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Part of
Beyond Meaning
Edited by Elly Ifantidou, Louis de Saussure and Tim Wharton
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 324] 2021
► pp. 135–150

Experiences of ineffable significance

| University of Strathclyde

An ‘experience of ineffable significance’ is sudden feeling of knowing something very significant but which cannot be described in words, sometimes accompanied by chills or tears. Amongst its types are the sublime and (secular) ‘epiphanies’. Drawing on work by Huron and by Meyer, I propose that it is a type of surprise, arising from perceptions whose match to our schematic knowledge falls outside the normal range of discrepancy, either by radical discrepancy or by uncanny identity. Assuming a theoretical context of Relevance Theory, and drawing on work by Sperber and by Raffman, I explore some reasons how we are able to suddenly judge that the perception produces deeply significant knowledge, and why that knowledge cannot be expressed in words.

Keywords: inferential pragmatics, relevance theory, ostension, meaningnn , non-intentional communication
Article outline
  • 1.Experiences of ineffable significance
  • 2.Etiology: Discrepancies outside a normal range
  • 3.Epistemic feelings: Significance
  • 4.Ineffability
  • 5.Representation and metarepresentation
  • 6.An example
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.324.c8
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