Cover not available

In:Beyond Meaning
Edited by Elly Ifantidou, Louis de Saussure and Tim Wharton
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 324] 2021
► pp. 99–118

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

An experiential view on what makes literature relevant

 | University of Neuchatel
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.324.c6
Abstract
It’s a common intuition that literature is a special kind of language use, pursuing other aims than the mere transmission of information. This intuition is reflected in the notion that literature is art, whereas ordinary conversation is not, and that reading literature is a particular sort of experience, significant in a particular way. However, the common view in pragmatics is that literary works are not exceptional in terms of how language is used. In this paper, I discuss this issue by exploring Sperber and Wilson’s (2015) notion of ‘impressions’ and develop a tentative account of literature as triggering relevant imaginative experiences. These experiences, I argue, relate to expressivity and to affective, emotional, effects; they match readers’ expectations of relevance by means of their resonance with the individual’s own memories and imaginative experiences.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.General considerations on literature, communication and pragmatics
  • 3.Literature as experiential communication
  • 4.Experiential imports and relevance
  • 5.The procedurality of experiential impressions
  • 6.Applying the principle of relevance to experiencing impressions
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (41)
References
Attridge, Derek. 2004. The Singularity of Literature. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bally, Charles. (1965) 1923. Le langage et la vie. 3rd ed. Geneva: Droz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “On the Descriptive Ineffability of Expressive Meaning.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (14), 3537‒3550. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolens, Guillemette. 2018. “Relevance Theory and Kinesic Analysis in Don Quixote and Madame Bovary.” In Reading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory, ed. by Terence Cave, and Deirdre Wilson, 53‒70. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cave, Terence. 2016. Thinking with Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cave, Terence, and Deirdre Wilson, eds. 2018. Reading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby. (2000) 2008. “Evolutionary Psychology and the Emotions.” In Handbook of Emotions, 3rd ed., ed. by Michael Lewis, and Jeannette Haviland-Jones, 91‒115. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deonna, Julien, and Fabrice Teroni. 2012. The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ducrot, Oswald. 1984. Le dire et le dit. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, Victoria, Manuel Leonetti, and Aoife Ahern, eds. 2011. Procedural Meaning: Problems and Perspectives. CRiSPI. Bingley: Emerald. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, Gerd. 2004. “Fast and Frugal Heuristics: The Tools of Bounded Rationality.” In Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making, ed. by Derek J. Koehler, and Nigel Harvey, 62‒68. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “Why Heuristics Work.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3 (1): 20‒29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Green, Keith. 1993. “Relevance Theory and the Literary Text: Some Problems and Perspectives.” Journal of Literary Semantics 22: 207‒217. .
Hamburger, Käte. 1957. Der Logik der Dichtung. Stuttgart: Klett.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas, and Miriam Locher. 2017. “Introducing Pragmatics of Fiction. Approaches, Trends and Developments.” In Pragmatics of Fiction, ed. by Andreas Jucker, and Miriam Locher, 1‒24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kleiber, Georges. 2016. “Du cri de douleur au signe de douleur: l’ interjection ‘Aïe’.” Synergies Pays Scandinaves 11/12: 113‒133.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kolaiti, Patricia. 2015. “The Poetic Mind: A Producer-Oriented Approach to Literature and Art.” Journal of Literary Semantics 44: 23‒44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Perceptual Relevance and Art: Some Tentative Suggestions.” Journal of Literary Semantics 49: 99‒117. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lombardo, Patrizia. 2013. “Empathie et simulation.” In Empathie et Esthétique, ed. by Alexandre Gefen, and Bernard Vouilloux, 1‒15. Paris: Hermann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mar, Raymond A., and Keith Oatley. 2008. “The Function of Fiction Is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3: 173‒92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pennebaker, James W. 2000. “Telling Stories: The Health Benefits of Narrative.” Literature and Medicine 19 (1): 3‒18. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Phelan, James. 2011. “Rhetoric, Ethics, and Narrative Communication: Or, from Story to Discourse to Authors, Resources, and Audiences.” Soundings 94 (1/2): 55‒75.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. Somebody Telling Somebody Else: A Rhetorical Poetics of Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert. (1949) 1986. The Concept of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Saussure, Louis, and Tim Wharton. 2020. “Relevance, Effects and Affects.” International Review of Pragmatics 12 (2): 183‒205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie. 2015. L’expérience esthétique. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. (1986) 1995. Relevance, Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Beyond Speaker’s Meaning.” Croatian Journal of Philosophy 15 (44): 117‒149.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trotter, David. 1992. “Analysing Literary Prose: The Relevance of Relevance Theory.” Lingua 87: 11‒27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weinrich, Harald. 1964. Tempus. Bescprochene une Erzählte Welt. Stuttgart: Kolhlhammer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Werth, Paul. 1976. “Roman Jakobson’s Verbal Analysis of Poetry.” Journal of Linguistics 12: 21‒73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “That Bloody So-and-so Has Retired: Expressives Revisited.” Lingua 17: 20‒35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wharton, Tim, and Claudia Strey. 2019. “Slave to the Passions: Making Emotions Relevant.” In Relevance: Pragmatics and Interpretation, ed. by Robyn Carston, Billy Clark, and Kate Scott, 253‒266. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre. 2018. “Relevance Theory and Literary Interpretation.” In Reading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory, ed. by Terence Cave, and Deirdre Wilson, 185‒204. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre, and Robyn Carston. 2019. “Pragmatics and the Challenge of ‘Non-propositional’ Effects.” Journal of Pragmatics 145: 31–38. .
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. 1993. “Linguistic Form and Relevance.” Lingua 90: 1‒25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Langkau, Julia
2025. Experiential imagination and norms of literary engagement. Pragmatics & Cognition 32:2 ► pp. 311 ff. DOI logo
Yus, Francisco
2025. Inferring from Emojis: From Propositions to Feelings and Emotions. In Emoji Pragmatics, ► pp. 173 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 november 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