Cover not available
Part of
Beyond Meaning
Edited by Elly Ifantidou, Louis de Saussure and Tim Wharton
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 324] 2021
► pp. 99–118

An experiential view on what makes literature relevant

| University of Neuchatel

It’s a common intuition that literature is a special kind of language use, pursuing other aims than the mere transmission of information. This intuition is reflected in the notion that literature is art, whereas ordinary conversation is not, and that reading literature is a particular sort of experience, significant in a particular way. However, the common view in pragmatics is that literary works are not exceptional in terms of how language is used. In this paper, I discuss this issue by exploring Sperber and Wilson’s (2015) notion of ‘impressions’ and develop a tentative account of literature as triggering relevant imaginative experiences. These experiences, I argue, relate to expressivity and to affective, emotional, effects; they match readers’ expectations of relevance by means of their resonance with the individual’s own memories and imaginative experiences.

Keywords: literature, art, emotional effects, impressions, experiential imports, metacognitive acquaintance, expressives, procedural meaning, ineffability
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.General considerations on literature, communication and pragmatics
  • 3.Literature as experiential communication
  • 4.Experiential imports and relevance
  • 5.The procedurality of experiential impressions
  • 6.Applying the principle of relevance to experiencing impressions
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.324.c6
References
Attridge, Derek
2004 The Singularity of Literature. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bally, Charles
(1965) 1923 Le langage et la vie. 3rd ed. Geneva: Droz.Google Scholar
Blakemore, Diane
1987 Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2011 “On the Descriptive Ineffability of Expressive Meaning.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (14), 3537‒3550. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolens, Guillemette
2018 “Relevance Theory and Kinesic Analysis in Don Quixote and Madame Bovary .” In Reading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory, ed. by Terence Cave, and Deirdre Wilson, 53‒70. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cave, Terence
2016 Thinking with Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cave, Terence, and Deirdre Wilson
eds. 2018 Reading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby
(2000) 2008 “Evolutionary Psychology and the Emotions.” In Handbook of Emotions, 3rd ed., ed. by Michael Lewis, and Jeannette Haviland-Jones, 91‒115. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Deonna, Julien, and Fabrice Teroni
2012 The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ducrot, Oswald
1984 Le dire et le dit. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, Victoria, Manuel Leonetti, and Aoife Ahern
eds. 2011 Procedural Meaning: Problems and Perspectives. CRiSPI. Bingley: Emerald. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gigerenzer, Gerd
2004 “Fast and Frugal Heuristics: The Tools of Bounded Rationality.” In Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making, ed. by Derek J. Koehler, and Nigel Harvey, 62‒68. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “Why Heuristics Work.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3 (1): 20‒29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Green, Keith
1993 “Relevance Theory and the Literary Text: Some Problems and Perspectives.” Journal of Literary Semantics 22: 207‒217. DOI logo.
Hamburger, Käte
1957 Der Logik der Dichtung. Stuttgart: Klett.Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas, and Miriam Locher
2017 “Introducing Pragmatics of Fiction. Approaches, Trends and Developments.” In Pragmatics of Fiction, ed. by Andreas Jucker, and Miriam Locher, 1‒24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kleiber, Georges
2016 “Du cri de douleur au signe de douleur: l’ interjection ‘Aïe’.” Synergies Pays Scandinaves 11/12: 113‒133.Google Scholar
Kolaiti, Patricia
2015 “The Poetic Mind: A Producer-Oriented Approach to Literature and Art.” Journal of Literary Semantics 44: 23‒44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020 “Perceptual Relevance and Art: Some Tentative Suggestions.” Journal of Literary Semantics 49: 99‒117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lombardo, Patrizia
2013 “Empathie et simulation.” In Empathie et Esthétique, ed. by Alexandre Gefen, and Bernard Vouilloux, 1‒15. Paris: Hermann.Google Scholar
Mar, Raymond A., and Keith Oatley
2008 “The Function of Fiction Is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3: 173‒92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennebaker, James W
2000 “Telling Stories: The Health Benefits of Narrative.” Literature and Medicine 19 (1): 3‒18. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Phelan, James
2011 “Rhetoric, Ethics, and Narrative Communication: Or, from Story to Discourse to Authors, Resources, and Audiences.” Soundings 94 (1/2): 55‒75.Google Scholar
2017 Somebody Telling Somebody Else: A Rhetorical Poetics of Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pilkington, Adrian
2000 Poetic Effects: A Relevance Theory Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert
(1949) 1986 The Concept of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
de Saussure, Louis, and Tim Wharton
2020 “Relevance, Effects and Affects.” International Review of Pragmatics 12 (2): 183‒205. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie
2015 L’expérience esthétique. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Sell, Roger
2000 Literature as Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Communication Criticism. Studies in Literature as Dialogue. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson
(1986) 1995 Relevance, Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2015 “Beyond Speaker’s Meaning.” Croatian Journal of Philosophy 15 (44): 117‒149.Google Scholar
Trotter, David
1992 “Analysing Literary Prose: The Relevance of Relevance Theory.” Lingua 87: 11‒27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weinrich, Harald
1964 Tempus. Bescprochene une Erzählte Welt. Stuttgart: Kolhlhammer.Google Scholar
Werth, Paul
1976 “Roman Jakobson’s Verbal Analysis of Poetry.” Journal of Linguistics 12: 21‒73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wharton, Tim
2003 “Interjections, Language and the ‘Showing’/Saying’ Continuum.” Pragmatics and Cognition 11 (1): 39‒91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “That Bloody So-and-so Has Retired: Expressives Revisited.” Lingua 17: 20‒35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wharton, Tim, and Claudia Strey
2019 “Slave to the Passions: Making Emotions Relevant.” In Relevance: Pragmatics and Interpretation, ed. by Robyn Carston, Billy Clark, and Kate Scott, 253‒266. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre
2018 “Relevance Theory and Literary Interpretation.” In Reading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory, ed. by Terence Cave, and Deirdre Wilson, 185‒204. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre, and Robyn Carston
2019 “Pragmatics and the Challenge of ‘Non-propositional’ Effects.” Journal of Pragmatics 145: 31–38. DOI logo.
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber
1993 “Linguistic Form and Relevance.” Lingua 90: 1‒25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar