المستخلص: |
Lexical pragmatics (LP) is a research field that aims to explain systematically the pragmatic phenomena concerning meaning modification in use. It depends on the relevance theory (RT) in specifying the embedded or additional interpretations the linguistically-encoded concepts acquire when these concepts are mutually adjusted with context and cognitive effects. According to relevant-theoretic approach, relevance is the only factor that the hearer draws up to disambiguate conversational implicatures achieved through the adoption of lexical pragmatic processes such as lexical narrowing and all the varieties of lexical broadening including neologisms, metaphor, category extension, approximation, etc. Other Grice's maxims are considered redundant and the contextual knowledge shared by a speaker and hearer is a crucial component in LP. This study concentrates on investigating and explaining systematically two lexical processes- lexical narrowing and neologisms in selected texts of WHO conferences concerning COVID-19. The results show that both processes are used by the speakers in these conferences and the hearers easily arrive at the optimal-relevant interpretations because the power of the Corona context at the current time. A set of conclusions are set up on the basis of these results.
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