In Focus
Upcoming Events
Seminar Series: 15 May 2013 at 16.00
Syntax Reading Group: 22 May 2013 at 15.30
ACTL Summerschool June 24 - 28 2013
Why Study here?
I chose London, not only due to the fact that it is a very cosmopolitan city, but also for its well known reputation in this area: More>>
Divisional subject pool
To access and sign up for the Divisional Subject Pool, follow this link. More >>
Lexical Pragmatics
Overview |
Lexical pragmatics is a rapidly developing branch of linguistics that investigates the processes by which linguistically-specified (‘literal') word meanings are modified in use. Well-studied examples include lexical narrowing (e.g. drink used to mean ‘alcoholic drink', ‘soft drink' or ‘hot drink', approximation (e.g. empty used to mean ‘emptyish') and metaphorical extension (e.g. dragon or battleaxe used to mean ‘frightening person'). There is increasing evidence that such processes apply automatically, and that a word rarely conveys exactly its literal meaning.
Typically, narrowing, loosening and metaphorical extension have been seen as distinct pragmatic processes and studied in isolation from each other. Using the framework of relevance theory, this project investigates the alternative hypothesis that they are outcomes of a single pragmatic process which fine-tunes the interpretation of almost every word.
The
project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC,
grant number AR 16356), and ran from September 2003 to March 2007. The
investigators were Deirdre Wilson (PI) and Robyn Carston, Tim Wharton
(postdoc), Patricia Kolaiti and Rosa Vega-Moreno (research assistants).
On this website you will find publications, lectures, data analyses,
talk handouts and a book manuscript (based on the lectures) produced by
members of the project team. There are also details of a conference on
‘Word Meaning, Concepts and Communication' organised as part of the
project, and dissertations on lexical pragmatics supervised in the
department while the project was running.
Content by Professor Deirdre Wilson
Page last modified on 16 feb 11 19:24 by Carolyne S Megan
