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1、A Critic Study of the Validity of the Horn Scale荷恩等级关系变化评论Name: Bao ManDegree: Master of Arts Major: Foreign Linguistics and Applied LinguisticsSupervisor: Zhu YueSchool of Foreign Languages, Anhui University10. May. 2005AbstractThe Horn scale was intended to serve as an effective means of inferring
2、 the Generalized Quantity Implicatures by Levinson in the 1980s, but many linguists or pragmatists cast doubt upon its universality ever since its appearance in the Neo-Gricean pragmatic apparatus; and what is more, Huang Yan even rejects it in his own study of anaphora though Levinson mainly depend
3、s on it to study the same subject.Generally speaking, there are about three representative viewpoints on the Horn Scale, namely, that of the Anglo-American pragmatists, that of the Continental pragmatists and that of the Chinese pragmatists. The Anglo-American pragmatists proposed that the Horn scal
4、e can help interpret the conventional or generalized Quantity implicatures of utterances in that the vocabulary of a language usually is the grammaticalization of certain stereotypical relations in the daily life of human being. As for the Continental pragmatists, they also hold the view that there
5、must be some “regularity” in peoples communication with each other, but the Horn scale is too normative or rational to catch this regularity. Mey insisted on the notion of quantity as an explanation of the Communicative Principle; on the other hand, Jef Verschueren firmly believes in conversationali
6、sts active choice of strategies in any speaking event. In China, Xu Shenghuan is the first pragmatist who draws our attention to the Horn Scale and Levinsons three principles. Through his ten articles, among others, Xu not only explains the apparatus of Levinsons three principles, but also expands o
7、n the Horn Scale. However, several other pragmatists disagree with him, and they suggest that the Horn Scale is reasonable or scientific to some extent, but it lacks validity and applicability.In order to test the validity of the Horn scale, the writer of this paper designed a questionnaire and test
8、ed it among 81 students. The result of the experiment suggests that the original hypothesis of the paper is correct, that is, the factor of gender does influence the operation of the Horn scale though the degree of the influence may vary according to different registers. Then the paper centers upon
9、the so-called conventional implicatures put forward by Levinson. It is obvious that if we take the three factors, viz., the speakers intention, the recipients interpretations and particular circumstances into account, the conventional implicatures can not be inferred simply through the operation of
10、the Horn Scale.This paper focuses on the limited applicability of the Horn Scale out of consideration for different notions of different speech communities towards quantity contained in the scale terms. There are totally six chapters included in this paper. Chapter One is a brief introduction of the
11、 notion of the Horn Scale. Chapter Two is a general survey of three viewpoints on the Horn Scale, namely, that of the Anglo-American pragmatists, that of the Continental pragmatists and that of the Chinese pragmatists. Chapter Three mainly focuses on an experiment conducted among eighty-one college
12、students, and the analysis of the result proves that gender differences influence the interpretation of certain Horn Scale terms. Then the writer goes on to illustrate that the so-called conventional implicatures inferred from the Quantity Principle do not hold valid. Chapter Four focuses on a reana
13、lysis of some examples cited by Professor Xu Shenghuan, who is the first pragmatist that systematically introduces the Neo-Gricean Principles and the Horn Scale to China. In this chapter, the writer casts doubts upon the over-detailed stipulations of the Horn Scale, pointing out that these stipulati
14、ons actually ruin the validity of the Horn Scale. Chapter Five aims at providing an illustration of the influence from the Politeness Principle on the operation of the Horn Scale. The writer tries to prove that the Politeness Principle works in a certain way so that people can not refer to the Horn
15、Scale as an inference apparatus all the time. Chapter Six is the conclusion of the paper, claiming that various pragmatic factors prevent the Horn Scale, as a pragmatic inference apparatus, from being valid.Keywords: Horn Scale invalidity gender intention Politeness Principle论文摘要语用学家列文森在研究前指代问题时，逐渐将
16、荷恩等级视作语用推理的重要契机，并以此为基础构建了新格赖斯会话含意理论。列文森认为利用荷恩等级可以推导出话语的潜在数量会话含意。然而，很多学者却认为尽管新会话含意能够自圆其说，但它不能够作为会话含意推导的终极参照，其原因就在于荷恩等级并不具有充分的解释力。语用学家黄衍在构建自己的前指代理论时，甚至完全抛弃了荷恩等级。一般说来， 有三种具有代表性的视角值得关注：英美语用学家的视角、欧洲大陆语用学家的视角以及中国语用学家的视角。列文森作为英美语用学家的代表人物，认为人们日常生活中重要的常规关系都已在词汇中被语法化了，因此他提出可以运用荷恩等级解读话语的规约数量会话含义。对于欧洲大陆的语用学家来说，
