Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T02:25:25.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Cognitive Psychology in Pragmatics

from Part I - Theoretical Foundation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2022

By
Rachel Giora
Edited by
Istvan Kecskes
Istvan Kecskes
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany
Get access

Summary

Default interpretation is crucial for the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) and intercultural pragmatics. Participants of intercultural interactions represent different speech communities and cultures, so defaultness can hardly work the way it does in L1. The cognitive mechanism is the same, but the result is different. As interlocutors in intercultural encounters belong to different speech communities, they share limited core common ground of the target language (English), which is the basis for relatively similar default interpretations in L1. Research in intercultural communication and L2 use (e.g. House 2002; Cieslicka 2007; Kecskes 2010) demonstrated the priority of literal meaning in both production and comprehension. Literal meanings of lexical units serve as core common ground for interlocutors with different L1 backgrounds when they communicate in English. In order for us to understand how default interpretation works in intercultural interactions, first we need to get to know how defaultness occurs in L1. Giora’s study will help us do that.

Keywords

literal interpretationdefault interpretationdefaultnessmetaphorical interpretations
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics , pp. 63 - 82
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banda, Tracy. (2008). Tracy’s Office Services. August 21, www.tracysofficeservices.com/rightbenefits.htm.Google Scholar
Beardsley, M. (1958). Aesthetics. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.Google Scholar
Becker, I. and Giora, R. (2018). The Defaultness Hypothesis: A quantitative corpus-based study of non/default sarcasm and literalness production. Journal of Pragmatics, 138, 149–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blige, N. (2007). www.streetpoetry.net/id12.html (retrieved on May 3, 2008).Google Scholar
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Goody, E. N., ed., Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 56–311.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. D. and Katz, A. N. (2012). Are there necessary conditions for inducing a sense of sarcastic irony? Discourse Processes, 49(6), 459–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chamberlain, Larry (2005). Why does my cat bring home her prey? www.articlealley.com/article_19599_54.html.Google Scholar
Cieślicka, A. (2007). Language experience and fixed expressions: Differences in the salience status of literal and figurative meanings of L1 and L2 idioms. Collocations and idioms, 1, 19–20.Google Scholar
Du Bois, J. W. (2014). Towards a dialogic syntax. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(3), 359–410.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. J. and Giora, R. (2014). From cognitive-functional linguistics to dialogic syntax. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(3), 351–357.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. (2000). Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol, 15(1–2), 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. (1997). Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics, 7, 183–206.Google Scholar
Giora, R. (2003). On Our Mind: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. (2007). “A good Arab is not a dead Arab – a racist incitement”: On the accessibility of negated concepts. In Kecskes, Istvan and Horn, Laurence R., eds., Explorations in Pragmatics: Linguistic, Cognitive and Intercultural Aspects. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 129–162.Google Scholar
Giora, R. (2011). “Your baby is no longer an infant”: On metaphor as context. In Gluzman, M. and Lubin, O., eds., Intertextuality in Literature and Culture. Tel Aviv: Hakibbuz Hameuchad, pp. 235–247 (In Hebrew).Google Scholar
Giora, R. (2020). How defaultness shapes our language production: A usage-based study of discoursal resonance with default interpretations of metaphor and sarcasm. In Barnden, J. and Gargett, A., eds., Production of Figurative Language. John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Giora, R., Drucker, A., and Fein, O. (2014a). Resonating with default nonsalient interpretations: A corpus-based study of negative sarcasm. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 28, 3–18.Google Scholar
Giora, R., Drucker, A., Fein, O., and Mendelson, I. (2015a). Default sarcastic interpretations: On the priority of nonsalient interpretations. Discourse Processes, 52(3), 173–200.Google Scholar
Giora, R., Fein, O., Metuki, N., and Stern, P. (2010). Negation as a metaphor-inducing operator. In Horn, L., ed., The Expression of Negation. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 225–256.Google Scholar
