Pragmatics & Beyond

This study is an attempt to uncover the structure of three emotion concepts: anger, pride and love. The results indicate that the conceptual structure associated with these emotions consists of four parts: (1) a system of metaphors, (2) a system of metonymies, (3) a system of related concepts, and (4) a category of cognitive models, with a prototypical model in the center. This goes against an influential view of the structure of concepts in linguistics, psychology, anthropology, according to which the structure of a concept can be represented by a small number of sense components.

Non-declarative sentences such as interrogatives, imperatives and exclamations are analyzed together as a single class. The author gives a general characterization of all three types and shows that there are no other types of non-declarative sentences. Definitions are offered for the notions of declaration and presupposition. These definitions are applicable to all types of sentence, both declarative and non-declarative. A defining characteristic of non-declarative sentences is that only strongly intensional operators can apply to them to form complex sentences. It is shown that this property of non-declaratives implies that such sentences do not have declarations. A particular case of the relation between questions and conditionals is studied in more detail.

Walburga von Raffler-Engel takes a novel approach to compiling information about doctor-patient communication. She has surveyed popular literature around the world to gain a grass-roots' perception of this relationship in various cultures. Most of the contributions are by practicing physicians, illustrating reflections on doctor-patient communication from both the physician's as well as the patient's points of view. A variety of disciplines are involved in the study of this subject, such as discourse analysis, non-verbal communication, psychology, sociology, education, etc.

The purpose of this essay is to both discuss commands as a species of speech act and to discuss commands within the broader framework of how they are used and reacted to.

This volume deals with the relation between pragmatics and the philosophy of mind. Unlike most of the books written on the subject, it does not defend the view that a specific form of dependence holds between language and thought, to the exclusion of all other possible relations. Taking pragmatics in its original sense of “that part of semiotics that is concerned with the users of a semiotic system”, the book analyses the nature of the mental processes and states mirrored in language use. Drawing on results from cognitive psychology, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, linguistics, etc., a unified view of the mental dimension in the use of language, both as an instrument of communication and as an instrument of thought, is offered. After offering a tour d’horizon of the relationship between language and mind, this volume deals with the way thought is manifested in language.

In this book, a study is made of ethnic prejudice in cognition and conversation, based on intensive interviewing of white majority group members. After an introductory survey of traditional and more recent approaches in social psychology to the study of prejudice, a new 'sociocognitive' theory is sketched. This theory explains how cognitive representations and strategies of ethnic prejudice depend on their social functions within intergroup relations. It is also shown how ethnic prejudice is communicated in society through everyday talk among majority members. The major part of the book systematically analyzes the various dimensions of prejudiced conversations, such as topical structures, storytelling, argumentation, local semantic strategies, style and rhetoric, and more specific conversational properties. It is shown that such an explicit discourse analysis may reveal underlying cognitive representations and strategic uses of prejudice. Moreover, it appeared that many aspects of prejudiced talk are geared towards the overall strategic goals of adequate self-expression and positive self-presentation. This book is interdisciplinary in nature and should be of interest to linguists, discourse analysts, cognitive and social psychologists, sociologists, and all those interested in ethnic stereotypes, prejudice, and racism.

The various contributions to this volume converge on two themes. First, the explanatory role of social interaction, which, for a long time, has been a source of criticism of Piaget’s view of intelligence, is dealt with not only in relation to cognitive development, but also to language acquisition and to education. The second point of thematic convergence is the compatibility of genetic epistemology and psychoanalytic theory in view of the establishment of relationships between emotional and cognitive development.

Looking at the ‘semiotic landscape’ – the panorama of constituted semiotics – two traditions seem to have developed separately and without interpenetration. Anglo-Saxon semioticians consider the Peircean framework to provide the adequate conceptual apparatus, whereas so-called ‘Continental’ semioticians refer to the sign theory in Saussure and in its interpretation by Hjelmslev (for instance, the École sémiotique de Paris). Evaluating each other’s projects, methods, and results could lead to a balanced view. The purpose of this monograph is to get the best out of the adequate insights from both sides, and to make suggestions how the semioticians from the Peircean or Saussuro-Hjelmslevian school can be removed from their isolationist positions. A comparison and homologation of these two orientations will be carried out from the angle of the impact of pragmaticism on both semiotic orientations. How intentionality, action, conventionality, interlocution are integrated in both orientations will be given particular emphasis.

Ceux qui parlent une langue seconde, savent par leur propre expérience que, malgré une bonne connaissance du vocabulaire et des règles de la grammaire, ils n’arrivent pas à réagir verbalement à des situations concrètes de la même manière que ceux qui la parlent en langue maternelle. Cet ouvrage, à la fois théorique et pratique, tâche de combler ce vide par une analyse contrastive serrée des enonces en situation, à partir d’un corpus étendu et varié, et de tests nombreux avec des sujets français, anglais, italiens, hongrois et japonais.

Mentally retarded individuals have been studied almost exclusively as clinical entities, not as persons immersed in the stream of social life. This has led not only to a lack of appreciation for the complexity of their lives and concerns, but also to an underestimation and incomplete understanding of their intellectual and linguistic skills. By exploring aspects of the ongoing linguistic and social lives of retarded individuals in various community contexts, this volume contributes to a growing body of literature which attempts to fill in this inadequate picture. In addition, the studies in this volume offer social scientists insights into the way that stigma such as that associated with intellectual and social incompetence affects social groups and influences conversational behavior and language use.