"The chapters in this volume apply the methodology of relevance theory to develop accounts of various pragmatic phenomena which can be associated with the broadly conceived notion of style. Some of them are devoted to central cases of figurative language (metaphor, metonymy, puns, irony) while others deal with issues not readily associated with figurativeness (from multimodal communicative stimuli through strong and weak implicatures to discourse functions of connectives, particles and participles). Other chapters shed light on the use of specific communicative styles, ranging from hate speech to humour and humorous irony. Using the relevance-theoretic toolkit to analyse a spectrum of style-related issues, this volume makes a case for the model of pragmatics founded upon inference and continuity, understood as the non-existence of sharply delineated boundaries between classes of communicative phenomena"--.

• Relevance Theory, Figuration, and Continuity in Pragmatics
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The literal-figurative language continuum and optimally relevant interpretations
  • 1. Non-literalness in inferential communication
  • 2. Contributions to this volume
  • 3. Some questions for the future
  • References
• Continua in non-literalness
• 1. Category extension as a variety of loose use
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Lexical modulation
    • 2.1 Ad hoc concept construction: Narrowing and broadening
  • 3. Category extension
  • 4. Types of category extension
    • 4.1 Limited category extensions
    • 4.2 Creative category extensions
  • 5. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 2. Metonymic relations – from determinacy to indeterminacy
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Cognitive linguistics on metonymy
  • 3. A relevance-theoretic treatment of metonymy involving contextual cognitive fix
  • 4. Metonymy and cognitive effects
  • 5. Conclusion
  • References
• Concepts, procedures and discourse effects
• 3. Evidential participles and epistemic vigilance
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Things we do with words
  • 3. Style and relevance
  • 4. Properties of prototypical participial adjectives
  • 5. On the evidential function of some past participles
    • 5.1 Evidentials and epistemic vigilance
    • 5.2 What evidential participles communicate
  • 6. Conclusion
  • References
• 4. The Greek connective ‘gar’: Different genres, different effects?
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Traditional and linguistic accounts of ‘gar’
  • 3. Argumentation and narrative
    • 3.1 Defining argumentation and narrative
    • 3.2 ‘Gar’ in argumentation and narrative
  • 4. A procedural account of ‘gar’
    • 4.1 Blass’s proposed account of ‘gar’
    • 4.2 Examples of ‘gar’ in argumentation and hortatory material
    • 4.3 ‘Gar’ in narrative texts
  • 5. Different stylistic effects?
  • 6. Epistemic vigilance and stylistic effects?
  • 7. Communicator goals, expectations of relevance and stylistic effects
  • 8. Conclusions
  • References
• 5. Metarepresentation markers in Indus Kohistani: A study with special reference to the marker of desirable utterances ‘loo’
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretical background
    • 2.1 Analyses of evidential and quotation markers
      • 2.1.1 Evidentials
      • 2.1.2 Grammaticalized quotation markers and complementizers
    • 2.2 Relevance theory
      • 2.2.1 Conceptual vs. procedural encoding
      • 2.2.2 Linguistic metarepresentations
    • 2.3 Indus Kohistani markers of metarepresentation
  • 3. The Indus Kohistani marker ‘loo’
    • 3.1 Uses of the marker ‘loo’
      • 3.1.1 ‘loo’ as indicator of desirable utterances
      • 3.1.2 ‘loo’ as indicator of third person imperative
      • 3.1.3 Summary: Uses of the marker ‘loo’
    • 3.2 Analysis of the marker ‘loo’
      • 3.2.1 Non-attributive metarepresentations
      • 3.2.2 Indus Kohistani ‘loo’: A procedural indicator of metarepresentations of desirable utterances
    • 3.3 The marker ‘loo’ in third person imperative constructions
      • 3.3.1 Comparison between “desirable utterances” metarepresentations and third person imperative constructions
    • 3.4 Indus Kohistani third person imperative: A special case of desirable utterance
  • 4. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Multimodality and style
• 6. When ‘EVERYTHING’ STANDS OUT, *Nothing* Does: Typography, expectations and procedures
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Typography and language
    • 2.1 Typography and linguistics
    • 2.2 Typography and prosody
  • 3. Relevance theory and procedural meaning
  • 4. Typography, procedures and relevance
    • 4.1 Typography and interpretation
    • 4.2 Expectations and effects
    • 4.3 Typography as a natural highlighting device
  • 5. Summary, conclusion and next steps
  • References
• 7. Relevance, style and multimodality: Typographical features as stylistic devices
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1 Background: Telops on Japanese TV
  • 2. Typographical features, stylistics and multimodal analysis
    • 2.1 Suitability of typographical features
    • 2.2 Social semiotic approach to typography: Multimodal analysis of fonts
    • 2.3 Issues with the multimodal approach
  • 3. Relevance theory and pragmatic effects
  • 4. Case study: Theoretical explanation and reception study of viewer behaviour
    • 4.1 Research question and research design
    • 4.2 Telops and typographical features
    • 4.3 Typographical features and interpretation – telops and relevance theory
      • 4.3.1 “Affective” interpretation and typographical features
      • 4.3.2 Propositional attitudes and typographical features
  • 5. An empirical approach to telops
    • 5.1 Methodology: Eye-tracking
    • 5.2 Results: Eye-tracking data
  • 6. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Sources of visual material
  • Appendix. Visualisations of all participants
• Pragmatic effects and emotions
• 8. Towards a relevance-theoretic account of hate speech
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Background
  • 3. Hate speech: Some legal, social and pragmatic issues
  • 4. Some terminological refinements
  • 5. Understanding covert hate speech in relevance-theoretic terms
  • 6. The ‘thin skin’ phenomenon vs. cognitive vigilance. Understanding of hate speech by targeted audiences
  • 7. Slurs and quasi-slurs
  • 8. The hate component
  • 9. Instances of non-literalness of hate speech
  • 10. Conclusions
  • References
• 9. Tropes of ill repute: Puns and (often thwarted) expectations of relevance
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Puns as ‘wayward’ stylistic devices
  • 3. Vocalizations that cash in on ambiguity
    • HOMONYMY:
    • POLYSEMY:
    • HOMOPHONY:
    • IMPERFECT HOMOPHONY:
    • PARONYMY:
  • 4. Puns as victims of the western flight from ambiguity
  • 5. Puns as deviations from linguistic and communicative norms
    • 5.1 Puns as mistakes or anomalies
    • 5.2 Puns as violations of gricean maxims of conversation
  • 6. Relevance-theoretic model and the perception of puns
    • 6.1 Reservations about the model’s adequacy for tackling the emotional reactions to puns
    • 6.2 A tainted concept: Hanging a dog that’s been given a bad name
    • 6.3 Key properties of punning utterances
    • 6.4 Language users’ expectations about verbal inputs and the ways they are subverted in puns
  • 7. Consequences of puns falling short of expectations of relevance
    • 7.1 The ‘Necker cube effect’: Unease at being unable to disambiguate
    • 7.2 Nothing but sound? Irritation at the punster’s sometimes dubious informative intention
    • 7.3 Offering ‘fool’s gold’: Annoyance at the often problematic cognitive effects
    • 7.4 ‘Here we go again’: Resentment at being made to do the same mental work twice
    • 7.5 I seem to be missing something: The embarrassment at failing to construct an adequate context
    • 7.6 The indignation at being made to ponder the inner workings of verbal processing
  • 8. Concluding remarks
  • References
• Stylistic effects in literary works
• 10. Another look at “Cat in the rain”: A cognitive pragmatic approach to text analysis
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Implicature in relevance theory
  • 3. Strong and weak implicatures and reference assignments in literary texts
  • 4. Approaches to the identity of the two cats
    • 4.1 Interpretations of the identity of the cats
    • 4.2 Gricean implicature analysis
    • 4.3 Strong and weak implicature analysis
  • 5. Conclusion
  • References
  • Appendix. CAT IN THE RAIN
• 11. Echoic irony in Philip Larkin’s poetry and its preservation in Polish translations
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Relevance theory on irony
  • 3. Philip Larkin’s echoes
  • 4. Larkin’s irony in translation
    • 4.1 Larkin’s irony in translation. Conclusion
  • 5. Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 12. Humour and irony in George Mikes’ ‘How to be a Brit’
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretic framework
  • 3. Analysis: Strategies and purposes for the conveyance of irony and humour in George Mikes’ ‘How to be a Brit’
    • 3.1 The prefaces
    • 3.2 A relevance-theoretic analysis of humour and irony in George Mikes’ ‘How to be a Brit’
      • a. Resolution of ambiguities or disambiguation
      • b. Reference assignment
      • c. Enrichment or filling of a semantic gap
      • d. Derivation of implicatures
      • e. Irony and humour resulting from a contradiction of expectations
  • 4. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Name index
• Subject index