Truth and Infelicity
"Infelicity” is a portmanteau term that Austin favored for the variety of the misfortunes that can beset our attempts to do things with words. An infelicity may mar or compromise or completely undermine the warning or promise or command we are trying to utter. A useful taxonomy of infelicities appears at the beginning of HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS (Lecture II), to which I direct the interested reader.
My interest in what follows is with the ways infelicities can affect the truth value ( and illocutionary force ) of our utterances. This is a big topic that would not be exhausted by a score of dissertations, so perforce my efforts will have a narrow focus, and the “big picture” will often be out of focus. But the big picture includes understanding how the descriptive/evaluative notion of truth actually functions in a natural language like English. A project worth spilling a little ink over, I think.
As part of this project, in another place, I have begun to investigate how grammatical flaws affect the truth value and illocutionary force of utterances. No general conclusions can be drawn at this point, but I have been surprised to find how tolerant users of natural languages are of many types of grammatical error. Someone who reports, for example, “each of these books have a dust jacket” is allowed to have said something true if each of the books referred to in fact has a dust jacket. The conspicuous solecism of pairing a singular subject with a plural verb form is not regarded as compromising the fact that he has truly reported that all the books in question have dusk jackets.
In this place, I have set myself the task of beginning to look at how a speaker’s use of an “inappropriate” referring expressions affects the truth value and illocutionary success of his utterance. I shall confine my attention to referring expressions that are being used to identify someone present at the time of speaking. These expressions that are presumed to have what linguists call “situational reference”. I shall explain what I believe is comprised in the use on an “inappropriate” referring expressions.
Suppose Bill and I wish to talk about a woman who is sitting in plain sight about 30 feet away from us. How can we refer to her? If both of us know her name, then we can use her name ( “Susan” ) to refer to her. Or, if there is no other woman present to confuse the reference, we can use the pronoun “she.” Or we could the noun phrase “that woman” ( perhaps accompanied by a nod or a gesture ). Or the description “the woman sitting over there on the terrace.”
The use of the name “Susan” to refer to this woman would be inappropriate if her name is not Susan. The use of “she” or “that woman” would be inappropriate if the person were actually a man. The description “the woman sitting on the terrace” would be inappropriate if the person were actually sitting next to, but not on, the terrace. In general, a speaker’s use of expression in an attempt to refer to someone immediately present is an inappropriate use if the term does not apply to the person in any of the ways just enumerated.
It is obvious that the inappropriate use of a referring expression can completely sabotage the meaning and illocutionary success of an utterance. “That woman is Russian,” said in plain view of several burly men standing at the bar, identifies no one and conveys no clear message.
In some cases, though, the inappropriate use of an referring expression does not necessarily lead to illocutionary failure. I tried to exhibit such a case in a previous post ( “Trouble at the Pussycat Lounge” ). In that example, a speaker’s attempt to identify the woman he intends to speak about did not fail, despite his use of the mistaken desription “the woman drinking champagne,” because both listener and speaker shared the very reasonable belief that the woman was drinking champagne ( and no other woman was ). The woman was drinking a clear liquid from a champagne flute. And even if the listener had had some special reason to doubt that the woman was actually drinking champagne from the flute, he quite naturally took the speaker’s use of “the woman drinking champagne” to be situationally equivalent to the wordier, more guarded expression “the woman who appears to be drinking champagne from a flute.” There was in the circumstances no confusion in anyone’s mind as to the intended referent.
Nevertheless, although we grant that the utterance was fully successful as a warning, we are disinclined to say that the speaker’s utterance “the woman drinking champagne over there is carrying a gun” is true---or, for that matter, false. It’s true, we agree, that the woman I believed to be and spoke of as “drinking champagne” was carrying a gun. But that true proposition is not said the one I uttered. My way of referring to her clearly assumes a misdescription of her as a champagne drinker. Arguably, I didn’t make a false statement, either, by alleging anything false about the woman in question. She was in fact carrying a gun, as I asserted, but not drinking champagne, as I assumed.
