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7 - Reflexivity and Meta-awareness

from Part I - Fundamentals of Sociopragmatics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2021

By
Jef Verschueren
Edited by
Michael Haugh ,
Dániel Z. Kádár  and
Marina Terkourafi
Michael Haugh
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Dániel Z. Kádár
Affiliation:
Hungarian Research Institute for Linguistics, and Dalian University of Foreign Languages
Marina Terkourafi
Affiliation:
Leiden University
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Summary

This chapter deals with the status of meaning-generating processes, taking place in language use, in relation to human cognition. A basic assumption is that reflexive or metalinguistic awareness is one of the original evolutionary prerequisites for the development of human language, and that it plays a central role in all instances of producing and interpreting utterances. The chapter reviews the ways in which metalinguistic activity types and indicators of reflexive awareness have been accounted for in the past. It explores the relevance of the topic for a pragmatic understanding of social interaction, with special attention for cross-linguistic variability (and hence with implications for intercultural communication). Finally, it reflects on methodological problems involved in the study of the phenomena at hand, and perspectives for future research are briefly sketched.

Keywords

metapragmaticsmetalanguagemetalinguistic awarenessreflexivity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics , pp. 117 - 139
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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