Irony, Deception and Humour: Seeking the Truth about Overt and Covert Untruthfulness 9781501507922, 9781501516429

Citation preview

Marta Dynel Irony, Deception and Humour

Mouton Series in Pragmatics

Editor Istvan Kecskes Editorial Board Reinhard Blutner (Universiteit van Amsterdam) N.J. Enfield (Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics) Raymond W. Gibbs (University of California, Santa Cruz) Laurence R. Horn (Yale University) Boaz Keysar (University of Chicago) Ferenc Kiefer (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) Lluís Payrató (University of Barcelona) François Recanati (Institut Jean-Nicod) John Searle (University of California, Berkeley) Deirdre Wilson (University College London)

Volume 21

Marta Dynel

Irony, Deception and Humour Seeking the Truth about Overt and Covert Untruthfulness

ISBN 978-1-5015-1642-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-0792-2 e-ISBN (ePub) 978-1-5015-0789-2 ISSN 1864-6409 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934533 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/Berlin Typesetting: Compuscript Ltd., Shannon, Ireland Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements This monograph was a long time coming and it would not have seen the light of day if it had not been for the warm encouragement and invaluable help of Prof. István Kecskés. I wish to thank him most sincerely for placing his trust in my academic potential. My deep appreciation goes to a number of researchers who have discussed irony, deception and humour with me, and who have shared their critical comments and useful suggestions over the past few years: Dr Eleni Kapogianni, Dr Valeria Sinkeviciute, Dr Neri Marsili, Dr Laura Neuhaus, Prof. James Mahon, Prof. Don Fallis and Prof. Jörg Meibauer. It is to Prof. Jörg Meibauer that I also owe an incalculable debt of gratitude for inviting me to give a talk during his Mainz workshop on lying and deception (Johannes Gutenberg University) and to submit a paper to his Handbook of Lying. These two invitations rekindled my interest in deception and prompted me to resume this fascinating topic sooner than I had thought I would. Additionally, I wish to acknowledge the help of Prof. Jocelyne Vincent Marrelli, who kindly shared the text of her excellent 2004 monograph with me in 2015. Her book not only confirmed a lot of my previous interpretations of thorny issues found in Grice’s writings but also inspired me to make new observations, sometimes polemical, especially with regard to the characteristics of untruthfulness and specific types of deception. I am very grateful to two anonymous referees of my book proposal for giving it the green light and sharing their useful comments. I am also indebted to the anonymous reviewer of the full manuscript for his/her report and hundreds of handwritten remarks and suggestions. Furthermore, I wish to thank many conference participants and anonymous reviewers of my papers for engaging with my work and offering comments that helped me to buttress my argumentation. In addition, I am thankful to Sarah Seewoester Cain, who took pains to proofread the first draft of three chapters and shared her useful advice on their content as well. In addition, I would like to extend my special thanks to Chris Pringle (Executive Publisher at Elsevier), who kindly volunteered to proofread the remainder of the text. My work has benefited greatly from all this feedback. Any remaining flaws are entirely my own. This monograph is the crowning achievement of seven years’ worth of work on untruthfulness. Therefore, apart from presenting new text and new ideas, this book expands on my proposals already published in a few journal articles and book chapters. I wish to thank a number of publishers: Elsevier, John Benjamins, Springer and De Gruyter for allowing me to reuse revised versions of previously published material free of charge (for details, see the references). https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-202

vi 

 Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the support of a grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland (Project number IP2015 012874, Decision 0128/IP3/2016/74), which helped me in the final stages of completing this volume. On a personal note, my heartfelt thanks go to the authors of the American series House, my constant source of academic inspiration and a well of excellent examples of irony, deception and humour. Last but not least, I would like to thank Emma and Maciej for their patience and support especially over the past one and a half years, when this book has been my highest priority. I dedicate this work to them. Marta Dynel September 2017

Preface The underlying theme of this book is untruthfulness, which is understood as the expression of what one believes to be false and conceptualised in view of a ­neo-Gricean framework. The overarching goal of this book is to give a theoretical pragmatic-philosophical account of three linguistic concepts which display untruthfulness but have not yet been brought together in a consistent manner: irony, deception and (part of) conversational humour. The arguments presented here are based on a modified and extended version of Grice’s philosophical framework of communication. The entire theoretical discussion is premised on the assumption that this neo-Gricean approach adequately captures the mechanics of the linguistic concepts examined here (irony, deception and some humour). Through this framework, an adequate characterisation of these heterogeneous phenomena can be achieved, with their common denominator being some form of untruthfulness. The proposals made within one consolidated framework with regard to the three distinct (albeit sometimes co-occurring) notions are in many ways compatible, and the fundamental postulates echo across the chapters. This shows in the many cross-references made throughout the monograph. The key distinction drawn here is between overt and covert untruthfulness. Although it will be formally elaborated in the course of this book, some explanation is now in order. Essentially, overt untruthfulness, originating in flouting Grice’s first maxim of Quality, encompasses several figures of speech, notably irony. The speaker has no intention of causing the hearer to take what he/she purports to be communicating as what the speaker believes to be true. Instead, the speaker wants the hearer to recognise the untruthfulness and the intended meaning carried in the form of conversational implicature. Apart from irony, three other Quality-based figures (of speech) are relevant in this context: metaphor, hyperbole and meiosis. Interesting though they may be to study, irony seems to offer particularly fertile ground for theoretical discussion. As is evidenced by the volume of literature, irony escapes easy definition and is frequently conflated with other – potentially different – notions (e.g. non-ironic humour and/or sarcasm). Consequently, it is irony that is highlighted in this monograph, and the other Quality-based figures are discussed mainly in the context of their combinations with irony and/or deception. Unlike irony, deception is the product of covert untruthfulness, which arises due to the violation of Grice’s first maxim of Quality. This violation may be the consequence of another maxim violation or flouting, which accounts for the different types of deception (e.g. deceptive implicature, bullshit or withholding information). Unaware of the speaker’s maxim violation, the hearer takes the speaker’s contribution as if it is truthful and is thereby https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-203

viii 

 Preface

deceived. Albeit distinct, irony and deception deserve to be studied jointly from one theoretical vantage point, a task that has not been attempted in any consistent way so far. This book ventures to do just that. The list of phenomena that exhibit untruthfulness extends beyond even the wide gamut of categories of deception, irony and other Quality-based figures. Humour, used as shorthand for conversational humour, is the third notion that is pursued in this book with regard to untruthfulness. Although, according to the original plan, this book was not supposed to cover humour (my first academic interest, from which I have been slowly diverging over the years), with the passage of time, it turned out that this notion deserves to be addressed in a separate chapter, albeit shorter than the other ones. Humour is a vast communicative phenomenon and it is the topic of an interdisciplinary field. Linguistic research on humour alone is a vast area of investigation. This book, however, considers conversational humour, i.e. utterances that have potential to cause amusement, only in the context of the problem of (un)truthfulness through a theoretical pragmatic/philosophical lens, without meandering on in the direction of tangential issues, such as categories of humour (e.g. teasing or banter). The readers are, however, provided with references to some of the works where more information on humour can be found. Humour shows partial overlap with both irony and deception, spanning truthfulness, covert untruthfulness and overt untruthfulness. This diversity explains why humour merits special attention. Another reason is that humour is frequently mentioned with regard to irony (which tends to be perceived as a type of humour, though it may only sometimes overlap with humour). On the other hand, deception, notably lying, is commonly juxtaposed with “joking”, a folk category of humour. Overall, the humour – irony and humour – deception relationships are more complicated than the literature so far has reported. This is the second deficit that this monograph aims to address. The umbrella term “untruthfulness” proposed in this book encompasses the three pertinent concepts (irony, deception and some humour), which are typically studied independently in different scholarly disciplines (notably, in philosophy and in various fields of linguistics), each of which uses different methodological apparatus. Thus, exploring the three notions collectively necessitates finding some common ground between essentially distinct scholarly areas: the philosophy of deception, the pragmatics of irony and linguistic humour studies. As a result, this book seems to ‘pragmatise philosophy’ by shedding linguistic light on philosophical conundrums and ‘philosophise about pragmatics’ by theorising on the workings of pragmatic phenomena. The Gricean framework of communication, a philosophical pillar of pragmatics, is an excellent point of departure for this kind of enterprise. Grice’s notions offer a skeleton for the discussion and help

Preface 

 ix

construct a theoretically unified, coherent picture of the full spectrum of manifestations that irony, deception and humour have. Whatever critics may say, Grice was a genius whose work still inspires new research. His work continues to be interpreted anew and, regrettably, sometimes misinterpreted. The principle of least divergence is followed here, with Grice’s proposals (hopefully, understood in line with Grice’s original design) being always at the core of the discussion. Nonetheless, Grice’s project must be expanded in order to encompass notions that seem to have been beyond his focus of attention. Thus, after revisiting the pertinent aspects of Grice’s philosophy in the light of post-Gricean and neo-Gricean studies, the present monograph critically reports on philosophical and linguistic scholarship on irony, deception and humour (with regard to (un)truthfulness) and puts forward a wide range of novel postulates (some necessarily controversial but anchored in Grice’s writings) in order to tease out the characteristics and subtypes of the three notions through a neo-Gricean lens. Given that the theoretical bedrock is Grice’s legacy, several methodological consequences ensue. The focus is on speaker meaning (speaker-intended meaning) and on (un)truthfulness (dependent on the speaker’s beliefs) rather than on truth-conditional meaning, which is typically studied with reference to the pragmatics vs semantics distinction. This book examines the mechanisms of irony, deception and humour as constructed by the speaker to be duly understood by the hearer in accordance with the former’s communicative design. What is important is that the theoretical-pragmatic and philosophical postulates put forward in the course of this book are based on a rationalist (in a Cartesian sense) method of argumentation, as opposed to empirical methods reliant on cognitive experiments, for instance. The proposals for conceptualising irony, deception and humour in their various forms and guises perform a strictly theoretical, explanatory function. No claims are hence made that the production or inferential processes depicted here correspond to actual cognitive processes taking place in the mind of the speaker or the hearer. This is consonant with Grice’s view of communication, which is purely philosophical, not cognitive (and which tends to be unduly, I believe, criticised for its cognitive implausibility). At the same time, this work does manifest an empirical inclination in terms of the examples illustrating the notions and postulates at hand. Rather than following the practice of presenting fabricated specimens of language use, which is common in the scholarship on irony and on deception, this monograph is illustrated with natural data culled from the popular television series House. Its discourse abounds in intricate and diversified instances of untruthfulness, helping appreciate the complexity of the phenomena at hand. The use of scripted interactions facilitates the study of the three communicative phenomena that

x 

 Preface

are heavily dependent on not only context but also the speaker’s intentions and beliefs. Compared to humans in real-life interactions, characters’ mental states can be conjectured much more easily. This is because a film or series has its own reality and its own ‘truths’, which are, to a large extent, made available to a wide audience. On a different note, all the paraphrases of the communicated meanings offered in the analyses of examples are to be considered tentative, style and functional language use notwithstanding. Also, in line with what has been stated in the paragraph above, no claims are made that these hypothetical elaborations of utterances or the interpretative stages discerned represent actual cognitive stages of interpretation in the listeners of untruthful utterances. Some examples come also from the previous scholarship on irony and humour. These examples are quoted in the body of the text in order to better explain the problems at hand, and, very frequently, in order to provide critiques of the quoted authors’ interpretations and postulates. On a related note, the discussion aims to accommodate what other scholars have written about the concepts of irony, deception and humour, each of which entails immense notional and conceptual complexities. This is not to suggest that my voice is pushed to the background; the existing scholarship is filtered out and approached reflexively, with the originality of the surveys lying also in how they are structured. Consequently, this monograph not only offers entirely new proposals but also gives a solid and, importantly, in many ways critical overview of the relevant scholarship. Hopefully, this book will be useful to both experienced and inexperienced researchers interested in Grice’s philosophy, irony, deception and/or humour. This monograph is divided into five chapters, each preceded by a short introduction to its contents. Chapter 1 gives a formal introduction to the book, explaining the notions central to the discussion in the next four chapters and motivating the need for the use of natural language data in the study of irony and deception. Chapter 2 offers an exhaustive account of the relevant aspects of Grice’s framework of communication, together with its developments, explaining the overlaps, parallels and differences between irony, deception and humour with the use of Grice’s terminology. Thereby, the foundations are laid for the discussion of the three phenomena which are the primary focus of attention: irony (Chapter 3), deception (Chapter 4) and the (un)truthfulness of conversational humour (Chapter 5). These three chapters address the highly complex phenomena in mutual isolation to a certain extent (which facilitates independent reading for those not interested in all three concepts), except for the sections which are concerned with their co-occurrence. In each chapter, the discussion flows from one topic to another but the main sections can be read independently, constituting largely independent units. The three chapters are structured in different ways, which is dictated

Preface 

 xi

by the specificity of the three research topics (e.g. irony tends to be mistaken for other concepts and is reported to have various pragmatic effects; and the theoretical literature on deception is preoccupied with fine distinctions between lies and other forms of deception, frequently based on fabricated examples). What the three chapters have in common is that they each examine the characteristics and salient types of the phenomenon at hand. Conclusions, which would inevitably oversimplify the content of the chapters, are purposefully avoided. The monograph closes with an Epilogue, which summarises the types of untruthfulness, irony and deception teased out in the course of the book, as well as depicting their position on the neo-Gricean map. This Epilogue may serve as an easily traceable reference point, which may come in handy in the course of reading the book.

Contents Acknowledgements  Preface 

 v

 vii

Chapter 1

Theoretical preliminaries, terminological conundrums and empirical foundations   1 1 Truth vs (un)truthfulness   1 2 Truthfulness vs sincerity   4 3 Covert vs overt untruthfulness   8 4 Irony vs lying   12 5 Language data in the scholarship on irony, deception and humour   20 5.1 Irony   20 5.2 Deception   24 5.3 Humour   25 6 Scripted interactions as data   27 7 On House and data collection   29  33 Chapter 2 (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness  1 Approaching Grice’s model of communication   34 1.1 Forms of maxim nonfulfilment and their effects   35 1.2 Whose implicature?   38 1.3 Intention (recognition) and speaker meaning   40 1.4 Hearer(s)   44 2 Quality and truthfulness   45 3 Truthfulness and saying vs asserting   49 4 Covert untruthfulness and maxim violations   56 4.1 Gricean and neo-Gricean views of deception   57 4.2 Covert explicit or implicit untruthfulness   62 5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings   65 5.1 Irony, metaphor, meiosis and hyperbole   65 5.2 Grice’s remarks on irony and criticism thereof   69 5.3 Quality-based figures as an alleged flaw in Grice’s proposal of implicature   73 6 Humour, Grice’s framework and (un)truthfulness   78 6.1 Does Grice’s framework encompass humour?   78 6.2 Humour and the truthfulness maxim (non)fulfilment   82

xiv 

 Contents

Chapter 3 1 2 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.2 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3 2.4 3 4 4.1 4.2 5 6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.5.1 6.5.2 6.5.3 6.5.4 7 7.1 7.2

Overt untruthfulness: Irony   88 Approaching the figure of irony   89 A neo-Gricean definition of irony   94 Flouting the first maxim of Quality and overt untruthfulness   94 Transparency of overt untruthfulness   98 Overt untruthfulness, opposition and reversal   102 Negatively evaluative implicature   106 Optional positive evaluation   118 Previous examples of ‘positively evaluative irony’   121 Negatively evaluated antecedent   124 Implicated positive and negative evaluations   127 Interpretative stages: Meaning reversal and implicature(s)   129 Boosting or mitigating negative evaluation   130 Irony vs sarcasm   136 Previous uses of the labels and definitional differences   137 Sarcastic irony   150 Hearers vs targets of irony   152 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective   157 Propositional meaning reversal irony   157 Pragmatic meaning reversal irony   162 Local lexical meaning reversal irony   169 Surrealistic irony   171 Verisimilar irony   177 Previous neo-Gricean accounts of verisimilar irony   181 A neo-Gricean approach to verisimilar irony   184 Previous examples of verisimilar irony   189 Disputable examples of verisimilar irony   194 Irony and the other Quality-based figures   207 Irony coupled with meiosis or hyperbole   207 Irony coupled with metaphor   215

 224 Chapter 4 Covert untruthfulness: Deception  1 Approaching deception   225 1.1 Defining deception   225 1.2 Previous classifications of deception strategies  1.3 Non-verbal deception   236 2 Lying   242 2.1 Target   244

 232

Contents 

 247 Beliefs and untruthfulness  Two types of intentions to deceive the hearer   250 Untruthful stating/saying/asserting   262 Non-verbal saying via asserting   267 Lying as the violation of the first maxim of Quality   270 Lying by saying or making as if to say   272 Covertly untruthful implicature   279 Revisions and extensions   280 Deceptive implicatures based on irony or metaphor   287 Non-prototypical lying or deceiving by implicating?   294 Deceptively withholding information   299 Withholding information (non)deceptively   299 Withholding information and similar notions   303 Conceptualising deceptively withholding information   308 4.4 Previous examples of deceptively withholding information   310 4.5 Pragmatic forms of deceptively withholding information   319 5 Bullshit   325 5.1 Bullshit vs nonsense   325 5.2 Previous examples of bullshit   330 5.3 Bullshit in neo-Gricean terms   334 6 Deception via other maxim violations   339 6.1 Covert irrelevance and covert ambiguity   339 6.2 Deception via covert irony and metaphor   345 7 Bald-faced lying   349 8 Deception in multi-party interactions   362 8.1 (Un)ratified hearers and inferring speaker meaning   363 8.2 Previous postulates on deception and multiple hearers   368 8.3 A new look at deception in a multi-party participation framework   375

2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 4 4.1 4.2 4.3

Chapter 5 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.3.1 1.3.2

 387 Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness  Approaching humour   388 Previous conceptualisations of humour   388 Humour coupled with seriousness   393 (Un)truthfulness as a dimension of humour   395 Autotelic humour   405 Speaker-meaning-telic humour   413

 xv

xvi 

 Contents

2 2.1 2.2 3 3.1 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.3 3.3.1 3.3.2

Humour and irony   420 Humorous irony   421 Humorous irony vs non-ironic humour   424 Humour and deception   431 Previous observations   432 Categories of humour involving deception   435 Garden-path humour   435 Put-ons and other deception-based teasing   438 Genuine deception coupled with humour   441 Humorous deceptive utterances   441 Genuine deception in multi-party interactions   444

Epilogue 

 449

References  Index 

 481

 455

Chapter 1 Theoretical preliminaries, terminological conundrums and empirical foundations House: First of all, stop saying “a” truth. There is only one truth. Lucas: That may be true for you. Season 5, Episode 3 Cameron: I told them the truth. [...] Wilson:  Alison, their baby’s dying. If the parents weren’t in tears when you left, you didn’t tell them the truth. Cameron: That’s not how I see it. Season 1, Episode 4 House: Is a lie a lie if everybody knows it’s a lie? Season 1, Episode 7

This chapter aims to tease out several concepts lying at the heart of this monograph. Besides presenting the notions of (un)truthfulness and sincerity against the backdrop of relevant philosophical and pragmatic literature, this chapter gives a short introduction to the linguistic phenomena under investigation, primarily irony and deception, as well as humour, which straddles the two (but may present truthfulness). It is shown that irony can be conceptualised as overt untruthfulness, whereas deception displays covert untruthfulness. This ­distinction – it is argued here – seems to be the easiest way of distinguishing between the two concepts, a problem that a number of philosophers and linguists have addressed in passing. Additionally, some rationale is provided for the use of natural, albeit scripted, language data in theoretical studies of deception and irony. The (un)truthfulness-based phenomena are illustrated with examples taken from a popular television series, which is briefly introduced in the last section of this chapter.

1 Truth vs (un)truthfulness According to the dichotomy first proposed by Augustine (1952) and restated by Aquinas (1972), as reported by Vincent Marrelli (2004: 30), truthfulness rests on a “formal”, i.e. believed, truth; as opposed to a “material”, i.e. objective, truth. In line with the traditional philosophical approach, a distinction must be drawn https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-001

2 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

between the truth (i.e. a set of objectively verifiable conditions or facts, the real state of affairs) and truthfulness (i.e. what one believes to be true). Whilst “truth” concerns an objective, verifiable aspect of reality, “truthfulness” applies to the subjective aspect, namely “what the speaker believes to be true” (Meibauer 2014a: 86). In Kant’s (1949: 346) words, “truthfulness (veracitas)” is “the subjective truth in his own person”. The distinction between truth and truthfulness naturally invites the dichotomy between falsity (i.e. lack of truth, also referred to as what is false or untrue objectively) and untruthfulness (that is what one believes to be false or untrue or what is believed false or untruthful). As understood here, “(un)truthfulness” captures not only an individual’s beliefs but also his/her communication/expression of true or false beliefs (on the polysemy of “truthfulness”, see Vincent Marrelli 2003, 2004, 2006). Hence, truthfulness is seen as a primarily verbal, as well as non-verbal, activity of communicating what one believes to be true, whose product is truthful meaning. In contrast, untruthfulness is commonly thought to lead to (an attempt at) deception,1 that is communicating (verbally or non-verbally) what one believes to be false, i.e. untruthful meaning, in order to sustain/invite a false belief in the targeted hearer (see also Mahon 2008a, 2015). On the whole, the truth  vs falsity opposition belongs to the epistemological domain and concerns what is or is not genuinely the case; by contrast, the truthfulness vs deception opposition depends on the communicator’s intention (Bok 1978). Following Augustine, Aquinas and Kant, many philosophers have observed the fundamental truthfulness-related dichotomies and embraced them in various theoretical frameworks. Truthfulness lies at the heart of the Aristotelian/Kantian category of Quality (Vincent Marrelli 2003, 2004, 2006), the conceptualisation further pursued and popularised by Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]). Grice’s (1989a [1975]) Cooperative Principle and four categories of maxims appear to have marked a watershed in the field of pragmatics. His perception of the category of Quality, notably the first maxim of Quality, is intimately connected to truthfulness, even though Grice never uses this term himself in any of his published lectures (see Vincent Marrelli 2004). For his part, the philosopher Habermas (1998 [1976]) regards truth and truthfulness as two validity claims, which include also normative rightness and

1 Throughout this volume, the term “deception” will be used with regard to an intentional act performed by the speaker, whether or not successful, that is whether or not the hearer is actually deceived, at least for a moment. This is at odds with the common view of deception based on the observation that “deceive” is a success verb (e.g. Mahon 2007, 2008a, 2015; Saul 2012; Horn 2017a, 2017b).

1 Truth vs (un)truthfulness 

 3

comprehensibility. Except for comprehensibility, the other three were originally proposed in correspondence to several reality types (the material world, the speaker’s belief world and the interpersonal social world), as well as types of illocutionary force: regulative (what is now known in Speech Act Theory as directives and commissives), cognitive (nowadays, assertives) and expressive acts. Most importantly, truth is related to the representation of facts, central to cognitive language use, whereas truthfulness pertains to the disclosure of the speaker’s subjectivity, which is crucial for expressive language use. Truthfulness concerns the illocutionary force of expressive acts, which is to represent the speaker’s state of mind (Habermas 1998 [1976]). The distinctions between truth and truthfulness, and between falsity and untruthfulness serve as the bedrock for the philosophy of deception. With only a few exceptions, most deception scholars (e.g. Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Bok 1978; Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Davidson 1984; Mahon 2008a, 2015; Meibauer 2014a) are unanimous that deception (in particular, lying) needs to be defined with reference to the speaker’s beliefs, and hence what is dubbed here “untruthfulness”, not objective facts, and thus falsehood, which sometimes escapes unequivocal verification (e.g. when the speaker’s inner feelings or subjective evaluations are involved). As Davidson (1984: 258) puts it, “[i]t is sometimes said that telling a lie entails what is false; but this is wrong. Telling a lie requires not what you say be false but what you think is false. Since we usually believe true sentences and disbelieve false, most lies are falsehoods; but in any particular case, this is an accident”. Essentially, truthfulness and its opposite, untruthfulness, intrinsically depend on the speaker’s beliefs and intentions. (Un)truthfulness underlies meanings which may not be objectively verifiable, being a matter of the speaker’s mental states at a given moment, encompassing his/her beliefs, as well as emotions. According to Vincent Marrelli, truthfulness pertains to the relationship between “a speaker’s mind (beliefs, or ‘propositional attitude’ and goals or intentions) and a speaker’s communicated beliefs and intentions” (2004: 77). Defining truthfulness in the context of the speaker’s communicative intent, Ozar (2008: 6) states that “the concern with the truthfulness of speakers is not limited to statements that can be true or false, but applies to nearly all communicative acts”. This accords with Habermas’s (1984) conclusion that each speech act carrying regulative, cognitive or expressive force can be judged on the three validity claims, drawing on knowledge from the three worlds. Thus, all speech acts are amenable to (un)truthfulness evaluations, and the speaker can (and should) “express truthfully his [or her] beliefs, intentions, feelings, desires, and the like” (Habermas 1984: 308). Consequently, following Habermas’s train of thought, (un)truthfulness encompasses not only assertive acts but also other acts, such as commissive or directive

4 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

acts, which do not communicate beliefs per se.2 Therefore, it is argued here that the notion of “belief” in which the prevalent definition of truthfulness is anchored may concern the speaker’s evaluation of the communicated meanings (or illocutionary force), regardless of the form that his/her utterance may take (statements, questions or imperatives) (see also Marsili 2016). This understanding of truthfulness as a very broad psychological notion brings it very close to the construct of sincerity.

2 Truthfulness vs sincerity Sincerity is of immediate relevance to truthfulness, but the relationship between the two notions is a particularly thorny one, as borne out by the literature. ­Typically, authors focus either on sincerity or on untruthfulness, not addressing the other term at all and using the preferred one with reference to essentially the same concepts. The choice of either label seems to depend on the central topic of discussion and/or underlying theoretical framework. Untruthfulness is a notion prevalent in the philosophy of deception (see Chapter 4). In his influential encyclopaedic entry, Mahon (2008, 2015) sees an untruthful statement/assertion (a condition for lying) as a statement/assertion the speaker believes to be false. On the other hand, endorsing a speech-act account of lying, a few authors (e.g. Williams 2002; Fallis 2012; Meibauer 2011, 2014a; Stokke 2014; Marsili 2014, 2016, forth) regard lies as insincere assertions. Stokke (2014: 496) states that “an insincere utterance is one that communicates something that does not correspond to the speaker’s conscious attitudes”. Reporting on extant research, Marsili (2016) concludes that a lie is an insincere assertion, a speech act whose content is believed to be false (by the speaker), which Marsili (2016) duly extends to mental states other than beliefs, notably intentions, which he shows to entail beliefs. Despite the diverging labels, the definition of lies as insincere assertions is practically identical to lies depicted as untruthful assertions. In the field of pragmatics, sincerity is traditionally associated with Speech Act Theory (SAT), where it functions as one of the felicity conditions. The sincerity condition, as originally formulated by Austin, holds that a person invoking a given (performative) procedure must have the designed “thoughts, feelings, or intentions, and the participants must intend so to conduct themselves” (1962: 39).

2 This view is not compatible with a speech-act-theoretic account of truthfulness as a concomitant of truth, which pertains to declarative sentences as semantic encoders of truth conditions. Truthfulness, as seen here, transcends such truth-conditional approaches.

2 Truthfulness vs sincerity 

 5

According to the revised versions of this approach, a speech act is sincere only if it is compatible with the speaker’s psychological state or mental attitude (Searle 1969; Searle and Vanderveken 1985; see also Hare 1952; Moran 2005a; Stokke 2014; Marsili forth). In other words, the speaker needs to have the psychological attitude expressed by a given act for it to be sincere. For example, an assertion expresses a belief, an apology expresses regret, and thanking expresses gratitude. Therefore, the sincerity of an assertive act is defined in terms of the speaker’s belief that his/her proposition is true, whilst the sincerity of a directive act is presented in view of the speaker’s wish that the hearer should perform the act specified in the proposition. Consequently, insincerity can be defined as a mismatch between the psychological state of the speaker and the psychological state expressed by the linguistic act the speaker makes (e.g. asserting, committing oneself to doing something or requiring that someone should do something) (Searle and Vanderveken 1985; Marsili forth). The similarity between the understandings of (un)truthfulness and (in)sincerity shows in the fundamental tenets proposed in the two distinct pragmatic-­ philosophical traditions. Grice’s first maxim of Quality, “Do not say what you believe to be false” (1989a [1975]: 27), bears strong resemblance to Searle’s sincerity condition for assertions, according to which “the speaker commits himself to a belief in the truth of the expressed proposition” (1979: 62). Some may claim that sincerity is broader in scope than truthfulness, insofar as the former addresses all utterance types. This is because each speech act type has its own sincerity condition, whilst truthfulness can be applicable only to statements, given the “belief” component. However, Grice’s maxims, including the first maxim of Quality, are designed to cover all kinds of utterances in a conversation (see Chapter 2, Section 3), and thus the “belief about the utterance” interpretation of the pivotal maxim may fill in the interpretational gap. On the whole, unless (in)sincerity and/or (un)truthfulness is/are the principal focus of discussion, the labels are most frequently applied intuitively in conformity with the underlying theoretical backdrop. Interestingly, some authors use the two labels interchangeably. This is what Vincent Marrelli (2003, 2004) appears to do in her discussions of a variety of communicative problems, even though she differentiates between the two notions in her extensive literature survey. Also, one of Habermas’s (1979) validity claims tends to be translated as both “truthfulness” and “sincerity”. Commenting on his output, McCarthy (1979: xviii), the translator, explicitly equates truthfulness with sincerity. Nonetheless, some authors choose to distinguish between the two constructs, not referring to Gricean or Austinian/Searlean philosophy. For example, according to Akmajian et al. (2001: 371), sincerity pertains to the speaker’s genuine beliefs and intentions, and truthfulness consists in “attempting to say something

6 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

true”. In this vein, Vincent Marrelli (2004: 26) suggests that sincerity is a component of truthfulness and that it concerns “accuracy of representation of speaker’s ‘truth’/beliefs/intentions, one sense of ‘meaning what you say’ (not being dishonest, no trickery, not making spurious promises)”. This perspective seems to echo Kant’s philosophy. Although Kant’s views of lying revolve around the notion of truthfulness, he does introduce the concept of insincerity, which he presents as “a mere lack of conscientiousness, that is, of purity in one’s professions before one’s inner judge, who is thought of as another person when conscientiousness is taken quite strictly” (1996b [1797]: 553). Sincerity is then a matter of inner states. On the other hand, as opposed to the truth (based on the comparison of what “we say” with “the object in a logical judgment”), truthfulness concerns “one’s declaration or confession”, of which one has immediate consciousness, and hence declarations “what we hold as true” (Kant 1996a [1791]: 34]). For his part, Williams seems to picture truthfulness as a superordinate notion, “a reflex against deceptiveness” (2002: 1) which implies “a respect for the truth” (2002: 11), and the truth encompasses sincerity. He states that “the two basic virtues of truth” are “Accuracy and Sincerity: you do the best you can to acquire true beliefs, and what you say reveals what you believe” (Williams 2002: 11). In other words, accuracy is pertinent to the state of developing correct beliefs about the real world, involving “care, reliability, and so on, in discovering and coming to believe the truth” (Williams 2002: 127). Sincerity, by ­contrast, ­captures the idea that “a speaker says [i.e. verbally communicates] what he believes [to be true]” (Williams 2002: 126). Castelfranchi and Poggi (1994) distinguish between untruthfulness and ­insincerity depending on the content of the knowledge that is manipulated in deception. Untruthfulness concerns the speaker’s knowledge about the world, whereas insincerity pertains to the knowledge of the speaker’s mental state (beliefs, goals and feelings). This distinction fails to account for the fact that the knowledge of the world is also a matter of beliefs (which may be inconsistent with “objective facts”, as seen by others). Simpson (1992) differentiates between insincerity and untruthfulness in his definition of lying, which he presents as dependent on both intentional untruthfulness and insincerity, and as involving the invocation of trust through open sincerity. Simpson states that “lying involves untruthfulness, but that to be untruthful is not necessarily to lie, since lying involves being untruthful while invoking the trust of the one to whom we lie in what we say” (1992: 632). He argues that a speaker who is lying is insincere in two ways by presenting himself/herself as believing something and as intending the hearer to recognise his/her presentation of this belief. This necessitates the invocation of trust, i.e. giving a hearer a reason to think that the speaker intends him/her to recognise the speaker is presenting his/her belief. This seems to tie in with Davidson’s statement that

2 Truthfulness vs sincerity 

 7

lying resides in “deceit with respect to the sincerity of the representation of one’s beliefs” (1985: 88). The most important implication in this context is that untruthfulness alone need not lead to lying when the criterion of sincerity as invoking trust does not enter the picture. The prevailing view of (in)sincerity is related to the speaker’s mental state; a speaker is insincere if speaking “contra mentum” (Armstrong 1970: 432). ­Similarly, Heal (1976/1977: 195) states that being insincere “is to express or purport to express a state of mind when one is not in that state of mind”. The state of mind may involve not only beliefs but also other mental states, such as the speaker’s intention that the hearer should perform a given action (Hare 1952). Consequently, “insincerity is not confined to assertion (lying) but may be involved in almost every sort of speech act” (Armstrong 1970: 432).3 Therefore, an utterance of any kind, also non-assertive and non-declarative, can be insincere, and this takes place if “it communicates something that does not correspond to the speaker’s conscious attitudes” (Stokke 2014: 496). These opinions appear to roughly coincide with the view of untruthfulness presented in Section 1 above. A pending question is then whether insincerity and untruthfulness can be differentiated at all, or whether they are just two labels for one and the same phenomenon. Ozar (2008: 6) plausibly argues that truthfulness appertains not to “the agreement between what is said and the speaker’s state of mind”, which is the essence of sincerity, but rather to “the speaker’s communicative intent”. Ozar (2008: 12) thus defines truthfulness as the speaker’s “concern to communicate the truth to others”, which should, technically, be paraphrased as the speaker’s concern to communicate to others what one believes to be the truth. The main thrust of the short discussion above is that truthfulness and sincerity (together with their opposites, i.e. untruthfulness and insincerity respectively) may be deemed two facets of the same phenomenon, one prioritising the aspect of the speaker’s communicative intention, and the other placing emphasis on the speaker’s state of mind as manifest in the communicated meaning. However, both are somehow related to the speaker’s state of mind (notably his/her beliefs and intentions), and both are integral to all utterance types (not only declaratives, notably assertions). It may also be argued that the label “(un)truthfulness” has a number of advantages over “(in)sincerity” in explaining the diverse communicative phenomena that are the focus of this book. (In)sincerity is crucial for

3 However, Armstrong claims that there are some speech acts (e.g. greeting or naming someone) in which insincerity cannot occur. This is in line with Searle’s (1969: 64) claim that a greeting has “no propositional content and no sincerity condition”. This is debatable. Even such acts can be done insincerely (e.g. the speaker may not wish to greet someone, but produces a greeting merely to ironically criticise them for having disregarded their presence).

8 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

moral philosophers or speech act theoreticians, but (un)truthfulness seems to show much wider applicability and enjoys many manifestations, for example when viewed from a (neo-)Gricean perspective. Whilst it would be counterintuitive to differentiate between overt and covert insincerity (in SAT, pertaining to dishonest or ill-formed acts), truthfulness is amenable to such a distinction.

