Page 62 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 62
What Do We Know about the World?
points may be expressed through one utterance. Ducrot’s position is
even more radical; according to him every utterance could be analyzed
in at least two uttering positions. For example, let us take the utterance
(13) This fence is not red.
The speaker of this utterance presents, roughly speaking, two utter-
ers:
- the first one (U1) who affirms that the fence is red, and
- the second one (U2) opposing his/her affirmation.
The speaker, as the one who is responsible for the utterance, mer-
ges with U2.
But then, what makes it possible to proceed in this fashion? What
gives us the right to distinguish between several uttering positions within
a single utterance? In the case of (13), for example, the very fact that there
are no fences that are non-red, non-yellow, and non-brown. Of course, a
fence could be described as non-red, non-yellow, or non-brown, but such a
description wouldn’t give us any idea of the real colour of the fence. There-
fore, if somebody is affirming that, X is not ... he must be objecting to
somebody who is affirming the contrary, namely that, X is ... (which, of
course, does not mean that affirmations cannot be polyphonic: when one
says, “This fence is red”, one could well be affirming something that some-
one else has denied).
This may be too “ontological” an argument, so let me give you an-
other example, this time from the philosophy of language. Some time
ago (Žagar, 1991a), I tried to analyse explicit performatives in terms of
polyphonic analysis. Namely, I thought that performative utterances
like:
(14) I promise.
were extremely strange. You could of course object that such an isolated
expression was taken out of the context, so let us examine the utterance
(14) in one of its possible “contextualised” forms:
(14’) I promise to come.
Unfortunately the utterance still seems very strange as well. I can
hardly imagine someone saying (14’) just like that, out of the blue. Again,
you could object – and with good reason – that the utterance has been
taken out of context, and that the locutor is probably responding to a
question such as:
(15) Are you coming?
OK, now we have the minimal immediate context, but I still have a
lot of trouble digesting dialogical linkages like:
points may be expressed through one utterance. Ducrot’s position is
even more radical; according to him every utterance could be analyzed
in at least two uttering positions. For example, let us take the utterance
(13) This fence is not red.
The speaker of this utterance presents, roughly speaking, two utter-
ers:
- the first one (U1) who affirms that the fence is red, and
- the second one (U2) opposing his/her affirmation.
The speaker, as the one who is responsible for the utterance, mer-
ges with U2.
But then, what makes it possible to proceed in this fashion? What
gives us the right to distinguish between several uttering positions within
a single utterance? In the case of (13), for example, the very fact that there
are no fences that are non-red, non-yellow, and non-brown. Of course, a
fence could be described as non-red, non-yellow, or non-brown, but such a
description wouldn’t give us any idea of the real colour of the fence. There-
fore, if somebody is affirming that, X is not ... he must be objecting to
somebody who is affirming the contrary, namely that, X is ... (which, of
course, does not mean that affirmations cannot be polyphonic: when one
says, “This fence is red”, one could well be affirming something that some-
one else has denied).
This may be too “ontological” an argument, so let me give you an-
other example, this time from the philosophy of language. Some time
ago (Žagar, 1991a), I tried to analyse explicit performatives in terms of
polyphonic analysis. Namely, I thought that performative utterances
like:
(14) I promise.
were extremely strange. You could of course object that such an isolated
expression was taken out of the context, so let us examine the utterance
(14) in one of its possible “contextualised” forms:
(14’) I promise to come.
Unfortunately the utterance still seems very strange as well. I can
hardly imagine someone saying (14’) just like that, out of the blue. Again,
you could object – and with good reason – that the utterance has been
taken out of context, and that the locutor is probably responding to a
question such as:
(15) Are you coming?
OK, now we have the minimal immediate context, but I still have a
lot of trouble digesting dialogical linkages like:
