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-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T03:22:13.929Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Theoretical Framework of Intercultural Pragmatics

from Part I - Theoretical Foundation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2022

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

Summary

The chapter presents the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) to communication that serves as a theoretical frame for intercultural pragmatics. SCA was developed to explain the specific features of intercultural interactions and thus offers an alternative to the Gricean approaches that can be considered monolingual theories. There are two important claims that distinguish SCA from other pragmatic theories. First, SCA emphasizes that cooperation and egocentrism are not antagonistic features of communication. While (social) cooperation is an intention-directed practice that is governed by relevance, (individual) egocentrism is an attention-oriented trait dominated by salience that refers to the relative importance or prominence of information and signs. Second, SCA claims that pragmatic theories have tried to describe the relationship of the individual and social factors by putting too much emphasis on idealized language use, and focusing on cooperation, rapport, and politeness while paying less attention to the untidy, messy, poorly organized and impolite side of communication. SCA pays equal attention to both sides. The first part of the chapter explains the main tenets of SCA. The second part discusses how context, common ground and salience are intertwined in meaning creation and comprehension. The chapter closes with suggestions for future research.

Keywords

socio-cognitive approachcontextcommon groundintentionsprior experiencesalienceemergent situationsociocultural factorssociocultural background
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics , pp. 83 - 104
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

Arundale, R. B. (1999). An alternative model and ideology of communication for an alternative to politeness theory. Pragmatics, 9, 119–153.Google Scholar
Arundale, R. B. (2008). Against (Gricean) intentions at the heart of human interaction. Intercultural Pragmatics, 5(2), 231–256.Google Scholar
Barr, D. J. and Keysar, B. (2005). Making sense of how we make sense: The paradox of egocentrism in language use. In Colston, Herbert L. and Katz., Albert N., eds., Figurative Language Comprehension: Social and Cultural Influences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 21–43.Google Scholar
Beaver, D. and Jason, S. (2019). Toward a non-ideal philosophy of language. Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 39(2), 501–545.Google Scholar
Bigi, S. (2016). Communicating (with) Care: A Linguistic Approach to the Study of Doctor–Patient Interactions. Amsterdam: IOS Press.Google Scholar
Capone, A. (2020). Presuppositions as pragmemes: The case of exemplification acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 17(1), 53–77.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1942). Introduction to Semantics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Carston, R. (2002). Linguistic meaning communicated meaning and cognitive pragmatics. Mind and Language, 17(1–2), 127–148.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H., (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. (2009). Context and common ground. In Mey Jacob, L., ed., Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 116–119.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. and Brennan, S. E. (1991). Grounding in communication. In Resnick, L. B., J, Levine, M., and Teasley, S. D., eds., Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 127–149.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H., Schreuder, R., and Buttrick, S. (1983). Common ground and the understanding of demonstrative reference. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22(2), 245–258.Google Scholar
Colston, H. L. and Katz, A. N. (eds.) (2005). Figurative Language Comprehension: Social and Cultural Influences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Culpeper, J. (2009). Impoliteness: Using and Understanding the Language of Offence. ESRC project. Retrieved from www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/impoliteness/.Google Scholar
Diedrichsen, E. (2019). Challenges for knowledge representation: Emergence in linguistic expressions and Internet memes. In Nolan, B. and Diedrichsen, E., eds., Perspectives on the Construction of Meaning and Knowledge: The Linguistic, Pragmatic, Ontological and Computational Dimensions. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 22–54.Google Scholar
Diedrichsen, E. (2020). On the interaction of core and emergent common ground in Internet memes. Internet Pragmatics, 3(2), 223–259.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1982). The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Elsbach, K. D., Barr, P. S., and Hargadon, A. B. (2005). Identifying situated cognition in organizations. Organization Science, 16(4), 422–433.Google Scholar
Filani, Ibukun (2021). The stand-up comedian as an egocentric communicator. Intercultural Pragmatics, 18(1), 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finkelstein, S., Hambrick, D. C., and Cannella, B. (2008). Strategic Leadership: Theory and Research on Executives, Top Management Teams, and Boards. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
García-Gómez, A. (2020). Intercultural and interpersonal communication failures: Analyzing hostile interactions among British and Spanish university students on WhatsApp. Intercultural Pragmatics, 17(1), 27–53.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. and Colston, H. (2012). Interpreting Figurative Meaning. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gil, Jose Maria. (2019). A relational account of communication on the basis of slips of the tongue. Intercultural Pragmatics, 16(2), 153–185.Google Scholar
Giora, R. (1997). Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics, 8(3), 183–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. (2003). On Our Mind: Salience, Context and Figurative Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Ch. and Duranti, A. (eds.) (1992). Rethinking context: An introduction. In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–42.Google Scholar
Grice, P. (1989). Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2003). A dynamic model of meaning. In Jordens, Peter, ed., Situation-Bound Utterances in L1 and L2. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, pp. 31–54.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2008). Dueling contexts: A dynamic model of meaning. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(3), 385–406.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. and Mey, J. (2008). Intention, Common Ground and the Egocentric Speaker-Hearer, Vol. IV. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. and Zhang, F. (2009). Activating, seeking and creating common ground: A socio-cognitive approach. Pragmatics and Cognition, 17(2), 331–355.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2010). The paradox of communication: A socio-cognitive approach. Pragmatics and Society, 1(1), 50–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2012). Situation-bound Utterances in L1 and L2. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2013). Why do we say what we say the way we say it? Journal of Pragmatics, 48(1), 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2014). Intercultural Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2019). Impoverished pragmatics? The semantics–pragmatics interface from an intercultural perspective. Intercultural Pragmatics, 16(5), 489–517.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2020). Interculturality and intercultural pragmatics. In Jackson, Jane, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 138–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kecskes, I. (2021). Processing implicatures in English as a Lingua Franca communication. Lingua, 256, 103067.Google Scholar
Keysar, B. (2007). Communication and miscommunication: The role of egocentric processes. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(1), 71–84.Google Scholar
Keysar, B. and Henly, A. S. (2002). Speakers’ overestimation of their effectiveness. Psychological Science, 13(3), 207–212.Google Scholar
Khatib, M. and Shakouri, N. (2013). On situating the stance of socio-cognitive approach to language acquisition. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(9), 1590–1595.Google Scholar
La Mantia, F. (2018). “Where is meaning going?” Semantic potentials and enactive grammars. Acta Structuralica, 1, 89–113.Google Scholar
Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2003). Language and mind: Let’s get the issues straight! In Dedre, G. and Goldin-Meadow, S., eds., Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 25–46.Google Scholar
Liu, P. and You, X. (2019). Metapragmatic comments in web-based intercultural peer evaluation. Intercultural Pragmatics, 16(1), 57–85.Google Scholar
Macagno, F. (2018). A dialectical approach to presuppositions. Intercultural Pragmatics, 15(2), 291–313.Google Scholar
Macagno, F. and Capone, A. (2017). Presuppositions as cancellable Inferences. In Allan, K., Capone, A., and Kecskes, I., eds., Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use. Cham: Springer, pp. 45–68.Google Scholar
Macagno, F. and Bigi, S. (2017). Analyzing the pragmatic structure of dialogues. Discourse Studies, 19(2), 148–168.Google Scholar
Martin de la Rosa, M. V. and Romero, E. D. (2019). A modality-based approach to the United Nations Security Council’s ambiguous positioning in the resolutions on the Syrian armed conflict. Intercultural Pragmatics, 16(4), 363–389.Google Scholar
Mey, J. (2001). Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Mildorf, J. (2013). Reading fictional dialogue: Reflections on a cognitive-pragmatic reception theory. Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies, 24(2), 105–116.Google Scholar
Moss, M. (2013). Rhetoric and time: Cognition, culture and interaction. Doctoral thesis, Chase Western University, Cleveland, OH.Google Scholar
Nolan, Brian. (2017). Computing the meaning of the assertive speech act by a software agent. Journal of Computer-Assisted Linguistic Research, 1(1), 20–39.Google Scholar
Ocasio, W. (1997). Towards an attention-based view of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 18 (1), 187–206.Google Scholar
Ortaçtepe, H. D. and Seçil, O. (2021). Common ground and positioning in teacher-student interactions: Second language socialization in EFL classrooms. Intercultural Pragmatics, 18(1), 53–82.Google Scholar
Romero-Trillo, J. and Maguire, L. (2011). Adaptive context: The fourth element of meaning. International Review of Pragmatics, 3(2), 228–241.Google Scholar
Rossi, M. G. (2016). Metaphors for patient education: A pragmatic-argumentative approach applying to the case of diabetes care. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 10(2), 34–48.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. London: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. C. (2002). Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy, 25, 701–721.Google Scholar
Stanley, J. (2018). Precis of how propaganda works. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 96(2), 470–474.Google Scholar
Starbuck, W. H. and Milliken, F. J. (1988). Executive’s perceptual filters: What they notice and how they make sense. In Hambrick, D. C., ed., The Executive Effect: Concepts and Methods for Studying Top Managers. Greenwhich, CT: JAI Press, pp. 35–65.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, T. A. (2008). Discourse and Context: A Sociocognitive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wayne, A. D. (2021). Cognitive propositions and semantic expressions. Intercultural Pragmatics, 18(3), 337–358.Google Scholar
Weigand, E. (2021). Language and dialogue in philosophy and science. Intercultural Pragmatics, 18(4), 533–561Google Scholar
Wilson, D. (2004). Relevance and lexical pragmatics. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 16, 343–360.Google Scholar
Wojtaszek, A. (2016). Multimodel integration in the perception of press advertisements within the dynamic model of meaning. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics, 12(1), 77–101.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
×