Lecture
Authority in conversation: from linguistic norms to moral order
- Date
- Tuesday 21 January 2025
- Time
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.18
Abstract
In this talk, I aim to address the issue of speaker and hearer authority in discourse, engaging with the interesting proposal by Hansen and Terkourafi (2023). In their article, the authors, acknowledging the well-known theoretical problems associated with the notions of speaker meaning and communicative intention, suggest the opportunity to view communication “from the other side” (to use Sbisà’s 2023 phrasing). This involves shifting the focus toward the notion of hearer meaning.
The primary issue with the notion of speaker meaning is its reliance on the speaker’s communicative intention – a concept that cannot serve as a genuine explanatory mechanism insofar as it is inherently private. In other words, since only the speaker has access to their own communicative intentions, this notion seems to grant the speaker unconditional authority in determining intended meaning, making it challenging to account for the hearer’s actual authority in interpreting meaning.
I find the arguments against private communicative intentions not only persuasive but likely insurmountable. In other contexts (Mazzone submitted a, b), I have explored the idea that it is both possible and necessary to develop a different, public conception of communicative intention, inspired by Wittgenstein’s (1953) reflections on mental states. However, in this talk, I intend to focus on a related but distinct aspect: the possibility of reinterpreting the Gricean notion of speaker meaning in a way that does not confer unconditional authority on the speaker. Since human communication is only possible within systems of “rules” (in the broad sense of the word) shared with the hearer, the speaker’s authority is, in fact, conditional – it entails both rights and responsibilities – and it is shared with (and mutually dependent on) the hearer’s authority. In other words, the speaker’s authority to decide what communicative intention to convey is contingent upon their responsibility to make that intention accessible to the hearer, based on the interpretative rules they share.
Building on this revised notion of speaker meaning, I will analyze the criteria provided by Hansen and Terkourafi for characterizing hearer meaning (and, consequently, understanding). I will argue that of the six main factors they identify (I leave aside the final factor (assumptions regarding the speaker’s intentions), which would require a specific analysis), the first three roughly correspond to the shared linguistic authority-responsibility framework we described as existing between speaker and hearer. In contrast, the latter three point to a different type of authority. Hansen and Terkourafi persuasively associate these latter three factors with identity-construction dynamics (see also Terkourafi 2007). These dynamics are linked to what Garfinkel (1964) refers to as the “moral order” (see also Haugh 2013): the system of moral norms through which individual identities are shaped, whether through conformity or opposition.
In conclusion, I will examine some cases (with special reference to Marques 2024) where these processes of identity construction seem to prompt the hearer to disregard the shared rules through which, in principle, a shared meaning is established. In other words, to assert their own identity, the hearer may choose to overlook the communicative intention that the speaker has made accessible through shared rules – with potentially dangerous consequences for social relationships. This supports the argument that it is essential to distinguish between two sets of factors: those that produce the “normal” interpretation, governed by shared rules, and those that represent a deviation, driven by the need for identity construction (but with a final caveat).
Bibliography
Garfinkel, H. 1964. Studies of the routine grounds of everyday activities. Social problems, 11(3), 225-250.
Hansen, M. B. M., & Terkourafi, M. 2023. We need to talk about Hearer's Meaning!. Journal of pragmatics, 208, 99-114.
Haugh, M. 2013. Speaker meaning and accountability in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 48(1), 41-56.
Marques, T. 2024. How slurs enact norms, and how to retract them. Synthese, 203(5), 1-21.
Mazzone, M. submitted a. Communicative intentions: between negotiation of meaning and coordination practices.
Mazzone, M. submitted b. Communicative intentions: private or public? The beetle-in-the-box argument, and the issue of authority.
Sbisà, M. 2023. Intentions from the other side. In M. Sbisà, Essays on speech acts and other topics in pragmatics, 72-89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Terkourafi, M. 2007. Toward a universal notion of face for a universal notion of cooperation. In Kecskés, I., Kecskes, I., & Horn, L. R. (Eds.), Explorations in pragmatics: Linguistic, cognitive and intercultural aspects, 313-344. Mouton de Gruyter.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophische Untersuchungen. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.