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Reliability in Pragmatics

Online ISBN:
9780191772399
Print ISBN:
9780198702832
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Reliability in Pragmatics

E. McCready
E. McCready

Associate Professor, Department of English

Department of English, Aoyama Gakuin University
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Published online:
19 March 2015
Published in print:
18 December 2014
Online ISBN:
9780191772399
Print ISBN:
9780198702832
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book is an exploration of how knowledge about the reliability of information sources manifests itself in linguistic phenomena and use, focusing on cooperation in language use and how considerations of reliability influence what is done with the information acquired through language. Empirically, the book provides a detailed consideration of the phenomena of hedging and evidentiality and analyzes them using tools from game theory, dynamic semantics, and formal epistemology. Hedging is argued to be a mechanism used by speakers to protect their reputations for cooperativity from damage inflicted by infelicitous discourse moves. The pragmatics of evidential use is also stated in terms of the sorts of histories of interaction that influence reputation: on the analysis of the book, past experience with the evidence source indexed by the evidential determines how the process of adding information will proceed. The book makes many new connections between seemingly disparate aspects of linguistic meaning and practice.

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