Istvan Kecskes

The socio-cognitive approach (SCA) was introduced by Kecskes (2010, 2014) as a theoretical framework for intercultural pragmatics. The new subfield of pragmatics needed a theoretical frame as an alternative to the existing monolingual Gricean approaches in order to explain what happens in intercultural interactions where the interlocutors represent different first languages (L1) and cultures and not a relatively coherent speech community that is ruled by norms and conventions of language use and usage. Also, the new theoretical framework was expected to account for the far from ideal, untidy, occasionally poorly-structured and full of wrong-word-choices language use of intercultural interactions.

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 (e.g. House. Misunderstanding in social Life: Discourse approaches to problematic talk. Longman, 2003; Kecskes. Explorations in pragmatics: Linguistic, cognitive and intercultural aspects. Mouton de Gruyter, 2007; Trbojevic. Journal of Pragmatics. 151:118–127, 2019; Gabbatore et al., Intercultural Pragmatics, 16(1):27–57, 2019) that interlocutors in intercultural interactions rely more 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 (Chierchia, 2013; Horn. The Handbook of Pragmatics) 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.

Communication is not as smooth a process as current pragmatic theories depict it. In Rapaport’s words “We almost always fail [...]. Yet we almost always nearly succeed: This is the paradox of communication (Rapaport, 2003)”. This paper claims that there is a need for an approach that is able to explain this “bumpy road” by analyzing both the positive and negative features of the communicative process.The paper presents a socio-cognitive approach (SCA) to pragmatics that takes into account both the societal and individual factors including cooperation and egocentrism that, as claimed here, are not antagonistic phenomena in interaction. This approach is considered an alternative to current theories of pragmatics that do not give an adequate account of what really happens in the communicative process. They consider communication an idealistic, cooperation-based, context-dependent process in which speakers are supposed to carefully construct their utterances for the hearer taking into account all contextual factors and hearers do their best to figure out the intentions of the speakers. This approach relies mainly on the positive features of communication including cooperation, rapport and politeness while almost completely ignores the untidy, trial-and-error nature of communication and the importance of prior contexts captured in the individual use of linguistic units. The overemphasis on cooperative, societal, contextual factors has led to disregard individual factors such as egocentrism and salience that are as important contributors to the communicative process as cooperation, context and rapport. The socio-cognitive approach is presented as a theoretical framework to incorporate and reconcile two seemingly antagonistic sides of the communicative process and explain the dynamic interplay of prior and actual situational contexts.

This paper argues that research in intercultural communication should be taken into account when we want to define what language is, what its nature is like, and how it functions. Standard linguistic and pragmatic theories based on L1 analysis assume that language use depends on there being commonalities, conventions, standards and norms between language users. These conventions of language and conventions of usage create a core common ground on which intention and cooperation-based communication is built. When, however, this core common ground is limited as is the case in intercultural communication interlocutors cannot take them for granted, there is reason to take up the question of how people go about formulating utterances and interpreting them when they have limited access to those conventions and frames, and in a sense, they are expected to create, co-construct them (at least a part of them) in the communicative process. The paper examines three important aspects of this issue: (1) definition of language, (2) changing role of context, and (3) a modified understanding of linguistic creativity.

According to current pragmatic theories, communication involves recipient design and intention recognition. The speaker constructs a model of the hearer’s knowledge relevant to the given situational context, and vice versa. On the basis of the speaker’s utterance, the hearer constructs a model of the speaker’s knowledge relevant to the given situational context. Recipient design, as a term, derives from conversational analysis, where it denotes the adaptation of communicative behavior to a particular addressee (Garfinkel, 1967). This is one instance of audience design (Clark & Carlson, 1982), in which utterances are constructed according to what others in the communicative exchange know and believe (Clark, 1996). Audience design has been investigated in speech and actions, in both naturalistic and experimental settings (Ozyurek, 2002; O’Neill et al., 2005; Holler & Stevens, 2007; Jacobs & Garnham, 2007), but, according to Newman-Norlund et al. (2009), there is still considerable debate over when, how, and why it is used. An undecided issue is whether audience design is structurally linked to initial attempts to communicate or is used parsimoniously, to repair erroneous attempts. Some researchers support a sociocentric approach, in which communicative behavior is designed by taking into account the knowledge and characteristics of the addressee that are assumed to be part of common ground (Isaacs & Clark, 1987; Clark, 1996; Nadig & Sedivy, 2002). Others claim that the initial planning of utterances ignores common ground (this is an egocentric approach) and that messages are adapted to addressees only when adjustments are required (Horton & Keysar, 1996; Keysar et al., 1998).

