Pragmatics & Cognition - Volume 7, Issue 2, 1999

The study argues that linguistic/communication dysfunctions present in disorganized schizophrenia may stem, at least in part, from an impaired theory of mind. Using pragmatics and systemic linguistic theory, the study examined speech samples of two disorganized schizophrenic patients and attempted to determine if their communicative failures are because they lack theory of mind in the sense that they do not take into account the interlocutor's mind, i.e., the interlocutor's intentions, dispositions, and knowledge; or because they have a hyper-theory of mind through which they over-attribute mental states to their interlocutor, i.e., assume that their interlocutor has access to their intentions, dispositions, and knowledge. The study indicates that disorganized schizophrenics are unlikely to be characterized as lacking a theory of mind; rather they seem to have a hyper-theory of mind, to which the psychopathological symptoms of hallucinations, delusions of reference and incoherent speech can be attributed.

In the nervous system, the orbitofrontal cortex, the amygdala, and the body proper are involved in personal and social decision making. Since normal conversational interaction involves making personal and social decisions on a moment to moment basis about what to say and how to say it, it is proposed that these areas of the nervous system, which subserve stimulus appraisal, attachment, affect regulation, and social cognition, also subserve decision making in language pragmatics.

Illocutionary force may be qualified according to Aristotle's classical triadic distinction of logos as a degree of verity, ethos as a degree of credibility or authority and pathos as eloquence or passional intensity. Jakobson 's model of linguistic functions can be understood as operating performatively with greater advantages to pragmatic theory than Searle and Vanderveken's taxonomy of illocutionary acts. Consequently, these three dimensions can also be found in the aesthetic as in other linguistic functions proposed by Jakobson when examined from a pragmatic viewpoint. By detecting the direction of fit and establishing a distinction between conversion and constitution, we may better understand not only the difference between the aesthetic and other functions but a variety of instances besides the artistic in which the aesthetic is displayed. Therefore, pathos can be clearly differentiated from the aesthetic as a dimension that may weigh, together with logos and ethos, upon the aesthetic function of an illocutionary act.

This paper is a critique of George Lakoff's theory and practice as presented in his "Contemporary Theory of Metaphor" (Lakoff 1993). It addresses the issue on several planes, on each plane comparing Lakoff's approach to some alternative. The highest plane, affording the widest perspective, concerns two approaches to interpretation and scientific thinking: one that relies on a pre-established set of meanings, and one that assumes that "all the work remains to be done in each particular case ". The two approaches involve different cognitive strategies, rapid and delayed conceptualization. Another plane concerns the cognitive explanation for using spatial images in metaphoric and symbolic processes. Here the "embodied-mind hypothesis" is confronted with the "efficient-coding hypothesis". It is argued that the latter is more adequate, and can better account for the mental flexibility required for "delayed conceptualization ". On the third plane, Lakoff's "Contemporary Theory of Metaphor" is compared to Beardsley's "Controversion Theory of Metaphor". I will assert that precisely in those respects in which Lakoff claims superiority for his theory it is inferior to Beardsley's. On the most concrete plane, Lakoff's handling of three texts is considered, two literary and one nonliter-ary. It is argued that in two cases Lakoff's conceptual apparatus is less than adequate to handle the arising problems; in the third case it allows him to say about the text exactly what every critic would have said about it for the past seven hundred years.

The gap between the prelinguistic and the linguistic levels cannot be bridged as easily as Lakoff's cognitive linguistics suggests. Lakoff's event structure metaphor is reviewed here. Compared with physical movement, the bringing together of separated elements which occurs in predication would not be metaphorical only because it departs from concrete physical experience, but, more significantly, because it relies on elements artificially separated by means of language. However, if we do not overlook this fundamental leap, the event structure metaphor is a good tool to understand how predication takes place, and its application is even wider than Lakoff suggests.

In an article entitled "Is BAD a semantic primitive?" (1996), John Myhill suggested that the concept 'bad' should be removed from the list of semantic primitives put forward by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard. Myhill argued (1) that 'bad' is semantically decomposable, (2) that there is no word in Biblical Hebrew that corresponds to the English word bad and, thus, no linguistic form that represents the primitive BAD in this language, and (3) that 'bad' is dispensable in the semantic analysis and can be replaced with other components without any loss or change of meaning. Discussing and illustrating some fundamental questions in the search for universal semantic primitives, the present author reconsiders these findings and finds a different answer to John Myhill's question.