Defeasibility of Pragmatic Presuppositions in Humor Generation

Of the two types of pragmatic presuppositions to produce humor,i.e.,generation of pragmatic presuppositions and defeasibility of pragmatic presuppositions,the latter one receives particular attention because of its unique humorous effect.Further analysis reveals that defeasibility occurs in context conflicts and in the deliberate interpretation of utterances’literal meaning by the listener.

A Critique of the Philosophical Presuppositions of Cognitive Psychology

In the historical interaction of science and philosophy,empirical science has used cumulative research to shed new light on how the science of philosophy understands fundamental scientific issues.As an effort of self-renewal,the initial impetus for the birth of cognitive science was dialogue among disciplines,with a view to making it possible to unlock the mysteries of cognition.In other words,cognitive science was to pave the way for fundamentally updating the philosophical premises of the science of mind or even making possible a new scientific worldview.As a branch of cognitive science,psychology was to have contributed to the renovation of the ontological,methodological and scientific worldview of cognitive science through its unique interpretation of human nature.However,in the course of the development of cognitive science and psychology,psychology has failed to employ its disciplinary endeavors to renew the ontology,methodology and values of the philosophical foundations of cognitive science,and has also failed to contribute to the promotion of cognitive science.On the contrary,cognitive science’s mechanistic worldview and positivist methodology are the sole determinants of the background of cognitive science that shapes psychology’s model of development—that is,cognitive psychology(if one sees cognitive psychology as a concrete manifestation of the interaction of cognitive science and psychology).This study examines cognitive psychology’s ontological,methodological and value presuppositions and scientific worldview and reflects on the blind and passive nature of the discipline’s development.Moreover,from a history of science perspective,it considers how the development of this discipline can contribute to the renewal of scientific concepts in the philosophy of science through the interaction of the mature natural sciences and philosophy and thence provide possibilities for handling the relationship between psychology and philosophy in psychology’s future development.

Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic with words:an investigation of pragmatic presuppositions in Chinese anti-pandemic slogans

Slogans play an important role in Chinese society.Numerous slogans have been created and used in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.As an eyecatching linguistic phenomenon,anti-pandemic slogans have sparked heated debates not only among the general public,but also in the academic sector.This study is focused on the pragmatic presuppositions in Chinese anti-pandemic slogans.By adopting a mixed approach(quantitative and qualitative),it finds that six types of pragmaticpresuppositions are used inChinese anti-pandemic slogans.Among them,the behavioral presuppositionsrank first in frequency of use,factive presuppositions second,stative presuppositions third,belief presuppositions fourth,cultural presuppositions fifth and emotional presuppositions sixth.The pragmatic presuppositions of these slogans can serve four major functions,which are persuading people to act properly,spreading scientific knowledge,warning people against wrongdoings and bolstering people’s confidence.However,there are sporadic occurrences of misusing pragmatic presuppositions in the so-called“hardcore”slogans.This study concludes that knowledge of pragmatic presuppositions is essential to a correct understanding and a proper creation of Chinese anti-pandemic slogans.

Pragmatics and Its Significant Implications on EFL Teaching

Based on pragmatics theories, this article will discuss its application and put forward the implications of pragmatics on EFL teaching.

The Existential Presuppositon of Only

Only has existential presuppositional meaning in sentences with focus,which are associated with it.The suspension facts can provide some witness to test this view.Finally it is concluded that Only with its restriction,the nonfocus part can carry out its existential presupposition.

A Study of Presupposition in Hotel's English

As a common phenomenon in language,presupposition plays an important role in linguistic communication.Study of presupposition in hotel's English reveals that on account of the felicity of information-conveying,presupposition has been em ploying by Hotels'staff intentionally or unintentionally.In hotels'service,proper use of presupposition ensures the normal con duction of hotels'service circuits,contributes to the economy and coherence of communication,facilitates understanding be tween guests and the hotels'staff.In addition,it enhances persuasion and latency of staff's speech,guarantees satisfactory settle ment of complaints.

