Are socio-pragmatics and (Neo)-Gricean Pragmatics Incompatible?

Publication Title

Journal of Pragmatics

Document Type

Article

Abstract/Description

Objections to Gricean pragmatics on grounds that its claims (particularly its claim of universality) are falsified by taking power, social status, gender, & institutional roles into account are refuted by showing that (1) context & background knowledge, which include these factors, are listed by H. Paul Grice (1989) among the factors determining implicature; (2) the universality of inferential processes used by participants in conversations in no way diminishes cross-cultural differences in conclusions participants reach; & (3) the cooperative principle is not invalidated by empirical studies of non-European cultures that have been cited against it. Given the existence of universals of language, it is asserted that the relation between society & language can only be dialectic & that Gricean pragmatics belongs in a materialistic-dialectic theory of language. The use of constructed examples in Gricean pragmatics is defended on metatheoretical grounds, as otherwise pragmatically ill-formed discourse & inferencing are to be ignored.

Department

Literature and Languages

First Page

627

Last Page

636

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00051-9

Volume

30

Issue

5

ISSN

1879-1387

Date

11-1-1998

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