Ain't pragmatics grand?

[conuly]

Mommy: When are we fixing the fence?
Me: Jenn's having a party next month.

Due to the power of pragmatics, everybody involved in that exchange understands that the first sentence answers the second, even though it doesn't sound like it ought to.

You just gotta love those Gricean maxims. Way back in Lives of Christopher Chant our main character finds himself asked why he's buying girl books. He can't explain that they're to give to a girl goddess who lives in another world, so he says "I have a cousin", telling himself that it's okay because he does have a cousin. Well, it's pretty minor as lies go, and harmless, but he knows and the reader knows that he certainly isn't telling the truth, because what he said isn't relevant and he's given his friend no reason to suspect that. It doesn't matter how many cousins he has, the books aren't for any of them.

Comments

[lilysea]

Or more sinisterly:

a pharmaceutical company was giving evidence into an inquiry about the high cost of insulin.

When asked why insulin cost so much, the company talked about a new, life-saving drug, therefore implying that high insulin costs paid for the development of new life saving drugs.

But the new life-saving drug had been developed by publicly funded/government-funded research, and the pharmaceutical company had had nothing to do with it.

Now, they didn't claim out right that they HAD funded the research.

But when you say
"Why does insulin cost so much"
and the company answers by talking about a new life saving drug,

they are clearly implying a connection.

[conuly]

YES THAT.

[siderea]

So, this whole conversation is fascinating to me because it's illuminating something about one of my superpowers.

It would seem that it's in how I relate to the Gricean maxims that some of my... cognitive difference... may be most rooted.

Or put another way: Oh, hey, there's terms to describe that phenomenon, which I have heretofore thought of as That Thing That Is A Security Hole In Neurotypical People's Minds.

If you had asked me a second before I read this, I would have told you vaguely (infuriatingly vaguely to both you and me) that there are certain kinds of logical incongruity in utterances that I am hypersensitive to, and I would tell you about a thing that happens in my head - we might describe it, for the lack of better, as a "cognitive sensation" - that I call "the Static". But, now, I would venture at least one specific flavor of logical incongruity which triggers that thing in my head is exactly this: answers to a question which don't actually answer the question; in particular, those which are trying to perpetrate a deceit by implication through exploiting pragmatics (or what I would have called the tendency to epistemic or semiotic closure).

Because I gotta tell you, when I notice one of these, it's like it's on fire. I don't know that I always notice them, but it's very clear to me that I notice them way, way, way, WAY than most people. And it's not a product of conscious scrutiny, looking for incongruities or things that could be gaps in truthfulness. I can do that too (same as anyone can), but I'm talking about something else. I don't have to look for them. When they happen, at least a lot of the time, it's immediately the most salient, most arresting thing about what someone said. I can't help but notice.

At the orientation for my third internship, which was a clinical after-school program for "at risk urban girls", one of the brave and reasonably woke interns, who like all(?) the interns was ostensibly white, asked the black and latina program managers about the handling the dynamics of this being mostly white program staff working with predominantly black kids. The black manager replied, as I recall it (and this is my attempt at an exact restatement), "Really, with our kids in this program, it's really about class." And everyone kinda laughed with relief and moved on. And there I was thinking, "Um. That... may be true, but (1) doesn't answer the original question, (2) just raises the question of how to handle the class dynamic, which (3) you didn't answer either, (4) is not in any way exclusive of the first question, and (5) does not in any way address the issue, much less render it resolved such that the conversation is done, contrary to how you seem to intend it to be taken. I wonder if she knew when she said it if it would have that effect on the intern class? Yeeeeeeah, there's no way she couldn't have known. That was a deliberate maneuver to shut that line of questioning down. I wonder why she doesn't want us talking about this elephant in the room?"

[conuly]

See, now, I would have doggedly pursued that question until I got an acceptable answer.

[siderea]

Not if you grew up with this superpower you wouldn't. I've had a near fifty year training course from life and nature that that fence always has electricity running through it. The first right move is to not say anything – for now.

[conuly]

The right move, sure, but the interesting move?

[siderea]

Due to the power of pragmatics, everybody involved in that exchange understands that the first sentence answers the second, even though it doesn't sound like it ought to.

Out of curiosity, what was it understood to mean?

You just gotta love those Gricean maxims.

Huh. I'd never heard of this before and just went off to google. How.... hmmm.

[moon_custafer]

Did you mean that the second sentence answers the first, or is that part of the Pragmatics?

[conuly]

The party was intended to fix the fence.

[siderea]

Glad I asked because I could think of two possibilities, neither of which was that!

You're having a fence-fixing party?

[conuly]

We're having a fence post putting in party - we'll put in the rest of the fence ourselves later.

[kareina]

Now that I hadn't guessed. I assumed from the exchange as quoted that either the information about the party was meant to imply "not till after the party; there is too much that needs doing between now and then", or "absolutely before the party, we need the fence looking nice on the day", but since I didn't know the people involved, couldn't guess which one would apply.

[low_delta]

I have this thing where it drives me crazy when people don't answer my questions. And once I notice it happening a lot, I get more sensitive to it.

So if it hadn't been happening to me a lot, and I was faced with that reply. I'd have said something like, "OK, after Jenn's party." And resolve to ask again later. Otherwise my answer might have been. "So... after Jenn's party? But when?!"

[conuly]

Well, it is an answer. My mother understood that I meant that Jenn was inviting people over for the purpose of repairing the fence and then having a barbecue to celebrate.

[pauamma]

Interesting. I took it to imply "so it'll get fixed before that party, one way or another", not "the party is when we'll fix it".

[flexagon]

And I understood it to mean "the month after next, at the earliest, because we have to pay for throwing a party next month".

[conuly]

Well, my mother had the context to understand it, and that's what matters.

[konsectatrix]

It always mildly fascinated me that you could answer a lot of questions with a random statement, and other people's brains would apparently invent a narrative that tied the two together.

The amusing part is that it doesn't really work so well with my spouse and kids, but that doesn't stop us from trying it on each other anyway, just to be amnoying.

[lilysea]

I sometimes say to taxi drivers "Do you mind if we turn the radio off? It tends to give me a headache."

Which is a true statement [loud music often does give me a headache], but a truer/less misleading statement would be

"The right-wing talkback program you are listening to is about to give me an anxiety attack."

But saying "Do you mind if we turn the radio off? It tends to give me a headache." gets me what I need without the taxi driver getting aggro at me.

[conuly]

Question: What happens if you just say "Would you mind turning the radio off"?

[lilysea]

Question: What happens if you just say "Would you mind turning the radio off"?

One or more of:

huffiness;

mild aggro;

social friction;

driving becomes faster/takes corners faster/takes speed bumps faster/otherwise does stuff that I've previously told the driver aggravates my physical pain.

[conuly]

Follow up question: Why do people suck?

[heartonsnow]

This whole subject and thread is fascinating to me! Especially as I annoyingly always give a lot of detail and miss out the main points!!!