International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) | |
Abbreviation | IPrA |
---|---|
Formation | 1986 |
Founder | Jef Verschueren |
Founded at | Antwerp, Belgium |
Type | Nonprofit |
Legal status | International academic not-for-profit organization |
Purpose | Study of language use |
Fields | Pragmatics Linguistics |
Key people | Stephen Levinson (Outgoing President), Marina Sbisà (President), Michael Haugh (Incoming President), Jan-Ola Östman (Treasurer), Ann Verhaert (Executive Secretary), Helmut Gruber (Editor-in-Chief), Yoshiko Matsumoto, Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen, Salvador Pons Bordería, Gunter Senft, Mieke Vandenbroucke |
Publication | Pragmatics Handbook of Pragmatics Bibliography of Pragmatics |
Website | https://pragmatics.international/ |
The International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) is a scientific organization that focuses on the study of language use. It was established as a non-profit organization in 1986. [1]
IPrA represents the interdisciplinary field of pragmatics, offering a functional perspective on language and communication from cognitive, social, and cultural viewpoints.
IPrA has made contributions to pragmatics through conferences, handbooks, and its journal. It publishes the quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal Pragmatics , with Helmut Gruber serving as the Editor-in-Chief. [2] Additionally, the Association maintains the annually updated Handbook of Pragmatics [3] with Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren as its Founding Editors, and an online, freely accessible Bibliography of Pragmatics. [4]
In 1986, IPrA was established as a not-for-profit organization in Antwerp, Belgium. [5] The idea on which its establishment was based dates back to 1979 when Herman Parret enlisted Marina Sbisà and Verschueren to co-organize a conference on "Possibilities and limitations of pragmatics" in Urbino, Italy. [6] Another key event was the 1984 workshop "Between semantics and pragmatics," co-organized by Johan van der Auwera and Svenka Savić in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, which laid the foundation for the 1985 "International Pragmatics Conference" in Viareggio, Italy, co-organized by Marcella Bertuccelli Papi and Verschueren. [7] The success of this conference confirmed the belief that pragmatics provided a mobilizing idea for collaborative and trans-disciplinary research relevant for addressing problems of human communication, forming the basis for the association's establishment. In the same year, the Consultation Board was formed, and John Gumperz agreed to act as IPrA's first President. In early 1986, the Association was officially set up with its seat in Antwerp, Belgium. [8]
IPrA has organized eighteen International Pragmatics Conferences, [9] which are held biennially. [10]
Its educational and outreach efforts consist of a mentoring program designed for young scholars, introductory pragmatics courses offered in different languages, and an archive featuring pioneers and leading voices in the field of pragmatics. [26]
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA).
Stephen C. Levinson FBA is a British social scientist, known for his studies of the relations between culture, language and cognition, and former scientific director of the Language and Cognition department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
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