•  22
    Metaphor processing: Referring and predicating
    with Xinxin Yan
    Cognition 238 (C): 105534. 2023.
    The general consensus emerging from decades of empirical investigation of metaphor processing is that, when appropriately contextualised, metaphorically used language is no more demanding of processing effort than literally used language. However, there is a small number of studies which contradict this position, notably Noveck, Bianco, and Castry (2001): they maintain that relevance-based pragmatic theory predicts increased cognitive costs incurred in deriving the extra effects that metaphors t…Read more
  •  27
    Editorial: ‘Key Topics in Philosophy of Language and Mind’
    with Kepa Korta
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (4): 717-720. 2017.
  •  16
    No unleashed expression without language
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46. 2023.
    While the metarepresentational structure of ostensive communication may explain the unleashing of human expression, it neither explains the open-endedness of the thoughts expressed/communicated, nor how the multiply embedded nature of the metarepresentational structure invoked arose. These both require the recursivity of human language, a capacity which must be distinguished from external (public) languages and their use in communication.
  •  16
    Syntactic structures and pragmatic meanings
    Synthese 200 (6): 1-28. 2022.
  •  68
    Polysemy: Pragmatics and sense conventions
    Mind and Language 36 (1): 108-133. 2021.
    Polysemy, understood as instances of a single linguistic expression having multiple related senses, is not a homogenous phenomenon. There are regular (apparently, rule‐based) cases and irregular (resemblance‐based) cases, which have different processing profiles. Although a primary source of polysemy is pragmatic inference, at least some cases become conventionalised and linguistically encoded. Three main issues are discussed: (a) the key differences between regular and irregular cases and the r…Read more
  • Relevance Theory
    In Gillian Russell & Delia Graff Fara (eds.), Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, Routledge. pp. 163-176. 2012.
  •  9
    Relevance, Pragmatics and Interpretation (edited book)
    with Kate Scott and Billy Clark
    Cambridge University Press. 2017.
    Bringing together work by leading scholars in relevance theory, this volume showcases cutting-edge research within the theory, and demonstrates its influence across a range of fields including linguistics, pragmatics, philosophy of language, literary studies, developmental psychology and cognitive science. Organised into broad thematic strands that represent the latest research and debates, the volume shows the depth of analysis now possible after nearly forty years of intensive work in developi…Read more
  •  31
    Figurative Language, Mental Imagery, and Pragmatics
    Metaphor and Symbol 33 (3): 198-217. 2018.
  • Word Meaning, What is Said, and Explicature
    In C. Penco & F. Domaneschi (eds.), What is Said and What is Not, Stanford: Csli Publications. 2013.
  •  270
    XIII-Metaphor: Ad Hoc Concepts, Literal Meaning and Mental Images
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110 (3_pt_3): 295-321. 2010.
    I propose that an account of metaphor understanding which covers the full range of cases has to allow for two routes or modes of processing. One is a process of rapid, local, on-line concept construction that applies quite generally to the recovery of word meaning in utterance comprehension. The other requires a greater focus on the literal meaning of sentences or texts, which is metarepresented as a whole and subjected to more global, reflective pragmatic inference. The questions whether metaph…Read more
  •  95
    Recent work in relevance-theoretic pragmatics develops the idea that understanding verbal utterances involves processes of ad hoc concept construction. The resulting concepts may be narrower or looser than the lexical concepts which provide the input to the process. Two of the many issues that arise are considered in this paper: (a) the applicability of the idea to the understanding of metaphor, and (b) the extent to which lexical forms are appropriately thought of as encoding concepts.
  •  18
    Neil Smith has worked across the full range of the discipline of linguistics and explored its interfaces with other disciplines. In all this work he has maintained a commitment to a mentalist approach to the study of language and communication. The aim of this Special Issue is to honour his work and commitment with a collection of papers which brings together work by phonologists, syntacticians, psycholinguists, and pragmatists who share this interest in language as a central component of the hu…Read more
  •  16
    Being explicit
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (4): 713. 1987.
  •  33
    Multiple Review
    Mind and Language 2 (4): 333-349. 1987.
    Gavagai! or the Future History of the Animal Language Controversy. By DAVID PREMACK.
  •  197
    Most people working on linguistic meaning or communication assume that semantics and pragmatics are distinct domains, yet there is still little consensus on how the distinction is to be drawn. The position defended in this paper is that the semantics/pragmatics distinction holds between (context-invariant) encoded linguistic meaning and speaker meaning. Two other ‘minimalist’ positions on semantics are explored and found wanting: Kent Bach’s view that there is a narrow semantic notion of context…Read more
  •  60
    Minimal semantics - by Emma Borg
    Mind and Language 23 (3). 2008.
    No Abstract
  •  428
    Most people working on linguistic meaning or communication assume that semantics and pragmatics are distinct domains, yet there is still little consensus on how the distinction is to be drawn. The position defended in this paper is that the semantics/pragmatics distinction holds between encoded linguistic meaning and speaker meaning. Two other ‘minimalist’ positions on semantics are explored and found wanting: Kent Bach’s view that there is a narrow semantic notion of context which is responsibl…Read more
  •  1
    Implicature and Explicature
    with Alison Hall
    In Hans-Jörg Schmid (ed.), Cognitive Pragmatics, Mouton De Gruyter. pp. 47-84. 2012.
  •  120
    Metaphor and the 'Emergent Property' Problem: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach
    The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 3. 2007.
    The interpretation of metaphorical utterances often results in the attribution of emergent properties; these are properties which are neither standardly associated with the individual constituents of the utterance in isolation nor derivable by standard rules of semantic composition. For example, an utterance of ‘Robert is a bulldozer’ may be understood as attributing to Robert such properties as single-mindedness, insistence on having things done in his way, and insensitivity to the opinions/fee…Read more
  • . 2004.
  •  220
    Relevance Theory - New Directions and Developments
    with George Powell
    In Ernest Lepore & Barry Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press. pp. 341--360. 2006.
    As a post-Gricean pragmatic theory, Relevance Theory (RT) takes as its starting point the question of how hearers bridge the gap between sentence meaning and speaker meaning. That there is such a gap has been a given of linguistic philosophy since Grice’s (1967) Logic and Conversation. But the account that relevance theory offers of how this gap is bridged, although originating as a development of Grice’s co-operative principle and conversational maxims, differs from other broadly Gricean accoun…Read more
  •  99
    Metaphor and the literal–nonliteral distinction
    In Keith Allan & Kasia Jaszczolt (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 469--492. 2012.
  •  88
    “Utterances and thoughts have content: They represent (actual or imaginary) states of affairs.” This is the opening statement of François Recanati’s most sustained work on kinds of representation, Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta (2000) and it presents the core phenomenon which it is the task of the philosophy of language to explain. A primary function of language and thought, though not their only function, is to represent how things are or might be. As well as descriptively representing entities, …Read more
  •  60
    Within relevance theory the two local pragmatic processes of enrichment and loosening of linguistically encoded conceptual material have been given quite distinct treatments. Enrichments of various sorts, including those which involve a logical strengthening of a lexical concept, contribute to the proposition expressed by the utterance, hence to its truth-conditions. Loosenings, including metaphorical uses, do not enter into the proposition expressed by the utterance or affect its truth-conditio…Read more