This paper addresses a very general problem—the relationship between implicit and explicit forms of meaning–that is as old as scholarly attention to language in use.It first tries to define the problem.Then it prese...This paper addresses a very general problem—the relationship between implicit and explicit forms of meaning–that is as old as scholarly attention to language in use.It first tries to define the problem.Then it presents some elementary aspects of the way in which the problem has been dealt with in the pragmatic literature.This is followed by an excursion into the world of related natural-language concepts,as reflected in the English metapragmatic lexicon.Finally,the paper tries to make a contribution to a solution by proposing a threedimensional matrix to account for what might look like a one-dimensional gradable scale from implicit to explicit.An attempt is made to illustrate the potential usefulness of the suggestions.Conclusions mainly take the form of perspectives for future research.展开更多
文摘This paper addresses a very general problem—the relationship between implicit and explicit forms of meaning–that is as old as scholarly attention to language in use.It first tries to define the problem.Then it presents some elementary aspects of the way in which the problem has been dealt with in the pragmatic literature.This is followed by an excursion into the world of related natural-language concepts,as reflected in the English metapragmatic lexicon.Finally,the paper tries to make a contribution to a solution by proposing a threedimensional matrix to account for what might look like a one-dimensional gradable scale from implicit to explicit.An attempt is made to illustrate the potential usefulness of the suggestions.Conclusions mainly take the form of perspectives for future research.
