Cathy_shenzq@163.com writes:
>I want to use relevance theory to explain 'unintended
>meaning' and have some questions:
>1. Why [would an addressee A] overinterpret or misinterpret
> [an utterer U]'s intended meaning?
Well, this may be intentional on the part of A, or not. If unintentional,
it's usually because A is _clumsy_ (a lousy interpreter). If intentional,
it may be she's just being _nasty_ (altogether _wicked_).
>2. Can an irrelevant phenomenon be included in unintended meaning?
> eg. A. What do you think of Mr. Brown?
> (B sees Mr. Brown approaches)
> B. You have grown some lovely flowers.
> A. Hey. What's wrong with you? I think he is selfish.
> Can we say B's response is A's unintended meaning?
I don't follow. Feel free to elaborate.
> 3. Can U deliberately misinterpret [U]'s intended meaning,
> and correspond it to [U]'s "unintended meaning"?
As the dilemma above goes (If "failing" to understand, A is being either
lousy or wicked), U can obviously 'misinterpret' U's meaning. I think it's
F. Yu who has studies various types of 'misunderstandings'? (Cfr. some
examples below).
> 4. Can we avoid the unintended meaning in utterance?
> And how?
The school of "conversation analysis", so-called, claims that understanding
_solvitur converando_, as it were. I.e. if U finds she has been
misinterpreted (by A), she has an opportunity, once she gets the floor, to
'repair' the misinterpretation in the next turn (or move). A passage by
Oxford (sometime) Wykeham's Prof. of Metaphysical Philosophy R. G.
Collingwood shares the same spirit:
"The reader may object that if what is here maintained
were true there could never by any absolute assurance,
either for the hearer or the speaker, that the one had
understood the other.
That is so; but in fact there is no such assurance.
The only assurance we possess is an empirical and
relative assurance, becoming progressively stronger
as conversation proceeds, and based on the fact that
neither party seems to the other to be talking nonsense.
The question whether they understand each other
_solvitur interloquendo_. If they understand each
other well enough to go on talking, they understand
each other as well as they need; and there is no
better kind of understanding which they can regret
not having attained."
(_The idea of language_, Oxford, p. 251).
Some examples as have been discussed by conversation-analysist include:
A: It's cold in here.
B: Shall I shut the window?
A: I did not mean that!
B: You said you did?
(discussed by W. Sharrock/R. Turner, in Schenkein).
or the example discussed by Dascal:
A: Why did you rob the bank, my son.
B: Because that's where the dough was.
Other types of non-understanding that notably interested Grice (and
Strawson) are the responses to 'anaytically false' utterances:
A: i. He has arthritis in the joints.
ii. My three-year child is an adult.
B: I don't get it.
(Indeed, Grice/Strawson base the 'analytic'/'synthetic' distinction on this
type of response. A _synthetically_ false utterance gets a 'I don't BELIEVE
it' as a reply, rather.)
A case where an utterer fakes 'non-understanding' is the typically angrily
uttered, "what do you mean?", as in Pinter's _Dumb Waiter_:
A: How many times have you read
that newspaper?
B: What do you mean?
A: I was wondering how many
times you had...
B: You'll get a knock in your
ear if you're not more careful.
(cfr. examples by Garfinkel 1972:30ff).
Cases of faked _mis-_understanding, as opposed to faked _non-_understanding
follow the pattern: "who understands ill, answers ill" and include:
A: There's a fly in my soup.
B: Quiet, sir, or else everyone
else will want one.
Leech, Principles of Pragmatics.
A: Good day.
B: What's so good about it?
Example by J. Laver.
A: How old are you?
B: Don't worry. They'll let me in
at Jimmy's.
Example by A. Weiser.
A: What did you get, in the end?
B: Nothing.
A: What do you mean, 'nothing'.
B: I mean, 'nothing'. The opposite of 'something'.
N. Jordan, _Mona Lisa_
(dialogue between George and Mortwell).
Sometimes, there's this device: "addressee grasps best":
A: I never eat treacle tart, sir.
B: You mean, perhaps, 'I've lost my appetite, sir".
Very well. But your appetite will return to you
by dinner time, you mark my words, and
so will the treacle tart.
R. Graves.
A: Actors may have disagreements,
but they don't use that sort of language.
B: They did not use it in _your_ time, you mean.
J. Wain.
It all boils down to what Grice and Austin meant by 'uptake'. It is
interesting that Grice suggests that his 1948 analysis of 'meaning' already
includes a clue for the analysis of 'understand':
"If we can elucidate the meaning of
... "A mean[s]-nn that so-and-so
(on a particular occasion)" ... this
might reasonably be expected to help
us with ... the explication of
... "understands"."
WOW, p. 217.
Interestingly, Hart is already relying on this 1948 analysis by Grice in
his review of Holloway in _Philosophical Quarterly_ (1952):
"I can't (by virtue of the logic) say
"I understood what he meant when
he said "It will rain soon", but
I don't know what he intended me
to believe by that"".
Hart, p. 61.
and this is again Strawson's famous case for understanding in Gricean terms
in the influential 'Intention and Convention in Speech Acts' (Phil. Review,
73): i.e. in terms of 'recognising the m-intention'.
Interstingly, Grice recapitulates the whole thing in his 'Retrospective
Epilogue', when he notes the centrality of 'uptake' already involved in the
very notion of 'meaning' itself. Thus when addressing some of the problems
raised by Searle and Mrs. Jack, he writes:
"My analysis already invokes an analysed
version of an intention toward some
form of 'uptake' (or a passable substitute
thereof), when I claim that in meaning-nn
a hearer is intended to recognise himself
as intended to be the subject of a
particular form of acceptance, and to take
on such an acceptance for that reason."
(WOW, p. 352).
(And little has been here said of _your_ very topic: 'unintended meaning'
-- is that phrase, after all, an oxymoron?).
But the debate may ensue...
Cheers,
JL
Refs.
Austin, J. L. How to do things with words.
'uptake' techincally defined in terms
of at least an 'illocutioanry' level. p. 116.
Collingwood, R. G. The idea of language.
Oxford: Clarendon.
Dascal, M. Conversational relevance.
On 'onion-like' types of understanding and
misunderstandings.
Grice, H. P. Studies in the Way of Words.
Retrospective epilogue: for 'uptake'
already involved in his analysis of meaning (p. 352).
Grice, H. P. & P. F. Strawson, In defense of a dogma
In Studies in the Way of Words.
For 'non-understanding' as the typical response to
an analtyically false utterance.
("He has arthritis in the joints" -- Burge's example).
Hart, H. L. A. Signs and words: critical review
of Halliday. Philosphical Quarterly, 1952
An account of 'understanding' in terms of
U's meaning, citing Grice.
Sharrock W/R. Turner. On a conversational environment for
equivocality. In J. Schenkein. Academic Press.
Strawson, P.F. Intention and convention in speech acts.
In Logico-Linguistic Papers.
(for an account a la Grice-Hart of 'understanding' in terms of
utterer's meaning).
Werth, P. N.
on 'receipt design' as conversational
understanding.
In Conversation and Discourse London: Croom Helm.
==
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