In a message dated 10/25/2015 5:41:06 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes: "Surprised [Speranza] didn't challenge
[R. P.] on this, but it was in
fact a well-known British film about [Griceian] implicature. The
screenwriter, Colin Welland, proved the point with his "The British are
coming"
acceptance speech at the Oscars, one of the most implicatural of all
such speeches (despite fierce competition over the years, for example,
Paltrow's massive implicature that there was no one in the whole wide world
whom she didn't wish to tearfully thank)."
Well, Welland (this is what Geary calls an alliteration -- "Well, Welland")
is confused. What Revoire uttered was
i. The regulars are coming out.
It may do to start with a Popperian implicatural approach.
Though Popper acknowledges Buehler's priority, Popper's own version uses
different terminology - so after the "expressive" we have the "signaling"
function, and then the descriptive function. To these Buehlerian three, Popper
adds the crucial "argumentative" function.
DESCRIPTIVE
ii. The regulars are coming out -- and that's a fact.
EXPRESSIVE:
iii. The regulars are coming out, or so I feel.
SIGNALLING
vi. The regulars are coming out -- and that's a dangerous sign.
ARGUMENTATIVE:
vii. Therefore, the regulars are coming out.
(enthymeme: "Since we are having a revolution...")
Now for a Griceian implicatural analysis:
Welland concludes his acceptance by by uttering:
viii. I'd like to finish with a word of warning: You may have started
something. The British are coming."
This is what Griceians call 'echoic mention', with a twist.
Welland THINKS that he is quoting Rivoire, but he isn't. It's a misnomer,
or as Horn prefers, an etymythology.
Why is Welland wrong?
On three different Griceian grounds
1)
Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Rivoire
warned patriots along his route, many of whom set out on horseback to deliver
warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many
as forty (and no more than fifty) riders throughout Middlesex County
carrying the news of the
army's advance. Rivoire NEVER SHOUTED "The British are coming!" for its
implicatures would have been dangerous. His mission depended on secrecy. If
Rivoire had SHOUTED, "The Brits are coming!", "the secrecy would have been
killed. He had OTHER signalling ways to mean this, but NOT by shouting
blatantly 'The British are coming'.
2)
The countryside was infested with Brit army patrols. So what would be the
Griceian intention in uttering to the British that they are coming -- On
Griceian grounds -- do not be more informative than you should -- we assume
the Brits KNEW this -- and it would be IRRATIONAL for Rivoire to let them
know that he KNEW (or believed) that the Brits were coming.
3)
Most of the Massachusetts colonists (who were predominantly English in
ethnic origin -- as D.
Ritchie may testify, according to the 1790 census, Massachusetts was 89%
English, Scots, and Northern Irish while 0.5% was Welsh) still considered
themselves Brit -- so
ix. The British are coming!
would have been lost on them.
Since they WERE there.
This would have had the paradoxical effect that the Bostonians would have
thought that they were both coming and going.
What Welland should have concluded his acceptance message with should have
been:
x. I'd like to finish with a word of warning: You may have started
something. To quote from Rivoire, The regulars are coming out.
"To come out" is the emphatic opposite of 'coming in'. The regulars would
have heard that but underestimated as otiose.
Granted, Welland shoud perhaps have expanded on what 'regular' means 'under
the circumstances'. The revolutionary militia were anything but organised,
and Rivoire called them 'irregular'. On the other hand, the organised
'regulars' were not, and they were coming out. The implicature was that 'we
better be prepared'.
xi. We better be prepared.
-- the implicatum of Welland's utterance -- may be interpreted as an
illocutionary act, yielding a perlocutionary effect. Some may take (ix) to
mean,
xii. We better hide.
While the most courageous would take the effect to be
xiii. So I hope you gather strength and challenge them to death!
The rest, as they say, is history -- but hardly, as Welland pretentiously
puts it, 'a word of warning'.
Cheers,
Speranza
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