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DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: SOME CONCEPTUAL REMARKS
ON PRAGMATICS AND RHETORIC
Oleh: Abd. Ghofur
( Dosen Tetap Prodi Tadris Bahasa Inggris STAIN Pamekasan & Mahasiswa S3 Universitas Negeri Surabaya )
Abstract:
This paper focuses on discourse analysis, particularly persuasive discourse, using pragmatics and rhetoric in a combined way, called by Pragma-Rhetoric. It can be said that this is a cognitive approach to both pragmatics and rhetoric. Pragmatics is essentially Gricean, Rhetoric comes from a reading of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, extending his notion of discourse to meso- and micro-discourses. Two kinds of intentions have to be considered: first, communicative intention, and, then, persuasive intention. The fulfilment of those intentions is achieved by a successful persuasive-communicative action. The psychological, philosophical and logical aspects derived from the pragma-rhetorical perspective are crucial in view of its applications in several practical domains.
Keywords:
Discourse, pragmatics, rhetoric, communication, intention, persuasion
Introduction This article begin with a recognition to a philosopher of action, language and communication, Marcelo Dascal, a Leibnizian who particularly interested in semantics and pragmatics, who has contributed so much to the development of philosophy in the last 30 years. The aim of this paper is to show a pragmatic and rhetorical view in discourse analysis, combining both disciplines in order to explain the intentional phenomena that occur in most communicative uses of language, namely, the communicative intention and
the intention of persuading.^1 This clearly implies a theoretical choice in the field of pragmatics as far as pragmatics is not conceived in a merely semiotic way (not to say, in an impossible “semiologic” way), but in an intentional way following the path open by Austin and, particularly, by Grice. This also implies a new view on the ancient rhetoric, a choice in favour of (^1) The combination of pragmatics and rhetoric has been suggested by some scholars, including Dascal himself, but it is quite difficult to “marry” such an ancient discipline as rhetoric with such a new discipline as pragmatics, if we do not put both in the same “register level”, i.e. in the level of intentionality. Read, Dascal, M. and A. G. Gross (1999), The Marriage Of Pragmatics And Rhetoric. Philosophy and Rhetoric 32 (2).
ON PRAGMATICS & RHETORIC
Abd. Ghofur
a neo-Aristotelian rhetoric, where, in the well-known triangle ethos-logos-pathos, the elaboration and realisation of discourse is especially analysed in terms of what is inside the taxis (dispositio), that is to say, the order of discourse, and not so much in terms of what is inside the elocution. In fact, this is a choice in favour of a rhetoric linked to dialectics^2 and not so linked to poetics (or the current literature theory), introducing the idea of the intention of persuading by the discourse maker. The first section of the paper consists in a few remarks about the different approaches taken in discourse analysis in general, from sociology to ethnomethodological conversation analysis, in order to situate the perspective combining pragmatics and rhetoric. The second section is devoted to the way of understanding communicative intention in Gricean pragmatics. The third one focuses on a neo-Aristotelian rhetoric that can be merged with pragmatics in a theory called pragma-rhetoric , which is the topic of the fourth section. We end with a few concluding remarks.
Forms of discourse analysis The most important conceptual problem of discourse analysis is the delimitation of the very idea of discourse. Depending on the different theoretical views adopted for that analysis, discourse is conceptualized in quite
(^2) See, Aristotle, Rhetoric, on very beginning of his book
different ways. For some scholars what is important in discourse is just its structure, for others its functionality, for many others its social role, and for some others its communicative features in terms of context, cultural interaction, and so on.^3 For a long time linguistics forgot the analysis of discourse, even in semantics and pragmatics. Semantics was mainly lexical and sometimes sentential, in the modern post-Fregean sense. Pragmatics, before the analysis of indexicality, was the ‘waste-basket’ of linguistics, 4 and it seems that general references to context were enough for calling pragmatics to any language theory. Our main reason for not being interested in sociological approaches to discourse analysis is that the standard sociology of discourse takes it, at the same time, as an indicator of social practices, basically of social order/disorder, and as a factor of the construction of social reality. This approach can be seen in so different authors as Goffman, 5 Bourdieu, 6 or Berger and Luckmann.^7 What is lacking in this approach is a socio-psychological conception of the discourse-maker, more
(^3) Schiffrin, D. (1994), Approaches to discourse. 4 Oxford: Blackwell Bar-Hillel, Y. (1971), Out of the Pragmatics Waste-Basket, Linguistic Inquiry 2, P., 401-407 (^5) Goffman, E. (1981), Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 6 Bourdieu, P. (1984), Questions de Sociologie. 7 Paris: Minuit Berger, P. and Th. Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday.
