Sperber and Wilson

Este trabajo versa sobre el alcance de la partitura en términos de transmisión de la información y como herramienta de comunicación a partir de los elementos que la conforman, los cuales pueden ser implícitos o explícitos. La pregunta clave es que si la partitura tiene elementos que son implícitos, entonces cómo es posible que comunique una idea musical y cómo es que ésta puede ser interpretada por los ejecutantes (entendiendo lo implícito en un sentido pragmático). La propuesta es que tal interpretación se da a partir del contexto musical, histórico, cultural, etc. en que se sitúa la partitura, mediante ciertas inferencias que realiza el ejecutante a partir de toda la información explícita que contiene la partitura. La propuesta concluye que esta forma de inferir la información se da en todo tipo de notación musical: partituras, tablaturas, notación gráfica, etc. Para sustentar este postulado, se han utilizado: la teoría de la relevancia de Sperber y Wilson, La teoría conversacional de Paul Grice y la teoría de las representaciones epistémicas de Axel Barceló.

Palabras clave: pragmática, notación musical, filosofía, representación.

The paramount objective of the present work is to analyse selected types of jokes in the light of Relevance Theory. The point of departure for the empirical investigation is Yus’ (2008) taxonomy of canned jokes. The work is divided into three main parts. The first two chapters constitute the theoretical introduction to the analysis undertaken in Chapter 3.
Chapter 1 sets out to present the theoretical assumptions of Relevance Theory (RT), originated and developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson (1986 [1995]) in their book entitled Relevance: Communication and Cognition and a wealth of articles. The theory of relevance assumes that human cognition and communication are geared towards the maximization of relevance. Chapter 2 characterises two accounts grounded in RT, which have been offered by Francisco Yus (2003, 2008, 2010) and Maria Jodłowiec (1991ab, 2008). Chapter 3 centres on the practical applicability of Yus’ (2008) categorisation of jokes into my data culled from collections of jokes and Internet sources.

Conversational implicatures, as a widely examined instance of indirect communication, can enrich philosophical pursuits in many domains. Applied to the field of the epistemology of testimony, the theory of conversational implicatures raises many questions that could in turn provide novel insights about how we should treat other people’s testimonies. The problem is not whether people acquire knowledge and form their beliefs on the basis of other people’s words or on the basis of their beliefs – the problem lies in being able to detect those cases in which beliefs and words do not match. I suggest that the use and the decoding of implicatures is a rational process and that correctly formed implicature-based beliefs are justified because of their rationality. I also suggest that minor differences between the speaker’s and the hearer’s communicative moves can generate cases of epistemic (bad) luck that can be treated as predictable outcomes of a communicational faux pas.

"This anthropological study describes a specific form of mediation, as it is practiced in Ethiopia (Northeast Africa) by members of the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups. It introduces elders as male household-heads in their advanced ages, who settle conflicts and arrange marriages for the members of the junior generations. There are not only 'easy' cases dealt with, which one might assume to be too 'unimportant' for state courts or other juridical institutions but also aggravated cases that may affect the wider group or that have inter-ethnic dimensions. The study uses specific case studies of marriage, bride abduction, physical injury and homicide for illustration. Within the book, reference is made to speech-act-theory and the 'new ethnographic' approach related to it. Both rhetoric strategies and non-verbal means of communication are discussed, such as postures, gestures, spatial arrangements, numerical symbolisms, or the deliberate use of certain kinds of dress and of material objects. Special attention is paid to the use of ritual in mediation procedures. The book brings to light significant regularities that are inherent to the different types of elders' proceedings. Peculiar elements and phases can be distinguished that re-occur in all types of processes analysed in the study. This cannot exclusively be explained by reference to 'process', as a general idea of people negotiating law. It moreover hints to the existence of a formal 'procedure', which follows its own rules. Accordingly, a change of perspective 'from process to procedure' is suggested in the book's programmatic title.

http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_2776.ahtml

Book Order US:
http://www.amazon.com/From-Process-Procedure-Aethiopistische-Forschungen/dp/3447066113/

Book Order Germany:
http://www.amazon.de/Process-Procedure-Mediation-Formality-Ethiopia/dp/3447066113/
http://www.buchhandel.de/detailansicht.aspx?isbn=9783447066112"

Legal lines of reasoning sometimes appear absurd. One non-trivial way to explain this absurdity is to characterize legal discourse as intentionally non-cooperative, i.e., as a mode of discourse in which people deliberately mislead and evade. But is legal discourse really non-cooperative in this way? Is it non-cooperative at all, or less cooperative than other discourses? Is legal discourse a strategic discourse in the sense that it fails to cooperate?
KEYWORDS: cooperation, cooperative principle, flouting, Grice, legal reasoning, Marmor, pragmatics, strategic attitude

We seek to unify two theories under a common north: the Recognition Theory (Honneth) and the Theory of Relevance (Rauen, Campos, Sperber and Wilson), or a cognitive-communicative contribution to recognition relations. This contribution takes into account and partially systematize the issue of energy of the subjects based on their relevance set, which are the aspects that anchor cognition. Thus, the recognition process would be linked in some way to offset that particular stimulus produces. Love would be the main stimulus, in recognition sphere, being responsible for others: law and solidarity (or social contributions), to be compensatory. Even we defend love as the genesis of democracy. In this sense, we seek the elements of recognition of Axel Honneth in Spiritist Doctrine, using the analytical method we call the scheme of the provisions, to assess the provisions and / or energies of people and institutions to women within the Spiritism, where we use quantitative sampling (data by sex of command posts), qualitative (interviews), bibliographic and documentary research. The spiritist movement of Rio Grande do Sul (State of Brazil) had in 2015, among its 406 societies in the sample, 51% of women were in the presidency. We identify elements that support the Honneth's thesis that the substantiation practices in the
spheres of love, law and solidarity, shapes the social praxis of this religious movement in an
milieu with very symmetrical relations between men and women, with effective participation
in policy formation of the community will, ensuring not only autonomy but somehow female
individuation.