This paper focuses on the role of context in meaning construction. My starting point is the assumption that context is a dynamic construct that appears in different formats in language use both as a repository and/or trigger of knowledge. Consequently, context has both a selective and a constitutive role. Unlike several current theories of meaning (e.g. Barsalou. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22:577–609, 1993; Coulson. Semantic leaps: Frame-shifting and conceptual blending in meaning-construction. CUP, 2000; Croft. Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. Longman, 2000; Evans Cognitive Linguistics. 17(4):491–534, 2006) claiming that meaning construction is mostly dependent on situational context, I will argue that meaning values of words encoding prior contexts of experience play as important a role in meaning construction as situational context. These two sides of world knowledge (encoded and current) exist dialectically and relationally. Actual situation context is viewed through prior context, and their encounter creates a third space. According to this approach meaning is the result of the interplay of prior experience and current experience, which are both socio-cultural in nature. Prior experience is encapsulated in the meaning values of lexical items that make up the utterances used by the interlocutors, and current experience is represented in the actual situation context in which communication takes place, and which is interpreted (often differently) by the interlocutors. Meaning formally expressed in the linguistic interactional context is created on-the-spot, and is the result of the interaction and mutual influence of the private contexts represented in the language of the interlocutors and the actual situational context interpreted by the interlocutors. In speech communication people attempt to fit their language to a situational context that their language, in turn, helped to create in the first place. This reciprocity means that language both creates context and is created by it (cf. Durant and Goodwin 1992; Gee. An introduction to discourse analysis. Routledge, 1999).The dynamic model of meaning (DMM) is put forward as an attempt to give equal importance to message and actual situational context in meaning construction as described above, and blend the external and internal approaches to context. The model considers the communicative process as a structured whole, as something viewed from different perspectives. It applies Sciabarra’s understanding of dialectics to context according to which dialectics is “the ‘art of context-keeping,’ because it counsels us to grasp the full context of any object through techniques of abstraction and integration. By examining an object from different vantage points and on different levels of generality, we achieve a more comprehensive grasp of its antecedent conditions, interrelationships, and tendencies (Sciabarra. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 3:381–399, 2002)”.The paper starts with a brief introduction to the cognitive approach followed by a discussion of different ways of understanding context. Then the dynamic model of meaning (DMM) is presented, and it is demonstrated how the model can be used to explain the dialectics of context, word meaning, and utterance meaning. The paper ends with a section that discusses how the application of the DMM may affect our understanding of some major issues in pragmatics.

This chapter argues that context is a dynamic construct that appears in different formats in language use both as a repository and/or trigger of knowledge. It has both a selective and a constitutive role. Mainstream theories of meaning (e.g. Coulson. Semantic leaps: Frame-shifting and conceptual blending in meaning-construction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000; Croft. Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. Longman, London, 2000; Evans. Cognitive linguistics 17:491–534, 2006) claim that meaning construction is mostly dependent on actual situational context. This chapter, however, argues that meaning values of linguistics expressions that encapsulate prior contexts of experience play as important a role in meaning construction and comprehension as actual situational context. This is especially true in ELF interactions where actual situational context cannot help pragmatic implication and interpretation the way it does in L1 communication because of the different L1 background of interlocutors and uneven socio-cultural experience with the target language.

