LINGUIST List 15.638

Thu Feb 19 2004

Review: Pragmatics/Semantics: Dascal (2003)

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  • Francisco Yus, Interpretation and Understanding

    Message 1: Interpretation and Understanding

     Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:40:51 -0500 (EST)
    From: Francisco Yus <francisco.yusua.es>
    Subject: Interpretation and Understanding


    AUTHOR: Dascal, Marcelo TITLE: Interpretation and Understanding PUBLISHER: John Benjamins. YEAR: 2003

    Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-3117.html

    Francisco Yus, Department of English Studies, University of Alicante, Spain.

    INTRODUCTION

    This book is a collection of essays by Marcelo Dascal. It comprises 34 previously published articles arranged in 30 chapters. Three articles were published in the 70s, 16 articles were published in the 80s, 13 articles were published in the 90s, and two articles were published in 2000 and 2001 respectively. These articles follow a book-like format, with one single bibliographical section at the end, and with subject and name indexes. Besides, the articles are arranged in three parts (which nevertheless exhibit a great deal of overlapping). A first part of theorising comprises chapters 1 to 9; a second part of practical terrain is covered in chapters 10 to 21. Finally, in a third part (chapters 22-30) the pragmatic model is confronted with other alternative accounts of understanding and interpretation.

    As the title of the book indicates, all of these articles have to do, to a greater or lesser extent, with ''interpretation and understanding''. A theory dealing with this issue has to attempt to clarify how, given the complexity of the interpretive process, human beings manage to understand one another more often than not.

    The book's basic claim is simple, according to Dascal: ''human communication essentially involves the ability to use semiotic means (such as language) to convey one's 'communicative intentions' and the ability to recognize such intentions... [The purpose is] to analyze the variety of circumstances in which these abilities are put to use successfully and the mechanisms and principles through which this is achieved'' (Foreword, p. x). Basically, the pragmatic approach underlying the book is ''Gricean'', with an explicit interest in (a) the semantics/pragmatics interface and the attempt to provide a unified philosophical and linguistic base; (b) the objective to apply this framework to a range of communicative phenomena broader than the one envisaged by Grice; and (c) to compare this approach with others, ''thereby clarifying it further and showing its specificity, defensibility against its critics, and productivity'' (Foreword, pp. x-xi).

    OVERVIEW

    Chapter 1 (''Pragmatics and communicative intentions'', pp. 3-30, originally published in 1999) summarizes Dascal's ideas on pragmatics, semantics (vs. pragmatics) and intentionality. As I summarised in a previous review of this article (Yus, 2001: 169-170), Dascal's idea of intentionality is in the line of recent accounts by analytic philosophy: to place intentionality at the level of words and propositions, both of them prone to objective analysis. In other words, intentionality can be traced in the actual communicative acts, which turns pragmatics into the study of the use of linguistic (or other) means by which a speaker manifests his/her communicative intentions and a hearer recognises them. As such, intentionality helps us to draw a dividing line between context-free sentence meaning and addressee- oriented speaker meaning.

    Initially, one concludes that semantics should deal with sentence meaning, whereas pragmatics should be engaged in the explanation of speaker meaning. Semantics and pragmatics are viewed as complementary and with non-overlapping objects of analysis, a claim which is far from uncontroversial, considering that their delimitation is currently subject to a great deal of scholarly discussion.

    Chapter 2 (''Conversational relevance'', pp. 31-52, originally published in 1977) is one of the few essays which addressed the notion of relevance in the 1970s, and attempted to develop Grice's sketchy ''maxim of relevance'' and proposed a more central role of relevance in human communication.

    The article provided interesting insights at the time, but there has been a great deal of research on this topic in the last 25 years, especially under the relevance-theoretic approach (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/95). This is why I wish that Dascal had updated his ideas on relevance for this collection of essays (or at least defended them against current developments in its study). For instance, Dascal writes that ''there is a sense in which a certain concept of relevance... governs the operation of the other super-maxims, as if the CP [cooperative principle] itself were in fact a principle of 'relevance' rather than a principle of 'cooperation''' (p. 32). This was indeed on the right track, but given the amount of research on relevance published since then (see, for instance, Yus, 2000) it would have been interesting to read about the author's current ideas regarding the development of relevance theory when contrasted with his thoughtful intuitions back in the 70s.

