This dissertation examines the central use of implicature within the Victorian novel. 'Implicature' denotes a communicative strategy in which a reader must infer the primary meaning of an utterance from that utterance's relationship to its context, rather than 'decode' explicitly presented information. While all communications rely on implicature to an extent, the novels examined in this thesis contain large gaps in their explicit narration and rely primarily on implicature to communicate central elements of their plots. If readers do not recognise these texts' implicatures, the texts will often appear incoherent: their implicatures must be acknowledged in order for the text to be understood. Because little has been said about the central role implicature can play in fictional narration, this thesis contributes to interpretations of these novels that are currently being discussed in Victorian literary scholarship, as well as literary pragmatic debates about the use of implicature within fictional texts. The dissertation's secondary aim is to examine the implicatures which may be generated by the author's exploitation of certain reader assumptions. It focuses on the reader's potential assumption of narratorial omniscience, and relates it to the reader assumption of the narrative's fictionality. This secondary emphasis contributes to literary pragmatic conceptions of fictionality, and contributes to narratological discussions of narratorial omniscience. Chapter One examines represented illegitimate pregnancies in Victorian novels, and illustrates implicature's use as a politeness strategy. It explains how this use of implicature is called for by the novels' fictional and Victorian contexts. Chapter Two discusses implicatures which communicate characters' semiconscious romantic desires, and relates these representations to Victorian discourses on the unconscious and narratological scholarship on consciousness representation. Chapter Three discusses the central use of implicature in sensation fiction to create narrative 'puzzles', and connects the ensuing playful, sometimes offensive tone to these implicatures' satire of the realist mode.

Implicatura escalar é uma interpretação upper-bound (limite máximo de informatividade) de um termo escalar fraco. E.g. \'alguns\', o termo fraco da escala semântica <todos, alguns>, pode ter interpretação lower-bound/literal (\"pelo menos alguns e talvez todos\") ou upper-bound/pragmática, de implicatura escalar (\"apenas alguns mas não todos\"). Na primeira parte deste trabalho, investigamos, por vias teóricas e experimentais, a capacidade infantil de interpretação de implicaturas escalares, que entendemos, por influência da Teoria da Relevância, como a negação implicada por um termo fraco de uma pergunta explícita ou contextualmente implícita acerca do termo forte. Nossos resultados indicam domínio de implicatura escalar pelas crianças e sensibilidade capaz de flexibilizar a interpretação dos termos fracos de acordo com contextos lower-bound ou upper-bound. Assim, identificamos na já bem desenvolvida capacidade infantil de inferir intenções comunicativas alheias (mindreading) a função cognitiva central para o sucesso de sua interpretação pragmática. Dedicamos a segunda parte do texto a uma mais abrangente exploração do papel da leitura de intenções na aquisição de linguagem, ainda comprometidos com os paradigmas conceituais da Teoria da Relevância. Ultrapassando o escopo da interpretação pragmática, procuramos reunir evidências favoráveis à adoção da capacidade humana de leitura de intenções como a operação cognitiva motivadora e coesiva do processo de amadurecimento linguístico, de modo que, argumentamos, nenhuma teoria que se proponha a explicar a aquisição de linguagem deve negligenciar em seu modelo a esfera sócio-pragmática da comunicação verbal. / Scalar implicatures happen when an upper-bound interpretation (upper limit of informativeness) is given to a weak scalar term. E.g. \'some\' (the weak term of the scale <all, some>) may receive a lower-bound/literal interpretation (\"at least some and perhaps all\") or an upper-bound/pragmatic scalar implicature interpretation (\"only some but not all\"). In the first part of the work, we investigate children\'s capacity of scalar implicature interpretation through theoretical and experimental research. By influence of Relevance Theory, we assume that such interpretation must infer the negation implicated by the weak term of an explicit or contextually implicit question about the strong term. Our results indicate children\'s mastery of scalar implicature and their sensitivity to adaptation of weak term\'s interpretation according to lower-bound or upper-bound contexts. Thus, we see in the well-developed child capacity of reading other\'s communicative intentions (mindreading) the central cognitive function of their successful pragmatic interpretation. The second part is dedicated to a more embracing analysis of mindreading\'s role in language acquisition, still taking Relevance Theory\'s concepts as references. Beyond the scope of pragmatic interpretation, we sought to gather evidences that support the hypothesis of the human capacity of intentions reading as the cognitive operation that motivates language development and provides cohesion to the parts of the process. Being so, we argue that no theory that intends to explain language acquisition should neglect in its model the social-pragmatics level of verbal communication.

<p>When we converse we constantly fail to observe the rules of conversation in order to simplify and make dialogues more effective. The scriptwriters who work with TV shows use non-observances of maxims in order to evoke different feelings from their viewers. The aim of this paper was to investigate how frequently non-observances of maxims occurred in the TV shows Desperate Housewives and That 70’s Show. I examined where and why they were used as well as how often flouting was used compared to violations. The base of the study was a drama and a comedy show.</p><p>Research has shown that the maxim of relevance is most frequently used to create different comical or dramatic situations. The scriptwriters have their characters ignore what is relevant to the situations in order to make them come off as flustered, odd and stupid in humorous situations and as mysterious, cowardly, respectful or bold in dramatic situations. Also research shows that flouting occurs more frequently than violations when it comes to breaking maxims. Violations occur most often with the maxim of quality when the characters lie to mislead in order to direct blame away from him/herself. In Conclusion, this investigation has shown that non-observances of maxims are important for scriptwriters in order to create humorous and dramatic situations in verbal interaction.</p>

In this thesis, I discuss John Searles account of Intentionality which includes his theory of the Background as something which is necessary, in some sense, to there being such a thing as Intentionality. In chapter one I briefly introduce the notions of both background and normativity. In chapter two, I discuss the motives and initial rationale of Searles theory. In chapter three I discuss the philosophers he has had contact with who anticipated the Background. In chapter four I claim that Searle has always been conflicted about his theory and I diagnose the root of his conflict, namely that the original rationale required the Background to be normative in nature, but over time it was additionally conceived neurophysiologically, causally, and thus non-normative in nature. I argue that his conflict is inevitable given the irreducibility of the intentional to the non-intentional, and more generally of the normative to the non-normative.

