[lit-ideas] Linguistic Engineering
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 16:28:13 -0400 (EDT)
Grice and Wittgenstein on the Design of Language (McEvoy/Speranza)
---
Grice speaks of 'creature design', or his interpreters do.
The idea is that, as in 'ideal observer theory', one (qua philosopher)
can, and should, say this or that on design. It's a 'creature' (which Grice
calls 'pirots' -- a play on 'parrot', but borrowed from Carnap. Pirots talk,
so it's not before too long that HPG says a few things about the _point_ of
lingo.
O. T. O. H., there's this "Austrian engineer", as Russell called him, a
few years older than Grice, that Austin called "Witters". It's difficult to
grasp what Witters meant by 'lingo'. But in the exegesis that D. McEvoy
calls 'the key tenet', it seems there is like a feature in the design of lingo
that can best be understood appealing to 'hierarchy'. Witters seems to be
saying that, by using an expression E, the expression E may manage to say
this or that, but there is a further realm that the expression cannot say (as
per conceptual design). It's here that Witters adds the conception of
'show'. By the use of an expression E, the expression itself, or its user
(unintentionally, or more importantly, perhaps, intententionally) can show S2.
So there are two levels.
What is said -- which I symbolise as S1.
And what is shown which I symbolise as S2.
---
O. T. O. H., for HPG, the picture cannot be so difficult. What would be
the point of having such a distinction built into the design of a
communication device or communication system (that lingo is supposed to be)?
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
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