Supervisor: Dr.

Ha Cam Tam Group 7- K17A: Phan Thi An Nguyen Thi Nguyet Anh Do Thi Hong Dung Le Thi Huong Giang Do Thi Thu Ha Nguyen Thi Hai

Outline
Grice on meaning Natural Meaning Non natural meaning

Distinction between 2 types of meaning (2 tests) Practice

Linguistic vs. non-linguistic communication

Linguistic communication: is the imparting of information with using language.

E.g. Thank you!

Linguistic vs. non-linguistic communication



Non-linguistic communication: is the imparting of information without using language.

E.g. In a given context, a quizzical look and a glance at two tables might mean Which table do you want to sit at? and a fake shiver might mean I want to sit the table inside.

Is the following example a case of communication?

Jack and Lily meet for a coffee. Jack smells (rather strongly) of sweat. She concludes he has run to the caf.

Answer

A case of accidental meaning transmission rather than communication

Explanation: Jack doesnt intend to communicate anything. Hes not showing Lily that he wants to communicate with her.

Accidental information transmission



This need not involve any speakers intentions, or be part of what the speaker wanted to share with us.

E.g. information about age, social origins, mood, attitudes, betrayed by accent, intonation, facial expression, vocabulary, etc.

Covert communication


This involves some hidden speaker intention about the belief the hearer is to form: E.g. trying to appear nicer than one is.

There is a speakers intention which is not, however, intended to be recognised, and is not meant to be shared by participants.

Overt intentional communication



This involves not only a basic speaker intention to convey certain information but a higher-order intention that the hearer should recognize the basic intention and thus share the information.

This is a speakers meaning.

A speakers meaning



a complex mental state involving:

An informative intention: An intention to inform the audience of something.

A communicative intention: An intention that the audience should recognise the informative intention.

Grice on meaning
Grice and his work - Herbert Paul Grice wrote a paper called Meaning in 1957. - The paper Meaning laid the foundations for numerous current linguistic and psychological theories.

Natural meaning (meaningN)

- Natural meaning: meaning of natural indicative pointers,

symptoms, & mental states. E.g. Red spots meanN measles Black clouds meanN rain. - The crucial fact is that all are somehow only causally related to their objects.

Non-natural meaning (meaningNN)

MeaningNN that is the cognitive significance of signs or acts, i.e., roughly, meaning that is the saying of something by means of those signs or acts. E.g. Captain Von-Trapp calls his children by blowing his whistle. - The crucial fact is that in addition to any causal relations, there might be between the sign or act & its objects, the sign or act is also conveying intentional content of some sort.

Two tests of Grice on meaning

Test 1: Entailment


meaningN = factivex meanN p entails p (whenever its true to say x means p, p is also true).
E.g.1: Those spots on your face mean that you have measles.

E.g.1: Those spots on your face mean that you have measles.


This claim could be true only if the underlined sub-sentence is true (i.e., only if you really do have measles).

If you had spots but you didnt have measles, the spots would not mean that you had measles. Not reasonable meaningN

E.g.1: Those spots on your face mean that you have measles.
 It

can be restated by using The fact that:

The fact that you have those spots on your face means that you have measles.

Test 1: Entailment


MeaningNN x meanNN p doesnt entail p

E.g.2: The spots in the arrangement below mean you have measles.

E.g.2: The spots in the arrangement below mean you have measles.

This claim would be true even if the underlined sub-sentence was false. That is, this claim would still be correct even if you did not have measles. meaningNN

E.g.2: The spots in the arrangement below mean you have measles.

It cant be restated by using The fact that:

?? The fact that you have the spots in the arrangement below means you have measles.

Test 2: Direct quotation

-

In case of meaningN, the verb mean cannot be followed by a quotation (a phrase in inverted commas)

E.g.
??Those spots on your face meanN you have measles.

Test 2: Direct quotation In case of meaningNN,, it can be followed by quotation.

E.g. The spots in the arrangement below mean you have measles

Summary
Tests for Tests for meaningN meaningNN x means p entail p Be restated using inverted commas Be restated using 'The fact that x'

v v

Practice


Which of the following claims about meaning are meaningN, and which are meaningNN?

(i) John is sneezing. This means he has a sinus infection. (ii) The French sentence, Pierre aims les chats, means that Pierre likes cats. (iii) In saying what he did, John meant that he would be late. (iv) Failure to bring an accurate map with him meant that John would be late.

Explanation
(i)

John is sneezing. This means he has a sinus infection. MeaningN (x meanN p entails p; it can be restated by using The fact that)

Explanation
(ii) The French sentence, Pierre aims les chats, means that Pierre likes cats. MeaningNN The sentence would mean what it does even if Peter hates cats. x meanNN p doesnt entail p

Explanation
(iii) In saying what he did, John meant that he would be late. MeaningNN
Johns utterance ( whatever it was- perhaps it was I will be late or start without me) would have had this meaning even if he in fact ends up arriving on time.

x meanNN p doesnt entail p

Explanation
(iv) Failure to bring an accurate map with him meant that John would be late.

MeaningN
Suppose John arrived on time. This would lead us to reject the claim that his failure to bring an accurate map meant that he would be late.

Reference
      

Grice, H.P. The Philosophical Review, Volume 66, Issue 3 (July, 1957), 377-388. Cornell University http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/timw/PLINM101/Week _6.htm http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/timw/PLINM101/BAOve rview.htm http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id= 229614 http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~mdstone/class/672/lec/cole. pdf http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/grice.html http://comp.uark.edu/~efunkho/LangS08Notes17.pdf