The Attributive/Referential Distinction, Pragmatics, Modularity of Mind and Modularization

Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy &Amp; Psychology

Walton

2017

to a perjury charge, and became the principal topic of Clinton's testimony before a federal grand jury on August 17, 1998 (Solan and Tiersma 2005, pp. 230-233). In particular, Clinton was accused of lying, stating that Lewinsky told the truth when she said that they had no sexual relationships. The following is an excerpt from the transcripts of Clinton's perjury trial before the Senate 1 : Case 3.1: Clinton's Sexual Relationship Question: Do you remember in the deposition that Mr. Bennett asked you about that? This is at the end of the -of the -toward the end of the deposition. And you indicated -he asked you whether the statement that Ms. Lewinsky made in her affidavit was true. And you indicated that it was absolutely correct. Clinton: I did. […] I believe at the time that she filled out this affidavit, if she believed that the definition of sexual relationship was two people having intercourse, then this is accurate. And I believe that is the definition that most ordinary Americans would give it.If you said Jane and Harry had a sexual relationship -and they're not talking about people being drawn into a lawsuit and being given a definition and then a great effort to trick them in some way -but you're just talking about people in an ordinary conversation, I bet the grand jurors, if they were talking about two people they know and said they had a sexual relationship, they meant they were sleeping together. They meant they were having intercourse together.Clinton in this case relied on the ambiguity of "sexual relationship" and explicated the meaning of his own statement by defining the term narrowly. Clinton was thus found not to have lied, as he was only committed to not having had intercourse (which was true).

Section: Types Of Ambiguity and Ambiguity Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpreting Straw Man Argumentation

Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy &Amp; Psychology

Walton

2017

“…Unlikely potential ambiguity, actual ambiguity and imaginary ambiguity concern the interpretation of a sentence in an utterance, i.e., a type of ambiguity that is pragmatic in nature (Jaszczolt 1999;Capone 2011). Actual ambiguity is generated by different contextual interpretations of the referents of indexical expressions.…”

Section: Ambiguity and Its Argumentative Usesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ABC provided an accurate quote, but out of context, and "an exact quotation out of context can distort meaning, although the speaker did use each reported word" (Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. at 515). The logical form of the statement is not ambiguous, but by not providing the needed explicature and by wrenching the quote from its context, the reporter exploited the presumptive interpretation of its propositional content (Bezuidenhout 1997;Jaszczolt 1999;Capone 2011). This utterance, when transferred to an indirect report (i.e., interpreted) or integrated through the needed explicatures, is reconstructed presumptively by attributing to the pronoun "I" the most common reference, i.e., the speaker ("Price said that he lives in : : : ").…”

Section: Propositional Pragmatic Ambiguitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reporting and Interpreting Intentions in Defamation Law

Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy &Amp; Psychology

2016

The relationship between quoting and indirect reporting another's words is an issue that connects the field of pragmatics to the studies in the areas of rhetoric, argumentation, and law. There is nothing more effective for establishing someone's commitments than referring to his own words (Boller 1967). However, for dialectical or rhetorical purposes, a quote can be distorted, or reported incorrectly (Walton and Macagno 2011). Commitments to positions that are scandalous or hard to defend can be attributed to an individual in order to arouse attention, discredit him, or attack him. Clearly, when words become directly connected with reputation or courtroom battles, the problem of establishing what a quote means exceeds the boundaries of pragmatics and rhetoric and becomes a legal issue. Quotes or misquotes become relevant in law when they are used for specific argumentative purposes, as instruments of defamation or powerful tools for attacking the opponent's case or defending against accusations. However, such argumentative uses presuppose a fundamental interpretative step. In these cases, a quote is not a mere repetition of a portion of another's text or speech; it is the use of another's utterance to support the speaker's viewpoint. For this reason, every quote used argumentatively is the outcome of an interpretative process. A reporter can report directly or indirectly a public figure's words to accuse, criticize, or negatively evaluate him or his behavior explicitly or implicitly, or to trigger a specific reaction in the audience. When a defamatory quote is brought before the court, its meaning is interpreted and explicated or reported to support the accusation. Similarly, the same quote needs to go through the same interpretative process to rebut the charges. The fundamental problem is to describe and provide rules and mechanisms governing the F. Macagno ( )

“…Following the works of Walton (1996: 262) and van Laar (2003: Ch. 4), and the cases of interpretative ambiguity discussed by Jaszczolt (1999) and Capone (2011), we can distinguish between different types of ambiguity, namely linguistic (including semantic and syntactic) and pragmatic (or interpretative) ambiguity. While the ambiguity of a linguistic expression can lead to different logical forms, what is at stake in ambiguity at a pragmatic level is the reconstruction of the purpose of a speech act.…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

“…A noun phrase (NP) such as ''The king'' in ''The king is powerful'' can be interpreted both attributively (whoever is the king) and referentially (that specific king). In this case, the NP is associated with a logical form (Jaszczolt 1999;Bezuidenhout 1997), which is then further interpreted (or rather enriched) in a specific context, namely a specific utterance (see Bezuidenhout 1997;Jaszczolt 1999;Capone 2011 for the discussion about the default interpretation). The communicative purpose of an utterance (talking about monarchy in general or describing a man that is a king) may lead to preferring one interpretation to another.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpretative Disputes, Explicatures, and Argumentative Reasoning

Capone

2015

Argumentation

Self Cite

The problem of establishing the best interpretation of a speech act is of fundamental importance in argumentation and communication in general. A party in a dialogue can interpret another's or his own speech acts in the most convenient ways to achieve his dialogical goals. In defamation law this phenomenon becomes particularly important, as the dialogical effects of a communicative move may result in legal consequences. The purpose of this paper is to combine the instruments provided by argumentation theory with the advances in pragmatics in order to propose an argumentative approach to meaning reconstruction. This theoretical proposal will be applied to and tested against defamation cases at common law. Interpretation is represented as based on a hierarchy of interpretative presumptions. On this view, the development of the logical form of an utterance is regarded as the result of an abductive pattern of reasoning in which various types of presumptions are confronted and the weakest ones are excluded. Conflicts of interpretations and equivocation become essentially interwoven with the dialectical problem of fulfilling the burden of defeating a presumption. The interpreter has a burden of explaining why a given presumption is subject to default, assuming that the speaker is reasonable and acting based on a set of shared expectations.