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12-07-2016

Re-contextualising Argumentative Meanings: An Adaptive Perspective

Author: Thanh Nyan

Published in: Argumentation | Issue 2/2017

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Abstract

The study of context can benefit greatly from re-examining some of the concepts arising from Anscombre and Ducrot’s argumentation theory (AT) from an adaptive perspective. By focusing on discourse dynamism, AT provides fresh angles from which to view key issues, such as the nature of context triggers; whether context construction is necessarily a background activity; in what way utterances set themselves up as contexts for the upcoming discourse; and the nature of the inferences whereby background knowledge and information are accessed. The need for an adaptive perspective arises in connection with AT’s construal of context construction, which raises but cannot answer certain questions that are crucial to our understanding of context: these questions concern the source of the background knowledge required to understand the argumentative meanings under consideration. An adaptive perspective can offer a non-ad-hoc account of the source of the background knowledge involved, in terms of what pre-existing systems require to support their processing needs, and the information and knowledge they produce. Such an account builds on the assumptions that language can avail itself of processing strategies, skills, forms of know-how utilised by pre-existing systems, and has access to knowledge generated by systems such as perception and action production.

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Ducrot (1982), Anscombre (1995b).

‘Evoked contexts’ refers to contexts triggered by the same utterance (or sequence of utterances forming a communicative unit), and whose function, for that reason, is presumed to contribute to the interpretation of the linguistic string under consideration.

Felicity conditions consist of a number of preparatory conditions, an essential condition, a sincerity condition (Searle 1979: 44–45). What complicates matters is that some of these conditions are presented as satisfied by the illocutionary act (as attested by the self-contradictory nature of *‘Get out, but I don’t want you to’; * ‘Get out, but I know you are unable to’). In other words, we are dealing with a coded form of context, with a validation context which is inherent to the meaning of the act.

See also Searle’s notion of intention-in-action (1983) and Jeannerod’s motor representation (Jeannerod 1994, 2006).

The key point here is not whether researchers take context to be a mental representation, but whether they treat it as such.

Gumperz focuses on inferences triggered by ‘contextual cues’; Sperber and Wilson, on the principle of relevance, which, they claim govern the choice of the processing context; Givón, who equates context with the interlocutor’s mind, on ‘grammar-cued mental operations’.

Both argument and conclusion need not be explicit. In (2) the conclusion is implicit.

This germane to Blakemore’s linguistic constraints on context (Blakemore 1987).

These are but rough translations. There is no implicit claim that the English expressions will be appropriately used in the same co-texts and contexts as their French ‘equivalents’.

A better known alternative to postulating an argumentative orientation in the semantic structure of the utterance consists in appealing to Grice’s maxim of relation to derive the intended implicature (Searle 1979: 46–47).

In the sense that it constitutes, if not their sole, at least, their main level of description.

I will be suggesting, in due course, that if the argumentative act is viewed as a categorisation act, then topoï would correspond to norms presupposed by categorisation.

“Un morphème X est un opérateur argumentatif s’il y a au moins une phrase P telle que l’introduction de X dans P produit une phrase P’, dont le potentiel d’utilisation argumentative est différent de celui de P, cette différence ne pouvant pas se déduire de la différence entre la valeur informative entre P et P’ ” (Ducrot 1983: 10) (“A morpheme X is an argumentative operator if there is at least one sentence P such that the introduction of X in P produces a sentence P’, whose argumentative potential is different from that of P, which difference cannot be deduced from the difference in informative content between P and P’”(My translation)).

A paraphrase of H’s reply in (5) would be something along these lines: In my estimation, the temperature, at its lowest, must be as high as 14 °C.

Given a sequence X même Y, where X and Y stand for arguments, même imposes the reading that X and Y are arguments for the same conclusion C, and that Y is a stronger argument for C than X. In a neutral context, “C’est un ange, et même un archangel”—but not “C’est un archange et même un ange”—would be acceptable (Anscombre 1973).

Again here, it must be assumed that the context is neutral with regard to the argumentative orientation.

For an analysis of prudent (prudent), téméraire (reckless), poltron (cowardly) and courageux (courageous), see Ducrot (1995: 95–98).

