This paper offers an account of Polish addressative forms encoding deference and familiarity in terms of the relevance-theoretic notion of procedural meaning, which underlies a heterogeneous range of phenomena linked to different cognitive domains. The procedure encoded by pronouns used… read more
This paper deploys the tools of relevance theory to establish a common pragmatic mechanism operating in humorous texts (stand-up comedy, jokes, sketches) themed on the omnipresence of the Internet and social media in human life. It is postulated that this mechanism resides in incongruity between… read more
Drawing on the observation that speakers may use jokes as stylistic devices to communicate propositional meanings, this paper offers a relevance-theoretic account of pragmatic mechanisms involved in this kind of communication, dubbed ‘meaningful jokes.’ First, I argue that the comprehension of… read more
In line with recent interest in weak and often not fully determinate effects of communication permeating relevance-theoretic research, I contribute a discussion on two possible sources of speaker-intended indeterminacy within explicit import of an utterance: one residing in an intentionally… read more
The chapter offers an account of metonymy and discusses some stylistic effects which may be provided by metonymic expressions. We treat metonymically communicated concepts as part of the inferentially established proposition of an utterance and argue that many such concepts may be indeterminate. We… read more
The paper adopts and modifies Austin’s (1962) notion of perlocutionary effects and argues for recognizing the significance of such effects in communication. I draw a parallel between persuasion, which has received much attention in RT and is believed to be intrinsically linked to comprehension, and… read more