Impoverished pragmatics? The semantics-pragmatics interface from an intercultural perspective
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Istvan Kecskes
Istvan Kecskes is Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York, USA. He is the President of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA) and the CASLAR (Chinese as a Second Language Research) Association. His book “Foreign language and mother tongue” (Erlbaum 2000) co-authored by Tunde Papp was the first book that described the effect of the second language on the first language based on a longitudinal research. Dr. Kecskes’ book “Intercultural Pragmatics” (OUP 2014) is considered a groundbreaking monograph that shapes research in the field. His new book “English as a Lingua Franca: the Pragmatic perspective” was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He is the founding editor of the journal Intercultural Pragmatics and the Mouton Series in Pragmatics.
Abstract
The semantic-pragmatic interface debate is about how much actual situational context the linguistic signs need in order for them to be meaningful in the communicative process. There is evidence that interlocutors in intercultural interactions rely more [1] on the compositional meaning of linguistic signs (semantics) than contextually supported meaning (pragmatics) because actual situational context cannot help pragmatic implication and interpretation the way it does in L1 communication. At the same time in pragmatic theory there seems to be an agreement between the neo-Gricean account and the post-Gricean account on the fact that the process of implicature retrieval is context-dependent. But will this L1-based contextualism work in intercultural interactions? Is pragmatics impoverished if interlocutors can only partly rely on pragmatic enrichment coming from context and the target language? The paper argues that in fact pragmatics is invigorated rather than impoverished in intercultural communication. A new type of synchronic events-based pragmatics is co-constructed by interlocutors. Instead of relying on the existing conventions, norms and frames of the target language interlocutors create their own temporary frames, formulas and norms. There is pragmaticization of semantics which is a synchronic, (usually) one-off phenomenon in which coded meaning, sometimes without any specific pragmatic enrichment coming from the target language, obtains temporary pragmatic status. This pragmatic enrichment happens as a result of interlocutors’ blending their dictionary knowledge of the linguistic code (semantics) with their basic interpersonal communicative skills and sometimes unusual, not necessarily target language-based pragmatic strategies that suit them very well in their attempt to achieve their communicative goals.
About the author
Istvan Kecskes is Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York, USA. He is the President of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA) and the CASLAR (Chinese as a Second Language Research) Association. His book “Foreign language and mother tongue” (Erlbaum 2000) co-authored by Tunde Papp was the first book that described the effect of the second language on the first language based on a longitudinal research. Dr. Kecskes’ book “Intercultural Pragmatics” (OUP 2014) is considered a groundbreaking monograph that shapes research in the field. His new book “English as a Lingua Franca: the Pragmatic perspective” was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He is the founding editor of the journal Intercultural Pragmatics and the Mouton Series in Pragmatics.
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© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Impoverished pragmatics? The semantics-pragmatics interface from an intercultural perspective
- Cross-cultural multimodal politeness: The phonetics of Japanese deferential speech in comparison to Korean
- Arguing with “at least” constructions
- Forum
- Neo-Gricean perspective on irony, deception, and humor vs. some insights from experimental studies
- Book Reviews
- Second Language Pragmatics: From Theory to Research
- Cultural Linguistics: Cultural Conceptualisations and language.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Impoverished pragmatics? The semantics-pragmatics interface from an intercultural perspective
- Cross-cultural multimodal politeness: The phonetics of Japanese deferential speech in comparison to Korean
- Arguing with “at least” constructions
- Forum
- Neo-Gricean perspective on irony, deception, and humor vs. some insights from experimental studies
- Book Reviews
- Second Language Pragmatics: From Theory to Research
- Cultural Linguistics: Cultural Conceptualisations and language.
