10.1515/TL.2007.011
     https://doi.org/10.1515/TL.2007.011 [Google Scholar]
  50. 2007b The centrality of expressive indices. Theoretical Linguistics33(2). 255–268. 10.1515/TL.2007.019
     https://doi.org/10.1515/TL.2007.019 [Google Scholar]
  51. Recanati, François
    1989 The pragmatics of what is said. Mind & Language4(4). 295–329. 10.1111/j.1468‑0017.1989.tb00258.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.1989.tb00258.x [Google Scholar]
  52. Scott, Kate
    2019 Referring expressions, pragmatics, and style: Reference and beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781316822845
     https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316822845 [Google Scholar]
  53. Sperber, Dan
    1994 Understanding verbal understanding. InJean Khalfa (ed.), What is intelligence?179–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson
    1986 Relevance. Communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. 1995 Relevance. Communication and cognition. 2nd ed.Oxford: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. 2015 Beyond speaker’s meaning. Croatian Journal of Philosophy15(44). 117–149. 10.5840/croatjphil20151528
     https://doi.org/10.5840/croatjphil20151528 [Google Scholar]
  57. Staley, Constance M.
    1978 Male-female use of expletives: A heck of a difference in expectations. Anthropological Linguistics20(8). 367–380.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Stanley, Jason
    2000 Context and logical form. Linguistics and Philosophy23(4). 391–434. 10.1023/A:1005599312747
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005599312747 [Google Scholar]
  59. 2002 Making it articulated. Mind & Language17(1–2). 149–168. 10.1111/1468‑0017.00193
     https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0017.00193 [Google Scholar]
  60. Wharton, Tim
    2001 Natural pragmatics and natural codes. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics13. 109–158.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. 2002 Paul Grice, saying and meaning. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics14. 207–248.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. 2003 Interjection, language, and the ‘showing/saying’ continuum. Pragmatics and Cognition11(1). 39–91. 10.1075/pc.11.1.04wha
     https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.11.1.04wha [Google Scholar]
  63. 2009 Pragmatics and non-verbal communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511635649
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511635649 [Google Scholar]
  64. 2012 Pragmatics and prosody. InKeith Allan & Kasia Jazczolt (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of pragmatics, 567–584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139022453.031
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139022453.031 [Google Scholar]
  65. 2016 That bloody so-and-so has retired: Expressives revisited. Lingua175–176. 20–35. 10.1016/j.lingua.2015.08.004
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2015.08.004 [Google Scholar]
  66. Wilson, Deirdre
    2016 Reassessing the conceptual-procedural distinction. Lingua175–176. 5–19. 10.1016/j.lingua.2015.12.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2015.12.005 [Google Scholar]
  67. Wilson, Deirdre & Robyn Carston
    2006 Metaphor, relevance and the ‘emergent property’ issue. Mind & Language21(3). 404–433. 10.1111/j.1468‑0017.2006.00284.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2006.00284.x [Google Scholar]
  68. 2007 A unitary approach to lexical pragmatics: Relevance, inference and ad hoc concepts. InNoel Burton-Roberts (ed.), Pragmatics, 230–259. Basingstoke: Palgrave. 10.1057/978‑1‑349‑73908‑0_12
     https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-73908-0_12 [Google Scholar]
  69. 2019 Pragmatics and the challenge of ‘non-propositional’ effects. Journal of Pragmatics145. 31–38. 10.1016/j.pragma.2019.01.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.01.005 [Google Scholar]
  70. Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber
    1993 Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua90(1–2). 1–25. 10.1016/0024‑3841(93)90058‑5
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3841(93)90058-5 [Google Scholar]
  71. 2002 Relevance theory. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics14. 249–287.
     [Google Scholar]
  72. 2004 Relevance theory. InLarry Horn & Gregory Ward (eds.), The handbook of pragmatics, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Wilson, Deirdre & Tim Wharton
    2006 Relevance and prosody. Journal of Pragmatics38(10). 1559–1579. 10.1016/j.pragma.2005.04.012
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.04.012 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/pc.21008.pad
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): ad hoc concepts; argument hopping; attitudinal representations; expressive adjectives/expletives; expressive feature; higher-level explicatures; paralanguage; relevance theory; speaker’s attitude; speech-act hypothesis

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error