Page 53 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 53
Lecture III
To show that this argumentative value given to but is specific and pe-
culiar, I am going to try to imagine other possible ways of understanding
the connective. A certain number of my American colleagues say that one
need only bring in a notion which for ten or so years has had a lot of success
in the United States: the notion of implicature. That notion is claimed to
make argumentation theory unnecessary. To begin, let me say a word on the
notion of implicature. [...] I think I used the notion [or its French equiva-
lent] at a time when it was not yet fashionable. Well then, what is an impli-
cature? An implicature is information necessary for a given utterance to be
in conformity with the general rules governing discourse behaviour. We all
know that one cannot say any thing at any time: there are a certain number
of norms or maxims which govern or command discourse. I am not going
to say, all of a sudden, “The weather’s beautiful” (although I have just used
that sentence a good ten or so times as a linguistic example). I am not go-
ing to interrupt my lecture to say: “The weather’s beautiful”. Indeed, there
is a rule according to which, when one says something, that thing must be,
as one often says, relevant, that is to say must have some bearing on the ut-
terance-situation. So I cannot say to you “The weather’s beautiful” with-
out implying that given the utterance-situation, I have reasons to say so to
you. One of the possible reasons for saying “The weather’s beautiful” could
be the intention of suggesting that we go for a walk (but one can imagine
many others, so long as they make the utterances conform with the norm
of discourse according to which our utterances must be relevant to the sit-
uation). When you have to interpret my hypothetical “The weather’s beau-
tiful”, you will always imagine some reason of that kind, for example that I
wanted to suggest going for a walk to you, intention which thus becomes
an implicature from my utterance. For the American linguists I am allud-
ing to, what I call argumentativity is simply implicature: in at least a certain
number of circumstances, the utterance “The weather’s beautiful” implies
that one would like to go for a walk because otherwise it would not be rel-
evant to utter it. According to the objection made against me, the but con-
nective serves, as they say, to defeat the implicature. I told you “The weath-
er’s beautiful”. You have concluded that I wanted to go for a walk, because
otherwise my utterance would not be relevant and would not conform to
discourse norms. In adding “but I’m tired”, I am simply trying to defeat that
predictable implicature.
I would like to show you now that this description which aims at de-
priving the notion of argumentation of its usefulness is wholly insufficient
in a great number of cases. In the example I took, it is just about sufficient
To show that this argumentative value given to but is specific and pe-
culiar, I am going to try to imagine other possible ways of understanding
the connective. A certain number of my American colleagues say that one
need only bring in a notion which for ten or so years has had a lot of success
in the United States: the notion of implicature. That notion is claimed to
make argumentation theory unnecessary. To begin, let me say a word on the
notion of implicature. [...] I think I used the notion [or its French equiva-
lent] at a time when it was not yet fashionable. Well then, what is an impli-
cature? An implicature is information necessary for a given utterance to be
in conformity with the general rules governing discourse behaviour. We all
know that one cannot say any thing at any time: there are a certain number
of norms or maxims which govern or command discourse. I am not going
to say, all of a sudden, “The weather’s beautiful” (although I have just used
that sentence a good ten or so times as a linguistic example). I am not go-
ing to interrupt my lecture to say: “The weather’s beautiful”. Indeed, there
is a rule according to which, when one says something, that thing must be,
as one often says, relevant, that is to say must have some bearing on the ut-
terance-situation. So I cannot say to you “The weather’s beautiful” with-
out implying that given the utterance-situation, I have reasons to say so to
you. One of the possible reasons for saying “The weather’s beautiful” could
be the intention of suggesting that we go for a walk (but one can imagine
many others, so long as they make the utterances conform with the norm
of discourse according to which our utterances must be relevant to the sit-
uation). When you have to interpret my hypothetical “The weather’s beau-
tiful”, you will always imagine some reason of that kind, for example that I
wanted to suggest going for a walk to you, intention which thus becomes
an implicature from my utterance. For the American linguists I am allud-
ing to, what I call argumentativity is simply implicature: in at least a certain
number of circumstances, the utterance “The weather’s beautiful” implies
that one would like to go for a walk because otherwise it would not be rel-
evant to utter it. According to the objection made against me, the but con-
nective serves, as they say, to defeat the implicature. I told you “The weath-
er’s beautiful”. You have concluded that I wanted to go for a walk, because
otherwise my utterance would not be relevant and would not conform to
discourse norms. In adding “but I’m tired”, I am simply trying to defeat that
predictable implicature.
I would like to show you now that this description which aims at de-
priving the notion of argumentation of its usefulness is wholly insufficient
in a great number of cases. In the example I took, it is just about sufficient
