Sur la pertinence de la culture en pragmatique
There is a strong division between those who believe in linguistic relativity and those who tend more towards universalism. Since Whorf, many experiments were conducted to determine how and if language could influence thoughts, but not often they were focussed on pragmatics. I revisit the debate on linguistic relativism by considering pragmatics only. There are two different theoretical models in pragmatics at the time, and they support opposing views on relativism: ethnopragmatics and relevance theory. Using models of cultural interaction from anthropology, in particular the ideas of Bourdieu and the concept of assemblage, I show that relevance theory is flexible enough to be able to incorporate a relativistic component, without having to modify its core principles. To illustrate this necessary transformation, I introduce the Cognitive Identity that could interact with the universalistic relevance of the model and still be relativistic itself.
Pragmatics Linguistic Relativity Relevance Theory Ethnopragmatics Semantic primes Bourdieu Assemblage Cognitive identity Context