The individual in interaction: Why cognitive and discourse-level pragmatics need not conflict

Abstract

Those who study language in interaction often reject what has been called cognitive-philosophical (mostly neo-and post-Gricean) pragmatics. Recent criticisms have centered on the role of speakers' intentions, but in the context of broader arguments that human linguistic interactions cannot be adequately characterized or understood in terms of how individual agents approach the production and interpretation of individual utterances. On this view, the existence of "emergent" aspects of meaning demands the adoption of an irreducible "interactional achievement" approach, according to which the linguistic interaction itself is the most basic object of analysis. This position is flawed in several ways. It fails to appreciate the inherent dynamism of a fully developed cognitive approach to utterance interpretation, such as Relevance Theory, and its consequent sensitivity to interactional factors. Conversely, to ignore individual-level and utterance-level processes is to obscure important elements of interactional phenomena. Meanwhile, criticism of theoretical uses of speakers' intentions often assumes an excessively narrow and deterministic definition. There remains work to be done within cognitive pragmatics to fully elucidate the appropriate notion of intention, but some such notion is ineliminable from the theory of communication, and is accordingly shown to be implicit in interactional achievement models themselves.

On understandings of intention: A response to Wedgwood

“…Thus, while I would agree that we should analyze higher-order or folk intentions (depending on one's perspective) in communicative interaction when there is empirical evidence that these are oriented to by participants, this does not mean that we should presume such "goals" always guide communication. However, to allow for the analysis of higher-order/folk intentions in conversational interaction does not automatically lend support to Wedgwood's (2011) second claim that "local" intentions are the basis for formulating (and interpreting) utterances. Indeed, there is good reason to be cautious about the claim that communicative or "local" intentions are always the basis of utterance interpretation.…”

“…If a "local" intention can, as Wedgwood appears to claim (2011: 528), arise in relation to something that the speaker is not aware he or she wishes to get across, and is not sure what it is that he or she wants to get across, and the addressee is also not aware that he or she is attributing an intention to the speaker to get across something about which the speaker is not sure what he or she wants to get across, one wonders how one could possibly demonstrate either the presence or absence of such intentions. One also wonders if there is any inherent value in attempting to do so, except, perhaps to mount a defense of an Wedgwood's (2011) approach to intention is markedly out of step with other approaches to intention in pragmatics, and cognitive pragmatics specifically. He neglects the different types and uses of intention in pragmatics in postulating an intuitive but ultimately incoherent and empirically unfalsifiable notion of "local" intention.…”

“…Second, the notion of intention is deployed for a range of different analytical purposes in pragmatics, which has implications for the extent to which communicative intentions are relevant for the analysis of conversational interaction. As we shall later see, the first point is barely addressed by Wedgwood (2011), while the latter is completely neglected.…”

“…It is against this background that I wish to respond to a recent article published by Wedgwood (2011) that launches what appears to be, on the one hand, a withering critique of "interactional" approaches to communicative interaction in claiming that such approaches make "implicit appeals to the very individual-, utterance-, and intention-based reasoning that they claim to reject" (523), and, on the other hand, a spirited defense of the capacity of "cognitive" approaches to account for the "contingencies of actual communicative interaction" (525). He focuses on work by Arundale (2008) that was published as part of the aforementioned special issue, as well as papers by myself that were published elsewhere (Haugh 2008c(Haugh , 2009) as the specific target for his critique of "interactional" approaches, and his concurrent defense of intention recogni--10.1515/ip-2012-0011 Downloaded from PubFactory at 08/15/2016 02:41:44AM via free access tion as being at the heart of communication and "cognitive" approaches more broadly.…”

“…My argument is that the simultaneous critique and defense that Wedgwood's (2011) paper attempts in relation to intention is deeply flawed on a number of counts. I would like to note from the outset, however, that my response here is in no way intended as a final word on this issue, but rather is modestly offered as one step forward in unraveling the complex issues that any discussion of the place of intention in pragmatic theorization entails.…”