Background

I received my Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1990 and have been employed at the University of South Carolina Department of Philosophy since August 1990. I was promoted to my current rank of Full Professor in 2008. I have been a Core Member of the Linguistics Program since 1992 and I have been an affiliated member of the Institute of Mind and Brain since its inception in 2013.

Research Interests

 I work in philosophy of language and on topics at the semantics-pragmatics interface. I am interested in phenomena such as presuppositions and conversational implicatures, which I study using both formal and experimental methods. My experimental pragmatics work has looked at scalar implicatures and at the role that discourse-level information plays in anaphoric pronoun resolution. I am currently interested in the processing of non-restrictive relative clauses (and parentheticals more generally). I am investigating the conditions under which material that is backgrounded/ not-at-issue can become foregrounded/ at-issue. My formal work is focused on perspective taking in conversation and on the notions of foregrounding and backgrounding of information in conversation and in what I call the process of ‘conversational tailoring’. I also have a project investigating novel noun-noun compound words and the process of "enriched composition" that is needed for their comprehension.

Courses Taught AY 2023-24

•  Introduction to Formal Logic I (PHIL 114)
• Mind and Nature (PHIL 351)
• Introduction to Semantics & Pragmatics (PHIL 522/LING 627)

Recent Publications

• Bezuidenhout, A. (2024). ‘Strawson on False Presupposition and the Assertive Enterprise’. In S. Heyndels, A. Bengtson, and B. De Mesel (Eds.), P. F. Strawson and his Philosophical Legacy., Oxford University Press, pp. 15-37.
• Granger, A., Bezuidenhout, A. & Almor, A. (2022). ARCs and their prominence in discourse. Proceedings of the Arizona Linguistics Circle, Coyote Papers 24: 50-59.
• Terkourafi, M. & Bezuidenhout, A. (Eds.) (2021). (Im)politeness, humour, and the role of intentions: Essays presented to Michael Haugh, special issue of Journal of Pragmatics, v.179C, July 2021.
• Bezuidenhout, A. (2020). ‘The referential-attributive distinction’. In S. Biggs & H. Geirsson (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference, Routledge, pp. 53-70.
• Bezuidenhout, A. (2020). 'Joint reference'. In J. Gundel & B. Abbott (Eds.), Oxford Handbook on Reference. Oxford University Press, pp. 45-66.

Editorial Duties and Service

• 'Co-Editor-In-Chief, Journal of Pragmatics
• Executive Secretary, American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA)
• Member of Editorial Board, Pragmatics and Cognition
• Member of Advisory Editorial Board, Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition