In June, Christophe will speak about the lilteralist mode of interpretation at ENS-PSL, for the workshop "Explaining culture: an interdisciplinary approach" (26-28 May, 2025). Here is the title and abstract:
The literalist mode of interpretation
People rarely care about the literal meaning of what is said. In most conversations, what matters is the perceived communicative success. Judgements about literal meaning are expressed on rare occasions, typically when interests are not aligned. In such cases, strategic interlocutors may be motivated to monitor each other’s commitments to anticipate or challenge potential denials, or to exploit loopholes. Consequently, speakers may rely on judgments of literal meaning to deny hearers’ interpreted meaning, while hearers may use these judgments to justify behaviour that circumvents the speaker’s intended meaning.
In this talk, we argue that judgments about literal meaning arise from a distinct ‘literalist mode of interpretation’. We characterise this mode as a reflective process that involves a specific type of counterfactual thinking, wherein the process of basic interpretation is reiterated by holding the linguistic input constant while varying the contextual assumptions within common ground. Judgments about literal meaning, therefore, target the convergence point of these counterfactual re-interpretations, marked by reduced reliance on uncertain or fragile elements of the common ground. We conclude with questions on the relations between the litteralist mode of interpretation and the cultural evolution of language ideologies.