Relevance Theory and Humour: using metalinguistic expressions in comics strips created for a grammar and pragmatics class.

Eduardo José Varela BravoUniversidade de Vigo

evarela @ uvigo.esDespacho B-29. Facultade de Filoloxía e Tradución

Campus As Lagoas MarcosendeVigo E-36310

Fifth International Symposium on Intercultural Cognitive and Social Pragmatics.Epics V, Seville 2012.

0. Some preliminary ideas 1.

A communicator’s meaning is a 1) complex mental state which is analysable as a pair of 2) layered intentions: 3) the informative intention (i.e. the intention to inform an audience of something) and 4) the communicative intention (i.e. the intention to inform an audience of one’s informative intention) (Sperber & Wilson 1995: chapter 1, sections 10-12).

Mental representations.Mental metarepresentationsRelevance: communicative principle Information processing and pragmatic interpretation according to optimal Relevance incorporating complexity:Proposition, Attitude, BeliefInformative content of a sentence and kind of language used.

0. Some preliminary ideas 2. Informative Information:Providing specialized information in a grammar and pragmatics class so that the students are able to develop their comprehensive, analytical, descriptive and interpretive abilities when examining items of real English of all types, of all complexities.

Communicative Intention:Making the different linguistic cases and the key terminology employed in the grammatical and pragmatic analysis salient to raise further study questions and to initiate a reflective process on the theory itself by taking recourse to a parodic recreation of the examples and the method:Metalanguage to metarepresent.Parody, exaggeration, misuse and deviance.

0. Any specialized or authoritative comments or both?PRAGMATICS FOR LOONEYS

101.PRAGMATICS FOR LOONEYS

201

OK. colleagues I know that the points I’ve made in this paper are rather WEAK, butt they are RELEVANT anyway, aren’t they? You must agree on that!

a. Macarena, I sincerely hope you have understood what I mean to say in this paper!b. Mmmm! LOOSELY!

Therefore there we go! Epics V 2012, 15th March. Seville

Catch twenty-odd.Toonlet.comDada 20087

1.- Introduction. Relevance Theory and the pragmatic interpretation of humour and comic strips as a cultural phenomenon. A very brief overview.

An inferential and ordered interpretive process following the principle of relevance is especially adequate to study the language of the comic strips in a grammar and pragmatics class because it provides a global and interrelated account of both what has been literally said and what is actually expressed in the context provided.

[Example of activity published on my blog My English Journal 8th July 2011.]

Comments on Introduction (1)1.- Relevance Theory is relevant in the study of humour, irony and related linguistic and communicative effects because:1.1.- It provides an explanatory pragmatic framework :1.1.1.- To account for language and information processing in jokes and related effects.1.1.2.- To explain the cognitive mechanisms involved in identifying and explaining those humorous effects as different from the regular cognitive processes involved in the usual communicative exchanges.1.1.3.- To integrate those contextual factors that may also be involved in the production of humorous effects in an overall pragmatic interpretation.1.1.4.- To provide a thorough systematic and terminologically precise study of the linguistics, semantics and pragmatics of the different constructions uttered in a context 1.1.5.- To explore different kinds of conversational context (and to provide a plausible and organized pragmatic interpretation of the different communicative layers involved.

Comments on introduction (2)The theory postulates only one (descriptive, analytical and explanatory) conversational principle and maxim: Relevance. Each communicative contribution to a conversational exchange must be considered relevant, at least weakly, by the participants to be considered communicative. If relevant then other considerations such as coherence/incoherence, ambiguity, vagueness, oddity, even confusion, eccentricity and grammatical ill-formedness can be explored pragmatically in terms of relevance. The length and complexity of the process will make that interpretation weaker.The study of (intentional and unintentional)communicative deviance is a research field still to explore in the future.

Comments on introduction (3)2.- Relevance theory can subsequently be useful not only to interpret but also to produce (construct) humorous linguistic and communicative effects as a first book of poetics. This creative use of jokes, comic strips and the like can be applied to all kinds of world events and situations not necessarily in a parodical way.3.- Alternatively, it can be used to create jokes and effects on the language itself (meta-linguistic effects) and also on the specific meta-language of Relevance not only as exemplification (or parody) but also to raise questions on the Theory itself (meta-theory) which may require further research and/or precision.4- Commenting and creating jokes and comic strips for a language and grammar can acquire a new highly rewarding dimension by using Relevance Theory not only as an interpretive and explanatory model but also as a productive one. It can be used not only as language practice but also as good practice in the realms of language, cognition, pragmatics and communication.

2.- Constructing comic strips for a grammar and pragmatics class keeping Relevance in mind.

www.dadaedutoons.ejvarelabravo.com

Metalinguistic, metatheoretical, metarepresentational

Comments on Constructing a comic strip.

1.-Which items are cognitively salient in the message?2.- What do these items stand for:2.1.- Literally?2.2.-Culturally and Figuratively?3.- Which construction can be employed to highlight the terms:3.1.- in the linguistic structure, 3.2.- in the pragmatic context (visual display) provided in the strip, 3.3.- in the informative, cultural, specific context the strip is about?4.- An important, significant, salient item is not necessarily strong in

relevance terms, IS IT?5.- “Between the sword and the deep blue China sea…” in the context of this

strip… What does this (manipulated) proverb mean? Strong or weak relevance. WHY?

6.- Do we need to take into account only information (linguistic and non-linguistic) on one layer or on several? EXPLAIN.

3.- Manipulating an example for a good. Preliminary brain storming.

Comments on the example 1.- The constructed joke (adjacency pair) introduces changes on

the original example (parody) to call attention on which key items? Are these terms marked? In which way? Is the language natural or a little bit artificial/clumsy?

2.- What are the pragmatic factors that determine a relevant interpretation? Are these terms used in a specialized sense or not?

3.- We can try to study the relevance of the example 1) per se or 2) in contrast with the original example. Which of the “readings” is stronger, are these two readings “independent?”

4.- Can we briefly comment this brain storming in terms of pragmatics and Relevance Theory?

Metarepresentations

Wilson, Deidre. (2009) "Irony and metarepresentation." UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 21: 183-226.

Carston, Robyn and Alison Hall. 2011. Implicature and Explicature. In: H-J. Schmid & D. Geeraerts (eds.) Cognitive Pragmatics. Mouton

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Seville, 15th March 2012

Eduardo José Varela BravoDepartment of English, French and German PhilologiesSchool of Philology and TranslationUniversity of Vigoevarela @ uvigo.es