Paradigms of Reading : Relevance Theory and Deconstruction

Annotation Linguistic signs do not coincide with intended or interpreted meanings. For relevance theory, this theoretical commonplace merely demonstrates the inferential nature of language. For Paul de Man, on the contrary, it suggested that language is unstable, random, arbitrary, mechanical, ironic and inhuman. This book seeks to show that relevance theory is a more plausible account of communication, cognition and literary interpretation than the deconstructionist theory de Man elaborated from readings of Rousseau, Hegel, and Nietzsche Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Bibliographical Abbreviations......Page 9 1 Pragmatic Banality and Honourable Bigotry......Page 10 Synopsis......Page 15 Honourable bigotry......Page 20 2 Relevance Theory and Spoken Communication......Page 25 Linguistic underdetermination......Page 26 Ostension, inference, intentions and relevance......Page 27 Implicatures, vagueness and poetic effects......Page 31 Metaphor and irony, description and interpretation......Page 34 3 'Positive Hermeneutics': Relevance and Communication......Page 38 The hermeneutic tradition......Page 42 Communicative intentions......Page 45 The epidemiology of representations......Page 50 The reader as supplement......Page 53 4 'Negative Hermeneutics': Themes, Figures, Codes and Cognition......Page 56 Unconscious identities......Page 57 Reading and time......Page 59 Canonicity......Page 62 Codes and inference......Page 64 Carvers and modellers......Page 69 5 Words, Concepts and Tropes......Page 71 Nouns and concepts......Page 74 Metaphor, truth, lies, realistic assumptions and surplus value......Page 78 Numbers......Page 83 Dead metaphors and catachreses......Page 85 6 Rhetoric as an Insurmountable Obstacle......Page 93 'What's the difference?', 'Son of a bitch!' and catastrophic confusions......Page 95 Rhetoric and aesthetics......Page 99 Tropes and persuasion......Page 104 Irony......Page 107 Resistance to language......Page 110 7 Words and the World: The Problem of Reference......Page 116 Being and becoming......Page 117 Concepts, metaphors, catachreses and reference......Page 121 Reference and ideology......Page 124 'Ich kann nicht sagen was ich nur meine'......Page 127 Reference and application......Page 135 8 Mechanical Performatives......Page 140 The purloined ribbon......Page 142 Excuses, fictions and machines......Page 147 Paul de Man's war......Page 155 9 The Madness of Words and the Enunciating Subject......Page 161 The fallacy of the active sign......Page 162 From intentional subjects to inhuman language......Page 166 Arbitrary signifiers and accountable authors......Page 175 Dialogism and ventriloquism......Page 179 10 'When Lucy ceas'd to be'......Page 185 Wordsworth's use of rock and roll......Page 186 Wordsworth's murderous spirit......Page 189 Lucy and Freud......Page 191 Lucy as metaphor......Page 195 From beyond the grave......Page 197 Miller's tale......Page 199 11 Relevance and Rhetoric......Page 205 Notes......Page 208 References......Page 230 C......Page 241 F......Page 242 J......Page 243 P......Page 244 S......Page 245 Z......Page 246 Although both relevance theory, as formed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, and the deconstructionism of Paul de Man agree that linguistic signs can't wholly coincide with meaning, de Man believes that this demonstrates the aberrancy of all understanding while relevance theory argues that this merely demonstrated the necessity of inference in linguistic interpretation. MacKenzie (English instruction, Haute Ecole de Gestion, Lausanne, France) attempts to prove that relevance theory is an effective pragmatic remedy to the problems posed by de Man's deconstructionism, specifically examining and refuting his accounts of the rhetoric of tropes, the relation between words and the world, performative rhetoric, the tropological nature of selfhood. He then analyzes a well-known Wordsworth poem in terms of relevance theory in an attempt to show that it is a more plausible and useful account of language than that offered by de Man. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR 1. Pragmatic Banality And Honourable Bigotry -- 2. Relevance Theory And Spoken Communication -- 3. 'positive Hermeneutics': Relevance And Communication -- 4. 'negative Hermeneutics': Themes, Figures, Codes And Cognition -- 5. Words, Concepts And Tropes -- 6. Rhetoric As An Insurmountable Obstacle -- 7. Words And The World: The Problem Of Reference -- 8. Mechanical Performatives -- 9. The Madness Of Words And The Enunciating Subject -- 10. 'when Lucy Ceas'd To Be' -- 11. Relevance And Rhetoric. Ian Mackenzie. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 221-231) And Index. Theories of literary meaning all agree on at least one point: that linguistic signs or signifiers never wholly coincide with intended or interpreted meanings.