>Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 06:32:45 +0100 (BST)
>To: relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
>
>Christoph Unger wrote:
>
>> This is a response to Randy LaPolla's posting:
>>
>> >> Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 10:54:15 +0100 (BST)
>> >>
>> >> This is in responce to both Steve Nicolle's question about RT and other
>> >> theories, and M. J Murphy's question about "The present king of France
>> >> is bald".
>> >>
>> >> About five or six years ago I brought up the question that Steve
>> >> recently brought up, and argued that RT is much more compatible with a
>> >> functional approach to language, ... Language is a tool like any
other tool,
>>
>> If language is a tool like any other tool then it is most appropriate and
>> necessary to study the structure of the tool itself and not only the
purpose
>> that it is used for. In other words: not studying the formal properties of
>> language as a formal system is certainly inadequate.
>
>I don't understand this comment. No functional approach only studies the
purpose
>and not the structure of the tool. The difference between a functional
and purely
>formal approach is in terms of explanation. A functional approach attempts to
>explain the structures found by reference to their function in the
activity the
>tool is used in. A purely formal approach ignores the use of the tool and
studies
>the form in the abstract. The latter sort of analysis doesn't really tell you
>much, though. For example, if we try to analyze the structure of a hammer
without
>reference to its use in hammering and pulling out nails, then there isn't
much we
>can explain about why it's structure is the way it is. All we can say is
"Hammer
>--> stick-like-part + heavy-part". Not very informative (cf. "S --> NP +
VP").
>Even using the term "handle" would bias the analysis, as the label derives
from
>its function. Personally, I am not interested in form for form's sake, or
>"explanations" where formal structure is "explained" using formal structure
>(thereby being circular--you observe a pattern, call it a rule, then
"explain" the
>pattern by saying it conforms to the rule). I am interested in understanding
>communication, so factoring out communication from the study of language
doesn't
>appeal to me.
>
>
>> >> and also part of and
>> >> influenced by the overall culture in which it develops and is used: it
>> >> is a conventionalized way of performing an action,
>>
>> I don't understand this: what does it mean that 'language is a ... Way of
>> performing an action'? Producing an utterance (or another stimulus) is an
>> action, but 'language'?
>
>What I meant was that the use of language in communication is like the use
of a
>hammer to hammer nails. It is part of the conventional way to perform that
action
>(communication/hammering nails).
>
>
>> Also, once a certain way of constraining the interpretation of an utterance
>> utilizing a given linguistic form is conventionalized, how does this differ
>> from it being encoded in the language?
>
>As it becomes conventionalized it becomes a part of the set of conventions
(the
>tool) we call language, but it is still only an ostensive stimulus, not a
code (in
>the sense of a direct coding-decoding mechanism). Meaning is not in
scribbles on
>paper or in sounds, but is created in our minds by inference, attempting to
>determine the communicative intent of the communicator in making the marks
on the
>paper or in uttering the sounds. (A good example of this is the fact that I
>mis-spelled the word "response" in my original message, but it doesn't
matter, as
>it isn't what I say or write that is important, but what you infer I am
intending
>to communicate). (Studies of perception and cognition show that perception
is also
>not a simple coding-decoding; our eyes see only a small part of what our
brain
>"sees", the rest is filled out by memory and expectations, much as in
>communication. As V. P. Ramachandran (a neuroscientist at UCSD) has said,
>"Perception is an opinion".)
>
>
>> >> In terms of the particular syntactic theory one uses to look at the
>> >> linguistic forms that develop, any theory compatible with the idea of
>> >> language as a way of constraining the search for relevance (essentially
>> >> any theory that takes meaning and communication as basic rather than
>> >> abstract form) would be OK. Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (and
>> >> his whole way of looking at language and communication) is particularly
>> >> compatible with this approach.
>>
>> Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar is particularly _incompatible_ with
>> RT as it is based on a rather pure code model of communication (a
>> "socio-semiotic" approach). It is also built on an inadequate account of
>> context which it treats as given before the interpretation process and
>> determined by the "co-text" and situation of utterance. For a detailed
>> criticism of this approach from a relevance-theoretic perspective see
Unger,
>> C. (2001) _On the cognitive role of genre: a relevance-theoretic
>> perspective._ University of London PhD thesis. Chapter 8, pp. 233-262. (I
>> can send it as PDF files.)
>
>Halliday's approach to communication is certainly not a pure code model in
the
>relevant sense. He uses the word "code" (in scare quotes on p. xxx of his
1994
>Intro to Functional Grammar), but what he means is not the sort of code we
are
>talking about here. He is talking about a semantic code, and "Only the
grammatical
>system as a whole represents the semantic code of a language" (p. xxxi).
Language
>is a network of relations. His discussions of cohesion, one of the things
he is
>most famous for, also clearly point to communication being a lot more than
simple
>coding-decoding. He sees grammar as a paradigmatic system of choices,
with each
>choice affecting the interpretation in a particular way (relative to the
other
>choices), and with meaning (semantics) as the main organizing concept,
rather than
>a syntagmatic grammar that has structure as the main organizing concept. The
>interpretation is certainly not deterministic, as with a code.
