IS PROCEDURAL MEANING THE UNITARY MEANING OF DISCOURSE MARKERS?

School of Foreign Languages of Sichuan Minzu College,Kangding,China Email:homeley77@163.com

[Abstract]As for the meanings of discourse markers,Blakemore advocates distinguishing conceptual meaning from procedural meaning,and claims that only those expressions with procedural meaning can be regarded as discourse markers.Obviously,Blakemore’s procedural meaning echoes Grice’s conventional implicature,and it is the result of her pursuit of core meaning of discourse markers by a minimalist approach.However,on the basis of two drawbacks of procedural meaning,namely,theoretical drawback and methodological drawback,it is concluded in the paper that procedural meaning is not unitary meaning of some discourse markers and that procedural meaning of discourse markers can not replace their other meanings.

[Keywords]discourse markers;procedural meaning;conceptual meaning;conventional implicature;minimalist approach

Introduction

Discourse markers are very common in our speech communication and they have drawn much attention from lin⁃guists worldwide with the fledging development of discourse analysis and pragmatics.Some linguists hold that the meanings of discourse markers are rich,but other linguists represented by Blakemore advocate differentiating proce⁃dural meaning from conceptual meaning and claim that discourse markers are only those expressions with procedural meaning.Obviously,the latter opinion not only minimizes the meaning of discourse markers but also delimits their categories.For instance,Blakemore suggests that sentence adverbials,parentheticals,and some apposition markers should be excluded from discourse markers.(Blakemore,1996,pp.325-347)Undoubtedly,the distinction between procedural meaning and conceptual meaning has an important impact on the further research of discourse markers,just as Schourup(1999,p.249)comments:“If the distinction can be maintained,it will at the very least,require par⁃titioning the current class of discourse markers into relational items of two very different sorts in terms of their contri⁃bution to conveyed meanings.”If Blakemore is correct,here arises a question:Is procedural meaning the unitary meaning of discourse markers?

Procedural meaning and conceptual meaning

Blakemore describes discourse markers as“expressions that constrain the interpretation of the utterances that contain them by virtue of the inferential connections of the utterances they express.”(Blakemore,1987,p.105)Lat⁃er,Blakemore publishes a series of articles(1989;1996;2000;2002;2005),makes an account of discourse markers on the basis of the relevance theory,and initially claims that discourse markers encode procedural,rather than con⁃ceptual information.

According to Blakemore,linguistic meaning comes in two varieties:one is conceptual meaning,a type of infor⁃mation that itself can form part of the conceptual representation that inferences are performed on;the other is proce⁃dural meaning,a type of information that triggers certain types of inference that the pragmatic system is to perform on these representations,as Blakemore says(1987,p.144):“On the one hand,there is the essentially conceptual theory that deals with the way in which elements of linguistic structure map onto concepts,i.e.onto constitutions of propositional representations that undergo computations.On the other hand,there is the essentially procedural theo⁃ry that deals with the way in which elements of linguistic structure map directly onto computations themselves,i.e.onto mental process.”

Roughly speaking,words with conceptual meaning contribute to the content of assertions and are analyzed as encoding elements of conceptual representations.Words with procedural meaning encode information about how these representations are to be used in inference,and they tell how to take these representations.Discourse markers belong to the items that are classed as words with procedural meaning rather than conceptual meaning.Blakemore(1996,p.333)exemplifies discourse markers as follows:

(1)a.Tom can open Bill’s safe.

b.He knows the combination.

If the proposition expressed by(1a)is taken as part of the context in which(1b)is interpreted,at least two inter⁃pretations of(1b)are possible.One is that(1b)is relevant as evidence for(1a); the other is that(1b)achieves rele⁃vance as an implication of(1a).So the relationship between a and b in(1)can be either conclusion-premise,or prem⁃ise-conclusion.

But consider(1’)and(1’’):

(1’)a.Tom can open Bill’s safe.

b.After all,he knows the combination.

