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Related Experiment Videos

Interpreting what speakers say and implicate.

R W Gibbs1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. gibbs@cats.ucsc.edu

Brain and Language
|August 11, 1999
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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This study challenges traditional pragmatic theory by presenting empirical evidence. Pragmatics fundamentally shapes both what speakers say and imply, influencing interpretations of numerical statements and figurative language.

Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Pragmatics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Traditional pragmatic theory posits a clear distinction between literal meaning (what is said) and intended meaning (what is implicated).
  • This view assigns pragmatics a limited role in determining literal content, focusing instead on interpreting implied messages.
  • Examples like 'Jane has three children' illustrate this, where the literal statement may differ from the implied exactness.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To challenge the traditional view of pragmatics by demonstrating its fundamental role in determining both literal and implied meanings.
  • To present empirical research supporting a more integrated role for pragmatics in language comprehension.
  • To explore the implications of enriched pragmatic processing for understanding numerical statements and complex linguistic phenomena.

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Main Methods:

  • Review and synthesis of empirical work in pragmatics.
  • Analysis of how pragmatic enrichment influences the interpretation of utterances.
  • Examination of the role of metarepresentational reasoning in understanding irony and metaphor.

Main Results:

  • Empirical evidence indicates that pragmatics plays a crucial role in determining what speakers say, not just what they mean.
  • Enriched pragmatic information is essential for inferring exact meanings, such as 'exactly three children'.
  • Complex pragmatic and metarepresentational reasoning are vital for comprehending irony and metaphor.

Conclusions:

  • Pragmatics is integral to determining both literal and implied meanings in communication.
  • The traditional separation of 'saying' and 'implicating' is empirically unsupported.
  • New developments in pragmatics have significant relevance for neurolinguistic research and understanding language processing.