Chapter 7. Lexical Pragmatics and Implicit Communication

In this paper, we consider what is implicitly communicated when the linguistically-specified (encoded) meaning of a word or phrase is modified in use. Well-studied examples of such modification include lexical narrowing, approximation and metaphorical extension. A striking feature of much research in this area is that narrowing, approximation and metaphorical extension tend to be seen as distinct processes which lack a common explanation; indeed, the philosopher Donald Davidson famously argued that since metaphor does not always determine “a cognitive content that its author wishes to convey and that the interpreter must grasp if he is to get the message”, it does not fall within the scope of a theory of communication at all. Using corpus data to shed light on some of the issues raised by this research, we will make two main points. First, there is a continuum of cases between literal use, approximation, hyperbole and metaphor, which favours the search for a unitary account that applies across the whole continuum. Second, what is implicitly communicated is not always a specific “cognitive content that the speaker wishes to convey”: rather, there is a continuum of cases with varying degrees of specificity, and an adequate theory of communication should explain the whole range.