Funded by AHRB
Lexical pragmatics is
a rapidly developing branch of linguistics which investigates the processes by
which linguistically-specified (‘literal’) word meanings are modified in use.
Well-studied examples include lexical narrowing (e.g. drink used to mean
‘alcoholic drink’), approximation (e.g. square used to mean ‘squarish’) and metaphorical extension (e.g. battleaxe
used to mean ‘frightening person’).
There is increasing
evidence that such processes apply automatically, and that a word rarely
conveys exactly its literal meaning. Currently, there is little interaction
between formal pragmatists (who are mainly interested in simplifying semantic
description) and cognitive pragmatists (who are interested in the mechanisms
underlying verbal comprehension).
We aim to create the
foundations for interdisciplinary research by developing a framework in which
the results of different approaches may be integrated. Typically, narrowing,
loosening and metaphorical extension have been seen as distinct pragmatic
processes and studied in isolation from each other. We will investigate the
hypothesis that they are outcomes of a single pragmatic process which
fine-tunes the interpretation of virtually every word. Our objectives are as
follows:
(1a) To develop a unified, cognitively plausible account of
lexical-pragmatic processes.
(1b) To compare this account with alternative accounts
currently being developed.
(1c) To consider how far lexical-pragmatic processes
are governed by general pragmatic principles which apply at both word and
sentence level.
(1d) To investigate whether creative,
occasion-specific uses (often found in literary works) involve the same
processes as more regular, conventional uses.
(1e) To consider the implications of our account for
the traditional notion of literal meaning.
Research
Context
A
striking feature of existing research on lexical pragmatics is that narrowing,
approximation and metaphorical extension tend to be seen as distinct processes
which lack a common explanation. Thus, narrowing is standardly
treated as a case of I-implicature (governed by an Informativeness-principle, ‘What is expressed simply is
stereotypically exemplified’) and analysed using
default rules (Horn 1984, 2000; Levinson 2000; Blutner
1998, 2002). Approximation is often treated as a case of pragmatic vagueness
involving different contextually-determined standards of precision (Lewis 1979;
Lasersohn 1999). Metaphor is standardly
seen as involving blatant violation of a pragmatic maxim of truthfulness, with
resulting implicature(Grice 1975, Levinson 1983).
Typically,
such accounts do not generalise: metaphors are not analysable as rough approximations,
narrowings are not analysable
as blatant violations of a maxim of truthfulness, and so on. The standard
analyses have also been questioned on descriptive and theoretical grounds: for
example, there is both theoretical and experimental evidence against the
standard view of metaphor (Gibbs 1994, Recanati 1995,
forthcoming; Glucksberg 2001). We aim to develop an
alternative account by combining our own approach to pragmatics (Carston 2002; Wilson & Sperber 2002b) with results from
recent experimental work on concepts and categorisation
which suggest that understanding a word in context may involve the construction
of an ‘ad hoc’ concept or occasion-specific sense (Barsalou
1989, 1992; Franks 1995; Sanford 2002; see also Recanati
2002).
In
preliminary work, we have suggested that the process of ad-hoc concept
construction may be constrained by general pragmatic principles (Carston 1997; Sperber & Wilson 1998a), and that the
crucial pragmatic factor may be a comprehension procedure developed in our work
on Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995; Carston
2002). On this approach, hearers bring to the interpretation of utterances a
general expectation of relevance (defined in a technical sense, cf. Wilson
& Sperber 2002b), and search for the most accessible interpretation which
satisfies these expectations, fine-tuning the linguistically-specified word
meaning where necessary. This account needs to be developed in detail, applied
to a range of concrete data and tested against alternative accounts. Research
questions and methods
Research Questions and Methods
(3a) What is the role of ‘default rules’ in
lexical pragmatics?
The
notions of default interpretation and default rule are widely used in analyses
of lexical narrowing: e.g. bachelor is seen as understood by default to mean
‘eligible bachelor’, drink to mean ‘alcoholic drink’ and secretary to mean
‘female secretary’ (Lascarides & Copestake 1998; Levinson 2000). On this approach, the
default interpretation should be the first to be tested, and should arise
automatically in the absence of contrary evidence.
On
our approach (based on ad hoc concept construction constrained by expectations
of relevance), the narrowing process is much more flexible than default analyses
predict, and the ‘default’ interpretation is not necessarily the first to be
tested. We will compare these approaches using a combination of theoretical
argument, corpus analysis and experimental investigation.