AT distinguishes the sequencing in (12) and (13) from the one in (14) and (15), by assigning to them a different type of topos, an intrinsic topos (topos intrinsèque) in the former case, an extrinsic topos (topos extrinsèque), in the latter (Anscombre 1995b: 57–58). The topos in (12) in intrinsic because it links wealth and buying power; the one in (14) is extrinsic which links wealth and unwillingness to lend money. The former is ‘intrinsic’ because there is an affordance relation between being wealthy and buying power. The latter is ‘extrinsic’ because no such relation exists between wealth and unwillingness to lend money. Extrinsic topoï would arise from some ideology S may be seeking to impose.

See also Gumperz’s notion of ‘contextual cue’, which “covers any verbal or nonverbal sign that helps speakers hint at, or clarify, and listeners to make inferences…contextual cues include prosodic features such as stress and intonation, paralinguistic features such as tempo and laughter, choice of code and particular lexical expressions.” (Gumperz 1992: 229).

We shall see in due course that they are not, in fact, functionally equivalent.

Consequents are either supplied by shared topoï, or inferred on the basis of the co-text and/or the situational context, which is about whether to go to the beach.

Or rather the act whereby the property they denote is assigned to an entity.

Utterances and the actions they allow are thus regarded as doubly contextual (Heritage 1984: 103; Akman 2000: 752; Fetzer and Akman 2002: 392; Fetzer 2004: 5–6).

Constraints can merely facilitate the use of certain routes.

This would be the case even when context is regarded as the result of interaction (as in common ground construction).

Contextual knowledge that is not evoked in working memory for interpretive purposes does not function as context.

One would not expect any type of content to provide a basis for an evaluation context.

For paradigm orientation and topos application to be facets of the same process they would have to be simultaneous. If that is the case, simultaneity would be another indication that we are dealing with the same context.

The fact that each of the criteria involved is an insufficient indicator of context, and that all of them are required to determine whether we are dealing with a context is germane to the way processing systems function. Such systems, which have the ability to reach an outcome on the basis of a set of cues, each of which insufficient to constrain the outcome, operate in parallel and have sensitivities to the same range of inputs to varying degrees. Consider this example from visual cognition cited by Kosslyn and Koenig (1995: 47–48): although we perceive colours and orientation independently, many neurons in the visual area respond to both colours and orientation of stimuli to varying degrees. These neurons produce an overlap of information which allows for the emergence of more precise values. Thus, taken together, the multiple cues provided by the set of neurons constitute a ‘better indicator of edges than any single cue’.

These stem from the genome (Edelman 1989: 93).

Other systems include the circulatory, the digestive and the nervous system.

The idea that language is grounded in our neurobiology (Damasio 1994, 2010; Deacon 1997; Edelman 1989; Givón 2005) entails that the language system does not constitute an independent module (Kosslyn and Koenig 1995; Hurley 2001), but largely depends for its functioning on structures and systems already in place prior to its emergence (e.g., memory, category formation, conceptual system, sensorimotor systems supporting action production). The notion arising from cognitive linguistics that meaning is ‘embodied’ stems from a germane view of language, namely that it is “constrained by the biological conditions of the human being including her cognitive abilities’ (Marmaridou 2000: 42). See also Rohrer (2005: 165) who suggests that the sensorimotor cortices have a key role in the ‘semantic comprehension of bodily action terms and sentences.”

Evolution tends to recycle solutions that have proved successful, if the problem under consideration is deemed to be the same (Damasio 1994: 190).

According to Deacon (1997), the capacity for divergent thinking that underlies our ability to shift our attention from egocentric associations (or acting on current stimuli, such as buying an expensive holiday) to allocentric associations (such as planning for the future by saving money) would be responsible for the development of language as a symbolic system.

I will be arguing that experiences arising from a socio-cultural context on which action selection relies emerge at the linguistic level to instantiate constraints on continuation.

This is in line with Givón’s view that ‘in actual communicative behaviour, the grammar does not directly interact with the TEXT. Rather, the grammar interacts with the MIND that produces or interprets the text.’ (Givón 1992: 5).

The need for survival, we recall, applies to a wide range of domains (i.e,. biological, physical, social, personal, inter-personal) (Edelman 198:92; Damasio 1994: 179).

“The notion of somatic marker is applicable not just to levels of cognition but to those earlier stages of evolution. The somatic marker hypothesis offers a mechanism for how brains would execute a value-based selection of images and how that selection would translate in edited continuities of image.”(Damasio 2010:175).

