Lettura critica. Filippo Domaneschi, Introduzione alla pragmatica, Roma, Carocci, Collana Studi Superiori, 2014, pp. 315.

La pragmatica – scriveva Charles Morris nel 1938 – è lo studio dei segni in relazione ai parlanti. La pragmatica riguarda dunque non tanto i segni o il linguaggio in sé, ma l'uso del linguaggio nei svariati contesti comunicativi in cui i parlanti abitualmente si trovano. Tuttavia per lungo tempo la pragmatica è stata considerata come il "cestino della spazzatura" (Bar-Hillel 1971) dei fenomeni linguistici che sfuggono alle spiegazioni formali e generali delle teorie sintattiche e semantiche, proprio perché legati agli aspetti particolari del linguaggio in contesti d'uso. Nel testo Introduzione alla pragmatica, pubblicato a Roma da Carocci nel 2014, Filippo Domaneschi mostra da un lato quanto possa essere appassionante e produttivo rovistare tra questa "spazzatura linguistica", analizzando esempi concreti d'uso del linguaggio, e d'altra parte quanto l'analisi della relazione tra segni e parlanti abbia bisogno di fini strumenti teorici. Il testo Introduzione alla pragmatica si propone perciò di guidare il lettore dalle origini della disciplina ai suoi sviluppi contemporanei, seguendo queste due prospettive complementari: 1) osservazione di come i parlanti usano il linguaggio in circostanze reali e 2) analisi dell'apparato teorico che descrive e/o spiega il comportamento linguistico dei parlanti

Davidson’s notions of translation equivalence

The paper analyses the relationship of semantic equivalence as described by Donald Davidson in his theory of meaning, showing its limits above all in respect to language use in the contextual situation. The notion of equivalence used by the “first” Davidson does not successfully explain why some biconditionals are simply true and why others, besides being true, offer the real translation of the source sentence. The paper argues that the main limits of the Davidsonian proposal, which lie in the very attempt to apply Tarskian theory of truth to natural languages, are partially overcome later by Davidson himself. Above all in his paper A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs (1986), Davidson rejects the very idea of an “invariance of meaning” and proposes a “second” notion of equivalence, described as the research of momentary and always changing points of convergence of interpreter and speaker, depending on contextual information. This convergence is possible because of a “deeper equivalence,” a common cognitive apparatus that allows communication to take place. At any rate, as the paper aims to demonstrate, this solution seems to simply shift the problem on to another level of explanation. Once this level of “deeper equivalence” is reached, there is too no explanation of exactly how a translator can understand contextual implications in order to grasp functional equivalence

A naturalistic explanation of communication across cultures

In order to understand how communication works across cultures, it is no longer possible to “naturalize” meaning presupposing that the human mind behaves like a “black box”, where intelligence is completely determinate by external linguistic-conceptual schemes every language, or more broadly, every culture owns. The very idea of the existence of radically divergent conceptual schemes entails the absence of a relation of equivalence among sentences in different languages. If there is a difference between conceptual schemes, it could concern the cultural access we have to the world, but, at any rate, we need to share this world and some cognitive capacities. The human mind owns its own structures that cannot be ignored in order to explain the fact that language depends on the creativity of a rich and articulated mind. Consequently, communication can be considered an inferential practice that involves the specific human capacity of mind-reading, a natural ability of intuitively attributing mental states to others and to oneself. In intercultural communication, translation is nothing but a kind of metarepresentation based on an interpretive and context-dependent use of language

Translation as a Test for the Explicit-Implicit Distinction

The paper will first present Kripke’s “translation test” to identify any semantic ambiguity and his claim, against Donnellan, that we should not expect to disambiguate the referential vs. attributive uses of definite descriptions via translation into another language. Second, the paper will discuss a strengthened version of Kripke’s “translation test” proposed by Voltolini to distinguish between any semantic vs. pragmatic phenomena. Finally, the paper will show that translation cannot work as a test for the semantic/pragmatic distinction, but can rather work as a test for the explicit/implicit distinction

(Becoming) Experts in Meaning Ambiguities

The discrepancy between the theoretical problems experts raise on polysemy, and the ease with which it is everyday understood by speakers, has been defined as the polysemy paradox. The same could be said for other forms of meaning ambiguity in the non-literal side, as for instance metaphor. A sort of metaphor paradox is raised by the fact that metaphor usually goes unnoticed for most people, even though experts claim that it constitutes a theoretical challenge for understanding human thought. In both polysemy and metaphor cases, people’s intuitions clash with experts’ intuitions. Moreover, experts seem to disagree on the very identification criterion of the linguistic phenomena. Deference to experts is anyway important in semantic applications, such as translation, where subtle distinctions in word meaning prove to be not only useful but also essential. However, the apparently wide gap between people’s and experts’ intuitions could be reduced once the paradoxes of meaning ambiguity are explained as a result of semantic underdetermination

Feeling the extraordinary in ordinary language: familiarity and linguistic intimacy

The paper explores the concept of linguistic intimacy, questioning whether it is common to all linguistic phenomena or rather specific of figurative language. In particular, the paper investigates the idea that the feeling of intimacy depends on (linguistic) familiarity. Embracing a Wittgensteinian perspective, the paper claims that linguistic intimacy is connected to “aspectual familiarity”: the addressee is invited to see an aspect that the speaker considers meaningful to articulate, but difficult to share with others in ordinary language. Thus, especially via metaphor, the speaker uses ordinary language to invite the addressee to see aspects as something new or unfamiliar in the familiar (social) world they share. However, the interlocutor can only find by herself the affective meeting point where she has been invited by the speaker

Gender Stereotypes and Figurative Language Comprehension

The paper aims to show how and to what extent social and cultural cues influence figurative language understanding. In the first part of the paper, we argue that social-contextual knowledge is organized in “schemas” or stereotypes, which act as strong bias in speaker’s meaning comprehension. Research in Experimental Pragmatics has shown that age, gender, race and occupation stereotypes are important contextual sources of information to interpret others’ speech and provide an explanation of their behavior. In the second part of the paper, we focus on gender stereotypes and their influence on the comprehension of figurative language, to show how the social functions of figurative language are modulated by gender stereotypes. We provide then an explanation of gender stereotypical bias on figurative language in terms of possible outcomes in the social context

Comprensione vs. produzione del sarcasmo: il ruolo delle capacità affettive e argomentative in età evolutiva

Riassunto: Nell’età dello sviluppo, i bambini iniziano a comprendere e a produrre le prime espressioni ironiche, in particolare nel contesto familiare. Sebbene sia comprensione sia produzione di ironia richiedano abilità linguistiche, pragmatiche, di Teoria della Mente e di tipo socio-comunicativo, non è ancora chiaro come tali abilità entrino in gioco nel caso della produzione del sarcasmo. Questo contributo ripercorre gli studi principali sulla comprensione vs. produzione dell’ironia in età evolutiva, mettendo in evidenza il ruolo delle capacità affettive e argomentative necessarie alla produzione dell’ironia e del sarcasmo. In riferimento a studi recenti, si ipotizza che le capacità di Mind-mindedness genitoriale possano influenzare lo sviluppo delle capacità di lettura della mente e, più in particolare, gli aspetti affettivi e relazionali nel processo di comprensione dell’ironia. Si ipotizza altresì che la produzione dell’ironia, e in particolare del sarcasmo, sia modulata non solo dalle capacità affettive ma anche da quelle argomentative in via di sviluppo.Parole chiave: Produzione del sarcasmo; Capacità affettive; Capacità argomentative; Comprensione; Teoria della mente Comprehension vs. Production of Sarcasm: The role of the affective and argumentative capacities in childhoodAbstract: Children start comprehending and producing their first ironic expressions quite early especially in the family environment. The comprehension and the production of irony require linguistic, pragmatic, social and communicative capacities as well as abilities related to the Theory of Mind. However, it is not yet clear how these abilities are involved in the production of sarcasm. In this manuscript we review the main studies on the production of irony in childhood in order to identify the affective and argumentative capacities that are needed for the production of irony and sarcasm and the specific role they play in that. On the basis of these studies, we hypothesize that parental mind-mindedness promote children’s development of mindreading capacities and, more specifically, of those affective and relational aspects needed for the comprehension of irony. Moreover, we also argue that the production of irony and even more of sarcasm depends not only on the affective capacities but also on the developing argumentative capacities of the children.Keywords: Production of Sarcasm; Affective Capacities; Argumentative Capacities; Comprehension, Theory of Min