This paper seeks answer to the question why exactly we say what we say the way we say it. Although Giora argued that cognitively prominent salient meanings, rather than literal meanings, play the most important role both in production and comprehension of language, most attention in pragmatics research has been focused on comprehension rather than production. This paper claims that salience plays as important a role in language production as in comprehension and discusses how salience of an entity can be interpreted as a measure of how well an entity stands out from other entities and biases the preference of the individual in selecting words, expressions, and complex constructs in the process of communication. It is argued that there is a unique interplay between linguistic salience and perceptual salience both in production and comprehension. The role of perceptual and linguistic salience involves a relation between prominence of entities in a ranking, and preference of a choice among alternatives.From the perspective of interlocutors, three theoretically significant categories are distinguished: inherent salience, collective salience, and emergent situational salience. Inherent salience is largely equivalent to cognitive status. It is characterized as a natural built-in preference in the general conceptual and linguistic knowledge of the speaker, which has developed as a result of prior experience with the use of lexical items and situations, and changes both diachronically and synchronically. Inherent salience is affected by collective salience and emergent situational salience. Collective salience is shared with the members of a speech community, and changes diachronically. Emergent situational salience that changes synchronically refers to the salience of specific objects or linguistic elements in the context of language production and comprehension, and may accrue through such determinants as vividness, speaker motivation and recency of mention. In an actual situational context inherent, individual salience is affected and shaped both by collective and situational salience. When the speaker is faced with the choice of a word or an expression, a ranking of the available choices is obtained on the basis of the degree of salience of entities in the generation context. The word or phrase then is selected for utterance on the basis of maximum salience. This paper argues that inherent salience is dominated by linguistic salience, while emergent situational salience is usually governed by perceptual salience.As stated above salience is equally important both in production and comprehension. However, the focus of this paper will mainly be on speaker production because this issue has received less attention so far.

The paper argues that linguistic creativity is about the alternation of prefabricated lexical and grammatical units and ad hoc generated chunks and sentences that are amalgamated into simple and/or more complex utterances in speech production. This alternation is crucial for English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) because this is where the main difference between English as a Native Language (ENL) use and ELF use can be identified. Since ELF users cannot rely on norms, standards and conventions of ENL to the extent as native speakers do, they need to co-construct, co-create those in their temporary speech communities. Consequently, ELF users produce more ad hoc generated language than rely on prefabricated units of the target language when creating utterances than their ENL counterparts. The paper sets to explain this difference in linguistic creativity.

This paper aims to discuss how the emerging new language with its own developing socio-cultural foundation affects the existing L1-governed knowledge and pragmatic competence of adult sequential bilinguals. It is assumed that these bilinguals already have an L1-governed pragmatic competence at place, which will be adjusted to accommodate the socio-cultural requirements of the new language. So there is no separate L2 pragmatic competence. What happens is that the existing L1-governed pragmatic competence becomes bilingual pragmatic competence while changing dynamically under the influence of the new language and its socio-cultural requirements and behavior patterns blending the emerging features and skills with the existing ones.I will argue that there is a basic difference between the development of pragmatic competence in L1 and the sequential development of bilingual pragmatic competence. While the former is controlled mainly by the socio-cultural environment the latter is mostly motivated by individual will and preference. In the L1 language development and social development go hand in hand as a mostly subconscious, automatic and instinctive process in which individual consciousness and willingness to acquire social skills and knowledge play a relatively limited role. The whole process depends mainly on exposure to and nature of socio-cultural environment. Bilingual pragmatic competence, however, develops differently. When the new language is added gradually the existing L1-governed pragmatic competence is affected (besides exposure to L2 and environment) and motivated by individual control, consciousness and willingness to modify existing skills and behavior patterns and acquire particular social skills and ignore others. This is not to say that the socio-cultural exposure and environment is not important. It of course is. However, it appears that there is more individual control included in bilingual pragmatic development than is the case in L1 pragmatic development.

One of the most complicated issues of present-day linguistics is the relationship of three types of knowledge: linguistic knowledge, conceptual knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge. After discussing the complexity of their interplay from different perspectives the chapter presents a model to explain their relationship. The model has linguistic knowledge on one side, and the socio-cultural background knowledge (world knowledge) on the other side. There is constant interaction between the two sides in language use. For analytic reasons, within the socio-cultural background knowledge there a distinction is made between conceptual knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge. According to this model, meaning is constructed in the dynamic interplay of actual situational context and lexical items, with the context representing the actual, present, situational, ever-changing side of socio-cultural background and the lexical item(s) embodying previous experiences and relations in the socio-cultural background. The lexical items with their semantic properties (linguistic knowledge) represent prior reoccurring experience (conceptual knowledge), and the actual situational context triggers the other part of world knowledge that we previously called encyclopedic knowledge. The difference between the two types of socio-cultural background knowledge is that the conceptual knowledge part is immediately tied to linguistic knowledge while the other type of socio-cultural background knowledge (encyclopedic knowledge) is called upon as needed in language use.

