In:Relevance Theory, Figuration, and Continuity in Pragmatics
Edited by Agnieszka Piskorska
[Figurative Thought and Language 8] 2020
► pp. 291–308
Chapter 10Another look at “Cat in the rain”
A cognitive pragmatic approach to text analysis
Published online: 20 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.8.10uch
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.8.10uch
Hemingway’s “Cat in the rain” has been discussed from various viewpoints, both by literary critics
and by linguists. Among the points in dispute is the issue of whether the cat the American wife saw under the
table in the rain was identical with the big tortoise-shell cat introduced in the final paragraph of the
story. The chapter reconsiders the issue in terms of strong/weak implicatures in relevance theory. I argue
that the interpretation that the cat the hotel owner told the maid to bring to the American wife is different
from the one the wife saw is obtained as a strong implicature and that the identity of the two cats can be
derived from a weak implicature. I also argue that the latter interpretation leads to an interesting
implication: both cats could be the same type of a tortoise-shell cat but not identical.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Implicature in relevance theory
- 3.Strong and weak implicatures and reference assignments in literary texts
- 4.Approaches to the identity of the two cats
- 4.1Interpretations of the identity of the cats
- 4.2Gricean implicature analysis
- 4.3Strong and weak implicature analysis
- 5.Conclusion
Notes References Appendix
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