Assessing relevance

This paper advances an approach to relevance grounded on patterns of material inference called argumentation schemes, which can account for the reconstruction and the evaluation of relevance relations. In order to account for relevance in different types of dialogical contexts, pursuing also non-cognitive goals, and measuring the scalar strength of relevance, communicative acts are conceived as dialogue moves, whose coherence with the previous ones or the context is represented as the conclusion of steps of material inferences. Such inferences are described using argumentation schemes and are evaluated by considering 1) their defeasibility, and 2) the acceptability of the implicit premises on which they are based. The assessment of both the relevance of an utterance and the strength thereof depends on the evaluation of three interrelated factors: 1) number of inferential steps required; 2) the types of argumentation schemes involved; and 3) the implicit premises required

Temporal Inferences in Conversation

Within this article, I explore how coproductions (expansions made by a second speaker upon a previous utterance) and questions regarding prior utterances work to verbalize inferences regarding the temporal information in spoken German conversation. While questions regarding prior utterances and coproductions are traditionally understood to have different communicative functions (signaling understanding/ misunderstanding; turn taking) to coproductions, empirical data shows how these expression types enable the speaker to gradually verbalize different strengths of assumption about details of the previous turn. These two expression types are not a dichotomy, but a continuum

The pragmatics of specialized communication

El presente artículo pretende poner de manifiesto la importancia de la pragmática en relación con la comunicación especializada. La estructura, el contenido y la terminología de los textos especializados se ven afectados por factores como la propia situación comunicativa y el conocimiento, intenciones, expectativas y creencias previos del emisor del texto. La transmisión de tal significado es difícil incluso en una sola lengua. Cuando la transmisión se produce entre dos lenguas, como es el caso de cualquier acto de traducción, las dificultades se multiplican. Por esta razón, es fundamental que los traductores sean conscientes de cómo la pragmática, más que ningún otro componente del lenguaje, puede afectar de forma decisiva a su actividad profesional