Pragmemes (again)

In this paper, I consider certain methodological issues in connection with pragmemes and further propose that this new form of study requires a cultural and societal orientation. After a short summary of societal pragmatics, a background to the theory of pragmemes is provided. Various examples of language use, which evidently require a societal pragmatic approach, will then be considered. Specifically, I consider the pragmeme of selling at the marketplace and interactions around the event of death. I propose that the pragmeme cannot be considered to be a generative device that creates texts but needs pragmatic interpretation, such as top-bottom inference, following Mey (2001).