Hi all,
Relevance Theory (RT) has made some attempts to incorporate a model of
conceptual representation in Wilson & Sperber 2003. There, Barsalou's (1987,
1992) "ad-hoc" concepts are discussed in the context of RT. (In the RT
framework, Barsalou's ad-hoc categories are also discussed by Papafragou
1995 in relation to metonymy).
I came across an abstract of a paper by Wilson that might have been
presented in 2003 that seems to discuss the very way ad-hoc concepts go
hand-in-hand with RT. (Abstract available at:
http://www.eurospp.org/2003/papers/Doc2003/WILSON.doc) . As I am in the late
stages of a PhD working on a conceptual representation model for RT based on
Gardenfors' "conceptual spaces" (Gardenfors 2000), I am very interested in
this paper. Wilson & Sperber 2003 do not go in too much depth with respect
to the full conceptual representation system behind the ad-hoc concepts.
This is very interesting, especially since in Barsalou 1992 he was a fan of
amodal systems, whereas later (Barsalou 1999) his interests and theory
develops in the area of perceptual symbol systems. I hope that Wilson's
paper will shed some light in this respect.
So my first question is: does anyone know where can I come across Wilson's
paper? And slightly related to that: is there any other effort to complement
RT with a conceptual representation model?
The second question is related to similarity. I know I found this somewhere,
but I can't seem to find the location: how is similarity dealt with in RT?
Thank you.
References:
Barsalou, L. W. (1987). The instability of graded structure in concepts.
Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in
categorization. U. Neisser. New York, Cambridge University Press.
Barsalou, L. W. (1992). Frames, Concepts, and Conceptual Fields. Frames,
Fields, and Contrasts. A. Lehrer and E. F. Kittay. Hillsdale, Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Barsalou, L. W. (1999). "Perceptual Symbol Systems." Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 22: 577-660.
Gardenfors, P. (2000). Conceptual spaces : the geometry of thought.
Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
Papafragou, A. (1995). "Metonimy and Relevance." UCL Working Papers in
Linguistics 7: 141-175.
Wilson, D. and D. Sperber (2003). Relevance Theory. Handbook of Pragmatics.
G. Ward and L. Horn. Oxford, Blackwell.
Regards,
Radu Daniliuc
School of Language Studies
The Australian National University
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