Giora, R., Givoni, S., and Becker, I. (2020). How defaultness affects text production: A corpus-based study of default sarcasm. In Athanasiadou, A. and Colston, H., eds., The Diversity of Irony. CLR book series. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Giora, R., Givoni, S., and Fein, O. (2015b). Defaultness reigns: The case of sarcasm. Metaphor and Symbol, 30(4), 290–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. and Gur, I. (2003). Irony in conversation: Salience, role, and context effects. In Nerlich, B., Todd, Z., Herman, V., and Clarke, D., eds., Polysemy: Flexible Patterns of Meanings in Language and Mind. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 297–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R., Jaffe, I., Becker, I., and Fein, O. (2018). Strongly attenuating highly positive concepts: The case of default sarcastic interpretations. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 6(1), 19–47.Google Scholar
Giora, R., Livnat, E., Fein, O., Barnea, A., Zeiman, R., and Berger, I. (2013). Negation generates nonliteral interpretations by default. Metaphor and Symbol, 28, 89–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R., Raphaely, M. Fein, O., and Livnat, E. (2014b). Resonating with contextually inappropriate interpretations in production: The case of irony. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(3), 443–455.Google Scholar
Givoni, S. (2019). Marking multiple meanings. Ph.D. dissertation, Tel Aviv University.Google Scholar
Givoni, S., Giora, R., and Bergerbest, D. (2013). How speakers alert addressees to multiple meanings. Journal of Pragmatics, 48(1), 29–40.Google Scholar
Goldberg, E. A. (2003). Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(5), 219–224.Google Scholar
Goldberg, E. A. (2006). Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hasson, U., Avidan, G., Gelbard, H., Vallines, I., Harel, M., Minshew, N., and Behrmann, M. (2009). Shared and idiosyncratic cortical activation patterns in autism revealed under continuous real‐life viewing conditions. Autism Research, 2(4), 220–231.Google Scholar
HodyYanksFan. 2005. http://forums.nyyfans.com/archive/index.php/t-92160.html (retrieved on February 14th, 2014)Google Scholar
House, J. (2002). Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca. In K. Knapp and C. Meirerkord, eds., Lingua Franca Communication. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 245–267.Google Scholar
Ilie, C. (1994). What Else Can I Tell You? A Pragmatic Study of English Rhetorical Questions as Discursive and Argumentative Acts. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.Google Scholar
Joan (2008). 20 Responses to “Bridget Moynahan Must-Have Laughed, or Why I’m Almost Glad the Patriots Lost”. March 28, 2008. www.collegiatetimes.com/blogs/2008/02/05/bridget-moynahan-must-have-laughed-or-why-im-almost-glad-the-patriots-lost/.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2010). The paradox of communication: Socio-cognitive approach to pragmatics. Pragmatics and Society, 1(1), 50–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotthoff, H. (2003). Responding to irony in different contexts: On cognition in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(9), 1387–1411.Google Scholar
Levant, E., Fein, O., and Giora, R. (2020). Default sarcastic interpretations of attenuated and intensified similes. Journal of Pragmatics, 166, 59–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paolazzi, C. (2013). “Do you really think it?”: Testing hypotheses on default nonliteral interpretations. Unpublished ms., University of Trento.Google Scholar
Partington, A. (2011). Phrasal Irony: Its form, function and exploitation. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 1786–1800.Google Scholar
Pickering, M. J. and Garrod, S. (2013). An integrated theory of language production and comprehension. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(4), 329–392.Google Scholar
Raeber, T. (2016). Distinguishing rhetorical questions from ironical questions: A relevance-theoretic account. In Cruz, M. P., ed., Relevance Theory: Recent Developments, Current Challenges, and Future Directions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 173–190.Google Scholar
Rose, G. (2003). On the need to ask how, exactly, is geography ‘“visual”’? Antipode, 35(2), 212–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephens, G. J., Silbert, L. J., and Hasson, U. (2010). PNAS Early Edition, 1–6. www.pnas.org/content/107/32/14425.Google Scholar
Summerfield, K. A. (1998). A change in time. www.storysite.org/story/changeintime~02.html (retrieved on September 28, 2008).Google Scholar
Veale, T. (2013). Humorous similes. Humour, 26(1), 3–22.Google Scholar
Zuanazzi, A. (2013). Italian affirmative rhetorical questions generate ironic interpretations by default. Unpublished ms., University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×