Relevance Theoretic Inferential Procedures: Accounting for Metaphor and Malapropism
AISB Convention 2015 Proceedings (
2015)
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Abstract
According to Sperber and Wilson, relevance theory’s
comprehension/interpretation procedure for metaphorical
utterances does not require details specific to metaphor (or
nonliteral discourse); instead, the same type of comprehension
procedure as that in place for literal utterances covers metaphors
as well. One of Sperber and Wilson’s central reasons for holding
this is that metaphorical utterances occupy one end of a
continuum that includes literal, loose and hyperbolic utterances
with no sharp boundaries in between them. Call this the
continuum argument about interpreting metaphors. My aim is to
show that this continuum argument doesn’t work. For if it were
to work, it would have an unwanted consequence: it could be
converted into a continuum argument about interpreting
linguistic errors, including slips of the tongue, of which
malaprops are a special case. In particular, based on the premise
that the literal–loose–metaphorical continuum extends to
malaprops also, we could conclude that the relevance theoretic
comprehension procedure for malaprops does not require details
specific to linguistic errors, that is, details beyond those already
in place for interpreting literal utterances. Given that we have
good reason to reject this conclusion, we also have good reason
to rethink the conclusion of the continuum argument about
interpreting metaphors.