Pragmatics and mindreading: Forward and backward inferences in shared intentional contexts

Abstract

AbstractThe general hypothesis discussed here is that pragmatic understanding is embedded in a more general understanding of action. To this purpose I first summarize ideas from Grice, Levinson and relevance theorists, all contributing to the view that utterance understanding is based on inferential recognition of the speakers’ communicative goals, and that this process may be affected backwards by expectations about non-communicative goals. I also provide reasons to think that the double dynamic of forward and backward inferences described by relevance theorists is present in action execution and observation as well, and that we construe shared intentional contexts which automatically mesh ours and others’ goals. Finally, the suggestion is made that, in order to account for the full contribution of mindreading to utterance understanding, Relevance Theory needs to consider not only the comprehension procedure in itself, but also the way in which it interacts with other external mechanisms.