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from its independently observed or inferred effects. This pattern of inference is generally not available to an audience trying to recognise a communicator’s infor-mative intention. As we have seen, the informative effects of communication are normally achieved, if at all, via recognition of the informative intention. Hence, it seems, the audience cannot first observe or infer these effects, and then use them to infer the informative intention. However, the problem is not that it is hard to come up with hypotheses about what the communicator might have intended to convey: it is that too many hypo-theses are possible. Even a linguistic utterance is generally full of semantic ambi-guities and referential ambivalences, and is open to a wide range of figurative interpretations. For non-coded behaviour there is, by definition, no predetermined range of information it might be used to communicate. The problem, then, is to choose the right hypothesis from an indefinite range of possible hypotheses. How can this be done? First, it is easy enough to infer that a certain piece of behaviour is communicative. Communicative behaviour has at least one characteristic effect which is achieved before the communicator’s informative intention is recognised: it overtly claims the audience’s attention. Grice’s fundamental idea in his William James Lectures is that once a certain piece of behaviour is identified as communicative, it is reasonable to assume that the communicator is trying to meet certain general standards. From knowledge of these general standards, observation of the communicator’s behaviour, and the con-text, it should be possible to infer the communicator’s specific informative inten-tion. Grice, talking only of verbal communication, argues,
DOI link for from its independently observed or inferred effects. This pattern of inference is generally not available to an audience trying to recognise a communicator’s infor-mative intention. As we have seen, the informative effects of communication are normally achieved, if at all, via recognition of the informative intention. Hence, it seems, the audience cannot first observe or infer these effects, and then use them to infer the informative intention. However, the problem is not that it is hard to come up with hypotheses about what the communicator might have intended to convey: it is that too many hypo-theses are possible. Even a linguistic utterance is generally full of semantic ambi-guities and referential ambivalences, and is open to a wide range of figurative interpretations. For non-coded behaviour there is, by definition, no predetermined range of information it might be used to communicate. The problem, then, is to choose the right hypothesis from an indefinite range of possible hypotheses. How can this be done? First, it is easy enough to infer that a certain piece of behaviour is communicative. Communicative behaviour has at least one characteristic effect which is achieved before the communicator’s informative intention is recognised: it overtly claims the audience’s attention. Grice’s fundamental idea in his William James Lectures is that once a certain piece of behaviour is identified as communicative, it is reasonable to assume that the communicator is trying to meet certain general standards. From knowledge of these general standards, observation of the communicator’s behaviour, and the con-text, it should be possible to infer the communicator’s specific informative inten-tion. Grice, talking only of verbal communication, argues,
from its independently observed or inferred effects. This pattern of inference is generally not available to an audience trying to recognise a communicator’s infor-mative intention. As we have seen, the informative effects of communication are normally achieved, if at all, via recognition of the informative intention. Hence, it seems, the audience cannot first observe or infer these effects, and then use them to infer the informative intention. However, the problem is not that it is hard to come up with hypotheses about what the communicator might have intended to convey: it is that too many hypo-theses are possible. Even a linguistic utterance is generally full of semantic ambi-guities and referential ambivalences, and is open to a wide range of figurative interpretations. For non-coded behaviour there is, by definition, no predetermined range of information it might be used to communicate. The problem, then, is to choose the right hypothesis from an indefinite range of possible hypotheses. How can this be done? First, it is easy enough to infer that a certain piece of behaviour is communicative. Communicative behaviour has at least one characteristic effect which is achieved before the communicator’s informative intention is recognised: it overtly claims the audience’s attention. Grice’s fundamental idea in his William James Lectures is that once a certain piece of behaviour is identified as communicative, it is reasonable to assume that the communicator is trying to meet certain general standards. From knowledge of these general standards, observation of the communicator’s behaviour, and the con-text, it should be possible to infer the communicator’s specific informative inten-tion. Grice, talking only of verbal communication, argues,
ABSTRACT
Our talk exchanges . . . 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. . . . at each stage, some possible conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to observe, namely: 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.
