| This dissertation is a tentative study of pragmatic principles, with a view to clarifying the dimensions of various principles and establishing a principle system. The study of pragmatic principles can be traced back to Grice's general framework of conversational implicature. Grice, a figure of ordinary language philosophy, undermines the argument of the ideal-language philosophers, claiming that natural language is as perfect as formal devices. The extra meanings that cannot be found in language are the implicatures of their use. "Implicature", in Grice's thought, is an investigative tool to elucidate the connection between the logical connectives used in ordinary language asd their formal counterparts and to demonstrate the role of logic in conversation. Under sueh a philosophical background, Grice formulates the Cooperative Principle (CP) and Hs concomitant maxims as a general condition for the recovery of implicatures. Since Its inception, Grice's CP has aroused heated discussion. On the one hand, it has been accepted and widely applied to other relevant fields for practical consideration and theoretical creation; on the other hand, many new principles are introduced to revise, replace or reduce Grice's CP. The most influential ones are: Kasher's Principle of Rationality, Horn's Q- and R-Principles, Levinson's Q-, I- and M-Principles, Sperber andWilson's Principle of Relevance, Leech's Politeness Principle, and Brown and Levinson's Face Theory, This dissertation is to scrutinize these pragmatic principles in order to systemize them. After a quite detailed comment on Grice's framework, the dissertation makes the following points:First, there are two dimensions of doing pragmatic principles. The swaying of Grice's CP between cognitive and socio-cultural dimensions is the starting point of the Post-Gricean principles. Since the publication of the CP, various efforts have been made to search for a more general condition for conversation from cognitive and socio-cultural dimensions. The bi-dimensional investigation of pragmatic principles is not incompatible, which can be reconciled or combined to construct a comprehensive model for generation and interpretation of meaning. According to Thomas' Interactive Pragmatics, Verschueren's Pragmatic Perspective and Marmaridou's pragmatic analysis, an integrated approach is suggested in this dissertation. Though it is a rough assumption, it is indispensable in that it demonstrates the interaction between cognitive and socio-cultural elements.Second, Post-Gricean pragmatic principles are cooperating with Grice. Though different principles after Grice are attempts to challenge, revise, or even replace the CP, they rely heavily on the Grice's framework and are all slightly different appropriations of it. Communication is not cooperation, but can lead to cooperation. Grice's notion of cooperation is deeply embedded in the thought of post-Gricean principles, which are all cooperating with Grice to make further perfection, elaboration and enhancement of general conditions guiding the generation and interpretation of implicatures. This point is essential for the establishment of a principle system for it clearly demonstrates the center of the system.Third, pragmatic principles are motivated. Pragmatics cannot account for the driving force behind each principle, nor can it be deduced from the observance of linguistic phenomena. Pragmatics has to adopt resources from other academic disciplines to seek for their motivations. Therefore, this dissertation identifies motivations lying behind various pragmatic principles. One question is whether there is a deep-rooted pragmatic principle or motivation that could make all principles coherent, consistent and systematic.Grice and Kasher have answered the question. It is Rationality that is pervasive everywhere in Grice and is ascribed to other pragmatic principles. Rationality is functioning as the rooted motivation for other principles, which, in turn, are realizations and specifications of rationality.Fourth, pragma... |
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