Semantics, Context and Stylistics

Introduction

This Chapter sets out how the study of linguistic meaning and interpretation
(Semantics) and the study of language use and communication (Pragmatics)
are inter-dependent. Three areas are covered: (i) Methodology (ii) Context
and Content and (in) Content and Inference. As well as sketching key ideas,
the contribution also points to ongoing debates. Classic texts and recent
contributions are mentioned in relation to both. Broadly, pragmatics concerns
itself with phenomena relating to language use and interpersonal
communication while semantics is concerned with the meaning and
interpretation of language. While there is clearly some overlap in the
concerns of the two disciplines, they largely co-exist in a symbiotic
relationship. Here we will give some indication of how.

Methodology

As with most branches of linguistics, semantics looks at natural language as a

fairly abstract phenomenon. Abstract entities such as phrases and sentences
are thought to have invariant [linguistic properties including semantic
properties. The semantic properties bear on the i interpretation of sentences
and phrases when used in utterances. In particular, semantics is | concerned
with accounting, for the information bearing potential of language and certain
(largely | inferential) relations among sentences or utterances. A common
rule of thumb applied by i semanticists is to suppose that if a given utterance
of a declarative sentence S is perceived as an I assertion that p then the
meaning of the sentence determines what p is. A common problem which a I
blind application of this rule of thumb runs into has to do with what has been
identified as [ (particularised or generalised) conversational implicature.
Conversational implicature has been I identified as being that part of what an
utterance means which is not determined by what the I sentence uttered
means. To illustrate, it is clear that B’s response below implies that he cannot
go I swimming because he has a cold, but it is also clear that this is an
imph’cation which attaches to the [utterance in the context and does not
necessarily follow from the meaning of the sentence uttered: A: Do want to
go swimming? B: I have a cold.

While it is relatively easy to distinguish in this example between what

information derives from the meaning of the sentence uttered and what
follows from this sentence’s being uttered in the context, untutored folk
intuitions about what is being asserted, denied, proposed etc by an utterance
of a declarative sentence often do not distinguish between these
components. Some well known examples include the following where the
implication indicated is normally taken to be part of the explicit content but is
arguably not part of the conventional or linguistic meaning (}f the sentence
uttered:
I have broken a finger ->the speaker broke her own finger r has two children
->? Mary has no more than two children i hasn’t given up smoking -> John
has smoked

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A HANDBOOK OF STYLE AND STYUSTICS

In a series of landmark papers, Grice introduced a distinction between speaker

meaning and conventional (or linguistic) meaning. The difference is what is
conversationally implicated. He also introduced a theory of how implicatures are
generated given conventional meaning and context. This theory is based on the
assumption that conversation is a rational, co-operative activity and (in line with
Grice’s view on meaning in general) it places the speaker’s intentions at the centre of
the account. Grice used his theory to argue that the linguistic meaning of natural
language was much closer to that of the formal languages proposed by Russell and
Frege than had previously been supposed and that it was much more stable than his
erstwhile colleagues at Oxford (Austin, Strawson) had claimed. To illustrate, the
sentence, ”Mary has two children” does not carry the implication that Mary has no
more than two children in all contexts of use (Campare ”If Mary has two children, she
can claim a tax refund”). Without a theory of implicature, one would have to say that
sometimes the sentence has its ’logical’ meaning and sometimes it means something
more. Grice’s theory of implicature considerably lightens the burden on a semantic
theory arid enables one to claim that everyday discourse is far more ’logical’ or less
fuzzy than it would otherwise seem.

A number of refinements to Grice’s theory have been proposed, as have alternative

theories. However, the essence of the Gricean methodology remains and the moral
that Grice teaches the semanticist is ignored at the semanticist’s peril: the data for
semantics is far more problematic and far less straightforward than it at first appears.

