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Title:
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Metamessages of denial: the pragmatics of English negation
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Author:
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Alyson Pitts
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Cambridge
, Department of Engineering
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Degree Date:
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2009
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Pragmatics
Semantics
Text/Corpus Linguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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English
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Director(s):
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Kasia Jaszczolt
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Abstract:
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This dissertation presents a part rational, part empirical study of negation in conversation. Assisted by speech data from the International Corpus of English (GB), I propose a new typology of negation in English, based on the discourse status of material targeted by the negative operator. This enables a fresh perspective on the varied use of negation in discourse, and also casts some new light on so-called 'metalinguistic negation'.
Following an outline of the dissertation in chapter 1, chapter 2 lays the theoretical foundations by comparing negation in logic with its variable communicative effects in conversation. Chapter 3 then explores recent literalist and contextualist stances on 'saying' and 'meaning' in post-Gricean pragmatics, giving rise in turn to a modified schema recognising three notional tiers of what is said within any discourse setting which incorporates a sub-propositional component. In short, these tiers approximate to (A) the level of speech itself; (B) the conventional meaning of the words uttered; and (C) one of many diffuse (implied) meanings derived within context. When applied to the material within the remit of the negation operator, these communicative tiers form the basis for a new typology of discourse negation; subsequently put to empirical test in chapter 4, in which all negative tokens in the spoken component of ICE-GB (realised by the primary negator 'not' or the compressed enclitic '-n't') provide a means to evaluate the applicability of this scheme in everyday discourse.
Chapter 5 then explores a key account of negation promoted by Horn (1985); grounded in a 'pragmatic ambiguity' distinguishing between ordinary, truth-functional ('descriptive') and marked ('metalinguistic') uses of negation. This is followed by attempts to better understand the phenomena involved in this apparent duality in chapter 6, by inviting comparisons with the revised typology introduced and explored earlier in chapters 3 and 4. This reconciliation between the different schemes of negation uncovers new and important ways of explaining Horn's account of marked, metalinguistic negation as non-semantic in character – and also brings to light two markedly distinct definitions of 'metalinguistic' negation within the extant literature. Chapter 7 then reviews recent studies featuring intonation experiments designed to assess the purported ambiguity of negation, but key theoretical and methodological caveats emerge when interpreting the results of both studies. This highlights in turn certain pitfalls encountered when seeking to verify (or indeed falsify) rule-based accounts of negation in use – not least when we bear in mind the fluidity and flexibility of 'negation' itself.
The dissertation concludes in chapter 8 with a summary of the main achievements and arguments set forth, in which we reject an outright ambiguity in negation.
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