- Home
- e-Journals
- Pragmatics & Cognition
- Previous Issues
- Volume 15, Issue, 2007
Pragmatics & Cognition - Volume 15, Issue 2, 2007
Volume 15, Issue 2, 2007
-
Why irony sometimes comes to mind: Paradoxical effects of thought suppression
Author(s): Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.pp.: 229–251 (23)More LessResearch on the pragmatics of irony focuses on verbal irony use or on people’s ironic conceptualizations of external events. But people sometimes experience irony within themselves whenever conscious attempts to accomplish something (e.g., fall asleep, quit smoking, not think of a failed relationship) lead to completely contrary results (e.g., staying awake, having a stronger desire to smoke, constant thoughts about the failed relationship). These situations sometimes seem ironic and evoke strong emotional reactions precisely because people understand the incompatibility between what is desired and what has occurred, enough so that the idea of irony may pop into consciousness. Psychological research now reveals that the difficulty in suppressing unwanted thoughts is shaped by distinct “ironic processes of mental control”. This paper describes previous empirical evidence in support of this theory, suggests how this perspective explains why we occasionally recognize irony within ourselves, presents some new data on people’s ironic understandings of and emotional reactions to ironic events, and relates this new work within psychology to contemporary theories of situational irony.
-
Does the Gricean distinction between natural and non-natural meaning exhaustively account for all instances of communication?
Author(s): Anne Reboulpp.: 253–276 (24)More LessThe Gricean distinction between natural meaning and non-natural meaning has generally been taken to apply to communication in general. However, there is some doubts that the distinction exhaustively accounts for all instances of communication. Notably, some animal communication seems to be voluntary, though not implying double-barrelled intentions, i.e., falling neither under natural nor under non-natural meaning. Another worry is how the audience can distinguish between that kind of 1st order voluntary communication and non-natural meaning. The paper shows that the Gricean distinction is not exhaustive and that the second intention characteristic of non-natural meaning is presupposed on the basis of the cost of interpretation in linguistic communication given its semantic underdetermination.
-
Is it a promise or a threat?
Author(s): Cristiano Castelfranchi and Marco Guerinipp.: 277–311 (35)More LessIn this paper we analyse the concepts of Promise (P) and Threat (T) and their inter-relations. Our objective is to study the uses of P and T in persuasion and to shed some light on related concepts such as requesting, ordering, giving prizes, punishing, etc. First, we show that some Ps and Ts are used for persuasion and some are conditional in nature. Using general definitions of P and T (along with the concepts of speech act and social commitment) and a broad notion of persuasion, four different typologies of P and T are introduced. They are distinguished on their conditional/non-conditional dimension and on their influencing/non-influencing aim. We then focus on Conditional Influencing Ps and Ts (CIPs and CITs) used in persuasion. CIPs and CITs are incentive-based influencing actions rooted on dependence and power relations. Moreover, in the CIP and CIT classes the concepts of threat and promise are closely connected: the CIP is always (though often covertly) accompanied by a CIT (“if you do not do your homework I will not take you to the cinema”), and vice versa. Next, we discuss the issue of why CIPs and CITs are credible. We also identify — beyond their surface, rhetorical form — a deeper difference: a ‘substantial’ threat consisting in a choice between two losses compared with a ‘substantial’ promise where the choice is between a gain and a missed-gain. In the article we present a pre-formal model as a basis for a computational treatment of these concepts.
-
A theory of presumption for everyday argumentation
Author(s): David M. Godden and Douglas Waltonpp.: 313–346 (34)More LessThe paper considers contemporary models of presumption in terms of their ability to contribute to a working theory of presumption for argumentation. Beginning with the Whatelian model, we consider its contemporary developments and alternatives, as proposed by Sidgwick, Kauffeld, Cronkhite, Rescher, Walton, Freeman, Ullmann-Margalit, and Hansen. Based on these accounts, we present a picture of presumptions characterized by their nature, function, foundation and force. On our account, presumption is a modal status that is attached to a claim and has the effect of shifting, in a dialogue, a burden of proof set at a local level. Presumptions can be analysed and evaluated inferentially as components of rule-based structures. Presumptions are defeasible, and the force of a presumption is a function of its normative foundation. This picture seeks to provide a framework to guide the development of specific theories of presumption.
-
A developmental perspective on Hebrew narrative production in an ultra-Orthodox population
Author(s): Michal Tannenbaum, Netta Abugov and Dorit Ravidpp.: 347–378 (32)More LessThis article reports a study conducted with a rarely studied minority group, the Jewish ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem, Israel, an extremely religious group that endorses patterns of voluntary segregation. The segregation of the group explored in the present study involves also a linguistic component: this group uses only Yiddish for daily communication and relates to Hebrew, Israel’s official language, mainly as a sacred tongue. The sample consisted of 56 girls, 20 4th graders and 36 7th graders, who were asked to write a story in Hebrew about a good thing that had happened to them. Analysis revealed developmental changes in most of the linguistic measures examined — text length, language productivity measures, and lexicon. In contrast to baseline studies on mainstream L1 groups, Optional Bound Morphology usage also increased with age. Global structure analysis shows that, beside canonic narratives, the girls’ stories also include script-like reports, eventive narratives, and retellings of traditional Hasidic stories. These findings intertwine in interesting ways with the linguistic and socio-cultural findings of the study to reveal how lexical and syntactic categories develop in a second language in the context of narrative text production.
Volumes & issues
-
Volume 31 (2024)
-
Volume 30 (2023)
-
Volume 29 (2022)
-
Volume 28 (2021)
-
Volume 27 (2020)
-
Volume 26 (2019)
-
Volume 25 (2018)
-
Volume 24 (2017)
-
Volume 23 (2016)
-
Volume 22 (2014)
-
Volume 21 (2013)
-
Volume 20 (2012)
-
Volume 19 (2011)
-
Volume 18 (2010)
-
Volume 17 (2009)
-
Volume 16 (2008)
-
Volume 15 (2007)
-
Volume 14 (2006)
-
Volume 13 (2005)
-
Volume 12 (2004)
-
Volume 11 (2003)
-
Volume 10 (2002)
-
Volume 9 (2001)
-
Volume 8 (2000)
-
Volume 7 (1999)
-
Volume 6 (1998)
-
Volume 5 (1997)
-
Volume 4 (1996)
-
Volume 3 (1995)
-
Volume 2 (1994)
-
Volume 1 (1993)
Most Read This Month
Article
content/journals/15699943
Journal
10
5
false
