Relevance and Linguistic Meaning: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse Markers

✍ Scribed by Diane Blakemore

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 210
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 99
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The importance of discourse markers (words like "so," "however," and "well") lies in the theoretical questions they raise about the nature of discourse and the relationship between linguistic meaning and context. Diane Blakemore asserts that the exercise in classification that has dominated discourse marker research should be replaced by the investigation of the way in which linguistic expressions contribute to the inferential processes involved in utterance understanding.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 4
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Acknowledgements......Page 10
Introduction......Page 11
1.1 Introduction......Page 22
1.2 Meaning, truth and grammar......Page 24
1.3 Pragmatic competence......Page 31
1.4 Semantic retreat?......Page 37
2.1 Varieties of non-truth conditional meaning......Page 42
2.2 Speech act theoretic approaches: indicating and describing......Page 48
2.3 Conventional implicature......Page 55
2.4 Is conventional implicature a myth?......Page 63
3.1 Relevance and the semantics/pragmatics distinction......Page 69
3.2 Implicit and explicit verbal communication......Page 81
3.3 Conceptual and procedural encoding......Page 87
4.1 Constraints on relevance: new questions......Page 99
4.2.1 but and contrast......Page 108
4.2.2 but and concessivity......Page 114
4.2.3 but and manifestness......Page 118
4.3.1 The but, however, nevertheless hierarchy......Page 125
4.3.2 however......Page 127
4.3.3 nevertheless......Page 133
4.4.1 The elusiveness of well......Page 138
4.4.2 well = ‘all is not well’......Page 142
4.4.3 well = ‘all is well’......Page 146
4.4.4 well and optimal relevance......Page 148
5.1 The location of discourse on the theoretical map......Page 159
5.2.1 Approaches to discourse coherence......Page 167
5.2.2 Cohesion, coherence and discourse acceptability......Page 169
5.3.1 Coherence and understanding......Page 177
5.3.2 Coherence and relevance......Page 179
5.3.3 Temporal relations......Page 181
5.3.4 Restatement......Page 189
Conclusion......Page 194
Bibliography......Page 196
General index......Page 203
Name index......Page 208

✦ Subjects

Языки и языкознание;Лингвистика;Дискурс и дискурс-анализ;