Ongoing issues: There is still considerable scope for debate about Grice’s proposal
and the Gricean program. For example, many remain to be convinced whether a
program of formal, logically oriented semantics plus Gricean pragmatics can really
come close to capturing what goes on in natural language. In particular, many are
unconvinced that the open-endedness of meanings of expressions could be
accounted for in this way. Consider a colour predicate such as ’red’. We could say
about this expression that it’s meaning shifts around according to context, or the
purposes of the conversation. A red book is usually a book whose cover is red, a red
grapefruit is yellow on the surface. In an appropriate context, we can describe a car
produced with a special red plastic as a red car to discriminate it from one which has
been produced with a special blue plastic, regardless of the colour of the cars. A
defender of the Gricean program could however point to the fact that there is a
commonality to all these construals of ’red’ in that redness is involved in each
predication. There is scope within the Gricean program to allow that words may have
context-dependent meanings. Clear cut examples include indexicals (T, ’he’, ’come’,
’local’ etc) others include scalar terms (’tall’, ’fast’ etc). So some kind of story
involving hidden parameters may be possible for this predicate. Alternatively, it has
been proposed that pragmatic principles are involved in ’local’ adjustments to
meaning so that the interpretation of a word in a context is open to negotiation, even
assuming that that word has a fixed linguistic meaning.

Context and Content

Let us reconsider the rule of thumb for semantics: if a given utterance of a

declarative sentence
5 is perceived as an assertion that p then the meaning of the sentence determines
what p is. A moment’s reflection on this will reveal yet another problem for
semantics. This problem has to do with what we might call the context-dependence
of natural language meaning (and what Barwise & Perry have called the ’efficiency of
natural language’). Taking ”I have a cold” to illustrate, we see that, in one sense,
what we know about this sentence c^oes not tell us all we need to know to
determine what p is when it is asserted. We have to go beyond linguistic knowledge
to consider facts about the utterance situation in order to be able to say what p is
(we need to know who utters the sentence). On the other hand, we could say that our
linguistic knowledge does determine p but relative to a context. In the case at hand,
the meaning of T would specify that the speaker is the
SEMANTICS, CONTEXT AND STYLISTICS

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referent of the term. Somewhat more problematic is the case of third person
pronouns, as is illustrated by the well-known pair below:

The town councillors refused the protestors permission to demonstrate. They

feared a riot. The town councillors refused the protestors permission to
demonstrate. They were anarchists.

Although we may have firm intuitions about who the pronouns in the second
sentence refer to in each case, it is not difficult to construct a plausible story whereby
they refer to the other group, regardless of the context of utterance. Unlike ”I”, most
context dependent expressions exhibit this kind of indeterminacy with regards their
interpretation. While it is straightforward to specify a semantic rule for ”they” which
still links its interpretation to a feature of the context (something like the object of
the speaker’s referring intention in uttering a given token, this still leaves a problem
of co-ordinati^ii between the speaker and her audience. One important area of
research then concerns what principles constrain the possible referents of context-
dependent expressions. There are a variety of views about these principles. It has
been proposed that they are principles of discourse considered as a text; that they
are principles which affect the conduct of discourse by the participants and that they
are cognitive principles which govern discourse processing. These views are not
necessarily mutually exclusive and some current work involves co-ordinating levels of
explanation.

Content and Inference

When the principles of discourse have resolved the indeterminacies inherited from
the linguistic meaning of a sentence, there is still an ongoing issue about whether the
resulting proposition is always the content of the utterance in question. A classic
illustration of this issue involves temporal sequence in conjunction:

Mary didn ’t get married and fall pregnant. She fell pregnant and got married.

It is generally agreed that the temporal sequence implied in each of the above two
sentences is not determined by the meaning of the sentences themselves. They are
more like conversational implicatures. However, these implications are part of the
discursive or logical content of the discourse (since otherwise it would strike us as
contradictory). Given cases like these, many have argued that the logical content of
discourse is some combination of linguistically and pragmatically determined
information.

University Questions

1. Discuss the relationship between Semantics and stylistics.

2. How are the content and context related in Stylistics?

3. Discuss the importance of Semantics in Stylistics.

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