Experimental Pragmatics: The Making of a Cognitive Science (Key Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics)
Cambridge University Press, 10/11/2018
EAN 9781107084902, ISBN10: 1107084903
Hardcover, 274 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
How does a listener understand a sarcastic 'That was a wonderful speech' when the words point to a positive review? Why do students of introductory logic interpret 'Some cabs are yellow' as 'Not all cabs are yellow' when the meaning of 'some' is compatible with 'all'? Pragmatics aims to explain how listeners draw out a speaker's meaning from utterances, an astonishing feat when one considers that the words in a sentence hardly suffice for fully comprehending what the speaker intended. Given the nature of pragmatics, it is going to take the interdisciplinary firepower of many cognitive sciences - including philosophy, experimental psychology, linguistics and neuroscience - to fully appreciate this uniquely human ability. In this book, Ira Noveck, a leading pioneer in experimental pragmatics, engagingly walks the reader through the phenomena, the theoretical debates, the experiments as well as the historical development of this growing academic discipline.
1. Defining pragmatics
the what, the how and areas of disagreement
2. Grice's monumental proposal and reactions to it
3. The experimentalist's mindset
4. A consideration of experimental techniques
5. Early experimental pragmatics
6. How logical terms can be enriched
exposing semantic-pragmatic divergences
7. Grammatical or semantic approaches to scalar implicatures
8. Conditionals
9. Referring
10. Speaking falsely and getting away with it
post-Gricean accounts of metaphor and other lexical adjustments
11. Irony
shifting attention and reading intentions
12. Pragmatic abilities among those with autism
13. More topics for experimental pragmatics
an all you can eat buffet
14. Opinionated conclusions and considerations for the future.