A Pragma-cognitive Analysis of Pragmatic Vagueness and its Pragmaticalization
Pang Jia-guang · Jiefangjun Waiyu Xueyuan xuebao · 2008
From the perspective of different degrees of vagueness and meta-pragmatic awareness, pragmatically vague utterances can be classified into four categories: vague utterances with weak meta-pragmatic awareness, precise utterances with weak meta-pragmatic awareness, vague utterances with strong meta-pragmatic awareness, and precise utterances with strong meta-pragmatic awareness. The former two categories can be construed as logical form→explicature and the latter two as logical form→explicature→first-level implicature. Furthermore, utterances with strong meta-pragmatic awareness may be gradually pragmaticalized due to their frequent use.