When language users communicate, they rely on both explicit and implicit messages to get their message across. In the study of meaning, the explicit nature of communication has traditionally been studied within semantic frameworks, while implicitness has been the province of pragmatics. In this seminar, we will take a closer look at the pragmatics of implicit communication and focus on those meanings that seem to go through without necessarily being displayed as intentional messages – that is, as messages that the speaker admits are part of his communicative intention. A case in point will be insinuation, which is a type of content which goes through but which the speaker may deny having communicated. In this respect, the seminar will pay attention to this and neighbouring phenomena such as lies, presuppositions, omissions, indirect speech acts, weak implicatures and various types of ‘off-record’ communication. In the process, we will assess the semantics/pragmatics divide and try to identify criteria allowing us to characterise and distinguish these phenomena based on the way they are processed (i.e. understood). Ultimately, this seminar is devoted to finding ways of teasing out what is said, what is not said but nevertheless communicated and what is not communicated.
- Enseignant·e: Steve Oswald