In this thesis, I discuss John Searles account of Intentionality which includes his theory of the Background as something which is necessary, in some sense, to there being such a thing as Intentionality. In chapter one I briefly introduce the notions of both background and normativity. In chapter two, I discuss the motives and initial rationale of Searles theory. In chapter three I discuss the philosophers he has had contact with who anticipated the Background. In chapter four I claim that Searle has always been conflicted about his theory and I diagnose the root of his conflict, namely that the original rationale required the Background to be normative in nature, but over time it was additionally conceived neurophysiologically, causally, and thus non-normative in nature. I argue that his conflict is inevitable given the irreducibility of the intentional to the non-intentional, and more generally of the normative to the non-normative.

This study investigates the understanding of emoticons and emojis used in text messages. Theaim of this study is to determine whether there is a universal understanding of emoticons andemojis, which is important considering the number of people using them every day whensending text messages. Many studies have been made of communication via text messagesand the usage of emoticons and emojis, but no study has focused on the interpretation of thesymbols and the importance of the context.For the purposes of this study, a questionnaire was completed in an uppersecondary school (Swedish gymnasium) in Stockholm, during normal school hours inNovember 2014, by 90 16-19 year old students. The result was then analysed through a‘Relevance Theory’ perspective, and in the light of the works of, amongst others, Saussure,Peirce and Thomas.The result revealed that, for the interpreter of a text message, it is important thata textual context is established, in order for the interpreter to be able to understand what theemoticons or emojis used in text messages mean. The result also showed that the emoticonsand emojis do not have a meaning in themselves and that they can have different meaningsdepending on the situation, and the mood or the person for whom the message is intended.

Two propositions connected by and have the same truth-value, irrespective of the order of the conjuncts. However, in a sentence like “I put my socks and shoes on” it becomes obvious that the order of the conjuncts affects the meaning of the sentence. This study concerns the contribution of pragmatics to and by implicit enrichment to and then or and thus. It includes three experiments that investigate and-enrichment in adults and children. Nine five-line stories concerning everyday events were used. After each story the participants were to respond “yes” or “no” to a statement which referred to two events that occurred in the story, conjoined with and. In the critical statement, the two events were presented in the inverse order to which they had occurred. The results show no general developmental effect but awareness of the task plays a critical role for and-enrichment production. Ten-year-olds enrich and to the same extent as adults when no efforts are made to mask the intention behind the task. However, when a more spontaneous response is captured by masking the purpose of the task children respond more logically. There are no clear evidence that and-enrichment is affected by the cognitive demands of the task.

This paper explores how flouting of the Gricean maxims is used to create comedy in the television series Community.  The aim of the paper is to find out what maxims are flouted the most to create comedy and what maxims the different characters flout in order to create comedy. The paper examines the use of flouts in different situations and explores in what situations the different characters flout the maxims for comedy.  The paper is based on transcription of eight episodes of the series. The results show that the maxim of quantity was flouted most often, and some characters used more flouts than others. These results suggest that the use of flouts has to do with their different personalities, which is why some characters did not use as many flouts in order to create comedy, since it would not be in line with their personality.

When we converse we constantly fail to observe the rules of conversation in order to simplify and make dialogues more effective. The scriptwriters who work with TV shows use non-observances of maxims in order to evoke different feelings from their viewers. The aim of this paper was to investigate how frequently non-observances of maxims occurred in the TV shows Desperate Housewives and That 70’s Show. I examined where and why they were used as well as how often flouting was used compared to violations. The base of the study was a drama and a comedy show. Research has shown that the maxim of relevance is most frequently used to create different comical or dramatic situations. The scriptwriters have their characters ignore what is relevant to the situations in order to make them come off as flustered, odd and stupid in humorous situations and as mysterious, cowardly, respectful or bold in dramatic situations. Also research shows that flouting occurs more frequently than violations when it comes to breaking maxims. Violations occur most often with the maxim of quality when the characters lie to mislead in order to direct blame away from him/herself. In Conclusion, this investigation has shown that non-observances of maxims are important for scriptwriters in order to create humorous and dramatic situations in verbal interaction.

When it comes to human communication, there are several possible ways of expressing the same idea. This is often explained in terms of direct and indirect speech acts. The concept of direct and indirect speech acts is not only of interest to scholars within linguistics, but rather, it has come to serve as a source of entertainment for a wider audience as well. This essay aims to investigate manifestations of directness and indirectness in the unscripted reality TV show Love on the Spectrum. More specifically, the study aims to identify possible functions of directness and indirectness respectively in the TV show as well as to investigate what factors seem to govern the participants’ levels of indirectness. The study retrieved its data from eight episodes spread across two seasons. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach with occasional quantitative elements in order to identify the most frequent functions of directness and indirectness, respectively. The results showed that request for clarification, giving explanations and saving face were all identified as possible functions of directness in the TV show. The possible functions of indirectness identified were politeness and consideration, giving hints and creating figures of speech. The results also showed that Thomas’ (1995) factors said to govern the levels of indirectness correspond with how indirectness was applied by the participants of the show.