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Towards a “Theory of Everything” in Human Communication

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Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use

Part of the book series: Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology ((PEPRPHPS,volume 9))

Abstract

Drawing on Jacob Mey’s definition of pragmatics and the triad pragmeme, pract, allopract, the article speculates around the idea of constructing “a theory of everything”, i.e. an integrative framework for interpreting human communication. It hypothesizes some lines of thought to extend Mey’s in nuce theoretical proposals towards what I will call generative pragmatics. Generative pragmatics would be a principled account of the mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of speech acting as part of human social practice. Its aim would be to explain how situated speech acts are generated in the mind, creatively voiced by speakers in the public arena of a particular community of practice, and negotiated among interlocutors who co-generate interpracts according to conversational states at unique moments of interaction. The proliferation of schools of thought, directions of research, approaches, concepts, and terminologies has proved useful for an analytic, in depth focus on various, most often unrelated, aspects of language (competence) and communication (performance). A change in the research paradigm aiming to find common denominators among varieties and to merge complementary perspectives might prove useful for a synthetic look, showing “the big picture” of our interactional life as a print of humans’ biologic and material life.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Letters and Romanian Academy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Andra Vasilescu

  2. “Iorgu Iordan - Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics, Bucharest, Romania

    Andra Vasilescu

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  1. Andra Vasilescu
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Correspondence to Andra Vasilescu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Keith Allan

  2. Department of Cognitive Science, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

    Alessandro Capone

  3. State University of New York, Albany, New York, USA

    Istvan Kecskes

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Vasilescu, A. (2016). Towards a “Theory of Everything” in Human Communication. In: Allan, K., Capone, A., Kecskes, I. (eds) Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_17

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