‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal Communication
Socio-cultural practices and the economy of expression, which generally characterise human communication, significantly widen the gap between linguistic meaning and speaker’s meaning. What the hearer does is to construct hypotheses about the speaker’s meaning based on contextual...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of Ghana
2017-10-01
|
| Series: | Legon Journal of the Humanities |
| Subjects: |
| _version_ | 1818758257852809216 |
|---|---|
| author | Felix Nwabeze Ogoanah Stella Nkechi Kpolugbo |
| author_facet | Felix Nwabeze Ogoanah Stella Nkechi Kpolugbo |
| author_sort | Felix Nwabeze Ogoanah |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Socio-cultural practices and the economy of expression, which generally characterise human communication, significantly widen the gap between linguistic meaning and
speaker’s meaning. What the hearer does is to construct hypotheses about the speaker’s meaning based on contextual and background assumptions and the general principles that
speakers are supposed to observe in normal circumstances (Kecskés, 2009, p.106).Drawing examples from spoken data selected from interpersonal interactions and analysed within
the relevance-theoretic framework of inferential pragmatics, this paper demonstrates how cultural considerations function as inputs to the cognitive process, and how the human capacity for inference is crucially important in interpersonal communication. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-18T06:23:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3a4310be433e48179314b939557305a2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2458-746X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-18T06:23:58Z |
| publishDate | 2017-10-01 |
| publisher | University of Ghana |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Legon Journal of the Humanities |
| spelling | doaj.art-3a4310be433e48179314b939557305a22022-12-21T21:18:06ZengUniversity of GhanaLegon Journal of the Humanities2458-746X2017-10-0128213115010.4314/ljh.v28i2.6‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal CommunicationFelix Nwabeze Ogoanah 0Stella Nkechi Kpolugbo 1University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria Anchor University, Lagos, NigeriaSocio-cultural practices and the economy of expression, which generally characterise human communication, significantly widen the gap between linguistic meaning and speaker’s meaning. What the hearer does is to construct hypotheses about the speaker’s meaning based on contextual and background assumptions and the general principles that speakers are supposed to observe in normal circumstances (Kecskés, 2009, p.106).Drawing examples from spoken data selected from interpersonal interactions and analysed within the relevance-theoretic framework of inferential pragmatics, this paper demonstrates how cultural considerations function as inputs to the cognitive process, and how the human capacity for inference is crucially important in interpersonal communication.culturepragmatic inferenceinterpersonal communicationrelevancecognition |
| spellingShingle | Felix Nwabeze Ogoanah Stella Nkechi Kpolugbo ‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal Communication Legon Journal of the Humanities culture pragmatic inference interpersonal communication relevance cognition |
| title | ‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal Communication |
| title_full | ‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal Communication |
| title_fullStr | ‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal Communication |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal Communication |
| title_short | ‘I just said It, I didn’t mean anything:’ Culture and Pragmatic Inference in Interpersonal Communication |
| title_sort | i just said it i didn t mean anything culture and pragmatic inference in interpersonal communication |
| topic | culture pragmatic inference interpersonal communication relevance cognition |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT felixnwabezeogoanah ijustsaiditididntmeananythingcultureandpragmaticinferenceininterpersonalcommunication AT stellankechikpolugbo ijustsaiditididntmeananythingcultureandpragmaticinferenceininterpersonalcommunication |