ACTUAR (Y) SORPRENDER (Y) SUGERIR. LA CONVIVENCIA PRAGMÁTICA DE LOS DISCURSOS COTIDIANOS, CÓMICOS Y POÉTICOS, BASE DE UNA TEORÍA DE LA FICCIÓN

La teoría de la relevancia de Sperber y Wilson permite entender los discursos cotidianos, cómicos y poéticos desde un nuevo enfoque. Ya no es necesario pensar en un proceso comunicativo independiente para cada uno de ellos, sino que podemos explicarlos como tipos de uso de un proceso comunicativo complejo. Esta perspectiva nos obliga a reconsiderar algunos conceptos tradicionales de la teoría de la literatura, como no ficción, autoficción o canon. Tomando como base esas premisas, en el presente artículo se propone una definición de la noción de ficción. Abstract: Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory allows us to understand everyday, comical and poetic discourses from a new scope. It is no longer necessary to formulate an independent communicative process for each one of them. On the contrary, they can be explained as different uses of one large and complex process. This perspective forces us to reconsider some traditional Literary Theory concepts, such as nonfiction, autofiction or canon. Taking these premises as a starting point, this article aims to propose a definition of fiction.

The ‘hookability’of multimodal impact captions

The use of captions has grown in recent years in both traditional and new media, particularly in terms of the diversity of style, content, and function. Impact captions have emerged as a popular form of captions for hearing viewers and contain rich multimodal information which is employed to capture viewer attention and enhance engagement, particularly in situations where there is competition for viewer attention. Drawing upon relevance theory, we argue how impact captions could effectively attract and hold visual attention owing to their balance between processing effort and contextual effects. This exploratory study employs a dual-task paradigm and uses authentic materials and viewing situations to further examine the ability of multimodal impact captions to attract and retain overt visual attention amongst a small sample of TV viewers. Our results provide novel insight into the apparent highly individualised efficacy of impact captions, where we identify several variables of interest in participants’ viewing behaviours. We conclude with a discussion of the study’s contributions, limitations, and an outline for future work.

The Influence of Government Shareholding on Dividend Policy in Malaysia

We investigate the association between dividend policy and government shareholding, using Malaysian data. We hypothesize a positive association. We contribute to the literature about dividend policy. Unique features of our study include adaptations to the Malaysian institutional setting, with respect to usage of dividend relevance theory, research methodology, and data collection. The methodology entails two-stage least squares regressions. Dividend payout and dividend yield are the dependent variables in tests of the research hypothesis. The independent variable of interest measures ownership by government-related institutional investors. The sample comprises 1190 company-years, over the investigation period 2006–2013. The results support our hypothesis. The evidence suggests that this support principally emanates from companies with low-quality corporate governance.

A Perceived Zone of Certainty and Uncertainty: Propositions for Research Development

Possessing expert schemas is a positive feat that may yield different types of adaptive outcomes (e.g., informing procedural understanding that may result in a student skipping a few of the solution steps involved). Limited schemas, in contrast, may deter progress of a novice learner, limiting his/her capability to flourish. Taken as a whole, it may be concluded that expert schemas are more advantageous than novice schemas, differentiating learners in terms of expert and novice. Having said this, however, more recently, researchers have argued that possessing expert schemas could serve as deterrence. Recently, researchers have acknowledged a theoretical concept known as cognitive entrenchment, which is defined as a high level of stability in domain schemas. This description interestingly suggests that “entrenchment” or “situated fixation” of a course of action (e.g., a subject matter) could hinder the progress and learning experience of a person, namely—his/her inability and/or unwillingness to adapt to a new context, and/or his/her inflexibility and insistence to stay on course without any intent to change. One example of cognitive entrenchment is observed in professional football, wherein it has been argued that some football coaches are cognitively entrenched within their expert schemas, resulting in their demised game plans and strategic acumen. We advance the study of cognitive entrenchment by proposing an alternative viewpoint, which we term as the “perceived zone of certainty and uncertainty.” This proposition counters the perspective of cognitive entrenchment by arguing that it is cognitive appraisal, judgment, mental resolute, and determination of a person in cognitive certainty of his/her success or failure, or the cognitive uncertainty of success or failure, that would explain the notion of inflexibility and/or unwillingness to adapt, and/or insistence to stay on course without any attempt to deviate. Moreover, we rationalize that certainty of success or failure would closely associate with a feeling of comfort, whereas uncertainty would associate with his/her feeling discomfort. In this analysis, we strongly believe that willingness to change and adapt, reluctance and insistence to remain on course, and/or inclination to embrace flexibility may not necessarily relate to the concept of cognitive entrenchment; rather, inflexibility and/or reluctance to change for the purpose of adaptation has more to do with the desire of a person to seek a state of comfort. Finally, our conceptual analysis of cognitive entrenchment also considers an interesting theoretical concept, which we termed as “perceived optimal efficiency.” Perceived optimal efficiency, similar to cognitive relevance theory, is concerned with the relationship between minimum investment of time, effort, cognitive resources, etc., and an optimal best outcome. The issue for discussion, from our point of view, is related to the extent to which the certainty of success or failure would associate with perceived optimal efficiency.