(1’’)a.Tom can open Bill’s sage.

b.So he knows the combination.

The propositions expressed by(1’)and(1’’)are unambiguously marked as conclusion-premise relation and premise-conclusion relation respectively.After allin(1’)andsoin(1’’)does not affect the proposition expressed by the utterance in which they stand,and they simply provide a further constraint on the way in which that proposi⁃tion may be interpreted.Thusafter allin(1’)andsoin(1’’)do not have conceptual meaning but procedural mean⁃ing.

In her early works,Blakemore suggests that the distinction between conceptual and procedural is coextensive with the distinction between truth-conditional and non-truth-conditional.In the light of arguments by Wilson &Sperber(1993),Blakemore has abandoned the differentiation of non-truth-conditional from procedural meaning.Wilson&Sperber(1993)argue that the distinction between truth-conditional and non-truth-conditional is not coex⁃tensive with the distinction between conceptual and procedural.In other words,truth-conditionality and conceptuali⁃ty are not the same,for example,an expression may be simultaneously conceptual and non-truth-conditional.So us⁃ing non-truth-conditionality has a criterion for membership in the class of discourse markers can result in lumping together conceptual and non-conceptual items in the same class.Blakemore(1996)suggests that while sentence ad⁃verbials,parentheticals,and certain so-called apposition markers are non-truth conditional,they clearly encode con⁃cepts.For example,franklyin(2)is usually seen as contributing nothing to truth condition of the utterance:

(2)Frankly,I find this party is boring.

It is awkward,however,to say thatfranklyhas no conceptual content in its own right,because sometimes it can be reformulated by the other forms with the same conceptual content.Look at the following example:

(2’)a.Peter:Frankly,I find this party is boring.

b.Mary:That’s not true.You’re not being frank.I’ve just seen you dancing with the blond beauty in blue.

Franklyin(2’a)has a conceptual representation which can be either true or false in its own right while still not affecting the overall truth-conditions of(2’a).Mary’s response is used to falsify the conceptual representation offranklywith reformulated form ofyou’re not being frank.So such adverbials as frankly can not affect the truth-condi⁃tion of the utterance in which they are,but they have the conceptual content.

On the contrary,discourse makers likebut,so,nevertheless,etc.,according to Blakemore(1996,2000),encode procedural rather than conceptual meaning; discourse markers are non-truth-conditional,and their function is to guide pragmatic inference,rather than to form part of the communicated message.Blakemore(1996)argues that such apposition markers asin other words,that is,that is to say,in short,are conceptual,so they should not be classified in⁃to discourse markers.Blakemore(1996,pp.337-345)points out,for example,that the appositional expressions in question appear to be compositional(e.g.comparein other words to to put it in other words).Moreover,Blakemore(2002,p.83-85)holds that there is a clear line between two kinds of meaning:conceptual,on the one hand,and pro⁃cedural,on the other hand.

Drawbacks of Procedural Meaning of Discourse Markers

Blakemore’s opinion on procedural meaning of discourse markers has two drawbacks,namely,theoretical draw⁃back and methodological drawback.

Theoretical drawback

Obviously,Blakemore’s distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning is deeply influenced by Grice.The distinction“echoes Grice’s distinction between saying and conventionally implicating”(Rouchota,1996,p.5).“What is said”is semantically explicit.But“conventional implicatures”,according to Levinson(1983,p.127),are non-truth-conditional inferences that are not derived from superordinate pragmatic principles like the maxims,but are simply attached by convention to particular lexical items or expressions.

“What is said”has its own truth-conditional meaning,so it belongs to semantic category,but“what is conven⁃tionally implicated”does not encode truth-conditional meaning,and it is involved in pragmatic category.Thus,the clear cut between“what is said”and“what is conventionally implicated”means a clear line has drawn by Grice be⁃tween Semantics and Pragmatics.The clear cut incurs strong criticism.For example,Levinson doubts the rationality of the distinction between“what is said”and“conventional implicature”.Since implicatures derive from(a)what is said,and(b)the assumption that at least the co-operative principle is being maintained(Levinson,1983,p.122),“what is said”and“implicature”should be tightly interwoven and so should Semantics and Pragmatics be.

