Dianne Rae E.

Siriban
MA Comparative Literature
95-23533

1st Writing Assignment in Philo 295

Philosophy of Language
Professor Ciracio Sayson
August 12, 2006

When People Mean:

A Reading of Grice’s Theory of Meaningnn
and its implications on Art and Literature

In his paper “Meaning,” Grice includes utterer’s intention at the core of the meaning of

statements. His explanations and further exemplifications lead me to believe that Grice at least

thought of the utterer’s intention as the force that directs the meanings in statements. His paper is

an argument against established causal theories of language and the idea made in these theories

that meaning is conditioned in people via consistent use and practice (in Martinich, 74).

His initial explanation of utterer’s intention alone makes me believe that Grice does

relegate meaning to the realm of pragmatics, since meaning, for him, is dependent on factors

beyond the mere sounds and words that constitute a sentence, nor is meaning simply constituted

by signs and symbols within an utterer’s act of communication (utterance) alone. I shall explain

further how I understand his arguments.

Grice initially expressed, as one of his concerns, that the meanings of utterances may be

deduced from the utterer’s use of signs to make known his intention on a particular occasion.

However, to exemplify nonnatural meaning or “meaningnn”, the existence of an utterer’s intention

is not enough. Rather, the existence of an intended audience to which the utterance is directed,

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and the audience’s recognition of the intention are necessary components to complete the

concept of meaningnn.

However, Grice warns that simply having an intended audience and effecting a certain

belief or effect in the audience is not enough to show meaningnn, nor is it simply proven by the

audience’s recognition of the utterer’s intention. There is non-natural meaning in an utterance or

if it induces in its audience an effect over which the audience has control of, or if the audience is

merely given a “reason” for believing the utterer’s intention to be symptomatic of something. In

other words:

natural meaning = x meant something; whereas

nonnatural meaning = someone meant something by x (76).

For example, I come across my boyfriend’s cellphone hidden underneath the beddings

and I discover in it some very explicit text messages from another woman. Natural meaning

takes place when I think that someone is flirting with him. However, there is non-natural

meaning in his act of hiding the cellphone from me. The act may give me reason to believe that

he is cheating on me or that he is playing a really bad practical joke on me, and so on.

Unlike in natural meaning—i.e. the meaning of the text messages for me, where I am

compelled to automatically conclude something by logic, scientific evidence, reflex, etc.—

nonnatural meaning or meaningnn as circumscribed in my recognition of my boyfriend’s act of

hiding his cellphone induces me to think and process the information until I make sense of it as

an act of “betrayal,” a practical joke, or simply a coincidence and therefore an insignificant

circumstance, or something else.

To sum up Grice’s explanation of nonnatural meaning, he said that the following

premises are required for the existence of meaningnn: (1) an utterance imbued with the utterer’s

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intention, (2) an audience for which the utterance is intended, (3) the audience’s recognition of

the intention, (4) the reason for the audience to believe the utterance as a means to convey the

utterer’s intention.

The question that has to be asked next is whether there can be meaning when the utterer’s

intention and the audience’s recognition of the intention does not coincide (as is one of the many

issues that critics of art and literature are currently preoccupied with). To this Grice simply

answers that our use of language is guided by certain conventions. If, by chance, an utterer uses a

word or language itself in an unconventional way, it is natural for us to try to find out the reasons

for this deviation by looking at the context in which the utterance was made.

This last point, however vague, is what convinces me that Grice’s view of meaning,

particularly meaningnn, relegates the whole matter to pragmatics.

I am reminded of a personal experience which very much relates to this idea. About a

month ago I was stumped when one of my students, upon being questioned if he had made a

particular requirement all by himself, answered me with: “Word.” I heard the expression again in

an Alicia Keys song, and then in a TV sitcom. I finally got really curious and asked a friend who,

just my luck, is quite exposed to RnB music. He confirmed for me that “word” in ghetto lingo or

“rapper terms” is synonymous to “really” or “true” as it might have come from the phrase “you

have my word.”