    Chapter 3 (''Strategies of understanding'', pp. 52-81, originally published in 1981) deals with the notion of ''understanding'', progressively evolving towards an explanation of how meaning and understanding are related, and with a final section on the notion of ''instantiation''. For Dascal, ''a satisfactory theory of meaning should be either a proper part of s theory of understanding or a separate theory which is able to contribute directly to it, in a significant way. This, in turn, would imply that the theory of meaning must be homogeneous with other theories relevant to an account of understanding'' (p. 76).

    Chapter 4 (''Two modes of understanding'', pp. 82-100, with I. Berenstein, originally published as ''Two modes of understanding: comprehending and grasping'', 1987) is a continuation of the previous chapter. In this essay the author distinguishes between rule-based ''comprehending'' and intuitive-direct ''grasping'', both of which complement each other in human communication.

    Chapter 5 (''Individual and collective intentions'', pp. 101-114, with A. Idan, originally published as ''From individual to collective action'', 1989) is related to chapter one in the sense that it deals with (communicative) intentions. Besides, the notion of ''collective action'' is introduced (I coined a similar term, ''common-interest task'' in Yus, 1997), which the author considers a rather difficult notion to tackle, since communication may be, after all, a matter of mental states of individual agents.

    Chapter 6 (''How does a connective work?'', pp. 115-148, with T. Katriel, originally published as ''Between semantics and pragmatics: The two types of 'but' -Hebrew 'aval' and 'ela''', 1977) addresses this connective within the author's ''onion-like picture'' of the significance of an utterance. According to this picture, utterances exhibit a set of layers of meaning, ranging from inner-layer propositional content to outer-layer conversational layers, and with other layers in-between (e.g. presupposition, modality, illocutionary force, etc.).

    In chapter 7 (''Commitment and involvement'', pp. 149-168, with T. Katriel, originally published as ''Speaker's commitment and involvement'', 1989) the author distinguishes between a yes-no concept (commitment) and a degree concept (involvement). The former has to do with social and linguistic rules that underlie the 'conventional' relation between linguistic form and communicative interaction. The latter covers what these rules do not prescribe, that is, the actual 'engagement' of speakers towards their speech and interlocutors.

    Chapter 8 (''Cues, clues, and context'', pp. 169-193, with E. Weizman, originally published in two articles: Part A: ''Contextual exploitation of interpretation clues in text understanding: An integrated model'', 1987; Part B: ''On clues and cues: Strategies of text understanding'', 1991) is about context. Dascal distinguishes two major roles of context in the process of interpretation: a semantics-based gap-filling function and a pragmatic mismatch-resolution function. Besides, the author distinguishes two stages in interpretation: the identification of an interpretation problem and the search for a solution to this problem. The former is signalled by ''cues'', while the latter is performed with the aid of ''clues''.

    Chapter 9 (''Models of interpretation'', pp. 194-210, originally published in 1992) also addresses interpretation by locating it inside the spectrum of possible 'models of interpretation' such as the 'cryptographic', the 'hermeneutic', the 'super-pragmatic', the 'deep- structure', the 'radical interpretation' and the 'pragmatic'.

    Chapter 10 (''Understanding digressions. A study in conversational coherence'', pp. 213-243, originally published in 1979) is about digressions, as aspect of discourse coherence (and also of other terms such as 'topic', 'involvement' and 'relevance') which has not been sufficiently studied within pragmatics.

    Chapter 11 (''Understanding a metaphor. The beyond enterprise'', pp. 244- 272, originally published as ''The beyond enterprise'', 1996) is about the metaphor 'beyond X', which ''plays a key role in the conceptualization of and the discourse about the dynamics of theoretical change'' (Foreword, p. xv).

    Chapter 12 (''Three remarks on pragmatics and literature'', pp. 273-279, originally published in 2000) is a short paper dealing with the application of pragmatics to the study of literature.

    Chapter 13 (''Understanding controversies'', pp. 280-292, originally published as ''Controversies as quasi-dialogues'', 1989) addresses polemical exchanges (i.e. controversies) with the aid of pragmatics, which is especially suitable to deal with communicative exchanges normally devoid of the ''mutually accepted direction'' which Grice pictured for his famous cooperative principle. In the chapter a special emphasis is placed on the fact that on many occasions polemical exchanges are misunderstood.

    In chapter 14 (''Understanding misunderstanding'', pp. 293-321, originally published in two articles: Part A: ''Some questions about misunderstanding'', 1999; Part B: ''The relevance of misunderstanding'', 1985) Dascal studies a phenomenon of communication in which I am particularly interested: misunderstandings (see for instance Yus, 1998, 1999a,b), especially the second part dealing with the need to offer a classification of types of misunderstandings. In this second part, Dascal uses Fillmore's (pseudo-rhetorical) questions (Fillmore, 1976) which a hearer typically has to answer when engaging in the interpretation of utterances: (1) What did he say; (2) What was he talking about; (3) Why did he bother to say it?; and (4) Why did he say it in the way ha said it? For Dascal, misunderstandings can arise in any of these interpretive questions.

