Pragmatics Interpersonal function Austinian Speech Acts Gricean Conversational Maxims English 306A; Harris

Conversational maxims Speech acts Conversational maxims I can’t find any whisky! Sam-I-Am’s been here. Here’s a sentence. Of the sort we’ve been looking at. What can we do with it? (board: phonetics; morphology; syntax). But there’s one thing about sentences we haven’t noticed much. They are spoken in the world <CLICK> by People. <CLICK>Why? (intentions, desires; communication of information, but also of intentions) SPEECH ACT<CLICK>: Doing something: maybe just declaring, maybe complaining, lamenting, maybe even warning. The act depends on the speaker’s intensions. There’s something else: Communication requires a hearer/reader.<CLICK> (somebody for whom information, intentions, desires are meaningful; preparatory for action) Moreover, People speak back. <CLICK> Here we have another speech act. What is it DOING? Asserting, perhaps; explaining more like. Now we have a context. But ask yourself: How do we know that what cat-in-the-hat has said is in any way connected to what NADN has said? No mention of whisky, or of finding, or of intensions and desires. Now this is a perfectly innocuous little exchange, of the sort we encounter all the time, and participate in equally often. But the sentence meanings of this exchange do not adequately explain the sense actually made of these statements by the speakers, although we have no difficulty in constructing a scenario in which the conversation might occur. SAM-I-AM might have drunk the whisky, or it might have been hidden because SAM-I-AM, a temperance campaigner, was coming. SAM-I-AM might be some kind of perverse Alcohol-Easter bunny who hides whiskey for other people to find. What we are doing is making assumptions and trying to find RELEVANCE and SUFFICIENCY and CLARITY; we might wonder if it is TRUTHFUL, if the Cat-in-the-Hat is hiding it for himself, or drank it all the night before in an orgy of self-pity. That is, we assume that certain maxims, protocols, procedures, are in place<CLICK>for his utterance to serve its purpose, or fail to serve its purpose; in this case, to be an explanation. But there are conceptual gaps here that need to be filled in. We fill them in automatically as conversants, and we piece them together as overhearers (Harold Pinter, David Mamet--natural conversation that you have to find the ‘key’ to). Where does the key come from? English 306A; Harris

Meaning Semantics Pragmatics Propositions Truth/falsity Context-free Language-in-vitro Pragmatics Utterances Appropriateness Context-dependent Language-in-vivo Semantics and Pragmatics are approaches TO language, corresponding to aspects OF language, that both concern meaning, but in very different ways. English 306A; Harris

Functions Ideational function: Interpersonal function: What does “The cat is on the mat” mean as an expression in the system of English? How? Denotation, truth conditions, event schemata, semantic roles, … Interpersonal function: What does “The cat is on the mat” mean to hearer X, when said by speaker Y, in context Z? Speech acts, conversational maxims, face principles, deixis, … Stop me if you’ve heard this before: there are (count-em) two basic functions for language. English 306A; Harris

Functions Ideational function: Interpersonal function: What does “The cat is on the mat” mean as an expression in the system of English? How? Denotation, truth conditions, event schemata, semantic roles, … Interpersonal function: What does “The cat is on the mat” mean to hearer X, when said by speaker Y, in context Z? Speech acts, conversational maxims, face principles, deixis, … English 306A; Harris

Ideational function What we’ve been studying to this point: Language from the perspective of encoding ideas, and the mechanics of transmitting those ideas, within the system of a language. English 306A; Harris

Interpersonal function Language from the perspective of making and maintaining human contact, so we can coöperate, negotiate, decide, get along, build bridges, and generally function as social animals. English 306A; Harris

Interpersonal function A supplement to the ideational function—not a substitute—but a crucial supplement. The ideational function is necessary, but not sufficient. English 306A; Harris

Interpersonal function Phatic communion social contact Communicative mental contact English 306A; Harris

Interpersonal function Phatic The use of language to establish or maintain social relations Sam! Using a name, for instance, in an utterance addressed to the holder of that name.. <CLICK> What does that accomplish? You’re not telling the person his/her name. Well, you are, on one level. But what for? Did they forget it? Do they need that information? No. It’s to reinforce a social bond. It says “I know you, we have history.” English 306A; Harris

Phatic Utterances whose chief function is to establish or maintain contact; much like canine gluteus-maximus reciprocal olfactory analysis. Hi, Hello, yo, … How are you, How’s it going, How’s it hanging, … Live long and prosper, Keep on truckin, Keep it real, … Nice weather, Cold enough for you?, Hope the rain don’t hurt the rhubarb, …. English 306A; Harris

