Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse
Since Plato, Western critics of literature have asked how it is possible for fiction writers to mean something serious. The outrage over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, highlighted our continued uneasiness over distinctions between fact and fiction, novel and history, truth and falsehood. The blasphemy charged against Rushdie raises important questions: Did Rushdie mean The Satanic Verses, or didn't he? When he publicly recanted, what did he mean? What do we even mean by mean?

This is the starting point for Richard Henry's fascinating investigation of the pragmatic foundations of fictional discourse. Drawing from Paul Grice's interrogation of meaning and implicature, Henry offers a systematic correlation between what it is to pretend and what it is to mean, how the two concepts inform each other, and how it is possible to mean seriously and sincerely by purportedly pretended acts. Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse draws upon Paul Grice's interrogation of meaning and implicature to offer a systematic correlation between what it is to pretend and what it is to mean, how the two concepts inform each other, and how it is possible to mean seriously and sincerely by purportedly pretended acts.

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Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse
Since Plato, Western critics of literature have asked how it is possible for fiction writers to mean something serious. The outrage over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, highlighted our continued uneasiness over distinctions between fact and fiction, novel and history, truth and falsehood. The blasphemy charged against Rushdie raises important questions: Did Rushdie mean The Satanic Verses, or didn't he? When he publicly recanted, what did he mean? What do we even mean by mean?

This is the starting point for Richard Henry's fascinating investigation of the pragmatic foundations of fictional discourse. Drawing from Paul Grice's interrogation of meaning and implicature, Henry offers a systematic correlation between what it is to pretend and what it is to mean, how the two concepts inform each other, and how it is possible to mean seriously and sincerely by purportedly pretended acts. Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse draws upon Paul Grice's interrogation of meaning and implicature to offer a systematic correlation between what it is to pretend and what it is to mean, how the two concepts inform each other, and how it is possible to mean seriously and sincerely by purportedly pretended acts.

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Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse

Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse

by Richard M. Henry
Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse

Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse

by Richard M. Henry

Hardcover

$75.00 
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Overview

Since Plato, Western critics of literature have asked how it is possible for fiction writers to mean something serious. The outrage over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, highlighted our continued uneasiness over distinctions between fact and fiction, novel and history, truth and falsehood. The blasphemy charged against Rushdie raises important questions: Did Rushdie mean The Satanic Verses, or didn't he? When he publicly recanted, what did he mean? What do we even mean by mean?

This is the starting point for Richard Henry's fascinating investigation of the pragmatic foundations of fictional discourse. Drawing from Paul Grice's interrogation of meaning and implicature, Henry offers a systematic correlation between what it is to pretend and what it is to mean, how the two concepts inform each other, and how it is possible to mean seriously and sincerely by purportedly pretended acts. Pretending and Meaning: Toward a Pragmatic Theory of Fictional Discourse draws upon Paul Grice's interrogation of meaning and implicature to offer a systematic correlation between what it is to pretend and what it is to mean, how the two concepts inform each other, and how it is possible to mean seriously and sincerely by purportedly pretended acts.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780313298899
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 06/30/1996
Series: Contributions in Philosophy , #57
Pages: 142
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.38(d)
Lexile: 1370L (what's this?)

About the Author

RICHARD HENRY earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Minnesota. He has written on parody, blasphemy, and metafiction.

Table of Contents

Preface
Fiction and Pretending
The Meaning of Pretend: Etymological Estimations
The Meaning of Pretend: Philosophical Determinations
Meaning and Pretending
Pretending to Mean
Pretending and the Pragmatics of Fictional Discourse
Bibliography
Index

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