Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 86. kötet (1984)

Tanulmányok - Kiefer Ferenc: Szemantika vagy pragmatika? [Semantics or Pragmatics?] 5

22 KIEFER FERENC: SZEMANTIKA VAGY PRAGMATIKA SEARLE—KIEFER—BIEBWISCH 1980 : JOHN R. SEARLE—FERENC KIEFER—MANFRED BIERWISCH (szerk.), Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics. D. Reidel, Dordrecht 1980 TARSKI 1944 : ALFRED TARSKI, The semantic conception of turth. in : LINSKY 1952. WUNDERLICH 1976 : DIETER WUNDERLICH, Studien zur Sprechakttheorie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M. 1976 Semantics or Pragmatics? by FERENC KIEFER The paper deals with various possibilities of distinguishing between semantics and pragmatics. Speech act theory and the Gricean theory of conversation do not draw any line between these two disciplines. It is implieitly assumed that any aspect of meaning must be approached from a pragmatic point of view. Both speech act theory and the theory of conversation are thus pragmatic théories of meaning. Though they can account for certain aspects of linguistic communication they are utterly inadéquate as théories of linguistic meaning. Theories of meaning based on logical Systems, in gênerai, do distinguish between semantics and pragmatics. Those aspects of meaning that can be accounted for in terms of truth conditions are considered semantic, those that fall outside of the scope of truth conditions belong to pragmatics. It is shown that such a distinction between semantics and pragmatics is inadéquate on several accounts (there are quite a few aspects of conventional linguistic meaning which cannot be described truth-functionally). In linguistics it has become customary to express meaning by means of sensé relations. Aspects of meaning which can only be accounted for by référence to context are pragmatic. However, context cannot be dispensed with in the description of conventional meaning either. There fore, it is stipulated that instead of the dichtomy of semantics — pragmatics meaning should be described in terms of a scale comprising, among other things, logical meaning — literary meaning — metaphorical meaning and communicative sensé.