%X This thesis deals with the nature of metarepresentation in language. It proposes
linguistic-semantic and pragmatic analyses of a variety of metarepresentational
expressions in English, using the framework of relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson
1986/1995). The main aim is to deepen the relevance-theoretic analysis of
metarepresentation, to apply it to a range of data which have not been previously
analysed in this framework, and to compare the resulting account with alternative
semantic and pragmatic accounts.
Chapter 1 looks at various types of quotation (including mention, reported
speech and thought, and mixed quotation) and surveys some of the problems
encountered by traditional and more recent alternative accounts; the chief problem
being that they either do not acknowledge the range and variety of semantic
indeterminacies in quotation, or do not provide an adequate account of how these
indeterminacies are resolved during utterance comprehension. Chapter 2 introduces
relevance theory and shows how the comprehension strategy it provides can be used
to resolve the various indeterminacies in quotation. It also shows how the relevance-theoretic
notion of metarepresentation (representation by resemblance) can be applied
not only to paradigmatic cases of direct and indirect quotation, but also to a range of
other cases involving the exploitation of linguistic or conceptual resemblances. What
is common to all these cases is that a representation is used with a guarantee of
faithfulness to some other representation, rather than truthfulness to some state of
affairs. The claim that a metarepresentation can be faithful enough without being
identical to the original is illustrated and explored.
The remaining chapters extend the analysis to more complex and
controversial cases. Chapter 3 looks at previous accounts of metalinguistic negation,
and develops a relevance-theoretic account whose linguistic-semantic and pragmatic
properties are investigated and compared with previous relevance-theoretic accounts.
Chapter 4 looks at previous treatments of echo questions, both inside and outside
relevance theory and extends the relevance-theoretic analysis to deal with some
standard and non-standard types of echoic question. Chapter 5 deals with a variety of
metarepresentational conditionals, and develops a relevance-theoretic account,
comparing it with previous accounts. My conclusion is that the relevance-theoretic
approach can yield analyses that are better justified than previous accounts on both
descriptive and explanatory grounds.
%I University of London
%L discovery1317897
%D 1998
%A E.-J. Noh
%T The semantics and pragmatics of misrepresentation in English - a relevance-theoretic approach
%O Thesis digitised by British Library EThOS