162 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
4.4.1.5. Inferentialists
This section addresses the inferentialist approach to the problem of communication, as represented in the work of Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. Sperber and Wilson call
their approach relevance theory Sperber and Wilson 1986
. Whereas certain other schools of thought considered in this study focus on developing details of the code model
account, such as the nature of grammar, inferentialists focus upon the broader problem of communication. In particular, they wrestle with how the hearer moves from the reception
of an articulated expression to comprehension.
As they explain, “all human beings automatically aim at the most efficient infor- mation processing possible”
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :49. The effect of this economic
constraint is the production of optimally minimal expressions, which rarely document each logical step involved in the discourse. In order to “fill in the gaps” between such
minimal expressions, the speaker and hearer rely on principles of inference in both producing and comprehending these expressions. The way in which speakers and hearers
manage and manipulate this process is the focus of interest for inferentialists.
While the concerns of inferentialists are certainly outside the normal range of interests defined by the Saussurean paradigm, this study nevertheless describes them as
practicing normal science. While they do not consider the code model account to adequately address the problem of communication, they have not abandoned the model.
As far as the encoding process is concerned, they are generally satisfied with the code model account of language. They would, however, modify the code model axiom that
“Those receiving the text decode the message when they hearread the text,” by insisting that the decoding process alone is not capable of producing comprehension. The
inferential model of communication suggests that “communication is achieved by producing and interpreting evidence”
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :2.
Rather than abandon the code model, inferentialists supplement the code model account via several patches. For Sperber and Wilson, this involves the principle of
relevance and ostensive-inferential communication. Sperber and Wilson build upon the work of a fellow inferentialist, philosopher Paul
Grice, who supplies his own patch to linguistic communication. Grice is concerned with the idea of divergences in meaning between the logical operators of formal logical
language and the verbs and conjunctions of natural language. In his view, apparent divergences can be accounted for via an understanding of conversational implicature.
Grice writes: “I wish … to maintain that the common assumption … that the divergences do in fact exist is broadly speaking a common mistake, and the mistake arises from an
inadequate attention to the nature and importance of the conditions governing conversation”
1975 :43. In Grice’s view, conversational implicature involves a
cooperative principle and a set of maxims. Sperber and Wilson describe Grice’s thesis as follows:
Grice’s fundamental idea in his William James Lectures is that once a certain piece of behavior is identified as communicative, it is reasonable to assume that the communicator is
4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 163
trying to meet certain general standards. From knowledge of these general standards, obser- vation of the communicator’s behavior, and the context, it should be possible to infer the
communicator’s specific informative intention. Sperber and Wilson 1986
:33
Grice himself writes:
Our talk exchanges … are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or
at least a mutually accepted direction. … at each stage, some possible conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might then formulate a rough general
principle which participants will be expected ceteris paribus to observe, namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted
purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.
Grice 1975 :45
This is Grice’s cooperative principle, which he develops into nine maxims, classified into four categories. Sperber and Wilson
1986 :33–34 list them as follows:
Maxims of quantity 1. Make your contribution as informative as is required.
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Maxims of quality 1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Maxim of relation Be relevant.
Maxims of manner 1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity. 3. Be brief.
4. Be orderly.
For Grice, then, inference itself involves a set of rules, or maxims, for how the communicative act is to be both delivered and, accordingly, interpreted.
While Sperber and Wilson admittedly draw from Grice’s work on inference, there are several differences between Sperber and Wilson’s principle of relevance and Grice’s co-
operative principle and maxims. Sperber and Wilson discuss the more significant of these differences as follows:
Grice’s principle and maxims are norms which communicators and audience must know in order to communicate adequately. Communicators generally keep to the norms, but may also
violate them to achieve particular effects; and the audience uses its knowledge of the norms in interpreting communicative behavior.
164 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
The principle of relevance, by contrast, is a generalisation about ostensive-inferential com- munication. Communicators and audience need no more know the principle of relevance to
communicate than they need to know the principles of genetics to reproduce. Communicators do not ‘follow’ the principle of relevance; and they could not violate it even if they wanted to.
The principle of relevance applies without exception: every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of relevance. It is not the general principle, but the fact that a
particular presumption of relevance has been communicated by and about a particular act of communication, that the audience uses in inferential comprehension.
However, the most important difference between Grice’s approach and ours has to do with the explanation of communication. Grice’s account of conversation starts from a
distinction between what is explicitly said and what is implicated. No explanation of explicit communication is given; essentially, the code model, with the code understood as a set of
conventions, is assumed to apply. Implicatures are explained as assumptions that the audience must make to preserve the idea that the speaker has obeyed the maxims, or at least the co-
operative principle. [In contrast] The principle of relevance is intended to explain ostensive communication as a whole, both explicit and implicit.