This paper argues that current pragmatic theories fail to describe common ground in its complexity because they usually retain a communication-as-transfer-between-minds view of language and disregard the fact that disagreement and egocentrism of speaker-hearers are as fundamental parts of communication as agreement and cooperation. On the other hand, current cognitive research has overestimated the egocentric behavior of the dyads and argued for the dynamic emergent property of common ground while devaluing the overall significance of cooperation in the process of verbal communication. The paper attempts to eliminate this conflict and proposes to combine the two views into an integrated concept of common ground, in which both core common ground (assumed shared knowledge, a priori mental representation) and emergent common ground (emergent participant resource, a post facto emergence through use) converge to construct a dialectical socio-cultural background for communication.Both cognitive and pragmatic considerations are central to this issue. While attention (through salience, which is the cause for interlocutors’ egocentrism) explains why emergent property unfolds, intention (through relevance, which is expressed in cooperation) explains why presumed shared knowledge is needed. Based on this, common ground is perceived as an effort to converge the mental representation of shared knowledge present as memory that we can activate, shared knowledge that we can seek, and rapport, as well as knowledge that we can create in the communicative process. The socio-cognitive approach emphasizes that common ground is a dynamic construct that is mutually constructed by interlocutors throughout the communicative process. The core and emergent components join in the construction of common ground in all stages, although they may contribute to the construction process in different ways, to different extents, and in different phases of the communicative process.

The paper argues that cognitive mechanisms responsible for implicatures are the same no matter what language someone uses. However, linguistic knowledge, conceptual knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge and contextual effect that are all needed for producing and comprehending implicatures vary significantly in ELF users. They cannot be expected to act in accordance with the conventions and norms of the societal culture of native English-speaking communities. It is claimed that in ELF discourse participants must create their own temporary norms and conventions with implicatures among them. Consequently, it seems mistaken to test L2 users or ELF speakers on the use of L1-based conversational and/or frozen implicatures (functioning as idioms) as many studies have done.The paper offers a modified understanding of implicatures with the notion of “simplicature”, and a model to explain the relationship and interplay between factors that affect implicature processing: linguistic knowledge, conceptual knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge and contextual effect.

This chapter discusses the use of formulaic language in a second language (L2) from the perspective of intercultural pragmatics introducing the socio-cognitive approach as a theoretical frame. It argues that the low rate of formulaic language in L2 does not mean that the idiom principle and economy principle do not affect L2 use. Rather the low rate is due to two factors. First, besides frequency of exposure there are several factors such as acceptance, preference and willingness to use, which are not present in L1 to the extent as in L2. Second, as a compensation for limited use of L2 formulas L2 learners create new formulaic units, which is the result of individual endeavours or co-construction.

