Rhetoricked: Academic home page of Brian N. Larson
Here are the slides for my talk on Friday, April 8, 8:00-9:15, at the CCCC in Houston. Please let me know if you want to see supporting materials, including the journal article on CPR theory that I’m preparing for submission now!
This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the seventh chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted Chris’s summary of the book’s preface, an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory, and a his summary of the introductory Chapter 1. All the other chapters before the present one have also received summaries. (Click on the “Relevance Theory” tag link on any of these, and you’ll get the whole list.) I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC. With the chapter, the job of writing summaries passes to me; wish me luck! Chapter Read More …
This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the sixth chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted Chris’s summary of the book’s preface, an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory, and a his summary of the introductory Chapter 1. All the other chapters before the present one have also received summaries. (Click on the “Relevance Theory” tag link on any of these, and you’ll get the whole list.) I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC. While Chapter 5 explained metaphor in detail, Chapter 6 is entirely about explaining verbal irony. Read More …
This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the fifth chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted Chris’s summary of the book’s preface, an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory, and a his summary of the introductory Chapter 1. All the other chapters before the present one have also received summaries. (Click on the “Relevance Theory” tag link on any of these, and you’ll get the whole list.) I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC. In Chapter 4, Wilson and Sperber concluded, “metaphor and irony are not rhetorical devices involving Read More …
This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the fourth chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted Chris’s summary of the book’s preface, an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory, and a his summary of the introductory Chapter 1. All the other chapters before the present one have also received summaries. (Click on the “Relevance Theory” tag link on any of these, and you’ll get the whole list.) I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC. Since the first three chapters of Meaning And Relevance are fairly dense, let’s briefly highlight Read More …
This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the third chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted Chris’s summary of the book’s preface, an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory, and a his summary of the introductory Chapter 1. All the other chapters before the present one have also received summaries. (Click on the “Relevance Theory” tag link on any of these, and you’ll get the whole list.) I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC. Having explained the meaning of inferential pragmatics in Chapter 1 and word-concept relationships in Chapter Read More …
This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the second chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted a summary of the book’s preface, an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory, and a summary of Chapter 1. I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC. Concepts and Words In Chapter 1, Sperber and Wilson explained how, in Relevance Theory (RT), words that are linguistically encoded (‘explicatures’) and concepts that are cognitively inferred (‘implicatures’) interact through parallel processing (‘mutual adjustment)’ to produce an interpretation about the meaning of a speaker’s intention. RT Read More …
This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the first chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted a summary of the book’s preface and an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory. I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC. This summary has two parts: part I explains the basics of Relevance Theory (RT for short); part II teases out some implications of RT (especially for professionals in rhetoric and technical communication) and then concludes the summary. I. Basics of RT While Sperber and Wilson define Read More …
Here is Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the preface of Wilson & Sperber’s Meaning and Relevance. This is part of a series of posts discussing intersections between Relevance Theory (RT) and rhetoric. For an overview of this project, see this post; for definitions of terms and concepts from RT, see this post. -Brian Under various theoretical influences, from Classical and modern rhetoric to philosophical hermeneutics and linguistic pragmatics, the rhetorical tradition and its practical offshoots such as technical communication have been concerned with the nature of interpretation, which roughly may be defined as the art or skill of expounding or translating Read More …
To assist readers following our series of posts on Wilson and Sperber’s Meaning and Relevance (2012), and to assist us, too by providing a place to refer to in future posts for definitions of terms, I’m posting here a summary of a book chapter W&S published in 2006: Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2006). Relevance theory. In L. Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), The Handbook of Pragmatics (pp. 607–632). Wiley-Blackwell. Wilson and Sperber describe relevance theory as “a cognitive psychological theory” (p. 625). This chapter provides an introduction of the theory as W&S currently espouse it. It differs in some Read More …