In outlining the state of the art in multimodal pragmatics, or indeed in pragmatic multimodality, one naturally turns to the foundational texts of the senior discipline. H.P. Grice’s Conversational Maxims and J.L. Austin’s Speech Act Theory may ostensibly seem to envisage solely the verbal, linguistic modes in interpersonal communication. However, Grice discusses both non-verbal communication, or “transactions that are not talk-exchanges” (1989: 28), and features of prosody, such as stress and tone, and their impact on meaning (pp. 50-4). Austin, too, acknowledges the role of gesture and prosody – “I may nod or shake my head”; “intonation, winks, gestures”([1962] 2018: 87, 97) – in communicative events. Thus, while traditional pragmatics has primarily focused on the verbal mode, recent scholars have found that its principles and heuristics may be successfully applied to other semiotic modes. Indeed, later developments in pragmatics, such as (im)politeness studies, a key, prolific cluster in pragmatic research over the past 30 years (Blitvich 2010; Dynel 2015; Liu, Liu, Li 2025), have produced a wealth of texts analysing (im)politeness in cinema, television and online mediated discourse, integrating multimodal texts and pragmatic analysis (see, among others Culpeper 2005; Dynel 2016, 2017; McIntyre and Bousfield 2017; Locher and Jucker 2021; Beville and Pasquali forthcoming). However, these are often dialogue- centred, featuring pragmatic analyses of the verbal mode of telecinematic discourse and the written mode of internet-mediated communication. A similar criticism may be levied at studies in audiovisual translation (AVT), which concentrate on multimodal texts as the object of pragmatic analysis rather than approaching interpersonal communication with a model of analysis that draws from both multimodality and pragmatics (notable exceptions include Mubenga 2009; Dicerto 2018). Such studies may risk not fully engaging with the interplay of multiple semiotic modes (verbal, gestural, audio, visual, spatial).
Introduction. How to Do Things with(out) Words: Intersections between Pragmatics and Multimodality
Aoife Beville
;
2026-01-01
Abstract
In outlining the state of the art in multimodal pragmatics, or indeed in pragmatic multimodality, one naturally turns to the foundational texts of the senior discipline. H.P. Grice’s Conversational Maxims and J.L. Austin’s Speech Act Theory may ostensibly seem to envisage solely the verbal, linguistic modes in interpersonal communication. However, Grice discusses both non-verbal communication, or “transactions that are not talk-exchanges” (1989: 28), and features of prosody, such as stress and tone, and their impact on meaning (pp. 50-4). Austin, too, acknowledges the role of gesture and prosody – “I may nod or shake my head”; “intonation, winks, gestures”([1962] 2018: 87, 97) – in communicative events. Thus, while traditional pragmatics has primarily focused on the verbal mode, recent scholars have found that its principles and heuristics may be successfully applied to other semiotic modes. Indeed, later developments in pragmatics, such as (im)politeness studies, a key, prolific cluster in pragmatic research over the past 30 years (Blitvich 2010; Dynel 2015; Liu, Liu, Li 2025), have produced a wealth of texts analysing (im)politeness in cinema, television and online mediated discourse, integrating multimodal texts and pragmatic analysis (see, among others Culpeper 2005; Dynel 2016, 2017; McIntyre and Bousfield 2017; Locher and Jucker 2021; Beville and Pasquali forthcoming). However, these are often dialogue- centred, featuring pragmatic analyses of the verbal mode of telecinematic discourse and the written mode of internet-mediated communication. A similar criticism may be levied at studies in audiovisual translation (AVT), which concentrate on multimodal texts as the object of pragmatic analysis rather than approaching interpersonal communication with a model of analysis that draws from both multimodality and pragmatics (notable exceptions include Mubenga 2009; Dicerto 2018). Such studies may risk not fully engaging with the interplay of multiple semiotic modes (verbal, gestural, audio, visual, spatial).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
