Conversational pragmatics & Grice's philosophical way of doing it.
Dear all,
I was slightly exaggerating, in a friendly way, in my reply to RA Hudson,
and yes, W Clark, if we find the textbook, we'll let you know. Incidentally,
an erratum: I wrote:
"I guess that would be the policy, where H P Grice was tutor!"
should read:
"I guess that would be the policiy AT OXFORD, where H P Grice was tutor!"
Anyway, Grice being a philosopher, while most relevant theorists being
English linguists or French anthropologists (:)), I'm forwarding the
following joke as a ps.
I include, as a second ps, the text supposed to be a plagiarism. I mean, you
can't write TOO many different things about Grice's implicatures, can you.
I'm also curious: the poster was Norwegian. Are we to assume that the
alleged plagiarism was in English, or that what the poster offers us is an
English translation from the original Norwegian, I wonder.
Season's greetings to all,
JL
The Grice Circle
*****************
"Two faculty members are heading across campus for lunch. One, an English
Prof, says "I hate to tell you this, but it was reported this morning that
your final exam was found in one of the campus Xerox
machines the day before you gave it".
The second, a Philosophy Prof (he *has* to be in Philosophy for the sake of
the punch line) says "Oh, I don't mind. I always give the same final - same
questions, same order.."
English Prof: "How do you avoid cheating, copying etc. ?"
Philosophy Prof: "Every year I change the answers."
*****************
Gricean pragmatics: [The alleged "plagiarism", with some running
commentaries by yours truly. JLS]
"Let us say that Mr. Ironside
[Well, that's not a surname Grice would have used. It's always Smith and
Jones with Grice. And it's not English to say "Mr. Ironside", i.e. "Mr."
with a dot. The English way is "let us say John Smith". So that narrows the
search to American sources. JLS]
"is running late for an important meeting. He knows where the meeting is to
be held, it is somewhere on Weissmueller Street,
[not a street an English person would use, unless it is in Pennsylvania's
Dutch country. Check German textbooks. JLS]
but he has no idea how to get there. So he stops Mrs. Emerson
[Another interesting surname. Sounds terribly Anglo-Saxon, but the event
takes place in Germany. More importantly, how does Ironside know the marital
status (or sex, for that matter) of Emerson? JLS]
on the way to the grocery store
[Is this relevant? JLS]
and asks, "Excuse me, but do you know the shortest way to Weissmueller
Street?" Mrs. Emerson, seeing that Mr. Ironside is in a hurry,
[Again, Emerson has got psychic powers to detect the marital status of
Ironside and his sex. JLS]
starts giving him directions to the best of her ability, but it is not an
easy task. Weissmueller Street is literally on the other side of town, and
explaining the most efficient route through the intricate maze of squares
and alleys is exceedingly hard. Although Mrs. Emerson knows perfectly well
where Weissmueller Street is, she offers only a vague and largely
insufficient set of directives, and at the end she adds, "...but if you take
the subway you could be there in ten minutes,"
[Definitely American. If English, she would have gone, "the tube". JLS]
whereupon Mr. Ironside, who had for some reason not considered this
possibility, replies, "thank you very much" and heads for the nearest subway
station."
[and what's so brilliant about this? I think Emerson is still being very
misleading. At least she should have told Ironside *which* "subway" station
to get off. Must Ironise assume that the subway station is called
"Weissmueller" just after the street? JLS]
'The Maxim of Manner: "In any conversation, utterances are expected to be as
concise
[as JLS's. JLS]
and orderly as possible. Let us say that Mrs. Baxter comes home from work
one day and asks her husband how his day has been, whereupon he answers, "He
ordered a chicken salad. I couldn't get the car started this morning. I had
lunch with Mr. Eastwood. I think she is developing a drinking problem. I had
a chicken salad too. I arrived for work almost an hour late. Miss Cox
doesn't seem to be doing too well these days. We went to the little Spanish
restaurant across the street from Toby's. I was fired. I left my wallet in
the car...", and so forth. By this time Mrs. Baxter is probably assuming
that her husband is about to have a nervous breakdown, or something to that
effect.
[or otherwise trying to make it somewhat entertaining, for once, the routine
questionnaire with which Mrs Baxter inflicts Mr Eastwood every blooming day.
Why, they are not even legally married! (They go by different surnames!
Modern Couples Passing For Marriages!) JLS]
Mr. Baxter is clearly violating the maxim of manner. Although his account of
the day's events is not exactly ambiguous or obscure,
[or just anaphorically crazy. See MAK Halliday's work on ANAPHORA. JLS]
he fails to be orderly. His wife,
[He He He He. How come, "wife". That would be the first case of a married
couple where Mrs Baxter keeps the surname of his first husband and still
expects her second hubby to come out with an orderly report of events. JLS]
as most speakers of the English language
[but isn't this supposed to be in the Norwegian language? This writer is
generalising too much into what most speakers of "the" English "language"
do! JLS]
would, expects her husband
[husband? Lover, perhaps. You can't expect ANYTHING from a husband. JLS]
to follow a chronological order when describing how his day has been, and as
he does not do so she finds it very hard to form a correct idea of the
situation. She also expects him to provide her with the most important
information first, and in this case the most important piece of intelligence
is likely to be that her husband has lost his job.
[This writer sounds to me as a chauvinist pig, and I doubt this is taken
from an American textbook with all their PC restrictions (why not assume Mrs
Baxter has a regular well-paid job by which to support her lover?). To be
honest, for me, by far the most important piece of information was that this
Mrs Cox was an alcoholic, "or slightly intoxicated", as Grice would put it. JLS]
In any case it is clear that Mr. Baxter has neglected the importance of
being orderly."
[Yes, and Ernest has neglected the importance of being Earnest. Such is
life: it has the cheek to play tricks on Grice sometimes. JLS]
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