WS21/22: Experimental Pragmatics

Course description

This course is an introduction to the growing field of experimental pragmatics, which uses experimental tools and methods to inform pragmatic theory. We will examine some of the common topics in pragmatics such as implicature, reference, and meaning in context to broaden our understanding of how pragmatic processing takes place, and how we can test this using different methodologies. The course reading will cover a mix of seminal and more recent papers. Some of the discussion will focus on the methodological aspects of the studies, with an aim to highlight the motivations for experimental work, as well as its contributions and limitations to the broader fields of pragmatics and linguistics.