17、人们在用语言交际时，确实有某种“规律”可循，但是仅仅靠荷恩等级或列文森三原则来解释会话含义是远远不够的。梅伊在他的“交际原则”中虽然也提到了“量”的重要性，但他更重视的是不同的文化对“量”的不同的表达方式。维索伦则认为在会话过程中，会话双方对于语言策略的选择才是解读会话含义的关键。在中国的语用学家中，徐盛桓是第一个系统地引进荷恩等级和列氏三原则的学者。他不仅对荷恩等级的工作原理作了详尽的介绍，还对其进行了修改和扩充，将数量会话含义推导规则由原来的两条扩充至六条。然而，随着徐氏理论的完善，其他学者的批评意见也接踵而至，即荷恩等级很合理，也具有科学根据，但是不实用。本文共分为六章。第一章简要介绍荷
18、恩等级的运作原理及具体规则。第二章则是对三种具有代表性的观点的概述。其中，英美语用学家关注的是如何利用荷恩等级使等级含意的推导规范化；欧洲大陆语用学家则坚持关注文化差异在会话含意推导中的地位；而在国内的语用学家中，徐盛桓教授致力于介绍和完善等级含意理论，反对的意见则认为该理论缺乏实用性。本文作者针对荷恩等级的运作，设计了一套问卷。第三章即是对这套问卷调查结果的分析，证明若以性别作为自变量，荷恩等级的运作会受到影响。也就是说，女性受试者和男性受试者在相似的情景中会选择语义强度不同的词项描述同一事件，因此，对于性别不同的会话参与者，根据荷恩等级推导出的规约含意可能也会不同。在第四章中，作者重新分析
19、了徐盛桓教授论文中出现过的例句，旨在表明徐教授对荷恩等级的修订未免有些过于细致，以致于忽视了其他很多语用因素，从而使荷恩等级几乎完全丧失了推导的有效性。第五章中，作者试图从理论上解释荷恩等级缺乏有效性的原因。在言语交际过程中，礼貌原则常常会阻止交际双方严格依据荷恩等级进行语用推导，有时甚至会使交际双方完全放弃荷恩等级。第六章是对全文的总结，即如果将说话人意图、听话人的推论及会话环境三个因素带入会话含意的推导过程，荷恩等级就很难成功运作了。关键词：荷恩等级、有效性、性别、意图、礼貌原则FiguresFigure 1Figure 2Figure 3192425ContentsAcknowledge
20、mentsEnglish AbstractChinese AbstractFiguresChapter 1 Introduction: About the Horn ScaleChapter 2 A General Survey of Three Viewpoints on the Horn Scale 2.1 The Anglo-American Pragmatists Points of View 2.2 The Continental Pragmatists Perspective 2.3 Chinese Pragmatists Points of View 2.3.1 Xu Sheng
21、huans Study on the Horn Scale 2.3.2 Other Scholars OpinionChapter 3 The Problematic Universality of the Horn Scale 3.1 Gender Differences on the Notion of Quantity 3.2 Data Collection and Analysis 3.2.1 The First Test of the Questionnaire 3.2.2 Different Communicative Strategies Adopted by the Two G
22、enders 3.2.3 The Second Test of the Questionnaire 3.3 The Invalidity of the Conventional Implicatures 3.3.1 The Individuality of the Communicative Intention 3.3.2 The Invalidity of the Interpretation of the Conventional ImplicaturesChapter 4 Doubts About the Operation of the Horn Scale 4.1 Doubts Ab
23、out the Process of Inference 4.2 The Criticism of Xu Shenghuans Six Rules 4.3 Doubts About the Over-detailed Horn Scale StipulationsChapter 5 The Interference from the Politeness PrincipleChapter 6 ConclusionBibliographyAppendicesiiiivvii14461010141616171720222525293333353742454749Chapter 1 Introduc
24、tion: About the Horn ScaleTo begin this section, the writer of the paper wants to refer to a sort of jokes which appear like this:(1) A: “Which month has 28 days?”B: “February.” A: “Dont you think each month has 28 days?”The speaker A deliberately plays on the words to confuse B and he succeeds beca
25、use of the way B interprets the utterance in question, i.e. B takes it for granted that A has provided as much information within his knowledge as he could and the information is necessary but not superfluous. Therefore, when A puts forward the first question, B thereby interprets it as “Which month
26、 has only 28 days and no more”, and then the answer certainly is “February”.Bs reaction just coincides with Paul Grices understanding of “how people use language” (Levinson, 2001: 101). According to Grices theory, people will cooperate with each other in talk exchanges by holding a common goal in th
27、eir mind, so the Co-operative Principle appears as an overarching assumption guiding conversations. He further gives four maxims under the principle, namely, the maxims of quantity, quality, relevance and manner. When both the production and interpretation of an utterance occur, linguists (laymen ma
28、y not observe the maxims so professionally) can throw light on the processing effort by adopting the four maxims. On the other hand, this cooperation does not always happen on the superficial level, it may occur on a deeper level which is hard to detect at the first sight. Taking (1) for example, su
29、ppose A is a cross-talker and B is a listener, then it is natural for B to expect some comedian effect from the dialogue between them. Thus, B just lets A guide her through the conversation without any resistance, or in other words, she would not try to calculate his hidden meaning, but cooperate wi
30、th him by assuming his cooperation as well.The Co-operative Principle and its four maxims focus on the analysis of daily discourses, and invites non-linguistic knowledge or stereotypical relations to help interpret the implicatures of an utterance, hence broadens linguists and philosophers eyesight
31、on the problem of implicatures, so in the 1980s, a series of theories was put forward, such as Leechs Politeness Principle (1983), Sperber and Wilsons Relevance Theory (1986) and Levinsons Neo-Gricean pragmatic apparatus (1991). Though they all revise Grices principle, they focus on different resear