3 Covert vs overt untruthfulness As is evident from the discussion above, since the times of ancient philosophers, (un)truthfulness has been a pivotal notion in the philosophy of deception, where the focus is not on the truth but on what the speaker believes the truth to be and what he/she communicates as his/her genuine beliefs. For instance, Kant’s (1996b [1797]) “duty of truthfulness” is an ethical duty not to lie. Deception, together with lying (its salient form), is juxtaposed with truthfulness and thought to involve untruthfulness, as many authors state (e.g. Bok 1978; Carson 2006, 2010; Mahon 2008a, 2008b, 2015; Fallis 2010). A deceptive speaker’s genuine beliefs and intentions do not correspond with the beliefs and intentions the speaker communicates to the hearer. What deception scholars typically do not recognise (and they do not need to, given their focus of interest) is that untruthfulness is not a homogenous construct (necessarily tantamount to deception) that stands in opposition to truthfulness and related notions such as honesty and sincerity. Vincent Marrelli (2003, 2004, 2006) lists a whole host of manifestations of untruthfulness, which she calls non-truthfulness, in her excellent overview of this notion. She distinguishes between “not unintentional non-truthfulness” and “unintentional (unwitting) non-truthfulness”. Within the former, she further differentiates between “non-truthfulness neutral as to deceptive intent” and, more significantly, “intentionally deceptive (covert) non-truthfulness” and “intentionally non-deceptive (overt) non-truthfulness” (Vincent Marrelli 2006: 16–17). Covert non-truthfulness has a non-communicated super-goal, unlike the overt type (see Vincent Marrelli 2004, 2006), with the underlying deceptive aim not being communicated to the hearer (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981). Deception is thus a matter of what is dubbed here covert untruthfulness,4 whereas overt untruthfulness encompasses, among other communicative phenomena, rhetorical figures or figures of speech, commonly referred to simply as figures, a practice

4 Each time the adjective “covert” is used in this book, it concerns the perspective of the target of deception. The covert act of deception must, nonetheless, be recognised from a meta-perspective to be subject to investigation (and it may be overt also to non-targeted hearers in multi-party interactions, see Chapter 4, Section 8).

3 Covert vs overt untruthfulness 

 9

that is also followed in this monograph. The figures which Grice (1989a [1975]) addresses briefly in his writings are irony, metaphor, hyperbole and meiosis. These figures are understood, in accordance with the traditional approach, as non-conventionalised expressions or as figurative language giving rise to figurative (implied) meanings. Thus, contextualist or relevance-theoretic arguments that, for example, metaphor qualifies as what is said, roughly intended literal meaning, does not apply (see Camp 2006 for criticism of the contextualist view). Humour is a phenomenon that cuts across this division. Humour is a broad concept and has a plethora of manifestations, such as canned jokes, Internet memes, cartoons, comic strips, anecdotes, stand-up routines, and most importantly here, conversational humour. Each category is amenable to truthfulness considerations, but the postulates made here will concern mainly this last category. Even though humour, taken as a whole, is commonly assumed to involve overt untruthfulness, a careful analysis shows that only some of its forms have this characteristic. Other forms rely on covert untruthfulness, and still others manifest truthfulness (Dynel 2017a; see Chapter 2, Section 6.2; and Chapter 5). In addition, as will be shown in the course of the discussion, there is some overlap between humour and deception, as well as between humour and irony. As Vincent Marrelli (2004, 2006) reports, it was Aristotle, followed by ­Augustine and Aquinas, who first addressed select rhetorical figures as deviations from the truth. Even though the classical philosophers seem to have used ambivalent parlance, their writings clearly suggest that the untruthfulness underlying figurative language use does not amount to actual lying or deception. Deploying tropes (such as irony or metaphor), speakers may not be literally truthful but can still be truthful on a deeper level (Lewis 1975). Contemporarily, this issue is addressed in terms of truth conditions. As Colston (2010:  340) argues, “the figurativeness and hence, semantic non-veridicality, of common tropes like metaphor and irony, makes them inherently untrue in the sense of typical truth-functioning in semantics [...] In this sense, one can argue that tropes are not true statements, or that the relationship between tropes and truth is one of counterfactuality”. At the same time, Colston (2010: 340) states that tropes are “true statements” “on a pragmatic level”, concluding that the speaker ultimately utters a “truthful expression”, by which he seems to mean a truthful meaning. By the same token, Brdar-Szabó and Brdar (2010: 415) acknowledge that hyperboles “violate the truth maxim” and are “intentionally ‘false’, which is why “they should qualify as lies in truth conditional terms”. Simultaneously, the authors emphasise that hyperboles are not intrinsically meant to deceive.5 Likewise,

5 As will be shown here, hyperbole and the other three Quality-based figures may serve deception (see Chapter 4, Sections 2.7, 3.2, 3.3 and 6.2).

10 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

Lee (2010: 135) states that metaphors “are literally false yet can communicate rich and truthful information about the real world”. What all these authors seem to suggest is that tropes cannot be equated with lying or deception, but that they do involve some kind of falsehood/lack of truth. These explanations give rise to misgivings since the authors quoted above fail to differentiate between expression vs intended meaning, on the one hand, and their falsehood vs untruthfulness, on the other hand. Nor do they distinguish between untruthfulness that the hearer is meant to recognise and the untruthfulness to which the hearers are meant to stay oblivious. These crucial distinctions are made here in order to argue that tropes involve overt untruthfulness and that covert untruthfulness is the property of deception. As evidenced by the few quotations above, in making essentially correct observations, the authors resort to parlance and conceptualisations that cannot be advocated here, as they hinge on the truth vs falsehood binary opposition: “true statements”, “counterfactuality”, or what is “false”. Generally, many linguists assume that, prototypically, irony resides in counterfactuality (Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Gibbs 2000; Colston 2000; Pexman et al. 2000; Creusere 2000; McCarthy and Carter 2004; Kapogianni 2011, 2014) or nonveridicality (Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kreuz and Roberts 1995; Colston 1997, 2000). Also, authors studying irony tend to resort to notions such as “empirical falsehood” (Haverkate 1990), “literal falsehood” (Sweetser 1987) or “blatant falsehood” (Wilson 2006), or they state that irony is “false” (Dews and Winner 1997) or “misrepresents the truth” (Gibbs 1993). Along similar lines, metaphor researchers observe that on the literal reading, this figure is “patently false” (Davidson 1978), “not literally true” (Searle 1993), or is a “false assertion”6 (Glucksberg and Keysar 1993). Other authors make similar claims but give alternatives. For example, Black suggests that metaphors show “the patent falsity or incoherence of the literal reading” and “banality of that reading’s truth, its pointlessness or its lack of congruence with surrounding text and nonverbal setting” (1993: 34), whilst Miller states that “metaphors are either false in the real world or apparently unrelated to the textual concept” (1993: 398). From a theoretical pragmatic/philosophical perspective, the bedrock premise for these claims (the opposition between objective falsehood and objective truth) cannot be endorsed, even though some examples of figures are nothing short of absurd or clearly counterfactual on the literal reading (e.g. Kapogianni 2011; see Chapter 3, Section 6.4). Many instances of tropes, especially irony, reside in mutual knowledge, the availability of which may be restricted to the specific interlocutors,

6 Technically, an assertion cannot be couched in a metaphor.

3 Covert vs overt untruthfulness 

 11

escaping objective verification (for types of knowledge, see Yus Ramos 2000 and Chapter 3, Section 2.1.1). Moreover, irony may not concern objectively verifiable facts that correspond to the truth. Even in such cases, ironic speakers typically7 “make statements opposite to their beliefs” (Kreuz and Roberts 1993: 99, see ­Haverkate 1990). Thus, it is not “lack of truth” but “untruthfulness” that manifests itself as the adequate label pertaining to the figures at hand. The term “untruthfulness” is relatively rarely used in the contemporary writings on irony, but its intermittent occurrence is inspired by Grice’s (1989a [1975]) category of Quality (see Wilson 1995; Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012], 2012; Livnat 2004, 2011, Dynel 2013a, 2016a, 2016b; cf. Gibbs 1993, 1994). Interestingly, the notion “insincerity”8 is quite frequently applied to irony as well (Brown 1980; Haverkate 1990; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Glucksberg 1995; Colston 2000; Creusere 2000; Gibbs 2000), despite the fact that in Speech Act Theory, insincerity appears to be associated with ill-formed infelicitous speech acts, and/or illegitimate, dishonest activity. It is only Haverkate (1990) who makes the important distinction between “transparent” and “non-transparent violations” of the sincerity condition, thereby differentiating between tropes and deception. However, this fine-tuning is a major departure from the initial formulation of the sincerity condition as part of the sine qua non for speech acts’ well-formedness. This is the chief reason why “insincerity” does not appear to be an adequate blanket term capturing both the figures of speech and deception. By contrast, both overt and covert untruthfulness are neatly captured by the Gricean account under maxim “flouting” and “violation” respectively, even if this approach is burdened with several conceptual and terminological problems, as will be shown below. Essentially, Quality-based untruthfulness has an important advantage over the alternative explanatory notions not only because it eschews the vexing truth vs falsity distinction but also because it can encompass two important subtypes, as originally proposed by Grice (1989a [1975]). Being covertly untruthful, speakers intend to deceive the hearer(s), whereas using rhetorical figures such as irony or metaphor, speakers are overtly untruthful. In the latter case, speakers wish the untruthfulness to be recognised by the (select) hearers with a view to communicating truthful9 implicated meanings. Prototypically (when no misunderstanding occurs), the hearers do recognise the overt untruthfulness and

7 However, some irony does involve literally stating one’s true beliefs. 8 While some of the authors attribute this term to Grice (1989a [1975]), he never used it. The ­concept derives from Speech Act Theory and refers to the failure to meet felicity conditions. 9 Sometimes, however, these implicated meanings may be covertly untruthful. In other words, the rhetorical figures are used for deceptive purposes (see Chapter 4, Section 2.7 and 3.2).

12 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

make adequate inferences. Overt untruthfulness may be claimed to show gradability correlating with its transparency, and hence the ease of interpretation for a given hearer, or the outside interpreter (see Chapter 3, Section 2.1.1). Although the transparency of overt untruthfulness may vary in practice, depending on speakerrelated and/or hearer-related factors, it is programmatically made available to the hearer. In the case of deception, by contrast, the hearers (are meant to) remain oblivious to the untruthfulness, which is covert. It is argued here that Grice’s philosophy, after several elaborations, helps distinguish formally between irony and deception, specifically lying. Whilst these two notions can hardly be mistaken for each other from a lay perspective (the difference between irony and lying is simply intuitive), this distinction has attracted many theoreticians, who are not unanimous in capturing this difference in technical terms. Before the details of the present proposal are examined in Chapter 2, the previous postulates concerning this distinction need to be revisited.

4 Irony vs lying Irony and deception constitute independent research strands and show distinct research traditions. At the same time, many linguists and philosophers who study either irony or deception, specifically lying, observe in passing that irony is not lying or that lying is not irony.10 They make these observations, not ­dwelling much on the distinction or explaining why the two concepts might potentially be mistaken for each other. Only intermittently are the two notions compared and contrasted, mainly in the form of brief explanations for why irony needs to be distinguished from lying or why lying is a phenomenon markedly different from irony. Whilst irony is frequently juxtaposed with lying, the figure of metaphor is hardly ever presented as being likely to be confused with lying. Both figures, however, are addressed in the literature in the context of whether deceptive implicatures can be classified as lying. Typically, the researchers ­preoccupied with one of the phenomena do not fully appreciate the complexity of the other, simply because it is not the focus of their attention. The relationship between each figure of speech and deception is much more complicated, as the present discussion will show.

10 The irony vs lying distinction has been amply discussed in developmental studies, which, however, are of little significance for the present purposes. This is because the difference between the two notions is taken for granted.

4 Irony vs lying 

 13

The opposition between lying and irony has been addressed in the distinct scholarship on each of the notions. Some of the authors quoted in this section refer to Grice’s (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]) work, which offers the backdrop for the account put forward here, but their proposals tend not to adequately present the details of the Gricean model of communication, which will become clearer as the details of Grice’s philosophy are teased out in the sections below. A few such attempts to tell the difference between irony and lying have been made in the pragmatic scholarship on irony. The distinction between this figure and lying is sometimes made in a commonsensical manner, without the use of any particular theory. For example, Haiman (1998: 21) states, that unlike the liar, the ironic speaker “has no wish to deceive; sarcasm [irony] differs from falsehood in the presence of the honest metamessage”. On the other hand, Barbe (1995: 118) observes that “while a lie is intentionally opaque, irony is intentionally transparent. Irony has to be found out in order to be successful”. The common denominator between these claims is that irony is made overt (to the hearer), whereas lying involves some covertness. A better structured proposal can be found in a paper by Haverkate (1990). Endorsing an approach that constitutes a combination of a speech-act account and Gricean theory, Haverkate (1990: 101) distinguishes between “transparent” and “non-transparent” violations of “the [first] maxim of Quality”. Transparent violations promote rhetorical figures and non-transparent violations give rise to deception, both of which Haverkate (1990) conceptualises also as transparent and non-transparent insincere speech acts respectively. Thus, he presents lies as non-transparent insincere assertives; other non-transparent insincere acts (e.g. requests or questions) coincide with other forms of deception. By contrast, “transparent insincerity is explicit and is intended to be conveyed” (Haverkate 1990: 102),11 pertaining, in his opinion, to these rhetorical figures: rhetorical questions, metaphor, hyperbole, litotes (technically, meiosis) and irony. In his seemingly palatable proposal, Haverkate fails to credit Grice (1989a [1975]) for the distinction between flouting (overt violation) and (covert) violation of maxims, including the first maxim of Quality, with which he appears to be concerned. More importantly, equating transparent and non-transparent violations of Grice’s Quality maxim with insincere speech acts, two distinct notions anchored in distinct theories (Grice’s philosophy vs SAT), may provoke doubts, especially when the pivotal tenet is considered: the (legitimate) flouting or violation of the

11 Interestingly, Haverkate (1990) presents “litotes” and “hyperbole” as being dependent on Quantity, not Quality, contrary to his point of departure presented at the outset, i.e. the [first] Quality maxim (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1).

14 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

first Quality maxim leads to insincere speech acts, that is speech acts which are not well-formed according to the classical account. Consequently, irony (and the other Quality-based figures) would need to be deemed ill-formed insincere speech acts, which is hardly tenable. Giving her perspective on irony as intentional mismatching between the “speaker’s motivating belief” and the “speaker’s locution”, Garmendia (2011) concedes that this description also applies to lies. However, as she rightly observes, the mismatching is overt in irony, but it is not overt in the case of lying, which the speaker does not want the hearer to recognise (Garmendia 2011). Garmendia’s (2011: 45) conclusion is that the feature differentiating irony from lies is the speaker’s commitment, namely whether or not the speaker “takes responsibility for believing in the truth of” the content of a given utterance. Thus, an ironic speaker “does not take responsibility for believing in the truth of the locutionary content of this utterance; that is, the speaker does not commit herself to this content”, whereas a “liar is committed to believing in the truth of her utterance [sic], and can thus be held responsible for it” (Garmendia 2011: 45). Nonetheless, the defining feature of lying, according to the standard view, paraphrased with the use of Garmendia’s terminology, is that the speaker makes a statement to which he/she only purports to be committed, thereby making an assertion which he/she believes to be untrue, not an assertion which he/she genuinely believes to be true, as Garmendia (2011) writes (perhaps by an oversight). It is also difficult to tell what the “responsibility”, which she credits to Searle (1975, 1979), actually stands for, how it can be used, and by whom (the speaker or hearer), when applied to lying, a verbal act which the speaker does not want to become overt to the hearer. Kapogianni (2013: 30) seems to (partly) concur with Garmendia (2011) but aptly corrects the latter’s definition, writing that “a liar is (presents himself as being) committed to the truth of her utterance and can thus be held responsible for it”. Apart from mentioning a few differences related to her view of irony, Kapogianni (2013) stresses that the main distinction between irony and lying is that lying is not overt and is not evaluative. However, it should be added that lies may convey some evaluation, but this is simply not their intrinsic characteristic, and the evaluation may not be carried via implicature, as is the case with irony (see Dynel 2016b; Garmendia 2010, 2011). Kapogianni (2013: 31) also adds that lies rely on “hidden intentions, while irony is a purely communicative phenomenon in which the speaker intends at least one of the hearers to recognise the incongruity between reality [technically, what the speaker believes to be true] and what is expressed”. Although Kapogianni’s (2013) loose remarks are essentially correct, she cannot be said to have presented an unequivocal distinction between the two phenomena, inasmuch as her goal was different

4 Irony vs lying 

 15

(namely, to corroborate that the combination of three necessary conditions proposed for irony is indeed unique to irony). Sanders (2013) also makes some relevant observations in his paper on “sarcasm” (used as an alternative label for “irony”) and “insincerity”, which seems to be related to “deception” (but the author leaves this issue unexplained). Sanders (2013: 117) states that “sarcasm” and “joking” involve the speaker’s producing “an utterance in such a way as to reveal that they do not endorse or stand behind the speaker meaning a generic speaker would intendgen”. On the other hand, when the speaker is “deceptive” or “insincere”, “they produce an utterance in such a way as to conceal that they do not endorse or stand behind the speaker meaning a generic speaker would intendgen”. The main contribution of this proposal is the distinction between the speaker’s concealing or revealing to the hearer the fact that the speaker does not believe to be true what his/her utterance purports to communicate. Sanders (2013) seems to complicate the picture unnecessarily with his ambivalent terms and construal of a “generic speaker”, which is coupled with the traditional Gricean term “speaker meaning” that Sanders uses in a somewhat lax manner. In the philosophy of lying, the differentiation at hand tends to be captured in formal terms. In their seminal paper, Chisholm and Feehan (1977) juxtapose lying with irony (as well as utterances made “in play”), based on the assumption that, unlike the former, the latter does not involve asserting. An ironic utterance is “not an assertion, for the speaker realizes that his audience is not justified in taking him seriously” and it contains verbal or non-verbal signals indicating that the speaker “is not to be taken seriously and hence is not making an assertion” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 152). This explanation may be considered elusive, given the ambivalence of the key term “seriousness”. Whilst the authors tacitly equate it with asserting, i.e. committing oneself to what one’s statement expresses literally, non-seriousness tends to be used more narrowly, that is in reference to humorous messages in the broad field of humour studies (e.g. Holt 2013; Haugh 2016; see Vincent Marrelli 1994, 2004). This terminological issue aside, Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) rationale for making the fundamental distinction boils down to the presence or absence of an assertion, which has to be determined for each instance, based on the available cues. Also referring to the assertion criterion in his account of lying, Williams (2002: 73) warns against concluding that “someone who insincerely asserts that P pretends to express a belief that P” since this encompasses not only lying but also irony. Incidentally, this problem has to do with the two-fold nature of pretence, which may be overt or covert, pertaining to irony and deception respectively (see Dynel 2018). Williams (2002: 73) thus suggests that the notion of a lie, understood as an “insincere assertion”, must be contrasted with irony, (some of) which does not rest on asserting at all but on

16 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

“merely pretending to make an assertion” (Williams 2002: 73; see also Soames 2008; Stokke 2013a; Barker 2017; Chapter 3, Section 6.1). Overall, disregarding the definitions of the folk notions “seriousness” (see Chapter 5, Section 1.1) and “pretence”, the differentiation based on the criterion of asserting in both the proposals reported above causes some reservations. Firstly, some irony, here dubbed “verisimilar irony”, does depend on assertions, but the speaker’s intended implicated meaning is removed from it, stemming from another level of meaning which is overtly untruthful (Dynel 2013a, 2017b; Kapogianni 2016a; see Chapter 3, Section 6.5). Secondly, irony need not rely on overtly pretended assertions (as the authors suggest) but on other utterance types, such as exclamations or questions. Thirdly, the assertion criterion fails to bring into focus the primary goal of lying, namely to induce a false belief in the targeted hearer, which is not inherent in irony. The problem of the distinction between lying and irony emerges also in Fallis’s (2009, 2012) definitions of lying based on Grice’s (1989a [1975]) first maxim of Quality. Since assertions are predicated on the operation of Grice’s first maxim of Quality,12 one can lie only by making an assertion, which is when Grice’s first maxim of Quality is in operation but is (believed to be) violated (Fallis 2009). You lie to X if and only if: (1) You state that p to X. (2) You believe that you make this statement in a context where the following norm of ­conversation is in effect: Do not make statements that you believe to be false. (3) You believe that p is false. (Fallis 2009: 34)

Fallis (2009: 53) duly recognises the fact that this definition may be considered too broad, inasmuch as it pertains also to what he calls “sarcasm” (an American English synonym for “irony”, see Dynel 2017c). Fallis (2009: 53) illustrates this point with the following example from Star Wars. The character Solo says, “The garbage chute was a really wonderful idea. What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!”. Solo’s utterance cannot be regarded as lying, even though the speaker believes that his statement is false. As Fallis (2009: 53) explains, the speaker is “trying to communicate something that he believes to be true (namely, that the

12 Fallis (2009: 33) defines an assertion as follows: “you assert something when you say something and you believe that Paul Grice’s first maxim of quality (namely, ‘Do not say what you believe to be false’) is in effect as a norm of conversation”. This definition of assertion is not fully adequate, as “saying” in Grice’s terminology encompasses all utterance types, and thus not just statements, and thus not just assertions, as will be argued here.

4 Irony vs lying 

 17

garbage chute was a really bad idea). But he is certainly saying13 something that he believes to be false”. Fallis (2009: 53) attempts to rescue his definition of lying by stating that in the case of an ironic utterance, the first maxim of Quality is “turned off”, i.e. “suspended” and not “in effect”. Consequently, irony (Fallis’s “sarcasm”) does not meet condition (2) of his definition of lying. Although Fallis (2009) does acknowledge at some point that, in irony, the first maxim of Quality is flouted and promotes implicature, he introduces the notion of “turning off” a maxim in his own explanation of irony. Fallis’s (2009) rationale may be that the first maxim of Quality cannot be flouted and violated at the same time if it has already been suspended. In other words, “suspension” or “turning off” renders “violation” irrelevant. Nonetheless, in Grice’s (1989a [1975]) view, an implicature is generated precisely because the speaker overtly does not fulfil a maxim that is indeed supposed to hold and wishes the hearer to recognise this fact in order to seek a rational explanation for it. This is how implicated meanings (not only irony-based) are communicated under the Cooperative Principle (see also Stokke 2013a; Chapter 2, Sections 1.1 and 5). Also, “violation” is a type of maxim nonfulfilment that is markedly distinct from “flouting”, even though they may actually co-occur, as will be shown here. Overall, Fallis’s (2009: 34) attempted definition of lying does not encompass irony, contrary to what the author himself claims. In the light of counterexamples and the criticism of his first proposal (see Stokke 2013a; Faulkner 2013), Fallis (2012) reformulates the second condition concerning the “norm of conversation”, namely the first maxim of Quality. Accordingly, it must be in effect, and the speaker must intend to violate it. Fallis (2012: 569) also stresses that “the norm in question is against communicating false things14 rather than against simply saying [uttering] them”, whereas “a liar intends to communicate [...] the very thing that she says”.15 This explanation might be considered correct, but, as will be claimed here, not all deceptive “what is said” must be tantamount to lying, for not all saying is asserting (see Chapter 2, Section 3). Also, Fallis (2012) does not seem to fully appreciate the notions of ­“violation” and “flouting” as being covert and overt respectively, which is why he is forced to make lengthy elaborations to show the difference between lying and irony, the latter involving “making as if to say” rather than “saying”. For example,

13 Technically, in Grice’s terms, the ironic speaker is not “saying” anything, but only “making as if to say” (see Chapter 2, Section 5). This is something that Fallis does recognise in his 2012 paper. 14 The first maxim of Quality concerns the totality of speaker meaning, what the speaker communicates (i.e. both what is said and implicature), which Fallis (2012) does acknowledge. 15 In this extract, Fallis does not use the technical sense of “saying” central to Grice’s framework.

18 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

Fallis claims that someone “speaking sarcastically does intend to violate the norm against saying what he believes to be false. But even if he does, he definitely does not intend to violate the norm against communicating something false” (2012: 570). He also claims that “it is ok to say (or appear to say) something that you believe to be false precisely because you are obeying the norm against communicating false things” (Fallis 2012: 571). Regardless of the formulations (especially in terms of the (non)technical use of “say”), these elaborations are, to an extent, correct but they prove otiose when Grice’s original account concerning the status of maxims, as well as maxim flouting and violation, is carefully examined (see Chapter 2). For his part, Stokke (forth: TBD) proposes that both lying and irony rely on “saying” (used non-technically, not in the Gricean sense) something the speaker believes to be false, but “the liar hopes to get this disbelieved information across to the listener, while the ironic speaker hopes to get across the opposite of what she says”. However, a large proportion of irony does not reside in simple meaning opposition, and the implicated meaning may be more difficult to decipher ­(Kapogianni 2016b; see Chapter 3). More importantly, Stokke (forth: TBD) claims that “while both liars and ironic speakers violate the First Maxim of Quality, only the liar also violates the Supermaxim of Quality”. Stokke (forth) conflates under “violation” both overt and covert maxim nonfulfilment (the distinction he does recognise in Grice’s writings). He seems to do this purposefully in order to be able to encompass “bald-faced lies” in his definition of lies proper (see Chapter 4, Section 7). Essentially, Stokke (forth) views bald-faced lies (in a technical sense) as lies although he concedes that they involve overt violation of the first maxim of Quality, just like irony. As a result, bald-faced lies run the risk of being mistaken for irony, as both display what he calls “overt violation” (i.e. flouting) of the first maxim of Quality. Incidentally, the fact that both irony and bald-faced lies are centred on floutings of the first maxim of Quality, which are conducive to implicatures, is precisely the reason why the former should not be conceptualised as lies (Dynel 2011a, 2015; see also Keiser 2016). Nevertheless, Stokke (forth) finds a solution to distinguish between irony and lies (including bald-faced lies): irrespective of the type of violation of the first maxim of Quality, a liar needs to “contribute” something he/she believes to be false by violating the supermaxim of Quality, which is not the case with irony. Stokke (forth) seems to be indicating that the speaker not only utters (the maxim level) but also actually means (the supermaxim level) something false when he/she is lying. This conceptualisation appears to be ill-advised for several reasons. First of all, the supermaxim of Quality is a generalisation by means of which Grice tries to convey the spirit of the category of Quality, which the two maxims help implement (see Chapter 2, Section 2). Each of the maxims and the supermaxim

4 Irony vs lying 

 19

are interdependent. Consequently, the (non)fulfilment of either maxim of Quality gives rise to the compatible (non)fulfilment of the supermaxim of Quality, which may be retroactively tested as being fulfilled or not. Therefore, it is wrong to claim that in irony the first maxim of Quality is violated and, as a result, the supermaxim is not violated (not to mention the fact that in irony the first maxim of Quality is violated only overtly, i.e. flouted, unlike in lies, where the first maxim is covertly violated; recognising this fact at the outset would have pre-empted Stokke’s discussion). Furthermore, “contributing”, in Grice’s sense, means communicating speaker meaning as what is said and/or as what is implicated. Disregarding the ambivalent formulation of the first maxim of Quality, this maxim (like all the other maxims and supermaxims) pertains to the totality of speaker meaning, that is the speaker’s “contribution” in the form of what is said or implicated (see Chapter 2, Section 2). What is significant here is that the speaker only makes as if to say in order to implicate via (standard) irony (see Chapter 2, Section 5). Stokke (forth) seems to make an unfounded claim that the first maxim of Quality concerns only the literal form of expression, not even speaker meaning in the form of “what is said”, and that only the supermaxim concerns what the speaker “really” communicates. Interestingly, “contributing” what is believed false may coincide with lying or other forms of deception, for example deception by covertly untruthful implicature. This is yet another problem Stokke (forth) fails to acknowledge. So far, this overview has been paying attention only to the research focused on explaining the difference between lying and irony. One reference to the figure of metaphor is also worth mentioning. Saul (2012) makes a commonsensical intuition-based distinction between lying and metaphor. She does so in order to exclude metaphor from her definition of lying. Saul (2012) acknowledges that in both lying and metaphor, the speaker says [in Grice’s sense (Saul 2012: 3)] that P, believes P to be false and takes himself/herself to be in a warranting context (see Carson 2006, 2010). Based on an example from a broadcast interview, “Tony is a poodle” (paraphrased as “Tony is servile and does whatever Bush wants him to do”), Saul (2012: 12–13), suggests that “what is said” is “very obviously false”. This example meets the conditions of her definition; and yet it cannot be classified as lying, because the speaker used a metaphor. Consequently, she adds another proviso to her definition of lying, namely that the speaker is not speaking non-literally: “Lying (7): A person lies iff (1) They say that P; (2) They believe P to be false; (3) They take themself to be in a warranting context; (4) They are not speaking metaphorically, hyperbolically, or ironically” (Saul 2012: 13). Apart from not providing any rationale for how lying and metaphor can be technically distinguished, Saul (2012) presents metaphor as being reliant on “saying” or “what is said”, which contradicts Grice’s (1989a [1975]) original conceptualisation of ­metaphor as “making as if to say” (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1).

20 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

As evidenced by this brief survey of the relevant literature, another means of elaborating the difference between lying and irony must be sought, one that will pay equal attention to both phenomena and that will not invoke novel (otiose) concepts, but that will capitalise on the existing scholarship. An attempt will be made here to meet this goal with reference to Grice’s conceptualisation of the first maxim of Quality and its nonfulfilment/non-observance, which may take two distinct forms. Essentially, the first maxim of Quality, like the other maxims, can be (covertly) violated, resulting in covert untruthfulness (e.g. lying); or (overtly) flouted (see Mooney 2004; Vincent Marrelli 2004), leading to overt untruthfulness (e.g. irony). The difference between irony and lying lies in the nature of the underlying untruthfulness, namely its overtness or covertness respectively. This neat generalisation is in need of further explanation (given the intricacies of Grice’s philosophy) and development so that forms of deception other than lying and the various types of irony can be accounted for. This will be the focus of Chapter 2.

5 Language data in the scholarship on irony, deception and humour Data collection in the research on irony, deception and humour studies raises several methodological problems. This section gives a brief overview of these problems and presents the solutions adopted in the present project, which is based on natural, albeit scripted, language data. The use of natural data, as this section also reports, is not yet a prevalent approach in the linguistic research on deception, whilst corpora-based studies of irony and humour pose a number of challenges.

5.1 Irony A few authors have lamented the dearth of research on irony that capitalises on authentic data (e.g. Kotthoff 2003; Partington 2006). Partington (2007) opens his discussion of irony by bemoaning the fact that the extant scholarship employs limited data. He states that “[a]rtificial examples and isolated individual instances are recycled from paper to paper, whilst the experimental work tends to expose subjects to rather simple invented examples and situations” (Partington 2007: 198). Indeed, even to date, most of the linguistic literature devoted to irony, theoretically-oriented and experimental research alike, has been based on isolated examples, invented or anecdotal, which are further taken for granted and circulated in the scholarship. The vexing problems are that the forms

5 Language data in the scholarship on irony, deception and humour 

 21

of irony are oversimplified, and the labelling of instances as “irony” is sometimes performed with no clear explanation of the author’s criteria. The canonical examples of irony frequently quoted in the literature tend to be quite simple and fail to bring out the complexity of the phenomenon manifest in natural ironic utterances made by language users. Additionally, as Partington (2007: 1550) rightly observes, “[i]n very many studies in the field, the examples discussed, whether invented or selected, are taken for granted as being ironic for no other reason than that the author intuitively feels them to be so”. Indeed, the status of many examples of irony reverberating across the literature is questionable (see Chapter 3, Sections 2.3.1 and 6.5.4; Chapter 5, Section 2.2). In irony research, it is then very important to establish data selection procedures that will submit exclusive and, at the same time, exhaustive results so that the corpora contain instances of irony (and nothing else) in its various manifestations. Recent years have seen a steady flow of corpora-based research on irony, which can be divided into several strands depending on the authors’ data collection methods (see also Burgers et al. 2011). Some studies (e.g. Barbe 1993, 199516; Claridge 2001; Lucariello 1994; Partington 2007; Shelley 2001; Taylor 2015; Dynel 2017c) capitalise on the occurrence of the labels “irony” and its derivatives in datasets. Most recently, some corpora have focussed on hashtag as a marker of irony in datasets based on technologically-mediated communication (Reyes et al. 2012; Reyes et al. 2013). The “#irony” or “#sarcasm” label signals that a language user perceives his/her utterance as ironic at the time of production and indicates this for the sake of the receivers’ understanding. Overall, the studies done on the basis of American and British English, however, provide evidence that the lemma “irony” usually (but not always) signals language users’ recognition of situational irony and bears little relevance to the research on the rhetorical figure. Thus, this method misses many, if not most, instances of the rhetorical figure, which intrinsically involves implicitness and, typically, is not indicated via metalanguage. Such an approach is then useful only if the author’s focus is on situational irony or lay understandings. Generally, even if the label “irony” in popular parlance should sometimes concern something else than situational irony, language users’ understandings may depart from academics’ understandings (Gibbs and

16 Barbe (1993, 1995) coins the term explicit irony with reference to language users’ verbal reflections on situations that they perceive as ironic and comment on by dint of explicit irony markers. These involve the use of the word “irony” or its derivatives. Consequently, she dubs the respective rhetorical figure “implicit irony”. This terminology is problematic. Implicitness inheres in the figure of irony, and thus in ironic utterances. It is then a terminological and theoretical mistake to term “irony” utterances carrying people’s recognition of situational irony (see Chapter 3, Section 1).

22 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

Colston 2007; Dynel 2017c) and need not involve the trope. Additionally, using a single lemma as the search word cannot possibly yield all instances of irony in a chosen discourse database, leaving all un-labelled instances unaccounted for. The second major methodological strategy in corpora-based studies consists in tracing the occurrence of cues for, or concomitants of, irony in chosen datasets (for a good overview of such cues, see Burgers et al. 2012a). One such cue is laughter signalling the production and/or reception of irony in spoken discourse ­(Partington 2007; Pelsmaekers and Van Besien 2002). The main shortcoming of this search method is that it does not allow differentiating between humorous irony and other humorous stimuli which evoke laughter, and thus it depends on the author’s ultimate decision on whether or not a given instance can be classified as irony. On the other hand, non-humorous irony (which objectively carries no potential for humour and is not cued as such) or irony which does have humorous potential but is not recognised as being humorous by the hearers, and/or indicated as such by the speakers, is overlooked (on (non)humorous irony, see Dynel 2013b, 2014a; Chapter 5, Section 2). By the same token, verbal cues for irony will not be fully reliable either, necessitating the author’s decision-making and again narrowing down the scope of the phenomenon to those instances which involve select search words. The rhetorical concomitants of irony, such as hyperbole or meiosis, are independent phenomena and cannot be taken as unequivocal cues for its presence, not to mention the fact that they cannot be automatically extracted per se. The same holds for conventional irony, which relies on specific lexemes, such as “nice” or “fine” (see Giora 2003; Alba Juez 199817). These lexemes can also be seen as verbal cues for irony. Nonetheless, such words constitute only a small proportion of the manifestations of irony, and they need not always involve the figure, being used in literal senses. On the whole, automatic searches based on verbal cues would yield inadequate results: too narrow (insofar as they limit the findings to chosen search words) and, at the same time, too broad (inasmuch as the cues are not exclusive to irony). Thus, the presence of irony needs to be validated manually. As Muecke (1978: 374) aptly puts it, “in any particular case of irony the irony-marker can be confirmed as such only retrospectively, that is when one has understood the irony”. What poses the greatest challenge for irony researchers is that this figure always involves implicating, and implicatures arising from irony escape any known search engines. This explains why in most of the (still relatively few) corpus studies

17 She claims that such irony does not depend on implicature, though.

5 Language data in the scholarship on irony, deception and humour 

 23

of irony, the authors compile their corpora manually, very frequently on the basis of their intuitions (e.g. Gibbs 2000; Alba-Juez 1998; Weizman 2001), sometimes supported by inter-rater agreement (Whalen et al. 2013) or non-academic raters’ decisions reflecting their folk understandings (e.g. Eisterhold et al. 2006). In research involving very large datasets, even if some filters and search engines are used to harvest preliminary data, the examples of irony are ultimately hand annotated, also based on the researchers’ judgements. This typically leads to dissecting chosen classes of irony, such as ironic similes (Veale and Hao 2009; Veale 2013) or negative constructions (Giora et al. 2014). The judgements of such specific species of irony, admittedly, stand less chance of being impaired by personal intuitions of what irony involves. Presumably in order to avoid this personal bias, Burgers et al. (2011, 2012a, 2013) propose a discourse selection procedure, based on several interpretative steps: dividing discourse into units of analysis, determining that a unit is evaluative, constructing a scale of evaluation about the referent and placing on it the intended and literal evaluations, and deciding if the intended evaluation is relevant to the context and co-text (if it is, the clause is ironic). However, the model is premised on an assumption that ironic utterances are by nature evaluative (see also Partington 2006, 2007). Even though the authors do acknowledge the fact that evaluation is not always present in the literal form of expression and introduce the notion of evaluative connotation, as well as implicit evaluation, they provide little explanation of how this implicitness/connotation is to be sought. Nor do they account for the fact that some ironic utterances are not couched in any, explicitly or implicitly, evaluative expressions (Dynel 2013a, see Chapter 3, Section 2.2). Such instances of irony may easily be overlooked. The most reliable method of compiling ironic language data to date, which this work applies, appears to be manual selection of examples premised on the previously proposed and validated definitional components of irony (Kapogianni 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016a, 2016b; Dynel 2013a, 2013b, 2014a). This a priori method of data selection (Taylor 2016) also has obvious limitations, though. It carries the danger of circularity and may yield skewed results if the criteria proposed should later prove inadequate (being too broad or too narrow). Also, as Kreuz (2000: 101) puts it, “defining a phenomenon beforehand, researchers run the risk of creating myopic theories that do not do justice to the richness of their subject”. However, a priori decision-making on what irony technically consists in, necessarily ­supported by previous findings, seems to be the best way of compiling comprehensive lists of diversified examples. On this basis, further second-order mechanisms of irony can be observed and further postulates can be made ­concerning the nature of this figure.

24 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

5.2 Deception Naturally occurring examples, let alone full-fledged corpus studies, are very rare in theoretical treatises on deception, even though it is ubiquitous and crucial for human communication in various spheres of life and forms of discourse (see Barnes 1994; DePaulo et al. 1996). Only a few authors, typically working outside the field of philosophy of deception have addressed the paucity of natural data (Miller and Stiff 1993; Galasiński 2000; Dynel and Meibauer 2016), pointing to the difficulties in ascertaining whether the prospective examples do meet the definitional components of deception. Galasiński (2000) arrives at a pessimistic conclusion that lack of insight into deceivers’ intentions makes natural acts of deception hardly amenable to analysis (which is why he chooses to focus on “misrepresentation”, a blanket term for many distinct phenomena that may involve deception but do not necessarily do so). A statement may be ventured that an overwhelming majority of the theoretical scholarship on deception is based on isolated examples overheard or created by the academics themselves to better elucidate their proposals for conceptualising sophisticated forms of deception, the instances of which are difficult (if not impossible) to find in natural discourse. Fabricated examples are actually given preference insofar as real data may pose problems in philosophical analysis. This is because the deceiver’s intentions and beliefs can be conjectured, but never ­categorically recognised. Construing their examples, philosophers thus ­determine the hypothetical/fictional speakers’ genuine beliefs and intentions (both overt ones and covert ones, which the speakers mean to stay hidden from the hearers), which are central to the fine philosophical distinctions between the different types of deception. Many of these examples are very complex and, admittedly, highly unlikely in natural interactions. Only intermittently do scholars consistently intertwine real-life examples into their theoretical debates. If they do, the examples are frequently selected manually from the public domain and/or media discourse (Ekman 1985; Galasiński 2000; Horn 2017a, 2017b). Some philosophical works are based on detailed analyses of isolated cases of real-life deception broadcast in the media, as is the case with President Bill Clinton’s infamous denial of any sexual relation­ ship (Saul 1999, 2000, 2012; Moore 2000). Regrettably, corpora-based studies of deception based on extensive data, not individual cases, are practically nonexistent. This is hardly surprising given that, if successfully performed, deception goes unnoticed and is difficult, if not impossible, to detect on the strength of extracts of everyday interactions. This explains why scholars turn to fictional discourse as their source of examples (frequently isolated) rather than inventing their own instances.

5 Language data in the scholarship on irony, deception and humour 

 25

In fictional discourse, deception is revealed for the sake of the viewer’s or reader’s understanding of the goings-on in the fictional world. Therefore, the viewer can recognise the presence of deception with the benefit of hindsight. Alternatively, before an act of deception is performed, the viewer may have already been given insight into some facts, and thus the speaker’s beliefs. Consequently, the viewer may be cognisant of deception as it is being performed. Deception is sometimes studied from the perspective of literary semantics and stylistics, the focus being on how it is presented in literature or cinematography (e.g. Coupland, 2004; Vincent Marrelli, 2004; de Paulo, 2010; Bertuccelli Papi, 2014). On the other hand, as will become evident in the course of the book, some authors turn to (typically) random fictional examples, next to real examples, to validate their claims on the universal workings of deception. This methodological step is predicated on the (tacit) assumption endorsed here, namely that the discourse contrived by writers for wide audiences constitutes natural language. Scripted fictional data thus disproves Galasiński’s (2000: 37) statement that since “the veracity assessment of claims in the data will require the researcher’s knowledge of all the information relevant in a given context”, it “is highly unlikely that such a requirement could ever be met”.

5.3 Humour Unlike deception scholars, humour researchers, especially those working in the very productive fields of pragmatics, sociolinguistics and conversation analysis, usually do base their research on diversified natural language data. The sources range from everyday conversations to new media (all kinds of Internet communication, both private and public) and traditional media, encompassing canned jokes, advertisements, stand-up comedy, and the discourse of films and series, to name but a few. The constant challenge that humour researchers face is to guarantee objectivity in their data collection methods, which are typically heavily dependent on introspection (Attardo 1994). Essentially, whether or not they explicitly state this, linguists studying humour frequently pick their examples based on their intuitions of what humour, or its specific subtype, involves. Humour researchers sometimes circumvent the problem of subjectivisation by dint of what can be called the “mutual guarantee technique”, according to which an analyst is entitled to regard a given utterance as an instance of humour if it has been recognised as such by someone else, usually a language user. In some cases, the very fact that a given utterance has been published in a collection of jokes or on a website devoted to humour is an indication that it can be treated as an instance of humour. In the case of conversational humour, whether in private or

26 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

in media interactions, what may come in handy is the presence of metapragmatic comments and non-verbal signals, the most important of which is laughter on the part of the hearer, as well as the speaker, who may also use other non-verbal cues (e.g. winking), which are neither inherent in nor exclusive to humour. Moreover, not all laughter is associated with humour and not all instances of humour must be received with laughter or other responses indicating the hearer’s evaluating something as amusing. Furthermore, (intended) humour may sometimes fall on deaf ears (on failed humour, see Bell 2016 and references therein), with no cues for its presence being available to researchers. In sum, relying on non-verbal cues in humour recognition may yield results that are too narrow and/or too broad. Data selection is even more problematic when scripted interactions (of films, series or television shows) serve as a researcher’s database of conversational humour. Although humour in sitcoms is indicated by canned laughter, and hence amenable to easy extraction, this is not the case with dramatic series, House being a case in point. Thus, the recovery of conversational humour used by characters (resembling real people) shows the same problem of unreliability of the presence/absence of laughter as a cue. It is worth mentioning that Dr House uses a lot of aggressive humour mainly for the sake of self-amusement and disparagement of others. Rarely does he attempt to entertain his interlocutors. Therefore, the lack of cues indicating amusement on the hearer’s part cannot be used as a yardstick for the lack of humour in many cases. On the other hand, one needs to be careful not to mistake the humour of a television product for humour at the characters’ level of communication. Humour in scripted discourse is constructed primarily with a view to amusing the viewer, which is why it includes phenomena specific to media products that do not carry humour at the characters’ level of communication; they are neither intended nor recognised as humorous by the characters (see Dynel 2011a, 2016c).18 Unless their focus is on the humour of a film or series (contributing to stylistic or media research), authors cannot indiscriminately pick anything they find amusing and add it into their database as an instance of conversational humour. On the other hand, not every example of humour must be amusing to a researcher, who must be able to recognise its humorous capacity, though. An important distinction should be made between humorousness and funniness. Funniness and non-funniness are two opposite poles of a continuum which depends on an individual’s sense of humour and idiosyncratic perceptions at a given time and in a given situation. Much depends on the hearer’s cognitive safety

18 This is not to deny the premise of verisimilitude (see Section 6), for it does not have a bearing on language use per se.

6 Scripted interactions as data 

 27

and playful frame of mind (see Martin 2007), which facilitate the appreciation of humour. On the other hand, humorousness vs non-humorousness is considered an objectively verifiable dichotomy: a stimulus either is or is not humorous. The topic of most linguistic analyses, this one included, is humour rather than what is funny. Humour can be simply defined as something that has the potential for inviting amusement in an individual, its producer and/or receiver. The presence of humour can be objectively verified based on the presence of its features. One of such features is humorous incongruity, which may be roughly understood as some form of mismatch (e.g. form vs meaning, set-up vs the punchline, or juxtaposition of utterances) typically intended to induce a humorous reaction in a hearer (see e.g. Martin 2007b; Dynel 2013b). Additionally, clearly defined categories of humour (e.g. parody, teasing, absurdity, a canned joke) present a range of well documented characteristics that can be sought in initially selected examples. Even if intuition may play a crucial role in data selection, each instance must be validated against previously established classificatory criteria. This is the strategy followed in this project.

6 Scripted interactions as data It is not only covert untruthfulness but also overt untruthfulness that may be very difficult to determine in natural examples when contextual information is elusive and the speaker’s beliefs cannot be plausibly reconstructed. This work sidesteps this methodological problem by taking examples from scripted interactions. These are culled from one television series, where the characters’ beliefs and intentions, and hence (un)truthfulness, can usually be inferred based on the totality of evidence shown on screen.19 Made available to viewers, characters’ interactions lend themselves perfectly to academic analysis (Coupland 2004; Rudanko 2006). Coupland’s (2004: 258) plausible premise is that the prime “motive in using fictional, media texts is partly based in the belief (cf. Grimshaw 1996) that fictionalised reality can sometimes reveal social processes more clearly than lived reality”. Even if some margin of error in intention and belief recognition must always be allowed, the result of the interpretative process of scripted

19 The topic of the fictional nature, and hence untruthfulness, of the characters’ world, interactions and utterances is beyond the focus of this book. The same applies to the idea underlying Searle’s (1979: 62) observation that “an author of fiction pretends to perform illocutionary acts which he is not in fact performing”. These are independent strands of research that must be (and is) pursued independently in the philosophy of fiction.

28 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

discourse is much more reliable than in the case of real-life interactions, which (to make matters worse) may be more difficult to obtain. The central aim of this book is to give insight into the universal workings of irony and deception, as well as the relationship between (un)truthfulness and humour. The theoretical investigation is based on natural, albeit scripted and fictional, examples. Saarni and Lewis observe that sitcoms “are indeed a mirror to the kinds of deceptions we practice, often habitually, in our society” (1993: 7). This can definitely be proposed for films and other types of series (not necessarily sitcoms, which tend to be anchored in peculiar “local logic” typical of humour with which they are suffused). Although films and series do display forms of deception peculiar to them (such forms being related to the production crew’s deception of viewers), deception performed at the characters’ level of communication, i.e. at the diegetic level, is reminiscent of real-life instances of deception, representing its potential manifestations. Moreover, scripted interactions may yield complex examples of irony and deception that might otherwise be overlooked thanks to their intermittence in real-life discourse. This is yet another advantage of fictional language data. Scripted and fictional though they are, the interactions in the diegetic world constitute naturally occurring data that “has not been elicited by the researcher for the purpose of his or her research project but that occurs for communicative reasons outside of the research project for which it is used” (Jucker 2009: 1615). In the teeth of some contradictory findings, many previous studies have borne out that characters’ interactions tend to show verisimilitude (see Dynel 2011b, 2017d for discussion and references), which may be motivated by the fact that “real-life dialogue is the template behind” it (Piazza 2006: 2087). Scriptwriters, who are language users acutely sensitive to forms of expression, draw heavily on their (intuitive) knowledge of linguistic and interactional norms and conventions (Spitz 2005; Stokoe 2008). The same norms and conventions form the basis for viewers’ interpretations of characters’ communicative exchanges (Spitz 2005). Essentially, script writers (and other members of the production crew) design characters’ interactions, based on the (tacit) norms pertaining to real-life language use so that they can be understood by film viewers. Therefore, though prefabricated, characters’ interactions operate in ways similar to real-life interactions, even if some phenomena may differ statistically due to contextualisation constraints (see Dynel 2011b, 2017d for discussion). For example, c­ reative irony may be more frequent in fictional scripts than in everyday discourse (­Kapogianni 2014). This does not invalidate qualitative, theoretical studies with no socio-linguistic aspirations, which this monograph represents. On the contrary, the diversity of irony in the scripted discourse helps investigate it in greater detail.

7 On House and data collection 

 29

Another potentially peculiar feature is Dr House’s use of humour, which tends to overlap with irony and deception. Witty, albeit frequently aggressive, it often serves as a defence mechanism or a vehicle for self-amusement and an ­exhibition of his superiority rather than being deployed for the sake of standard entertainment of others. This explains why House’s interlocutors are only intermittently (shown to be) amused by his utterances which do present the hallmarks of humour. Nonetheless, the humour found in the series’ scripted interactions suffices to pursue the theoretical discussions of the universal workings of humour. It must also be stressed that the analysis does not take account of the humorous effects exerted on the viewers of the series, for whom the humour is, indubitably, constructed by the production crew (see Dynel 2016c). The viewer’s perspective, however, affords insights into the fictional characters’ intentions and beliefs (as designed by the production crew), which are crucial for the theoretical distinctions made here. The result of this academic ‘mind-reading’ carries a greater degree of certainty (but not full certainty) concerning the fictional speakers’ communicative goals and intentions than any real-life data would.

7 On House and data collection The examples used for illustrative purposes in the course of the theoretical discussion of irony, deception and humour have been culled from my corpus based on the American television series entitled House, also known as House M.D. (produced by Paul Attanasio and David Shore for the FOX network). In terms of its content, House displays features of a medical detective/mystery series. In terms of its genre, House is officially classified as a medical drama. Nonetheless, it encompasses both drama and comedy and may be regarded as a dramedy (Ross 2004; Bednarek 2010). House is not a sitcom, where many aspects of the principle of the verisimilitude of characters’ discourse tend to be suspended for the sake of humour. Initially aired by FOX for eight seasons (November 2004–May 2012), for over a decade now, the series has been run by many television stations, streamed via the Internet and syndicated on DVDs around the world. House probably owes its popularity to the eponymous protagonist, a maverick, quick-witted and socially maladjusted diagnostician. In each episode, Dr Gregory (Greg) House and his team are absorbed in a peculiar medical case. The team members change a number of times in the span of the eight seasons. Altogether, the team members are: Dr Eric Foreman (who takes over as Dean of Medicine in Season 8), Dr Robert Chase, Dr Allison Cameron, Dr Chris Taub, Dr Laurence Kutner, Dr Remy “­ Thirteen” Hadley, Dr Martha Masters, Dr Jessica Adams and Dr Chi Park. Other key characters

30 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

include: Dr James Wilson, an oncologist who is House’s bosom friend; and Dr  Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine in Seasons 1–7 and House’s girlfriend in Season 7. Scenes in which the doctors, conventionally referring to one another by their surnames, try to solve the medical conundrum at hand, as well as minor cases of clinic patients, are intertwined with scenes presenting changes in the doctors’ personal lives (such as the arrival of Stacy – House’s former fiancée – and her husband, Mark; as well as House’s stay at a mental hospital or his imprisonment). The choice of this series as the data source was initially dictated by my personal interest and the high frequency of occurrence of the three phenomena (irony, deception and humour) in the characters’ interactions. Over the course of the analysis, this turned out to have been an excellent decision, given the multifarious manifestations of each of the three notions. The deception, irony and humour found in the discourse of House bring to focus a full spectrum of sophisticated and empirically valid issues which deserve philosophical-pragmatic investigation. It must be stressed, nonetheless, that the data from House are used for illustrative purposes, and that the present book is not to be regarded as a stylistic (or otherwise) analysis of the discourse in the series per se. For these reasons, I choose not to give any concrete statistics concerning the phenomena addressed here. Suffice it to say that the eight seasons of the series total 177 episodes (each comprised of roughly 6500–7500 spoken words), and the corpus consists of hundreds of specimens of the three linguistic phenomena. The quantification of the data is impracticable for yet another reason. Frequently, a few relevant utterances are clustered together in one interaction (being inseparable), and sometimes the different phenomena co-occur in one utterance (namely, irony and deception, deception and humour, and humour and irony). Altogether 30 scriptwriters were involved in the production of House, with numerous people (producers, directors and actors, among others) deciding on the ultimate form of the product delivered to the viewer.20 Thus, the interactions shown on screen testify to many native speakers’ intuitions about natural use of the English language in its American variety. Based on the verisimilitude premise (see Section 6), the theoretical problems addressed in the volume are claimed to be universal (even if some may be empirically infrequent), reflecting the complicated nature of irony, deception and humour used in real-life interactions. I compiled the corpus of irony, deception and humour manually, taking as the point of departure the central characteristics of the three communicative phenomena, based on a critical survey of the previous scholarship. What

20 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412142/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

7 On House and data collection 

 31

I did in practice was re-watch House in the span of 5 years and note down all ironic, deceptive and humorous utterances, together with brief descriptions. I ­scrutinised each episode four times minimum at 6-month (at the least) intervals, taking notes from scratch each time in order to be able to verify my previous choices. Comparing the independent notes for each episode (also in the light of full ­transcripts of the series), I deleted utterances which, with the benefit of hindsight, turned out to have been picked unnecessarily (this mainly concerned instances that did not meet the necessary conditions for irony) and compiled an exhaustive list of examples. I also labelled the instances according to their distinctive features, some not described in the literature hitherto. Thus, the ­bottom-up analysis of the data brought into focus new problems and inspired new postulates and theoretical elaborations ultimately proposed in this book. This proves that natural language data encompass instances of irony and deception that are more complex than a number of canonical examples frequently re-used by academics may suggest. Some of the examples extracted from the series have found their way into this book, being relevantly interwoven into the theoretical discussion for illustrative purposes. The segments of characters’ interactions used for the contextually embedded examples in this book are, to a certain extent, sourced from peer-corrected fan transcripts published at http://clinic-duty.livejournal.com/tag/episode%20index (last accessed January 2017), duly verified for their accuracy on the basis of DVD videos. The characters’ verbal (and sometimes non-verbal) interactional turns21 are numbered and referred to in parentheses in the descriptions that follow. Since the characters use American English, the transcripts follow American spelling conventions, which does not hold for all the explanatory notes added for the sake of clarity in square brackets. First, each extract is preceded by a description of contextual factors that help to understand the interactional goings-on, and hence the ironic, deceptive and humorous utterances and turns, which are the central focus of the analyses. Second, the most significant non-verbal signs and signals are indicated. Reporting on characters’ actions, gestures or facial expressions signalling their attitudes and feelings might have entailed convoluted descriptions, which are avoided here. The expressed emotions and performed actions are specified. Given the purpose of the present study (to discuss the necessary conditions for the three phenomena and their manifestations) and the perspective assumed (theoretical pragmatics and the philosophy of language), no conventions of

21 One turn may comprise one utterance or more. An utterance is taken as the basic analytic unit, but whole turns are analysed whenever they are ironic, deceptive or humorous in their entirety.

32 

 Chapter 1: Preliminaries, conundrums and foundations

discourse analytic transcription are observed. Although such transcripts lose many features of spoken discourse, such as intonation patterns, pauses or hesitations (which may point to the use of irony, humour and deception but are only optional, and hence definitionally inessential), such bare transcriptions suffice for the present purposes and are easier to follow. This is not to deny the fact that various non-verbal cues on screen may have helped me locate the presence of the three phenomena under investigation in the initial stages of data collection.

Chapter 2 (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness House: You have a gift for manipulation. Wilson: I listen, I have an actual conversation with people; which shockingly does raise the odds they’ll be co-operative. House: That’s what I’m saying. You read that kid; you manipulated the hell out of him. Season 2, Episode 19 Wilson: Hey! You used me to avoid seeing your parents. House: Well what do you care? Wilson: I don’t, I just thought it might be interesting to find out why. House: You could have just asked. Wilson: You would have lied! House: And you would have believed me, which would have kept us both happy! Season 2, Episode 5 House: There’s a reason that everybody lies. It works. It’s what allows society to function, it’s what separates man from beast. Wilson: Oh, I thought that was our thumbs. House: You wanna know every place your mom’s thumb has been? Wilson: I’m sorry I missed rehearsal. Am I taking the “truth is good” side? Don’t you usually take that part? House: Lies are a tool, they can be used either for good… No wait, I got a better one. Lies are like children. Hard work, but they’re worth it. Because the future depends on them. Season 4, Episode 10

This chapter carefully examines select aspects of Grice’s philosophical model of communication based on speaker meaning, maxims and the Cooperative Principle, critically responding to other authors’ discussions and making proposals for elaborations and extensions of Grice’s original framework. Thus, a coherent neo-Gricean picture of overt and covert untruthfulness, both explicit and implicit, is established with a view to explaining the workings of irony, deception and humour. In order to meet this purpose, after the key components of Grice’s model are revisited, the category of Quality and its maxims are carefully examined. Consequently, the violation of the first maxim of Quality is duly presented as the essence of the various forms of covert untruthfulness underlying deception, which may also recruit other maxim flouting or violation. Additionally, the flouting of the first maxim of Quality is shown to underpin the operation of overt https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-002

34 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

untruthfulness, which accounts for irony and a few other rhetorical figures. This chapter closes with a discussion of the complex relationship between humour and maxim (non)fulfilment.

1 Approaching Grice’s model of communication In his seminal lectures on “logic and conversation”, Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]) famously proposes the framework for intentional, rational communication based on the Cooperative Principle and the four categories of maxims. In spite of the passage of time, Grice’s lectures compiled in the 1989 volume have never ceased to stimulate scholarly interest, serving as the bedrock for philosophical and theoretical pragmatic debates on a wide spectrum of issues, such as intentionality and speaker meaning, the Cooperative Principle and maxims, and the levels of speaker meaning. Many of these debates concern the way Grice’s postulates should be interpreted. This is hardly surprising as Grice’s discussions are ambivalent in many respects. On the other hand, despite (or perhaps because of) its prominence and prevalence in the pragmatic scholarship, in academic research and handbooks (representing not only pragmatics but also other linguistic disciplines), the Gricean philosophy of communication tends to be oversimplified and misinterpreted in many respects.1 This is why even the basic tenets deserve to be revisited and elaborated for the sake of the discussion of irony, deception and humour. Grice’s (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978], 1989c) model of conversational or, generally, communicative logic (which holds for all forms of communication, e.g. a letter of recommendation which Grice famously discusses) is famously anchored in the Cooperative Principle, which is to be understood as the principle of rationality (see Davies 2000, 2007; Dynel 2008, 2009). Together with the subordinate maxims, which fall into four categories borrowed from Kant (Quality, Quantity, Relation and Manner), it serves as the basis for intentional and rational communicative exchanges, and thus the communication of (inherently intentional) speaker meaning. Therefore, “one may distinguish, within the total signification, between what is said (in a favored sense) and what is implicated” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 41). Grice uses saying in his “favored sense” (1989a [1975]: 25, 33; 1989b [1978]: 41), namely with reference to the act of communicating intended meaning besides implicating (Grice 1989a [1975]: 25, 27, 33). Taken together, what is said

1 Some of the notorious claims reverberating across the interdisciplinary literature are that there are four maxims, or that the Cooperative Principle is violated when an implicature arises.

1 Approaching Grice’s model of communication 

 35

and implicature (the products of saying and implicating, the meanings that, for academic purposes, can be quoted as being intended and, in the ideal scenario, received by the hearer) constitute speaker meaning or what is meant, which can be divided into conventional what is meant (what is said and conventional implicatures)2 or nonconventional what is meant (conversational implicatures) (Neale 1992). The maxims, which Grice (1989c: 370) refers to as “conversational imperatives” (possibly echoing Kantian philosophy, Vincent Marrelli 2004), serve as “moral commandments” and their “observance promotes and their violation dispromotes conversational rationality”. Therefore, following the maxims is something that speakers ought to do, and may be expected to do, for the sake of rational and harmonious communication. However, speakers’ overt departures from the maxims defy hearers’ expectations, triggering their inferential processes to arrive at an explanation for why the speakers have chosen not to fulfil (yet not to violate) the maxims, which is to communicate implicatures.

1.1 Forms of maxim nonfulfilment and their effects Grice (1989a [1975]: 30) lists four ways of “failing to fulfil” (see also Vincent Marrelli 2004) a maxim: flouting, unostentatious violation, as well as clash and opting out. The most important forms of maxim nonfulfilment (Mooney 2004), the umbrella term preferred here (synonymous with non-observance, Vincent ­Marrelli 2004), are unostentatious violations and floutings, differentiated by their covertness and overtness respectively. This is clear when Grice (1989a [1975]: 30) first makes the distinction. The speaker may “quietly and unostentatiously violate a maxim; if so, in some cases he will be liable to mislead” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30, italics in original).3 Covert nonfulfilment, which is intentionally made unavailable to the hearer, falls outside Grice’s model of communicative rationality (see Section 4.1). On the other hand, the speaker “may flout a maxim; that is, he may blatantly fail to fulfill it. [...] This situation is one that characteristically gives rise to a conversational implicature; and when a conversational implicature is generated in this way, I shall say that a maxim is being exploited” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30, italics in original). However, in the course of the seminal lecture, the

2 Grice famously linked conventional implicatures to the use of specific lexemes, notably “­therefore”, “but and “moreover”, which “do not affect the truth or falsity of what is said and yet, by virtue of their conventional meanings, generate implicatures (Bach 1999: 299). It is not certain whether the notion of conventional implicature is a feasible construct (see Bach 1999). 3 This intentional act is dubbed “deception”, not “misleading” (see Chapter 4, Section 1.1).

36 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

distinction between covert nonfulfilment and overt nonfulfilment resulting in implicatures is no longer unequivocal. Firstly, perhaps due to an oversight, Grice is inconsistent in his use of the term “violation”, introducing it as a technical term covering covert maxim nonfulfilment (notice the italics in the relevant quotation above from Grice 1989a [1975]: 30) but using it also as a superordinate label in reference to all forms of nonfulfilment, also overt/ostentatious nonfulfilment, which promote implicatures, as his examples indicate (see Grice 1989a [1975]: 31, 32, 33). This shows also in the headings depicting the sources of implicature (Grice 1989a [1975]: 32–33, see the paragraph below), where “violation” does not appear to stand for covert maxim nonfulfilment. Additionally, apart from presenting “flouting” as synonymous with “exploiting” a maxim (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30) or infringing a maxim (Grice 1989a [1975]: 33), Grice calls floutings “apparent violations” (1989a [1975]: 31, 35), as well as “overt violations” (1989a [1975]: 36), as evidenced by the presence of these terms in the section of the essay devoted to floutings. Also, Grice seems to suggest that a flouting is “a justifiable violation” or “only a seeming, not a real, violation”, whereby “the spirit, though perhaps not the letter, of the maxim is respected” (Grice 1989c: 370). Irrespective of such ambivalent parlance, Grice’s underlying distinction between (overt) flouting vs (covert) violation is reflected in the examples he provides. Secondly, next to floutings, Grice (1989a [1975]: 31) lists two other sources of conversational implicature, duly classified as particularised conversational implicatures.4 This is because having presented the three groups of examples of implicature, Grice states, I have so far considered only cases of what I might call ‘particularized conversational ­implicature’ – that is to say, cases in which an implicature is carried by saying that p on a particular occasion in virtue of special features of the context, cases in which there is no room for the idea that an implicature of this sort is normally carried by saying that p. (1989a [1975]: 37).

The three groups of examples representing particularised conversational implicatures are: “Examples in which no maxim is violated, or at least in which it is not clear that any maxim is violated”, “Examples in which a maxim is violated, but its violation is to be explained by the supposition of a clash with another maxim” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 32, italics in original) and “Examples that involve exploitation, that is, a procedure by which a maxim is flouted for the purpose of getting in a conversational implicature by means of something of the nature of a figure of speech”

4 Unless indicated otherwise, “implicature” is hereafter (in all of the chapters) used as shorthand for “particularised conversational implicature”.

1 Approaching Grice’s model of communication 

 37

(Grice 1989a [1975]: 33, italics in original). The third group is the most amply discussed by Grice (1989a [1975]) and revisited in the neo- and post-Gricean scholarship. However, there is some doubt concerning the need for the first two groups, scantly discussed by Grice and hardly commented on in the literature. Under the first category (no maxim violation), Grice presents two two-turn conversational exchanges, in each of which, the reply, at a glance, is not immediately relevant to the preceding turn, but Grice (1989a [1975]: 32) suggests that the “Be relevant” maxim is not infringed and the connection between the two turns is “obvious”: “In both examples, the speaker implicates that which he must be assumed to believe in order to preserve the assumption that he is observing the maxim of Relation” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 32). On an alternative reading, both these examples epitomise flouting the Relation maxim. The speakers produce overtly irrelevant replies, and it is the recognition of this fact that guides the hearers towards seeking the central implicature, where this maxim is observed. The second category, the violation explained by a clash, seems to be a very narrow one, illustrated with an example of the speaker implicating his/her lack of knowledge by “infringing” the first maxim of Quantity in order not to “infringe” the second maxim of Quality (Grice 1989a [1975]: 32). The first maxim of Quantity is infringed, i.e. overtly flouted, so that the second maxim of Quality should remain intact, in the sense that it is not (covertly) violated. Therefore, the examples presented by Grice in this section may be deemed a subtype of the third category, that is maxim flouting. Incidentally, this interpretation explains Grice’s tendency to use some words interchangeably as technical terms or nontechnical labels. Specifically, Grice uses “infringement” also with regard to flouting. In the light of the discussion above, it may be concluded that the two sources of implicatures may be reduced to only one, namely maxim flouting. In the third, most robust, group of examples, Grice (1989a [1975]: 33–37) focuses explicitly on floutings/exploitations of all maxims falling into the famous four categories. Grice also dubs flouting “infringement” (1989a [1975]: 33) or “real violation” (1989a [1975]: 35) in two of the sub-headers concerning particular maxims. Interestingly, in the retrospective epilogue, Grice (1989c: 370) provides two sources of implicatures: “a violation on his [the speaker’s] part of a conversational maxim is in the circumstances justifiable, at least in his eyes” or “what appears to be a violation by him of a conversational maxim is only a seeming, not a real, violation; the spirit, though perhaps not the letter, of the maxim is respected”. It is difficult to tell what difference Grice saw between these two types of overt violation, but this may have to do only with the peculiar case of flouting the Relation maxim (see Chapter 3, Section 6.5.2). Since implicature is one of the central notions in this book, it deserves to be briefly introduced.

38 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

1.2 Whose implicature? The well-entrenched notion “implicature” is, technically, what the speaker means, not what the hearer infers, contrary to what some authors suggest when talking about implicatures being inferences (e.g. Levinson 2000). Implicating rests upon the speaker, whereas inferring is the hearer’s responsibility (e.g. Bach 2001; Horn 2004, 2009; Kecskés 2013 and references therein; see also Haugh 2013a for discussion). In Grice’s original parlance, the label implicature is synonymous with implicating leading to implicatum, which stands for the meaning the speaker implicates (Grice 1989a [1975]: 24). Whilst the latter term is practically non-existent in the neo-Gricean scholarship, “implicature” tends to be used in reference to the meaning the hearer infers or the meaning that (objectively) emerges from an utterance (whether spoken or written, see Section 1.4) in accordance with the speaker’s intention. Interestingly, Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1975]) himself seems to use the term “implicature” in reference to the communicated meaning, not the process of communicating, which shows in his use of the noun as a countable one (preceded by “a” or used in the plural form).5 It is then hardly surprising that “implicatum” is practically non-existent in the neo-Gricean scholarship, and “implicature” tends to be used in reference to the meaning the hearer infers, or at least a meaning that (objectively) emerges from an utterance. This can be explained also on the strength of Grice’s idealistic vision of communication: the hearer’s inference typically coincides with the speaker’s implicated meaning. The fact that the label “implicature” is commonly deployed with regard to an inference made must result from the prevalent assumption of theoretical models hinged on the Gricean framework which capture prototypical realisations of chosen linguistic phenomena rather than addressing potential failures in communication. Implicatures may be thought to arise from the hearer’s perspective in the process of sense-making based on the speaker’s utterance, on the understanding that the speaker is observing the Cooperative Principle (Benton 2016). This is also what Grice himself seems to suggest by the expression “to calculate a conversational implicature” (1989a [1975]: 40), which prioritises the hearer’s perspective on what the speaker has been trying to communicate. Grice does conceive of the hearer’s perspective as he is explaining the nature of implicature.

5 In this monograph, “implicature” is used as an uncountable noun with reference to the level of meaning, and as a countable one with regard to a specific meaning that is communicated and inferred.

1 Approaching Grice’s model of communication 

 39

A man who, by (in, when) saying (or making as if to say) that p has implicated that q, may be said to have conversationally implicated that q, provided that (1) he is to be presumed to be observing the conversational maxims, or at least the Cooperative Principle; (2) the supposition that he is aware that, or thinks that, q is required in order to make his saying or making as if to say p (or doing so in those terms) consistent with this presumption; and (3) the speaker thinks (and would expect the hearer to think that the speaker thinks) that it is within the competence of the hearer to work out, or grasp intuitively, that the supposition mentioned in (2) is required. (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30–31) [W]hat is implicated is what it is required that one assume a speaker to think in order to preserve the assumption that he is observing the Cooperative Principle (Grice 1989d [1969]: 86)

These quotations testify that Grice conceives communication as a cooperatively rational activity performed by the speaker and the hearer, which also explains why the speaker’s implicature may be viewed from the hearer’s perspective. Incidentally, some authors (e.g. Davis 1998) claim that Grice does not present conversational implicatures as being dependent on (by definition, intentional) speaker meaning. Nonetheless, this is Grice’s underlying line of argumentation (notice Grice’s definition of implicature as “mean” or floutings as intentional departures from maxims, for instance). He also explicates that “the presence of the implicature depends on the intentions of the speaker” (Grice 1989b [1978]: 49). Generally, Grice’s focus on the speaker manifests itself in the formulation of the Cooperative Principle and the maxims in the imperative mood as guidelines for the speaker to follow or flout, which duly generates meanings to be gleaned by the hearer, whose perspective is also elucidated. He has said that p; there is no reason to suppose that he is not observing the maxims, or at least the Cooperative Principle; he could not be doing this unless he thought that q; he knows (and knows that I know that he knows) that I can see that the supposition that he thinks that q is required; he has done nothing to stop me thinking that q; he intends me to think, or is at least willing to allow me to think, that q; and so he has implicated that q. (Grice 1989a [1975]: 31)

Also, as Grice (1975 [1989a]: 28) introduces the four conversational categories of maxims, comparing them to “transactions that are not talk exchanges”, he focuses on the recipient’s perspective and expectations. In his presentation of the emergence of conversational implicature, Grice accounts for both the speaker’s production and the hearer’s understanding, depicting the communication of implicature as a collaborative task. Grice suggests that a sine qua non for conversational implicature to arise is the hearer’s supposition that the speaker “is aware that, or thinks that, q [what has been implicated] is required in order to make his saying or making as if to say p (or doing so in those terms) consistent with this presumption [that the speaker is observing the conversational maxims, or at least the

40 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

Cooperative Principle]”, and “the speaker thinks (and would expect the hearer to think that the speaker thinks) that it is within the competence of the hearer to work out, or grasp intuitively” that this supposition is required (1989b [1975]: 31). The overall thrust of the argument presented in this section is that even if originally proposed as part of speaker meaning next to what is said, implicature can be viewed from the hearer’s perspective, encompassing inferences that the latter is capable of drawing on the strength of mutually accepted speaker’s intentionality and rationality. The same can also be concluded about what is said; intentionally produced by the speaker, what is said functions as the meaning that the hearer is meant to, and ideally does, recognise as being communicated (see Section 3). On the whole, then, the Gricean framework of communication aims to shed light on both production and reception ends, without prioritising either but (idealistically) presupposing their compatibility in terms of the meanings intentionally produced by the speaker and inferred by the hearer. According to the folk understanding of “intention”, tacitly assumed in the various approaches to irony and deception, an intended meaning is one that is purposefully communicated rather than being accidental and beyond the speaker’s control (on the folk senses of “intention”, see Malle and Knobe 1997; Gibbs 1999). In Grice’s model, intention is a far more problematic construct.

1.3 Intention (recognition) and speaker meaning One of the key tenets in Grice’s philosophy is that intentionality underlies nonnatural meaning (meaningnn), as opposed to natural meaning (Grice 1989e [1957], 1989d [1969], 1989f [1982], 1989c). Speaker meaning (1989e [1957], 1989g [1968], 1989d [1969]) is the most important type of non-natural meaning. Grice conceptualises speaker meaning in the following way: “‘A’ uttered x with the intention of inducing a belief by means of the recognition of this intention” (1989e [1957]: 219). Grice (1989d [1969]: 92) modifies the central provision and adds that the utterer means something if he/she intends to produce a particular response in the audience and intends the audience to be aware of this intention: U meant something by uttering x is true iff, for some audience A, U uttered x intending: (1) A to produce a particular response r (2) A to think (recognize) that U intends (1) (3) A to fulfill (1) on the basis of the fulfillment of (2) (Grice 1989d [1969]: 92)

Grice (1989d [1969]: 93–94) emphasises that the formulation “on the basis of” in the third provision cannot be substituted for “as a result”. Grice hence presents the recognition of intention as a necessary condition for inducing a belief

1 Approaching Grice’s model of communication 

 41

in the hearer (for a detailed discussion, see Recanati 1986; Bach 1987). The utterer’s intention is reflexive, inasmuch as it necessitates that the audience recognise the utterer’s communicative intention6 by appreciating that they are intended to recognise this intention. Therefore, the Gricean account of intended meanings fails to embrace cases of communication where the speaker intends to communicate a meaning and have it gleaned by the hearer without having his/her communicative intention recognised (see Bertuccelli Papi 2014 on insinuation). Given his view of speaker meaning as being reflexively intentional nonnatural meaning, Grice (1989e [1957] denies the status of non-natural (or speaker) meaning to the following behaviour, which, incidentally, can be regarded as non-verbal deception (see Chapter 4, Section 1.2). I might drop B’s handkerchief near the scene of a murder in order to induce the detective to believe that B is the murderer; but we should not want to say that the handkerchief (or my leaving it there) meantNN anything or that I had meantNN by leaving it that B was the murderer. Clearly we must at least add that, for x to have meantNN anything, not merely must it have been “uttered” with the intention of inducing a certain belief but also the utterer must have intended an “audience” to recognize the intention behind the utterance. (Grice 1989e [1957]: 217)

Grice’s view can then be summarised as follows: the intention to induce a particular belief is manifest to the person on the receiving end, and not like artfully planted evidence designed to steer him toward the desired conclusion. Further still, this belief-inducing intention must not simply be known to the audience, something he pieces together despite the speaker’s best efforts at concealment; rather the speaker must fully expect and intend that his intention will be manifest to his audience. (Moran 2005b: 13)

Grice (1989e [1957], 1989d [1969]) proposes that the speaker must openly provide evidence for his/her intention to induce a belief in a given hearer, whereby he appears to exclude situations of communicating meanings to hearers who are not openly ratified (see Section 1.4) from his model of communication. The Gricean view of speaker meaning does not encompass situations where the speaker intends to communicate a meaning and to have it gleaned by the hearer without having his/her underlying second-order communicative intention recognised, as

6 Although Grice never used the term “communicative intention”, it is very frequently ascribed to him (e.g. Recanati 1986; Bach 1987; Haugh 2008a) and defined narrowly in the light of his postulates. This prevailing view is not advocated here. According to a wider-scope definition championed here, “communicative intention” is the speaker’s intention to communicate meanings (as opposed to intentions to perform other actions), whether openly or tacitly.

42 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

is the case with deception. Deception involves what Grice himself calls “sneaky intentions” (1989f [1982]: 302; Neale 1992). Having faced criticism of his account of meaning (e.g. Strawson 1964; Schiffer 1972), Grice (1989f [1982]: 302–303) does acknowledge a case in which the hearer should in fact accept p on such and such grounds, but should think that he is supposed to accept p not on those grounds but on some other grounds. That is, the hearer is represented, at some level or other of embedding, as having, or being intended to have, or being intended to think himself intended to have (or ... ), a misapprehension with regard to what is expected of him.

This scenario seems to represent a type of deception concerning the speaker’s intentions. Hence, Grice denies the status of meaning to messages based on sneaky intentions, as they “cancel the license to deem what the speaker is doing to be a case of meaning on this particular occasion” Grice (1989f [1982]: 303). This is in line with Grice’s (1989a [1975], 1989c) exclusion of covertly untruthful information from his communicative model (see Section 4.1). It must be stressed that Grice’s reflexive “speaker meaning” is a strictly philosophical notion, possibly dissociated from pragmatic and psychological reality (Jaszczolt 1999; Haugh and Jaszczolt 2012; Haugh 2013b; see also the practical remarks that Grice 1989e [1957] makes at the end of “Meaning” with regard to how communication proceeds). It is thus hardly surprising that it has been criticised in many ways, notably with reference to the postulate of reflexive intentions (e.g. Recanati 1986; Arundale 2008; Davis 2008). However, as will be shown, reflexive meanings appear to have had a bearing on the conceptualisation of ratified hearers in multi-party interactions, as well as the definitions of lying and other forms of deception (see Chapter 4, Sections 8.1 and 8.2). Also, the need and possibility of appreciating the speaker’s intention by the hearer and/or analyst is frequently called into question in various strands of research (e.g. Gauker 2001, 2003; Arundale 1999, 2008; Gauker 2001; Haugh 2008b). This problem is also related to the epistemological ambiguity of intentions (Haugh 2008b), that is whether hearers consciously ascribe intentions to speakers when construing the meanings (that they see as being) communicated by the speakers. Although it is the speaker’s intentional action that is prioritised in the Gricean account, the emergence of meaning is co-dependent on the audience, whose appreciation of the speaker’s intention is the reason for the meaning’s emergence. As Levinson (2000: 29) puts it, “communication involves the inferential recovery of speakers’ intentions: it is the recognition by the addressee of the speaker’s intention to get the addressee to think such-and-such that essentially constitutes communication”. Human communication is intrinsically centred on the attribution of intention understood in a deontological sense (Haugh 2012,

1 Approaching Grice’s model of communication 

 43

2013; Haugh and Jaszczolt 2012). This means that the speaker is considered committed to, and thus accountable for, the meanings he/she communicates or, at least, is regarded as communicating. Haugh (2012: 173) aptly captures the nature of linguistic acts, claiming that “we are presumed to be exercising our agency in producing them. This is why we are held accountable for producing them”. By default, the hearer aims to decipher the speaker’s intended meaning, and not just any meaning or potentially inadvertent meaning, even if conscious intention recognition seems cognitively unfeasible. The alternative models of inferencing, such as those that substitute the speaker’s projection of the hearer’s interpretation of an utterance for intention (Arundale 1999, 2008), or those that substitute inferences from what the speaker says literally in a given context for intention recognition (Gauker 2001), may avoid using the term “intention”, but the ultimate product of inferencing will still be the meaning the hearer attributes to the speaker as the “intended” meaning. The hearer assumes that the speaker intends to communicate the meaning he/she has gleaned even if this should not be the case, which may be attributed to human egocentricity (see relevant chapters in Kecskés and Mey 2008). This miscommunication and misunderstanding may either emerge in the ensuing interaction or remain undetected (see Dynel 2017e). A plausible explanation for why people tend to tacitly ascribe intentions to speakers can be sought in the notion of accountability (for further discussion and references, see Haugh 2008b, 2013). Accountability serves as an ever-present working assumption of conversational interactants, which underlies the ways in which we normatively ‘make available’ meanings through what we say, and are held committed to or accountable for making such meanings available, even when it might not match our claimed intentions (in the folk, discursive sense) (Haugh 2012: 168; 2013: 47 on the moral order).

As a matter of an unwritten communicative law, speakers tacitly acknowledge that they will be held responsible for their utterances and for the meanings they wish to and/or are seen to communicate, as well as the pragmatic effects these bring about, whilst hearers tacitly hold speakers accountable for their utterances and communicated meanings. This accountability is usually taken by default unless some interpretative problems arise and a hearer must consciously ponder the speaker’s intention. One may also venture to claim that accountability will apply even if a hearer should not consider himself/herself ratified by the speaker, and even if the latter should grant this ratification, yet not making this fact abundantly clear. This holds for cases when hearers are, or only consider themselves to be, overhearers listening in on an interaction without the speaker’s consent. In these cases, the Gricean definition of speaker meaning based on reflexive intention is inoperative.

44 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

However, these (ostensibly) unratified hearers may still glean meanings, attributing them to the speaker and regarding them as being intentionally communicated to the ratified hearer(s). Some explanation is now in order concerning the different hearers in the reception role.

1.4 Hearer(s) Although in the bulk of this monograph, the “hearer” is taken as a generic term for a model person at the reception end (and the “speaker” is used as a label for the production end), in selected parts of this book (Chapter 3, Section 5; Chapter 4, Section 8), irony and deception will be discussed in the context of their workings in multi-party interactions, where different hearer roles are involved (on the participatory framework, see Dynel 2010, 2011c, 2014b and references therein). Although Grice does not state this, in his lectures, he appears to be preoccupied with communication between two participants (Grice 1989a [1975]: 28–31, 1989b [1978]: 45) in a conversation, which he also calls a talk exchange (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26–30, 1989b [1978]: 40). However, Grice does take into account diversified modes and channels of communication. For instance, he famously illustrates the postulate of maxim flouting, which generates an implicature, with an example of a written testimonial (Grice 1989a [1975]: 33). Also, Grice allows for meanings communicated by means of non-verbal stimuli, i.e. “‘utterance’ (my putting down the money)” (Grice 1989d [1969]: 94), arguing that “the normal vehicles of interpersonal communication are words, this is not exclusively the case; gestures, signs, and pictorial items sometimes occur” (Grice 1989c: 354). Based on evidence like this, it is assumed that the notions “speaker” and “hearer” are technical terms relevant to both spoken and written forms of communication, which involve both verbal and non-verbal means, or what Korta (2013) calls “nonlinguistic utterances”. As a matter of fact, Grice tends to call the speaker utterer, as well as communicator (1989c: 297, 351). On the other hand, in the course of his 1989 volume, Grice refers to the listening party synonymously as: recipient (93, 352), addressee (268, 281), hearer (27, 30, 31, 33–38, 60, 107, 111, 123, 361), listener (103, 113), auditor (113) or audience (29, 34, 36, 46, 92, 93, 99, 102, 103, 107, 112–115, 122–125, 129, 168, 219, 347, 348). The different terms notwithstanding, Grice appears to conceptualise the hearer as a single individual to whom the speaker’s utterance is addressed. Grice’s view of communication does not seem to consistently allow for a number of hearers, who assume various interactional positions and interpret the utterer’s meaning in divergent ways. Nonetheless, Grice does acknowledge that the speaker’s utterance may be heard by two individuals who do not enjoy the same

2 Quality and truthfulness 

 45

participant status as he gives this example: “Suppose that A and B are having a conversation in the presence of a third party, for example, a child, then A might be deliberately obscure, though not too obscure, in the hope that B would understand and the third party not” (1989a [1975]: 36). It emerges, therefore, that Grice does take into account the case of concealing meanings from a potential hearer (an unratified hearer) of whose presence the speaker and the addressed hearer are aware. Additionally, Grice addresses the notion of “utterances by which the utterer could correctly be said to have meant something” (1989d [1969]: 113) even though there is “no actual person or set of persons whom the utterer is addressing and in whom he intends to induce a response” (Grice 1989d [1969]: 113), dividing those into three groups. Firstly, there are utterances with potential, present or future, audience (including the utterer), such as a diary entry. The second category encompasses cases when the utterer has a make-believe audience, such as a speech rehearsal. Thirdly, Grice talks about “internal” utterances which the speaker produces to “induce a certain sort of response in a certain perhaps fairly indefinite kind of audience were it the case that such an audience was present” (1989d [1969]: 113). Save these two exceptions, Grice does not acknowledge utterances by which the speaker intentionally communicates distinct meanings, whether based on what is said or on implicatures, to various hearer types. Therefore, the Gricean framework of communication appears to subscribe to the canonical dyadic model, which needs extending so that all natural interactions can be accounted for. The various hearer roles may be of crucial importance when different meanings are communicated to the different individuals, as is the case with irony and deception, the two phenomena associated with the maxim of Quality.

2 Quality and truthfulness The Quality supermaxim states, “Try to make your contribution one that is true” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27, italics added). This may perhaps be taken to mean that Grice is concerned with “objective truth” rather than what the speaker believes to be the truth, the latter coinciding with the traditional view of “truthfulness” as being centred on the speaker’s beliefs (see Vincent Marrelli 2003, 2004, 2006; Mahon 2015; Stokke 2016a). However, the first maxim of Quality, “Do not say what you believe to be false” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27), is clearly centred on the speaker’s expression of true beliefs, and hence truthfulness. This is also evidenced by this quotation: “to suppose that I believe that p [what I have said] (or rather think of myself as believing that p) is just to suppose that I am observing the first maxim of Quality on this occasion” (Grice 1989b [1978]: 42).

46 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

The second maxim of Quality, “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27), which Grice (1989a [1975]: 30) paraphrases as “Have adequate evidence for what you say”, brings to focus the speaker’s perspective, but it is motivated by external evidence which the speaker believes to be true and which (ideally) is true (and not fabricated by someone or imagined by the speaker). The supermaxim is a generalisation, and the two subordinate imperatives are more definite and help put it into practice. Taken together, the Quality supermaxim and the two maxims do not necessitate telling the truth. The second maxim recommends that the speaker base his/her utterances on the available evidence while developing his/her beliefs in order to avoid accidental untruths; the first maxim is orientated towards the speaker’s not voicing false beliefs; and the supermaxim indicates that one should only try to make true contributions and avoid falsehood (Danziger 2010). Proposing this, Grice seems to acknowledge the fact that the speaker may be wrong and communicate what is false despite his/her good intentions to communicate only what he/she believes to be true (see Kant 1996a [1791]). Also, the available evidence may not conform to the truth (e.g. having been contrived by someone), of which the speaker is not aware. Thus, in special situations, the speaker may unwittingly say something false, whilst still observing the supermaxim and the maxims, thereby being truthful. Wilson (1995) and Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002, 2012]) regard the two Quality maxims as being related to what is said, and only the supermaxim as being germane to the totality of speaker meaning, i.e. both what is said and what is implicated. They base this interpretation on Grice’s parlance; he uses the word “­contribution” in the supermaxim and the word “say” in the two maxims. Vincent Marrelli (2004) does not unequivocally state that this interpretation is misguided, but she does indicate that there is a terminological confusion about this issue. This confusion stems partly from Grice’s use of the word “say” in each of the maxims, which may be interpreted to mean “utter” or “verbalise” or, in the technical sense, “convey speaker meaning” (see Section 5.3). Incidentally, like the supermaxim of Quality, the two maxims of Quantity use the word “contribution” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26). It would be wrong to conclude that the maxims of Quality and the maxims of Quantity enjoy markedly different statuses and pertain to different levels of meaning, with only the latter maxims being all-encompassing like the supermaxim of Quality. In spite of Grice’s verbal formulation of the maxims of Quality, these two maxims are similar to all the other ones in the whole set in that they pertain primarily to how the speaker’s utterance is formulated with a view to communicating speaker meaning. Therefore, the maxims ultimately apply to speaker meaning in its entirety, whether what is said or implicature, which arises when a maxim is flouted. Most importantly, introducing (all) maxim floutings/exploitations, Grice

2 Quality and truthfulness 

 47

specifies that “though some maxim is violated [i.e. overtly violated/flouted] at the level of what is said, the hearer is entitled to assume that that maxim, or at least the overall Cooperative Principle, is observed at the level of what is implicated” (1989a [1975]: 33). Also, Grice (1989d [1969]: 86) states, “what is implicated is what it is required that one assume a speaker to think in order to preserve the assumption that he is observing the Cooperative Principle (and perhaps some conversational maxims as well), if not at the level of what is said, at least at the level of what is implicated”. These quotations indicate that all maxims concern both levels of speaker meaning (see also Fallis 2012; Dinges 2015) even though the co-existence of both levels of meaning is not mandatory. Moreover, as a matter of an overarching rule, the first maxim pertains also to the totality of speaker meaning communicated under the Cooperative Principle. This is because Grice (1989c) does not allow for mendacity in his model of harmonious communication (see Section 4.1). Moreover, if “truthfulness” is understood very broadly, for instance as in the “oath of truthfulness” (see Vincent Marrelli 2004), it will depend also on the other maxims. This is related to the fact that deception may arise from the violation of maxims other than the first maxim of Quality (see Section 4.2 and Chapter 4). Overall, the category of Quality concerns truthfulness in speaker meaning taken as a whole, that is the speaker’s expression of his/her genuine beliefs and the speaker’s avoidance of expressing what he/she believes to be false validated in the light of the evidence available to him/her. Grice’s philosophy resides in the speaker’s intention and rationality, as well as speaker meaning, whilst (objective) truth is not discussed. The supermaxim is a generalisation, which the two subordinate imperatives help put into practice. The second maxim supports the first one, suggesting how the speaker should present and develop the beliefs he/she communicates to others in order to avoid accidental untruths. It is, nonetheless, the first maxim of Quality that seems to be the pivotal one in the model. The first maxim of Quality is the point of departure for the discussion of significant communicative phenomena: irony and the other three figures, as well as lying (see Dynel 2011a, 2013a, 2016b; Meibauer 2014a), being (overtly) flouted or (covertly) violated respectively (see Bhaya Nair 1985, Vincent Marrelli 2004).7 The first maxim of Quality has been dubbed the maxim of truthfulness (Wilson 1995; Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012];8 Livnat 2011; cf. Gibbs 1993, 1994; Livnat

7 However, she also lists other phenomena, notably euphemisms, which are not tropes per se and need not involve implicatures, as well as paradoxes, which do not seem to be based on flouting the first maxim of Quality. 8 Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002]: 215, 2012: 127) wrongly reduce it to the maxim of “literal truthfulness”, i.e. truthfulness that concerns only the level of what is said, as reported above.

48 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

2004). By contrast, referring to Akmajian et al. (2001), Vincent Marrelli (2003, 2004: 80) regards Grice’s Quality supermaxim as coinciding with “truthfulness”, which she interprets as the speaker’ attempting to say what is true, and she perceives the first maxim of Quality as involving “sincerity” (see also Meibauer 2016a), which, in her view, captures speakers’ believing what they are saying. This tallies with a perspective that truthfulness appertains to the speaker’s communicative intention and concern to communicate what he/she believes to be the truth, whereas sincerity represents the compatibility between the speaker’s utterance and his/her beliefs (see Ozar 2008). However, according to an alternative view, believing what one is communicating to be true is the essence of truthfulness. Truthfulness cannot be equated with the truth, as typically endorsed in the studies on lying and deception, taken as a whole (e.g. Vincent Marrelli 2003, 2004; Mahon 2015). Although, as shown above, the second maxim and the supermaxim are also embedded in the notion of truthfulness (notice Wilson and Sperber’s (2000 [2002, 2012]: 215, 216) “maxims of truthfulness” italics added; see also Gibbs 1994), as opposed to objective truth, it is the first maxim of Quality that should indeed be called the maxim of truthfulness. This is because it is the most crucial maxim (responsible for the generation of rhetorical figures) and because it corresponds directly to the prevalent definition of truthfulness known in deception literature (e.g. Mahon 2015), namely: communicating “what one believes to be true”. Albeit formulated by negation, for it obliges the speaker not to communicate what he/she believes to be false, the first maxim of Quality can be tentatively translated into “Say what you believe to be true”,9 which is compatible with Grice’s (1989a [1975]: 30) paraphrase of the second maxim of Quality. Hence, a claim found in the literature that Quality maxims merely require that one not disbelieve what one asserts10 (see Benton 2016) is not a tenable one. “Not disbelieving” captures also the cases of the speaker not having any belief about the (un)truth of the utterance he/she is making. Rather than endorsing the notion of “not ­disbelieving”, Grice clearly favours the idea of not uttering at all what one believes to be false. From this, it can be extrapolated that the speaker should only ­communicate what he/she believes to be true (i.e. truthfulness) instead of what he/she merely does not believe to be false.

9 However, this causes some problems. Firstly, the maxim would disable the explanation of how irony (and the other Quality-based figures) come into operation. Secondly, it might wrongly suggest that the speaker is obliged to always tell everything he/she believes to be true, which is not what Grice seems to have had in mind. Similarly, the first maxim of Quantity (anchored in believed-information) does not entail telling the interlocutors everything that the speaker is able to tell them (Mahon 2009), the central proviso being the current purposes of the exchange. 10 Benton (2016) interprets Grice’s “saying” as asserting.

3 Truthfulness and saying vs asserting 

 49

Benton (2016), however, claims that the Quality maxims, if read literally, do not require a true belief on the grounds that a speaker may have adequate evidence for an assertion yet not nurture a true belief on this basis, but merely “not disbelieve” what he/she is asserting. As Benton (2016) argues, in this situation, the speaker may still be trying to make a true contribution, only not believing what he/she is asserting to be false. This line of reasoning is disputable. It is as if Benton treats the supermaxim and two maxims independently, which is why the speaker may not have a (true) belief based on the available evidence and, at the same time, not have a belief that the assertion is false (or true, for that matter). This seeming indifference and lack of true belief on the speaker’s part are at cross purposes with trying to make one’s contribution true, as stipulated by the supermaxim. It seems that the effort that Grice calls for necessitates both evidence and belief about the truth of what one says (not merely lack of belief about its falsity), which is also evident in view of Grice’s other postulates on Quality. The maxims must be taken collectively, whereby they suggest that the speaker should be truthful in what he/she does say. This truthfulness concerns not only assertions but also other utterance forms, as well as implicatures.

3 Truthfulness and saying vs asserting A problem that looms large in the context of the first maxim of Quality and truthfulness is the type of utterance to which the latter label can pertain. This, in turn, invites a query about the full definition of what is said, as well as of an implicature that may be piggybacked on it (notice Grice’s (1989a [1975]: 41) mention of “the total signification”). What most neo-Griceans tacitly accept (see e.g. Levinson 1983; Neale 1992) is that what is said is a level of communicated meaning, the product of the act of saying (similar to implicature being the result of implicating). As Grice explains, “[i]n the sense in which I am using the word say, I intend what someone has said to be closely related to the conventional meaning of the words (the sentence) he [or she] has uttered” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 25, see also 1989b [1978]: 49).11 Consequently, “the conventional meaning of the words used” helps to “determine what

11 Grice (1989c: 340) distinguishes between “a notion of meaning which is relativized to the users of words or expressions and one that is not so relativized” and the “unrelativized notion is posterior to, and has to be understood in terms of, the relativized notion; what words mean is a matter of what people mean by them”. Unrelativised meanings are then generalisations consequent upon individual uses.

50 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

is said” (Grice 1989a [1975]). What is said is the primary type of speaker meaning based on the speaker’s specific intention about what the words used mean in a given context. One may extrapolate a conclusion that albeit “closely related” to the meanings of the words used, the speaker’s what is said will involve some inferencing on the hearer’s part, for example in terms of what particular referents his/her words have (Grice 1989a [1975]: 31)12 or which of the alternative conventional meanings of a polysemous phrase the speaker intends to communicate “on the particular occasion of utterance” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 25). Grice’s what is said does not boil down merely to the combination of the words used and may necessitate paraphrasing and/or elaborating when it is gleaned by the hearer. The ultimate product of the hearer’s inferencing still counts as speaker meaning in the form of what is said (Korta 2013), unless deception is involved (see Section 4.2). No such inferences contributing to what is said ever involve maxim floutings, which normally lead to nonconventional (conversational) implicatures. What is said shows various degrees of explicitness (Bach 1987, 1999). As Bach (1994, 1999) proposes,13 semantically/conceptually incomplete sentences necessitate completion to arrive at the speaker’s what is said expressing a full proposition that can be true or false,14 but even complete propositions may still require ­expansion. Consequently, the proposition communicated is a conceptually enriched or elaborated version of the proposition expressed by the utterance per se. Following this train of thought, to put a limit to the extensions, Saul (2012) proposes a narrow view of what is said, arguing that the contextually supplied material can feed into what is said if the following condition is met: “A putative contextual contribution to what is said is a part of what is said only if without this contextually supplied material, S [sentence] would not have a truth-evaluable semantic content in C [context]”. Inspired by Grice’s work, Saul explicitly departs from it, as she is interested in a conception of minimal truth-evaluable content that serves her purposes. However, it is doubtful whether Grice would have approved of such a narrow view. Nor would he approve of the very many elaborations of his “what is said” (sometimes captured under other labels) in the different postGricean and neo-Gricean studies, frequently attempting to account for cognitive processes underlying meaning construction (see references in Wharton 2002 or in Saul 2002, who makes a similar observation). This is not to suggest that the other authors necessarily misinterpret Grice or fail to appreciate his legacy. They

12 Technically, this is one of the conditions for working out a conversational implicature, but this concerns the level of what is said, which acts as the springboard for any implicature. 13 This leads him to a proposal of “impliciture”. 14 As argued further in this section, what is said must not be reduced to propositions.

3 Truthfulness and saying vs asserting 

 51

simply pursue different research projects, by pointing out the lacunae or alleged shortcomings of Grice’s account. In Grice’s terms, what is said is a subtype of what is meant (speaker meaning) that is communicated in a given context when the maxims are observed. Although what is said capitalises on conventional meanings, it does need to correspond directly to what is uttered/verbalised. In the “Retrospective Epilogue”, Grice (1989c: 360–361) appears to partly withdraw from his claim that what is said is “closely related to” the conventional meaning of words when he distinguishes between dictiveness (the signification “is part of what the signifying expression says”) and formality (the signification partakes in the “conventional meaning of the signifying expression”). Simply put, dictiveness seems to correspond to what is said, and formality to conventional meaning (see Wharton 2002; Baptista 2014). These are the two hallmarks of the centrality of signification and they may be present or absent, which leads Grice to a four-fold classification of utterances with regard to their signification. Most importantly in the present context, the combination of formality and dictiveness yields the prototypical case of what is said that draws on conventional meanings of words. By contrast, dictiveness may be coupled with lack of formality, which gives rise to an alternative version of what is said, hitherto largely neglected in the literature: what is said that does not reside in the conventional meaning of the words used in an utterance. Grice (1989c: 361) illustrates this phenomenon with the following two examples: “Heigh-ho” in a “suitable context” may mean “Well that’s the way the world goes”; and “He’s just an evangelist” may mean “He is a sanctimonious, hypocritical, racist, reactionary, money-grubber”. Grice then writes that “it might well be claimed” that what the speaker meant in these two cases is “in fact what his words said; in which case his words would be dictive but their dictive content would be nonformal and not part of the conventional meaning of the words used” (1989c: 361, italics added). As Baptista (2014) rightly observes, these instances still qualify as what is said, not what is implicated, which is communicated on the assumption that interlocutors are rational and that the speaker produces utterances with a view to being understood by a given hearer in a given context, relying also on their common ground. In sum, what is said cannot be reduced to the meaning made up of the literal, conventional meanings of the words used. Whether or not dependent on the conventional meanings, deciphering what is said may involve a considerable degree of inferencing in a given context. Moreover, contrary to popular opinion that what is said is truth-conditional content (e.g. Levinson 1983; Saul 2012; see Neale 1992 for discussion), Grice never makes any such claim (see Wharton 2002). As Neale aptly observes (1992: 556), Grice “cannot make a direct appeal to truth-conditions for fear of undermining one part of his project”, which is to present relativised speaker meaning, to which speaker intentions are central. Truth conditions, in turn, characterise utterances

52 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

(Wharton 2002), or rather statements seen as independent of the speaker’s intent. Grice (1989b [1978]) places emphasis on the speaker’s truthfulness (i.e. belief that what he/she says is true) in an act of saying; this is a matter of the speaker’s commitment underlying speaker meaning/what is meant. The speaker, who “has said that p” has “committed himself, in a certain way, to its being the case that he believes that p, and while this commitment is not a case of saying that he believes that p, it is bound up, in a special way, with saying that p” (Grice 1989b [1978]: 42). Grice (1989b [1978]: 42) also adds that the speaker who has “said that p” “has expressed (or at least purported to express) the belief that p”. Grice then seems to suggest that what is said is based on true beliefs,15 on truthfulness (observance of the first maxim of Quality), or is at least presupposed to be such. The disclaimer that Grice makes, namely “at least purported to express”, may indicate that the speaker may actually not be expressing his/her belief, but this needs to be taken by default by the hearer so that meanings can be gleaned. Baptista (2014: 16) notes that the speaker “in fact M-intends that the audience will interpret him as committed to what he says. For instance, a liar M-intends that his audience will interpret him as being committed to what he says even though he is actually not so committed”. As a matter of fact, a liar is (believed to be) so committed (notice the presumption of truthfulness) but deliberately and covertly fails to fulfil this commitment (on intentions and deception, see Chapter 4, Sections 2.3 and 8.1). The quotations from Grice (“said that p”) might suggest that saying is restricted to the indicative mood, and hence to stating and asserting. Indeed, apart from being (not necessarily justly) associated with truthconditional content, saying is very frequently taken for granted as being synonymous with asserting. A few authors make this claim explicitly, thereby limiting saying to asserting (e.g. Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012]; Soames 2008; Stokke 2013a; Saul 2012; Benton 2016). An assertion is traditionally understood as presenting a statement/proposition that one is producing as true16 (see Brandom 1983; Jary 2010; Pagin 2015; Meibauer 2014a) and committing oneself to it (e.g. Searle 1979; Brandom 1983, 1994; MacFarlane 2005). Wilson and Sperber (2000

15 Under “belief”, Grice must mean “true belief”. The same shorthand is used in this monograph (the beliefs relevant to deception are always indicated as “false beliefs”, but the term “belief” normally indicates a “true belief”). 16 Alternatively, asserting involves the speaker’s truthfulness, i.e. the expression of his/her true belief: “When L asserts something to D, then L believes D to be justified in assuming not only (1) that he, L, believes a certain proposition, but also (2) that he intends to cause D to believe that he, L, believes that proposition” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 151). Also, “to assert a proposition is to make oneself responsible for its truth” (Peirce 1934: 384).

3 Truthfulness and saying vs asserting 

 53

[2002, 2012]: 221) propose that on the technical/stronger interpretation (not “expressing”), Grice’s “saying is not merely expressing a proposition but asserting it, i.e. committing oneself to its truth”. Similarly, in the light of the fact that Grice (1989a [1975]) uses “say” only for Quality maxims, Benton (2016) concludes that Grice must mean “assert”. When Benton (2016) reports on Grice’s distinction between saying and implicating, he indicates that the latter places a number of “synonyms” next to the two basic terms. [I]n unpublished notes (Grice Papers, 1947–1989), Grice consistently clarifies ‘says’ and ‘said’ as denoting assertive utterances. For example, in handwritten notes from 1966–75 (carton 1, folder 23) entitled ‘Saying’: Week I, he distinguishes “between that which is actually said (‘asserted’) and that which is implied or otherwise conveyed or got across” (p. 1). Moreover, in earlier notes from that file, Grice contrasts the terms imply, suggest, convey, indicate, get across with say, state, assert: the latter are, he says, “not right” for the implicature idea he is trying to isolate (pp. 6–7). (Benton 2016: fn. 4)

Grice’s notes cannot be taken to mean that saying is only asserting. Firstly, Grice’s key goal in using “say” beside “assert” in these notes is to juxtapose it with meaning that is implicated instead of specifying the relationship between saying and asserting. In the first instance pointed out by Benton (2016), Grice does present saying as asserting (and not vice versa), but in the latter case, he only lists the two terms next to each other, with no indication being made that they are synonyms. Hence, the alleged synonyms “assert” or “state” should be taken as explanatory terms rather than as synonyms per se. Secondly, and more importantly, although the term “assert” occurs intermittently in his notes and the earlier versions of some papers (see Baptista 2014), the formulations equating “saying” with “asserting” were not included in the lectures published in the seminal 1989 collection of essays. This suggests that Grice must have realised that “asserting” had too narrow a meaning, which is why he purposefully eradicated this term from his magnum opus, even though he kept the “said that p” formulation in some passages. Consequently, Grice does not address the notion of assertion in his collected lectures, and his account of saying that emerges in the course of his papers does not centre on this idea. Nowhere does he state that “saying” is only asserting. What Grice (1989b [1978]: 51) does, though, is differentiate between “saying” and “asserting” when he talks about a speaker who aims to “assert (or otherwise say)”. Hence, he suggests that asserting is just one type of saying. Even if most of the examples that Grice discusses in the context of maxim observance and flouting, which is conducive to conversational implicature, are indeed assertions (with the notable exception of the floutings of the first maxim of Quality), the Cooperative Principle and the maxims are claimed to hold for entire

54 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

conversations, which must include utterances of different types, notably questions and imperatives. Communication cannot possibly be comprised only of assertions. Some of the examples that Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]) provides to elucidate his claims rely on conversational exchanges comprising questions and answers, but it is only the latter that are analysed. In the light of the two seminal lectures on logic and conversation, it is evident that Grice aims to give a holistic picture of communication based on communicative rationality and a set of maxims that facilitate conversation. As Baptista (2014: 7) emphasises, what is said cannot be equated with asserting also because whilst in his 1961 lecture, “Grice oscillates between ‘saying’, ‘asserting’ and ‘stating’, in his 1968 lecture, Grice “extends his account to imperatives and leaves the door open to a conception applicable to different ‘moods’; though what he calls ‘mood’ is much closer to (indicated) force”. Overall, there is no reason to assume that Grice’s “what is said” cannot stem from utterances/sentences other than assertions, or that saying must hinge on asserting. Likewise, saying cannot be reduced to “stating”. Neale (1992: 521) recognises the fact that apart from “indicative mood”, Grice (1989g [1968]) does address “interrogative mood” and “imperative mood” and “when U [utterer] uses a sentence of any of these three forms, U says something, or at least makes as if to say something”. Also, according to Bach (1994: 143), Grice uses “say” as a “generic illocutionary verb” to describe “any illocutionary act whose content is made explicit”, which suggests that what is said does encompass questions and imperatives. Additionally, Bach (1994: 143) reports that in 1961, Grice made a distinction between “stating and implying”, and so “Grice opted for the word say in order to broaden the scope of his distinction beyond statements”.17 Similarly, Carston (2002: 210) concludes that “Gricean ‘saying’ is a generic term for the three central speech acts of stating that p, asking whether p, and enjoining someone to make it the case that p, and it does entail speaker commitment (‘speaker meaning’, in his terms)”. Needless to say, implicatures are never assertions since these meanings are always implicated rather than being communicated literally. They need not take the form of statements either. As Grice (1989c: 370) underscores, implicature may be factual or imperatival when he writes that “an implicatum (factual or imperatival) is the content of that psychological state or attitude which needs to be attributed to a speaker”. This “factuality” covers statements about not only facts but also subjective psychological states (e.g. emotions). Essentially,

17 At the same time, contradictorily, Bach (1994) concludes that Grice’s examples involve “indicative utterances”, which is why what is said boils down to “explicitly” stating.

3 Truthfulness and saying vs asserting 

 55

implicatures may constitute statements corresponding to the speaker’s belief system (reflected by the first maxim of Quality) concerning verifiable facts or, much more elusive, mental states. On the other hand, imperatival implicatures capture the speaker’s requests for action, which are consonant with the ­speaker’s psychological state (i.e. the speaker genuinely intends the actions to be performed). It should be observed that implicated requests can be issued via various utterance forms (statements, imperatives and questions). This lends further evidence to the claim that Grice’s saying cannot be reduced to asserting and making as if to say cannot be reduced to making as if to assert (see Chapter 3, Sections 6.1 and 6.2). In conclusion, the category of Quality, which is crucial here, is pertinent not only to assertions but also to other utterance types captured by “saying”, notably non-assertive declaratives, questions, imperatives or exclamations, which, in Grice’s view, should be produced truthfully (or sincerely, following the parlance of Speech Act Theory), with the speaker being committed to them. According to Grice (1989b [1978]: 42), “one who has said that p” “has expressed (or at least purported to express)18 the belief that p”. As Neale (1992: 521) rightly observes, “[w]here the sentence uttered is in the imperative or interrogative mood, what is said will not be straightforwardly truthconditional, but it will be systematically related to the truth conditions of what U would have said, in the same context, by uttering the indicative counterpart (or one of the indicative counterparts) of the original sentence”. The content of the speaker’s belief, as expressed by the first maxim of Quality, need not concern the propositional content of a statement (“believe that the statement is true”) but, instead, the communicative force of a given utterance, which is representative of the speaker’s subordinate beliefs and other mental states. Thus, the “what” in the first maxim of Quality that the speaker should believe to be true represents any utterance type and its import or, in speech-act-theoretic terms, its illocutionary force. In other words, the speaker’s belief may concern the illocutionary force of any utterance, not necessarily its propositional content, which may simply be absent. This view of truthfulness is in accord with Habermas’s (1984). Revising his validity claims, he states that any utterance is amenable to truthfulness evaluation, regardless of whether it involves a cognitive act (an assertion), a regulative act (a request or promise) or an expressive act.

18 This is an important addition as it seems to allow for the fact that the speaker may not actually be expressing his/her belief, and may actually deceive.

56 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

This perspective is, to a large extent, in accord with Leonard’s (1959) postulates made with regard to honesty. Leonard (1959) proposes that not only declaratives but also interrogatives19 and imperatives have a topic of concern, which is a proposition that is either true or false. However, more importantly, whether or not a declarative, interrogative or imperative is “honest” depends on the speaker’s expressed concern with the topic. He thus suggests, “If, for example, I ask a question and have no concern with getting the information asked for, or discovering the belief status of the addressee relative to the topic of concern, than [then] my asking of that question was a lie” (Leonard 1959: 183). This question may be considered untruthful or deceptive. In Grice’s view, it seems, the speaker should believe the import of/the topic of concern of a question or imperative he/she is uttering to be true (notice the use of “what” in the formulation of the first maxim of Quality). The speaker who fulfils the maxim of truthfulness is concerned with the topic. In other words, he/ she should make an utterance, whatever its form may be, truthfully by committing himself/herself to it. Even an exclamation, “Ouch”, may be judged on its truthfulness, based on whether the speaker believes himself/herself to be in pain or otherwise suffering. On the other hand, the truthfulness of a question consists in that fact that the speaker tacitly expresses a belief that he/she does not have the requisite knowledge and thereby sincerely wants to get a reply from the hearer. Although the prevailing classical view is that only propositions can have truth value, Grice seems to be concerned with a different matter and to give a broader picture of truthfulness in communication (both as what is said and as what is implicated) when he proposes the category of Quality. These observations will have a bearing on the present neo-Gricean discussion of deception as the violation of the first maxim of Quality, and irony as the flouting of the first maxim of Quality.

4 Covert untruthfulness and maxim violations This section addresses the under-researched topic of the effects of maxim violations, as well as the special status of truthfulness in Grice’s philosophy. Taking as a point of departure Grice’s factorisation (which seems to exclude deception) and a few neo- and post-Gricean analyses thereof, novel foundations are laid for a classification of deception strategies.

19 Leonard (1959) seems to differentiate between questions and interrogatives. This distinction, if indeed made, is not endorsed here.

4 Covert untruthfulness and maxim violations 

 57

4.1 Gricean and neo-Gricean views of deception As stated in Section 1.1, Grice (1989a [1975]: 30) proposes the notion of “quiet” and “unostentatious” violation, which “in some cases” “will be liable to mislead”. A question arises as to whether (covert) violation could do something else than “mislead”, i.e. deceive (on the intentionality of this act, see Chapter 4, Section 1.1) the hearer and, if this is the case, what the differentiating conditions are. Grice leaves these questions unanswered, and he does not give much thought to the violation of the first maxim of Quality or the other maxims either. Consequently, the topic of covert violation has rarely been pursued in the neo-Gricean literature in a consistent manner (but see Bhaya Nair 1985; Thomas 1995; Vincent Marrelli 2004; Dynel 2011a). On the whole, given the intrinsic speaker-intended ­covertness of maxim violations, from the hearer’s perspective, a statement can be ventured that they necessarily generate (attempted) deception (see also Vincent Marrelli 2004). The paucity of research on the effects of maxim violations may be explained by the fact that Grice himself does not devote much space to them. This is because Grice (1989a [1975], 1989c) does not allow subsuming lies and other forms of deception under his idealised model of rational communication, whose cornerstone is the speaker’s truthfulness. This premise is in accordance with Kant’s proposals about lying. In Kant’s (1949: 346–347) words, “[t]ruthfulness in statements which cannot be avoided is the formal duty of an individual to everyone, however great may be the disadvantage accruing to himself or to another” and “truthfulness is a duty which must be regarded as the ground of all duties based on contract, and the laws of these duties would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted”. Thus, Grice proposes that the first maxim of Quality, the maxim of truthfulness, enjoys a privileged status among the other maxims. It is obvious that the observance of some of these maxims is a matter of less urgency than is the observance of others; a man who has expressed himself with undue prolixity would, in general, be open to milder comment than would a man who has said something he believes to be false. Indeed, it might be felt that the importance of at least the first maxim of Quality is such that it should not be included in a scheme of the kind I am constructing; other maxims come into operation only on the assumption that this maxim of Quality is satisfied. While this may be correct, so far as the generation of implicatures is concerned it seems to play a role not totally different from the other maxims, and it will be convenient, for the present at least, to treat it as a member of the list of maxims. (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27)

Even though the two situations that Grice juxtaposes at the beginning of this extract may not bring this out, Grice appears to talk about lack of observance

58 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

(i.e. nonfulfilment) which does not generate implicature (which is a legitimate conversational action). He points out that being unnecessarily wordy is not as reproachful as communicating a mendacious message. He duly suggests that the speaker must be truthful, which is when the first maxim of Quality is “satisfied”.20 Grice means to suggest that it cannot be violated, even though it may be flouted to promote (truthful) implicatures in the same way as the other maxims do. The “satisfaction”, i.e. observance or flouting, of this maxim is the sine qua non for the other maxims to come into operation. Consequently, Grice proposes that the speaker should say and implicate only what he/she believes to be true, whilst leaving some leeway for making as if to say (i.e. uttering what one does not believe to be true but does not commit oneself to) that invites implicatures based on the first maxim of Quality. On these grounds, it can be concluded that in Grice’s model of communication based on the Cooperative Principle, there is no room for the production (and hence detection) of covert untruthfulness, which leads to deception, whether lying or its other forms. Incidentally, this explains why maxim violations are marginalised in his writings, and why he occasionally uses “violation” where he seems to mean overt violation or flouting. The priority of Quality is underscored in much of the neo-Gricean scholarship, regardless of how much the new frameworks should differ from Grice’s (e.g. Horn 1984; Levinson 2000). For example, reducing Grice’s maxims to two principles, Horn (1984: 12, 2004: 13) regards the Quality maxims (taken collectively) as being “unreducible”, that is essential. It must also be stressed that in advocating truthfulness, Grice (1989a [1975]: 27) does not explicitly address the nonfulfilment of the second maxim of Quality. This may be because objective evidence is only tangential to being truthful and may contradict even an honest speaker’s intentions (e.g. if prefabricated). Thus, saying what one believes false is (morally) worse than saying something for which one does not have enough evidence, but which one still believes to be true. This is why it is only the first maxim of Quality that plays the crucial role. However, Grice (1989c) later states something that casts doubt on this claim. Grice returns to the issue of mendacity in his retrospective epilogue, complicating the picture with his ambivalent parlance.

20 An alternative interpretation indicated to me is that the first maxim of Quality only needs to be presumed to be satisfied (see Benton 2016; Stokke 2016a), that is the hearer must assume that the maxim is satisfied so that the inferential process can be instigated. However, this is not what Grice (1989a [1975]: 27) seems to be aiming at. He is making a meta-comment about the tenability of his analytic framework and his assumption rather than the hearer’s inferential processes. This is evidenced by the two examples at the beginning of the quotation, as well as further quotations provided below.

4 Covert untruthfulness and maxim violations 

 59

The maxims do not seem to be coordinate. The maxim of Quality, enjoining the provision of contributions which are genuine rather than spurious (truthful rather than mendacious), does not seem to be just one among a number of recipes for producing contributions; it seems rather to spell out the difference between something’s being, and (strictly speaking) failing to be, any kind of contribution at all. False [believed-false/untruthful] information is not an inferior kind of information; it just is not information. (Grice 1989c: 371)

Following Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002, 2012]: 585), it is claimed here that what Grice appears to mean under “the maxim of Quality” is really the first maxim of Quality, like in the 1975 lecture, not the supermaxim, as Vincent ­Marrelli (2004) suggests. What speaks in favour of this interpretation is that Grice here invokes the notion of truthfulness, as opposed to mendacity, both of which concern the speaker’s beliefs, which in turn are the focus of attention in the first maxim of Quality. The speaker’s beliefs lie at the heart of the first maxim, not the ­supermaxim, which captures the idea of the speaker’s endeavour to tell the truth (in the teeth of any adverse circumstances, for instance lack of evidence or its elusiveness, on which the speaker has little influence). Vincent Marrelli (2004: 80) rightly concludes, based on the above quotation from the retrospective epilogue, that Grice is concerned with the “mendacious effects of overall contribution, of false information conveyed, not just strictly false words (or “saying”)”. Grice endorses the model of communication based on the speaker’s truthfulness both at the level of what is said and at the level of implicatures, as captured by the “contributions” (see also Grice’s (1989a [1975: 28] making “contributions”) that should be “truthful” and not “mendacious”. Even though Grice (1989c: 371) uses the expression “false information”, which is the opposite of objective truth, he must have “believed-false” information in mind, given his overarching focus on the speaker’s intentions. On the whole, Grice may be understood to mean that in order to convey some information, whether as what is said or as implicature, the speaker must believe it to be true, for otherwise no meaning can be communicated (see Pfister 2010).21 The first maxim of Quality, in Grice’s view, supersedes the other maxims and determines the application of the Cooperative Principle, which will not be operative at all unless this maxim is satisfied and, consequently, unless a presumption of truthfulness is in place (e.g. Horn 1984; Levinson 2000). As a result, deception is a deviation from, or opting out of, the Cooperative Principle altogether (see also Meibauer 2005). Moreover, the violation of the first maxim of Quality is inextricably connected with the workings of the other maxims, also if violated. Grice fails to

21 However, some recent analyses (e.g. Benton 2016; Stokke 2016a) suggest that Grice’s discussion of the status of Quality concerns the hearer’s perspective on the speaker’s utterance only.

60 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

address violation of any other maxim, though. This may be because all violations are conducive to deception, which he excludes from his framework. As Vincent Marrelli (2006: 26) rightly notes, “‘the oath of truthfulness’ itself, committing one to say ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ involves not only the maxims of Quality (the accuracy and sincerity aspects of it) but also the various sub-maxims in the Quantity, Manner and Relation categories”. In this vein, it will be argued here that the violation of any maxim other than the first maxim of Quality automatically results in the violation of this very maxim, leading to the various forms of deception other than lying. Deception may also be considered to contradict the essence of the Cooperative Principle, which entails the presumption that the speaker and the hearer interact rationally to reach a common goal. Even if the subordinate goals may be in conflict (e.g. to persuade the hearer vs to defend one’s opinion), they are jointly negotiated, which excludes the case of deceiving, where the deceived individual is not made privy to the speaker’s central goal. Grice elucidates that human conversations are “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” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26), which suggests some underlying tacit negotiation between interlocutors. Ultimately, the crux of Grice’s cooperation is rationality (see Davies 2000, 2007). Meibauer (2005: 1396) rightly posits that lying is “rational communicative action, and therefore submitted to the operation of the cooperative principle”. However, Meibauer (2005) objects to Grice’s observation that “false information” is “not information” at all (Grice 1989c: 371) and concurs with Castelfranchi and Poggi (1994), who claim that lying is necessarily a speech act of information, which is meant to induce a belief in the hearer. By all means, this is indeed the case, but it is not lack of informativeness, strictly speaking, that Grice has in mind. Presumably, Grice’s claim is motivated by his belief about the wrongness of lying rather than the informative value factor. This interpretation is also evidenced by the fact that Grice’s model does not present the exchange of information as the main goal of communication (Dynel 2009, see Section 6.1). A pertinent query concerns the way the conversational goals are chosen and pursued. Grice does allow for the fact that conversationalists’ aims may be “independent and even in conflict” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 29). This might suggest that deceiving and being deceived are the two opposite poles in a well-formed rational communicative act. Also, the Passive Voice construction “as is required” in the formulation of the Cooperative Principle does not specify by whom the requirement underlying a communicative goal is issued: by the speaker, by the hearer, by both (independently or together), or perhaps according to widely accepted

4 Covert untruthfulness and maxim violations 

 61

norms. Furthermore, as was suggested above, if the impersonally formulated tenet “other maxims come into operation only on the assumption that this maxim of Quality is satisfied” (Grice 1975 [1989a]: 27, italics added) is taken as pertaining to the interlocutors’ communication, a query may arise as to who needs to work on the assumption that the first maxim of Quality is satisfied: the speaker, the hearer or both. It may seem that it is the hearer who must presume that Quality is respected in order to interpret the utterance in the light of the other maxims and the Cooperative Principle (Benton 2016). Interestingly, at the beginning of his discussion of Quality, Grice (1989a [1975]: 28) focuses on the hearer, presenting the following metaphor based on “transactions that are not talk exchanges”: “I expect your contributions to be genuine and not spurious. If I need sugar as an ingredient in the cake you are assisting me to make, I do not expect you to hand me salt; if I need a spoon, I do not expect a trick spoon made of rubber” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 28). Thereby, Grice underscores the hearer’s presupposed dependence on the speaker’s reliability and trustworthiness. In practice, hearers tend to show a truthfulness bias, as reported by many psychological studies. Essentially, people tend to presuppose that others are truthful rather than (by default) questioning their truthfulness, unless they distrust someone. In theoretical terms, if the first maxim of Quality, or a different maxim, is (successfully) violated, the hearer processes the speaker’s utterance, not recognising any maxim violation. The hearer who does not sense any deception on the speaker’s part will naïvely take the utterance as truthful, and so the speaker will convey his/her meaning as planned. Following this line of reasoning, based on the hearer’s presumptions about the speaker’s observing Quality (see Benton 2016), the Cooperative Principle would still be operative in deceptive acts. When a speaker performs an act of deception, a hearer can still make inferences and derive speaker meanings (what is said and implicature) as if the first maxim of Quality holds and is observed by the speaker. This happens also when the hearer can recognise the speaker’s deception (which is unsuccessful) but can arrive at an implicated (untruthful) meaning that the speaker intends to communicate, which is no argument against Grice’s idealistic theoretical model and which cannot be considered as its internal contradiction (cf. Stokke 2016a).22

22 Stokke (2016a) criticises Grice’s framework, arguing that hearers may derive implicatures and assume that speakers are obeying/flouting maxims even when they can recognise that the speakers are not obeying the Quality maxims. What Stokke (2016a) fails to notice is that Grice excluded violation, and thus deception, from his model, which is the reason why truthfulness is at the heart of his view of communication. Stokke’s (2016a) discussion merely indicates that the communicative framework that Grice proposed can be extended to cover detected/unsuccessful deception that may simultaneously communicate (deceptive) implicatures.

62 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

It is just a matter of going beyond Grice’s framework and applying its modified version to deception as manifest in natural language data, which will be done also in this monograph. Although this is a major deviation from Grice’s framework, as originally conceptualised, deception, is amenable to neo-Gricean analysis, as several researchers have already shown (e.g. McCornack 1992; Mooney 2004; Vincent Marrelli 2004; Meibauer 2005, 2014a; Fallis 2009, 2012; Dynel 2011a). Grice’s observations may be expanded to tease out the workings of lying and other forms of deception in the light of speaker meaning, maxims and implicatures. Given the intrinsic speakerintended covertness of all maxim violations and their unavailability from the hearer’s perspective, a statement can be ventured that they necessarily generate attempted deception (Grice’s “misleading”). Deception is understood as an intentional act to cause the hearer to (continue to) believe what the speaker believes to be false (see Carson 2010; Mahon 2015).

4.2 Covert explicit or implicit untruthfulness In the previous sections, it has been proposed that the first maxim of Quality can be seen as the maxim of truthfulness paraphrased as “Say what you believe to be true”. This leads to a conclusion that it is only the violation of the first maxim of Quality that is immediately related to covert untruthfulness. On the other hand, following Grice’s (1989a [1975]) tentative suggestion, it has also been argued that all violations are conducive to covert untruthfulness, and thus to deception. This accords with Vincent Marrelli’s (2004: 128) observation that maxim violation “as opposed to flouting, is covert unostentatious (non blatant) non-observance, and this is the one immediately connected to the intent to deceive; we might remember that deceptiveness occurs not only by violation of the Quality maxims”. This seeming contradiction can be resolved on the understanding that covert untruthfulness may be performed explicitly or implicitly, with the first maxim of Quality being violated at different levels of speaker meaning (i.e. the Gricean “totality of speaker meaning”). These are the various forms of untruthfulness that Grice may have wished to advise against, as indicated by the formulation of the supermaxim of Quality (notice the term “­contribution”). Just as the observance of the first maxim of Quality underlies the applicability of the other maxims, so the violation of the truthfulness maxim underpins any act of deception that involves the violation of any of the other maxims or the flouting of any maxim.

4 Covert untruthfulness and maxim violations 

 63

A proposal is put forward here that covert untruthfulness can be explicit or implicit.23 Deception coinciding with covert explicit untruthfulness depends on violating the first Quality maxim at the level of what is said, whilst deception performed as covert implicit untruthfulness shows this maxim violation as a result of a violation or flouting of any other maxim at the level of what is said, rendering what is said or implicature covertly untruthful. These issues will be pursued in greater detail in Chapter 4, but some preliminary observations on the status of covert implicit untruthfulness need to be made collectively at the outset. Needless to say, all the elaborations concerning deception proposed below transcend Grice’s framework, but they do conform to the basic tenets of which Grice was supportive. The notion of covert explicit untruthfulness proposed and championed here encompasses lying and other forms of deception (in utterances other than assertions) based on violating the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said. By contrast, covert implicit untruthfulness, which may be seen as deceiving “while saying the truth” (a notion used by Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Vincent Marrelli 2004; Meibauer 2014a), captures a wide range of deception forms that do not originate in mendacious what is said but do involve the violation of the truthfulness maxim at a deeper level. Specifically, covert implicit untruthfulness is performed by means of violating any of the maxims other than the first maxim of Quality or by means of any maxim flouting conducive to deceptive implicatures or covertly untruthful implicatures. In the latter case, the first maxim of Quality is violated at the level of implicature (for a similar claim, see Mooney 2004), but not at the level of what is said. It should be borne in mind that, in Grice’s view, maxims, most importantly the truthfulness maxim, apply to both levels of speaker meaning (what is said and implicature). Deceptive implicatures can come into being as a result of ironic and metaphoric language use, among other things. Also, deceptive implicatures may sometimes co-exist with maxim violations. As will be shown in Chapter 4, distinct forms of maxim nonfulfilment tend to co-occur in deceptive utterances (e.g. flouting can feed into violation or two maxims can be violated simultaneously). In the case of covert untruthfulness based on violating any maxim except for the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said, the violation of the first maxim of Quality does not arise at the level of implicature (see also Adler 1997) or what is said per se (whether or not involving formality), but rather hearer-inferred what is said. This new construct is a necessary addition to Grice’s framework, which, in

23 The label “implicit” is not restricted to implicatures only (see e.g. Bach 1994; Cap and Dynel 2017). Here, it captures both implicatures and hearer-inferred what is said.

64 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

its original form, does not even attempt to encompass deception. The concept of hearer-inferred what is said may perhaps be seen as overlapping with some of the neo-Gricean and post-Gricean notions, such as Sperber and Wilson’s (1985) explicature or Bach’s (1994) impliciture. However, these notions are not endorsed here since they do not encompass deceptive meanings, but they would hamper the use of Grice’s other proposals and terminology, which do help explain the workings of deception. The new concept of hearer-inferred what is said involves a departure from Grice’s framework of communication. As reported in Section 3, the notion of what is said programmatically covers the logical inferences that the hearer is meant to make in a context at hand, as long as they do not arise through maxim floutings, as a result of which conversational implicatures come into being. Hearer-inferred what is said is what is (conventionally) meant; it is speaker-intended meaning inferred by the hearer that corresponds to the intentionally communicated false beliefs. In the case of violations of maxims other than the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said, which is truthful, hearerinferred what is said is the level of meaning at which an act of deception is performed. Any maxim violation will then invite the violation of the first maxim of Quality as its natural consequence at the level of hearer-inferred what is said. This is why all maxim violations are inextricably connected to the violation of the maxim of truthfulness, i.e. the first maxim of Quality. In practice, this means that though what is said (in its basic form) is truthful, the elaboration which the hearer is intended to make, assuming that the maxims are observed, is covertly untruthful. The covertly untruthful meaning that arises as a result of maxim violation must not be thought of as implicature, contrary to what some authors claim, sometimes only indirectly or with regard to specific examples (e.g. Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Thomas 1995; Vincent Marrelli 2004). Basically, as will be further discussed in Chapter 4, violations, which are inherently covert, cannot invite implicatures inasmuch as, according to Gricean thought, those can be gleaned only when the hearer recognises the fact that a maxim has not been observed, which is in accordance with the speaker’s communicative plan. In opposition to this, because the hearer cannot recognise (successful) maxim violation, he/she will make inferences as if no maxim nonfulfilment has come into being and will perceive the speaker as believing what he/she is saying. This will result in deriving a meaning that the hearer considers to be a logical elaboration on the speaker’s what is said but which, unbeknownst to the hearer, rests on covert untruthfulness. This is indeed the intended meaning that the deceiver wants the hearer to glean whilst keeping covert his/her underlying intentions. In addition to the argument that violations cannot be a direct source of implicatures, a statement can be ventured that the meanings gleaned as a result of maxim violations are not subject to cancellation without causing any contradiction, whereas implicatures are cancellable (on cancellability, see Chapter 4, Section 3.3).

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings 

 65

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings A number of researchers refer to Grice’s maxims in the context of figures of speech, frequently distorting Grice’s original postulates. This section gives an exegesis of Grice’s brief description of the consequences of flouting the first maxim of Quality and addresses the criticisms his proposal has received.

5.1 Irony, metaphor, meiosis and hyperbole Addressing the case of flouting the first maxim of Quality, Grice (1989a [1975]: 34) briefly discusses irony, metaphor, meiosis and hyperbole. These four rhetorical figures, known in classical rhetoric as tropes, are claimed to flout the first Quality maxim which reads “Do not say what you believe to be false” (1989a [1975]: 27). These tropes, here referred to also as Quality-based figures (of speech), hence involve the speaker’s expression of something he/ she believes to be false, which he/she means to be overt to the hearer so that particularised conversational implicatures can arise, that is so that the hearer can glean the implicated meaning. Metonymy is another salient figure that is rooted in flouting the maxim of truthfulness (for a similar view, see Gibbs 1994), but Grice disregards it.24 Although Grice states this with respect to irony and metaphor only, he appears to consider all the four figures to be hinged on making as if to say (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30, 31, 34, 1989b [1978]: 40, 53). “Making as if to say” indicates that there is no speaker meaning coinciding with what is said.25 Implicature is the only type of speaker meaning that arises from the four figures.26 Grice (1989a [1975]) introduces hyperbole and meiosis merely by presenting (but not discussing) two examples: “Every nice girl loves a sailor” and “Of a man known to have broken up all the furniture, one says He was a little intoxicated” (1989a [1975]: 34, italics in original). Even though Grice does not acknowledge

24 Another phenomenon that fits this class of implicatures is bald-faced lying (see Chapter 4, Section 7). 25 In this vein, Bach and Harnish (1979) capture figures of speech as “nonliteral illocutionary acts”, where the intended meaning departs from the words used. Quite ambivalently, Bach and Harnish (1979) distinguish between three relations that can guide the hearer towards the speaker’s nonliteral intent: irony, figure of speech (such as metaphor), and exaggeration. 26 This view does not encompass conventionalised figures with lexicalised meanings, notably metaphors, that cannot be seen as inviting implicatures. Creative metaphors cannot be considered, as many relevance theoreticians have argued, part of what is said (see Camp 2006 for excellent criticism).

66 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

this, the latter example displays not only meiosis but also irony. Thus, Grice (perhaps only unwittingly) accounts for meiotic irony (see Chapter 3, Section 7.1). It is not “a little” but “a lot” that the person in question was intoxicated. The reversal of meaning central to this example makes the untruthfulness underlying meiosis even more obvious. Although Grice does not specify this, it seems that the implicature arising from hyperbole and meiosis places emphasis on the speaker’s evaluation of a chosen idea within the relevant dimensions (e.g. the speaker believes that far too many a nice girl loves a sailor; the speaker does not consider him to have been seriously drunk), next to the substitution of making as if to say with the use of different (weaker for hyperbole or stronger for meiosis) lexical items (very many girls; very much intoxicated), which yields the intended truthful meaning. It may, however, be easily extrapolated from Grice’s very brief presentation of meiosis and hyperbole that, thanks to the flouting of the first maxim of Quality (truthfulness), they display overt untruthfulness, with what is said being absent. Consequently, implicatures arise from them as the sole level of speaker meaning. Nevertheless, many authors endorse a different opinion about these figures. For instance, Fogelin (1988: 13–14) argues that whereas irony contradicts/negates reality, “hyperbole” and “meiosis”/“understatement” show degrees, only downscaling or upscaling reality, and necessitating “strengthening” or “weakening correction”. Moreover, some researchers advocate this approach but resort to Grice’s terminology as if completely disregarding Grice’s proposal of how the chosen figures should be addressed (but see Bhaya Nair 1985; Vincent Marrelli 2004). For example, Haverkate (1990: 102–103) concedes that “litotes” (technically, meiosis) and “hyperbole” depict the world “in terms of disproportionate dimensions”, implying that they do not involve “empirical falsehood”. Haverkate (1990: 103) then states that “the use of litotes [meiosis] and hyperbole implies a violation of the following [i.e. the first] maxim of quantity” as they withhold “a certain amount of information” or convey “an excessive amount of information” respectively. Similarly, Norrick (2004: 1737) states that whilst “extreme case formulations” (Pomerantz 1986) flout the [first] Quality maxim, “non-extreme hyperboles” “violate only the quantity maxim or are heard as approximations to the speaker’s beliefs” (Norrick 2004: 1737). Colston (2000) sees understatement as flouting “the maxim of Quantity”. Similarly, Brown and Levinson (1987: 217, 219) consider understatements and overstatements to be cases of “violating the Quantity Maxim”. For his part, Gibbs (1994: 392) contends, without providing any explanation for this, that hyperbole “violates the maxim of Quality”, but “­understatement” (i.e. the opposite of hyperbole) “violates the maxim of Quantity”. This is a direct repetition of what Leech (1983: 145) claims to hold for “hyperbole (overstatement)” and “litotes (understatement)”. On the other hand,

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings 

 67

according to Livnat (2011), in “understatements”, the flouting of the (first) maxim of Quantity gives rise to, or uncovers, the flouting of the (first) maxim of Quality. As these claims indicate, meiosis and hyperbole tend to be conceptualised as partly contingent on the truth, and thus on flouting Quantity maxims. In both meiosis and hyperbole, “the situation is described in terms that fall between the opposite and the reality of the situation” (Colston and O’Brien 2000: 1563). What is noteworthy is that hyperbole and meiosis show degrees, involving smaller or greater departures from “reality”, which should be properly seen as what the speaker believes to be the case. Fraser notes that people talk about “‘slightly exaggerated’ and ‘greatly exaggerated’ but never the somewhat synecdochic use of language” (1983: 34). This must be the reason why the authors refer to the category of Quantity (frequently, not specifying which maxim they have in mind). However, the first maxim of Quantity, “Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange)” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26) paraphrased as “Be as informative as is required” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30), seems to operate differently, not residing in the meanings of mitigating words. Flouting the first maxim of Quantity manifests itself in some meaning being entirely absent from an utterance, a meaning that, in its entirety, has to be inferred in the form of an implicature.27 Grice (1989a [1975]) illustrates flouting the first maxim of Quantity with his canonical example of a recommendation letter in which some information is not provided explicitly but is imparted ‘between the lines’. The letter’s author is only implicating the crucial negative information about a candidate (his unsuitability for the post) as he is offering other information. The nature of the first Quantity maxim can be appreciated based on the case of a maxim clash, where the speaker chooses to be less informative than required. In reply to a question where a person (C) lives, the speaker says, “Somewhere in the South of France”, whereby the speaker “implicates that he does not know in which town C lives” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 32–33, italics in original).28 Grice (1989a [1975]: 33) also adds that tautologies (such as “Women are women”) are extreme cases of flouting

27 Grice’s original view does not encompass the so-called scalar implicatures frequently addressed in post- and neo-Gricean scholarship (e.g. Horn 1972, 2009; Levinson 1983). More likely, in Grice’s view, for instance, “Some students failed the test” does not seem to implicate “Not all students failed the test” (which is more of a logical extrapolation) but rather “I am not sure how many students failed the test”, given his explanation of the “somewhere in France” example. 28 Grice (1989a [1975]: 32) provides this example under the somewhat ambivalent header “Examples in which a maxim is violated, but its violation is to be explained by the supposition of a clash with another maxim” (italics in original). This example seems to represent the flouting of the first maxim of Quantity.

68 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

the first maxim of Quantity. In all these cases, contextually relevant meanings must be inferred from what is not stated and only communicated in-between the words actually produced. The application of the first maxim of Quantity emerges also in the context of generalised conversational implicatures. The use of an indefinite pronoun “an X” is “classifiable as a failure, for one reason or another, to fulfill the first maxim of Quantity”, whereby the speaker, who “is not in a position to be specific”, “implicates that the X does not belong to or is not otherwise closely connected with some identifiable person, the implicature is present because the speaker has failed to be specific in a way in which he might have been expected to be specific, with the consequence that it is likely to be assumed that he is not in a position to be specific” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 38). This is yet another piece of evidence that the first maxim of Quality involves providing sufficient information and that the speaker’s overt failure to do this invites implicatures. Generating these implicated meanings amounts to conjecturing the speaker’s rationale for not providing this information. By the same token, the second maxim of Quantity, “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27), does not advise speakers against exaggeration, which is the essence of hyperbole. Grice (1989a [1975]: 26–27) himself is sceptical about any need for this maxim, the reason for which is twofold. Firstly, saying too much does not constitute a major transgression of communicative rationality. Secondly, the effect of this maxim is secured by the maxim of Relation, which guarantees the relevance of the information provided. However, he hypothesises that “overinformativeness may be confusing in that it is liable to raise side issues; and there may also be an indirect effect, in that the hearers may be misled as a result of thinking that there is some particular point in the provision of the excess of information” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26–27). Grice tentatively presents the case of this maxim being flouted if the speaker provides excessive information to serve as evidence for some claim, as an “oblique way of conveying that it is to some degree controversial whether or not” something is the case (Grice 1989a [1975]: 34).29 By contrast, in Gricean terms, meiosis and hyperbole rely not on conveying insufficient or surplus information but on “false or inaccurate information” (Nemesi 2010: 401). Also, Meibauer (2014a: 170) supports the original Gricean account, stating that the first “maxim of Quality is still the best candidate for

29 Grice also allows for the fact that the speaker’s long-windedness may be considered not to be purposefully designed. However, this falls outside Grice’s model of intentional communication of meanings.

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings 

 69

a maxim playing a role in the derivation of conversational implicatures related to over- [hyperbole] and understatement [meiosis]”. When using hyperbole or meiosis, whatever their forms may be, the speaker does not increase or decrease the amount of information more than necessary, whether in terms of the length of the verbal contribution or its meaning (informativeness). What the speaker does, though, is misrepresent the reality as he/she believes it to be. In other words, the speaker is untruthful. It does not matter how big a departure from the speakerbelieved reality a given instance of meiosis or hyperbole displays. Truthfulness, as reflected by Grice’s first Quality maxim, is not a matter of degrees but rests on a binary opposition. In Grice’s radical (and correct) view, an utterance either is or is not truthful, and it cannot be something in-between. Therefore, although not all instances of hyperbole and meiosis will strike language users as involving clear meaning opposition, technically, they do all depend on untruthfulness without exception. For instance, calling someone “upset” when in actual fact he/she was “absolutely devastated” is untruthful in a technical sense, just as much as saying “I ate three cookies” is if I actually ate five (see the discussion of withholding information in Chapter 4, Section 4.4). This conceptualisation may indeed provoke misgivings, especially when extremities are not used (see Chapter 3, Section 7.1). Grice (1989a [1975]: 34) presents metaphor as a figure that involves “categorial falsity”. He illustrates this point by dint of an example “You are the cream in my coffee”, whereby “the speaker is attributing to his audience some feature or features in respect of which the audience resembles (more or less fancifully) the mentioned substance”. The meaning that Grice sees the speaker to be communicating is “You are my pride and joy” (1989a [1975]: 34). Interestingly, Grice conceives of intertwining this metaphor with irony. He suggests that the interpretation of metaphor precedes the unravelling of the irony-based implicature. The understanding of the irony consists in having deciphered an implicature based on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality in the subordinate implicature, which shows a distinct level of untruthfulness and a distinct case of Quality flouting (see Chapter 3, Section 7.2). From among the four figures of speech, irony is the one to which Grice devotes most attention, which, however, amounts to a few remarks. These few remarks have stimulated a lot of scholarly interest and controversy in post- and neo-Gricean scholarship. Given that irony is one of the central notions of this monograph it will be presented in a distinct section.

5.2 Grice’s remarks on irony and criticism thereof To illustrate irony, Grice (1989a [1975]: 34) presents the example of speaker A’s  commenting “X is a fine friend” on a friend who “has betrayed a secret of

70 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

A’s  to a business rival”. The speaker’s utterance should then be interpreted as “the most obviously related proposition”, the one “contradictory of the one he purports to be putting forward” (Grice (1989a [1975]: 34). Thus, “X is not a fine friend” or perhaps “X is a poor friend” is the meaning the speaker implicates, based on propositional contradiction. Being ironic, the speaker hence makes as if to say “something he does not believe” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 34), while the hearer supposes the speaker “to mean the negation of what he has made as if to say” (1989b [1978]: 53). However, as Grice’s (1989b [1978]: 53) example “Look, the car has all its windows intact” (said in reference to a car with a shattered window) indicates, the sole presence of meaning reversal is insufficient as the sine qua non for irony. The speaker’s expression of judgement/evaluation is the second indispensable definitional component of irony. Grice (1989b [1978]) also adds that an ironic utterance cannot be preceded by an explicit signal of its presence, suggesting that it involves pretence, understood in accordance with the etymology of “irony” (Grice 1989b [1978]: 54). This necessarily overt but unannounced pretence, which may be regarded as being associated with making as if to say and overt untruthfulness, is to be recognised by the hearer. Otherwise, irony will fall flat. This conceptualisation of irony has come in for heavy criticism, a large proportion of which has been voiced by the supporters of relevance theory and the other alternative accounts. Some of this criticism concerns the lack of cognitive validity in Grice’s proposal, as evidenced by experimental tests (but see Reimer 2013 for a critical overview). Notwithstanding such debates, Grice’s philosophical model does not in any way consider the actual cognitive processes involved in the interpretation of irony, this being the focus of cognitive experimental studies. Thus, some unfounded criticism of Grice’s work can be found in academic debates on topics, such as whether irony comprehension is a one-stage or twostage process. Grice’s lectures offer “only” a descriptive philosophical account of communication, making a few remarks about (prototypical) irony. This should be borne in mind when his work is critiqued. Many authors have criticised Grice’s brief discussion of irony for being nonexhaustive and inapplicable to all irony (see Garmendia 2015). In Grice’s defence, however, he cannot have aspired to define irony, in all its forms and guises, but only to show that it may be a vehicle for implicature based on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality. It is then hardly surprising that irony should be much more diversified than Grice’s few notes appear to indicate. Although Grice may not have conceived of any subtypes of irony, he cannot be said to have purposefully excluded them, contrary to what some authors tend to suggest. He merely failed to recognise the heterogeneous nature of the figure. This does not change the fact that his generalisation about irony, if adequately elaborated, may be applicable to the various forms in which irony manifests itself (see Dynel 2013a, 2017b; Chapter 3).

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings 

 71

Even though the key example Grice deploys while explaining the mechanics of irony relies on the contradiction of a proposition (Grice 1989a [1975]: 34), the concept of a proposition is not critical to his presentation of irony. As will be shown in Chapter 3, his account based on flouting the first maxim of Quality and the emerging evaluative implicature will easily accommodate irony that centres on the sub-propositional contradiction of semantic meaning of an untruthful lexical element (see Wilson 2006) in an utterance, which does not span the entire propositional content. Since saying need not coincide with asserting and making as if to say need not coincide with making as if to assert, flouting the first maxim of Quality pertains to ironic exclamations and questions, contrary to what critics (e.g. Wilson 2006) may claim. In the same vein, Grice’s framework will also encompass the reversal of pragmatic meaning of an utterance (e.g. uttering “Thank you” to convey disappointment and annoyance when someone has shut the door in your face). In a nutshell, untruthfulness may manifest itself at the level of a whole proposition or its part, as well as at the level of pragmatic force (see Chapter 3, Sections 6.1–6.4) However, verisimilar irony based on truthful what is said or implicature may be more problematic (see Chapter 3, Section 6.5). At first blush, it does not flout the first maxim of Quality or necessitate meaning reversal either. It may be postulated, however, that it does display both the features, yet at the level of as if implicature, for it flouts the maxim of Relation at the level of what is said. Verisimilar irony, as will be argued here, displays overt untruthfulness, specifically overt implicit untruthfulness, which also applies to chosen combinations of Qualitybased figures, notably irony piggy-backed on metaphor, necessitating two levels of implicating (see Chapter 3, Section 7.2). Therefore, the standard cases of irony, based on making as if to say, which is conducive to implicatures, can be retroactively dubbed overt explicit untruthfulness. Another issue subject to criticism is that Grice fails to differentiate irony from the other figures capitalising on Quality floutings (e.g. Wilson 2006; Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012]; cf. Garmendia 2015).30 Indeed, Grice does not seem to be concerned with why the figures are applied or how they differ, because he merely gives them as an illustration of the flouting of the first maxim of Quality. However, in his second lecture on logic and conversation, Grice (1989b

30 Another tenuous counterargument against the Gricean view is that it does not explain the rationale underlying irony or its puzzling features, such as the normative bias (see Chapter 3, Section 2.3) or the tone of voice (Wilson and Sperber 2012), which are accounted for by the ­relevance-theoretic model. Grice must have had no aspirations to capture these characteristics of irony, which should not be regarded as a major drawback of his approach.

72 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

[1978]) refines his approach and explicitly states that irony must necessarily convey an attitude towards its object. Hence, he highlights irony’s distinctive feature. In Grice’s words, “[i]rony is intimately connected with the expression of feeling, attitude, or evaluation. I cannot say something ironically unless what I say is intended to reflect a hostile or derogatory judgement or a feeling such as indignation or contempt” (1989b [1978]: 53–54; see Garmendia 2015 for discussion). Wilson (2006) does acknowledge Grice’s addition but indicates that it is insufficient, because Grice does not specify the object of evaluation or the connection between the utterance and the evaluation. Again, these are issues to which Grice’s philosophical account does not pay any heed. The referent must be chosen in a commonsensical manner for each ironic utterance. For instance, ironic criticism may concern a previous utterance (produced much earlier or in the preceding turn), the hearer’s or someone else’s action, the state of affairs, or a combination thereof. Overall, from Grice’s perspective, implicated (negative) evaluation based on flouting the first maxim of Quality forms the sine qua non for irony, which involves unannounced overt pretence and necessitates some form of meaning reversal. This is not the case with the other Quality-based figures, which are based on overt explicit untruthfulness but do not have the necessary combination of the conditions met by irony. Meiosis and hyperbole may also be considered to carry evaluation, but this evaluation is of a special type for it concerns attenuation or augmentation and may be positive or negative. The implicated evaluation is rooted not in the operation of literal meaning reversal, but in meaning substitution with a lexical item conveying greater (for meiosis) or lesser (for hyperbole) intensity. Firstly, in the prototypical form of irony, the central evaluative expression is overtly ­untruthful31 and is ­amenable to meaning reversal (as in Grice’s canonical “fine friend” example), which invites the central evaluative implicature, either directly or indirectly, that is via an intermediate implicature (notably, when a negatively evaluative expression is present, see Chapter 3, Section 2.3). Interestingly enough, meiotic/hyperbolic evaluation can also involve meaning reversal, but that is only when it overlaps with irony (see Chapter 3, Section 7.1). Secondly, even when an overtly untruthful evaluative expression is absent from an ironic utterance, it will always involve meaning reversal (see Chapter 3, Section 2.1 and 2.2).

31 Verisimilar irony is an important exception for it contains truthful evaluative expressions. However, verisimilar irony does not fulfil the other condition: it does not involve overt explicit untruthfulness that would invite immediate meaning reversal.

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings 

 73

Metaphor can hardly be mistaken for irony. Firstly, no meaning reversal comes into play, insofar as metaphors are translated into literal expressions in the light of the relevant features of the vehicle attributed to the tenor. Secondly, although metaphor can also convey criticism or praise via implicature, evaluation is by no means its hallmark (see Garmendia 2010, 2015). Overall, irony is a figure independent and distinguishable from the other Quality-based figures, but it may co-occur with any of them (see Chapter 3, Section 7). Although drawing distinctions between irony and the other Quality-based figures is not very difficult, Grice’s approach to all these figures is burdened with several fundamental problems, most of which seem to result from a number of doubt-provoking stylistic formulations.

5.3 Quality-based figures as an alleged flaw in Grice’s proposal of implicature There is also some criticism of the Gricean model in respect of the Quality-based figures, taken as a whole, mainly with reference to irony. Such criticism is not necessarily well-founded, as will be argued here (see also Garmendia 2011, 2015). Wilson (2006: 1725) states that in tropes, such as irony, the recovery of the speaker’s implicature neither restores the Cooperative Principle and maxims nor explains “why a maxim has been violated” since “if the speaker has said something she believes to be false, the situation cannot be remedied by the recovery of an implicature”. Similarly, Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002, 2012]: 221) insist that in the Quality-based figures of speech, “the maxim of truthfulness is irretrievably violated, and the implicature provides no circumstantial justification whatsoever”. In other words, the tropes undermine Grice’s proposal that maxim floutings conducive to conversational implicature are “in the circumstances justifiable, at least in his [the speaker’s] eyes” (Grice 1989c: 370). Also, Wilson (2006: 1724) criticises Grice for failing to account for why meaning should be conveyed ironically via “blatant falsehood” (technically, this should be deemed only what the speaker believes to be false) if the same meaning might as well be “literally expressed”. Furthermore, from the critics’ perspective, implicatures are typically added to what is said, which serves as an input for the former. Indeed, conversational implicatures are frequently seen as meanings that arise in addition to what is said (e.g. Carston 2002; Haugh 2015 and references therein; see also Korta 2013). However, this does not apply to irony or to the other three tropes, which is unproblematic for Grice’s model, a crucial fact that the critics fail to acknowledge (see Garmendia 2011, 2015). This leads them to a conclusion that the ­Quality-based figures fall outside Grice’s original proposal of how implicatures are generated. Wilson (2006: 1725) suggests that “Grice had to extend both his

74 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

notion of implicature and his account of how implicatures are derived”. These claims appear to be specious on various grounds. Firstly, Grice seems not to have been preoccupied with the reasons for communicating implicatures. As he concludes his discussion of conversational implicature, he merely states that “there may be various possible specific explanations, a list of which may be open”, for why conversational implicature comes into being and “the conversational implicatum in such cases will be disjunction of such specific explanations” (1989a [1975]: 40). He takes for granted the fact that implicatures may be variously motivated, whether arising from tropes or other forms of language use. For instance, the speaker may intend to create a rhetorical effect (e.g. emphasise the evaluation in irony), to be polite or impolite, to invite a humorous reaction, or to come over as being creative or witty, all of which may underlie the use of tropes. However, Grice did not aspire to explain why irony (or the other three figures) should be used. He merely sketchily depicted them by placing them among other communicative phenomena in his framework of communication. Secondly, as already reported, in his presentation of the legitimate sources of conversational implicature under the Cooperative Principle, according to “a procedure by which a maxim is flouted” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 33, italics in original), Grice (1989a [1975]: 34) lists irony and metaphor, as well as meiosis and hyperbole, as the cases in which the first maxim of Quality is flouted. The implicatures originating in the four figures of speech do not differ from any other implicatures consequent upon floutings/exploitations of the other maxims, on the assumption that the Cooperative Principle holds, and the maxims are observed at the level of implicature (see Grice 1989a [1975]: 33). It is difficult to tell why the first maxim of Quality should be “irretrievably violated”, as Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002, 2012]: 221) claim. It is indeed the case that most examples of conversational implicatures that Grice (1989a [1975]: 32–35) provides are piggy-backed onto what is said, which is indeed communicated, even though it is secondary to the central implicature. This implicature is the pivotal meaning which the speaker intends to communicate and which vindicates maxim flouting. For instance, addressing tautology as a case of flouting the first maxim of Quantity, Grice concedes that “at the level of what is said, in my favored sense, such remarks are totally noninformative and so, at that level, cannot but infringe the first maxim of Quantity” (1989a [1975]: 33). What is said is usually subsidiary to the implicature that the maxim flouting invites. Still, some may extrapolate from this a spurious conclusion that Grice does not allow for speaker meaning coinciding solely with implicature, however insignificant what is said may be. Nonetheless, even before presenting the whole list of maxim floutings, Grice suggests two sources of implicature, namely saying and making as if to say, as

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings 

 75

is evident in “A man saying (or making as if to say) that p has implicated that q” (1989a [1975]: 30). Grice (1989b [1978]: 41) also clearly indicates the possibility of lack of what is said when addressing the problem of distinct layers of speaker meaning, specifically “in a given case one or more of these elements may be lacking. For example, nothing may be said, though there is something which a speaker makes as if to say”. Grice also stresses that “the implicature is not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said, or by ‘putting it that way’” (1989a [1975]: 39, italics added). This undermines the assumption that what is said is the direct, and hence indispensable, source of implicature. In the light of these quotations, it is evident that implicature may capitalise on either what is said or making as if to say. In the latter case, implicature exhausts speaker meaning. The figures dependent on flouting the first maxim of Quality represent this category, which may indeed be quite restricted in scope but wider than Grice originally thought, encompassing also the figure of metonymy and bald-faced lies (see Chapter 4, Section 7). It is not the case, however, that this makes such implicatures different or less important, compared to those which arise from what is said. Grice’s solution to capture these figures (which are prominent in language use) does not sound forced. The fact that, on occasion, Grice does not explicitly take into account the cases where what is said is not present as part of speaker meaning (by listing making as if to say next to it) may be deemed an inadvertent omission on his part rather than a deliberate exclusion. The bottom line is that making as if to say suffices as the bedrock for conversational implicature, and this is by no means a marginal or exceptional situation. Consequently, two types of conversational implicatures can be distinguished: additive implicatures (built on what is said) and substitutional implicatures, which arise instead of what is said (Dinges 2015; see also Meibauer 2006). The proponents of the relevance-theoretic approach, however, have another doubt about Grice’s framework. Equating what is said with asserting, Wilson (1995) and Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002, 2012]: 221) question the status of the first maxim of truthfulness, stating that it is hard to see why a maxim of truthfulness is needed at all. It seems to follow from the very notion of an assertion as a commitment to truth [...] that your assertions should be truthful. In fact, the only pragmatic function of the maxim of truthfulness, on this interpretation, is to be violated in metaphor and irony, thus triggering the search for an implicature.

Indeed, the first maxim of Quality is Grice’s tool to account for the tropes (not only metaphor and irony but also hyperbole and meiosis). However, this maxim, like all the other ones, necessarily underlies all utterance types, not being limited to assertions, since saying is not only asserting (see Section 3). This is why the maxim is by no means otiose. Additionally, assertions may be believed-false

76 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

(being tantamount to lying, see Chapter 4, Section 2), just like other utterance types (promoting a different kind of deception, see Chapter 4, Section 2.4), which is precisely what Grice advises against. The first maxim of Quality obliges the speaker not to be covertly untruthful, which is the primary reason for its existence (see Vincent Marrelli 2003, 2004; Meibauer 2005; Dynel 2011a; see Section 4.1). Finally, it is dubious whether the word “say” in the formulation of the maxim is used in Grice’s favoured sense. This is the most vexing issue in Grice’s discussion of the four tropes. Grice’s view of irony (and the other tropes as well) is considered to involve an internal contradiction, and thus an error. This error is caused by the notion of “making as if to say” and the formulation of the first maxim of Quality as “do not say” (Wilson 1995; Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012]). The critics claim that it is the favoured meaning of “say” (i.e. “assert”)32 that Grice uses in the formulation of the first Quality maxim. Consequently, if the speaker only makes as if to say in irony and the other figures, then the maxim is not overtly violated (Wilson 1995; Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012]; cf. Garmendia 2015). In other words, if nothing is said but only made as if to say, the first maxim of Quality is not flouted, strictly speaking. As a result, no implicature can come into being. By contrast, Grice’s pivotal assumption is that irony and the other three figures centre on the first Quality maxim flouting and on implicatures. A solution to this internal problem is not easy to find. Garmendia and Korta (2007: 192), supportive of Grice’s approach, propose that the first maxim of Quality should be reformulated as “Don’t say or make as if to say what you believe to be false” so that the maxim can be flouted and the implicature can arise. This, they suggest, is how Grice’s proposal should be salvaged. However, this significant modification seems to deprive the maxim of its original formal appeal and comprehensibility, making it stand out among the other maxims, especially when juxtaposed with the second maxim of Quality. There must be a simpler solution to this puzzle. It may be claimed that when proposing the Quality maxims, Grice uses the word “say” in the sense of “utter” or “verbalise” rather than using it in the “favoured” technical sense to capture only one level of speaker meaning. This ­technical use of “say” would thus (wrongly) suggest that implicature is not amenable to Quality. As argued in Section 2.2, Grice seems to have proposed his maxims as being pertinent to both what is said and implicature. It would then be strange for the two Quality maxims to apply only to saying merely because

32 As already argued (see Section 3), there are no reasons to believe that in Grice’s writings saying means asserting, even though it depends on the speaker’s commitment.

5 Overt untruthfulness and Quality floutings 

 77

they are the only ones which rest on the word “say”. The other maxims are based on commonsensical/folk notions, being devoid of any technical terminology. Nowhere does Grice state or imply that this “say” in the two maxims should be taken in his “favored” sense, which he tends to do in his writings where he is not talking about what is said vs what is implicated. Moreover, Grice tends to vacillate in his use of “say” between two different meanings, one technical (his favoured sense) and the other conventional, typical of ordinary language use. This is evidenced, for instance, by the following quotations, where Grice uses “say” in both ways: “how what is said is to be said” (1989a [1975]: 27), “the saying of what is said, or by ‘putting it that way’” (1989a [1975]: 39), “the manner in which what is said has been said” (1989b [1978]: 41), or “saying what is said” (1989b [1978]: 43, 51). Additionally, he frequently uses “say” according to the folk/conventional understanding of the word when he presents his examples, for instance the canonical ironic utterance “A says X is a fine friend” (1989a [1975]: 34, 1989b [1978]: 53, italics added) or meiosis “one says He was a little intoxicated” (1989a [1975]: 34, italics added). Taking all this into consideration, what Grice must have meant under the formulation of the first maxim is simply “Do not utter/verbalise what you believe to be false”, and this concerns any utterance type (i.e. a statement, question or imperative). Consequently, when the speaker does utter what he believes to be false, making this overt, the hearer needs to seek a reason for the speaker’s departure from the maxim, thereby finding the relevant implicature, the speaker meaning. The notion of making as if to say does not suggest an alternative version of realising the first maxim of Quality. It only places emphasis on the fact that in irony (and the other figures), no what is said is communicated but a truthful implicature arises instead. However, independently of this, such implicatures may be covertly untruthful, and hence deceptive (see Chapter 4, Section 3.1). Let us take stock. Overt untruthfulness, originating in the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, encompasses figures of speech, notably irony. In producing them, the speaker does not subscribe to the meaning he/she purports to be communicating and intends the hearer to appreciate this fact. The speaker has no intention of causing the hearer to take what he/she seems to be communicating as what the speaker believes to be true or what the hearer is supposed to believe to be true. Instead, the speaker wants the hearer to recognise the untruthfulness and the intended meaning carried in the form of implicature. Overt explicit untruthfulness amounts to flouting the first Quality maxim at the utterance level. Thus, with saying absent, making as if to say is conducive to implicature. On the other hand, the central implicature may stem from a subordinate overtly untruthful (as if) implicature arising from utterances which show maxim floutings. These cases are captured by the notion of overt implicit untruthfulness, which pertains

78 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

to verisimilar irony (see Chapter 3, Section 6.5) or combinations of metaphor and irony, which rest on the twofold flouting of the first maxim of Quality (see Chapter 3, Section 7.2).

6 Humour, Grice’s framework and (un)truthfulness Humour is a heterogeneous phenomenon that cuts across the truthfulness – untruthfulness division, being in various relationships with Grice’s first maxim of Quality. As will be shown here (see Chapter 5), humour can sometimes coincide with irony, i.e. overt untruthfulness, and with deception, i.e. covert untruthfulness. In general, humorous utterances qualify, as will be argued here, as autotelic humour or speaker-meaning-telic humour, that is humour for its own sake or humour that carries intended (truthful or covertly untruthful) meaning relevant to the ongoing exchange respectively. Additionally, regardless of which is ultimately the case, humorous utterances may involve maxim observance, flouting and violation, or opting out of a maxim,33 all of which are relevant also to the first maxim of Quality. This is not yet a common view, and humour researchers have been engaged in an academic tug-of-war with regard to whether humour violates or flouts the Gricean maxims, and whether it lends itself to (neo)Gricean analysis at all.

6.1 Does Grice’s framework encompass humour? Humour researchers frequently take for granted Raskin and Attardo’s influential claim that humour34 is at cross purposes with, or even violates, the Cooperative Principles and contradicts the Gricean model of communication. Some space should be devoted to criticising this approach (see also Kotthoff 2006; Dynel 2008, 2009; Mooney 2004; Nemesi 2015).

33 In my previous work (Dynel 2008, 2009), I wrongly claimed that (all/most) humour capitalises on the floutings of the Gricean maxims (see also Kotthoff 2006), when arguing against Raskin and Attardo’s claims that humour violates the Cooperative Principle and maxims. My previous conclusion was restricted to only some forms of humour and it clearly does not hold for all manifestations of humour. 34 Initially, Raskin (1985) made his claim only with regard to joke-telling, but in their later publications, Raskin and Attardo talk about not just joke-telling but humour in general.

6 Humour, Grice’s framework and (un)truthfulness 

 79

Raskin’s (1985) proposal is premised on an assumption that the Cooperative Principle governs what he calls the bona-fide mode,35 the “ordinary” mode, where there is no room for “lying”, “(play-)acting” or “joking” (Raskin 1985: 89, 101), which fall into the non-bona-fide mode. Raskin (1985: 100–101) claims that, according to the Cooperative Principle, “the speaker is committed to the truth and relevance of his text”, which lying, acting and joking do not seem to represent. Raskin then ignores the crucial difference between lying and the other two notions, namely their covertness and overtness respectively. Moreover, in his view, the Gricean framework presupposes that the speaker is “absolutely and unexceptionally committed to the truth of what is being said” (Raskin 1998: 99). This interpretation is not well-founded. It is indeed the case that Grice’s model, in its original form, is premised on the speaker’s truthfulness, given the priority of the first maxim of Quality over the other maxims (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27). Nevertheless, the framework excludes only mendacity, explicitly making room for “making as if to say”, and thus for overt untruthfulness, which involves flouting the first maxim of Quality. Also, Grice will not have been averse to a speaker’s opting out of this maxim, which is done openly and shows no affinity with deception. Furthermore, Raskin (1985, 1998) is adamant that, according to the Gricean framework, all maxims must be observed. For example, Raskin (1985: 146) claims that deliberate ambiguity is not sanctioned, and hence the “Avoid ambiguity” Manner maxim must be observed. Similarly, Raskin and Attardo (1994: 32) state that “the main venue” for bona-fide communication is using literal language and communicating “as simply as possible” (Raskin and Attardo 1994: 34), which flatly contradicts Grice’s view of implicatures generated under the Cooperative Principle. Raskin and Attardo (1994: 32) regard floutings that yield implicatures as “uncomfortably accommodated” in the bona-fide model. On the other hand, when compiling an informal and “pre-theoretical” – as the authors themselves admit – list of “non-literal language” uses (these are figures of speech: metaphor, irony, understatement and exaggeration or metonymy; indirect speech acts; implicature; and humour), Raskin and Attardo concede that all these notions “stand in various relations to Grice’s category of bona-fide communication” (1994: 32). It must be emphasised that the categories Raskin and Attardo (1994) distinguish show different levels of generality, and hence they can overlap. Most importantly, humour can coincide with any of the other phenomena listed by Raskin and Attardo. What

35 In their various works, Attardo and Raskin further present this term as being used by Grice, which he never did (see Dynel 2008, 2009; Ritchie 2004). Consequently, for the past few decades, numerous humour researchers have wrongly ascribed the term “bona-fide mode” to Grice.

80 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

is more, it may actually be performed “literally”, technically by means of what is said, with no implicature coming into play (see Chapter 5, Section 1.3.2). The perennial misunderstandings concerning the nature of Grice’s model of conversational logic can be found in the definition of the bona-fide (Cooperative Principle-based) mode as “the essential fact-conveying, ‘no-nonsense’ mode [...] in which the speaker and hearer are mutually committed to the truth of what is said and to the most straightforward and efficient methods for conveying that truth” (Raskin and Attardo 1994: 32). Firstly, the two authors fail to recognise that maxim floutings and implicatures consequent upon them are fully legitimate in Grice’s framework of conversational logic anchored in the Cooperative Principle, which obtains even if the maxims should be flouted. Interestingly, Attardo (1997: 755) writes that when “a maxim is flouted, the violation of the CP [Cooperative Principle] is only superficial and temporary”. According to the original conceptualisation, however, any maxim flouting on the speaker’s part sets in motion inferential processes on the hearer’s part in order to safeguard the underlying presumption that the Cooperative Principle is in operation. It is definitely not the case that maxim fulfilment is in any respect better than flouting (Davies 2000, 2007). Secondly, Raskin and Attardo (1994) seem to wrongly prioritise the aspect of “the essential fact-conveying” under the Cooperative Principle. Grice specifies that the CP does not pertain merely to informative exchanges and does cover exchanges which show other purposes, as evidenced by the following quotation: “I have stated my maxims as if this purpose were a maximally effective exchange of information; this specification is, of course, too narrow, and the scheme needs to be generalised” (Grice 1975 [1989a]: 28). There is thus no reason to see the Cooperative Principle as being inapplicable to interactions held merely for the sake of amusement, even if no information – technically, speaker meaning – should be communicated. By contrast, Raskin and Attardo (1994: 34) contend that when the humorous speaker “has abandoned bona-fide communication”, he/she “is not bound by Grice’s cooperative principle”, which is why the hearer can only interpret the literal meanings and, moreover, is “barred from making any inferences from these meanings”. It seems, therefore, as if the authors are averse to the widespread view that conversational humour can carry meanings relevant to the ongoing non-humorous exchange. Furthermore, Attardo (1993, 1994) gives some reasons as to why humour does not merely depart from but actually violates the Cooperative Principle, without specifying the nature of this violation (i.e. whether it is overt or covert). First, Attardo states that the bona-fide mode, i.e. the Cooperative Principle, presupposes “the speaker’s commitment to truth, relevance, clarity, and to providing the right quantity of information at any given time” (1994: 274), which reflects the essence of the maxims. Since humour, in Attardo’s view, does not involve the speaker’s commitment to the truth and violates the maxims, it also violates the

6 Humour, Grice’s framework and (un)truthfulness 

 81

Cooperative Principle, as a result. In order to counter the argument that maxim floutings are actually legitimate, Attardo (2006: 354) explains that humour involves “unredeemed violation of the CP” not conducive to implicatures (note that Attardo maintains that implicatures arise when the maxims and the Cooperative Principle are violated). Second, Attardo (1994: 275) sees humour as “non-cooperative behaviour”, failing to recognise the essence of this notion in Grice’s understanding. On the other hand, Attardo (2006) sees cooperation as goal assumption at linguistic and extra-­linguistic levels, which humour does not show, according to him. As Grice emphasises in several places, his focus is on “rational behaviour” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26), “rational cooperation” (Grice 1989c: 341) and “conversational rationality” (Grice 1989c: 369). As he explicates in the retrospective epilogue, “[i]t is the rationality or irrationality of conversational conduct which I have been concerned to track down rather than any more general characterization of conversational adequacy” (Grice 1989c: 369). The bottom line is that cooperation should be seen as rationality (Davies 2000, 2007). Intentional humour, even if based on absurdity, does fall under the Cooperative ­Principle, as long as interlocutors manage to communicate successfully. Raskin and Attardo (1994) and Attardo (1990, 1993, 1994) do admit that jokes are successful communicative exchanges anchored in cooperativeness, even though they violate the Cooperative Principle, which should entail “breakdown of communication” (Attardo 1993: 537). Attardo explains this paradox by claiming that jokes are merely cooperative under Raskin’s humour-Cooperative Principle operating in the non-bona-fide mode, where Grice’s Cooperative Principle is irredeemably violated (Attardo 2006). This type of argumentation is indicative of circular logic. Failing to recognise Grice’s premises underlying the Cooperative Principle and maxims, Raskin and Attardo, as well as their many followers, present humour as a distinct, alternative mode of communication where the speaker’s commitment to truth is replaced by the speaker’s commitment to humour. Raskin (1985: 103) proposes the cooperative principle for the non-bona-fide mode of joke telling, which Attardo (1994) calls “humour-CP” (note the switch from “joke” to “humour”). Specifically, Raskin (1985) proposes a set of maxims for a joke, which represents a simplified and contextualised version of Grice’s maxims (see also Mooney 2004; Nemesi 2015). Nonetheless, Raskin’s maxims do not show the central features of Grice’s, such as being legitimately flouted to promote implicatures. Needless to say, humorous utterances can show this property too. In conclusion, the entire bona-fide vs non-bona-fide proposal appears to be based on several misunderstandings concerning Grice’s model, as well as an ill-advised view of humour as necessarily displaying untruthfulness and non-­literalness. Consequently, the humour-CP and the non-bona-fide mode of communication appear to be redundant terminological complications. Humour

82 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

is neatly captured with terminology offered by Grice and it is amenable to his framework, even if some extensions must be proposed with regard to issues that Grice did not take into account or did not dwell on. Thus, a full model of the (un) truthfulness of humour can be built against the backdrop of Grice’s philosophy.

6.2 Humour and the truthfulness maxim (non)fulfilment Little has been written on (un)truthfulness in humour studies, whether with or without the use of the Gricean terminology. The topical literature does not do justice to the complex relationships between humour and (un)truthfulness, and only intermittent observations on this vexing subject can be found (but see Vincent Marrelli 2004). A common assumption is that the speaker’s truthfulness is suspended in (selected forms of) humour, which constitutes a special frame/mode of communication (see Chapter 5). Raskin and Attardo state that “truth is irrelevant to joke-telling” (1994: 65), with joke-telling being understood as the prototypical type of humour. Indeed, jokes frequently fly in the face of objectively verifiable truth, being fictional narratives. Attardo seems to expand this view to encompass humour in general (enclosed within the so-called “non-bona-fide mode”), stating that “speakers are not committed to the truth of what they say” (1994: 206). The purpose of the “non-bona-fide mode” is “not to convey any information” (Raskin 1985: 101), and it is hence juxtaposed with “information-­conveying” (Raskin 1985: 89), “fact-conveying” or “no-nonsense” mode of communication (Raskin and Attardo 1994: 32). Along these lines, Morreall (2009) generalises that “in humor the speaker is putting ideas into listeners’ heads not to cause beliefs or actions, but for the pleasure that entertaining those ideas will bring. And listeners think about those ideas not to reach the truth about anything, or to figure out what to do, but just for the fun of it” (Morreall 2009: 36, italics added). Similar observations have been made outside humour studies per se. ­Sweetser (1987: 52) claims that “jokes, kidding and leg-pullings, which exist in a world where humour rather than information is the basic goal, are outside the informational model” and that “truth is irrelevant” therein. Following Sweetser (1987), Galasiński (2000: 23) also states that “the truth of the propositions in the utterances [irony,36 jokes and teasing] is irrelevant  –  they are

36 If understood as a rhetorical figure, irony is wrongly placed on the same footing as teasing and joking, which are indeed categories of humour. Irony need not be, and frequently is not, humorous, though. Also, even if it is, it tends to carry serious (truthful) meanings. On the other hand, Galasiński may mean “irony” in a lay sense, that is as any kind of humorous overt untruthfulness (see Chapter 5, Section 2.2.)

6 Humour, Grice’s framework and (un)truthfulness 

 83

not meant to be either true or false; their assessment in those terms is suspended”. A similar proposal is made by Wilson (1995) and Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002, 2012]), who mention in passing the suspension of the maxim of truthfulness/Grice’s first maxim of Quality. Specifically, according to Wilson and Sperber, “[j]okes and fictions might be seen as cases in which the maxim of truthfulness [the first maxim of Quality] is overtly suspended (the speaker overtly opts out of it) (Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012]: 218, Wilson 1995: 200). Wilson (1995: 200) adds that “the hearer is meant to notice that it is no longer operative, and is not expected to assume that the speaker believes what she has said”. In this vein, Fallis (2009: 53–54) briefly addresses the issue of “joking” that involves absurdity (in stand-up comedy) as a case of the first maxim of Quality being “turned off”, “suspended” or not “in effect”, which he seems to equate with the Gricean “opting out” of the maxim.37 This seems to be essentially what Vincent Marrelli (2006: 21) must mean when she presents “playful non-serious talk, e.g. irony, joking” as cases of “overt non-truthfulness”. She cannot mean “irony” as a rhetorical figure here, and she seems to tacitly hold a belief that “joking” and “irony” do not involve flouting the first maxim of Quality. This is because she juxtaposes this “irony” with “figurative or nonliteral talk (metaphor, hyperbole, meiosis or understatement), envisaged by Grice as generated by ‘flouting’ of the first Quality maxim” (Vincent ­Marrelli 2006: 21). Overall, these authors are right in suggesting that some humour, specifically “joke/joking”, is based on opting out of the maxim of truthfulness. This kind of joking may be captured under a technical label autotelic humour, a category of humour which is based on overt autotelic untruthfulness consequent upon opting out of the first maxim of Quality (even though subordinate forms of maxim nonfulfilment, especially violation, may be involved as well for the sake of humour emergence, see Chapter 5, Section 1.3.1) and which is not conducive to any speaker meaning. This seems to be consonant with Grice’s view of what “opting out” is. Grice (1989a [1975]) allows for opting out of the operation of a maxim, in tandem with opting out of the Cooperative Principle altogether, in situations when the speaker wishes to remain silent about something. The speaker may opt out only of a chosen maxim, the first maxim of Quality as a case in point, and he/she “may say, indicate, or allow it to become plain that he is unwilling to cooperate in the way the maxim requires” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30). Additionally,

37 However, Fallis (2009) makes the same claim about irony, which, in Gricean terms, is a perfect instance of flouting conducive to implicatures.

84 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

discussing the cancellability of conversational implicature, Grice (1989a [1975]: 39) writes that an implicature “may be explicitly canceled, by the addition of a clause that states or implies that the speaker has opted out”. Thus, the flouting of a maxim conducive to a given implicature may be withdrawn, based on the claim of having opted out of this maxim. From all this, it may be extrapolated that under the notion of “opting out”, Grice means lack of any speaker meaning, whether what is said or implicature. This lack of meaning may be the result of remaining silent (and opting out of the Cooperative Principle) or producing utterances which do not carry any (intended) speaker meaning, which appertains to the forms of humour manifesting overt autotelic untruthfulness. Autotelic humour (as opposed to speaker-meaning-telic humour, a phenomenon that most authors quoted in this section do not address) is necessarily rooted in opting out of the first maxim of Quality and this nonfulfilment is overt (made “plain”) to the hearer, which is why it is not a matter of violation, the type of nonfulfilment that intrinsically involves deception. On the other hand, no implicated meanings are communicated, which means that the first maxim of Quality cannot be flouted either. At the same time, the Cooperative Principle is observed since, when producing humour, the speaker makes his/her utterances intentionally and rationally with a particular goal in mind, that is to amuse the hearer. By contrast, Raskin and Attardo (1994) state that humour, taken as a whole, involves Quality violation. Specifically, Raskin and Attardo claim that humour “is a mode of communication that does not follow the maxims of Grice’s cooperative principle, most importantly by routinely violating the maxim of quality (sic)” (1994: 34). Presumably, the authors regard “the maxim of quality” as the first maxim of Quality and understand “violation” as an illegitimate form of nonfulfilment. Attardo specifies that humour, primarily jokes “do not flout or exploit the maxims, but that they violate them, i.e. they fail to conform to their ‘­recommendations’” (Attardo 1993: 542, 1994: 273) since “no ulterior interpretation of the text can salvage it from the violation of the maxim” (Attardo 1994: 273). Moreover, Attardo (1993: 528) boldly claims that “a consensus has been built within humour research that humorous texts violate one or several of the maxims”. It is indeed the case that, in some humour (including most canned jokes), maxims are not fulfilled. However, this nonfulfilment cannot be seen as violation, because violation, as conceived by Grice, is inherently covert. In opposition to this, Attardo (1990: 357) does state that the reader of a joke “notices the violation of Grice’s maxims”, which causes him/her to switch to the nonbona-fide mode. He refutes the Gricean claim about the covertness of violation (­technically, referring to the Cooperative Principle, which cannot be violated), stating that awareness “of the speaker’s violations does not change the status of the violation, but merely makes them obvious” (Attardo 1993: 545). It is not

6 Humour, Grice’s framework and (un)truthfulness 

 85

entirely clear what this “obviousness” of an act of violation stands for. If it is the speaker who purposefully makes a nonfulfilment obvious, i.e. overt, which seems to concern the humour Attardo addresses, this nonfulfilment cannot be classified as violation. If, on the other hand, it is the hearer who discovers the presence of genuine (covert) violation, this violation is unsuccessful, which is the case of failed deception (and, in the case of humour that relies on it, also failed humour). Essentially, Attardo and Raskin’s label “violation”, which does not promote implicatures and is overt, should perhaps be technically seen as opting out, as depicted in the paragraphs above. However, it may be argued that some humour (both autotelic and speakermeaning telic) does recruit maxim violations, and hence covert untruthfulness. Some observations in this respect have already been made in the literature. For instance, Zajdman (1995: 331) claims that (some) humour “does not violate Grice’s maxim ‘quietly and unostentatiously’” since the speaker means the humorous act to “be uncovered” and does not have or use “knowledge that H does not possess”. This line of reasoning seems not to account for incremental text development and the disclosure of violation only in retrospect. Zajdman’s (1995) explanation thus necessitates an oxymoron, “ostentatious violation”. However, in Gricean terms, violation is necessarily unostentatious (as opposed to floutings). In turn, Goatly (2012: 235) regards humour as “a flout delayed by violation”, which should perhaps be understood as a violation that is duly revealed for the humour to work. The problem of this conceptualisation, of which Goatly (2012) seems to be aware, is that these alleged floutings do not invite implicatures. Moreover, the transformation from violation to flouting, thanks to the incoming information that sheds new light on the previous utterance, does not seem to be compelling. A simpler explanation is that some humour rests on maxim violation, which is duly disclosed so that the hearer should experience a humorous surprise but which does remain violation. Closest to this account is Yamaguchi’s (1988) approach to garden-path jokes (see Dynel 2009). Yamaguchi (1988) holds a view that maxims are violated for the sake of “making the joke potentially ambiguous” (Yamaguchi 1988: 327). This seems to be an apt account of a type of humour that rests on momentary deception of the joke hearer. In this vein, Mooney (2004: 916) states that if a violation is performed for the sake of humour, it is (ideally) initially undetected by the hearer but “error recovery” does take place “at second brush” thanks to some “indication that a violation has occurred”. Making this claim, Mooney (2004) distinguishes between “successful violations” (lies)38 and

38 A lie is speaker-intended to remain latent and if the hearer uncovers it, the liar does not seem to have succeeded.

86 

 Chapter 2: (Neo-)Gricean views of cooperation and (un)truthfulness

“unsuccessful violations”, which coincide with humour, as well as the partly overlapping category of irony39 and the subordinate category of a joke. Whilst the distinction may be useful, the terminology appears to be misleading, insofar as the humour-orientated violations are successful if the humorous effects do occur as planned (i.e. the hearer experiences amusement at recognising the act of deception). Moreover, Mooney (2004: 915–916) rightly observes that humour may arise through maxim violations “for the benefit of either the speaker’s own amusement or for the amusement of others in the talk (and ‘in the know’)”. In such cases, the deceived individual who cannot detect the violation is the “butt of the joke”. This form of humour is typical of multi-party interactions, where the violation is not revealed to the deceived individual but is made overt to the hearers intended to reap humorous rewards (see Chapter 5, Section 3.3.2). The deceived individual, who is usually not intended to be amused (unless an utterance shows another source of humour independent of the deception that is humorous to non-targeted hearers), is meant to take the covertly untruthful speaker meaning as truthful. Even in the case of maxim violation that is disclosed to the deceived individual, some speaker meaning may be communicated as well or, alternatively, autotelic humour may come into being, as is the case with some put-on humour (see Chapter 5, Section 3.2.2). Apart from violations, humour can involve maxim floutings, including the flouting of the first maxim of Quality (overt untruthfulness) and may even show in utterances that observe all maxims, and hence it may be seen as communicating truthful what is said, possibly together with implicatures (see Chapter 5, Section 1.3.2). All these cases where speaker meaning is communicated can be juxtaposed with humour based on overt autotelic untruthfulness. The different authors quoted in this section seem to focus on one type of nonfulfilment, most often making generalisations about humour taken as a whole and only rarely its chosen subtypes. In opposition to this, it is argued here that conversational humour, which is a diversified phenomenon, has a manifold relationship with (un)truthfulness (see Chapter 5). Working on a similar assumption, in his recent account of humour in comedy, which merges Grice’s framework with accounts and notions borrowed from other theoretical approaches, Nemesi (2015) proposes that humour in the media may fail to fulfil any of the maxims in the four ways offered by Grice, adding to the stock Thomas’s (1995) understanding

39 According to Gricean thought, irony involves the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, not unsuccessful violation. What Mooney seems to mean is that irony is made unavailable (­incomprehensible) to the hearer (see Chapter 4, Section 6.2).

6 Humour, Grice’s framework and (un)truthfulness 

 87

of “infringement” as unintentional nonfulfilment. Specifically, Nemesi (2015) claims that one type of nonfulfilment (e.g. violation), on the fictional characters’ level of communication (see also Yamaguchi 1988)40 corresponds to another form of nonfulfilment (e.g. flouting) on the level of communication shared by the production team and the viewers. Whether or not this line of argumentation can be defended (it may simply be said that humour receivers are privy to maxim violations on the characters’ level of communication), it applies only to humour based on fictional worlds of characters (e.g. canned jokes or comedy shows) and not to conversational humour in real interactions or fictional interactions, which are not addressed in the context of the reception of media discourse. Nonetheless, different forms of nonfulfilment may indeed be associated with conversational humour production, involving lack or presence of speaker meaning, truthfulness and untruthfulness, either overt or covert. Therefore, it cannot be concluded that humour, in its entirety, is divorced from the informational model or considerations of truthfulness. Nor does it always display overt untruthfulness. Humour, regardless of its form, can serve as a vehicle for communicating truthful or covertly untruthful meanings through what is said and/or through implicatures. It will then be argued that truthfulness must not be contrasted with humour taken as a whole. Many forms of humour should be regarded as flouting the first Quality maxim, thereby involving overt untruthfulness conducive to implicatures. This concerns the use of Quality-based figures, which can overlap with categories of humour. For instance, absurd utterances may communicate the speaker’s genuine beliefs, the epitome of which is surrealistic irony (see Chapter 3, Section 6.4; and Chapter 5, Section 1.3.2).

40 Garden-path jokes are analysed at two levels, i.e. the in-joke level, at which maxims are violated, and the real-communication level, at which the violations are treated as conducive to the success of these ambiguity-based jokes.

Chapter 3 Overt untruthfulness: Irony [House is talking to Stacy and Mark, her husband.] Mark: Sorry for the mix-up, but I’m glad you two got a chance to catch up. Looks like you’re having fun. House: Oh, he’s good. If you can fake sincerity, you can fake pretty much anything. I can’t tell you how much I like your fella. Mark: Yeah, me too. You know, I thought you’d be all sarcastic, bitter, you know, because Stacy married me. Season 1, Episode 22 [Wilson has failed to convince a patient to sign a consent form.] House: Great job. Why don’t you just shoot him in the head? Wilson: Hold on, that gives me an idea. You know what could save this couple? Lots of misdirected sarcasm! Season 3, Episode 5 [House is talking to Arlene, Cuddy’s mother. She has developed strange neurological symptoms, which affect her communicative skills.] House: I was being sarcastic. Arlene: No, you weren’t. House: Right, because people who are talking can’t tell if they’re being sarcastic. Arlene: That doesn’t make any sense. Of course they can. But you weren’t. Season 7, Episode 11

The aim of this chapter is to demystify the concept of irony from a theoretical pragmatic/philosophical perspective against the backdrop of relevant linguistic, primarily pragmatic and cognitive, scholarship. Based on Grice’s remarks about irony, as well as his model of speaker meaning and communication taken as a whole, a neo-Gricean view of this heterogeneous figure is depicted. Irony is conceptualised as a figure displaying overt untruthfulness (consequent upon the flouting of the first maxim of Quality) and meaning opposition, which invites ­evaluative implicature concerning a referent, based on some form of meaning reversal. Irony, it is argued, necessarily implicates (and is motivated by) the speaker’s negative evaluation of an ironic referent. The theoretical stages of meaning derivation are dissected and five salient types of irony are distinguished through the lens of untruthfulness, based on the forms of meaning opposition and meaning reversal involved. Additionally, further manifestations of irony are discussed in the context of its co-occurrence with the other Quality-based figures (metaphor, meiosis and hyperbole). This complex pragmatic-philosophical account is enriched by a description of the (interactional) pragmatic workings of irony. A https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-003

1 Approaching the figure of irony 

 89

distinction is made between the target of and a listener to irony. Some explanation is also offered as to why criticism may be mitigated or exacerbated through the use of irony, thereby accounting for the contradictory findings reported by empirical/experimental research. Consequently, the perennial problem of distinguishing sarcasm from irony is addressed, and the notion of sarcastic irony (irony aimed at a disparaged target) is endorsed with regard to a combination of the two constructs.

1 Approaching the figure of irony “Irony” tends to be used as an umbrella term for a number of distinct phenomena: Socratic irony, dramatic irony, irony of fate, situational irony, and – last but not least – a trope, also referred to as a (rhetorical/stylistic) figure (see e.g. Fowler 1965; Beckson and Ganz 1989; Haverkate 1990; Kreuz and Roberts 1993; Simpson 2011; Dynel 2014, 2017c). Some attempts have been made to account for more than one species of irony simultaneously, given their similarities. The common denominators are, among other things: “breaking the pattern of expectation of the person faced with the ironic utterance or event” (Haverkate 1990: 79), some fundamental duality, such as incompatibility or opposition (Barbe 1995) or the bisociative mechanism of evaluation reversal (Partington 2006). However, each of the irony types is diversified (especially the rhetorical figure) and merits independent investigation. Here, the focus is on irony understood as a figure of speech (Grice 1989a [1975]), or figure also commonly referred to as a trope, that captures figurative language used for rhetorical or stylistic effects (see e.g. Hutcheon 1994; Colebrook 2004; Gibbs and Colston 2012; cf. Brdar-Szabó and Brdar 2010, who differentiate between “trope” and “figure”).1 This figure of speech is frequently labelled verbal irony (e.g. Holdcroft 1983; Haverkate 1990; Wilson and Sperber 1992; Kreuz and Roberts 1993; Lucariello 1994; Barbe 1995; Colston 2000; Wilson 2006, forth). This label may, however, be considered a bit misleading, as the types of irony other than the figure frequently involve verbalisations too. Unless otherwise stated, “irony” will pertain to the figure of speech only. For a few decades now, irony has preoccupied linguists representing the fields of pragmatics and cognitivism. Considerable ink has been spilt on the issue

1 In line with the majority of relevant contemporary research on irony, the terms “figure” (as well as “figure of speech” and “rhetorical figure”) and “trope” will be used interchangeably. The subtle terminological nuances of meanings of “trope” and “figure” or “figure of speech” and “figure of thought” pursued in rhetorical studies are not significant for the present purposes.

90 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

of which of the alternative approaches best captures irony: the Gricean view, the relevance-theoretic echo-mention view or the pretence view, among others. Advocating a neo-Gricean view, the present work does not aim to explicitly argue against the alternative approaches, thereby contributing to the never-ending discussions of the flaws and merits of the alternative proposals (see e.g. Sperber 1984; Roguska 2007; Garmendia 2013, 2015). However, pertinent postulates and examples from the competitive pragmatic and cognitive literature on irony will be critically revisited in the course of this chapter. The overarching aim here is to identify the essence of irony, the definitional components of irony that help distinguish it from other phenomena, as well as to examine its intricacies. This theoretical discussion of irony concerns the factors that allow utterances to qualify as ironic rather than listing ironic cues, also known as ironic markers (Muecke 1978). Ironic cues are verbal and non-verbal aspects of speech, as well as body language and facial expressions, which signal that irony is being used. Among such cues, there are: a marked tone of voice (Kreuz and Roberts 1995; Anolli et al. 2002; Bryant and Fox Tree 2005), heavy stress, slow speaking rate and nasalisation (Gibbs and O’Brien 1991), winks, head nods and eye rolling (Kreuz et al. 1999). Nonetheless, irony may be produced with no such cues. Moreover, no such cues are possible in written discourse, which may, however, involve verbal cues. A number of conventionalised linguistic cues can be distinguished: hyperbolic expressions or intensifiers (e.g. an adverb and an extremely positive adjective or a superlative form), rhetorical questions, repetitions, hyperformality, over-politeness and the like (see Cutler 1974; Haverkate 1990; Kreuz and Roberts 1995; Glucksberg 1995; Seto 1998; Utsumi 2000; Gibbs and Colston 2002). In a nutshell, ironic cues are the various optional verbal and non-verbal markers that may signal to the hearer the presence of irony but are neither peculiar to irony nor responsible for its emergence (see Chapter 1, Section 5.1). Consequently, the transcriptions of interactions from House do not include the vocalic features or facial expressions, presenting the bare form of the characters’ utterances. This aligns with Grice’s thought, for he expresses his doubt “whether the suggested [by a critic] vehicle of signification, the ironical tone, exists as a specific tone”, suggesting that irony may involve “a contemptuous or amused tone” (Grice 1989b [1978]: 54), which is not to be seen as a defining factor, for either kind of tone may communicate something different from irony. According to a well-entrenched standard definition, which has become popular folk wisdom, irony is a trope that communicates a meaning opposite/ contrary to the literal meaning of an utterance. The traditional understanding of irony is then premised on meaning inversion (Haiman 1998), insofar as one meaning is stated and a different, typically antithetical, meaning is implicitly

1 Approaching the figure of irony 

 91

communicated. A vast majority of authors (e.g. Clark and Gerrig 1984; Kotthoff 2003; Partington 2006, 2007) do take as their point of departure the duality between the words uttered (sometimes referred to as the dictum) from which the speaker dissociates himself/herself and what is meant (sometimes called the implicatum). On the whole, this duality can be regarded as being based on opposition, reversal, inversion, negation of meaning or contradiction between what is uttered and what is (antithetically) meant. These terms tend to be used almost interchangeably with reference to the general mechanism underlying irony (see e.g. Holdcroft 1983; Haverkate 1990; Partington 2006, 2007; Camp 2012; Kapogianni 2016a, 2016b), which will become evident in the course of this chapter as various quotations and terms are presented. The multiple labels seem to be brought together in the literature on irony, even though they stand for different notions in semantics (see Davies 2013 for an overview). It will be shown here that meaning opposition, in tandem with the operation of meaning reversal it entails, should be deemed central to all irony (see Kapogianni 2016a, for a different view see Kapogianni 2013, 2014), albeit having many manifestations depending on the type of utterance produced and the meaning affected. Interestingly, sometimes an ironic speaker does mean to communicate literally what he/she is uttering. As Bredin (1997: 2) reports, Quintilian (1920–1922) wrote about “contrariness” between the two meanings in irony but, elsewhere in his writings, he also referred merely to the “difference” between what is uttered and what is meant. From this perspective, irony displays a contrast or mismatch between the literal meaning of an utterance and its intended meaning (see Booth 1974; Myers Roy 1978; Holdcroft 1983; Haverkate 1990; Dews et al. 1995; Dews and Winner 1995; Giora 1995; Schwoebel et al. 2000; Attardo 2000; Garmendia 2014, 2015). Additionally, scholars are practically unanimous that the intended meaning is implicit or, in Gricean terms, implicated, being based on conversational implicature. The hallmark of all irony can be thought of as a mismatch between the basic (typically, but not always, literal) meaning of an utterance and the implicated intended meaning. However, this common denominator does not suffice as the primary definitional component of irony (Bredin 1997; but see Garmendia 2014) for it fails to distinguish irony from other means of communicating implicated meanings. This is why the notion of meaning opposition is endorsed here. What follows naturally from the above description is that irony must be intentionally produced, which most academics take for granted. However, Gibbs et al. (1995) introduce the concept of “unintentional irony” (see also Muecke 1973; Gibbs and O’Brien 1991), which arises when the speaker does not mean his/her utterance to be ironic but it is perceived as being such by the hearer. Similarly, arguing that irony may not be intentional, Gibbs (2012) discusses cases which can actually be grouped into three categories: situational irony and dramatic irony

92 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

(neither of which is a stylistic figure and thus neither is relevant here), as well as cases where the hearer reads irony into an utterance which was not meant as ironic.2 Such a situation seems to be more of a misunderstanding, a mirror reflection of which is the hearer’s failure to perceive the ironic nature of an intentionally ironic utterance. On the other hand, the case of “I would never be involved in any cheating” said by someone who has unknowingly been involved in cheating (Gibbs 2012: 107) constitutes an example not of “unintentional irony” but of situational irony of whose presence the speaker is oblivious. This is compatible with Muecke’s (1973: 35) distinction between “the intentionally ironical” and “the unintentionally ironic”, the latter of which concerns the situation or event and the victim’s unawareness of it. Kapogianni (2016b) also rightly sees Gibbs’s (2012) instance as “dramatic irony”, which involves a character whose beliefs are in striking contrast with reality. Overall, Gibbs’s (2012) observations offer little challenge to the assumption that irony must be speaker-intended and duly (in prototypical cases) recognised by the hearer. Needless to say, in practice, interlocutors (rational language users) need not be consciously aware of irony’s presence, intuitively producing and comprehending ironic utterances. Irony is then an intentionally produced figure that capitalises on meaning opposition. This, however, does not seem to suffice as a definition of irony. Rather than proposing single-bullet definitions of irony conceptually independent of the alternative/competitive approaches (e.g. pretence or echo-mention), a few authors have recently put forward definitions based on combinations of necessary conditions previously recognised in the literature. For instance, Burgers et al. (2011, 2012a) list five “irony factors”,3 i.e. conditions for irony, stating that irony “should (a) be evaluative, (b) be based on incongruence of the ironic utterance with the co- or context, (c) be based on a reversal of valence between the literal and intended meaning, (d) be aimed at some target, and (e) be relevant to the communicative situation in some way” (Burgers et al. 2012a: 292). Whilst it is true that

2 In reference to an example of an anti-tobacco advertisement (which starts, “We the Tobacco Industry, would like to take this opportunity to thank you, the young people of America, who continue to smoke our cigarettes despite Surgeon General warnings that smoking causes lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. Your ignorance is astounding, and should be applauded.”), Gibbs (2012: 109) claims that the communicators may not have nurtured conscious intentions to produce an ironic advertisement. The statement that the authors must not have been aware that their advertisement was ironic by design is not really supported by any evidence and Gibbs’s discussion is only speculative in this respect. Also, some may question the ironic nature of the advertisement, which might as well be only a clever parody of a tobacco advertisement. 3 This echoes Attardo’s (2000) distinction between “irony factors” and “irony markers” (i.e. ironic cues).

1 Approaching the figure of irony 

 93

all irony communicates evaluation (see Section 2.2), the other conditions listed by Burgers et al. (2012a) may invite misgivings. The last factor does not seem to be typical only of irony, and the other three do not always need to be satisfied in irony, which will be shown in the course of the discussion: the contextual irrelevance is not always manifest (see below), there may be no (human) target/victim of irony (even though irony does need to have a referent subject to evaluation), and the literal meaning may not show any “valence” (i.e. evaluation). Kapogianni (2013: 19–23, 2016a: 17) proposes a set of three “necessary and jointly sufficient conditions” for irony: “background contrast” (a clash between ideas, beliefs or expectations; speaker vs hearer; ideal conditions vs reality, etc.); “incongruity between what is said and some element of the context at hand” (in lieu of “counterfactuality”), as well as the “speaker’s evaluative attitude”. Although the third condition is unquestionable, the first two are less appealing. The background contrast condition is very broad and can mean many different things, as Kapogianni (2013, 2016a) herself suggests. It is then a rather elusive condition. Many authors have claimed that irony is based on a contrast between the speaker’s previous expectations and reality (Colston and Keller 1998; Gerrig and Goldvarg 2000; Katz and Pexman 1997; Pexman et al. 2000; Utsumi 2000). This is related to the speaker’s defeated expectations (involving general norms, standards or isolated events or utterances), whether implicitly or explicitly referred to (e.g. Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Martin 1992; Glucksberg 1995; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Katz and Pexman 1997; Colston and Keller 1998; Gerrig and Goldvarg 2000; Colston 2000; Pexman et al. 2000; Utsumi 2000; Kapogianni 2013). However, such a contrast, which can be deemed potential motivation for the use of irony, cannot be taken as its crucial definitional component. The same can be said about the other forms of contrast that Kapogianni (2013, 2016a) mentions. The utterance vs context mismatch is a condition listed by both Burgers et al. (2011, 2012a) and Kapogianni (2013, 2016a). As a matter of fact, many authors present the contrast between the semantic meaning of an utterance and the actual, verifiable context to which this utterance refers as a hallmark of irony (Colston 1997, 2002; Colston and Keller 1998; Colston and O’Brien 2000; Burgers et al. 2011, 2012a; Kapogianni 2011). This kind of contrast, albeit not peculiar to irony, may indeed characterise part of irony and even serve as a cue for its presence (notably, verisimilar irony, see Section 6.5), but it cannot be considered a criterion verifying the presence of all irony. This happens for instance when irony is heavily dependent on the speaker’s emotional states, which are not objectively verifiable and not always detectable in the light of the context or co-text at hand (see Section 2.1). An alternative definition of irony comprised of two necessary and sufficient conditions is presented here within a neo-Gricean framework (see also Dynel 2013b).

94 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

This definition, it is believed, encompasses all irony (and nothing else) and, at the same time, it allows for its heterogeneous subtypes.

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony As reported in Chapter 2, Section 5.2, Grice’s (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]) remarks on irony do not constitute a full-fledged model that adequately represents the diverse characteristics of irony. Nonetheless, Grice’s few but apt observations may be regarded as a point of departure for an approach which helps define and recognise irony in its various forms and guises. It is argued that the application of the Gricean notions helps describe irony adequately in theoretical terms. The neo-Gricean conceptualisation of irony offered here explains the workings of irony in theoretical terms and positions it in a general framework of communication, not necessitating the introduction of novel (possibly, elusive) concepts that do not really work as infallible tests for all irony and nothing but irony.4 In a nutshell, regardless of their specific manifestations, all ironic utterances appear to be characterised by two intrinsic features: firstly, they display overt untruthfulness, whereby speakers purport to communicate what they believe to be false; and secondly, by doing this, they genuinely convey evaluative implicatures. These seem to be the two interdependent conditions testifying to the presence of irony. Taken together, they can serve as a litmus test for its presence. Each of the conditions is complex and needs to be carefully explained.

2.1 Flouting the first maxim of Quality and overt untruthfulness Irony displays overt untruthfulness, which is consequent upon the flouting/overt violation of the first maxim of Quality. Although this nonfulfilment and resulting untruthfulness must be transparent to the hearer if he/she is supposed to appreciate irony, Grice (1989b [1978]) rightly contends that an ironic utterance cannot be preceded by an explicit indication of its presence, suggesting that it involves pretence, which is in accordance with the etymology of the word “irony”

4 Interestingly, Sperber and Wilson (1998: 287) suggest that irony is a matter of degrees given the type of attitude expressed to the “echoed content” and the intended meaning “seems to be somewhere up in the air, fluttering halfway between the literal and the standardly ironical”. However, irony is a rhetorical figure and it should be unequivocally decipherable rather than being a gradable notion.

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 95

(see Grice 1989b [1978]: 54). Interestingly, “pretence” is a broad notion that can be understood as a phenomenon covert or overt from the hearer’s perspective (see Dynel 2018). What Grice must mean is that the pretence is overt, and thus that the hearer is meant to recognise its presence, which corresponds to the notion of maxim flouting. Overt but unannounced, this pretence is to be recognised by the hearer. Otherwise, irony would fall flat. The polysemous notion of (overt) pretence is frequently employed in order to explain the mechanics of irony (e.g. Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Recanati 2004, 2007; Walton 1990; Currie 2006, 2010). Overall, Camp (2012: 588) rightly observes that being ironic (in her terms, “sarcastic”), the speaker “pretends to mean”. Such overt pretending to mean can be seen as overt untruthfulness manifest in the Gricean notion of making as if to say, as well as making as if to implicate, which is proposed here. Being ironically untruthful, the speaker makes as if to say “something he does not believe” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 34), and the hearer supposes the speaker “to mean the negation of what he has made as if to say” (1989b [1978]: 53). The notion of making as if to say (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30, 31, 34, 1989b [1978]: 40, 53), together with “purport[ing] to be putting forward” a proposition (Grice 1989a [1975]: 34), invites conversational implicature, with nothing being said. “Making as if to say” indicates that there is no speaker meaning coinciding with what is said. This description is in need of extension. It will be shown in the course of the discussion that irony is not restricted to propositions, may involve what is said, and may depend on making as if to implicate, not making as if to say. It is put forward here that overt untruthfulness bifurcates into two main subtypes, depending on the level of meaning where it manifests itself. Overt explicit untruthfulness encompasses the standard cases of the speaker making as if to say by flouting the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said (and hence saying nothing per se), which invites the pertinent substitutional implicature(s) (see Chapter 2, Section 5.3) motivated directly by ironic language use. On the other hand, overt implicit untruthfulness comes into being when irony coincides with another Quality-based figure, notably metaphor (Dynel 2016d, see Section 7.2), or in the case of verisimilar irony (Dynel 2017b, Section 6.5). This salient type of irony is based on utterances that communicate truthful what is said or truthful ­implicature (if another Quality-based figure is involved), which does not exhaust the meaning the speaker wishes to convey, though. In such cases, overt untruthfulness central to irony manifests itself at the level of as if implicature and involves making as if to implicate. Interestingly, even Grice (1989b [1978]: 43) does not explicitly reject a view that irony may be associated with remarks that are “seemingly false (even obviously false)”, which suggests that the figure can involve obvious (objective) falsehood rather than overt untruthfulness. Indeed, some irony, such as surrealistic irony

96 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

(see Section 6.4), may exhibit blatant falsehood or even absurdity, which can be recognised even without any inside knowledge about the interaction and interlocutors, as Example 1 illustrates.5 (1) [House enters Cuddy’s office to chastise him for having made a decision on a risky diagnostic test.] 1. Cuddy: You’re not doing a brain biopsy on a spot on an MRI. 2. House: Where’d you get that? 3. Cuddy: Not on a United States Senator. 4. House: Oh, just so I’m clear, if he was a janitor, that would be okay. Do you have a list? 5. Cuddy: A brain biopsy can cause permanent neurological damage. 6. House: Uh huh, whereas tumors are really good for brains, make them grow big and strong. It’s my call. 7. Cuddy: No, it’s not. Season 1, Episode 17 House’s ironic statement (6) that “tumours are really good for brains” because they “make brains grow big and strong” defies common sense even from a perspective of a person with rudimentary knowledge about what a brain tumour is. Thus, everybody must be able to infer that the doctor’s utterance is blatantly false, and hence also believed-false when the vantage point of the speaker is assumed. This realisation triggers a further inferential process for the hearer to arrive at what the speaker may have meant (i.e. “A brain biopsy is not as dangerous as a brain tumour” and “Your doubts are unfounded and your opinion is irrelevant”). The condition of overt untruthfulness, inextricably connected with the speaker’s beliefs (see also Kreuz and Roberts 1993: 99; Haverkate 1990), is a safer and more widely applicable condition. This condition seems to have an advantage over notions such as “lack of truth”, “falsehood” or “counterfactuality” proposed with regard to irony by other authors (see Chapter 1, Section 4 for references). Essentially, irony revolves around the speaker’s beliefs about what is true: both perceptible facts and inner states, which is compatible with the premise of the first maxim of Quality. It is the speaker’s beliefs, and not (always) objectively verifiable facts, that matter for irony, as the following two examples demonstrate.

5 As stated in the Preface, most of the verbalisations of implicatures proposed for the examples here are just tentative possible understandings. While the canonical examples of irony quoted in the literature may manifest simple, unequivocal interpretations, the more complicated examples found both in the relevant scholarly literature and in natural language data culled from House frequently escape clear-cut paraphrases.

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 97

(2) [Cameron reports to House and the other team members that when she presented the diagnosis of a very serious, likely terminal, illness, to the patient, the latter was completely unaffected.] 1. Cameron: She didn’t even read the consent form for the pancreatic biopsy. 2. Chase: Who reads those things? 3. Cameron: Maybe she didn’t read it because she knew there was nothing wrong with her. There is another explanation for the Cushing’s, maybe she injected herself with the ACTH.  Her behavior suggests Munchhausen’s. She’s had four hospitalizations in the last four months. 4. House: Well, being hospitalized a lot certainly points to nothing being wrong with you. Season 2, Episode 9 House reacts to Cameron’s suspicions (3) with an ironic statement (4). Its overt untruthfulness is based on the internal contradiction and a commonsensical assumption that frequent hospitalisation is indeed an indication of a serious illness, which, in his view, pertains to the patient. House thus criticises Cameron’s diagnosis that the patient has Munchhausen’s (a mental disease that causes her to fake illnesses) and rejects it as being unfounded. However, Cameron’s suspicion is correct (corresponds to the facts), as it later turns out. House’s beliefs, as expressed in his utterance, nonetheless, are later proved to have been wrong (i.e. objectively false), even though he does ultimately establish that the patient has been suffering not only from Munchhausen’s but also from an independent disease that she has not inflicted upon herself (i.e. the truth revealed post factum). Example 3 is even more nuanced than the previous one in terms of the ironic speaker’s reliance on his/her beliefs, as well as seeming lack of contrast between the literal reading of the speaker’s utterance and relevant perceptible facts (i.e. the truth). (3) [Christmas is coming. Wilson and House are having a conversation about House’s impoliteness.] 1. Wilson: It’s too bad you can’t just be nice to people. You could get a real present that way. 2. House: If I wanted gifts, I would just look deep into my patient’s eyes and act like you. “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re dying, Mrs. Moron. Of course I’ll sleep with you. What I lack in skill, I can make up for in…” 3. Wilson: You just wind up insulting her. Perhaps calling her “Mrs. Moron”... 4. House: Right, because I’m physically incapable of being polite. 5. Wilson: Being kind in a sustained, meaningful way? No. Season 5, Episode 11

98 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

House reacts to Wilson’s implicit accusation (3), with an ironic response, based on overtly pretended agreement and admission (4). House does believe himself to be capable of showing politeness, even though this does not correspond to his standard conduct. The ironic utterance (4) displays overt untruthfulness, for the speaker believes what he says to be false even though no relevant contextual mismatch can be observed from the hearer’s perspective (his incapability of being polite and his being impolite most of the time are compatible). The hearer needs to be able to reconstruct the speaker’s communicative intention despite lack of evident contextual mismatch. 2.1.1 Transparency of overt untruthfulness The communicative success of an ironic utterance relies on the transparency of its overt untruthfulness (explicit or implicit) to the hearer, which the speaker typically projects (unless his/her goal should be to purposefully cause misunderstanding and/or deceive the hearer, see Chapter 4, Section 3.2). As Kapogianni (2013, 2016b) argues, the presence of ironic intent may be subtly or overtly manifest to the hearer, depending on: the relationship between the utterance and the context (the degree of contextual support), the role of logical or commonsense assumptions, co-textual support, discourse framework, as well as prosodic and paralinguistic cues (Kapogianni 2013: 89–103, 161). Most importantly here, the ironic character of an utterance and the necessity for the hearer to arrive at an implicature manifest themselves in the light of any of the several sources of background knowledge (see Yus Ramos 2000: 353–357). The types of knowledge are reflected by the speaker’s and hearer’s belief systems. The ironic speaker should be able to picture the hearer’s beliefs in order to make his/her ironic utterance available to the hearer. If either through the speaker’s or the hearer’s fault, or through the fault of them both, the hearer fails to recognise and understand irony, miscommunication comes into being (see Dynel 2017e).6 Firstly, irony may be detectable against widely available encyclopaedic/ factual information, macrosocial norms, social standards or commonsense assumptions (Yus Ramos 2000). Secondly, the understanding of irony may be restricted to the hearers who share the requisite personal common ground (Clark and Carlson 1981; Clark and Marshall 1981; Clark and Gerrig 1984) with the speaker (Kreuz et al. 1999). Determined by interlocutors’ mutual knowledge, such irony

6 Interestingly, Gibbs and Izett (2005) make a metaphorical distinction between “wolves”, who recognise the presence of irony, and “sheep”, who are blind to irony and take an ironic utterance at face value.

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 99

will not be available to individuals who are oblivious to information central to it. For some irony to succeed, the speaker must have some beliefs about the hearer’s opinions, knowledge, tastes, interests and the like (Yus Ramos 2000). Thirdly, irony may also capitalise on micro-situational assumptions and expectations (Yus Ramos 2000), as well as what Clark and Marshall (1981) label physical copresence, all of which are peculiar to a given interaction and are consequent upon the preceding turns therein, available to anybody who participates in an interaction (even from a bystander’s position). Needless to say, the different sources of knowledge may jointly bear upon the comprehensibility of an ironic utterance, the transparency of the speaker’s overt untruthfulness, which is most typically explicit. In practice, the speaker needs to envisage what beliefs the hearer will have and what beliefs he/she can attribute to the speaker. As Haverkate (1990) claims, an ironic utterance may contain all information pointing to its ironic nature, as in “Your friend asked me to lend him the nice little sum of $100,000” (Muecke 1973: 36). In other situations, contextual information is crucial for the sake of understanding irony, as in the case of “Very well expressed” written by a teacher in the margin of a student’s essay. This statement may turn out to be ironic upon the perusal of the student’s essay (Haverkate 1990: 82). However, it could be argued that even the seemingly clear-cut case of the “nice little sum of money”, based on a prevalent commonsense assumption, could lose the ironic potential if placed in a specific conversational context, for instance when the interlocutors are two oil tycoons. Here is an interesting case from House. (4) [House, Foreman and Chase and Cuddy are talking in a very crowded hallway, as an epidemic has broken out. House claims he has found a patient to diagnose.] 1. Cuddy: You just don’t want to deal with the epidemic. 2. House: That’s right. I’m subjecting a twelve-year-old to a battery of dangerous and invasive tests to avoid being bored. 3. All: [stare at House, stunned] 4. House: Okay, maybe I would do that, but I’m not. If it turns out she does have meningitis, you’re right, you win, but if we go back downstairs and she dies… your face will be so red. Season 1, Episode 19 In his ironic response (2) to Cuddy’s accusation (1), House purports to agree with it (i.e. people are unlikely to concede so openly) and makes what, commonsensically, may be thought to be a transparently untruthful, absurd suggestion (i.e. no doctor risks a child’s life to avoid boredom). Even though House clearly means to be ironic (in order to successfully shun his clinic duty and convince Cuddy that

100 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

he does have a case worth his while), the interlocutors (3) seem to recognise the relevance of the literal interpretation of his utterance given his predilection for solving medical mysteries for his own intellectual pleasure. The hearers’ common ground with, and beliefs about, the speaker must prioritise the non-ironic interpretation of his turn, even if the hearers should recognise his ironic intent. Based on their reaction, even House accepts the plausibility of the literal reading, as indicated in his final comment (4). Some ironic verbalisations may present transparent overt untruthfulness thanks to the internal contradiction they display (see Haverkate 1990). (5) [In the diagnostic room, House and his team are discussing a case.] 1. Masters: We treat with chemotherapy or steroids. 2. House: We treat with chemotherapy. 3. Masters: I said chemo. 4. House: Then you said, “or”. 5. Chase: Once again, the bunny meets the blade. 6. House: The road to dead patients is paved with “or”s. Chemo is the more effective treatment, which means it’ll confirm our diagnosis more quickly. 7. Masters: I agree, but there is another option. 8. House: There are lots of other options. There’s bloodletting, crystals, prayer… 9. Masters: Another medically accepted option. 10. House: Which is both less effective and less scary. So the patient might just choose it. Unless, of course, we don’t mention it to him. Season 8, Episode 6 As Masters keeps insisting on an alternative method of treatment (1, 3 and 7), House produces a turn (8) whose ironic character may not be transparent from the outset, whether to the interlocutors or outside observers of the interaction. Since House is a brilliant doctor, his statement “There are lots of other options” may come across as being truthful. However, as the turn unfolds, House produces a list of suggestions that he cannot be genuinely making, rational as he is. In the light of how the turn finishes, its overt untruthfulness becomes transparent, so that House implicates “There are no other viable options”. House thus communicates his belief about, and a negative evaluation of, the alternative medical treatment, the one Masters will try to impose. In House’s opinion, chemotherapy is the only solution, insofar as the alternative is less effective and thus should be dismissed, which he later spells out (10). Since Masters’s opinion differs, she does recognise House’s belief and the irony underlying his turn but returns to her argument (9).