Methods
(i) Using word-sets standardly cited
in the literature on default narrowing (e.g. bachelor, drink, secretary), we
will search the Bank of English (a 450 million word corpus of contemporary
British English) and WordNet (which provides synonym
sets) for actual examples which we will use in developing our own account, and
test it by comparing the relative frequencies of default vs
flexible interpretations.
(ii)
Using a well-established experimental paradigm developed by the psycholinguist
Ira Noveck for measuring reaction times to context-sensitive
meanings (Noveck & Posada 2002), we will test the
claim that default interpretations are automatically assigned, and abandoned
only if they result in inconsistency. (Noveck will
run the experiments at the Cognitive Science Institute, Lyon, using word-sets
supplied by us.)
(3b) Is it possible to develop a unified account
of approximation and metaphor?
Metaphor
is standardly seen as a blatant violation of a
pragmatic maxim, while approximation is not. Our hypothesis is that
approximation and metaphor are both varieties of loose use, involving the
construction of an ad hoc concept with a broader denotation than the
linguistically-specified meaning (Wilson & Sperber 2002a). Our account
predicts that it should be possible to find a gradient of cases between literal
use, approximation and metaphor; such cases would present a problem for the
standard account. We will compare these approaches using a combination of
theoretical argument and corpus analysis.
Methods
We
will develop and test our hypotheses using two types of word which are strictly
defined but often loosely or metaphorically used: (a) geometric terms (e.g.
square, flat, round); (b) negatively-defined terms (e.g. painless, silent, raw). Using corpus searches based on Bank of English, WordNet, the Pragglejaz Metaphor
site (which rates words in a corpus for literal vs
metaphorical status) and lexical databases such as HECTOR (which provides
manually-tagged senses; Atkins 1993), we will assess the claim that a gradient
of cases exists, and test the ability of our account to deal with both
conventional and creative uses (Kilgarriff 2001).
(3c)
Can we give a unified account of all three lexical pragmatic processes?
Our
account predicts that narrowing, approximation and metaphorical extension may
combine, so that ‘bachelor’ might be simultaneously narrowed to eligible
bachelor and loosened (as when a married man says ‘I’m a bachelor tonight’),
and ‘silent’ might be loosely used to mean almost silent and simultaneously
narrowed to denote a certain type of silence (e.g. speechlessness). Such cases
seem to present problems for standard accounts which treat narrowing, loosening
and metaphor in isolation from each other.
Methods
Using
a combination of theoretical argument and corpus analysis, we will search our
corpuses for examples of this type, assess their implications for standard
accounts of narrowing and loosening, and consider how far the analyses of
narrowing and loosening developed under (3a) and (3b) can explain these
examples.
(3d) Does the explicit/implicit distinction apply at lexical as well as
sentential level?
Lexical-pragmatic
processes are standardly seen as contributing to
implicit communication (implicatures) rather than
explicit communication (Blutner 1998; Levinson 2000).
Our hypothesis is that they contribute to explicit content (what is asserted; Carston 2002; Wilson & Sperber 2002a). The issue is
partly terminological, but becomes substantive when combined with the claim
that explicit and implicit communication involve distinct
pragmatic processes (cf. Grice 1989; Recanati 1995,
2002; Levinson 2000).
Methods
Using
a combination of theoretical argument and data drawn from our previous corpus
searches, we will develop and test the hypothesis that (a) there is a worthwhile
explicit/implicit distinction to be drawn at the lexical level, and (b) the
relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure applies in the same way at both
lexical and sentential levels.
(3e) Should the traditional notion of literal
word meaning be abandoned?
We
will end by considering the implications of our account for the traditional
notion of literal word meaning, which is currently being criticised
from a variety of perspectives (Gibbs 1994; Sperber & Wilson 1998; Carston 2002; Recanati
forthcoming). We will investigate two hypotheses which are not necessarily
mutually exclusive: (a) that some words do encode literal meanings which
provide a starting point for inferential comprehension; (b) that some words
encode not literal meanings but ‘pro-concepts’, place-holders into which
pragmatically-constructed concepts are inserted. We expect each hypothesis to
shed light on some of our examples, and will explore this idea using data
gathered under (3a-d).