Making Meaning Manifest

1. Making Meaning Manifest Marilynn Johnson February 26, 2018 University of San Diego San Diego, California

2. I will be theorizing not just about language, but about meaning-making, and the conscious and unconscious things we mean or show, in general Such work inquiry us to ask not only how but why we engage in certain forms of communicative behaviour, and captures the incredible nuance of human interactions: said and meant, linguistic and non-linguistic, determinate and indeterminate

3. Where does meaning come from? • It’s raining (Recanati) • Coffee would keep me awake (Sperber & Wilson) • No vehicles in the park (Hart) • Daddy, I’m thirsty • Marilynn is a sepo

9. meaning-intentions and consciousness • “rational reconstruction” • Gricean instances of meaning that are non-linguistic, and in which some agent displays direct evidence of some fact

10. I think that this ought to seem ludicrous. Real people regularly get things across with their utterances; but real people do not regularly possess, still less act upon, intentions of this sort...notice that an enormous amount would be demanded of hearers, as well as speakers, if such complex intentions really were needed to say things. (Hornsby 2000: 95)

11. ‘Juliet is the sun’ • ‘We are all cremated equal’ (Davidson 2006: 251)? • - Roy: Are you okay? • - Mary: I’m fine, Roy. • - Roy: I would have believed you if you hadn’t said ‘Roy’. (Kecskes 2016; 2014)

12. A young woman Marie, who is in psychotherapy because she is suffering from anorexia nervosa, tells her therapist that her mother has forbidden her to see her boyfriend. Referring to her mother’s injunction, Marie utters: [1)] I won’t swallow that Here ‘swallow’ is being used metaphorically, and Stern suggests that the content of Marie’s utterance (the proposition she expressed) can be paraphrased as

13. [2)] Marie won’t accept her mother’s injunction. Given her eating disorder, it seems significant that Marie chose to frame her comment about her mother’s injunction by using the word ‘swallow’. But once we’ve accessed the metaphorical interpretation it seems that we’ve lost the echoes of meaning that might connect what she is saying to her eating disorder and hence to any problems that she might be having with her mother connected to this disorder. (Bezuidenhout 2001: 33-34)

14. Sperber and Wilson • manifestness is a combination of epistemic strength and salience • the interlocutor “is likely to some positive degree to entertain it and accept it as true” (Sperber and Wilson 2015: 134)

15. Speaker meaning is more “conceptually unified” (117), picks out “the proper object of a philosophical definition or a scientific theory” (117), “does a better job of explaining how utterances are interpreted than a standard Gricean approach” (117) and “makes good sense of our fuzzy intuitions about speaker meaning” (117).

16. In order to mean something by an utterance, the utterer must intend the addressee, 1) to produce a particular response r 2) to think (recognise) that the utterer intends (1) 3) to fulfil (1) on the basis of his fulfilment of (2) (118)

17. In order to mean something by an utterance, the utterer must intend the addressee, 1) to produce a particular response r 2) to think (recognise) that the utterer intends (1) 3) to fulfil (1) on the basis of his fulfilment of (2) (118)

18. “In characterising ostensive communication, we built on the first two clauses of Grice’s definition and dropped the third. This was not because we were willing to broaden the definition of utterer’s meaning—we agreed with Grice that talk of ‘meaning’ is awkward in certain cases—but because it seemed obvious that there is a continuum of cases between ‘meaning that’ (typically achieved by the use of language) and displaying evidence that (in other words, showing) and we wanted our account of communication to cover both” (119)

19. Meaning Showing

20. A second difficulty Grice was aware of with the notion of speaker’s meaning arises when one tries to complete a description of the form: “The speaker meant that ____”. As Grice recognised, it is not uncommon for at least part of the intended meaning to be less than fully determinate, so that the best rendering of it may be an open disjunction of propositions, and hence not itself a proposition. (120)

21. Indeterminate Determinate Meaning Showing

22. Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

23. “What time is the next train to Oxford?” “12.48” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

24. “Who is the tallest pupil in the class?” Pointing, “He is” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

25. Indeterminate Determinate Meaning “What is the time?” Points to a clock 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

26. “I could kill for a glass of water” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

27. Pointing, “What a view!” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

28. Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 Points to menacing clouds on the horizon while out for a walk 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

29. “Juliet is the sun” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

30. Points to the view, “Wow!” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

31. Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 Showing pictures of one’s children 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

32. Indeterminate Determinate Meaning Sharing an Impression 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

33. II. Sperber & Wilson’s Proposal Indeterminate Determinate Meaning Made Manifest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

34. “What time is the next train to Oxford?” “12.48” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

35. “Who is the tallest pupil in the class?” Pointing, “He is” Indeterminate Determinate Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

36. Indeterminate Determinate Meaning “What is the time?” Points to a clock 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Showing

37. Linguistic and non-linguistic content • Does this mean that the distinction between showing that and meaning that is ultimately a distinction between expressing content linguistically and non-linguistically? • 'meaning that' is “typically achieved by the use of language” (119)

38. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

39. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

40. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

41. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

42. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

43. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning 'I’m Australian”, said in an Australian accent Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

44. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Holds up Australian passport Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

45. “What time is the next train to Oxford?” “3 o’clock” Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

46. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning What time is the next train to Oxford? Holds up three fingers Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

47. “Daddy I’m hungry” Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

48. Indeterminate Determinate Determinate Meaning The child’s lips appear parched Non-Linguistic Showing Linguistic

49. - Showing is characterized by Sperber & Wilson as “displaying evidence that” In order to mean something by an utterance, the utterer must intend the addressee, 1) to produce a particular response r 2) to think (recognise) that the utterer intends (1) 3) to fulfil (1) on the basis of his fulfilment of (2) (118)

50. “I’m fine, Roy” • Showing and mental states • “I wash my face an hands before I come I did” • Temporality of meaning vs. showing • wearing an admission pin to the Met