LINGUIST List 14.3105

Thu Nov 13 2003

Review: Pragmatics: Panther & Thornburg (2003)

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  • Geert Br�ne, Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing

    Message 1: Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing

     Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 01:41:31 -0500 (EST)
    From: Geert Br�ne <Geert.Bronearts.kuleuven.ac.be>
    Subject: Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing


    Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. Thornburg, eds. (2003) Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 113.

    Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-2260.html

    Geert Br�ne, Department of Linguistics, University of Leuven (Belgium)

    PURPOSE AND CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

    This volume presents a collection of ten papers, most of which were first presented at a workshop on ''Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing'' at the 7th International Pragmatics Conference in 2000. In the introduction to the volume, the editors describe the general aim of the collected papers as ''contributions to pragmatics from a cognitive linguistics perspective'' (1). Indeed, given the radical redefinition in cognitive linguistics of metaphor and metonymy from the traditional view as figures of speech to a cognitive approach that treats them as central cognitive construal mechanisms pervasive in language and thought, a genuine pragmatic perspective emerges. More specifically in the case of metonymy, the accepted view in cognitive linguistics that metonymy is a reference-point phenomenon (Langacker 1993) in which one element of a cognitive frame or ICM (Idealized Cognitive Models, Lakoff 1987) serves as an access point to a different element in the same frame or to the frame as a whole, implies a pragmatic force for metonymic reasoning. As Gibbs (1999) argues, such a frame-based definition naturally leads to the hypothesis that metonymic reasoning or reference-point reasoning is the driving force behind conversational implicature. Where exactly this interaction between pragmatic inferencing and the metonymic processing of language (Gibbs 1999: 69) is to be situated, is the central question of the volume.

    In the introduction to the book by the editors, Klaus-Uwe Panther and Linda L. Thornburg, present a state of affairs in the cognitively oriented research on metonymy, with specific focus on the interaction with pragmatic inference. The central notions that are clustered in this overview are the conceptual nature of metonymy, the kind of relation that is exploited in metonymy (contingency relation), the strength of that relation, the connection between different types of metonymy (referential, predicational, illocutionary), and the main research question of the volume: the relation between metonymy and pragmatic inferencing in implicatures and explicatures.

    SECTION I: The place of metonymy in cognition and pragmatics

    The volume is divided into four major sections, each focussing on a different aspect of the interaction between metonymy and pragmatic inferencing. Section I opens with a paper on ''Cognitive operations and pragmatic implication'' by FRANCISCO JOSE RUIZ DE MENDOZA IBA�EZ and LORENA P�REZ HERN�NDEZ. The authors provide a detailed theoretical account, in which the role of metaphor and metonymy as cognitive operations in pragmatic implication is explored. More specifically, they argue that metaphoric and metonymic mappings need to be included as mechanisms in the derivation of what is called 'explicature' in Relevance Theory (in contrast to implicature). Explicatures are derived when an incomplete logical form, an assumption schema, is developed into a full proposition (the explicated meaning) through a number of cognitive processes, including disambiguation, saturation, loosening, but also, according to Ruiz de Mendoza and P�rez Hern�ndez, metaphor and metonymyy" In the case of metaphor, the authors argue that the number of potential explicatures correlates with the complexity of the metaphorical mapping structure, ranging from one-correspondence to many-correspondence metaphors (Ruiz de Mendoza 1998), and that the principle of relevance guides the inferential process towards the contextually most relevant explicature. Metonymy, on the other hand, per definition revolves around a one-correspondence mapping between a domain and a subdomain based on salience differences (Croft & Cruse, in press), yielding only one potential explicature. Rather than arguing for a strict division between both mechanisms, the authors illustrate that there is a metaphor-metonymy continuum, which is ''crucial to determining the communicative effects of the explicatures derived by means of metaphoric and metonymic mappings'' (35). In the last part of the paper, more complex patterns are analyzed, including double metonymic mappings and cases of the interaction between metaphor and metonymy in generating explicatures.

    SEANA COULSON and TODD OAKLEY explore the role of metonymy in conceptual integration networks or 'conceptual blends', the theory of which has been developed by Fauconnier & Turner (1998, 2002), Coulson (2000), among others. Blends, according to this framework, are complex representations involving structure from multiple domains (or 'mental spaces') connected via different relations, including (among others) analogical, metaphorical and metonymical mappings. In order to regulate the interaction between different mental spaces and their inter- and inner-space connections, blending theory postulates a number of optimality principles that guide and constrain the integration process. One of the central principles that is often satisfied through the use of metonymic reasoning potential, is that of 'integration', which dictates that representations in the blended space should be manipulable as a single unit. Structure from different mental spaces can be compressed into a single coherent, integrated representation in the blend partly because ''conventional metonymies help speakers to unpack mappings from the compressed element in a blended space to its various counterparts in other spaces in the network'' (77). Through the analysis of highly disparate integration networks, including a newspaper headline, a metaphorical passage from Ernest Hemingway, the English idiom 'Blowing your own Horn' and a sculpture by Viktor Schreckengost, the authors illustrate that metonymically structured blends often involve a trade-off between different optimality principles. The analysis leads the authors to the conclusion that metonymic connections in the blend play a crucial role in providing access to the web of mental spaces that are activated in the interpretation process.

