Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence

Abstract Pragmatic competence entails a variety of abilities concerned with the use and interpretation of language in contexts. It includes speakers’ ability to use language for different purposes-to request, to instruct, to effect change. It includes listeners’ ability to get past the language and understand the speaker’s real intentions, especially when these intentions are not directly conveyed in the forms-indirect requests, irony and sarcasm are some examples. It includes command of the rules by which utterances are strung together to create discourse. This apparently simple achievement to produce coherent speech itself has several components-turn-taking, cooperation, cohesion.