理想世界中的会话含义理论及其现实意义

Grice’s Idealization of the Cooperative Principle and Its Realistic Implications

Grice的古典会话含义理论(1975)是建立在"理想世界"上的揭示了人类交际最一般规律的学说.有不少人说这个理论不现实.本文根据大多数西方哲学中理想世界与现实世界之间的关系,结合社会学的研究方法和对象指出,Grice构建的理论属于理想世界的层面.由于理想世界是构建所有科学(尤其是社会科学)理论的基础,因此会话含义理论的价值不在于合作原则及其准则有多大的可操作性,而在于其高度概括的方法论性质和对现实进行研究的指导意义.

This paper holds that Grice's theory of conversational implicature (1975) is an idealized theory on the general nature of human communication, which, as Levinson (1983) points out, 'may describe a philosopher's paradise'. Based on the classical relationship in most western philosophies between 'presence' and 'absence', or between ideal/virtual worlds and actual worlds, the paper proposes that the ideal world of Grice's theorizing is one on which all social theorization is based. Therefore, the value of Grice's classical theory does not lie as much in its real-world manipulability as in its methodological implications in exploring into conversational behavior in social interaction.