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :162–163
Sperber and Wilson would likely reject the characterization of their model as a patch to the code model. They reject a similar assertion by John Searle
1969 in regard to
Grice’s cooperative principle and maxims, wherein Searle suggests that the principle and maxims are simply an addition to the code model account. In Sperber and Wilson’s view,
Searle’s analysis “reduces Grice’s analysis to a commonsense amendment to the code model. … If Searle’s revision is justified, then Grice’s analysis is not a genuine alter-
native to the code model after all”
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :25. In contrast, Sperber
and Wilson argue that “If Grice is right, the inferential abilities that humans ordinarily use in attributing intentions to each other should make communication possible in the
absence of a code. And of course it is possible” Sperber and Wilson 1986
:25. Sperber and Wilson argue that the code model and inferential model need not be
amalgamated, that is, that there is no need to conceive of communication as a unitary phenomenon
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :24. They maintain “that there are at least two
different modes of communication: the coding-decoding mode and the inferential mode” Sperber and Wilson 1986
:27. Furthermore, they are careful to characterize their “patch” as being of greater importance than coded communication, so that ostensive-inferential
communication is presumed to be the dominant form of communication, simply being supported by coded communication.
Sperber and Wilson 1986
:1, 4, 6–8 recognize that many people employ a conduit metaphor-based explanation of communication, and they are certainly aware of Saus-
surean semiology, as well as Shannon and Weaver’s development of an information theoretic model. But as discussed in chapter
3 , they do not analyze the code model as
having constituent models. Rather, they consider the code model to simply be the contemporary instantiation of an ancient theory of signs. The result of their limited
analysis is that they keep the code model notion of coded communication. They simply contest the notion that in using coded communication the communicators send thoughts
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :1. They are comfortable, however, with the notion that via
encoding and decoding, communicators can communicate thoughts:
4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 165
The view of linguistic communication as achieved by encoding thoughts in sounds is so entrenched in Western culture that it has become hard to see it as a hypothesis rather than a
fact. Yet the code model of verbal communication is only a hypothesis, with well known merits and rather less well-known defects. Its main merit is that it is explanatory: utterances do
succeed in communicating thoughts, and the hypothesis that they encode thoughts might ex- plain how this is done. Its main defect, as we will shortly argue, is that it is descriptively inad-
equate: comprehension involves more than the decoding of a linguistic signal.
Sperber and Wilson 1986
:6; italics added
Rather than view communication as the process of sending thoughts, Sperber and Wilson suggest that communication is a process of guiding inference. As they state in this
quotation, their main objection to the code model is in regard to how it accounts for comprehension of discourse. In their view, the processes of encoding and decoding alone
cannot account for comprehension, for comprehension inevitably requires inference. As they explain, in guiding inference, the code model would require that speaker and hearer
share common knowledge, or mutual knowledge as it is sometimes called see
Lewis 1969
; Schiffer 1972
. “The argument is that if the hearer is to be sure of recovering the correct interpretation, the one intended by the speaker, every item of contextual
information used in interpreting the utterance must be not only known by the speaker and hearer, but mutually known”
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :18.
Clearly, speakers and hearers rarely, if ever, completely share such mutual knowl- edge. Sperber and Wilson accordingly write, “We see the mutual-knowledge hypothesis
as untenable. We conclude, therefore, that the code theory must be wrong, and that we had better worry about possible alternatives”
1986 :21. It is important to understand,
however, that Sperber and Wilson are not rejecting the notion of coded communication per se. They later employ the notion of coded communication as a means of improving
the odds of success for ostensive-inferential communication. Rather, Sperber and Wilson are simply rejecting the code model explanation of inference because of its dependence
on the notion of mutual knowledge.
Sperber and Wilson are not simply interested in the means by which inference is assembled as was Grice, but also with the ways in which communicators attempt to
direct or guide the inference of their communicative partners, thus their use of the term ostension.
Concerning such behavior, they write: “We will call such behavior—behavior which makes manifest an intention to make something manifest—ostensive behavior or
simply ostension. Showing someone something is a case of ostension. So too, we will argue, is human intentional communication”
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :49. They
provide the following definition of ostensive-inferential communication:
The communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make manifest or
more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions {I}. Sperber and Wilson 1986
:155
79
Sperber and Wilson see coded communication as the most accurate means of guiding inference, but in their view it is certainly not the only medium employed in this process;
79
Sperber and Wilson use the symbol {I} to designate “set of assumptions.”
166 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
rather, the communicators have a broad inventory of means by which they can guide the inference of their communicative partners. Furthermore, communication need not neces-
sarily involve coded communication; other media can be employed without evoking the linguistic code. Coded communication simply narrows the range of logical interpretations
available to the communicative partner.