Interpersonal function Communicative The use of language to encode and transmit intentions I will try them. You will see. English 306A; Harris

Interpersonal function Communicative The use of language to encode and transmit intentions I will try them. You will see. English 306A; Harris

Interpersonal function Communicative The use of language to encode and transmit intentions Take, for instance, the utterance, If you will let me be, I will try them. You will see. Ideationally, it’s just a pair of propositions. Communicatively, it’s a surrender, a capitulation, a collapse of my resolve, and a prediction that I won’t like your damn viridescent chow! English 306A; Harris

Communicative Utterances whose chief function is to share mental contents Information Attitudes Worldviews The cat is on the mat. Homer eats crap. Huh? Try them, try them, and you may, I say. My kingdom for a horse. Please put the lid back down. Put the F&^#ing lid down! e = mc2 English 306A; Harris

Phatic and Communicative Sam! If you will let me be, I will try them. You will see. = English 306A; Harris

Phatic and Communicative Every utterance has both phatic and communicative dimensions. English 306A; Harris

Speech Acts & Conversational Maxims J. L. Austin People do things with words beyond asserting truth. We act through speech. H.P. Grice The way people coordinate their speech is very intricate. We follow maxims. English 306A; Harris

Here are a collection of speech events, in a context. English 306A; Harris

Speech acts Locution Illocution Perlocution the utterance of a sentence with specific denotation Illocution the making of a statement, offer, promise, … Perlocution the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence (persuading, entertaining, scaring, …) Confronted with speech events like this, Austin identifies three dimensions. There are three dimensions of every utterance in a language. <CLICK> Locution<CLICK> Illocution and the <CLICK> Perlocution <CLICK> Locution the utterance of a sentence with specific denotation (this is the ideational function) <CLICK> Illocution the making of a statement, offer, promise, … (this is the action the utterance performs) <CLICK> Perlocution the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence (persuading, entertaining, scaring, …) (this is the domain of rhetoric and literary studies: what responses the utterance triggers) Let’s start at the bottom. Perlocution is important, and context is certainly highly relevant, but frankly, rhetoric and literary analysis do much better jobs in these areas; speech-act people don’t do much with it. So we’ll ignore perlocution. <CLICK> <CLICK> English 306A; Harris

Speech acts Locution Illocution Perlocution the utterance of a sentence with specific denotation Illocution the making of a statement, offer, promise, … Perlocution the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence (persuading, entertaining, scaring, …) The illocution, or the “illocutionary force” is the action of an utterance, the chief social function of the utterance. It is the ACT.<CLICK> English 306A; Harris

Speech acts Locution Illocution Perlocution the utterance of a sentence with specific denotation Illocution = the speech act Perlocution the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence (persuading, entertaining, scaring, …) The illocution, or the “illocutionary force” is the action of an utterance, the chief social function of the utterance. It is the ACT.<CLICK>Illocution and speech act are synonyms. English 306A; Harris

Illocutions/ Speech Acts pronouncement Felicity Conditions pronouncement statement confirmation (iconic statement) despisement English 306A; Harris

Illocutions/ Speech Acts Felicity Conditions The physical and social conditions under which a speech act can be performed Here, that there be ground and that Snoopy have the authority (which is really just his own opinion) to despise it. despisement English 306A; Harris

I christen thee “The Good Ship Lollypop”! Felicity Conditions The physical and social conditions under which a speech act can be performed I christen thee “The Good Ship Lollypop”! Now take an act like christening. <CLICK> In order for this act to take place, not only does there need to be a ship and the authority (which is here vested, not just assumed), the ship can’t be named yet (it has to be new), there has to be a ceremony, a bottle of champagne and so on. She could sneak into the shipyard the night before or the night after or even an hour later, and it wouldn’t be a christening. Thirty days in the hole. English 306A; Harris

Acts through speech Try them! Try them! Try them and you may I say! Offer, decline, accept, promise, bet, warn, threaten, suggest, advise, declare, marry, christen, compliment, insult, joke, … Felicity conditions: appropriate intentions; appropriate circumstances; appropriate actions. Try them! Try them! Try them and you may I say! One can also offer, decline, accept, warn, suggest, threaten, insult, assert, etc., … With these acts, No overt cues are necessary. <CLICK> Notice, too, that these can take any form. AND THAT SUPERFICIAL FORM IS NOT ENOUGH. For instance, “Would you like a chocolate?” is superficially a yes/no question, but it’s really an offer. <CLICK> “Try them, try them” is really a pair of commands, but the conditions don’t exist for SIA to order NAN (not a military or corporate superior, not a chef in a kitchen to a member of her staff, etc.). He’s also smiling: iit looks something like a request; in the context of the book, of the relation between SIA and NAN, you might want to call it an insistence. <CLICK>greeting? More of a insistence: stop. Followed by a capitulation, an agreement, a surrender. And a promise. Sam! If you will let me be, I will try them. You will see. English 306A; Harris