    In the last paper of the first section, ANTONIO BARCELONA explores the metonymic basis of pragmatic inferencing through an analysis of jokes and witty anecdotes. The central question that drives the study is how complex inferential structures can be processed with apparent ease. A locus that is particularly suited for this research question is humor, one of the most elusive types of language use involving complex, often ad-hoc inferences. Barcelona argues that it does not suffice to merely uncover the inferences involved by means of the communicative principles described in pragmatics (e.g. through the violation of the Gricean maxims). Rather, the question needs to be pursued what guides and motivates these inferences, so as to appear natural and effortless. A detailed analysis of the material shows that pre-existing metonymic connections provide essential clues for the hearer/reader towards the most plausible inferential interpretation, and in consequence ''provide the very 'skeleton' of pragmatic inferencing'' (97). This conclusion is very much in line with the insights from the other two papers discussed above. In contrast to Ruiz de Mendoza and P�rez Hern�ndez, however, the cases discussed by Barcelona belong to the realm of pragmatic implicature rather than explicature. By showing that implicature derivation is guided/facilitated by metonymic connections as well, this argument extends the view of metonymy and metaphor to a broader status as ''pragmatic implication-deriving mechanisms''.

    SECTION II: Metonymic inferencing and grammatical structure

    In the first chapter of the section on metonymy in grammatical structure, ANATOL STEFANOWITSCH provides a ''construction-based approach to indirect speech acts''. More specifically, he treats conventionalized indirect speech acts (ISAs) of the type in 'disguised' requests like ''Can you pass the salt?'' as cases of constructions in the sense of Goldberg's Construction Grammar (CG). By means of a number of formal arguments, Stefanowitsch illustrates the (relatively) independent and unpredictable status of conventionalized ISAs in comparison to the direct speech acts they derive from, and to non-conventionalized ISAs with the same illocutionary force. This leads him to the conclusion that they qualify as constructions. However, CG does not treat the constructional lexicon as an unstructured glossary, but rather as a network of interrelated constructions, connected via so-called 'inheritance links'. In order to cover the relationship between direct speech acts and their conventionalized indirect counterparts, Stefanowitsch proposes to add to the existing list of four types of inheritance links one additional type, viz. the metonymy link. On the basis of Panther and Thornburg's theory of speech act metonymies (see next paper to be discussed), it is argued that the metonymic linking type ''allows us to capture the (partial) motivation behind ISA constructions, while at the same time acknowledging their independent status'' (108). The paper closes off with some tentative neurolinguistic evidence (particularly the behavior of people with right hemisphere damage confronted with (in)direct requests) in support of the central claim of the study.

    KLAUS-UWE PANTHER and LINDA L. THORNBURG's paper entitled ''Metonymies as natural inference and activation schemas: The case of dependent clauses as independent speech acts'' analyzes the exceptional status of independent speech acts that have the syntactic form of dependent clauses, like in expressions of surprise ''Why, if it isn't Susan!'' and indirect requests such as ''If you will all be quiet now''. Focussing on independent if-clauses that lack the expected explicit consequent clause, the authors pursue the question of what motivates the particular pragmatic meaning this type of constructions can conventionally get. By means of their own, previously elaborated approach to speech acts as scenarios with metonymic structure (Panther & Thornburg 1998), a classification of conventionalized pragmatic functions of independent if-clauses -constructions in the sense of Goldberg (1995)- is introduced. Basically, three such metonymically motivated functions can be distinguished: first, the deontic use as directives (requests as in ''If you will all be quiet now''), offers, suggestions and wishes; second, expressive use to communicate surprise (as in ''Why, if it isn't Susan!''), disapproval, etc.; and third, an epistemic use for reasoning to an unknown conclusion (as in counterfactual uses like ''If Sonia and I hadn't made love...''). Much in the line of Stefanowitsch (previous paper), Panther and Thornburg conclude that many of the 'independent dependent clauses' functioning as speech acts have a degree of conventionalization (and independence) that grants them the status of construction, without, however, losing their metonymic motivation.

