Pragmatics, society (and the soul), an interview with Jacob Mey

Abstract

Jacob Mey, the linguist who in 1977, together with Harmut Haberland, founded the Journal of Pragmatics and the author of numerous books and articles in the fi eld of pragmatics, visited Brazil in November-December 2012, to deliver the laudatio, when Kanavillil Rajagopalan was honored at the State University of Campinas for his outstanding work in Pragmatics. Mey’s visit to Brazil was an opportunity for a collective discussion of the object of pragmatics, its borders with other disciplines, its main problems and its agenda. The present interview, held in Rio de Janeiro, describes Jacob Mey’s trajectory and his critical view of the main themes and problems of pragmatics.