Procuramos unificar duas teorias sob um norte comum: a Teoria do Reconhecimento (Honneth) e a Teoria da Relevância (Rauen; Campos; Sperber e Wilson), ou seja, um aporte cognitivo-comunicativo para as relações de reconhecimento. Tal aporte leva em conta e
sistematiza parcialmente a questão das energias dos sujeitos baseado no seu conjunto de
relevâncias, que são os aspectos que ancoram a cognição. Deste modo, o processo de reconhecimento estaria vinculado, de alguma maneira, às compensações que determinado
estímulo produz. O amor seria o estímulo principal, dentro da esfera do reconhecimento,
sendo responsável pelos outros: direito e solidariedade (ou contribuição social), por ser
compensatório. Inclusive, defendemos o amor como a gênese da democracia. Nesse sentido,
procuramos os elementos do reconhecimento de Axel Honneth dentro da Doutrina Espírita,
utilizando o método analítico que chamamos de economia das disposições, para aferir as
disposições e/ou energias das pessoas e das instituições para com as mulheres dentro do
Espiritismo, onde usamos amostragem quantitativa (dados por sexo dos postos de comando), qualitativa (entrevistas), bibliográfica e documental. O movimento espírita do Rio Grande do Sul possuía em 2015, dentre as suas 406 sociedades da amostra, 51% de mulheres na
presidência. Identificamos elementos que corroboram a tese de Honneth em que a
consubstanciação de práticas nas esferas do amor, do direito e da solidariedade, conforma a
práxis social desse movimento religioso, num ambiente com relações bastante simétricas entre
homens e mulheres, com participação efetiva na política da formação da vontade comunitária,
garantindo não só autonomia, mas de certa forma, individuação feminina.

In this paper existing theoretical approaches to defining verbal irony are reviewed - namely the classical account, the Gricean treatment, and the treatment in Echoic Mention Theory, Pretence Theory as well as Indirect Negation Theory. In the second half of the paper these theoretical approaches are put to the test examining examples of irony (and close phenomena) from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. This paper concludes that the classical definition and the Gricean treatment as a deliberate and obvious lie, which triggers associations of background knowledge made salient within the domain of discourse, are more adequate than the alternative approaches. The paper also presents some more insight into the nature of this act of lying and proposes a mechanism for how the domain of the relevant background knowledge is established and how it interacts with the literal meaning to produce the non-literal, i.e. ironic meaning.

This experimental paper advocates the use of some tools of Cognitive Pragmatics for writing fictional dialogue.

Badly written dialogues are an everyday experience; a closer analysis reveals how the major flaw of such fictional exchanges is to ignore basic mechanisms observed in human communication, such as the Conversational Implicatures described by Paul H. Grice. Applying the notions of Cognitive Pragmatics to the process of Creative Writing seems like an efficient solution to the problem.
Readers and viewers, though, may not be ready for such a change. If most of the relevant information in a dialogue is not spoon-fed to the audience, but only implied, misunderstandings could be a major issue. If the search for relevance is as immediate and instinctive as Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson claim, the receiver of the message may follow wrong hints.
With the help of data collected through a questionnaire, in this paper I try to demonstrate that critical thinking, acquired through education and personal learning, allows the audience to interrupt the search for relevance; that by being able to abstain from making assumptions until more information is provided, readers and viewers are ready for the introduction of Cognitive Pragmatics in Creative Writing.

Abstract:  Gricean pragmatics seems to pose a dilemma. If semantics is limited to the conventional meanings of types of expressions, then the semantics of an utterance does not determine what is said. If all that figures in the determination of what is said counts as semantics, then pragmatic reasoning about the specific intentions of a speaker intrudes on semantics. The dilemma is false. Key points: Semantics need not determine what is said, and the description, with which the hearer begins, need not provide the hearer with knowledge of what was said, or the ability to express what was said, from the hearer's context.

In recent work Sperber and Wilson expand on ideas initially presented in Relevance (1986) and flesh out continuua between showing and meaning, and determinate and indeterminate content. Drawing on Sperber and Wilson's work, and at points defending it from what I see as potential objections, I present a Schema of Communicative Acts (SCA) that includes an additional third continuum between linguistic and non-linguistic content. The SCA clears the way for consideration of what exactly is meant by showing, the motivations of speakers, how affect impacts expression, and metaphor. The SCA allows us to consider not only how but why we engage in certain forms of communicative behavior, and captures the incredible nuance of human interactions: said and meant, linguistic and non-linguistic, determinate and indeterminate.

Classical Gricean pragmatics is usually conceived as dealing with far-side pragmatics, aimed at computing implicatures. It involves reasoning about why what was said, was said. Near-side pragmatics, on the other hand, is pragmatics in the service of determining, together with the semantical properties of the words used, what was said. But this raises the specter of ‘the pragmatic circle.’ If Gricean pragmatics seeks explanations for why someone said what they did, how can there be Gricean pragmatics on the near-side? Gricean reasoning seems to require what is said to get started. But then if Gricean reasoning is needed to get to what is said, we have a circle.