Abstract
Mey’s (2001) action-theoretic societal pragmatics known as pragmatic act theory nurtures the idea that the explanatory movement in pragmatic theories should go from the outside in (i. e. from actual situational contexts into prior contexts encoded in the utterances used). Kecskes’s (2010, 2013) socio-cognitive approach challenges Mey’s position, and argues that the explan-atory movement should go in both directions: from the outside in and from the inside out. To challenge Mey’s view and to nurture his own position, Kecskes resorts to a dialectical socio-cognitive perspective on human communication (Kecskes 2003, 2008), and uses situation-bound utterances as evidence to support his theory. In this paper, I will provide an overview of both theories and argue in favor of Mey’s position.
Highlights
In his criticism of the Gricean and component approaches to pragmatics, Mey (2001) argued that what they all lacked was a theory of action
He further argued that “there are no speech acts, but only situated speech acts, or instantiated pragmatic acts” (Mey 2001: 218). He proposed the notion of pragmatic acts, and argued that practs are pragmatic access routes for the realization of human intentionalities or pragmemes. He further argued that practs receive their meaning from the outside as they are used in an actual situational context; using SBUs to challenge this view, Kecskes argued that “the explanatory movement in any pragmatic theory should go in both directions: from the outside in [...] and from the inside out” (Kecskes 2010: 2897)
Scholarly thought on language which can be said to have a pragmatic approach has its roots in the rhetoric of ancient Greece, pragmatics and ancient Greek rhetoric should not be confused because the latter aimed primarily at finding the most effective mode of presenting a viewpoint or an argument and adopting it in such a way as to propagate it or act on it
Summary
In his criticism of the Gricean and component approaches to pragmatics, Mey (2001) argued that what they all lacked was a theory of action. He further argued that “there are no speech acts, but only situated speech acts, or instantiated pragmatic acts” (Mey 2001: 218). He proposed the notion of pragmatic acts (or practs), and argued that practs are pragmatic access routes for the realization of human intentionalities or pragmemes. Using ideas from Frege’s puzzle I will argue in favor of Mey’s position, and will conclude that Kecskes is overextending Mey’s action-theoretic pragmatics into discourse analysis
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