Chinese Negation Marker Bu and Its Association with Focus

TheChinesenegationmarkerbu'not'isanalyzedasaclitic-likeelementintheliterature(Huang,1988;Ernst,1995,etc.)inordertoexplainwhyitcannotco-occurwith(i)perfectivemarker-leor(ii)mannerphrases(cf.sentences(1)and(2)).(1)*Wobu-chi-lemuguaInot-eatPerfpapaya(Hu...

Random Remarks on the Relation of Translatology to Grammar,Rhetoric,Semantics,Pragmatics and Other Linguistic Sciences

V.Translatology and PragmaticsPragmatics is the study of language usage.It is a study of those relationsbetween language and context that are grammaticalized,or encoded in the structureof a language.It includes the study of deixis,presupposition and speech acts.It is tobe noted that there is also a close relation between translatology and pragmatics.The following instances afford an illustration of this point.

Presupposition Analysis in Advertising Language

In modem society, advertising plays a very important role in people＇s daily life. We can not imagine the world without advertisements. Advertisers try every means to design persuasive advertisements for their products by attractive patterns, photos and colors, as well as commonly shared resources of language. The use of presupposition in advertising language, which is an important topic in pragmaties, can serve the function fairly well. This paper first presents a general review of previous studies on presupposition phenomena in advertising language, then investigates the use of presuppositions in advertising language by both qualitative and quantitative analyses. By qualitative analysis, the author tries to explore the functions of each type of presuppositions in advertising texts; by quantitative analysis, 100 sentences selected from various advertisements for different products are examined.

The Case for Presupposition： On Kripke＇s Anaphoric Account

According to Kripke, traditional approaches to presupposition and anaphora do not work in some compound sentences because traditionally, they have been thought to assign presuppositions to each clause in isolation. I agree with this criticism, but also think that context is required in order to determine the presupposition included in a complex sentence. To show the context role in fixing the utterance truth-conditions in those cases, this paper introduces the Kripkean anaphoric account on presuppositions （section 2）, and then criticizes this approach because it is very restrictive （section 3）. The paper concludes that to solve those difficulties, one should appeal to a two-dimensional framework, including a new parameter that focuses on the sentence according to the concrete features of the context： the speaker＇s point of view （section 4）.

Semantic and Pragmatic Approaches to Presupposition

Presupposition is widely studied in the field of linguistics nowadays while it was firstly put forward in philosophy.Early study ex amined it from semantic approach,which treated it as the relation between two propositions.In 1970s,it was found presupposition was also a pragmatic concept,which held that presupposition varied with context.The author holds that semantic approach can't solve all the com plex problems while it's the basic part about the issue.Only through the pragmatic approach can we study it dynamically.

Literature Review of Semantic Presupposition

Since Gottlob Frege,the German philosopher and mathematician raises the concept of presupposition in his works On Sense and Reference at the end of the 19th century,to interpret some semantic phenomenon,the discussions of presupposition have become central in both linguistic field and the field of philosophy.Presupposition is a very important linguistic concept that originates from philosophy.

The Application of Pragmatic Presupposition in Developing Critical Thinking of Writing

This study aims to explore whether developing critical thinking ability from the perspective of pragmatic presupposition can help non-English majors improve their writing achievements.This empirical study employs tests as the instruments.126 non-English majors from a key university of Shandong Province participate in the study.The results of the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test indicate that most subjects(95%)have inadequate or limited critical thinking ability,which leads to digression,repetitive and lengthy description,and unconvincing arguments,as well as illogical or incoherent structures in writing.After a ten-week teaching instruction from the perspective of pragmatic presupposition,students in experimental group improve their writing achievements,indicating that the instruction of critical thinking ability from the perspective of pragmatic presupposition may have certain effects on their writing performance.The study will promote the application of pragmatic presupposition to writing teaching and offer some implications for the teaching of English writing.

