Elsevier

Poetics

Volume 14, Issue 5, October 1985, Pages 415-431
Poetics

Context and convention: The pragmetics of literariness

https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-422X(85)90036-1Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper discusses the possibility of a pragmatic approach to literature, especially in terms of an eventual definition of ‘literariness’ as a specific mode of textual communication. A solution is sought through an examination of the pragmatic function of context and its potential for controlling literary reception. The pragmatic link between context and text is made by the notion of convention, defined as a semiotic signalling device which activates contexts of reception for particular texts which reading construes as literary.

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