Interpretation and Understanding

Marcelo Dascal | Tel Aviv University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027226044 (Eur) | EUR 160.00

ISBN 9781588114143 (USA) | USD 240.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027295897 | EUR 160.00 | USD 240.00

Our species has been hunting for meaning ever since we departed from our cousins in the evolutionary tree. We developed sophisticated forms of communication. Yet, as much as they can convey meaning and foster understanding, they can also hide meaning and prevent comprehension. Indeed, we can never be sure that a "yes" conveys assent or that a smile reveals pleasure. In order to ascertain what communicative behavior "means", we have to go through an elaborate cognitive process of interpretation.
This book deals with how we achieve the daily miracle of understanding each other. Based on the author ’s contributions to pragmatics, the book articulates his perspective using the insights of linguistics, the philosophy of language and rhetoric, and confronting alternatives to it. Theory formation is shaped by application to fields of human activity – such as legal practice, artificial intelligence, psychoanalysis, the media, literature, aesthetics, ethics and politics – where interpretation and understanding are paramount.
Using an accessible language, this is a book addressed to specialists as well as to anyone interested in interpreting understanding and understanding the potentialities and limits of interpretation.

[Not in series, 120] 2003. xxii, 714 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/z.120

Table of Contents

Foreword | p. Ix

Part I: Theorizing

1. Pragmatics and communicative intentions | p. 3

2. Conversational relevance | p. 31

3. Strategies of understanding | p. 52

4. Two modes of understanding | p. 82

5. Individual and collective intentions | p. 101

6. How does a connective work? | p. 115

7. Commitment and involvement | p. 149

8. Cues, clues, and context | p. 169

9. Models of interpretation | p. 194

Part II: Applying

10. Understanding digressions | p. 213

11. Understanding a metaphor | p. 244

12. Three remarks on pragmatics and literature | p. 273

13. Understanding controversies | p. 280

14. Understanding misunderstanding | p. 293

15. Understanding the law | p. 322

16. Understanding jokes and dreams | p. 362

17. Understanding art | p. 380

18. Why does language matter to Artificial Intelligence? | p. 402

19. Pragmatics in the digital age | p. 437

20. Interpretation and tolerance | p. 457

21. Understanding other cultures | p. 477

Part III: Meeting the alternatives

22. Why should I ask her? | p. 497

23. Speech act theory and pragmatics | p. 507

24. The pragmatic structure of conversation | p. 521

25. Contextualism | p. 542

26. Does pragmatics need semantics? | p. 562

27. Pragmatics and foundationalism | p. 594

28. The marriage of pragmatics and rhetoric | p. 600

29. Hermeneutic interpretation and pragmatic interpretation | p. 623

30. The limits of interpretation | p. 641

Sources and acknowledgments | p. 660

References | p. 666

Subject Index | p. 695

Name Index | p. 709

“This book provides valuable insights on a impressively rich set of topics, also managing to link them in a unitary design.”

Sara Greco, University of Lugano, Switzerland, in Studies in Communication Sciences, Vol. 5:1 (2005)

“[...] as the reader can find in this collection of essays, Dascal's contribution to pragmatics has been enormous and highly valuable. The range of perspectives and objects of analysis that he had undertaken in the last decades is incredibly wide, covering not only typical aspect of pragmatic analysis, but also other areas not often (or not sufficiently) studied within pragmatics.”

Francisco Yus, University of Alicante, Spain, on Linguist List Vol. 15-638, February 2004.

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