M&R Ch 6: Explaining irony

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 …

M&R Ch 5: A deflationary account of metaphors

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 …