Cognitive Pragmatics: Mental Processes Underlying Contextual Meaning Construction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69760/gsrh.0250205031Keywords:
cognitive pragmatics, inference, relevance theoryAbstract
Cognitive pragmatics examines how meaning is constructed through the interaction of linguistic form, contextual cues, and underlying mental processes. Moving beyond literal language, it explains how speakers convey intentions and how listeners infer implied meaning through mechanisms such as Theory of Mind, mental representation, and relevance‐based reasoning. Drawing on foundational theories of implicature and relevance, as well as neurocognitive evidence from ERP and fMRI studies, cognitive pragmatics provides a comprehensive account of how individuals interpret indirect, figurative, and ambiguous expressions. Its interdisciplinary scope spans linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and language education, offering insights into language acquisition, pragmatic impairments in ASD and aphasia, and the development of context-aware computational systems. Overall, cognitive pragmatics highlights the essential role of inference, cognition, and social knowledge in human communication and demonstrates its wide applicability across theoretical and applied domains.
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