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1

Relevance, ad hoc concepts and analogy

100%

Mioduszewska E.

Linguistics Beyond and Within

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2017

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vol. 3

155-168

EN

In Relevance Theory (RT) concepts are “enduring elementary mental structure[s] capable of playing different discriminatory or inferential roles on different occasions in an individual’s mental life.” (Sperber & Wilson, 2012, p. 35). They may be lexicalized atomic concepts, ad hoc atomic concepts not encoded in our linguistic system and some innate concepts (Carston, 2010, p. 14). Concepts may be shared between interlocutors, idiosyncratic but grounded in common experience or fully idiosyncratic and non-communicable. They are “arrived at through the mutual pragmatic adjustment of explicature and contextual implicatures.” (Carston, 2010, p. 10). Ad-hoc concepts are “pragmatically derived, generally ineffable, non-lexicalized […] rough indication to aid readers in understanding what we have in mind in particular cases.” (Carston 2010, p. 13). Concepts encoded will only occasionally be the same as the ones communicated because words are used to convey indefinitely many other ad hoc concepts constructed in a given context (Sperber & Wilson, 2012, p. 43). Apparently, RT restricts the construction of ad hoc concepts by the search for relevance (definitions of (optimal) relevance, principles of relevance and relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure) and the potential connection (narrowing or broadening) between the denotations of the encoded and constructed concepts. The mechanisms underlying category narrowing/broadening seem not to be explicitly described and explained. What provides a very general but, at the same time, precise account of concept-relatedness is Hofstadter & Sander’s (2013) understanding of analogy. The question posed here is whether this understanding may help explain concept-relatedness in Relevance Theory.

2

Classifier constructions as procedural referring expressions in American Sign Language

100%

Jones S.

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2015

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vol. 13

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issue 4

368-391

EN

The present paper comments on signs of American Sign Language in the perspective of relevance theory. The main claim is that classifiers encode procedural instructions to help the addressee pick out the intended referent for the procedural referring expressions made with classifier constructions. The author explains how three classes of classifiers differently manipulate concepts to instruct the addressee to create ad hoc concepts though the use of inference, narrowing, and broadening. It is also claimed that classifier constructions do not encode a conceptual meaning, but a procedural instruction. The discussion includes illustrations of how the speaker’s using classifier constructions instead of lexical signs may increase the number of cognitive effects on the part of the addressee.

3

(Inter?)Subjectivity of Explicit Content in Relevance Theory

75%

Mioduszewska E.

Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies

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2014

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issue 23/2

103-112

EN

Relevance Theory (RT) (Sperber – Wilson 1986 [1995], Wilson – Sperber 2004) postulates the existence of explicit content in utterance meaning, called explicature. The explicitness of explicatures might be expected to consist, among other properties, in their intersubjectivity. However, the RT theoretical assumptions and tools crucial to explicature construction and identification all seem to be individual-relative and, as such, subjective. If so, the explicitness of explicature needs further elaboration.

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1 Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies

1 Linguistics Beyond and Within

1 Research in Language

1 2017

1 2015

1 2014

2 Mioduszewska E.

1 Jones S.

Relevance, ad hoc concepts and analogy

Classifier constructions as procedural referring expressions in American Sign Language

(Inter?)Subjectivity of Explicit Content in Relevance Theory