Presented By: Department of Linguistics
Beyond Grice: A socio-pragmatic framework for non-entailed meaning
Eric Acton
Eric Acton (EMU) will present in SoConDi today. The title and abstract of his presentation are given below.
Beyond Grice: A socio-pragmatic framework for non-entailed meaning
Both Gricean pragmatics and meaning-based sociolinguistics (e.g. Eckert 2008) recognize that non-entailed content is an essential component of linguistic meaning. But despite the productivity and broad coverage of these traditions, both have left a wide range of cases of non-entailed meaning unexplained. The following quote from a 2008 U.S. presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain illustrates.
(1) MCCAIN: It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate [...] sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one [pointing to Obama].
McCain’s use of that one drew extensive negative press, being called, for instance, a “slightly dehumanizing phrase.”
Of course, that one doesn’t entail that a speaker uttering the phrase views the intended referent as contemptible or subhuman. Existing approaches to non-entailed content, however, leave (1) and a vast array of related examples unexplained. I present a socio-pragmatic framework for non-entailed content that addresses this gap, built around three key principles:
(2) a. Utterances violating conversational expectations are especially likely to be ascribed special significance.
b. The full significance of an utterance depends upon context and what makes it distinctive relative to contextually relevant alternatives.
c. The weight of a given alternative in determining an utterance u’s full significance varies directly with how well it accords with conversational expectations and how closely related it is to u.
As I will show, this framework retains the insights of Gricean pragmatics and meaning-based sociolinguistics while bridging and expanding their empirical reach.
Beyond Grice: A socio-pragmatic framework for non-entailed meaning
Both Gricean pragmatics and meaning-based sociolinguistics (e.g. Eckert 2008) recognize that non-entailed content is an essential component of linguistic meaning. But despite the productivity and broad coverage of these traditions, both have left a wide range of cases of non-entailed meaning unexplained. The following quote from a 2008 U.S. presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain illustrates.
(1) MCCAIN: It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate [...] sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one [pointing to Obama].
McCain’s use of that one drew extensive negative press, being called, for instance, a “slightly dehumanizing phrase.”
Of course, that one doesn’t entail that a speaker uttering the phrase views the intended referent as contemptible or subhuman. Existing approaches to non-entailed content, however, leave (1) and a vast array of related examples unexplained. I present a socio-pragmatic framework for non-entailed content that addresses this gap, built around three key principles:
(2) a. Utterances violating conversational expectations are especially likely to be ascribed special significance.
b. The full significance of an utterance depends upon context and what makes it distinctive relative to contextually relevant alternatives.
c. The weight of a given alternative in determining an utterance u’s full significance varies directly with how well it accords with conversational expectations and how closely related it is to u.
As I will show, this framework retains the insights of Gricean pragmatics and meaning-based sociolinguistics while bridging and expanding their empirical reach.
Explore Similar Events
-
Loading Similar Events...
