RT list: Gricean pragmatics as a 'class' thing, too

In a message dated 12/11/2009 7:35:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
B.Clark@mdx.ac.uk writes:

but I think there might be an element
of what you suggest. I'd suggest modifying it a bit, though, to 'look
how clever WE are' since it depends on the audience and communicator
being 'clever' enough to get it.
 
--- Too true, but I think it was somewhere in the Legacy of Grice
(Berkeley), perhaps Blakemore's essay -- which lists ALL the examples of
conversational implicatures in Grice 1975 (Davidson/Harman) and they are all 'clever'
attempts at humour of sorts:
 
    all the nice girls love a sailor (title of song)
    you're the cream in my coffee (title of song)
    the lady doth protest too much (Shakespeare)
 
etc.
 
I got it _just_ right when I was perusing, of all books, Pears's
Encyclopedia. The entry for 'understatement' reads: "a habit with the English", or
words to that perlocutionary effect.

While the innuendo-person does rely on the audience (or addressee, as I
prefer, since it's part in the looks, too) being minimally clever (and
abductive, in a friendly way), it's the _utterer_ that is taking the time and
displaying that 'touch of class' (in the words of Glenda Jackson) to go
'implicatural'.
 
When Michael Caine had to play an upper-class role (in Zulu, I think) he
was advised: "Speak softly and never raise your tone: that will do". He noted
 that was just right. Only low-classers, in a way, raise their tone in
discussion, he noted -- perhaps as a remedy strategy.
 
This may relate to Bernstein on elaborated codes. It seems that, while
'code' is anathema on this list! -- it takes TWO codes as it were, to be clever
 enough to CARE to flout a maxim. The addresee WILL be clever enough to
follow the lead. We need a statistical analysis of conversational implicature
in those equipped only with a _restricted_ code.
 
But again, recall that classy as he was, Grice was a child (and a boy) at
heart. My recent reseraches have to do with the fact that boys will be boys
(and girls won't be girls). Alice in wonderland is always an
'implicaturalist' -- even if the conventional variety, but all the creatures of C. L.
Dodgson's imagination (Dodgson a male) are _relentless literalists_. The
adjective 'relentless' to epithet 'literalism' is Grice ("Prejudices and
Predilections" in Grandy/Warner, PGRICE), as applied to Austin. Like Austin, Grice
_was_ at heart a relentless literalist, so the _extra_ touch of class you
get in the conversational implicature theory is that you go clever enough
to flout a maxim, but without loosing the charm of relentless literalism,
where you can claim, "but of course I don't mean it".
 
(i.e. the 'cleverness' can get detached or cancelled).
 
Grice was very subtle about this. Perhaps more than in "Logic and
Conversation" he is thus in "Causal Theory of Perception". He goes (words to the
perlocutionary effect):
 
    That pillar box seems red to
    me although of course I do not
    mean to imply that there is
    an element of doubt or denial
    in what I mean
 
Grice's point being that while the conversational implicature _gets_
cancelled, this does not mean that it will be _effectively_ cancelled: despite
the utterer's caveat, it will not always be the case that the instillation on
 the part of the addressee of the belief that such cancellation is intended
may be absent. I'm speaking loosely and vaguely but I hope somewhat
intelligibly.
 
So, to the cleverness which is a 'copyright' of the utterer (versus the
addressee) there's the extra cleverness of having your cake and eating it too,
 for you only ended up 'implicating' it, and never _saying_ it (or
'explicating' it, as RTheorists would have it).
 
One has to be careful with the word 'clever', though. I'm not sure about
Guttman -- see the delightful discussion of rule-abiding Germans in Jerome,
Three men on a bummel -- but as G. Mikes notes in "How to be an alien",
it's non-U to be clever in _England_ (foreigners are clever).
 
Cheers,
 
JL Speranza
 
 
Received on Fri Dec 11 13:08:07 2009