What is a theory of use?

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Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to outline new goals for pragmatical theory, to present some problems of pragmatical studies and to propose some ingredients of major solutions of these problems. The goal of pragmatics is argued to be specification and explanation of the human competence to use linguistic means for effecting standard purposes, where a competence is defined by a constitutive system of rules. Adequacy Conditions for such pragmatic theories are pointed out, one of which being a pragmatic counterpart of the Tarski-Davidson Convention T for semantic theories. The key concepts in our criterion are linguistic appropriateness and linguistic institutions. The latter are defined by some constitutive factors, such as purposes and products. It is shown how Grice's theory of implicatures, Hintikka's language-games and the author's previous works on different pragmatic phenomena fit into the suggested framework.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)105-120
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Pragmatics
Volume1
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1977

Funding

FundersFunder number
Nederlandse Organisatie voo~ Zu:\B30-6~

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