    In the first part, the author analyses six questions which a theory of misunderstandings should deal with: (1) How often does a misunderstanding occur?; (2) How often is a misunderstanding detected and corrected, without further damage to communication?; (3) How is misunderstanding managed?; (4) What are the causes of misunderstanding?; (5) What is the logic of misunderstanding? Is it a binary phenomenon or does it admit gradation?; and (6) What ethical aspects of communication emerge in the issues raised by misunderstanding?

    Chapter 15 (''Understanding the law'', pp. 322-361, with J. Wroblewski, originally published in two articles: Part A: ''Transparency and doubt: Understanding and interpretation in pragmatics and in law'', 1988; Part B: ''The rational lawmaker and the pragmatics of legal interpretation'', 1991) combines pragmatics and legal thought in an interdisciplinary attempt to apply pragmatics to this field. Traditionally, legal language has been rather cryptic, which means that, considering that even the apparently most transparent utterances undergo a process of pragmatic adjustment for their interpretation, legal language requires a lot of pragmatic input in order to turn the coded form into full- fledged interpretations.

    In chapter 16 (''Understanding jokes and dreams. Sociopragmatics vs. psychopragmatics'', pp. 362-379, originally published in 1985) Dascal takes advantage of Freud's comparison between 'joke-work' and 'dream- work' in order to assess the differences between a typically social endeavour such as joking and a typically asocial and intimate activity such as dreaming. Dascal tries to find out whether the latter is constrained by socio-pragmatic issues in the same way as the ones operating in the former.

    Chapter 17 (''Understanding art'', pp. 380-401, with V. Dascal, originally published as ''Understanding art as knowing how'', 1985) shows, again, Dascal's ability to apply pragmatics to areas not typically studied within this discipline. This time art is analysed from a pragmatic standpoint, with specific emphasis on the cognitive dimension of understanding artworks.

    Chapter 18 (''Why does language matter to Artificial Intelligence?'', pp.402-436, originally published in 1992) addresses, predictably, the limitations of AI to deal with the multifarious quality of sociopragmatic and psychopragmatic aspects of language production and comprehension. These ideas are further explored in chapter 19 (''Pragmatics in the digital age'', pp. 437-456, with E. Dresner, originally published as ''Semantics, pragmatics, and the digital information age'', 2001), where Dascal explores the new forms of communication within the digital age (see also Yus, 2001 for an application of pragmatics to Internet communication). Dascal and Dresner argue that ''the Digital Age still falls short of exploiting the full potential of meaning embedded in both the semantic and the pragmatic aspects of language and language use, and suggest how this should and could be done'' (Foreword, p. xviii).

    Chapter 20 (''Interpretation and tolerance'', pp. 457-476, originally published as ''Tolerance and interpretation'', 1989) discusses the issue of freedom of expression, while chapter 21 (''Understanding other cultures. The ecology of cultural space'', pp. 477-494, originally published as ''The ecology of cultural space'', 1991) is related to the previous one in the sense that it defends the notion of tolerance in the context of cross-cultural communication.

    Chapter 22 (''Why should I ask her?'', pp. 497-506, originally published in 1985) attempts to explain why the pragmatic interpretation of linguistic utterances is, despite all the problems inherent to human communication, quite successful.

    Chapter 23 (''Speech act theory and pragmatics. An uneasy couple'', pp.507-520, originally published as ''Speech act theory and Gricean pragmatics'', 1994) compares Grice's and Searle's philosophical accounts of the pragmatic side of human communication. Basically Dascal addresses the problems that are faced when attempting to marry speech acts and the Gricean theory in the light of the obvious differences between the two. This study is continued in chapter 24 (''The pragmatic structure of conversation'', pp. 521-541, originally published as ''On the pragmatic structure of conversation'', 1992), where Dascal develops the criticism of Searle's use of speech acts as a paradigm for pragmatics, and also in the next chapter (''Contextualism'', pp. 542-561, originally published in 1981).

    Chapter 26 (''Does pragmatics need semantics?'', pp. 562-593, originally published in two articles: Part A: ''Defending literal meaning'', 1987; Part B: ''On the roles of context and literal meaning in understanding'', 1989) addresses a defence of literal meaning (also partly studied in the previous chapter) against those who claim that literal meaning does not play the role it is usually taken to play in the philosophical process of interpretation.

