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This article proposes a new theoretical approach to the study of literary symbolism, using Relevance Theory, Lexical Pragmatics, and second-generation cognitive sciences. It argues that the meaning of a literary symbol consists of the tension between a "literal" meaning and an unparaphrasable abstract meaning. Furthermore, it maintains that the literary symbol requires a specific communicative context, called "symbolic reading". This theoretical framework is applied to the analysis of the works of Juan Eduardo Cirlot, with special attention to his permutation poetry. [Extracted from the article]

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