ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews three pragmatics theories that explain the mechanisms behind the recognition of intention: Grice’s maxims of conversation, Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, and Kecskes’s socio-cognitive approach. It discusses these theories focusing on their assumptions about how speaker intention is recognized and understood. The chapter examines positive bi-directional transfer based on universal conventions, as well as negative transfer or absence of transfer due to first language-specific conventions. It illustrates how implicatures emerge from participants’ different cultural assumptions and how participants try to achieve mutual understanding of implied meaning. The chapter analyzes how two types of intention—a priori intention inherent in the speaker’s mind and an emergent intention negotiated between the speakers—co-occur in the process of common-ground seeking. It suggests that different theoretical frameworks can collectively strengthen our understanding of the changes within pragmatic systems and influences on the systems.
