Pragmatics & Cognition - Volume 2, Issue 2, 1994

I report an empirical study deriving from a Gestalt-Interactionist approach to metaphor. Both the type of figurative expression (metaphor or simile) and the form of the expression (A is B or B is A) were manipulated in a factorial design. Subjects were asked to evaluate a given figurative expression both with regard to complexity and interest, and in terms of the degree of imageability of the tenor and the vehicle. As hypothesized, the design factors interacted in their influence on these ratings. Specifically, both the metaphor in standardform and the simile in reversed form received relatively higher ratings in degree of interest aroused and degree of complexity, while receiving relatively lower ratings in degree of vehicle imageability.

This paper is a contribution to the recent debate between a number of anthropologists and philosophers concerning the role of intentions in a theory of verbal behavior. It reviews a number of arguments put forward by ethno- and anthro-polinguists against the intention-centered view of human behavior common in current cognitively oriented language research, and typically represented in John Searle's theory of intentionality and of speech acts. It is argued that these arguments do not affect the assumption that intentions are always and necessarily present in (verbal) behavior (they are based on a much too simplistic view of intentionality), but they do show that intentions as such are insufficient to understand (verbal) behavior. These matters are discussed against the background of Searle's theory of intentionality.

Michael Dummett has nicely expressed a rather widespread doctrine about the primacy of sentences. He writes: "you cannot DO anything with a word — cannot effect any conventional (linguistic) act by uttering it — save by uttering some sentence containing that word ...". In this paper we argue that this doctrine is mistaken: it is not only sentences, but also ordinary words and phrases which can be used in isolation. The argument involves two steps. First: we show — using Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory — that an utterance of "John's father" could COMMUNICATE a proposition. Second: we point out that, in this context, this proposition would be asserted rather than merely implicated. Because there is nothing importantly idiosyncratic about the phrase "John's father", we infer that words and phrases generally can be used in isolation to make assertions.

This paper criticizes the pragma-dialectical conception of a fallacy, according to which a fallacy is an argumentative speech act which violates one or more of the rules of 'rational discussion'. That conception is found to be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for committing a fallacy. It is also found wanting in several other respects.