The common ground theory of presupposition has been dominant since the seventies (Stalnaker. Semantics and philosophy. New York: New York University Press. 197–214, 1974; Stalnaker. Syntax and Semantics, 9: 315–332, 1978; Stalnaker. Linguistics and Philosophy, 25:701–721, 2002). This theory has resulted from a view of communication as transfer between minds. In this view interlocutors presume that speakers speak cooperatively, they infer that they have intentions and beliefs that are necessary to make sense of their speech acts, and treat such entities as pre-existing psychological ones that are later somehow formulated in language. Common ground is considered as a distributed form of mental representation and adopted as a basis on which successful communication is warranted (Arnseth & Solheim. Proceedings of CSCL 2002, Computer support for collaborative learning: Foundations for a CSCL community, 102–110. Boulder, Colorado, 2002; Kecskes & Zhang. Pragmatics and Cognition. 17:331–355, 2009)). However, the theory has not gone without objection and criticism (e.g., Abbott. Linguistics and Philosophy 21:523–538, 2008; Beaver & Zeevat. Accommodation. MS. 2004; Von Fintel. Ken Hale: A life in language. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001; Von Fintel. Draft paper for Workshop on Presupposition Accommodation at The Ohio State University. 2006; Simons. Philosophical Studies 112:251–278, 2003) because it is based on “an oversimplified picture of conversation” (Abbott. Linguistics and Philosophy 21:523–538, 2008), and as a consequence the relationship between common ground and presupposition has also been oversimplified. In this approach presupposition is often considered as a conventional or conversational constraint of common ground, or requirement on common ground that must be satisfied in order to make an appropriate utterance. The problem of accommodation is a critical issue that has been raised against this view, and caused great challenge to the theory by stimulating diverse alternatives.The goal of this paper is to redefine the relationship between common ground and presupposition within the confines of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA). SCA (Kecskes. Journal of Pragmatics 40:385–406, 2008; Kecskes & Zhang. Pragmatics and Cognition. 17:331–355, 2009; Kecskes. Pragmatics & Society 1:50–73, 2010) adopted in this paper offers an alternative view on communication, which claims that communication is not an ideal transfer of information, and cooperation and egocentrism are both present in the process of communication to a varying extent. The SCA emphasizes the dynamics of common ground creation and updating in the actual process of interaction, in which interlocutors are considered as “complete” individuals with different possible cognitive status being less or more cooperative at different stages of the communicative process. Presupposition is a proposal of common ground, and there is a vibrant interaction between the two. They enjoy a cross relation in terms of content and manners in which they are formed, and their dynamism is inherently related and explanatory to each other. This claim has important implications to the solution to presupposition accommodation.After the introduction Sect. 13.2 describes the socio-cognitive approach. Section 13.3 reviews the assumed common ground, and Sect. 13.4 introduces the speaker-assigned presupposition. Section 13.5 discusses the dynamism of presuppositions and common ground, and claims that their dynamic observations are coherent and explanatory to each other. Section 13.6 readdresses the accommodation problem with redefinition of the relations.

The paper argues that research in intercultural communication should change the way we think about language. Standard linguistic and pragmatic theories assume that communication and language use depends on there being commonalities, conventions, standards and norms between language users. These conventions of language and conventions of usage create a core common ground on which intention and cooperation-based communication is built. When, however, this core common ground is limited as usually is the case in intercultural communication interlocutors cannot take them for granted, rather they need to co-construct them, at least temporarily. So there seems to be reason to take up the question of how people go about formulating utterances and interpreting them when they can’t count on or have limited access to those commonalities and conventions, and in a sense, they are expected to create, co-construct them (at least a part of them) in the communicative process. How does this intensive co-construction of core common ground, lack of conventions, and temporarily established standards affect language development and use? Will this corrupt the structurality and logic of language? How does linguistic creativity work in these circumstances? These and similar questions will be answered in the paper with a special focus on three issues: (1) shift of emphasis from the communal to the individual, (2) modified understanding of linguistic creativity, and (3) the changing role of context in language use.

The study aims to investigate how prior experience of interlocutors interacts with actual situational context in intercultural interactions when the latter is represented by a well-known frame: getting acquainted with others. It attempts to demonstrate how the cultural frame of the target language is broken up and substituted with an emergent frame that is co-constructed from elements from prior experience with the target language, the first language and the actual situational experience.Getting acquainted with others is a closed social situation, a cultural frame in which interlocutors usually have to follow a behavior pattern dictated by the requirements of the socio-cultural background in a given speech community. There is a ‘skeleton’ of these ‘getting to know you’ procedures that can be considered universal but is substantiated differently in every language. In each conversation in any language, ‘flesh’ is added to the ‘skeleton’ in a dynamic and co-constructed manner. However, there is a difference between how this happens in L1 and in intercultural interactions. While in L1 the ‘flesh’ on the skeleton is predetermined to a significant extent by requirements of core common ground in the given language, in intercultural encounters this ‘flesh building’ process in the target language (in this case English) is not set but is co-constructed by the interlocutors as emergent common ground relying on their prior experience with their own L1 culture, limited experience with the target culture and the assessment of the actual situational context. In this study the co-construction process, i.e. emergent common ground will be analyzed by examining the use of formulaic language and freely generated language in several discourse segments.

