Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Grice [Arthur Toland-Barber]

I like how there is a list of utterances that have meaning that are considered based upon what is implied instead of what is potentially said (or its meaning being determined by logic). This is good because it fills in the gaps that a lot of theories fail to comprehend such as cases of metaphors, irony, and sarcasm.

I would disagree with Grice’s statement of truth sentences. He disagreed with the notion of a sentence such as “the policemen’s statement was true” (Grice, 55) can be considered true, as compared to sentences which have more obvious truth values such as the sky is blue since we cannot ascertain the truth of the unknown variable (being the policeman). As long as the person stating the sentence is reliable in their truth sentences I would be inclined to believe the sentences they claim are true (such as believing what a teacher says about a concept despite not having any innate beliefs about the concept but I trust my teacher to give me correct information).


A question I have is since stress in certain circumstances can help to produce meaning, does that mean that other linguistic features can also help to produce meaning such as aspiration, pauses, and pitch? 

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