Categories of speech acts (Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7) Ritualized social circumstances (thank someone when something has been exchanged, sentence at termination of trial, pronunciation of marriage,…); utterance primarily constitutes act. Constitutive Communicate, or request communication of information (assert facts, question truth of facts, solicit the completion of an assertion, …); utterance primarily engages in trafficing information. Informative Commit self or solicit others to do something (offer assistance, request favour, make a bet, …); utterance primarily concerns future conduct. Obligative English 306A; Harris

Categories of speech acts (Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7) Expressive Declarative thanking, apologizing, … Constitutive sentencing, pronouncing, … Communicate, or request communication of information (assert facts, question truth of facts, solicit the completion of an assertion, …); utterance primarily engages in trafficing information. Informative Commit self or solicit others to do something (offer assistance, request favour, make a bet, …); utterance primarily concerns future conduct. Obligative English 306A; Harris

Categories of speech acts (Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7) Expressive Declarative Assertive Interrogative thanking, apologizing, … Constitutive sentencing, pronouncing, … asserting, describing, … Informative asking Commit self or solicit others to do something (offer assistance, request favour, make a bet, …); utterance primarily concerns future conduct. Obligative English 306A; Harris

Final Exam 7:30 - 10:00 PM! Thursday 16 December RCH 305 I haven’t written the exam yet, so some of the information here, in the grayed out areas, is wrong, taken from an earlier exam. English 306A; Harris

Your 306A Grade Greater of (M1 + M2 + F) OR F i.e., 100% Final, if it helps English 306A; Harris

Categories of speech acts (Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7) Expressive Declarative Assertive Interrogative Directive Commissive thanking, apologizing, … Constitutive sentencing, pronouncing, … asserting, describing, … Informative asking What way is thanking expressive? In what way is pronouncing declarative. What are they constituting? How does describing inform? Asking traffic in information? How does requesting direct an obligation? … Promising solicit an obligation? requesting, ordering, … Obligative promising, offering, … English 306A; Harris

Acts through speech Speech acts: offer, decline, accept, promise, bet, warn, threaten, suggest, advise, declare, marry, christen, compliment, insult, joke, … Felicity conditions: appropriate intentions; appropriate circumstances; appropriate actions. English 306A; Harris

H. P. Grice William James Lectures English 306A; Harris

How to talk Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk-exchange in which you are engaged. Here’s his answer. This is the rule, the super-maxim, that shapes how we talk. We all follow this rule, Grice says, and when we don’t, conversation falls apart. In fact, as I go through Grice’s maxims, you’ll recognize what’s wrong with some people that you know. They fail to follow one or another of these maxims. Since Grice is lecturing, not conversing, and since he’s a philosopher, he actually violates a couple of his own maxims with this definition. It’s too long and obscure. Let’s boil it down. <CLICK> English 306A; Harris

How to talk Coöperate. English 306A; Harris That’s what his principles come down to. People cooperate when they talk. But he charted out this cooperation along four dimensions. <CLICK> English 306A; Harris

How we do, in fact, talk Coöperate. English 306A; Harris That’s what his principles come down to. People cooperate when they talk. But he charted out this cooperation along four dimensions. <CLICK> English 306A; Harris

And how we listen, too Coöperate. English 306A; Harris That’s what his principles come down to. People cooperate when they talk. But he charted out this cooperation along four dimensions. <CLICK> English 306A; Harris

How to talk, more specifically Grice’s Maxims Relation Quality Quantity Manner Be relevant. Be truthful. Be sufficient (but not prolix). Be perspicacious. English 306A; Harris

How to talk and interpret; conversational implicature Grice’s Maxims Not moral or social injunctions Empirically derived principles Maxims that people naturally follow, and generally expect others to follow To speak To understand (conversational implicature) Observable mostly in violation <CLICK>Not moral or social injunctions They have that sense to them, and they work really well as moral injunctions, frankly; but Grice means them just as descriptive: that’s the way people talk, by and large. They are <CLICK> Empirically derived principles That is, they are just maxims that people follow<CLICK> and that they expect others to follow. Maxims that people naturally follow, and generally expect others to follow They follow them when they speak<CLICK> To speak And they follow them when they listen <CLICK> To understand (conversational implicature) Since they are so automatic, though--not exactly tacit, but certainly routinized--they are hard to see. They’re always at work. The best way to illustrate them is in violation<CLICK> Observable mostly in violation English 306A; Harris