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framework.^11
Pragmatics: Intentions in communication Since the work by Austin and Grice, linguistic pragmatics has been mainly focused on the communicative use of language conceived as intentional human action. The study of the agent’s beliefs, desires and, particularly, intentions is crucial for understanding what she has done. Naturally, then, the analysis of beliefs, desires, and, particularly, intentions is at the center of pragmatic studies. Grice’s study on meaning intentions opened a long debate on the exact definition of the now so-called communicative intentions. Most approaches construct intention as a primitive mental state, i.e., non-definable in terms of other mental states such as beliefs and desires 12. Communicative intentions share, of course, the characteristics of intentions in general, for instance: a. They are the mental causes of actions, that is, they are what together with some bodily movements constitute an action, as distinct from a mere event. b. They have conditions of consistency. You can desire p and desire not- p at (^11) Morris, C. (1938), Foundations of the theory of signs. In O. Neurath, R. Carnap and C. Morris (ed.), International Encyclopaedia of Unified Science I, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, P., 77-138. Reprinted in C. Morris (1971), Writings on the General Theory of Signs, The Hague: Mouton (^12) Grice, H. P. (1957), Meaning, Philosophical Review 66, 377-388. Reprinted in H. P. Grice, Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989, P., 213-223.
the same time, but you cannot intend p and intend not- p at the same time. c. Their object is presupposed to be attainable by the agent. You can desire to go to the moon this afternoon, but you cannot intend to go to the moon this afternoon (unless you are a multimillionaire who has made an arrangement with some spatial agency). d. Their object represents their conditions of satisfaction. Communicative intentions have also some features of their own: e. They are usually intentions-in-action and not prior intentions (see Searle 1983 for the distinction)^13. f. They are social, in the Weberian sense of social action, i.e. they are always oriented towards some other agent – the addressee. g. They are overt, that is, they are to be recognized by the addressee. h. Their satisfaction consists precisely in that recognition by the addressee. The last three characteristics are already pointed out in the first version of M-intentions of Grice 14 and their exact formulation seems to constitute the reason for the main critiques and subsequent reformulations by Grice himself : ““ U meant something by uttering (^13) Searle, J. (1983), Intentionality: An essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 14 Ibid, 1957/1989. P., 220,, ““ A meant something by x ” is (roughly) equivalent to “ A intended the utterance of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the recognition of this intention””.
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x ” is true if, for some audience A , U uttered x intending: (1) A to produce a particular response r (2) A to think (recognize) that U intends (1) (3) A to fulfill (1) on the basis of his fulfillment of (2).”^15 First, communicative intentions are intentions to produce some response on the part of the addressee. The issue has been to define what such a response should exactly be. It seems that what the speaker usually intends by her communicative action is to change the mental states of the addressee. But what change should it be for the communicative intention to be successful? The intention of the speaker when she says, for instance, ‘It is raining’ could be to induce the addressee to believe that it is raining or, maybe, to believe that the speaker believes that it is raining. But is any of these beliefs on the part of the addressee necessary for the communicative action to be successful qua communicative action? The most common answer has been negative. Perlocutionary aspects of that sort have been excluded from the content of communicative intentions. It seems that the addressee’s only new mental state needed is his recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention; his understanding of the speaker’s
(^15) Grice, H. P. (1969), Utterer’s Meaning and Intentions, Philosophical Review 78, p. 92. Reprinted in H. P. Grice, Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989, p. 86-116.
utterance. This is what has been called ‘illocutionary uptake’:^16 The exact formulation of this overt nature of communicative intentions has been a subject of hot debate, some arguing for a reflexive (self-referential) definition, others for a potentially infinite but practically finite number of clauses in the definition, with conceptual, logical or psychological arguments. What seems to be a matter of consensus is that every covert or even neutral (with respect to its intended recognition by the addressee) aspect of the speaker’s intention is left out of the definition of communicative intentions. One way of summing this up is, finally, to say that the fulfillment of communicative intentions consists precisely in being recognized by the addressee. Much of the work in current Pragmatics views linguistic understanding as the process of recognition of the speaker’s communicative intentions. The addressee relies on linguistic and extralinguistic information for reaching
(^16) “In the case of illocutionary acts we succeed in doing what we are trying to do by getting our audience to recognize what we are trying to do. But the ‘effect’ on the hearer is not a belief or a response; it consists simply in the hearer understanding the utterance of the speaker.” Searle, J. (1969), Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 47; Read also, “The understanding of the force of an utterance in all cases involves recognizing what may be called broadly an audience-directed intention and recognizing it as wholly overt, as intended to be recognized.” Strawson, P. F. (1964), Intention and Convention in Speech Acts. Philosophical Review 73, p. 439-60.