[to be continued]
"Infelicity” is a portmanteau term that Austin favored for the variety of the misfortunes that can beset our attempts to do things with words. An infelicity may mar or compromise or completely undermine the warning or promise or command we are trying to utter. A useful taxonomy of infelicities appears at the beginning of HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS (Lecture II), to which I direct the interested reader.
My interest in what follows is with the ways infelicities can affect the truth value ( and illocutionary force ) of our utterances. This is a big topic that would not be exhausted by a score of dissertations, so perforce my efforts will have a narrow focus, and the “big picture” will often be out of focus. But the big picture includes understanding how the descriptive/evaluative notion of truth actually functions in a natural language like English. A project worth spilling a little ink over, I think.
As part of this project, in another place, I have begun to investigate how grammatical flaws affect the truth value and illocutionary force of utterances. No general conclusions can be drawn at this point, but I have been surprised to find how tolerant users of natural languages are of many types of grammatical error. Someone who reports, for example, “each of these books have a dust jacket” is allowed to have said something true if each of the books referred to in fact has a dust jacket. The conspicuous solecism of pairing a singular subject with a plural verb form is not regarded as compromising the fact that he has truly reported that all the books in question have dusk jackets.
In this place, I have set myself the task of beginning to look at how a speaker’s use of an “inappropriate” referring expressions affects the truth value and illocutionary success of his utterance. I shall confine my attention to referring expressions that are being used to identify someone present at the time of speaking. These expressions that are presumed to have what linguists call “situational reference”. I shall explain what I believe is comprised in the use on an “inappropriate” referring expressions.
Suppose Bill and I wish to talk about a woman who is sitting in plain sight about 30 feet away from us. How can we refer to her? If both of us know her name, then we can use her name ( “Susan” ) to refer to her. Or, if there is no other woman present to confuse the reference, we can use the pronoun “she.” Or we could the noun phrase “that woman” ( perhaps accompanied by a nod or a gesture ). Or the description “the woman sitting over there on the terrace.”
The use of the name “Susan” to refer to this woman would be inappropriate if her name is not Susan. The use of “she” or “that woman” would be inappropriate if the person were actually a man. The description “the woman sitting on the terrace” would be inappropriate if the person were actually sitting next to, but not on, the terrace. In general, a speaker’s use of expression in an attempt to refer to someone immediately present is an inappropriate use if the term does not apply to the person in any of the ways just enumerated.
It is obvious that the inappropriate use of a referring expression can completely sabotage the meaning and illocutionary success of an utterance. “That woman is Russian,” said in plain view of several burly men standing at the bar, identifies no one and conveys no clear message.
In some cases, though, the inappropriate use of an referring expression does not necessarily lead to illocutionary failure. I tried to exhibit such a case in a previous post ( “Trouble at the Pussycat Lounge” ). In that example, a speaker’s attempt to identify the woman he intends to speak about did not fail, despite his use of the mistaken desription “the woman drinking champagne,” because both listener and speaker shared the very reasonable belief that the woman was drinking champagne ( and no other woman was ). The woman was drinking a clear liquid from a champagne flute. And even if the listener had had some special reason to doubt that the woman was actually drinking champagne from the flute, he quite naturally took the speaker’s use of “the woman drinking champagne” to be situationally equivalent to the wordier, more guarded expression “the woman who appears to be drinking champagne from a flute.” There was in the circumstances no confusion in anyone’s mind as to the intended referent.
Nevertheless, although we grant that the utterance was fully successful as a warning, we are disinclined to say that the speaker’s utterance “the woman drinking champagne over there is carrying a gun” is true---or, for that matter, false. It’s true, we agree, that the woman I believed to be and spoke of as “drinking champagne” was carrying a gun. But that true proposition is not said the one I uttered. My way of referring to her clearly assumes a misdescription of her as a champagne drinker. Arguably, I didn’t make a false statement, either, by alleging anything false about the woman in question. She was in fact carrying a gun, as I asserted, but not drinking champagne, as I assumed.
[to be continued]
posted by Macuquinas d' Oro at 10:08 AM
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