For further elucidation, I would like to cite one of Chris Ragg’s blog entries, entitled

“Meaning In Art” (from Mumblings and Grumblings), wherein he used the Gricean theory of

meaningnn as a framework for discussing works of art as meaningful not only because of their

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physical compositions. He cites a theoretical circumstance that may serve as a springboard for

talking about utterer’s intention in art:

“Do Van Gogh’s paintings have meaning simply in virtue of their physical
composition? I believe the correct answer is no, they do not. If by some
[archeological] miracle, an object that perfectly resembled a Van Gogh
painting was found buried beneath the Earth, we should not say that is has the
same meaning as the actual artifact created by our dear Vincent.”

Ragg explains his stand by claiming that Van Gogh must have imbued this painting with

meaning in the act of “putting matter against matter” in the expression of his mind. Expressions

that may have been motivated by his experiences, prejudices, emotions, and influenced by the

impositions of his society’s history, culture and even his personal circumstances. In conclusion,

Ragg says that the intention of the artist is represented by the actual “physical artifact” that is the

artwork—“artifacts alone have no meaning…[rather] they represent their meaning.”

This explanation of meaningnn as applied to art seems to relate very much to rhetoric or

the art of delivering messages effectively through skillful use of the language or medium.

Although Grice has noted that by using the word “intention” he did not mean that all utterances

are “planned” (deliberated on, or thought out well) beforehand. Honestly, this part of the paper

also struck me as hazy. However, it leads me to understand that although we human beings do

often act on impulse, this does not mean that we do not act without intention. Also, I believe that

some people are better adept at communicating than others, and that through rhetorical skill they

seem to be able to induce natural reactions from nonnatural meanings.

A good example of this would be this memorable scene from The Interpreter, a film

starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. In this film Kidman, who plays the role of a UN

employed interpreter suspected to be part of the supposed assassination plot against a formidable

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African dictator, convinces the case’s head investigator (Penn) that she has no hand the said

assassination plot, but is in fact just a victim of circumstance. In her moving narration of a

practice called “The Drowning Man Ritual” in her nativeland, Motobo, Africa, one witnesses

Kidman’s excellent narration and her skillful use of verbal and nonverbal components (which

certainly confirms her being an exceptional actress). This exposition makes it impossible for the

investigator (and the audience as well) to think of the Kidman’s character as guilty of the

accusation.

***

Though I have made clear that I see Grice’s ideas of meaning as favoring pragmatics,

there is a question left unsettled in my mind regarding the nature of meaning from a comparative

literature student’s point of view. Given Grice’s theory of nonnatural meaning, Is meaningnn

therefore valid or does meaningnn exist if the intention behind an utterance and the intention

recognized by the audience do not coincide? For instance, a poet composed a poem with the

intention of expressing his weariness of what he sees as an otherwise dull and senseless world.

However, his readers have taken the same poem to be the sublimation of a fervent death-wish by

the author or of the text’s implied persona. Does this disparity between the intention of the author

and the audience’s recognition of the intention invalidate the significance or meaningnn of the

poem?

Recent trends in literary studies have tended to favor reader-response/reader oriented,

feminist, mythological-archetypal approaches and the likes, rather than historical-biographical

approaches that take into account the author’s personal circumstances in the production of

meanings in a text. Modern critical theories in literature therefore actually makes it explicit as

stating that the “the author is dead” in the production of meaning and therefore the author’s

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intention should not really interfere with how the reader makes sense of the text. Is the Gricean

view of nonnatural meaning therefore utterer-oriented and rather than reader-oriented? Can it

accommodate the validation of meaning from the audience’s standpoint? Or, perhaps a better

question is, in critical studies of literature and art, is it more appropriate to take a reader-oriented

or an utterer-oriented stance?

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References:

1. Martinich, A.P. (ed.) (1990). The philosophy of language (2nd edition). New York: Oxford University
Press

2. Ragg, Chris (11 May 2005). Meaning in art in Mumblings and grumblings (weblog).
http://chrisragg.blogspot.com/2005/05/meaning-in-art.html

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