RT list: Commenting on Dr Yus' answer

 
Dear Dr Yus!

First of all, thanks for the trouble in answering my (surely silly) question. This time, I tried hard to extract myself from my nebulous state of mind and made sure I read your response with the utmost interest possible.

Sadly, though, I am still deep in the dark. This starting Fall cannot be the best period of my intellectual life! Let me comment your answer step by step so that you become aware of the shortcomings of my ageing intelligence.

Of course, I agree with your opening statement,

Pragmatics, at least the pragmatics that subscribers to this list typically find appealing, is about explaining how people fill the gap between what is coded and what is communicated with the aid of contextual information (or, as Yule puts it, it is about explaining "how more gets communicated than said").

although I would not use the expression "filling the gap" as it has connotations I wouldn't like like to point to, for they may lead to (in my view) wrong representations of what cognitive pragmatics (in our case, RT) tries to achieve. I would phrase it somewhat differently expecting the gist of the meaning to remain the same for both of us.

I would write:
Pragmatics, at least the pragmatics that subscribers to this list typically find appealing, is about explaining how people interpret a given set of behaviours, some of which may be coded (linguistically or not) thereby serving as a useful tool to circumscribe the possible ways in which each interpretation is bound to be achieved, (or, as Yule puts it, it is about explaining "how more gets communicated than said").

I do so hope that this wording does not diverge too much from yours in its final whole sense. In any case, it tries to do away with the notion that non-linguistic elements taken into account when indulging in interpretation are subsidiary in any way to linguistically shaped propositions which may also be used in that interpreting process. Every single stimulus that is taken to be relevant at any given time has the same kind of value as a possible element in our inferential procedures. However, in the course of this interpreting process, we may give stronger import to one of these elements. Take, for instance, irony. If I say that "Adalgiso (I'm fed up with John and Mary!) has always been very intelligent" and, while saying so, I make an easily interpretable "ironic" gesture, this gesture will override the logical meaning of the linguistic expression.

Thus, while I understand that

Although the human inferential system that turns schematic logical forms into meaningful and relevant interpretations is universal, there are cultural constraints that need to be taken into account when studying specific communicative phenomena.

I strongly disagree with the, again, unsuitable (in my view) modifier of the term "constraints", i.e., "cultural". Not that I object to consider cultural elements in the elaboration of a given discourse analysis, mind you. No. What I am unable to grasp is why, when considering an, as you say, universal inferential system at one highly abstract theoretical level, we have to go down to these local and cultural level characteristics ... to do what?

Suppose one would also have this strange urge to change levels when talking about, say, VPs in Syntax. I would find it incomprehensible that people would insist in cultural (i.e., in this case, coded) differences in the verb salir/salire in Spanish, French and Italian. It is certain that what may modify the Spanish V does not modify the French or Italian Vs. You may have

e.1. No quiero salir de la habitación
e.2. Je n'veux pas salir ma chemise
e.3. No voglio salire quella scala

but not, say,

e.1.a. No quiero salir *su camisa
e.1.b. No quiero salir *esa escalera
e.2.a. Je n'veux pas salir *de ma chambre
e.2.b. Je n'veux pas salir cet escalier (you may use it, but with a different meaning)
e.3.a. Non voglio salire ?dalla stanza

e.3.b. Non voglio salire *la mia camicia

And so on. What we are interested in this case is not the culturally (coded) meaning of the verb in each language, but (at this theoretical syntactic level) we are only interested in stating the possible syntactic constructions that go with these Vs and their respective functions which, I take it, must be considered in an abstract general way. It is only when we try a linguistic analysis in a given language that we are naturally sometimes taken to the institutionalised meaning of each syntactic element to account for its functioning in that given language.

Maybe we are agreed after all, for, as you say: ... we claim that any pragmatic analysis of insults should be culture-connoted. So you are not proposing a theory of interpretation of insults, but just an analysis in the frame of RT. Well, OK, it may be valuable for illustrative purposes, to show how one may apply RT to a given set of expressions ex post facto, be it insults or prayers, or whatever. If that were the case, I would have no quarrel with that approach.

The trouble is that some of the questions you present in your paper don't seem to point to that sort of endeavour (i.e., the ex post facto analysis), but may be taken to ask for real theoretical issues.

-Are innovative utterances of an insult transferrable to other cultures?

It depends on how much context of interpretation is already manifest and may be expanded, so that the process of innovation is strongly constricted (it doesn't have to be in two different cultures. It maybe difficult to access and expand this context in innovative expressions INSIDE the same cultural space). This is a general (i.e., universal) feature, as far as I can understand it.

#65279;-Do similar contexts of interpretation favour good intention ascription in both cultures?

I'm not sure I understand this point. Supposing I do, I would say that if both contexts are the same, they will probably guide the same sort of interpretations.

-#65279;Are any of the possible intentions involved in the use of an insult (offense, praise, social bond) favoured by cultural constraints? Is any of them expected?

Well, of course they are. So, what? They are (strongly or mutually) manifested elements that go into the forming of any context of interpretation. If salir means to go out in Spanish, to smear in French and to climb in Italian we may not interchange their modifiers, but surely enough they HAVE modifiers, and that's the important issue.

-#65279;Does the cultural context play any part in the good or bad understanding of an insult?

Same as before. OF COURSE it does! But ... so, what?

And so on with the rest of points you mention

Therefore, you see, I am unluckily unable to accept (or, at least, to understand) that

These are questions that pragmatics should address but, at the same time, they possess an inter-cultural connotation, which makes the label of "intercultural pragmatics" more than suitable.

I would agree with you, though, if you had said ... that pragmatic analyses should address ..., but as you didn't, I do not, at least not for the time being!

Cheers!

José Luis Guijarro
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Universidad de Cádiz
11002 Cádiz, España (Spain)
tlf: (34) 956-011.613
fax: (34) 956-015.505
Received on Thu Oct 7 19:04:58 2010