Rationality and Pragmatics
Speech acts are intentional acts and as such lend themselves to philosophical analysis in terms of ends, means and the rules that govern them. Rationality involves norms of appropriateness of means for ends. Rationality considerations are, therefore, applicable to acts of language use. Some major linguistic phenomena are explained by such considerations.
Added: Jan 11 2004
Category: Language Articles: Linguistics: Pragmatics