Language and Meaning in Community

Mgr. Matej Drobňák

Disertační práce

Abstract:

In this thesis, I focus on philosophical explanations of natural languages and how they relate to explanations of other phenomena related to natural languages, such as successful communication and linguistic communities. Many philosophers take for granted the idea that speakers within a linguistic community share a language. However, it is also widely accepted that the notion of shared language is not sufficient to explain what makes communication successful – successful communication requires speakers to be able to take into account the influence of context on the content of utterances (including the intentions of speakers). This opens up interesting questions of a) how shared languages are employed in communication and b) how shared languages can be demarcated from within the linguistic production of speakers.In the first part of the thesis, I criticize the currently predominant explanation of the relation between shared languages and communication, which is built on a Gricean semantic-pragmatic distinction. In the second part of the thesis, I discuss normative inferentialism and I try to show how inferentialism can be understood as a general framework for the explanation of the relation between natural languages, communication, and linguistic communities.

Keywords

Shared language, Communication, Inferentialism, Pragmatics

Jazyk práce: angličtina

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 30. 8. 2018

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Obhajoba proběhla 10. 12. 2018
• Vedoucí: prof. RNDr. Jaroslav Peregrin, CSc.
• Oponent: Gary Neville Kemp, Tomáš Marvan

Univerzita Hradec Králové

Filozofická fakulta

Doktorský studijní program / obor:
Filozofie / Filozofie