Pragmatics in Contested Interpretation: Varied Audiences, Varied Implicatures, Varied Inferences

Bousfield, Derek ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9120-9250 and Bourgeois, Sam (2025) Pragmatics in Contested Interpretation: Varied Audiences, Varied Implicatures, Varied Inferences. Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 1-134. (In Press)

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Abstract

This book examines the mechanisms by which different audiences, hearing the same comments made by the same speaker in the same context, come to different interpretations. Using a 'pragmacognitive' approach, we analyse three controversial statements made by US presidents Trump and Biden during the 2020 and 2024 election campaigns. Our study explores how indeterminate language, activity type conventions, and the respective identities and reality paradigms of the speakers contribute to creating varied audiences with contested interpretations. It demonstrates that interpretations of indeterminate language depend on both the speaker and the audiences involved. Trump's hyperbolic and provocative style led to polarised readings, with supporters minimising controversy and critics emphasising its problematic nature. Conversely, while Biden's controversial rhetoric was relatively benign, Trump supporters emphasised its controversiality, but Democrats were lukewarm in their defence of him. Our study argues that political rhetoric is increasingly tied to social identity. Figures like Trump embody their supporters’ collective face needs, while traditional centrist politicians like Biden fail to do so. Our pragmacognitive approach has broader implications for understanding the role of language in shaping ideological representation, the strategic use of controversy in political communication, as well as in explaining how we get varied, conflicting audience perception, and interpretation.