The paper argues that interlocutors in intercultural interactions rely mainly on co-constructed temporary norms rather than on codified norms of the target language. There is a complex interplay of codified and emergent norms that drives interaction. Temporary norms emerge through temporary communicative extension of the system (TCE) that are expressions, chunks and utterances that violate the existing relatively definable norms and conventions of target language use, but still make sense in actual situational contexts and can be considered possible outputs of the English language system. TCEs function as building blocks for temporary norms, and they can also be building blocks in common ground development. The paper demonstrates these functions through examples in intercultural interactions.

The book aims to serve as a theoretical framework for the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that is an alternative to the two main lines of pragmatics research: linguistic-philosophical pragmatics and sociocultural-interactional pragmatics. SCA broadens the scope of the field with an intent to incorporate not only L1 communication but also intercultural communication, and communication in a second language. The author integrates the pragmatic view of cooperation and the cognitive view of egocentrism and emphasizes that both cooperation and egocentrism are manifested in all phases of communication, albeit to varying extents. SCA places equal importance on the social and cognitive individual factors in pragmatics. The author claims that while (social) cooperation is an intention-directed practice that is governed by relevance, (individual) egocentrism is an attention-oriented trait dominated by salience. The book serves as a theoretical guide for researchers and students who would like to understand how we need to change first language-based theories to make sense of what happens not only in L1 but also in intercultural and multi-lingual interactions.

The study aims to investigate how prior experience of interlocutors interacts with actual situational context in intercultural interactions when the latter is represented by a well-known frame: getting acquainted with others. It attempts to demonstrate how the cultural frame of the target language is broken up and substituted with an emergent frame that is co-constructed from elements from prior experience with the target language, the first language and the actual situational experience. Getting acquainted with others is a closed social situation, a cultural frame in which interlocutors usually have to follow a behavior pattern dictated by the requirements of the socio-cultural background in a given speech community. There is a ‘skeleton’ of these ‘getting to know you’ procedures that can be considered universal but is substantiated differently in every language. In each conversation in any language, ‘flesh’ is added to the ‘skeleton’ in a dynamic and co-constructed manner. However, there is a difference between how this happens in L1 and in intercultural interactions. While in L1 the ‘flesh’ on the skeleton is predetermined to a significant extent by requirements of core common ground in the given language, in intercultural encounters this ‘flesh building’ process in the target language is not set but is co-constructed by the interlocutors as emergent common ground relying on their prior experience with their own L1 culture, limited experience with the target culture and the assessment of the actual situational context. In this study the co-construction process, i.e. emergent common ground will be analyzed by examining the use of formulaic language and freely generated language in several discourse segments.

This volume offers recent developments in pragmatics and adjacent territories of investigation, including important new concepts such as the pragmatic act and the pragmeme, and combines developments in neighboring disciplines in an integrative holistic pragmatic approach. The young science of pragmatics has, from its inception, differentiated itself from neighboring fields in the humanities, especially the disciplines dealing with language and those focusing on the social and anthropological aspects of human behavior, by focusing on the language user in his or her societal environment.This collection of papers continues that emphasis on language use, and pragmatic acts in their context. The editors and contributors share a perspective that essentially considers language as a system for communication and wants to look at language from a societal perspective, and accept the view that acts of interpretation are essentially embedded in culture. In an interdisciplinary approach, some authors explore connections with social theory, in particular sociology or socio-linguistics, some offer a political stance, others explore connections with philosophy and philosophy of language, and several papers address problems in theoretical pragmatics.

This chapter discusses the differences between cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics. While cross-cultural pragmatics compares different cultures, based on the investigation of certain aspects of language use, such as speech acts, behaviour patterns, and language behaviour, intercultural pragmatics focuses on intercultural interactions and investigates the nature of the communicative process among people from different cultures, speaking different first languages. Cross-cultural pragmatics analyses the differences and similarities in the language behaviour of people representing different languages and cultures. Intercultural pragmatics, however—a relatively new discipline—is interested in what happens when representatives of different first languages and cultures communicate using a common language.