Blakemore’s distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning is correlated with Grice’s distinction be⁃tween“saying”and“what is conventionally implicated”.Moreover,Blakemore holds that“this procedural account has a number of advantages over Grice’s conceptual account of similar non-truth conditional expressions in terms of conventional implicature.”Procedural meaning can“distinguish discourse markers such aswelland so from nontruth conditional sentence adverbials such asseriouslyor unfortunately which has synonymous truth conditional man⁃ner-adverbial counterparts.”(Blakemore&Gallai 2014,p.110)In Blakemore’s eyes,discourse markers are purely procedural rather than conceptual,that is,they don’t have their own propositional content.For example:

(3)a.Tom can open Bill’s safe.So he knows the combination.

b.That’s not true.

The response of(3b)could only be heard as claiming the falsity of the proposition that Tom knows the combina⁃tion,or the proposition that Tom can open Bill’s safe.It can not under any circumstances be denying the procedural effect that one is the evidence for the other.Obviously,for Blakemore,discourse markers like so only possess the pro⁃cedural meaning,and it seems unlikely to construct examples parallel to example(3)in whichsoencodes conceptual meaning.However,Schourup(1999,p.247)displays her skepticism by presenting the following example:

(4)a.He insulted me.So I quit.

b.That’s not true.That’s not why you quit.

From the example,we can see that the distinction between conceptual meaning and procedural meaning is not absolutely clear-cut.While conceptual meaning and procedural meaning are two complementary kinds of meaning,doubts arise about how to treat the words that encode these two kinds of meaning.So,for example,is a discourse marker with only procedural meaning,but has the“result meaning in its use as marker of potential participation tran⁃sition”(Schiffrin,1987,p.317).

Furthermore,it is inappropriate for Blakemore to claim that procedural meaning should be one key criterion for judging whether an item can be classified into discourse markers.We take parenthetical as an example.The paren⁃thetical comments contribute to proposition with their own truth condition(conceptual meaning)―even though they do not contribute to the truth condition of the utterances that contain them,so they should be excluded from the list of discourse markers,just likeapparentlyin example(5)(Blakemore 1996,p.336):

(5)His house,apparently,is very old.

However,if(5)occurs in(5’)with(5’a)as its context,it is genuinely unreasonable to deny the membership of apparently in discourse markers:

(5’)a.John lives in a very cozy house.

b.Apparently,his house is very old.

“What is said”,to a certain degree,echoes conceptual meaning,while“conventional implicature”echoes pro⁃cedural meaning.Some discourse markers,such asbut,therefore,yet,because,encode conventional implicatures,which can be grasped by intuition rather than contexts or maxims of Grice’s cooperative principle.Grice has distin⁃guished saying and conventional implicatures,but they are not totally different.Levinson once comments(1983,pp.122-123),“…all but the Manner implicatures must be read from the level of semantic problems and applications representation,including some specification of logical form.They cannot be read off from uninterpreted surface struc⁃tures,nor can they be inferred simply from the truth conditions of the sentence uttered.”In other words,interpreta⁃tion of(conventional)implicatures can not be divorced from what is said explicitly;Levinson quotes Grice’s example to demonstrate conventional implicature:the wordbuthas the same truth-conditional content as the wordand,with an additional conventional implicature to the effect that there is some contrast between the conjuncts(ibid).Like⁃wise,procedural meaning can not be read off from conceptual meaning;moreover,procedural meaning is interwoven with conceptual meaning,and there is not,as Blakemore claims,“a clear line between two kinds of meaning:concep⁃tual,on the one hand,and procedural,on the other.”(Blakemore,2002,p.83-85)In fact,in daily communication,the examples in which procedural meaning and conceptual meaning coexist are very common.

(6)She is a linguist,but she’s quite intelligent.

(7)a.She is a linguist.

b.But she is quite intelligent.

(8)Fitzgerald used to lead a luxurious life.Now,he is as poor as a church mouse.

According to Blakemore,procedural meaning ofbutis to stimulate an assumption,rule out the assumption,and then lead to a different conclusion.(Blakemore,2000,p.466)Accordingly,but in example(6)firstly stimulates an assumption that all linguists are unintelligent and thus she is not intelligent because she is a linguist,and then rules out this assumption to draw a different conclusion that she is intelligent although she is a linguist.However,butin ex⁃ample(7),besides the procedural meaning,encodes a conceptual meaning,namely,a sense of strong refutation.Simi⁃larly,nowin example(8)also encodes conceptual meaning of time and procedural meaning of transition.From the ex⁃amples above,it is quite clear that“conceptual and procedural should be regarded as two non-disjoint sets,and con⁃ceptual and procedural features can coexist within a single marker”(Bordería,2008,p.1420).

In sum,it is not appropriate to make a distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning and neither is reasonable to take procedural meaning as a necessary attribute of discourse markers.

Methodological drawback

The clear cut made bet ween“what is said”and“what is conventionally implicated”is based on,according to Grice(1976,p.47),the principle of Modified Occam’s Razor,i.e.senses are not to be multipled beyond necessity,or in other words to try as far as possible to maintain the minimalist assumption of a common core meaning,while aiming for relative precision of description.(Hansen,1998,p.242)The principle of Modified Occam’s Razor re⁃flects a monosemy or minimalist approach of meaning.“A strict minimalist will attempt to isolate a unitary‘core’meaning,usually of a highly abstract and schematic nature,from which all uses of a given item can be derived.Any observable variations in the meaning and use of a given word or construction will then be attributed to its interaction with context.Meaning minimalism is,in other words,a radically pragmatic approach,in which the semantics has very little work to do.”(Hansen,1998,p.239)Accordingly,a monosemy or minimalist approach usually rules out the semantic meanings of a linguistic items to keep a pragmatic core meaning.Blakemore advocates the monosemy or minimalist approach to analyze meaning of discourse markers,arguing against richer semantic accounts and in fa⁃vor of the minimalist semantics.(Blakemore,2005,p.572)

Although lots of linguists also claim the core meaning of discourse markers,such as Schourup(1985),Schiffrin(1987),Redeker(1991),Fraser(1996),they don’t reject other meanings of discourse markers;moreover,they don’t think core meaning of discourse markers is procedural meaning.For instance,Schiffrin holds that a discourse marker can play a different role in different levels of the mode of discourse coherence,a major role in one level of the mode of discourse coherence and a minor role in another level of the mode of discourse markers.Let’s takethenas an ex⁃ample,thenplays a major role in ideational structure of the mode of discourse coherence and plays a minor role in in⁃formation state and action structure of the mode of discourse coherence.In other words,discourse marker then can play a minor part in information state which is connected with cognitive function but the major contribution of dis⁃course marker to the mode of discourse coherence is embodied in ideational structure which is related with semantic meaning.(Schiffrin,1987,p.25-28)Obviously,discourse markerthenencodes procedural meaning,but its core meaning is semantic(conceptual),Hence,the principle of Modified Occam’s Razor or the minimalist approach to de⁃limit discourse markers’s(core)meaning to procedural meaning is unreasonable,for a discourse marker can both en⁃code conceptual meaning and procedural meaning and its core meaning does not necessarily refer to procedural meaning.In a word,a discourse marker does not encode a simplest core meaning but“a core meaning which can be enriched by the context”.(Fraser,1999,p.936)

In conclusion,discourse markers are common in daily life;they have rich meanings in different contexts.Proce⁃dural meaning is not the unitary meaning of discourse markers.If procedural meaning were considered the unitary meaning of discourse markers,the rich meanings of discourse markers would be reduced and categories of discourse markers would be narrowed.