    In chapter 27 (''Pragmatics and foundationalism'', pp. 594-599, originally published in 1992) literal meaning is also defended, but this time against another type of objection: ''the claim that, being 'encodings' of mental representations, they cannot be 'foundational', and therefore, in so far as semantics deals with literal meanings it is perforce at best a 'derivative' discipline; accordingly, the truly foundational discipline is pragmatics, for the origins of linguistic meanings, as well as the grounds for their effectiveness, lie at the level of interaction'' (Foreword, p. xx).

    Chapter 28 (''The marriage of pragmatics and rhetoric'', pp. 600-622, with A.G. Gross, originally published in 1999) is about persuasion, traditionally studied in the domain of rhetoric, and often neglected in pragmatic research. Dascal finds in ''inference'' a possible bridge to link pragmatics to rhetoric.

    Chapter 29 (''Hermeneutic interpretation and pragmatic interpretation'', pp. 623-640, originally published in 1989) addresses one further neighbouring discipline, this time hermeneutics, in the light of pragmatic research.

    Lastly, chapter 30 (''The limits of interpretation'', pp. 641-659, with V. Dascal, originally published in 1996) inquires about the human capacity to produce and interpret meaning, considering the possibility that all the models of interpretation ''have some use and validity in specific circumstances and for specific purposes, provided none of them yield to their intrinsic imperialistic or reductionist tendencies to provide the only, ultimate, and true account of all forms of interpretation'' (Foreword, p.xxi).

    DISCUSSION

    When I was writing my thesis in the early nineties, I discovered Dascal's book on pragmatics and the philosophy of mind (Dascal, 1983), which was a great source of inspiration. To my knowledge, no second volume in the series was ever published, but as the reader can find in this collection of essays, Dascal's contribution to pragmatics has been enormous and highly valuable. The range of perspectives and objects of analysis that he has undertaken in the last decades is incredibly wide, covering not only typical aspects of pragmatic analysis, but also other areas not often (or not sufficiently) studied within pragmatics. Simply by having a look at a (more or less) complete list of publications by Dascal http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/philos/dascal/publications.html updated May, 2003) one can be fully aware of how important his contribution to pragmatic research has been (and no doubt will be).

    The only drawback that I can find in the book is the fact that I expected the author to devote some pages after each chapter to explain how his ideas on the different pragmatic issues have evolved in the last years, or to what extent these ideas remain the same. The inclusion of a postface after each essay, in much the same way as we can find in Kasher (1998), would have been welcome, considering the amount of research on the multiple topics studied by Dascal which has been published in the last decades.

    REFERENCES

    Dascal, M. (1983) Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind. Vol. I: Thought in Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Fillmore, C.J. (1976) ''Topics in lexical semantics''. In R. Cole (ed.) Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana university Press, 76-138.

    Kasher, A. (ed.) (1998) Pragmatics. Critical Concepts. London: Routledge.

    Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1986/95) Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Yus, F. (1997) Cooperaci�n y relevancia. Dos aproximaciones pragm�ticas a la interpretacion. Alicante: University of Alicante, Servicio de Publicaciones.

    Yus, F. (2000) ''Relevance theory online bibliographic service''. Online document available http://www.ua.es/dfing/rt.htm Last updated: 13-2-2004.

    Yus, F. (1998) ''The 'what-do-you-mean syndrome'. A taxonomy of misunderstandings in Harold Pinter's plays''. Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 6: 81-100.

    Yus, F. (1999a) ''Towards a pragmatic taxonomy of misunderstandings''. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 38: 217-239.

    Yus, F. (1999b) ''Misunderstandings and explicit/implicit communication''. Pragmatics 9(4): 487-517.

    Yus, F. (2001) ''Review of M. Dascal's 1999 Filosof�a del Lenguaje II: Pragm�tica''. Pragmatics & Cognition 9(1): 165-173.

    ABOUT THE REVIEWER

    Francisco Yus teaches linguistics at the University of Alicante, Spain. His main research interests are media discourses (his 1995 Ph.D was on the pragmatics of British comics), verbal irony and misunderstandings from a pragmatic point of view, especially from the relevance-theoretic approach to human communication. He has published several books an articles on these subjects, including two recent books on the pragmatics of Internet communication (Ciberpragmatica. El uso del lenguaje en Internet. Madrid: Ariel, 2001) and on the discourse of female characters in British alternative comics (El discurso femenino en el comic alternativo ingles. Alicante: University of Alicante, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2002).