Page 62 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 62
Slovenian Lectures
he’s thrifty”, because the language-system makes out thriftiness to be a good
quality (even if it can be considered as a rather dismal one) but it will be far
more difficult to have the same follow-up with avaricious. You can hardly
say “Oh, I rather like him, he’s avaricious” (even if you appreciate the fact
that the person in question spends little). You cannot like avarice: what I
mean is that you cannot say that you like someone and at the same time
call avarice the quality you say you like in him. That does not mean that the
information is not the same in the two cases. But it is the language-system
which imposes one argumentative orientation rather than the other.
***
It is facts like those (of which there are many, many more, I think) which
have brought us to say that argumentation is written into the language-sys-
tem itself, into the most linguistic aspect of the structure of our utteranc-
es. As I have five or ten minutes left, I would like to go back now to my ex-
ample of little and a little and consider an objection which is sometimes
made to me. I have told you that in saying “He’s worked little” or “He’s
worked a little”, the same information was being given. Some people think
that this is not true and that there is an informational difference, a differ-
ence in the facts being described, between “He’s worked little” and “He’s
worked a little”. If, for example, one measures work in terms of the time
spent working, those people tell me that “He’s worked little” indicates less
time spent working than “He’s worked a little”. Let us suppose for example
that “He’s worked little” means one hour of work: then “He’s worked a lit-
tle” will mean, say, two hours. So – this is the objection that is made to me
and which I am going to try to answer in a moment – “He’s worked a little”
means more work than “He’s worked little”.
To justify the idea that the quantity designated by “He’s worked a little”
is superior to the quantity designated by “He’s worked little”, someone once
carried out the following experiment, which seems conclusive, but which,
as I will try to show, in fact, is not. The experiment is this. People were asked
to imagine the following situation. Take two children, Peter and John: Pe-
ter has worked two hours and John has worked one hour. The people, the
experimental subjects, were asked to describe the two children, one as hav-
ing worked little, the other as having worked a little: you must say which
has worked a little and which has worked little. The problem having been set
in that way, all those questioned gave the same answer (I presume that an-
swer is also yours, and it would also be mine): if I have to use the expressions
worked a little and worked little to describe the two children, I will say about
he’s thrifty”, because the language-system makes out thriftiness to be a good
quality (even if it can be considered as a rather dismal one) but it will be far
more difficult to have the same follow-up with avaricious. You can hardly
say “Oh, I rather like him, he’s avaricious” (even if you appreciate the fact
that the person in question spends little). You cannot like avarice: what I
mean is that you cannot say that you like someone and at the same time
call avarice the quality you say you like in him. That does not mean that the
information is not the same in the two cases. But it is the language-system
which imposes one argumentative orientation rather than the other.
***
It is facts like those (of which there are many, many more, I think) which
have brought us to say that argumentation is written into the language-sys-
tem itself, into the most linguistic aspect of the structure of our utteranc-
es. As I have five or ten minutes left, I would like to go back now to my ex-
ample of little and a little and consider an objection which is sometimes
made to me. I have told you that in saying “He’s worked little” or “He’s
worked a little”, the same information was being given. Some people think
that this is not true and that there is an informational difference, a differ-
ence in the facts being described, between “He’s worked little” and “He’s
worked a little”. If, for example, one measures work in terms of the time
spent working, those people tell me that “He’s worked little” indicates less
time spent working than “He’s worked a little”. Let us suppose for example
that “He’s worked little” means one hour of work: then “He’s worked a lit-
tle” will mean, say, two hours. So – this is the objection that is made to me
and which I am going to try to answer in a moment – “He’s worked a little”
means more work than “He’s worked little”.
To justify the idea that the quantity designated by “He’s worked a little”
is superior to the quantity designated by “He’s worked little”, someone once
carried out the following experiment, which seems conclusive, but which,
as I will try to show, in fact, is not. The experiment is this. People were asked
to imagine the following situation. Take two children, Peter and John: Pe-
ter has worked two hours and John has worked one hour. The people, the
experimental subjects, were asked to describe the two children, one as hav-
ing worked little, the other as having worked a little: you must say which
has worked a little and which has worked little. The problem having been set
in that way, all those questioned gave the same answer (I presume that an-
swer is also yours, and it would also be mine): if I have to use the expressions
worked a little and worked little to describe the two children, I will say about
