Sperimentare la pragmatica filosofica. Una ridefinizione delle competenze comunicative nel linguaggio figurato

In the last years, plenty of studies have brought classical pragmatic theories in front of the tribunal of experience, to test their power of explanation and prediction. The result has been the growth of a flourishing inter-discipline, called “Experimental Pragmatics”, which uses experimental techniques coming from psycholinguistics, cognitive sciences and developmental psychology to bring to light the comprehension mechanisms of figurative language. The objective of this issue is to consider the main empirical results of Experimental Pragmatics in one of its most important research subjects, such as theories of metaphor and irony, and to explore, in particular, its theoretical influence on the discussion of the correlation between communicative and meta-representational competencies.