RT list: Re: The Old Flouter

In a message dated 12/1/2009 8:41:22 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
stavros.assimakopoulos@googlemail.com writes:

I would like to send this message partly as a much delayed response to a
friend who is a member of this list and partly to express my own concern. I
often find your comments hard to follow. I suppose the basic shortcoming I
have in interpreting them is my own non-native background. Even so, I don't
think my English is so bad as to misunderstand your much too frequent use
of metaphor, wordplay and what I often perceive as flat out irony (again
forgive me if I'm wrong, that would probably be my language gap). I am sure
that some of the readers here might enjoy these long texts, but I for one
find them a bit too poetic for my taste and comprehension abilities and would
like to ask you to attach to them a short comment in plain English about
what your point, question or idea is.. For example, in this passage on an
article that I found particularly interesting myself I am struggling to
establish the relevance of your comments... Are you discussing the appropriacy
of using the word 'Flout' as a proper pragmatic term or am I totally missing
the point? Again, excuse my ignorance, but I find it really frustrating to
not follow someone's point...
 
--- Loved it, Stavros. Some running comments, which belong, really to
"contrastive analysis"! Are you familiar with James's "Contrastive Analysis"
(Longman): a jewel. I especially treasure his analysis of the 'conventional'
implicatures of 'of course' turned 'conversational' by this German student
staying with an old English lady:

old English lady (as she hands basket
     full of picnic things for the student):

I expect this will be enough.
 
   German student: _Of course_ it will be enough.
 
James's comment: "'Of course' is being misused by this German student; why
she doesn't mean it, she comes out as _rude_!"
 
S. Assimakopoulos writes:
 
>I would like to send this message
 
Funny: you _are_ sending this message. I use "would" only when I'm NOT
doing something ("I would love to learn Chinese")
 
>partly as a much delayed response to a friend
 
some friend! Tell me more, tell me more (as "Grease" lyrics go)

>who is a member of this list and
 
Context: "If you find his posts kryptic tell so _publicly_, won't you!"
 
 
>and
>partly to express my own concern.
 
Like the 'of course!' of the German student, I find the 'concern' much too
strong, but I don't know how you like your tea! You should NOT be
concerned! You mean your 'business' (cfr. 'to whom it may concern', 'none of my
business').
 
>I often find your comments hard to follow.
 
Flout them! At least you don't go and say, "hard to digest"! That WOULD be
a sin, on my part!
 
>I suppose the basic shortcoming
 
Or the shortest coming, as I prefer.
 
>I have in interpreting them is my own non-native background.
 
Who has it!? (Native background, I mean). Before Chomsky (cfr. Wilson et
al, The results of Chomsky's revolution), 'native' was a slur -- in the
Anglo-Argentina I am familiar with -- "We don't deal with natives").
 
>Even so, I don't think my English is so bad as
 
cfr. Michael Jackson, "I'm bad" implicating 'bad' is good.
 
>to misunderstand your much-too'frequent use of metaphor, wordplay and
what I often perceive as flat-out irony (again forgive me if I'm wrong, that
would probably be my language gap).
 
"Mind the gap" as Brits say! Of course it's not your gap. Your ability to
misunderstand my "somethings in the nature of a figure of speech" (to echo
Grice) thrills me!
 
>I am sure that some of the readers here might enjoy these long texts,
 
I hope I don't count! (as one of the readers). I loved your use of
"might", over-polite and clashing with the 'sure'. The "sure" is an Urmsonian
parenthetical (cfr. "Surely the King of Spain knows about it") and the 'might'
is an epistemic probablity minimiser! I for one cannot claim to be SURE
about what MIGHT (or again MIGHT not) be! (cfr. Gershwin, It ain't necessarily
so!).
 
>but I for one find them a bit too poetic for my taste and comprehension
abilities and would like to ask you to attach to them a short comment in
plain English about what your point, question or idea is..
 
-- alla, "I wish he would explicate his explication! This may involve a
regressus ad infinitum which need NOT be vicious.
 
>For example, in this passage on an article that I found particularly
interesting myself I am struggling to establish the relevance of your
comments...
 
Lucky you who subscribe! Is it an uni site? I have so far only dealt with
the publicly accessible abstract! What did you find 'particularly
interesting'? Do you think Grice would have liked a 'new theory' of something having
'blogs' as 'corpus'!? Blogs keep changing. I would have stuck with the
Authorised Bible Version. And does she acknowledge the bloggers, and is the
text clumsily interrupted by "last accessed on ..." making the claims, some of
them, Popperian irrefutable?
 
>Are you discussing the appropriacy of using the word 'Flout' as a proper
pragmatic term
 
I don't like the propriety of 'proper'! Recall that for Bar-Hillel,
pragmatics was for _years_ the waste-basket of things! Grice avoided 'pragmatic'
like the plague! This, 'flout', as Grice used it, is a term in an
application of his neo-Kantian theory of communication. And recall he is into
studying the rationality of 'philosophical discourse'. The examples scholars
should focus in interpreting implicature should be, strictly, philosophical --
rather than blogolese!
 
>or am I totally missing the point? Again, excuse my ignorance, but I find
it really frustrating to not follow someone's point...
 
-- Well, relation maxim (be relevant) CAN be flouted happily. Grice gives
only one such example of the flouting of this 'terse' maxim: it's a 'rare'
one.
 
    A: She is a windbag.
    B: The weather has been delightful this summer, hasn't it?
 
>I find it really frustrating not to follow
>someone's point.
 
    A: What has the _weather_ to do with she being a windbag?
 
Etc.
 
Short note attached: Read "The Old Flouter" as a tat for F. Yus's 'tit' of
sharing a ref. of this essay on flouting with this august list.
 
Cheers,
 
JLS
Received on Wed Dec 2 05:16:35 2009