Finished PhD in Linguistics III

On March 10, Lena Schwarz, research associate in the Linguistics III group, defended her dissertation entitled “Successful Communication with an Uncooperative Interpreter” and successfully completed her doctoral degree in General Linguistics. Her dissertation was supervised by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jacopo Romoli and Heather Burnett, Directrice de Recherches (CNRS, Université Paris Cité).

The dissertation lies at the intersection of pragmatics and philosophy of language and identifies, classifies, and examines the communication strategies of so-called “uncooperative interpreters” using a collection of natural language examples. Building on Paul Grice’s ideas about (successful) conversation and communication, Lena Schwarz developed a qualitative analysis that highlights how “uncooperative interpreters” can exploit their interlocutor’s literal statements to their personal advantage without sabotaging the success of the communication as a whole.