Pragmatic Inference

A one-day workshop on pragmatic inference will be held at the University of Roehampton, London,  on 17th July 2014. Among the questions that will be addressed are the following:

·         Does pragmatic inference necessarily involve metarepresentation?

·         Is pragmatic inference reasoning?

·         To what extent can pragmatic inference be explained by associationist models?

·         To what extent are rational reconstructions of pragmatic inference instantiated at the cognitive level?

·         In terms of building psychological models of utterance interpretation, what is the role of rational reconstructions of pragmatic inference?

·         Is all pragmatic inference of a type?

·         Is pragmatic inference modular?

·         What is the role of language in guiding pragmatic inference?

·         Is the input to pragmatic inference propositional or sub-propositional?

·         Can a useful distinction be drawn between the commitments undertaken by virtue of an utterance and the propositions communicated by that utterance?

·         Is pragmatic inference aimed at recovering speaker meaning or is it an aspect of utterance interpretation?

·         What is the relationship between explicit and implicit utterance meaning in pragmatic inference?

·         What can the experimental evidence tell us about pragmatic interpretation?

·         What light does the developmental data shed on pragmatic inference?

Speakers include:

Nicholas Allott, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, Oslo

Michael Franke, Universiteit van Amsterdam

Mikhail Kissine, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Diana Mazzarella, UCL

Marco Mazzone, Università di Catania

Registration fees (early-bird till May 15th). This includes morning coffee, sandwich lunch and afternoon tea:

Early-Bird Non Residential Fee: £40.00

Early-Bird Residential Fee, 1 Night Accommodation: £95.00

Early-Bird Residential Fee, 2 Nights’ Accommodation: £135.00

Early-Bird Student Fee Cost: £30.00

Registration fees (after May 15th)

Early-Bird Non Residential Fee: £50.00

Early-Bird Residential Fee, 1 Night Accommodation: £105.00

Early-Bird Residential Fee, 2 Nights’ Accommodation: £145.00

Early-Bird Student Fee Cost: £40.00

To book, or for further information: