Strategies for Literal and Non-Literal Communication

Presumptions

Linguistic Presumption (LP)

The hearer is presumed capable of determining the meaning and the referents of the expression uttered.

Communicative Presumption (CP)

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, a speaker is assumed to be speaking with some identifiable communicative intent.

Presumption of Literalness (PL)

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, a speaker is assumed to be speaking literally

Conversational Presumptions (ConPs):

• Relevance: The speaker's remarks are relevant to the conversation.
• Sincerity: The speaker is being sincere.
• Truthfulness: The speaker is attempting to say something true.
• Quantity: The speaker contributes the appropriate amount of information.
• Quality: The speaker has adequate evidence for what they say.

Strategies for Literal and Direct Communication

1. Direct Strategy

Will enable the hearer to infer, from what they hear the speaker utter, what the speaker is directly communicating.

• S1. Utterance: Recognizes the expression act.
• S2. Operative Meaning: Recognizes the meaning of the expression which is being used on this occasion.
• S3. Speaker Reference: Recognizes what the speaker is being referred to.
• S4. Direct: Recognizes what the speaker is intended to communicate directly.

2. Literal Strategy

Will enable the hearer to infer, from what the speaker would be directly communicating:

• S5. Contextual Appropriateness: Recognizes that it would be contextually appropriate for the speaker to be speaking literally.
• S6. Literal: Recognizes what the speaker is intending to communicate literally and directly.

Non-Literal Communication

When we speak, we often mean more than our words mean. E.g., overstatement, figures of speech, metaphor, metonymy, irony, and sarcasm.

• S5. Contextual Inappropriateness: The hearer recognizes that it would be contextually inappropriate for the speaker to be talking literally.
• S6. Non-Literal:

Indirect Communication

Sometimes when we speak, we are not only performing some direct form of communication but also speaking indirectly - meaning something more than we mean directly.

Strategies: From step 6, infer S7 and S8.

• S7. Contextual Inappropriateness:
• S8. Indirect: