Meaning and framing: the semantic implications of psychological framing effects

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (8):967-990 (2022)
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Abstract

I use the psychological phenomenon of ‘attribute framing’ as a case study for exploring philosophical conceptions of semantics and the semantics-pragmatics divide. Attribute frames are pairs of sentences that use contradictory expressions to predicate the same property of an individual or object. Despite their equivalence, pairs of attribute frames have been observed to induce systematic variability in hearers’ responses. One explanation of such framing effects appeals to the distinct ‘reference point information’ conveyed by alternative frames. Although this information is taken to be pragmatic, a live debate in the philosophy of language concerns the extent to which pragmatic information can really be held apart from semantics. Therefore, in this article I examine whether – and how – reference point information might be thought to intrude on the semantics of an attribute frame. I describe two ways in which the information might be considered broadly semantic, due to its being directly communicated or conventional. However, I argue that the framing data in fact support a narrower conception of semantics, and a semantics-pragmatics distinction that separates standing sentence meaning from enriched communicated meaning.

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Sarah A Fisher
Cardiff University

Citations of this work

Framing Effects Do Not Undermine Consent.Samuel Director - 2024 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 27 (2):221-235.
Framing provides reasons.Neil Levy - 2022 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e233.

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References found in this work

How to do things with words.John L. Austin - 1962 - Oxford [Eng.]: Clarendon Press. Edited by Marina Sbisá & J. O. Urmson.
Studies in the way of words.Herbert Paul Grice - 1989 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Literal Meaning.François Récanati - 2002 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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