Cover not available

In:Patterns of Context: Modelling cultural and contextual influence in utterance interpretation
Edited by Elke Diedrichsen and Frank Liedtke
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 356] 2026
► pp. 170–189

Cognitive schemas, pragmatic enrichment and the contextualism versus minimalism debate

 | De Montfort UniversityLeicester
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Cognitive schemas, scripts, or frames — chunks of information that are frequently used and are therefore highly accessible and easily retrieved — are often appealed to by theories of utterance comprehension to explain conventional patterns of inferences. In this chapter I show that schemas are employed not just to integrate context with the utterance, but are also needed to infer context-specific interpretations of the individual words or phrases within the overall sentence. I further argue that there is no stable meaning encoded by linguistic expressions but that, instead, the cognitive schemas invoked by utterances are required for the hearer to recover what is explicitly communicated (or ‘what is said’), and show how this supports a contextualist approach over a semantic minimalist one.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The contextualist versus minimalist debate on the contribution of context to explicit communication
    • 2.1From Grice to contextualism
    • 2.2Semantic minimalism
  • 3.Lexical meanings and the contribution of schemas
    • 3.1The standard account of lexical pragmatics
    • 3.2Arguments for a non-conceptual view of word meaning
    • 3.3Schemas as essential to what is said
  • 4.Conclusions and outlook
  • Author queries
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (43)
References
Barsalou, Lawrence W. 1987. “The Instability of Graded Structure in Concepts.” In Concepts and Conceptual Development: Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization, ed. by Ulric Neisser, 101–40. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1992. “Frames, Concepts, and Conceptual Fields.” In Frames, Fields, and Contrasts, ed. by Adrienne Lehrer, and Eva Feder Kittay, 21–74. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bezuidenhout, Anne. 2002. “Truth-Conditional Pragmatics.” Philosophical Perspectives 16: 105–134.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borer, Hagit. 2017. “The Generative Word.” In The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, ed. by James McGilvray, 110–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borg, Emma. 2004. Minimal Semantics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016. “Exploding Explicatures.” Mind & Language 31: 335–355. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. “Explanatory Roles For Minimal Content.” Noûs, 53(3), 513–539. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cappelen, Herman, and Ernie Lepore. 2005. Insensitive Semantics: A Defense of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carston, Robyn. 1988. “Implicature, Explicature and Truth-Theoretic Semantics.” In Mental Representations: The Interface Between Language and Reality, ed. by Ruth Kempson, 155–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2002. Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Word Meaning and Concept Expressed. The Linguistic Review 29: 607–623. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Word Meaning, What is Said and Explicature.” In What is Said and What is Not, ed. by Carlo Penco, and Filippo Domaneschi [no pages]. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carston, Robyn, and Hall, Alison. 2017. “Contextual Effects on Explicature: Optional Pragmatics or Optional Syntax?” International Review of Pragmatics 9(1): 51–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cummins, Chris. This volume. “Inferences from, and about, Context in a Joint Inference Model of Utterance Interpretation.”
Fetzer, Anita. This volume. “Conversational Contributions in Discourse: Contextualisation, Entextualisation and Recontextualisation.”
Fodor, Jerry. 1998. Concepts. Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond. 1994. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Glucksberg, Samuel. 2001. “Understanding Figurative Language: from Metaphors to Idioms.” Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Green, Stuart P. 2001. “Lying, Misleading, and Falsely Denying: How Moral Concepts Inform the Law of Perjury, Fraud, and False Statements.” Hastings LJ, 53, 157–212.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Alison, and Diana Mazzarella. 2023. “Pragmatic Inference, Levels of Meaning and Speaker Accountability.” Journal of Pragmatics 205: 92–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan. 2010. “Situation-Bound Utterances as Pragmatic Acts.” Journal of Pragmatics 42: 2889–2897. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liedtke, Frank. 2013. “Pragmatic Templates and Free Enrichment.” In Beyond Words. Content, Context, and Inference, ed. by Frank Liedtke, and Cornelia Schulze, 183–205. Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. This volume. “Choosing Words and Using Templates.”
Martí, Luisa. 2006. “Unarticulated Constituents Revisited.” Linguistics and Philosophy 29: 135–166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzone, Marco. This volume. “The Cooperative Principle and Goal Schemas. At the Foundations of Human Communication.”
Neale, Stephen. 2007. “Heavy Hands, Magic, and Scene-Reading Traps.” European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 3: 77–131.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nieuwland, Mante S., and Jos J. A. van Berkum. 2006. “When Peanuts Fall in Love: N400 Evidence for the Power of Discourse.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18(7): 1098–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rayo, Agustin. 2013. “A Plea for Semantic Localism.” Noûs 47: 647–679. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Recanati, Francois. 1989. “The Pragmatics of what is Said.” Mind & Language 4: 295–329. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Literal Meaning. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rubio-Fernandez, Paula. 2007. “Suppression in Metaphor Interpretation: Differences Between Meaning Selection and Meaning Construction.” Journal of Semantics 24(4): 345–371. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saul, Jennifer. 2012. Lying, Misleading, and the Role of what is Said. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John. 1980. “The Background of Meaning.” In Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics, ed. by John A. Searle, Ferenc Kiefer, and Manfred Bierwisch, 221–232. Dordrecht: Reidel. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 1986/95. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. “The Mapping Between the Mental and the Public Lexicon.” In Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes, ed. by Peter Carruthers, and Jill Boucher, 184–200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stanley, Jason. 2000. “Context and Logical Form.” Linguistics and Philosophy 23: 391–434. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. “Making it Articulated.” Mind & Language 17: 149–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stanley, Jason, and Zoltán Gendler Szabó. 2000. “On Quantifier Domain Restriction.” Mind and Language 15: 219–261. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tirrell, Lynne. 1989. “Extending: The Structure of Metaphor.” Noûs, 23(1), 17–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wiegmann, Alex, and Meibauer, Jörg. 2019. “The Folk Concept of Lying.” Philosophy compass, 14(8), e12620. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre. 2011. “The Conceptual-Procedural Distinction: Past, Present and Future.” In Procedural Meaning: Problems and Perspectives, ed. by Victoria Escandell-Vidal, Manuel Leonotti, and Aoife Ahern, 3–31. Bingley: Emerald. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. 2002. “Truthfulness and Relevance.” Mind 111: 583–632. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue