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Pragmatics: From Theory to Experiment and Back Again
Author(s) -
Katsos Napoleon,
Cummins Chris
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2010.00203.x
Subject(s) - pragmatics , implicature , linguistics , intuition , inference , semantics (computer science) , presupposition , psychology , computer science , epistemology , cognitive science , philosophy , artificial intelligence , programming language
This article reviews some cases in which the collaboration of theoretical pragmaticians and psychologists of language has been most fruitful for all parties. Linguists have benefited from experimental data confirming the psychological validity of their observations and providing theory‐critical evidence in cases beyond the reach of reflective intuition, whereas psychologists have benefited from having a wealth of linguistic phenomena to study as well as multiple theories furnished by semantics and pragmatics. Focusing on the much‐discussed question of whether scalar implicature is a default inference, we aim to showcase the benefits of the experimental approach to pragmatics.