Figurative Speech: Pointing a Poisoned Arrow at the Heart of Semantics

Barker, Stephen

Abstract

I argue that figurative speech, and irony in particular, presents a deep challenge to the orthodox view about sentence content. The standard view is that sentence contents are, at their core, propositional contents: truth-conditional contents. Moreover, the only component of a sentence’s content that embeds in compound sentences, like belief reports or conditionals, is the propositional content. I argue that a careful analysis of irony shows this view cannot be maintained. Irony is a purely pragmatic form of content that embeds in compound sentences. The standard view cannot account for this fact. I sketch out a speech-act theoretic framework that can. But in accepting this alternative framework we are giving up on the whole idea of an autonomous semantics.

Citation

Barker, S. (2017). Figurative Speech: Pointing a Poisoned Arrow at the Heart of Semantics. Philosophical Studies, 174, 123-140. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0624-4

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 11, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jan 18, 2016
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 9, 2016
• Journal: Philosophical Studies
• Print ISSN: 0554-0739
• Publisher: Philosophy Documentation Center
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 174
• Pages: 123-140
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0624-4
• Keywords: Figurative speech, Semantics, Truth-conditions, Propositions, Irony, Embedding, Speech acts, Pretence, Belief, Belief attributions, Thought
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1110124
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-016-0624-4