Grice's communicative intention -- confused?

From: Jeff Rubard (jeffrubard_at_online.ie)
Date: 11/29/04 

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 19:42:39 GMT

The pragmatics of H.P. Grice is a perennial favorite, for its focus on
conversational implicature (what can be said without saying by the
selective inclusion or omission of information). However, it seems to me
that the underlying concept, communicative intention (the idea the
speaker wants the hearer to recognize as what he is trying to
communicate), is confused. Roughly, the concept of communicative
intention runs together every single determinate feature of an utterance
by which we glean that utterance's meaning: similar to the cherry on top
of an ice cream sundae, rather than the mass of linguistic data from
which we mine pragmatic insight.

In other words, intention-based semantics contains a foreshortened
appeal for an explanation of the various conceptual devices by which the
transmission of meaning actually takes place. What I mean is this:
certain concepts, for example belief, are implicated both in the content
of utterances and in their pragmatic assessment: one can both offer a
belief, or have an utterance examined on account of one's purported
beliefs. Intention, as a catch-all for "pragmatic concepts", fails to
allow for the linguistic machinery which motivates an assessment of
intended meaning from both the perspective of communication and solitary
thought.

Perhaps it would be better to employ a series of "compelling inference"
maxims, similar to conversational maxims but based around the concept of
inference rather than information, to assess pragmatics from a practical
perspective: what is meant by words as a consequence of what *ought* to
be meant by those words, part of practical rationality, rather than a
series of one-off devices permitting of every abuse thinkable. But if
the suggestion of a "practical pragmatics" is taken up, it seems to me
that the concept disallowed is communicative intention, on account of
intention roughly being the ultimate construct of such a theory rather
than an analytic concept. 

-- 
Jeff Rubard
http://opensentence.tripod.com/
Essays on theory, culture, and politics

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Grices communicative intention -- confused?
    ... Grice's work in pragmatics. ... > conversational implicature (what can be said without saying by the ... > me that the underlying concept, communicative intention (the idea the ... > communicate), is confused. ...
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  • Re: Grices communicative intention -- confused?
    ... > Grice's work in pragmatics. ... > has no intention of elaborating ... To elaborate my own "intention" a little bit, ... communication: in the second case, we are forced to vet all possible ...
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