Cover not available

In:Handbook of Pragmatics: Manual
Edited by Jef Verschueren and Jan-Ola Östman
[Handbook of Pragmatics M2] 2022
► pp. 1555–1577

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Experimental pragmatics

Published online: 3 October 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.m2.exp2
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Scalars
    • 2.1Background
    • 2.2How have experimentalists approached the processing question?
    • 2.3The on-line processing of scalars: How do pragmatic readings emerge?
    • 2.4At what point do mental states figure into scalar inferences?
  • 3.Referring
    • 3.1Referring and adjectival modification
    • 3.2Referring and authorship
  • 4.Metaphor
    • 4.1The Standard Pragmatic Model
    • 4.2The direct access view
    • 4.3The Graded Salience Hypothesis
    • 4.4Metaphor as viewed by Relevance Theory
  • 5.Irony
    • 5.1Echoic-mention theory
    • 5.2Pretense Theory
    • 5.3Irony as viewed by the psycholinguistic literature
    • 5.4Reconciling theory and experimentation
  • 6.Summary
  • Notes
  • References
References (92)
References
Ackerman, B. P. 1981. “Performative bias in children’s interpretations of ambiguous referential communications.” Child Development 52: 1224–1230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ackerman, B. P., J. Szymanski and D. Silver. 1990. “Children’s use of common ground in interpreting ambiguous referential utterances.” Developmental Psychology 26: 234–245. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Almor, A., S. Arunachalam and B. Strickland. 2007. “When the creampuff beat the boxer: working memory, cost, and function in reading metaphoric reference.” Metaphor and Symbol 22(2): 169–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bambini, V. and D. Resta. 2012. “Metaphor and Experimental Pragmatics: When Theory Meets Empirical Investigation.” humana.Mente 23: 37–60.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barner, D., N. Brooks and A. Bale. 2011. “Accessing the unsaid: The role of scalar alternatives in children’s pragmatic inference.” Cognition 118(1): 84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S., S. Wheelwright, R. Skinner, J. Martin and E. Clubley. 2001. ‘The autism spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/high functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 31: 5–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bašnáková J., K. Weber, K. M. Petersson, J. Van Berkum and P. Hagoort. in press. “ Beyond the Language Given: The Neural Correlates of Inferring Speaker Meaning.” Cerebral Cortex.
Blasko, D. G. and C. M. Connine. 1993. “Effects of familiarity and aptness on metaphor processing. Journal of experimental psychology.” Learning, Memory, and Cognition 19(2): 295–308. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bott, L. and I. A. Noveck. 2004. “Some utterances are underinformative: The onset and time course of scalar inferences.” Journal of Memory and Language 51(3): 437–457. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bott, L., T. M. Bailey and D. Grodner. 2012. “Distinguishing speed from accuracy in scalar implicatures.” Journal of Memory and Language 66: 123–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braine, M. and B. Rumain. 1981. “Children’s comprehension of ‘or’: Evidence for a sequence of competencies.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 31: 46–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breheny, R., N. Katsos and J. Williams. 2006. “Are scalar implicatures generated by default?” Cognition 100: 434–463. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breheny, R., H. J. Ferguson and N. Katsos. 2013. “Taking the epistemic step: Toward a model of ­on-line access to conversational implicatures.” Cognition 126(3): 423–440. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brennan S. E. and H. H. Clark. 1996. “Conceptual pacts and lexical choice in conversation.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 22: 1482–1493. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brennan, S. E. and J. E. Hanna. 2009. “Partner-specific adaptation in dialog.” Topics in Cognitive Science 1(2): 274–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown-Schmidt, S. 2009. “Partner-specific interpretation of maintained referential precedents during interactive dialog.” Journal of Memory and Language 61(2): 171–190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carston, R. 2002. Thoughts and Utterances. Oxford: Blackwell.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010a. “Lexical pragmatics, ad hoc concepts and metaphor: from a relevance theory p­erspective.” Italian Journal of Linguistics 22(1): 153–180.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010b. “Metaphor: Ad hoc concepts, literal meaning and mental images. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110(3): 295–321. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chevallier, C., I. Noveck, L. Bott, V. Lanza, T. Nazir and D. Sperber. 2008. “Making disjunctions exclusive.” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 61(11): 1741–1760. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chevallier, C., I. Noveck, F. Happé and D. Wilson. 2011. “What’s in a voice? Prosody as a test case for the Theory of Mind account of autism.” Neuropsychologia 49(3): 507–517. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chierchia, G. 2001. “Scalar implicatures, polarity phenomena, and the syntax/pragmatics interface.” In Structures and beyond, ed. by A. Belleti. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chierchia, G., D. Fox and B. Spector. to appear. “ The grammatical view of scalar implicatures and the relationship between semantics and pragmatics.” In An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, ed. by P. Portner, C. Maienborn Et K. von Heusinger. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Clark, E. V. 1990. “On the pragmatics of contrast.” Journal of Child Language 17(2): 417–431. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. and R. J. Gerrig. 1984. “On the Pretense Theory of Irony.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113(1): 121–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, C. and N. Katsos. 2010. “Over-informative children: Production/comprehension asymmetry or tolerance to pragmatic violations?” Lingua 120(8): 1956–1972. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Neys, W. and W. Schaeken. 2007. “When people are more logical under cognitive load: Dual task impact on scalar implicature.” Experimental Psychology 54: 128–133. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Filik, R. and L. Moxey. 2010. “The on-line processing of written irony.” Cognition 116(3): 421–436.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flavell, J. H., J. R. Speer, F. L. Green, D. L. August and G. J. Whitehurst. 1981. “The development of comprehension monitoring and knowledge about communication.” Monographs of the Society for Research in Chile Development 46(5): 1–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gerrig, R. J. and A. F. Healy. 1983. “Dual Processes in Metaphor Understanding?: Comprehension and Appreciation.” Cognition 9(4).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geurts, B. 2010. Quantity Implicatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. 1986. “On the psycholinguistics of sarcasm.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 115(1): 3–15. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1994. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1999. “Interpreting what speakers say and implicate.” Brain and Language 68(3): 466–485. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2002. “A new look at literal meaning in understanding what is said and implicated.” Journal of Pragmatics 34(4): 457–486. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. J. and R. Gerrig. 1989. “How context makes metaphor comprehension seem ‘special’.” Metaphor and Symbol 4(3): 145–158.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs Jr, R. W. and J. F. Moise. 1997. “Pragmatics in understanding what is said.” Cognition 62(1): 51–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gildea, P. and S. Glucksberg. 1983. “On understanding metaphor: The role of context.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 22(5): 577–590.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giora, R. 1997. “Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis.” Cognitive Linguistics 8(3): 183–206.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2002. “Literal vs. figurative language: Different or equal?” Journal of Pragmatics 34(4): 487–506. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003. On Our Mind: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language. New York: Oxford University Press.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giora, R. and O. Fein. 1999. “Irony: Context and salience.” Metaphor and Symbol 14(4): 241–257.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giora, R., O. Fein, R. Kaufman, D. Eisenberg and S. Erez. 2009. “Does an ‘ironic situation’ favor an ironic interpretation?” In Cognitive Poetics: Goals, Gains and Gaps, ed. by G. Brône and J. Vandaele, 383–399. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1975. “Logic and conversation.” In Pragmatics: A Reader, ed. by S. Davis, 305–315. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grodner, D., N. M. Klein, K. M. Carbary and M. K. Tanenhaus. 2010. “’Some’, and possibly all, scalar inferences are not delayed: Evidence for immediate pragmatic enrichment.” Cognition 116: 42–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guasti, M. T., G. Chierchia, S. Crain, F. Foppolo, A. Gualmini and L. Meroni. 2005. “Why Children and Adults Sometimes (But Not Always) Compute Implicatures.” Language and Cognitive Processes 20: 667–696. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Happé, F. G. 1993. “Communicative competence and theory of mind in autism: a test of relevance theory.” Cognition 48(2): 101–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huang, Y. and J. Snedeker. 2009. “Semantic meaning and pragmatic interpretation in 5-year-olds: Evidence from real-time spoken language comprehension.” Developmental Psychology 45(6): 1723–1739. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Inhoff, A. W., S. D. Lima and P. J. Carroll. 1984. “Contextual effects on metaphor comprehension in reading.” Memory and Cognition 12(6): 558–567. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ironsmith, M. and G. Whitehurst. 1978. “The development of listeners abilities in communication: How children deal with ambiguous information.” Child Development 49: 348–352. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janus, R. and T. Bever. 1985. “Processing of metaphoric language: An investigation of the three-stage model of metaphor comprehension.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 14(5): 473–487. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jorgensen, J., G. Miller and D. Sperber. 1984. “Test of the mention theory of irony.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113(1): 112–120.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Katsos, N. and D. V. Bishop. 2011. “Pragmatic tolerance: Implications for the acquisition of informativeness and implicature.” Cognition 120(1): 67–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keysar, B., D. J. Barr, J. A. Balin and J. S. Brauner. 2000. “Taking perspective in conversation: The role of mutual knowledge in comprehension.” Psychological Science 11(1): 32–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kronmüller, E. and D. J. Barr. 2007. “Perspective-free pragmatics: Broken precedents and the recovery-­from-preemption hypothesis.” Journal of Memory and Language 56(3): 436–455. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krönmuller, E., T. Morisseau and I. A. Noveck. in press. “Show me the pragmatic contribution: A developmental investigation of referential communication.” Journal of Child Language.
