RELEVANCE IN COMMUNICATION: A CASE STUDY IN LEXICAL-PRAGMATIC PROCESSES IN CONVERSATIONAL SERBIAN
Keywords:
communicated concepts, conceptual semantics, descriptive use of language, encoded concepts, lexical pragmatics, explicit communication, pragmatic processes, the principle of relevanceAbstract
Pragmatics has long since become an important branch of linguistic enquiry in its own right. In the last two decades we have witnessed new developments in the semantics/pragmatics interface, such as neo-Gricean and post-Gricean pragmatic theories whose primary aim is to explain utterance meaning. More recently, however, work in pragmatic theory has extended to other domains of linguistic enquiry, most notably to the lexicon. Lexical pragmatics investigates certain on-line processes whereby linguistically specified word meanings are adjusted to yield the meanings that the speaker intends to communicate on a particular occasion of utterance. These processes are considered to be reflexive, fast and highly flexible. Taking as my working assumption the lexical underdeterminacy thesis (i.e. encoded meaning falls short of communicated (speakermeant) meaning), and working within the relevance-theoretic framework, I examine some of the ways in which lexical narrowing and broadening might work in Serbian.
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