Maxim of relation Is there a gas station around here Maxim of relation Is there a gas station around here? (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) Be relevant. A1: Yep, there’s a gas station at King and Weber. [closed] A2: Nope, you’ll have to go all the way to Erb Street; everything’s closed around here because of the anthrax scare. Take the maxim of relation: Be relevant. That’s the first one we followed with the nameless-angst-ridden-narrator and the cat-in-the-hat: what do whiskey and sam-I-am have to do with each other. How is one relevant to the other. Here’s another example. Someone pulls up and asks “Is there a gas station around here?” They’re in a car. They’re probably not just curious. They probably don’t want simple confirmation. They want to know if there’s anywhere they can get gas. They are really saying. (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) In this context, A1 isn’t relevant. It’s factually accurate. It answers the yes/no question. It satisfies all the felicity conditions for a good speech act. But it doesn’t respond cooperatively. A2 is relevant. It tells the driver where she’ll have to go to get gas. English 306A; Harris

Maxim of quality Is there a gas station around here Maxim of quality Is there a gas station around here? (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) Be truthful. Say what you believe to be true. Don’t say what you believe to be false. Take the maxim of quality. Same input. It comes with two facets: Say what you believe to be true. AND Don’t say what you believe to be false. Let’s look at the first one, Say what you believe to be true <CLICK> English 306A; Harris

Maxim of quality Is there a gas station around here Maxim of quality Is there a gas station around here? (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) Be truthful. Say what you believe to be true. Don’t say what you believe to be false. A1: Nope. [ommitting that there is gas bar at the Canadian Tire.] A2: Well, there’s a gas bar, if you just need some gas. If there is a true fact that satisfies the question, you are obliged to give it. Violating this sub-maxim is what people often call lying by omission. If there is no STATION, but there is a gas BAR, that is a required truth. A1 violates the Maxim of quality. A2 satisfies it. English 306A; Harris

Maxim of quality Is there a gas station around here Maxim of quality Is there a gas station around here? (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) Be truthful. Say what you believe to be true. Don’t say what you believe to be false. A1: Nope. [false; there is one] A2: Yep, two lights up on the left there’s a new Petrosaurus Station. Now, for the second one. This is straightforward lying. A1 is a baldface lie. A2 is true, and gives directions besides. English 306A; Harris

Maxim of quantity Is there a gas station around here Maxim of quantity Is there a gas station around here? (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) Provide enough information But not too much A1: Yep. A2: Sure, King and Erb. A3: Yep, King and Erb. They have a sale on gumboots at the hardware store across the street from it, too. Maxim of quantity. It has bracketing submaxims. Say enough, but not too much. A1 isn’t enough. It answers the yes/no question, but not the true question. A3 is too much. The driver doesn’t care about the gumboots, or the hardware store (unless it’s a landmark). A2 is j-u-s-t right. This is the Goldilocks principle. English 306A; Harris

Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here? (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) Be clear Don’t be obscure Don’t be ambiguous Be brief Be orderly The maxims of manner are the most elaborate: Be clear, don’t be obscure, don’t be ambiguous, be brief, be orderly. We’ll take them one at a time. We’ll just take up the violations. The examples we’ve see already, like “sure, at king and erb” are clean, not obscure, unabiguous, and so on. English 306A; Harris

Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here? (=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.) Be clear Yes. Somewhere near the theatre. Don’t be obscure Don’t be ambiguous Be brief Be orderly Yes. Somewhere near the theatre. Violates clarity, because it’s not specific enough. WHERE near the theatre? English 306A; Harris

Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here? (=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger) Be clear Don’t be obscure Yep. Next to the old Smith place. Don’t be ambiguous Be brief Be orderly Yep. Next to the old Smith place. Violates the injunction not to be obscure. The driver needs special information, where the old smith place used to be. Notice this is different from clarity. The theatre presumably has signs, and so on. But you need to have local, specialist information to know that the Smith’s used to live in some house. English 306A; Harris

Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here? (=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger) Be clear Don’t be obscure Don’t be ambiguous Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. Be brief Be orderly Ambiguous: undecidable. English 306A; Harris

Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here? (=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger) Be clear Don’t be obscure Don’t be ambiguous Be brief Sure quite a few. I know where every gas station built in the KW area since the Great War was located. First, there was the Ollie Petrie Service Station at the corner of … Be orderly Too much language. This one is close to the maxim of quantity, but it is different in focus. The maxim of quantity concerns the amount of INFORMATION. Brevity just concerns the amount of language. The two are closely related, and for practical purposes, all violations of one might be violations of the other. But quantity might be violated by a few semantically dense words--jargon--while brevity is only violated by lots of words. English 306A; Harris

Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here Maxim(s) of manner Is there a gas station around here? (=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger) Be clear Don’t be obscure Don’t be ambiguous Be brief Be orderly Sure. At Erb, turn right off King. To get to King, take Westmount, and turn left when you get there. Before that, go three lights down University and turn left at Westmount. First, however, … Sure. At Erb, turn right off King. To get to King, take Westmount, and turn left when you get there. Before that, go three lights down University and turn left at Westmount. First, however, … People expect the order to follow certain structures. For instance, in directions, there’s a convention that they begin where the driver begins, and end where the driver wants to go. But here, there is an order violation. The speaker is going backwards. English 306A; Harris

How to listen (Conversational implicature) [T]hough some maxim is violated at the level of what is said, the hearer is entitled to assume that that maxim, or at least the overall cooperative principle, is observed at the level of what is implicated. English 306A; Harris

Grice’s Maxims The important point: Grice charted the many, many ways we coordinate our speech to each other’s needs and expectations. English 306A; Harris

Intention; figuration All language dialogic (conversational). Grice’s maxims form a baseline of expectations. Figures of thought (tropes) function by violating maxims, deviating from baseline. The ‘first reading’ doesn’t make sense, so hearers figure out the speaker’s intention--not what the utterance means, but what the speaker means by that utterance. English 306A; Harris

Metonymy English 306A; Harris

Metonymy Violates quality English 306A; Harris

Metonymy Violates quality Satisfies relation, quantity, manner English 306A; Harris

Metaphor My love is red, red rose. English 306A; Harris

Metaphor Violates quality My love is red, red rose. English 306A; Harris

Metaphor Violates quality Satisfies relation, quantity, manner My love is red, red rose. Violates quality Satisfies relation, quantity, manner English 306A; Harris

Repetitio Violates manner (brevity) Satisfies relation, My love is red, red rose. Violates manner (brevity) Satisfies relation, quantity, quality English 306A; Harris

Polyptoton Violates manner (brevity) Satisfies relation, quantity, quality English 306A; Harris

Polyptoton Violates manner (brevity) Satisfies relation, quantity, quality English 306A; Harris

Irony Lovely day! English 306A; Harris

Irony Lovely day! Violates quality English 306A; Harris

Irony Lovely day! Violates quality Satisfies relation, quantity, manner English 306A; Harris

Paronomasia English 306A; Harris

Paronomasia Violates manner (clarity) English 306A; Harris

Paronomasia Violates manner (clarity) Satisfies relation, quantity, quality English 306A; Harris

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: What do you read, my lord? English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Words, words, words. English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Words, words, words. Violates quantity and relation (Satisfies quality and mostly manner) English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Between whom? English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Between whom? Violates relation (satisfies quantity, manner, … quality?) English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Violates quantity Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Violates relation Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Violates manner (clarity, brevity, orderliness) Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff Polonius: I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. Quality? On one level, no, since it is all accurate more or less, But on the deeper level Shakespeare wants us to think at, we need to ask is Hamlet “really” violating quality, pretending to be crazy. Or is he genuinely, sincerely, authentically crazy? --Notice that this violates the sincerity condition of a speech act. Is this an assertion, or a falsehood? Or not. English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Now, for the high-brow stuff English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Hamlet I ask to be, or not to be. That is the question, I ask of me. This sullied life, it makes me shudder. My uncle's boffing dear, sweet mother. Would I, could I take my life? Could I, should I, end this strife? Should I jump out of a plane? Or throw myself before a train? Should I from a cliff just leap? Could I put myself to sleep? … To sleep, to dream, now there's the rub. I could drop a toaster in my tub. The rhetorical question. Notice this is a figure. It doesn’t function like a question. It doesn’t seek information. It’s not an interrogative act. It’s not really looking for an answer. Often, it is assertive, proclaiming information. But it might be a warning, too, so it’s Obligatorive/directive. Here, it’s really Constitutive/expressive. Hamlet is expressing doubt. English 306A; Harris Hamlet

Pragmatics Interpersonal function Speech acts Grice’s Maxims Phatic and Communicative Speech acts Informative, Constitutive, and Obligative Grice’s Maxims The coöperative principle (and its ramifications) Speaking and understanding (conversational implicature) English 306A; Harris