Kutas, M. and S. A. Hillyard. 1984. “Brain potentials during reading reflect word expectancy and semantic association.” Nature 307: 161–163. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lai, V. T., T. Curran and L. Menn. 2009. “Comprehending conventional and novel metaphors: an ERP study.” Brain Research 1284: 145–55.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. 2000. Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marr, D. 1982. Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information. New York: W.H. Freeman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Metzing, C. and S. E. Brennan. 2003. “When conceptual pacts are broken: partner-specific effects on the comprehension of referring expressions.” Journal of Memory and Language 49: 201–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nieuwland, M. S., T. Ditman and G. R. Kuperberg. 2010. “On the incrementality of pragmatic processing: An ERP investigation of informativeness and pragmatic abilities.” Journal of Memory and Language 63(3): 324–346. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noveck, I. A. 2001. “When children are more logical than adults: Investigations of scalar implicature.” Cognition 78: 165–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noveck, I. A., M. Bianco and A. Castry. 2001. “The costs and benefits of metaphor.” Metaphor and Symbol 16(1/2): 109–121.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noveck, I. A., R. Guelminger, N. Georgieff and N. Labruyere. 2007. “What autism can reveal about every… not sentences.” Journal of Semantics 24(1): 73–90. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noveck, I. A. and A. Posada. 2003. “Characterizing the time course of an implicature: An evoked potentials study.” Brain and Language 85(2): 203–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noveck, I. A. and A. Reboul. 2008. “Experimental Pragmatics: A Gricean turn in the study of ­language.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12: 425–431. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noveck, I. A. and D. Sperber. 2007. “The why and how of experimental pragmatics: The case of ‘scalar inferences’.” In Pragmatics, ed. by N. Burton-Roberts, 184–212. Basingstoke: Palgrave.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noveck, I. A. and N. Spotorno. 2013. “ Narrowing.” In Brevity, ed. by L. Goldstein. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortony, A., D. L. Schallert, R. E. Reynolds and S. J. Antos. 1978. “Interpreting metaphors and idioms: Some effects of context on comprehension.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 17(4): 465–477. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paris, S. 1973. “Comprehension of language connectives and propositional logical relationships.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 16: 278–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peleg, O., R. Giora and O. Fein. 2001. “Salience and context effects: Two are better than one.” Metaphor and Symbol 16(3/4): 173–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pijnacker, J., P. Hagoort, J. Buitelaar, J. P. Teunisse and B. Geurts. 2009. “Pragmatic inferences in high-functioning adults with autism and Asperger syndrome.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 39(4): 607–618. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pouscoulous, N., I. A. Noveck, G. Politzer and A. Bastide. 2007. “A developmental investigation of processing costs in implicature production.” Language Acquisition 14: 347–375. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pynte, J., M. Besson, F. H. Robichon and J. Poli. 1996. “The time-course of metaphor comprehension: An event-related potential study.” Brain and Language 55(3): 293–316.  MetBibGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rubio Fernández, P. 2007. “Suppression in metaphor interpretation: Differences between meaning selection and meaning construction.” Journal of Semantics 24(4): 345–371. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schumacher, P. B. 2011. The hepatitis called: Electrophysiological Evidence for Enriched Composition.” In Experimental Pragmatics/Semantics, ed. by Jörg Meibauer and Markus Steinbach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, J. R. 1979. Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shintel, H. and B. Keysar. 2009. “Less is more: A minimalist account of joint action in communication.” Topics in Cognitive Science 1(2): 260–273. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, D. and I. A. Noveck. 2004. “Introduction.” In Experimental Pragmatics, ed. by I. A. Noveck and D. Sperber, 1–22. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, D. and D. Wilson. 1981. “Irony and the use-mention distinction.” In Radical pragmatics, ed. by P. Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1986. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell; 2nd edition 1995.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “A deflationary account of metaphors.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, ed. by R. W. Gibbs, 84–105. New York: Cambridge Univesity Press.  MetBib. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spotorno, N., E. Koun, J. Prado, J.-B. Van Der Henst and I. A. Noveck. 2012. “Neural evidence that utterance-processing entails mentalizing: The case of irony.” NeuroImage 63(1): 25–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spotorno, N., J.-B. Van Der Henst, A. Cheylus, and I. A. Noveck. 2013. “What's behind a p600? Integration operation during irony processing.” pLoS one 63(1): Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. 1979. “Developmental patterns in the encoding and combination of logical connectives.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 28(3): 469–498. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Der Henst, J. B. and D. Sperber. 2004. “Testing the cognitive and the communicative principles of relevance.” In Experimental pragmatics, ed. by I. Noveck and D. Sperber, 141–171. London: Palgrave Macmillan.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, D. 2009. “Irony and metarepresentation.” UCLWPL 21(June): 183–226.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, D. and R. Carston. 2007. “A unitary approach to lexical pragmatics: relevance, inference and ad hoc concepts.” In Pragmatics, ed. by N. Burton-Roberts, 230–259. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, D. and D. Sperber. 2012a. “Explaining Irony.” In Meaning and Relevance, ed. by D. Wilson and D. Sperber, 123–145. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012b. Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Mazzocconi, Chiara, Caterina Petrone & Maud Champagne-Lavau
2025. Is low-arousal laughter a reliable cue for irony? Individual differences in integrating speech and laughter meanings. Journal of Pragmatics 235 ► pp. 164 ff. DOI logo
Johnson-Laird, P. N., Ruth M. J. Byrne & Sangeet S. Khemlani
2024. Models of Possibilities Instead of Logic as the Basis of Human Reasoning. Minds and Machines 34:3 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue