RT list: The Old Flouter

Thanks to R. Yus for his update. I enjoyed reading _about_ the new theory
(surely neo-Gricean) theory of flouting! Abstract and stuff available
online. If anything, I enjoyed that 'flouting' is now a Keyword in academia! Some
running commentary on the abstract by this Norwegian linguist.

Abstract

She writes:
 
"In this paper, an outline of a theory of flouting based on Alfred Schutz’
theory of relevance structures is presented."
 
This struck me as interesting! And I see Schutz is now keyworded along good
 ole Grice! Oddly, when I was studying phenomenology with my tutor, Mario
Presas, we did Schutz, and I presented a term paper (if that's what it was)
on 'relevance' and the etic-emic distinction. Schutz was possibly a genius!
I KNOW my interest in Schutz was mainly due to my TUTOR's interest in
Schutz (you know, you need to get the good grades), but I still keep that
paper.
 
She continues: ("She" is, some say, bad manners in this context -- As in a
film I saw, "She"? "Who are you referring to, a dog?" No, I'm referring to
A. Greenall).
 
"Flouting, it is claimed, is merely one of many different phenomena which,
by virtue of being unusual/unexpected/unfamiliar against a familiar
background, generates imposed thematic relevance, a form of relevance that causes
heightened attention levels and increased interpretational activity."
 
Of course this re-definition (jargon!) is totally neo-Gricean.
Paleo-Griceans prefer to credit and honour Grice with 'playing' with "flout" within
philosophical moral theory. Grice was obsessed (like Austin was) with 'rules'
(rules of language, rules of a game, etc.). A rule (and he refers to
conversational maxims as "conversational rules" at least once -- hence chapter
vi of my PhD thesis) can be:
 
     followed -- said Witters, but Kripke objected. Cfr. Holtzman, On Rule
Following. Croom Helm
     or
     flouted
 
-- Martinich, a Russian emigre, has systematised flouting from a
philosophical perspective. To flout is NOT to 'opt out' a rule. It is slightly and
subtly different. You opt out sometimes "I cannot say more. My lips are
sealed", Grice's example. To flout is to BLATANTLY (as per trumpets) breach its
operation. It is one of those things that moved me to concentrate on
'strategies' rather than 'rules' (my "German Grice: on conversational strategies
and how to break them", cited by Habermas in his "The pragmatics of
communication", MIT).
 
She continues:
 
"Using examples taken from weblogs (or so-called ‘blogs’), it is
demonstrated in detail what it means for flouting (and other, related forms of
non-observance of maxims)"
 
oops. So she DOES see it as related to 'behaviour' -- odd that this
reference to the behaviour as 'stipulated' in some sort of 'procedure' as a rule
or maxim or strategy is, did not feature in her previous jargonisation. In
fact, 'procedure' is the best Gricean neutral term for this, as per WoW,
vi, -- to have a basic/resultant procedure in one's repertoire.
 
"maxims" Grice played with. Chapman notes that a pet word for Grice while
in Oxford (just before he took the plane to deliver the WJL at Harvard) was
'desideratum', or 'desiderata'. Maxims is of course Grice's homage to Kant,
and he'll go back to it in "Aspects of reason" where he considers
different types of 'imperatives', not all of which are maxims. And it's within the
maxims or counsels of prudence that he sets to provide a universalisability
criterion. In Pasos, ed. "The conversational Immanuel", I propose to
follow Grice seriously when he compares the maxims to the decalogue ("the 10
coms", Grice writes, where "com" stands for 'commandments') constituting a
(Conversational) Immanuel (pun on Kant and manual, of course, for maxims need
to be to hand for our better moments.
 
She continues:
 
"to possess imposed thematic relevance: it is shown how different forms of
hearer response evidence heightened attention levels and increased
interpretational activity, and how the latter – rather than leading up to one,
easily circumscribeable implicature – potentially generates a number of
implicature hypotheses which may interact or compete for viability."
 
Well, if this is 'neo', then Tacitus discovered America! For Grice
_defining_ 'implicature' involves indeterminacy. So the phantom of the
circumscribeable implicature is nowhere to be seen, in Grice, or Griceans, paleo- and
neo-.
 
She continues:
 
"It is also shown how different forms of non-observance give rise to
different types of implicature or implications."
 
Well, non-observance is a nice 'trouser word' as Grice (in one of his
'artlessly sexist' moments, as he calls them in "Conception of Value", i, calls
them).
Keywords: Paul Grice; Alfred Schutz; Cooperative Principle; Relevance;
Flouting; Implicature
 
---- But yes, the topic is hot. I especially get slightly irritated by
authors like Harnish/Bach or Leech who talk of 'direct' implicatures,
'trivial'; things Grice dismissed as Non-Implicatures. "It is raining, but I don't
believe it", Grice is serious about, is _not_ generated implicature-like,
for, well, 'trust, and belief-instilation' is in the 'nature' of the
'indicative mode', as he loved to say!
 
Oddly, G. P. Baker was right: Grice, the old flouter, the old skilful
heretic, fought so well and so aptly, that his heresies became heterodoxies. He
who flouts first flouts best.
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza,
The Swimming Pool Library, Villa Speranza, Bordighera
Received on Wed Dec 2 00:53:35 2009