Experimental Pragmatics

How does our knowledge of the language on the one hand, and of the context on the other, permit us to understand what we are told, to resolve ambiguities, to grasp both explicit and implicit content, to appreciate metaphor and irony? These issues have been studied in two disciplines: linguistic pragmatics and psycholinguistics, with only limited interactions between the two. This volume lays down the basis for a new field: Experimental Pragmatics . Contributions review pioneering work and present novel ways of articulating theories and experimental methods in the area.

Ira A. Noveck is a full-time research scientist at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives in Lyon, France. Dan Sperber is a French social and cognitive scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris.

Introduction--I.Noveck & D.Sperber * PART I: PIONEERING APPROACHES * Changing Ideas about Reference--H.H.Clark & A.Bangerter * On the Automaticity of Pragmatic Processes: A Modular Proposal--S.Glucksberg * Psycholinguistic Experiments and Linguistic Pragmatics--R.W.Gibbs * Reasoning, Judgment and Pragmatics--G.Politzer * Exploring Quantifiers: Pragmatics Meets the Psychology of Comprehension--A.J.Sanford & L.Moxey * PART II: CURRENT ISSUES IN EXPERIMENTAL PRAGMATICS * Testing the Cognitive and Communicative Principles of Relevance--J-B. Van der Henst & D.Sperber * Contextual Strength: The Whens and Hows of Context Effects--O.Peleg, R.Giora & O.Fein * Electrophysiology and Pragmatic Language Comprehension--S.Coulson * Speech Acts in Children: The Example of Promises--J.Bernicot & V.Laval * Reasoning and Pragmatics: The Case of Even If--S.J.Handley & A.Feeney * PART III: THE CASE OF SCALAR IMPLICATURES * Implicature, Relevance, and Default Pragmatic Inference--A.L.Bezuidenhout & R.K.Morris * Semantic and Pragmatic Competence in Children's and Adults' Comprehension of 'or'--G.Chierchia, M.T.Guasti, A.Gualmini, L.Meroni, S.Crain & Francesca Foppolo * Pragmatic Inferences Related to Logical Terms--I.A.Noveck * Conversational Implicatures: Nonce or Generalized?--A.Reboul * Index Introduction--I.Noveck & D.Sperber * PART I: PIONEERING APPROACHES * Changing Ideas about Reference--H.H.Clark & A.Bangerter * On the Automaticity of Pragmatic Processes: A Modular Proposal--S.Glucksberg * Psycholinguistic Experiments and Linguistic Pragmatics--R.W.Gibbs * Reasoning, Judgment and Pragmatics--G.Politzer * Exploring Quantifiers: Pragmatics Meets the Psychology of Comprehension--A.J.Sanford & L.Moxey * PART II: CURRENT ISSUES IN EXPERIMENTAL PRAGMATICS * Testing the Cognitive and Communicative Principles of Relevance--J-B. Van der Henst & D.Sperber * Contextual Strength: The Whens and Hows of Context Effects--O.Peleg, R.Giora & O.Fein * Electrophysiology and Pragmatic Language Comprehension--S.Coulson * Speech Acts in Children: The Example of Promises--J.Bernicot & V.Laval * Reasoning and Pragmatics: The Case of Even If--S.J.Handley & A.Feeney * PART III: THE CASE OF SCALAR IMPLICATURES * Implicature, Relevance, and Default Pragmatic Inference--A.L.Bezuidenhout & R.K.Morris * Semantic and Pragmatic Competence in Children's and Adults' Comprehension of 'or'--G.Chierchia, M.T.Guasti, A.Gualmini, L.Meroni, S.Crain & Francesca Foppolo * Pragmatic Inferences Related to Logical Terms--I.A.Noveck * Conversational Implicatures: Nonce or Generalized?--A.Reboul * Index