Communication is not as smooth a process as current pragmatic theories depict it. In Rapaport’s words “We almost always fail […]. Yet we almost always nearly succeed: This is the paradox of communication”. This paper claims that there is a need for an approach that is able to explain this “bumpy road” by analyzing both the positive and negative features of the communicative process. The paper presents a socio-cognitive approach to pragmatics that takes into account both the societal and individual factors including cooperation and egocentrism that, as claimed here, are not antagonistic phenomena in interaction. This approach is considered an alternative to current theories of pragmatics that do not give an adequate account of what really happens in the communicative process. They consider communication an idealistic, cooperation-based, context-dependent process in which speakers are supposed to carefully construct their utterances for the hearer taking into account all contextual factors and hearers do their best to figure out the intentions of the speakers. This approach relies mainly on the positive features of communication including cooperation, rapport and politeness while almost completely ignores the untidy, trial-and-error nature of communication and the importance of prior contexts captured in the individual use of linguistic units. The overemphasis on cooperative, societal, contextual factors has led to disregard individual factors such as egocentrism and salience that are as important contributors to the communicative process as cooperation, context and rapport. The socio-cognitive approach is presented as a theoretical framework to incorporate and reconcile two seemingly antagonistic sides of the communicative process and explain the dynamic interplay of prior and actual situational contexts.

This paper argues that current pragmatic theories fail to describe common ground in its complexity because they usually retain a communication-as-transfer-between-minds view of language, and disregard the fact that disagreement and egocentrism of speaker-hearers are as fundamental parts of communication as agreement and cooperation. On the other hand, current cognitive research has overestimated the egocentric behavior of the dyads and argued for the dynamic emergent property of common ground while devaluing the overall significance of cooperation in the process of verbal communication. The paper attempts to eliminate this conflict and proposes to combine the two views into an integrated concept of common ground, in which both core common ground and emergent common ground converge to construct a dialectical socio-cultural background for communication.Both cognitive and pragmatic considerations are central to this issue. While attention explains why emergent property unfolds, intention explains why presumed shared knowledge is needed. Based on this, common ground is perceived as an effort to converge the mental representation of shared knowledge present as memory that we can activate, shared knowledge that we can seek, and rapport, as well as knowledge that we can create in the communicative process. The socio-cognitive approach emphasizes that common ground is a dynamic construct that is mutually constructed by interlocutors throughout the communicative process. The core and emergent components join in the construction of common ground in all stages, although they may contribute to the construction process in different ways, to different extents, and in different phases of the communicative process

Intercultural Pragmatics studies how language systems are used in social encounters between speakers who have different first languages and cultures, yet communicate in a common language. The field first emerged in the early 21st century, joining two seemingly antagonistic approaches to pragmatics research: the cognitive-philosophical approach, which considers intention as an a priori mental state of the speaker, and the sociocultural-interactional approach, which considers it as a post factum construct created by both speaker and hearer though conversation. Istvan Kecskes, an early proponent of intercultural pragmatics, was among the first to propose merging the two to form the socio-cognitive approach now core to the field. In Intercultural Pragmatics, the first book on the subject, Kecskes establishes the foundations of the field, boldly combining the pragmatic view of cooperation with the cognitive view of egocentrism in order to incorporate emerging features of communication. He argues that people cooperate by generating and formulating intention that is relevant to the given actual situational context. At the same time, however, because of their egocentrism they activate the most salient information to their attention in the construction and comprehension of utterances. Within this approach, interlocutors are considered as social beings searching for meaning with individual minds embedded in a socio-cultural collectivity, and intention is a cooperation-directed practice that is governed by relevance which depends on actual situational experience.Intercultural pragmatics is a rapidly-growing field, and the only subfield of pragmatics to incorporate features of intercultural interaction into mainstream pragmatics. This volume offers both a valuable synthesis of current research and a new way to think about pragmatics.