    In the third paper of the section, ''Metonymic pathways to neuter-gender human nominals in German'', KLAUS-MICHAEL K�pcke and DAVID A. ZUBIN explore the systematic (and productive) character of the use of neuter-gender classification for female human beings in German. The study shows that the distribution of these human-reference nouns with neut-gender is not random. Based on Lakoff's (1987) model of metonymic ICMs, the authors argue that these neut-gender nominals trigger a metonymically structured social stereotype. More specifically, nine types of metonymic motivation, each evoking different perspectival metonymic ICMs, are presented that can account for 80% of the collected data. Most of these principles have a clear downgrading character, exploiting negatively valued cultural stereotypes. In the last part, the authors pursue the question to what extent this play on metonymic ICMs for females is exploited for semantic-pragmatic purposes in discourse processes, and more specifically in lexical choice and pronominal anaphoric reference. Two highly disparate text types, an excerpt from a short story by Karl Waggerl and some passages of journalistic writing, are analyzed to illustrate the marked semantic status of the neut-gender nominals.

    SECTION III: Metonymic inferencing and linguistic change

    The two contributions in section III explore the role of metonymy from a diachronic perspective. DEBRA ZIEGELER's paper ''The development of counterfactual implicatures in English. A case of metonymy or M-inference?'' deals with the cognitive mechanisms that build the foundation of counterfactual implicatures in the use of modal expressions expressing ability, like 'was/were able to', 'could', and 'had the ability to'. According to Levinson (1995), a sentence like ''John could solve the problem'' implicates the actuality of the complement clause (John did solve the problem), whereas in the periphrastic alternative ''John had the ability to solve the problem'', non-factuality of the event is inferred (John did not solve the problem). The counterfactual implicature in the latter example, in Levinson's view, is guided by what he calls M-inferences, an inference that accompanies the marked expression in contrastive sets of marked and unmarked alternate expressions. Ziegeler counters that it is highly unlikely that only the relative markedness of an expression leads to contrasting implicatures, and gives several arguments that support that claim. Rather, she argues that counterfactual implicatures developed diachronically as the result of metonymic inferencing. In line with, and in addition to Panther and Thornburg's scenario-approach to metonymy, this counterfactual metonymy can be labelled POTENTIALITY FOR NON-ACTUALITY. By means of a survey of diachronic texts, Ziegeler empirically investigates what (con)textual factors contributed to the development of the counterfactual metonymic implicature. It is concluded that ''counterfactual implicatures have developed from metonymic extensions in past modal verbs, especially with perfect auxiliaries, e.g. 'could have + V-ed', in which the modal clause may stand alone for the entire construction containing a modal clause and followed by an adversative or contrastive clause'' (199), and can hence be treated as a part-for-whole metonymy.

    In the second paper of the section, SHIGEKO OKAMOTO explores the role of ''Metonymy and pragmatic inference in the functional reanalysis of grammatical morphemes in Japanese''. The specific topic of the paper is the reanalysis of complementizers (COMPs) marking subordinate clauses as sentence-final particles (SFPs) with a conventionalized modal meaning. Okamoto focuses on one specific morpheme in Japanese that can be used either as a complementizer or as a sentence-final particle, viz. 'koto'. As a complementizer it marks a clause boundary and indicates an abstract or indirectly perceived event/state. As SFP, it has primarily a modal function, expressing either an exclamation or an order, in what is labeled 'subordinate-clause-as-main-clause constructions' (SCMCCs). The central question is how 'koto' has come to be used as a SFP, and what motivates the development from a COMP to the SFP function. It is argued that the reanalysis has developed from a metonymically motivated conversational implicature (in Panther and Thornburg's frame-based approach) to a conventional implicature, thus yielding the grammaticalization effect. Possible motivations for the reanalysis are situated in the social and rhetorical domain: the use of a subordinate clause is argued ''(1) to foreground the information in the ''original'' complement as the most important part of the message, [and] (2) to bring about certain expressiveness, that is, to perform a given speech act with particular stylistic nuances'' (215).

    SECTION IV: Metonymic inferencing across languages

    The last two chapters of the volume provide a more typological perspective to the study of metonymy, in that they focus on cross-linguistic differences in the application and force of metonymic principles. G�NTER RADDEN and KEN-ICHI SETO's paper on ?Metonymic construals of shopping requests in HAVE- and BE-languages'' starts from the recent insight in cognitive linguistics that indirect speech acts, and more specifically indirect requests, are structured metonymically (Panther and Thornburg, 1998, this volume). The use of indirect requests in different languages is investigated for one specific setting, viz. requests in a shopping scenario. It is shown that different languages have a different metonymic construal of indirect requests, in that they refer to different subevents of the commercial transaction scenario (availability, transfer, reception, resulting possession). This distribution is argued to be related to the typological differences between the languages. For example, there is a correlation between the choice for a specific metonymic reference point in the transaction scenario and the way a language construes possession. Two language groups are distinguished on the basis of this distinct construal: HAVE- and BE-languages. For instance, HAVE-languages tend to metonymically access the availability aspect of the transaction scenario by referring to possession, like in English 'Do you have 40-Watt light bulbs?'. BE-languages, in contrast, typically have EXISTENCE rather than possession as metonymic reference points to availability (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Finnish, Hungarian, etc.). Next to the different distribution in the metonymic construal of the availability aspect of the commercial transaction scenario, both groups also display a distinct metonymic use of the other stages of the scenario (transfer, reception). The differences in the request strategies are linked to different cultural models of politeness (indirectness vs. deference) and a different construal of events (action vs. process).

    The last chapter of the volume, MARIO BRDAR and RITA BRDAR-SZAB�'s contribution on ''Metonymic Coding of Linguistic Action in English, Croatian and Hungarian'' deals with the English use of predicational adjectives for reporting linguistic action (e.g. 'Arthur was brief about his other teachers') and its counterparts in Croatian and Hungarian. These constructions are argued to be based on a MANNER FOR (LINGUISTIC) ACTION predicational metonymy, since they specify the manner in which an action is conducted, but not the verbal action itself. In a crosslinguistic comparison, it is revealed that Croatian and Hungarian exhibit only some of the subtypes that are found in English, and impose more specific constraints on the use of predicational metonymies than in English. In the case of referential metonymies, these constraints do not seem to hold. According to the authors, these crosslinguistic regularities ''seem to indicate that the distinction between referential, predicational and illocutionary metonymies may be an important parameter in establishing a typology of metonymies.'' (251). What is more, a tentative conclusion is proposed that there may be an implicational relationship between the use of referential and predicational metonymies, meaning that a language that makes extensive use of predicational metonymy will also have a wider use of referential metonymy. Other languages will restrict the scope of metonymy primarily to the referential use.

    CRITICAL EVALUATION

    The volume presents an excellent overview of the current debate in the new trend of Cognitive Pragmatics. Given the observation in cognitive linguistics as well as recent pragmatic approaches that a distinction between semantics and pragmatics is no longer tenable, the contributions in the volume together provide a much-needed attempt to 'reconcile' both research traditions. Despite the underlying assumption in recent cognitive linguistic accounts that metonymy is a driving force in inferencing, this interplay had not received sufficient scrutiny until the publication of this volume. The most essential conclusion that can be drawn from this endeavor is that a cognitive linguistic approach in terms of metonymic reasoning does not necessarily preclude a pragmatic approach in terms of conversational implicature. Rather, both approaches can be combined to yield an encompassing, cognitive-functional approach.

    Still, the volume does not present a closed chapter in the research on metonymic reasoning. On the contrary, linking research on cognitive mechanisms and pragmatic inferencing raises the question what guides and constraints the choice for a specific metonymic construal. One possible solution to this problem, proposed by a number of contributors to the volume, is adding a relevance theoretic perspective to the account. This remains an insufficiently addressed question that will have to be the focus of future research. Also, there does not seem to be a consensus among the authors on the exact role of metonymy in the inferential process. Whereas some seem to suggest that all pragmatic inferencing is metonymically driven, others reserve a more specific, well-defined place for metonymy. In my opinion, there is still need for further discussion on the exact scope of metonymy. Nevertheless, this volume promises to be one of the pioneering works in the growing research on the pragmatics-cognition interface.

    REFERENCES

    Coulson, Seana (2000): Semantic Leaps. Frame-shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction. New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

    Croft, William & Alan Cruse (in press): Cognitive Linguistics [Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Fauconnier, Gilles & Mark Turner (1998): ''Conceptual integration networks''. Cognitive Science 22:2, 283-304.

    Fauconnier, Gilles & Mark Turner (2002): The Way We Think. Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

    Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr. (1999): ''Speaking and thinking with metonymy''. K.-U. Panther & G. Radden (eds.), Metonymy in Language and Thought [Human Cognitive Processing 4], 61-76. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Goldberg, Adele (1995): Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure [Cognitive Theory of Language and Culture]. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.

    Lakoff, George (1987): Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Langacker, Ronald W. (1993): ''Reference-point constructions''. Cognitive Linguistics, 4, 1-38.

    Levinson, Stephen C. (1995): ''Three levels of meaning''. F.R. Palmer (ed.), Grammar and meaning: Essays in honor of Sir John Lyons'', 90-115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Linda L. Thornburg (1998): ''A cognitive approach to inferencing in conversation''. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 755-769.

    Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco J. (1998). ''On the nature of blending as a cognitive phenomenon''. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 259-374.

    ABOUT THE REVIEWER

    Geert Br�ne is a PhD student in linguistics at the University of Leuven (Belgium). He is currently preparing a dissertation on a cognitive linguistic approach to humor interpretation (supervised by Kurt Feyaerts). His main research interests are cognitive semantics, cognitive stylistics, (linguistic) humor theories and German linguistics.