Analysis of Speech Humor in Crosstalk From Principles of Cooperation and Relevance Theory

Cross talk is one of the unique performing arts in China, and most crosstalk gives the audience happy feelings through the delivery of humorous language. This paper interprets the generation of humor in crosstalk through the cooperation principles and the relevance theory, and the generation of the humorous results comes from the contrast between ostensive-inference model and the contrast between maximal relevance and optimal relevance.

The Metaphorical Interpretation of English and Chinese Body-part Idioms Based on Relevance Theory

As a special language coding way and language phenomenon, metaphor is an important form when humans use language in communication. However, metaphorical mappings are not arbitrary. They are based on our physical experience of the world around us. Idioms are the crystallization of human language and culture and play an important role in human communication. The idiomatic meaning is not simply the sum of the lexical meanings, but often the metaphorical meaning extended from the literal meaning. The paper is based on the relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1995), adopts the methods of comparative analysis and text analysis, and takes the idioms of “body metaphor” contained in English and Chinese as the main research object to explore the following questions: 1. What is the interpretation model of the “body-part metaphors” in idioms? 2. In English and Chinese idioms, what are the similarities and differences in the use and interpretation of body-part metaphors? Firstly, the idioms of body-part metaphor are classified based on their projection types, then analyzing the projection methods of each type. Finally, through the new reasoning model guided by relevance theory to analyze the reasoning process of body-part metaphor in English and Chinese idioms, exploring the importance of cognitive context in the interpretation of body-part idioms.

Strategies of Pragmatic Distance Employed in English Writing by Chinese College Students

The situation of English writing by Chinese college students is a matter difficult to handle, with some being good and some bad. The flexible processing of pragmatic distance in English writings between authors and readers to ensure effective pragmatic communication deserves too much thought. The appropriate use of strategies of pragmatic distance employed in English writings has a direct impact on writing performance. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze how to use relevance theory to interpret strategies of pragmatic distance employed in English writings, and to find out whether there is a certain relationship between the strategic use of pragmatic distance and gender, thus providing a reference for the research to improve English writing proficiency of Chinese college students.

Proposta de definição interdisciplinar de nome próprio

Este artigo apresenta uma proposta de definição interdisciplinar do conceito de nome próprio elaborada com base na Onomástica Cognitiva (SJÖBLOM, 2010), na Teoria da Relevância (SPERBER WILSON ,2001 [1995], SEIDE SCHULTZ, 2014), na Neurolinguística (VAN LANGENDONCK, 2007), e no conhecimento onomástico do falante ideal (SEIDE, 2021). Na primeira seção deste artigo, descrevem-se o objeto de estudo da Onomástica e as características da subárea da Onomástica em que se insere a pesquisa. Na segunda, são retomadas considerações a respeito dos nomes próprios feitas para sua definição como endereço conceitual. Na terceira seção, apresentam-se as descobertas neurolinguísticas e a descrição do conhecimento onomástico do falante ideal, as quais são integradas resultando na redefinição de nome próprio descrita ao final da terceira seção. Na quarta e última seção do artigo, são descritas algumas implicações dessa redefinição para os estudos onomásticos. Proposal of interdisciplinary definition of proper nameAbstract: This article makes a proposal of interdisciplinary definition of the concept of proper name based on Cognitive Onomastics (SJÖBLOM, 2010), Theory of Relevance (SPERBER WILSON, 2001 [1995], SEIDE SCHULTZ, 2014, Neurolinguistics (VAN LANGENDONCK, 2007) and the onomastic knowledge of the ideal speaker (SEIDE, 2021). In the first section of this article, the object of study of Onomastics and the characteristics of the onomastic subarea in which the research is included are described. In the second, considerations about proper made by Sperber and Wilson (2001 [1995]) are integrated to the definition of proper names as a conceptual address. In the third section, the neurolinguistic discoveries and the description of the onomastic knowledge of the ideal speaker are presented and integrated and the proper name redefinition is described. In the fourth and final section of the article, some implications of this redefinition for onomastics studies are described.Keywords: Proper name, Cognitive Onomastics, Relevance Theory, Neurolinguistics. Onomastic Knowledge of Ideal Speaker.