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28 - Sociocognitive Pragmatics

from Part III - Approaches and Methods in Sociopragmatics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2021

By
Istvan Kecskes
Edited by
Michael Haugh ,
Dániel Z. Kádár  and
Marina Terkourafi
Michael Haugh
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Dániel Z. Kádár
Affiliation:
Hungarian Research Institute for Linguistics, and Dalian University of Foreign Languages
Marina Terkourafi
Affiliation:
Leiden University
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Summary

The sociocognitive approach (SCA) to pragmatics initiated by Kecskes integrates the pragmatic view of cooperation and the cognitive view of egocentrism and emphasizes that both cooperation and egocentrism are manifested in all phases of communication, albeit to varying extents. While cooperation is an intention-directed practice that is governed by relevance, egocentrism is an attention-oriented trait dominated by salience. In the SCA, communication is considered a dynamic process, in which individuals are not only constrained by societal conditions but also shape them at the same time. Interlocutors are considered as social beings searching for meaning with individual minds embedded in a sociocultural collectivity. As a consequence, the communicative process is characterized by the interplay of two sets of traits that are inseparable, mutually supportive and interactive. Individual traits (prior experience > salience > egocentrism > attention) interact with societal traits (actual situational experience > relevance > cooperation > intention). Each trait is the consequence of the other.Prior experience results in salience, which leads to egocentrism that drives attention. Intention is a cooperation-directed practice that is governed by relevance, which (partly) depends on actual situational experience.

Keywords

sociocognitivecooperationintentionsaliencerelevancepost-Gricean
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics , pp. 592 - 615
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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