校庆学术讲座预告丨Language ≠ Communication, Why？

华东师范大学法语系主办

Why language is not communication and why communication is not language

# 讲座信息

Speaker:

Professor Jacques Moeschler

Time:

16:15-17:45, 

Wednesday, November 17, 2021 (Beijing time)

Venue: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89420113705

Zoom ID: 89420113705  PW: 662029

# 主讲人简介

Prof. Jacques Moeschler has joined University of Geneva in 1983. He was made full professor in the Department of Linguistics in 2005, for the chair of French linguistics, then honorary professor in 2019. Author and editor of about thirty books and about two hundred scientific articles in French and in English, he has directed about ten projects of Swiss National Scientific Foundation and about twenty doctoral theses in the field of pragmatics. He also held the position of president of the Swiss Society of Linguistics (2009-2013) and of the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (2012-2019).

# 内容提要

It is generally admitted that the function of language is communication. One implication of this assumption is that language structure is organised in such a way to optimise communication. However, research on language structure have shown a strong divergence between linguistic rules and communication principles. Whereas linguistic (syntactic) rules are optimal solutions for the sound-meaning interfaces, principles governing verbal communication are best captured by properties of conversation and cognition, for instance cooperation (Grice) and relevance (Sperber and Wilson).

In this lecture, I will defend the idea, now extensively argued in cognitive pragmatics, that language’s main function is not communication, but the externalisation of the language of thought, as well as linguistic communication is not shaped by linguistic rules, but by independent cognitive and communicative principles.

This clear-cut distinction offers new answers to the study of meaning in natural language, as well as to the complex issues of the origin and evolution of language and the paradox of communication: the addressee must be vigilant enough to avoid the speaker’s manipulation and in the same time trust her in order to get what the speaker means. I will show the consequence of such an integrated approach to language and communication, mainly as regards the semantics-pragmatics border.