What's the good of a uni like Oxford if they are not going to defend someone who taught there, successfully, for years!?
Bravo, Greenhall!
Tinyurl.com link: http://tinyurl.com/68k5ak
ORA Thesis: "pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice"
Member of collection Oxford Theses
Reference:
Owen F. R. Greenhall , (2006). The semantics/pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice . DPhil, Oxford University, UK
Link to this archived copy: http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:00db9bdd-143d-4900-b564-3af9d002f1ea
Title: The semantics/pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice
Abstract:
The historical development of Morris’ tripartite distinction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics does not follow a smooth path. Examining definitions of the terms ‘semantic’ and ‘pragmatic’ and the phenomena they have been used to describe, provides insight into alternative approaches to the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Paul Grice’s work receives particular attention and taxonomy of philosophical positions, roughly divisible into content minimalist and maximalist groups, is set up. Grice’s often neglected theory of conventional implicature is defended from objections, various tests for the presence of conventional implicature are assessed and the linguistic properties of conventional implicature defined. Once rehabilitated, the theoretical utility of conventional implicature is demonstrated via a case study of the semantic import of the gender and number of pronouns in English. The better-known theory of conversational implicature is also examined and refined. New linguistic tests for such implicatures are devised and the refined theory is applied to scalar terms. A pragmatic approach to scalar implicatures is proposed and shown to fare better than alternatives presented by Uli Sauerland, Stephen Levinson and Gennaro Chierchia. With the details of the theory conversational implicature established, the use made of Grice’s tool in the work of several philosophers is critically evaluated. Kent Bach’s minimalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is examined and criticised. Also, the linguistic evidence for semantic minimalism provided by Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore is found wanting. Finally, a content maximalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is proposed. The approach differs from other context maximalist theories, such as Jason Stanley’s, in relying on semantically unarticulated constituents. Stanley’s arguments against such theories are examined. Further applications of the approach are briefly surveyed.
Type of Award: DPhil
Level of Award: Doctoral
Awarding Institution: Oxford University, UK
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Institution
University of Oxford
Faculty/Department
Humanities Division - Philosophy Faculty
Oxford College
New College
Funding
AHRC
Grant Number
104622
Dr Owen F. R. Greenhall
Copyright Holder: Owen Greenhall - Rights Ownership: Sole authorship 3rd-party copyright status: No Third Party copyright
Supervisor: Prof Timothy Williamson (born in Stockholm).
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Otherformat:
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•Digital Origin : Born digital
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Keywords/phrases:
•semantics
•pragmatics
•philosophy of language
•theoretical linguistics
•Grice
•implicature
•meaning
•communication
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Subjects:
•Philosophy
•Logic
•Linguistics
•Computational Linguistics
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Issue Date: 2006
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Notes: The full thesis is not currently available in ORA. Relationships for "pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice":
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New linguistic tests for such implicatures are devised...
ReplyDeleteSo...there is an app. which will tell us all the implicatures of any and all ambiguous...assertions, claims, suggestions?? Interesting.
Serio, while I grant there are conventional implicatures ...ie say, leaving words out of sentences that normal speakers fill, and irony of various sorts (litotes, usually)...there are other implicatures--or connotations--which I don't think can be charted out. IN an informal setting, usually its not a big deal. And in a formal setting--programming, symbolic logic, mathematics--there's usually no place for ordinary discourse.
There may be a psychology of pragmatics in a sense. But most Griceans or speech acts types don't really address that--the sort of pathological elements of ordinary speech, or something. However quaint or ugly Freud seems to many philosophasters he was interested in that topic, to some degree--e.g, the psychology of jokes and so forth. ( Some postmods (Lacanians) attempt to address it, tho' I don't generally agree with their vague theoretical approach.) But language does often function..pathologically, irrationally, non-logically--one notes that on political blogs, links oder rechts .
A Gricean approach to pundit/political rhetoric might be interesting; Orwell did something of the sort in Politics of the English language.
Yes. I think this merits a post blog: "Implicature in the mental asylum". Soon.
ReplyDeleteHeh.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean that exactly, but might be interesting.
More like, overhearing many conversations you will hear language that is, frankly, rude, sadistic, obscene, etc. Many linguists and/or philo-types don't generally concern themselves with that type of ord-lang--well, some socio-linguists might. And that holds in Anglo, or spanish, french, etc. (Tho often the slang or obscene connotations are not obvious to L2 speakers...).
With like surreptitious recordings--say in restaurants, motels, colleges, etc-- the cunning linguist would have all sorts of odd data to work with--for if people know academic eggheads are recording them, watching them, etc, they generally put on the innocent act.
Which is to say, one catches pathology, irrationality, sadism, etc by devising clever research--that holds for psych. or sociology or linguistics, really. As with Milgram's old study (probably a bit...skewed, but remains pertinent...even for language types...ie commands, orders, etc). Or something
Good. I once bought Deborah Tannen's little book. It disappointed me. It was called "Analyzing conversation" and it was supposed to give me an illumination on Grice.
ReplyDeleteWhat she did is record a Thanksgiving conversation and make silly (but lovely) generalisations about sex, sex, and sex.
I never found a conversation as frivolous as the one Tannen cared to record. The witicisms in that conversation all come from Tannen herself, who was present.