These response-options, as we shall see presently, are part of ‘complex categories’, which are templates for action selection.

The underlying assumption is that the high degree of structural resemblance between topoï and complex categories makes it possible for the former to derive from the latter, in virtue of the complexity argument, which is that “complexity cannot evolve, except by natural selection “(Futuyma 1998: 356).

See Nyan (forthcoming a).

From the standpoint of survival, rapid responses are preferable to perfect ones that require more time (Kock 2004: 22).

Insofar as all the options on offer are not likely to be equally good or equally bad, somatic markers should probably be thought of as presenting positive or negative feeling to varying degrees. This point is important as it further supports the parallel between complex categories and topoï.

The system allows for contingencies to be taken into account.

This is a case of ‘induced-decision making’, as opposed to ‘self-initiated decision-making, which may be regarded as the default case.

According to Damasio (2010: 132),"What we memorize of our encounter with an object’ includes ‘the previously acquired memory pertinent to the object", that is, among other things, “the stances and actions experience has marked as appropriate responses to that object”.

For further details, see Nyan (forthcoming b).

Motor intention is functionally equivalent to Searle’s intention-in-action (Jeannerod 2006: 59). Searle (1983: 92–3) distinguishes between a ‘prior intention’, formed in advance of the action, but whose presence is not necessary for the action to be intentional), and an intention-in-action, which is inherent in the action, as its mental component (with the other component being the physical movement).

Rather than directly from the process, the constraint would derive its content from a representation of it, one provided by ‘brain maps’. For monitoring purposes, the brain generates maps of internal as well as of external entities and events (Damasio 2010: 17–18; 132).

What sets the utterance act apart from bona fide intentional actions is the fact that its production is not an end in itself, but serves the further goal of bringing about an illocutionary act. Insofar as illocutionary acts are not physically separate acts from utterance acts, what type of illocutionary act may be intended can be specified in the motor intention as part of the means—linguistic in this case—by which the act is to be carried out.

This view of utterance interpretation aas including a simulation of utterance production is germane to the model proposed by Jeannerod and Anquetil to account for how one “can understand the action others perform” (Jeannerod and Anquetil 2008: 356).

This view of utterance interpretation as including a simulation of utterance production is germane to the model proposed by Jeannerod and Anquetil to account for how one “can understand the actions others performs” (Jeannerod and Anquetil 2008: 356).

Such linkage would include the elements standing in the causal relation to which it corresponds. Insofar as the linkage would result from a generalization process, the elements involved would be in an un-instantiated form.

As already mentioned, the brain, for monitoring purposes, generates maps of internal as well as of external entities and events (Damasio 2010: 17–18; 132). These maps, which are continuously generated, are discarded unless they serve an adaptive purpose. Another point about these maps that concern us is the fact that their representation of an entity or action includes a representation of the production apparatus. Thus, the brain map for an object would include a representation of the sensory-motor activities involved in its perception, and the brain map for an action, a representation of its production apparatus. As a form of action, the act of utterance would, accordingly, also have a representation of the motor intention, as part of its brain map.

In the construction of the evaluative context, the argumentative act and propositional content contribute to different aspects of the relevant topos: its un-instantiated structure and the content required to instantiate that structure. In the case of the interpretive context, the argumentative act gives rise to an oriented paradigm, and the operator, introduces specifications relating to that same paradigm.

The assumption here is that that such foregrounding need not be dependent on a theoretical decision. Indeed, it is hardly surprising that a speech act, which pertains to the discourse (or text) level, should have context construction as its goal. A key concern of interpretation at that level is metalinguistic, in that it is about bridging the inferential gap between utterances, a process which involves context construction.

So far, it appears that propositional contents and constraints on continuation correlate with context accessing, while argumentative acts and operators, which operate at the discourse level, are associated with context construction.

The commonly held assumption in the case of the prior process is that the trigger is linked to a knowledge source by virtue of being associated with a content which pertain to a store of similar contents.

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Title: Re-contextualising Argumentative Meanings: An Adaptive Perspective
Author: Thanh Nyan
Publication date: 12-07-2016
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Argumentation / Issue 2/2017
Print ISSN: 0920-427X
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8374
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-016-9405-7

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