32、ch subjects: Leech attempts to explain why people flout the maxims; Sperber and Wilson adopt the cognitive perspective; and Levinson has tried to introduce the principles into the anaphora research. It is Levinson who has made full use of the Horn Scale.Levinson discards Grices maxim of relevance, b
33、ut extends the maxim of quantity into what he calls Generalized Quantity Implicatures, which later on constitutes his Neo-Gricean theory. There are two implicatures under the Generalized Quantity ImplicaturesScalar Quantity Implicatures and Clausal Quantity Implicatures. By Scalar Implicatures, Levi
34、nson refers to the Horn Scale (1972) as the basis for inference. Horn Scale is a linguistic scale, consisting of words which are comparable in terms of “informativeness” or “semantic strength”, such as hot, warm,all, some. It stipulates that choosing a weak form on the scale means the negation or ig
35、norance of the strong one (Levinson, 2001: 132). This idea entails Saussures hypothesis that there are two kinds of relations within a linguistic state, viz. syntagmatic relations and associative relations. The former refers to the linear order of words presence in an utterance or a sentence; and th
36、e latter refers to something like a memory repertoire within which words that share some common features are stored (Saussure, 2001:121-122). Thus, if the utterer says “It is warm.”, he/she implicates that “It is not hot” or at least “I dont know whether it can be described as hot or not” Though the
37、 utterer does not mention the word “hot” or the strong form on the Horn Scale, we can still infer the word out of its absence, and this is a typical associative relation. On the other hand, if the utterer chooses a strong form on the Horn Scale instead of a weak one, the implicature is that the weak
38、 form can not exhaust what the utterer wants to express, and that is why such a sentence as “It is warm, and actually it is hot” can often be heard. Generally speaking, the Horn Scale indicates that within a certain associative relation, though those words share something in common, they differ in q
39、uantity, and this difference is exposed to be the numbers of lexemes contained in them. For instance, hot occupies the strong position simply because it can be analyzed as +warm, +higher noticeable temperature, so it entails warm, or in Xu Shenghuans expressionhot = warm + higher noticeable temperat
40、ure (徐盛桓, 1995:12-13). Since the Horn Scale makes it plain that the preference to one word implies that its lexemes meet the utterers demand exactly, Levinson draws upon it as the cornerstone of his Quantity Principle, intending to offer a relatively objective explanation to the Generalized Quantity
41、 Implicatures. It does work well. In Bernard Shaws drama “Major Barbara”, Act I, we can find such a talk exchange between the mother and the son. (2) Lady Britomart: Well, you must interfere now; for they are getting quite beyond me.Stephen:troubled I have thought sometimes that perhaps I ought; (中国
42、对外翻译出版公司, 1999:10)Here, the mother is compelling her son to shoulder his responsibility as a grown-up man, but her son is still dodging. The playwright Bernard Shaw allocated two words, viz. must and perhaps, on a Horn Scale must, perhaps, respectively to the mother and the son to implicate differen
43、t attitudes and charactersthe mother is strong-willed whereas the son is too weak to sustain her hope. Lady Britomart is also aware of her sons implicatures, so she goes on using “you must” repeatedly to give him encouragement.Generally speaking, when people use language, lexicons which contain more
44、 lexemes are chosen on the grounds that they can express more than those which contain fewer lexemes, and choosing strong terms shows the utterers confidence or strong will in achieving certain communicative goals. Therefore the Horn Scale is an interpretation of Saussures idea of associative relati
45、ons in terms of quantity. It is inspired by Grices theory, but has been put in the spotlight by Levinsons three principles.Chapter 2 A General Survey of Three Viewpoints on the Horn ScaleThe paper mentions three viewpoints out of the consideration that the Anglo-American linguists are used to taking
46、 a component view towards pragmatics, while on the contrary, the Continental linguists tend to view pragmatics as a particular perspective on linguistics and this divergence, therefore, also affects these linguists evaluation of the validity of the Horn Scale. This paper will focus on one or two most outstanding figures belonging to each trend respectively, and in the third section, the focus will be shifted to the opinions of several Chinese linguists to complete the survey work.2.1 The Anglo-American Linguists Points of ViewStephen C. Levinson is