In Sperber and Wilson’s view, then, communication typically involves two types of communication: coded and ostensive-inferential. Ostensive-inferential communication is
considered to be the dominant type of communication. Coded communication is considered a supplement to the O-I type, rather than the inverse. They write:
We regard verbal communication, then, as involving two types of communication processes: one based on coding and decoding, the other on ostension and inference. The coded
communication process is not autonomous: it is subservient to the inferential process. The inferential process is autonomous: it functions in essentially the same way whether or not
combined with coded communication although in the absence of coded communication, performances are generally poorer. The coded communication is of course linguistic: acoustic
or graphic signals are used to communicate semantic representations. The semantic repre- sentations recovered by decoding are useful only as a source of hypotheses and evidence for
the second communication process, the inferential one. Inferential communication involves the application, not of special-purpose decoding rules, but of general-purpose inference rules,
which apply to any conceptually represented information.
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :175–176
Sperber and Wilson see no need for the entire set of rules which Grice proposed. Rather, they focus upon the maxim of relation, that is, “Be relevant.” But in contrast to
Grice, who held that such maxims must be cooperatively held by communicative part- ners, Sperber and Wilson describe the principle of relevance not as a rule, but as an
automatic function of ostensive communication. In their view, “an act of ostensive communication automatically communicates a presumption of relevance”
1986 :156.
Every act of communication involves a situation wherein “The communicator intends to communicate a set of assumptions {I}”
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :157. Any attempt to
communicate, then, presumes the following:
Presumption of optimal relevance a The set of assumptions {I} which the communicator intends to make manifest to the
addressee is relevant enough to make it worth the addressee’s while to process the ostensive stimulus.
b The ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one the communicator could have used to communicate {I}.
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :158
The principle of relevance can then be expressed as follows:
Principle of relevance Every act of ostensive communication communicates the presumption of its own optimal
relevance. Sperber and Wilson 1986
:158
These principles are presumed to guide the inference of the hearer, just as they guide the communicative effort of the speaker.
4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 167
In light of their obviously innovative views regarding inference and certain limi- tations of the code model, it is almost surprising that Sperber and Wilson supply a code
model-oriented notion of language as a cognitive system. They write:
In the broadest sense, a language is a set of well-formed formulas, a set of permissible combinations of items from some vocabulary, generated by a grammar. In a narrower sense, a
language is a set of semantically interpreted well-formed formulas. A formula is semantically interpreted by being put into systematic correspondences with other objects: for example, with
the formulas of another language, with states of the user of the language, or with possible states of the world. A language in this narrower sense—the one we will use—is a grammar-
governed representational system.
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :172–173
They are careful, however, to define language as essential to cognition, but not as essential for communication.
80
The activities which necessarily involve the use of a language i.e., a grammar-governed representational system are not communicative but cognitive. Language is an essential tool
for the processing and memorising of information. … Language is not a necessary medium for communication: non-coded communication
exists. Nor is it necessarily a medium for communication: languages exist which are not used for communication. However, language is a necessary attribute of communicating devices.
Two devices capable of communicating with each other must also be capable of internally representing the information communicated, and must therefore have an internal language. In
the case of ostensive-inferential communication, this internal language must be rich enough to represent the intentions of other organisms, and to allow for complex inferential processes.
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :173–174
It is in writing of “non-coded communication” that Sperber and Wilson begin to move outside the Saussurean tradition. They are clearly pushing the limits of the
Saussurean paradigm. They have not, however, quite reached “escape velocity.”
4.4.2. Revolutionary linguistics: Abandoning the code model
Kuhn suggests that it is only when the attempts of normal science fail that scientists begin to recognize anomalies for what they are. He defines anomalies as phenomena
“whose characteristic feature is their stubborn refusal to be assimilated to existing para- digms,” suggesting that “Paradigms provide all phenomena except anomalies with a
theory-determined place in the scientist’s field of vision”
1996 :97; italics added.
80
It is interesting to compare Sperber and Wilson’s teleological view of language as having the purpose of cognition with communication simply being a byproduct to the view of Saussure and the contrasting view held by Locke. As
discussed in section 3.2.2.2.1
, Saussure held the view that language was essential for cognition, while his predecessor Locke had held an opposing view. As Parkinson explains:
It was evidently Locke’s view and in this he was by no means alone that there could be thought without language; that what he called the various ‘operations of the mind’ [Essay Concerning Human Under-
standing] 2 ch. 11 could be exercised on ideas alone, even if there were no language. Language does not exist, then, because man is a rational being; it exists, according to Locke, because man is a ‘sociable
creature’, and language is ‘the great instrument and common tie of society’ [Essay Concerning Human Understanding] 3.1.1.
Parkinson 1977 :1–2
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