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understanding of the proof of a theorem. A fortiori with everyday argumentations. This idea was noted, among others, by Apostel 18 , when he presented an assertion logic for a theory of argumentation following Rescher’s way 19 , and spoke about “internal democracy” in Greek geometry, and, by extension, in any axiomatics. One of the most interesting recent approaches in argumentation theory is “pragma-dialectics”, which was open by van Eemeren and Grootendorst, inspired by the Aristotelian dialectics and rhetoric, linking speech act theory with the dialectical theory of “critical rationalists” 20. The analysis of argumentative discourse, taken as “verbal, social and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint by advancing a constellation of propositions justifying or refuting the proposition expressed in the standpoint”, is done by the study of the points of view, unexpressed premises, argument schemes, argumentation structures and, particularly, fallacies. Arguments are interpreted and reconstructed in that way, in order to get a clear view of the process of argumentation. In our viewpoint, what
(^18) Apostel, L. (1971), Assertion Logic and a Theory of Argumentation. Philosophy and Rhetoric 4, p. 92-110 19 Rescher, N. (1968), Topics in Philosophical Logic. 20 Dordrecht: Reidel Eemeren, F.H. van, and R. Grootendorst (1984), Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions. Dordrecht: Foris.
is lacking in that approach is a cognitive vision of argumentation, and it must be said that, at the same time, they take a biased perspective on rhetoric, as far as they view rhetoric basically as a pathos- oriented rhetoric, minimizing the importance of the ethos and especially of the logos, and, consequently, that they do not take rhetoric into consideration. At the end, the output is that pragmatics collapses into semantics. Rhetoric is obviously not only important for argumentation theorists, but for the production, analysis and evaluation of any kind of persuasive discourse. The study of audiences by the new rhetorics takes an especial importance today, because of the new kinds of audiences derived from new forms and modes of communication, in a time where information technologies applied to communication systems are evolving fast. Particular interest deserves the study of complex (media) audiences and very diffuse ones. It has to be noted that the interest of rhetoric for audiences is not a sociological one. Rhetoric is interested in the way of shaping audiences by means of the realization of discourses. To return to Aristotle’s Rhetoric means to take into account the role played by the logos (and the ethos ) jointly with the pathos. The ethos and the pathos are constructed by the discourse itself, they are not external to it, on the contrary, they are shaped in terms of the evolution
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of the discourse. This is the main reason for giving so much importance to the logos, as Aristotle did. 21 Consequently, this is also the main reason for emphasising the relevance of the structure of discourse as it is fixed in the taxis phase of its composition.^22 This old idea was renewed by Enlightenment rhetorical theorists such as Campbell 23 and Whately, 24 and more recently by Perelman and Olbrecht-Tyte. 25 From another side, people interested in argumentative communication studies gave also a particular importance to the logos of that kind of discourse, and that lead to an abundant literature in “informal logic”^26.
The basis of Pragma-Rhetoric In our own pragma-rhetoric approach, the rhetoric aspect is essentially devoted to a study of order, i.e. to the planning of discourse, which means the production of the structure of
(^21) See, Conley, Th. M. (1990), Rhetoric in the European Tradition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 22 Read, Reboul, O. (1991), Introduction à la rhétorique. 23 Paris: P.U.F Campbell, G. (1776), The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Re-edited in 1936, Southern Illinois University Press. 24 Read, Whately, R. (1828), Elements of Rhetoric. Reprinted in 1857 in London: Parker & son (^25) Perelman, Ch. and L. Olbrecht-Tyteca (1958), Traité de l’argumentation. La nouvelle rhétorique. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. 26 Walton, D.N. (1989), Informal Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
discourse in a dynamic perspective, given the fact that real discourse is what is finally performed as discourse with all the moves made in the process. What is important to point out is that the determination of that dynamic order responds to the intention of persuading by the discourse-maker. Pragma-rhetoric is not isolated from logic, on the contrary, it takes logic at the very ground in discourse construction, but the crucial notion of the intention to persuade links rhetoric with pragmatics in a global intentional architecture of individuals, distinguishing and combining at the same time communicative intention and persuasive intention. It is very clear that these two intentions are in different levels. We need first the fulfillment of communicative intention, in order to make possible then the fulfillment of persuasive intention (particularly, the intention to convince in argumentative discourse). Both in monological discourse and in dialogical (or multilogical) discourse – in what we are more interested- the unit of analysis is a unique speech act, where by means of the satisfaction of the communicative intention one can get the satisfaction of a persuasive intention (we are speaking, of course, of persuasive communication). What is the content of persuasive intentions? We are basically speaking about a very stable kind of intention, persistent through all the process of elaboration and performance of a
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the idea of applying them to the elaboration of communication schemes (in natural language processing and in systems of agency), to the production and analysis of discourse by automatic means, to argumentation theory, to discourse polemology (discussions, disputes) in the way open by Dascal’s psychopragmatics.
Last remarks Let us make a few concluding remarks. First, proposing a pragma-rhetorical analysis of persuasive discourse, in terms of the study of two especial intentions, situated in different intentional levels: communicative intentions first, and then persuasive intentions. Second, we claim that a new reading of the Aristotelian rhetoric is crucial for that purpose, because of the importance given by Aristotle to the logos, in connection with the ethos and the pathos. Of course, a new reading is required if we enlarge the notion of discourse from the classical Greek tradition to current everyday discourses in extensively information-technology based communications. Third, the pragmatic component of our approach is essentially the one developed after Grice’s foundation of pragmatics. Fourth, the psychological, philosophical and logical aspects of our pragma-rhetorical study of persuasive communication have to be seriously and urgently developed, given their applicability in very different
and crucial domains.
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Abd. Ghofur
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