Contemporary Perceptions of Language: Interdisciplinary Dimensions

Abstract

where the speech act belies its purpose, and 'masks' (among them apostrophe, personification, and suggestion), where a propositional element belies its character.With both categories the operative plane is the utterance's pragmatic aspect, the performance of the speech act, and not its semantic aspect, the expression itself.It is the relationship between the expression and its context of use which makes for the deviousness and misdirection so characteristic of these devices.