Intention, Common Ground and the Egocentric Speaker-Hearer

This book presents current research that discusses some of the major issues in pragmatics from new perspectives, and directs attention to aspects of fundamental tenets that have been investigated only to a limited extent.

Current pragmatic theories emphasize the importance of intention, cooperation, common ground, mutual knowledge, relevance, and commitment in executing communicative acts. However, recent research in cognitive psychology, linguistic pragmatics, and intercultural communication has raised questions that warrant some revision of these major tenets. Debates about the place of intention in pragmatics have indicated that Gricean intentions may play a less central role in communication than traditionally assumed. Cognitive psychologists pointed out that individual, egocentric endeavors of interlocutors play a much more decisive role in the initial stages of production and comprehension than current pragmatic theories envision. Some researchers criticized the Clark and Brennan's common ground model and Clark's contribution theory arguing that these approaches retain a communication-as-transfer-between-minds view of language, and treat intentions and goals as pre-existing psychological entities that are later somehow formulated in language. All these developments are addressed in the papers of the volume written by prominent scholars representing several disciplines.

Mouton Series in Pragmatics (MSP) is a timely response to the growing demand for innovative and authoritative monographs and edited volumes from all angles of pragmatics. Recent theoretical work on the semantics/pragmatics interface, applications of evolutionary biology to the study of language, and empirical work within cognitive and developmental psychology and intercultural communication has directed attention to issues that warrant reexamination, as well as revision of some of the central tenets and claims of the field of pragmatics. The series welcomes proposals that reflect this endeavour and exploration within the discipline and neighboring fields such as language philosophy, communication, information science, sociolinguistics, second language acquisition and cognitive science. MSP will provide a forum for authors who represent different subfields of pragmatics including the linguistic, cognitive, social, and intercultural paradigms, and have important and intriguing ideas and research findings to share with scholars who are interested in linguistics in general and pragmatics in particular.

This book presents current research that discusses some of the major issues in pragmatics from new perspectives, and directs attention to aspects of fundamental tenets that have been investigated only to a limited extent.

Current pragmatic theories emphasize the importance of intention, cooperation, common ground, mutual knowledge, relevance, and commitment in executing communicative acts. However, recent research in cognitive psychology, linguistic pragmatics, and intercultural communication has raised questions that warrant some revision of these major tenets. Debates about the place of intention in pragmatics have indicated that Gricean intentions may play a less central role in communication than traditionally assumed. Cognitive psychologists pointed out that individual, egocentric endeavors of interlocutors play a much more decisive role in the initial stages of production and comprehension than current pragmatic theories envision. Some researchers criticized the Clark and Brennan's common ground model and Clark's contribution theory arguing that these approaches retain a communication-as-transfer-between-minds view of language, and treat intentions and goals as pre-existing psychological entities that are later somehow formulated in language. All these developments are addressed in the papers of the volume written by prominent scholars representing several disciplines.