>If by "treating context as given" you mean that what he calls the context of
>culture and the context of situation (following Malinowski) and the
co-text (the
>history of communication up to the point a particular utterance is made)
is there
>already when someone produces an utterance, then I don't see how that is
wrong (in
>face-to-face communication--with texts of course they can be taken out of
their
>original context, but they will not necessarily be understood in the same
way, as
>pointed out by Reddy many years ago in his "Conduit metaphor" paper).
That is not
>to say that that is the totality of what is brought to bear in
interpretation;
>Halliday is one of the few linguists who emphasizes the importance of word
order
>(e.g. Theme-Rheme) in determining how an utterance is interpreted, as what
comes
>first influences how the rest is interpreted (in RT we would say it
influences the
>creation of the context of interpretation).
>
>
>> >> Role and Reference Grammar is also
>> >> compatible, and in fact I put a bit of this theory in the discussion of
>> >> the motivations for different focus structures in Chapter 5 of the book
>> >> Van Valin and I did together (Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function.
>> >> CUP, 1997). (I'm not sure what Christoph Unger meant by saying we
>> >> 'attempt putting "pragmatic functions"
>> >> into the syntax'--what we are doing is trying to show that pragmatic
>> >> factors are the initial motivation for some syntactic patterns.)
>>
>> What I said was that I was not sure where Role and Reference Grammar stands
>> with respect to 'attempting to put "pragmatic functions" into the syntax.'
>>
>> With 'attempting to put "pragmatic functions" into the syntax' I mean
>> theories that include something like Lambrecht's (1994 _Information
>> structure and sentence form_. CUP) "information structure" as layer in the
>> grammar or use notions such as "topic", "focus", "foreground", "background"
>> etc. as grammaticalized "pragmatic functions" e.g. As in Simon Dik's
>> 'Functional Grammar.'
>
>We don't put these notions in the syntax. Topic and focus are not syntactic
>concepts, but the frequent coding of a topic in a particular way or a
focus in a
>particular way can lead to the conventionalization of particular syntactic
>patterns. For example, we (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997) argue that VP (a
syntactic
>notion), when it exists in a language, is the grammaticalization of the most
>unmarked information distribution pattern (topic-comment; a pragmatic
notion).
>
>
>> >> Theories that are simply formal models and not based on communication at
>> >> all (such a Chomsky's), I feel, are not compatible with this way of
>> >> looking at language.
>>
>> Why? Generative grammars explain why certain structures lead to specific
>> interpretations given the nature of the interface systems. It is
designed to
>> be supplemented by and interact with theories of utterance interpretation.
>> Therefore it seems to me to fit rather well with pragmatic theories such as
>> relevance theory which take the contribution of the linguistic form of the
>> utterance to be (but a small) piece of the evidence for inferring the
>> communicator's informative intention.
>
>Chomsky has explicitly denied that communication is an important function of
>language (1975:56-7; 1980:229-30). Pragmatics, on the other hand, is all
about
>communication, so I don't see how the two are particularly compatible.
>(Chomsky, Noam. 1975. Reflections on language. New York: Pantheon Books.
>Chomsky, Noam. 1980. Rules and representations. New York: Columbia University
>Press.)
>
>> >> The modular approach is particularly incompatible,
>> >> as it assumes the modules are informationally incapsulated. The
>> >> inference involved in communication is of coursed based on all sorts of
>> >> information, and so the assumption of ostension and inference as the
>> >> basis of communication implies language use is based on general
>> >> cognitive abilities, not on informationally encapsulated modules.
>>
>> I don't quite follow what you are arguing here. In Fodor's modular
theory of
>> mind there are modules and there are central systems. On this view, one
>> could of course say that the inferences in communication are handled in the
>> central system and that the communicative principle of relevance is a
law of
>> this central system. This was Sperber & Wilson's view in the 1986 book.
>> There is thus nothing in this modular approach which is incompatible with
>> RT's outlook on communication.
>
>I will respond to your last point after I have read Sperber & Wilson's
>"Pragmatics, Modularity and Mind-reading". (It should be pointed out, by
the way,
>since the question of empirical falsifiability was brought up during this
>discussion, that Chomsky's "innateness hypothesis" is not an empirically
>falsifiable hypothesis (see Comrie's 1989 book Language Universals and
Linguistic
>Typology, Chapter 1, for discussion.) The idea of the mind being modular
is also
>a philosopher's construct; empirical evidence shows that any
specialization that
>does develop in the brain does so after birth, through a process of
>habitualization, not because of genetically hard-wired structure (see for
example
>the study of rewiring ferret brains (done by MIT neuroscientists) reported
in the
>April 20, 2000 issue of Nature).
>
>All the best,
>Randy
>
>
>------
>Randy J. LaPolla, PhD
>Associate Professor of Linguistics
>CTL, City University of Hong Kong
>Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon
>HONG KONG
>
>ctrandy@cityu.edu.hk or Randy.LaPolla@cityu.edu.hk
>Tel: (852) 2788-8075 (O)
>FAX: (852) 2788-8706
>http://personal.cityu.edu.hk/~ctrandy/index.htm
>
>
>
>
--------------------------------------------
Robyn Carston
Department of Phonetics & Linguistics, UCL
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)20 7679 3174
Fax: + 44 (0)20 7383 4108
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/home.htm
---------------------------------------------
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