浅析自卫言语的句型及其内涵

言语自卫(verbal self-defense)是人的一种本能。学习如何识别微妙的污辱和讽刺语,了解每个人(父母与子女,丈夫与妻子,教师与学生,朋友与朋友)经常使用的其他攻击性言辞是必要的。句子的结构有表层和深层之分,其意义也有表面和内涵(presupposition)之别。例如。

Interpreting Synergism Based Upon Visual-Audio-Oral Course of EAP： A Case of CI Between English and Chinese

On the basis of the theory of relevance and transfer, this study puts forward interpreting operation synergism through positive transfer from Visual-Audio-Oral Course of EAP to E-C and C-E interpreting. In the way of consecutive interpreting, the researcher has done the experiments to 147 undergraduate interpreters of non-English majors in five classes taught by him in the second semester from 2014 to 2015. The experimental results show that listening of EAP has the functions of relevance and holistic presupposition to student interpreters, whose audio nerves have been activated once more while listening to SL （source language） information. At this moment, the function of transferring SL information as input occurs. And further, speaking of EAP also has the functions of relevance and holistic presupposition to student interpreters, whose oral nerves have been activated once more while encoding and expressing in TL （target language）. At this moment the results of transferring information as TL output are prominent. Therefore, Visual-Audio-Oral Course of EAP has the effect of relevance, transfer and presupposition to student interpreters＇ interpreting operation in China.

A Study of Presupposition Triggers in Chinese Romantic Conversations

Presupposition means an implied fact or information which is accepted by both speaker and hearer in a conversation,or at least the information that can always be inferred from the context after hearing the discourse.In the analysis of how speaker's assumptions are typically expressed,presupposition has been associated with the use of a large number of words,phrases,and structures,known as presupposition-triggers.There are many studies on trigger language at home and abroad,but there are relatively few studies on analyzing presupposition triggers from the perspective of romantic conversations.In this paper,by analyzing what presupposition triggers are used in the conversations and what functions the triggers perform,also the various ways of communication in which a boyfriend annoys his girlfiriend,we can solve the doubts of many male friends,so that people can have a deeper understanding of presupposition triggers and the application of it in romantic conversations,which may help us a lot in our daily interpersonal communication life.

An Analysis of Implication and Presupposition

This paper deals with the two concepts:implication and presupposition,their definitions,similarities and differences.Implication is of a pure logic category,which is concerned with the statement and can’t be deleted,while the presupposition is variable and has defeasibility.Implication is a part of the information of the sentence,but presupposition is background of the information.

Application of Pragmatic Presupposition in Chinese and English Advertisements

Advertisements,as an important business strategy,are now ubiquitous.As a kind of strategy of language expression,pragmatic presupposition plays an extraordinarily important role in advertising.Based on many classical cases of Chinese and English advertisements,this paper is aimed to discuss and analyze the types and features of pragmatic presupposition.The findings of this paper will provide advertisement producers with theoretical knowledge and practical strategies about how to apply pragmatic presupposition to create effective and persuasive advertisements which can really catch the eyeballs of consumers.

Linguistic Presupposition： A Multi-dimensional Perspective

Presuppositional information is encoded in linguistic expressions by means of so-called presupposition triggers or presupposition inducers. These items are linguistic means that signal that certain information is taken for granted in the linguistic or non-linguistic context. One task for presupposition theory is to identify these triggers, explain what type of information they induce, and why they do so. A second task is to explain why and under what circumstances the information thus induced is preserved as an intuitive inference of the inducing sentence. The latter problem is the projection problem for presuppositions. Theories of presupposition can be divided into the following main classes： semantic, pragmatic, and dynamic theories. Semantic theories explain presupposition as a semantic relation between sentences. Pragmatic theories take the information a speaker takes for granted in making an assertion as their starting point. Dynamic theories locate sentence meaning in its context-change potential： presuppositional information should be part of input context as a precondition for contextual update. The two major variants are the satisfaction account and the anaphoric account. The former construes presuppositions as definedness conditions on input contexts. According to the anaphoric account presuppositional expressions are anaphors that should be bound to a contextually given antecedent.

The Function of Context in Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis involves many aspects such as cohesion, coherence, adjacency pair, turn-taking text type, and so on so forth. Among them context plays a key role in the analysis. So the present paper intends to focus its discussion on the functions of context in discourse analysis. Through study the paper finds full explanations about the function of context in the following aspects： firstly, context can help listeners or readers to define reference; secondly, it can also help to establish and accumulate presupposition; thirdly, context can help hearer detect conversational implicature. Those functions are very influential in discourse analysis as well as in language acquisition.