I agree with Grice's overarching idea that there is meaning and structure to utterances. While the quote does not delve into Meaning_nn nor the specific of the Cooperative Principle, "they are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction" (Grice, 1989, 126), expresses the idea that there are identifiable and intentional structures behind utterances.
Grice's elimination of unintended effects which are not in control of the audience (152), while not a problematic notion in and of itself, seems to be another rule which narrows mean_nn into a specific, completely intentional process. I think that Grice is too strict by requiring that every step along the mean_nn chain be intentional, for it seems to begin to deviate from how utterances work intuitively. That is, it begins to seem exorbitantly stilted.
I question Grice's account of the Cooperative Principle and its categories as an exhaustive concepts. Not only am I unsure if Grice has exhaustively encapsulated the possible aspects of Cooperative conversation, but I think these rules/categories are specific to English. While it would be too far to criticize Grice for not incorporating all languages into his theory, if Grice's intention is to encapsulate some of the intentions behind utterances, I would have expected at least a mention of his theories' place across multiple languages.
No comments:
Post a Comment