Posts by linger
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Poo coloured marble bathroom? Excuse me??
One careless owner...
-
consideration of the intention of the [...] author isn't something that can dogmatically be thrown out
I agree with that, at least where the audience can reasonably be seen as having access to that intention. (I'd be quite happy to include within the contextual information for interpreting an utterance, the sum total of the audience's previous experience of the language producer; when we're discussing analysis of literary texts, it makes perfect sense to me to consider other writings by that author as potentially helpful evidence.)
-
We really do just want to find the toilet.
Oh, for sure, though it would probably take rather a perverse audience to observe someone hopping up and down in agitated discomfort and conclude that they're desperate to enter a pogo competition, eh. (i.e., given that context, the conditional probability of that particular intended message approaches 1, independently of language. Which allows cultures to use a wide range of (and thereby, relatively unpredictable) forms for the purpose, e.g. zerabogroundeer, gottadunny, hellojohn, loopliz, fufukseikwherzhakarzi , etc.)
-
I do rather get the feeling we are arguing from within different contexts... :-/
Please note I am contrasting social with referential meanings of the same verbal signals, not contrasting verbal with non-verbal signals. There are no "extra words" or equivalents of same to consider here.
And I am not describing "conclusions from the context of a communication" per se, but rather conclusions from the fact that *that particular communication* -- and not some other -- occurs in that particular context. That difference is important, because my central point is that it is not possible to remove an utterance from its context and preserve its full meaning as perceived by the audience who are also in that context; that meaning derives at least in part from the conditional probability of occurrence.
(In trying to remove the message from any social context you would, in effect, remove the audience and everything they know about their culture. It is not clear to me what would be left to allow any evaluation of the effectiveness of the communication.) -
-
Gudday Ben,
"Multiplicative" was intended as more rhetorical than strictly mathematical. But as the compliment examples should make clear, the social meaning is not "a constant added to referential meaning" -- because it changes depending on the sociocultural context: e.g. the "same" responses result in completely opposite inferences in those two cultural settings, because they are surrounded by different frequencies of potential alternative responses in each setting. (Rinse and repeat for a wide range of different potential environments of use, and perhaps you can see where I'm coming from with "multiplicative".)Putting it more generally: a sequence with a particular referential meaning can, when placed in different contexts, be interpreted in several different ways, even if the referential meaning remains clear. This is different in nature from what you seem to be assuming about elements of referential meaning.
Even the behaviours and values associated with exchanging referential meaning are culturally dependent. For example, it is, in general, much less acceptable to eliminate small talk and go straight into detailed discussion among Maori than among Pakeha -- and because of the negative inferences that may be made about your character if you try that, the discussion will often be less productive as a result.
---[A final footnote: Culture-based behaviours, and attitudes to such behaviours, as with those compliment responses are almost impossible to "unlearn" even if you are consciously aware of the cultural difference. The resulting miscommunications are especially dangerous because there is no linguistic signal that there has been a miscommunication, and they can colour the participants' opinions of one another forever after.]
-
The perennial nerd question is "are you a real girl?"
Too true. It's amazing how often I got asked that on the VUW BBS, having deliberately chosen a username that did not signal gender (both to minimise the overt male dominance of that environment, and also because I don't consider it so relevant to my identity). My usual answer, on principle, was simply "What's it to you?".
I'm not quite enough of a nerd to get the reference for the second question though, is that from an RPG?
-
I can only see addition.
And that's the problem right there. For an entirely referential meaning, you want to be able to combine elements of meaning to get a total. That may work -- but only if you and your audience can both agree to discard any social element, and then stick to that agreement. Which is far harder than it seems, because cultural assumptions have a way of sneaking in when you're not looking.
For social meaning, however, you need to compare the utterance with all the other possibilities of language and of response that weren't used. It's not just about the language that you can see. This is what makes social signals so subtle in human language.
Let's take the role of compliments in society.
In American culture, people can be complimented on appearance or ability, and (because the culture places high value on individual self-esteem; also favoured politeness devices tend to mark solidarity, thus assume equality of status) the appropriate response is to accept the compliment at face value and thank the complimenter (or give a compliment in return). Refusing the compliment sends the social message "I am a deeply troubled, negative individual", and/or "I don't much like you". (You will hardly ever see that happen.)
In Japanese culture, compliments are much more of a face threat to the complimentee (because the culture places more value on the participants sharing an event, and the compliment introduces an imbalance; also favoured politeness devices tend to mark status, thus focus on belittling your own status, while also raising that of your addressee). As a result, compliments are more often on trivial surface details (the classic example to a foreigner being skill with using chopsticks) -- and the expected response is to deflect the compliment, by denying it, or ignoring it completely. Accepting the compliment at face value sends the social message "I am an insensitive egotistical wanker".
(And so you will hardly ever see that happen -- unless the complimentee is an American...) -
to sail around the whole world you need maps, rutters, etc
Ummm... no, I think I'll let Emma deal with this one.
-
Ben, the various social and situational signals sent by language choice (e.g. of the social group and social identity of the language producer; of the participants' roles; of the producer's assumptions about the audience's prior knowledge; of the emphasis required for the purpose of the event; of the formality level judged socially appropriate for the situation [itself dependent on the purpose and social evaluation of the event]) act, not so much as optional additions to, but rather as multipliers on, referential meaning. They are always there.
Even the deliberate choice of a "neutral" style is, still, a choice of style, which itself will send social signals, or at the very least result in social inferences by comparison with what isn't marked (e.g. by not marking degrees of familiarity between participants, the inference becomes "he's not really my friend" [at least in this context]).
Any attempt to build a language without such signals would result in a language that could not be used in most real social situations. (Esperanto has been as successful as it has because it is mainly used for very limited types of public social interaction -- but even so, it has had to develop some such signals.)