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 101

The untruthfulness condition proposed here bears some similarity to the competing echo-mention approach in the sense that the speaker dissociates himself/herself from the expressed thought (e.g. Wilson and Sperber 1992, 2012; Sperber and Wilson 1998; Wilson 2006). The idea of “dissociation” seems to implicate the speaker’s lack of true belief. Along similar lines, addressing “sarcasm”, which basically coincides with the figure of irony, Haiman (1990: 47) proposes that it involves “two kinds of quotation: contemptuous repetition of ‘fresh talk’ (wherein the speaker mocks another speaker) and contemptuous repetition of banalities (wherein the speaker mocks the accepted wisdom of a stale cliché)”. Although echoing and contemptuous quotation are not necessarily (easily) applicable to all instances of irony (notice the broad understanding of “echo” from the relevance-theoretic perspective), some examples are amenable to this kind of interpretation. (6) [The team has just reported to House that ants were found in the patient’s house.] 1. House: [...] Was the ant small and red or big and black? 2. Foreman: Big and brown. 3. House: Halle Berry brown or Beyonce brown? 4. Cameron: Is there a difference? 5. House: [to Foreman] Is there a difference! Army ants could devour, dissolve, eat a cow in a matter of hours. Australian bull ants, on the other hand, are nasty little bastards, but more of a nuisance than a threat. [Chase nods his agreement.] No surprise there. 6. Foreman: Beyonce. 7. House: Well then, that’s not it. How much clay did he eat at the resort? Season 2, Episode 15 Before House provides an answer to Cameron’s question (4), he welcomes it with irony (5). Specifically, House immediately echoes the question, albeit produced emphatically with a falling intonation. He is thus not truthfully asking or wondering whether there is any difference between the colours and the types of ants they represent. By repeating but not truthfully saying anything, House implicates that there is a striking difference between the two and that Cameron’s question was naïve. Overall, according to the overt untruthfulness condition, the speaker has no intention of causing the hearer to believe to be true what he/she seems to be communicating (prototypically, via making as if to say) or as what he/she believes to be true. Instead, the speaker intends the hearer to recognise the overt untruthfulness of the utterance and to infer the intended implicated meaning. This typically necessitates the operation of meaning reversal.

102 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

2.1.2 Overt untruthfulness, opposition and reversal According to Grice’s conceptualisation, which is consistent with the traditional view, irony involves the speaker’s communicating “the contradictory of the one he [the speaker] purports to be putting forward” (1989a [1975]: 35). From a different (but compatible) angle, irony involves the hearer’s assumption that the speaker intends to communicate the “negation” of what he/she has made as if to say (Grice 1989b [1978]: 53) and that the speaker’s “remark is to be taken in reverse” (Grice 1989b [1978]: 54). The concepts of “contradiction”, “negation”, “reversal” and several others found in the literature on irony can be captured under the umbrella term (meaning) opposition. The opposition central to irony must arise “through negation or through some opposing semantic relationship such as complementarity, antonymy, contradiction or converseness. If no such formally negative relationship seems to exist between P and P’, then there still must be a very discernible but perhaps non-polar difference” (Amante 1981: 82). Specifically, opposition can be performed by lexical means. In semantics, this opposition is frequently presented in the context of, or even equated with, antonymy or contrariety (see e.g. Lyons 1977; Jones 2002; see Davies 2013 for an overview of the different, frequently contradictory, uses of these and other labels). Bredin (1997) differentiates between two types of “negation” in “opposition irony”7 based on a dichotomy known in traditional logic: irony involving “contradiction” and irony involving “contrariety” between what he calls “surface” and “secondary” meanings. In the light of Bredin’s (1997: 9–10) examples, it can be inferred that contradiction necessitates grammatical negation or lexical opposition, specifically binary antonyms, whilst contrariety concerns utterances that revolve around local or relational antonyms. Along similar lines, Kapogianni (2013) talks about “reversal” (opposition) as being either of the “absolute” type (involving grammatical negation or antonymy) or of the “relative” type, where ad hoc scales are constructed. As the various examples in this chapter indicate, antonyms are frequently chosen locally and are context-dependent. This corresponds to the distinction in semantics between systemic and non-systemic opposition (Mettinger 1994), also referred to as canonical and non-canonical opposition (Murphy 2003; Davies 2013). In addition, opposition may be a binary category but it may also refer to larger sets that juxtapose more than two entities (Lyons 1977; Murphy 2003). In irony, even in the latter case, only two entities of the set are

7 Next to it, Bredin (1997) places “irony of scale”, which does involve overt untruthfulness and meaning opposition as well (see Section 7.1).

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 103

invoked: the truthful one is juxtaposed with the (select) overtly untruthful one.8 Here is an interaction that contains several instances of irony exhibiting various forms of opposition. (7) [House is pestering the pharmacist, trying to get Vicodin, which hasn’t arrived yet. Cameron walks up.] 1. Pharmacist: [on the phone] All right, thank you. [hangs up] Okay, pharmaceuticals were delivered this morning, but shipping accidentally sent the box with Vicodin to research. 2. House: Hmmm. That’s a tough one. If only we had some way to communicate with another part of the building. [picks up the phone for the pharmacist; Cameron walks up.] 3. Cameron: 16-year-old MVA victim. He’s been in and out of the hospital for three weeks with internal bleeding, no one can find the cause. 4. House: Internal bleeding after a car accident, wow, that’s shocking! [to the pharmacist, who is holding a phone against his ear] Let me talk to shipping, I speak their language. 5. Cameron: It’s been three weeks... 6. House: [to Cuddy, who turns out to have been behind his back at the clinic desk] Your hospital doesn’t have my pain medication. 7. Pharmacist: Shipping says it’s going to be an hour. [Cuddy comes to the phone.] 8. Cuddy: This is Dr. Cuddy, what’s going on? 9. Cameron: The crash didn’t cause the bleed. 10. House: Right, the bleed caused the crash. Blood got on the road. It got all slippery. [to the room] Anyone here got drugs? [Everyone looks at him; one clinic patient raises his hand.] 11. Cameron: She saw his blood, she got distracted, and she crashed his dad’s Porsche. 12. House: Dad loved that. Season 1, Episode 11 House’s ironic statement (2) performed in a hypothetical mood, “If only we had some way to communicate with another part of the building”, is anchored in a binary local (non-systemic/non-canonical) opposition between the actual and hypothetical circumstances: we don’t have this way (literal meaning, overt

8 The multiplicity of manifestations of untruthfulness corresponds to the view endorsed in the literature on deception that while there is one truth, falsehood can take very many forms.

104 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

untruthfulness) vs we have a simple way of communicating with another part of the building (implicated meaning, truthfulness). On the other hand, House’s ironic response (4) to Cameron’s report (3), “Internal bleeding after a car accident, wow, that’s shocking” is centred on a canonical case of antonymy (“shocking” vs “not shocking/unsuprising”, etc.), which yields two propositions: “Internal bleeding after a car accident is shocking” (literal meaning, overt untruthfulness) vs “Internal bleeding after a car accident is not shocking/unsurprising” (implicated meaning, truthfulness). Thirdly, House’s turn (10) which presents an overtly untruthful literal meaning “The bleed caused the crash. Blood got on the road, it got all slippery” involves binary opposition via grammatical negation which yields a truthful implicated meaning “The bleed did not cause the crash. Blood did not get on the road. It didn’t get all slippery”. Also, this turn rests on a binary opposition between the overtly untruthful agreement “right” and the truthful implicated disagreement with the interlocutor, Cameron. In (12) simple binary opposition via antonymy comes into play: the overtly untruthful “Dad loved that” vs the truthful implicature “Dad hated that”. As this analysis shows, regardless of its semantic properties, the opposition that is characteristic of irony is invoked by the presence of overt untruthfulness dependent on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality and may be thought of as a property of making as if to say (or implicate) vs what the speaker believes to be true and implicates, as well as the operation that the hearer (theoretically speaking) performs. Thus, in order to reach the truthful implicated meaning, the hearer needs to perform the procedure of meaning reversal (see also Kapogianni 2013) to arrive at the speaker’s true belief, which does not always lead immediately to the central implicated meaning, though, being a stepping stone in the inferential process (see Section 2.4). It is sometimes claimed that when being ironic, speakers “make statements opposite to their beliefs” (Kreuz and Roberts 1993: 99; see also Haverkate 1990; Martin 1992 on the beliefs and counterfactual worlds). The aspect of the belief system is indeed crucial, but it will be shown here that ironic utterances need not involve statements or opposition at the basic utterance level. This is because in what is called here verisimilar irony, the speaker may actually make a truthful statement that invites an inherently overtly untruthful as if implicature. In addition, irony may centre on utterance types other than statements (questions or imperatives) or may reside only in isolated lexical items rather than affecting full propositions. On the whole, apart from antonymy, opposition may also involve grammatical negation (see Giora 1995) or pragmatic (illocutionary force) reversal (see Sections 6.1–6.3). Not only can meaning opposition take many forms but also it is not always clear what the (truthful) opposite is (Brown 1980; Holdcroft 1983; Gibbs 1986b; Gibbs and O’Brien 1991; Colston and Gibbs 2007; Utsumi 2000). Grammatical negation and antonymy are not always unproblematic (it may be difficult to

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 105

establish with full certainty what the precise opposite is, or even which textual chunk is subject to meaning reversal, see Section 6.1). Also, pragmatic meaning reversal (see Section 6.2) is particularly vexing. Referring to the example that Gibbs (1986b: 43) provides, when someone says “Thanks” to another person who has stepped on his/her foot, “No thanks” is definitely not what the speaker is communicating. However, contrary to what Gibbs (1986b: 43) suggests, the premise “It is not the case that I’m thanking you” may be part of the intended meaning, an inferential step, in a context when the hearer has earned the speaker’s ingratitude (see Kaufer 1981: 498; Gibbs and O’Brien 1991: 525). Overall, as Wilson rightly observes, “the definition of irony as the trope in which the speaker communicates the opposite of the literal meaning does not do justice to the very rich and varied effects of irony” (2006: 1726). Indeed, many ironic utterances cannot be immediately analysed as implicating precisely the opposite/ reverse of what they mean literally. It appears that the procedure of meaning reversal (which language users seem to perform intuitively without having to consider consciously the product of meaning reversal) has to be determined for each instance individually. Here is a complex example that illustrates some of these problems: (8) [House and his team, as well as Foreman, now Dean of Medicine, are discussing a case.] 1. House: Toxins. This guy went on walkabout. Chances are he’s done it before. 2. Foreman: Wife keeps the doors on the house locked. 3. House: Plenty of nasty stuff to get into during the middle of the night. 4. Foreman: We asked about toxins on the history. The wife said she was sure to clear the house for her husband’s safety. 5. House: I’m sure she succeeded. She’s a PhD in toxicology. Right? She’s an ex-florist. Search the home for toxic plants, methyl bromide, any medications. Season 8, Episode 9 In his reply to Foreman’s assertion (4), House produces a turn (5) that contains three overtly untruthful chunks: House doubts whether the patient’s wife succeeded in clearing the house or (perhaps more likely) may even be sure to the contrary (“I’m not sure she succeeded” or “I’m sure she didn’t succeed”); House cannot possibly be suggesting that she has a PhD in toxicology (“She doesn’t have a PhD in toxicology”); and he is not really seeking any confirmation from his interlocutors whether or not the previous assumption is true (“I am not asking for your confirmation”). Taken together, these three components function as a point of departure for the implicated negative evaluation of Foreman’s preceding turn and his blind trust that the patient’s house is clear of toxins.

106 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

These observations about the status of meaning opposition and the different processes of meaning reversal necessitate differentiating between a few salient categories of irony (see Section 6). Despite this diversity of opposition and reversal mechanisms, it may be concluded that due to overt untruthfulness, at one of the interpretative stages, all irony, whatever its form and type may be, involves some kind of meaning reversal that is a direct or intermediate step leading to the speaker’s central implicated intended evaluative meaning.

2.2 Negatively evaluative implicature According to Gricean thought, evaluation is the second definitional component of irony, next to flouting the first maxim of Quality conducive to conversational implicature. As Grice’s (1989b [1978]: 53) example – “Look, the car has all its windows intact” said in reference to a car with a shattered window – indicates, the sole presence of meaning opposition/overt untruthfulness is insufficient as the sine qua non for irony, and a judgement/evaluation is fundamental. Performing evaluation is the basic motivation for the use of irony; and the communicated evaluation is necessarily negative, as will be argued in Section 2.3. In Gricean terms, this shows in an evaluative implicature that arises in the form of, or as a result of, a reversal-based implicature. Sometimes, the latter type of implicature may be more important from a language user’s perspective. In any case, the central evaluative implicature can always be extracted and elucidated for theoretical purposes, as is done in the course of this chapter. It must be highlighted, however, that most frequently each such evaluative implicature can be verbalised in many ways, as the examples presented over the course of this section will show. Here is one of these ways. (9) [House has administered pralidoxime, which doesn’t seem to be working. The team is brainstorming.] 1. Chase:  Pralidoxime isn’t doing him any good, we’re going to have to wire his heart. 2. Cameron: Maybe we’re wrong about the pesticides. 3. Foreman: I ran his plasma twice. 4. Cameron: Are there any stronger treatments for the organophosphates? 5. House: Oh, dammit you caught me. Went with the weak stuff, just trying to save a little money. 6. Foreman: Actually, one of my professors at Columbia developed an experimental treatment for the army. Season 1, Episode 8

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 107

House’s ironic reaction (5) seems to be intended as implicated criticism of ­Cameron’s query (4). Such a negatively orientated implicature can be verbalised as: “Your question is stupid/unfounded, etc.”, “I find your question irrelevant/idiotic, etc.” or even “Your questioning my expertise is stupid”. Apart from this evaluative implicature, House truthfully implicates “I certainly didn’t go with the weak stuff, I wasn’t trying to save any money”, and hence “Of course, there is no stronger treatment”, which need not correspond with the objective truth (6). Evaluation as a definitional component of irony is not only Grice’s (1989b [1978]) idea. It is widely accepted that irony inherently expresses the speaker’s attitude, and thus that it carries an evaluative judgement/evaluation of what is called the referent: an utterance, action, artefact, event, situation, etc. (see e.g. Myers Roy 1978; Kaufer 1981; Holdcroft 1983; Haverkate 1990; Dews and Winner 1995; Glucksberg 1995; Hartung 1998; Creusere 1999; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Hamamoto 1998; Attardo 2000; Utsumi 2000; Kotthoff 2003; Partington 2006, 2007; Garmendia 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015; Kapogianni 2011, 2014, 2016a, 2016b; Gibbs 2012; Wilson and Sperber 2012). The referent of irony must not be equated with the target of irony (e.g. Holdcroft 1983; Kreuz et al. 1991; Burgers et al. 2011, 2012a), i.e. the individual, typically a hearer (rather than a non-participant), responsible for the evaluated referent. The target is thus a person (or a group of people) who is to blame and who, frequently, receives the negative evaluation. However, a distinction must be made between the target of irony and the hearer, which is salient in the case of multiparty interactions (see Section 5). Additionally, in some cases, the (human) target of irony may be absent, for instance when the criticism concerns phenomena independent of any human impact, such as the weather. The example below highlights the difference between the target of and a hearer of irony. It also anticipates the difference between explicit evaluation (based on evaluative expressions) and implicit evaluation, which will be discussed in the course of this section. (10) [Chase has been trying to persuade a Jewish patient to undergo treatment, to no avail, as the patient chooses to die instead. Chase explains the situation to House and the rest of the team (Foreman, Taub, Kutner and Thirteen).] 1. Chase:  I had a Rabbi call. She’s adamant. 2. House: She’s not a masochist, she’s suicidal. Nice work, Chase. 3. Chase: Yeah... I should have had twin Rabbis call. Can I go? 4. House: We need you. 5. Chase: [seems to be surprised by House’s words] 6. House: So, instead of a few days, we now have a few hours to figure this out. Nice work, Chase. 7. Chase: Why do you need me?

108 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

8. House: Saying, “nice work, Chase” when you’re not here is pointless. 9. Chase: [smiles wryly and starts to walk out] Season 4, Episode 12 In his repeated ironic utterance “Nice work, Chase” (2 and 6), House means to communicate that Chase has done anything but “nice” work, thereby criticising him for not having had the patient change her resolution. The referent of the irony is then Chase’s failure to complete the task assigned to him, his failure to cajole the patient into undergoing treatment, and Chase is the irony’s target. As House’s metapragmatic comment indicates (8), he wants Chase to be a hearer of the ironic utterance that he purposefully repeats, and possibly to feel humiliated in front of the other four team members. However, Chase’s reaction to House’s first use of irony also involves irony and communicates implicit evaluation, but it is devoid of an evaluative expression (3). Chase cannot possibly believe that having twin Rabbis would have been feasible and that the patient would have let herself be swayed. He produces an overtly untruthful utterance in order to deflect House’s criticism and point to the futility of the task. House is then the target of Chase’s ironic utterance, and House’s previous critical comment is its referent. Hartung (1998) defines evaluation as a mental activity in which a person assigns an object, person, action, utterance, etc. a value on a scale with two opposite poles: positive and negative, based on chosen attributes, which are assigned normative values. On the other hand, Hunston (2004: 157) conceptualises evaluation as an “indication that something is good or bad”, with the two being interpreted in the context of different dimensions (morality, sensibility, favourability, etc.). The various dimensions boil down to the good-bad (positive-negative) parameter (Thompson and Hunston 2000). Irrespective of the attribute/dimension, evaluation may be either positive or negative, the latter of which concerns also the evaluation conveyed via irony, as will be argued here. Also, the evaluation carried by irony can pertain to the Attitude System (vs Engagement and Graduation) as proposed by Martin and White (2005) in their Appraisal model (see Alba-Juez and Attardo 2014). This tripartite model involves: Affect (the characterisation of phenomena with reference to emotion), Judgment (the moral evaluation of human behaviour with respect to norms) and Appreciation (the evaluation of objects, processes and products, based on social value systems). As anticipated by Examples 9 (turn 5) and 10 (turn 3), evaluation need not originate in evaluative expressions. Evaluation can be expressed “overtly” or “­covertly”; in other words being “inscribed”, or explicit, as opposed to being “invoked” or implicit (Martin and White 2005: 61; Bednarek 2010). Here, in reference to evaluation, the labels “explicit/implicit” are given preference over “overt/covert”, since the latter are used regarding the distinction between meanings that are made available or unavailable to the hearers. Implicit evaluation does not capitalise on any specific linguistic

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 109

markers, relying more on the hearer’s inferences concerning the speaker’s intended meanings. By contrast, explicit evaluation encompasses: lexical means (nouns, adjectives and adverbs) and grammatical means, such as comparatives, the use of past tense (indicating remoteness), hedges or modal verbs (Morley 2004). The various linguistic markers of evaluation show further degrees of implicitness/explicitness. It is perhaps because evaluation inheres in irony that Partington (2006, 2007) defines irony in this regard.9 Partington (2006, 2007) presents the mechanism underpinning irony as the implied reversal of evaluative meaning or reversal of evaluation, which encompasses, in his view, “propositional reversal irony”, “litotic irony” and “verisimilar irony”. The underlying premise of this account is that the hearer needs to reverse the apparent, literal evaluation, and the evaluation emerging as a result is the central implicature. Also, “the strength of the evaluation in the dictum is reflected by the strength of opposite polarity in the implicatum” (Partington 2006: 219). Indeed, this seems to be the prototypical form of irony corresponding to Grice’s (1998 [1975]) canonical “fine friend” example. The workings of this prototypical irony can be summarised as follows: the evaluative expression, on its literal reading, is responsible for the overt untruthfulness, and the lexical reversal of this meaning yields the central implicature carrying the intended truthful evaluation (see “Nice work” in Example 10). Here is another example. (11) [House is in his new office. Sawing sounds can be heard from the Orthopaedics room, the room that used to be House’s diagnostic office, which he wants back. House is blasting a mini-strobe light at the orthopaedic doctor sitting behind a glass wall. The latter stops what he is doing and enters House’s office.] 1. Ortho doc: That’s real mature, House. 2. House: [still pointing the light at him] What do you mean? This is outlandishly childish. I custom-built this puppy. It’s got 106 LEDs, each one sending light to your eyes, slightly different wavelength. 3. Ortho doc: Turn that off. 4. House: Different wavelengths are stimulating your autonomic nervous system. That’s what’s making you feel like you’re on a boat in choppy waters. [The Ortho doctor becomes nauseated, runs back into the Orthopaedics room, grabs the garbage can and throws up.] 5. House: Oh ho ho! Cool. Season 8, Episode 4

9 Partington (2006, 2007) argues that his definition is germane not only to the trope but also to situational irony, as well as speakers’ metalinguistic use of words “irony” and “ironic” in reference to coincidental events.

110 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

The orthopaedic doctor’s utterance (1) is based on a simple meaning-reversal irony pivoting on the adjective “mature”. This is where the speaker’s overt untruthfulness is located, which House overtly pretends to be blind to (2) in order to irritate him further not only with the visual stimulus but also with his verbalisation. The orthopaedic doctor actually evaluates House’s activity as being the opposite of “real mature”, namely as being “outlandishly childish”. The implicature thus reads “That’s outlandishly childish, House”. Although some examples of irony, such as the one above, are neatly explained in the light of Partington’s (2006, 2007) proposal, a major challenge to his approach is that not all irony involves evaluative expressions on the utterance level. Partington, however, insists that the evaluation to be reversed is always present. It seems that even the very broad understanding of evaluation as “overt” or “covert” (here, explicit or implicit respectively) that Partington (2007) champions does not appear to salvage his definition. He does not explain whose (the speaker’s or hearer’s) evaluation is taken into account or how it should be determined. Thus, as his examples “Do you have to make that noise while you are eating?” or “If you were Osama bin Laden would you give a live interview right now on satellite feed?” (Partington 2007: 1564) indicate, evaluation that is neither explicitly stated nor unequivocally implicated may concern the criticised hearer’s alleged evaluation, not the ironic speaker’s, along the lines of “(I ask you whether) you evaluate making so much noise as necessary”, or “(I ask you whether) you evaluate [this stupid behaviour] as good” respectively). Consequently, the evaluations present in the “dictum” and “implicatum” (the terms Partington favours) represent two distinct perspectives held by different participants. This line of reasoning seems not to be well-founded or convincing. It is the ironic speaker’s evaluation that (normally) matters in irony production, not the juxtaposition between the speaker’s evaluation and the (alleged) hearer’s evaluation. Following Partington’s line of thought, Burgers et al. (2011) advocate the notion of “reversal of evaluation” as the key definitional component of irony. However, they do acknowledge the fact that evaluation is not always present in the literal form of expression, introducing the notion of evaluative connotation, which seems to stand for implicit evaluation. Unfortunately, they provide little explanation for how this connotation is to be sought.10 Rightly, Burgers et  al. (2012b) differentiate between implicitly evaluative and explicitly evaluative (on implicit and explicit evaluation, see Martin and White 2005: 61; Bednarek 2010)

10 On the whole, while Burgers et al.’s (2011) proposal is less rigid and their examples are appealing, their definition does prioritise evaluative utterances.

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 111

ironic utterances. The latter contain evaluative words. They illustrate the former with Wilson and Sperber’s (1992: 55) example “Ah, Tuscany in May” expressing someone’s disappointment at the rainy weather, when good weather was expected. This instance seems to capitalise on a conventional formula (an exclamation opening with “ah”) expressing the speaker’s positive feelings about something. Nonetheless, the evaluation in irony may be even more implicit than that, as the following two examples devoid of any evaluative expressions illustrate. (12) [Cameron, House and Chase are walking down the hall.] 1. Cameron: MRIs were clean, which means he’s probably fine. He doesn’t seem paranoid, he shows no signs of... 2. House: No, it means we have no idea what’s wrong with him. [Foreman walks up.] 3. Foreman: Ben Goldstein says the schedule’s locked. He can’t do it before tomorrow. 4. House: No, today. Call him. Tell him I’ll make it work. 5. Cameron: [shocked as Foreman walks off again] You’re cutting him open? 6. House: [looking at Foreman] Whoa, hold it! There’s no need for exploratory surgery. Dr. Cameron has a diagnosis. 7. Cameron: No, I just think it’s premature and may be irresponsible to do exploratory surgery before we know he’s actually sick. Season 1, Episode 22 As the team is brainstorming their current case, House produces an ironic turn (6), taking as the target Cameron, who has aired her disbelief and implicitly criticised House’s decision to subject the patient to surgery (5). The entire complex turn is based on overt untruthfulness; it is transparent that House believes that exploratory surgery is necessary and that Cameron has no diagnosis, and so he does intend Foreman to proceed. He thus implicates, “Do go on. There is a need for exploratory surgery as Dr. Cameron has no diagnosis”. House’s rationale for making this overtly untruthful turn is to implicate the central evaluative meaning. Accordingly, House criticises Cameron for questioning his decision (“I find your indignation unfounded”). Finally, it is interesting to observe that yet another level of implicated meaning may be recognised here, namely “Yes we are cutting him open”. This is the ultimate implicature that may be inferred and that constitutes a relevant response to Cameron’s question. This is in line with Camp’s (2012: 291) observation that ironic utterances may communicate further implicatures relevant to the ongoing exchange, next to the central evaluative meaning.

112 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

(13) [House is talking to a patient, Ramon, who has just crucified himself. He has been doing so each year since his daughter was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, which is when he struck a bargain with God.] 1. Ramon: I told him I would nail myself to a cross every year he kept her alive. 2. House: So how did that negotiation go? You lowballed with ear piercing and God countered? 3. Masters: [smiles briefly, preparing to draw some blood from Ramon] 4. Ramon: Three weeks later, she was cancer-free. And that was four years ago. 5. House: Pontius Pilate – misunderstood oncologist. 6. Ramon: My ex-wife thinks I’m crazy too. She moved out the first time I did this. Season 7, Episode 8 From the beginning of the conversation, House, who is an atheist and who believes in nothing but science, disparages the patient and ridicules his actions (2). In reply to the patient’s revelation about his successful bargain with God and the miracle that occurred (thanks to Ramon’s promise of self-crucifixion, his terminally ill daughter was healed) (4), House produces an ironic utterance based on absurdity (5). House cannot possibly believe that the biblical executioner of Jesus was, unbeknownst to everybody, a doctor of medicine and treated cancer by crucifying people. Rather, drawing a parallel between the patient and Pontius Pilate, House questions the interlocutor’s conclusion that his daughter’s good health is the result of his sacrifice. After the introductory inferential steps, the central implicated message may then read “Your logic is preposterous” or even “You are crazy to believe that your sacrifice cured your daughter”. Given the patient’s reaction (6), this meaning is something the patient must have inferred. On the whole, each instance of irony must invite the central evaluative implicature, whose ease of interpretation may vary, depending on how a given utterance is phrased. Contrary to what the canonical instances of irony found in the scholarship may suggest, this figure does not need to be based on evaluative expressions subject to meaning reversal, as Examples 12 and 13 indicate. In the case of any irony based on making as if to say but devoid of evaluative expressions, the literal meaning of an utterance is indeed overtly untruthful and it is subject to meaning reversal, which yields the basic implicated meaning. The truthful implicature arising from the reversal of meaning does not involve any evaluative expression (unlike the most prototypical irony). Rather, the central evaluation arises as a distinct level of implicated meaning, another piggybacked implicature. This implicature is generated to explain the speaker’s use of overt untruthfulness. This species of irony seems to coincide with what Kapogianni (2013, 2014)

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 113

dubs “meaning replacement irony”,11 which encompasses, among other things, “surrealistic irony” (Kapogianni 2011), whose implicated (evaluative, as is argued here) meaning is semantically removed from the literal sense of an utterance (see Section 6.4). Generally, examples of irony devoid of evaluative expressions corroborate Kapogianni’s (2016b) palatable conclusion that irony involves various stages of inferencing and a bundle of mutually dependent implicatures. Such examples also indicate that since no evaluation needs to be present in an ironic utterance, the mechanism of evaluation reversal (Partington 2006, 2007; Burgers et al. 2011) does not always come into play, which is why it cannot be taken as the definitional component of irony. On the other hand, meaning reversal need not concern an evaluative expression manifest in an ironic utterance. In other words, the presence of an evaluative expression does not always mean that it invites an implicature based on evaluation reversal, as Example 14 shows. The same holds for verisimilar irony (see Section 6.5), which is couched in evaluative expressions but does not involve overt explicit untruthfulness (unless a subordinate Quality-based figure of speech should be present, see Section 7), which would invite immediate meaning reversal. (14) [As he has checked the pulse of the new patient, who is a nun-to-be, Chase’s beeper goes off. On it is the message “Call Mom!”.] 1. Chase: I have to get this. Excuse me. [Cut to House’s office. House is playing with a yo-yo. Chase enters.] 2. Chase: My mother’s been dead for 10 years. 3. House: But she’s always with you in spirit. What do you know about the nun? 4. Chase: Which one? 5. House: The cute one. I think she likes me. The sick one, obviously. Season 1, Episode 5 In his ironic utterance, “The cute one” (5), House does not mean to implicate that the nun is ugly, which the reversal of “cute” might lead to. No such meaning reversal is to be performed. This does not change the fact that the whole ironic part of his turn (“The cute one” and “I think she likes me”) is based on overt untruthfulness, and that meaning reversal is indeed involved. House does not believe the patient to be cute; nor does he believe that she has feelings for him. House’s ironic and,

11 This is juxtaposed with “meaning reversal” irony. Here, it is argued that meaning reversal (which relies on various operations: grammatical negation, lexical antonymy or pragmatic meaning reversal) is always involved, which is inextricably connected with overt untruthfulness, whether explicit or implicit.

114 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

clearly, sarcastic retort (see Section 4) seems to be based on absurdity, whereby he criticises the naïve question posed by Chase (presumably, distracted by the topic of his mother). The sole meaning that arises from House’s ironic utterance, therefore, is an evaluative implicature that reads along the lines of “What a silly question!”. Here is another example which attests to the claim that explicit negative evaluation present in an utterance need not be subject to meaning reversal, in this case, on the grounds of the central evaluation’s being truthful. (15) [Masters is by a patient’s (Dugan’s) bed, presenting him two options of treatment, which House has, unsuccessfully, tried to persuade her against, since only one stands a chance of being successful.] 1. Masters: The better option is chemotherapy. It’s faster and more likely to completely cure you. 2. Dugan: I’ll take the steroids. 3. House: Oh, my goodness! [shown to have been standing behind Masters] If only someone could’ve predicted that you’d make that incredibly stupid decision. 4. Masters: [gives House a look] Season 7, Episode 6 House’s ironic turn (3) involves a truthful negative evaluation of the decision that the patient has made. However, this evaluation is independent of the ironic force of this overtly untruthful utterance (House was the one to predict that the patient would choose wrongly). House thus aims to criticise Masters for not having taken his advice and for having presented both options to the patient. On the other hand, irony may capitalise on a twofold negative evaluation, with the positively evaluative expression being subject to meaning reversal. When a positively evaluative lexeme is present in an utterance and the implicature resides in using its opposite in the form of a negatively evaluative lexeme, a distinct level of evaluative implicature may also be conveyed. The inferred reversal-based evaluation may not exhaust the evaluative meaning the speaker wants to communicate. The communication of the central but piggybacked implicature corresponds to the speaker’s basic motivation for producing an ironic utterance. The two dimensions of negative evaluation pertain to two distinct referents, one appearing at the utterance level, and the other one being more tacit. Usually, the tacit ironic referent is the interlocutor’s preceding turn and its import. (16) [In the examination room, House meets a patient, by the name of Sarah, who has a mysterious bruise on her neck.] 1. Sarah: Petechial bruising? I don’t know if I’m pronouncing that right. 2. House: Gosh, the Internet is such a wonderful tool!

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 115

3. Sarah: It could be leukemia. 4. House: Definitely possible. The more likely diagnosis is hickey. Season 1, Episode 17 In his ironic reaction (2) to the woman’s self-diagnosis (1), House is critical of the Internet, considering it a “dreadful tool” in the sense that it is misused by lay people for self-diagnosis. However, the main referent of the irony is the woman’s utterance and the central evaluative implicature may read along the lines of “I disapprove of the fact that you are using the Internet to seek medical advice”. Along similar lines, House performs an overtly untruthful evaluation of the patient’s alternative hypothesis (3). Its untruthfulness becomes transparent when House gives what he believes to be a more plausible alternative. Therefore, House can be seen to have implicated “leukemia is definitely impossible”, leading to the central evaluative implicature “Your suggestion is nonsensical”. Here is another instance that is based on a less explicit evaluative expression, which does not invoke the good vs bad dichotomy. (17) [House has been recruiting new members for his diagnostic team. In the lecture hall, he is riding around on a scooter. The candidates to be his team members are in the first few rows of seats and Foreman is sitting at the back.] 1. House: Aww. [gets off the scooter] Five eager doctors and no sick people. Let us try and fill our spare time with a new challenge. The winner gets immunity... 2. Kutner: I have a sick guy. I saw this magician last night... 3. House: The girl’s fine. He didn’t really cut her in half. 4. Kutner: His heart stopped while he was hanging upside down in the water tank. 5. House: A drowning man’s heart stopped, that is a mystery. Along with immunity, the winner gets to nominate two... 6. Cole: He lost consciousness almost as soon as he hit the water. Season 4, Episode 8 The first statement in House’s response (5) to Kutner’s observation (4) is indicative of irony. Most importantly, House’s ironic statement, “A drowning man’s heart stopped, that is a mystery” (5), is anchored in an implicitly evaluative expression (“mystery”) that is overtly untruthful. House thus implicates that he finds it obvious why a drowning man’s heart stopped, since this is what typically happens (notice the “mysterious” vs “obvious” evaluations of the medical query). A reason needs to be sought for why this evaluative meaning is conveyed and why the speaker has chosen to flout the first maxim of Quality. The explanation

116 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

comes with a realisation that House’s ironic utterance carries another layer of meaning. Specifically, it implicates criticism of the interlocutor’s preceding turn and of his underlying belief that the case is indeed worth considering, as well as of his medical expertise. Appreciating the fact that the implicated meaning based on irony may come in stages (see Kapogianni 2016b), Garmendia (2010, 2011) proposes the notion of the bridge-content. Garmendia (2010: 404) regards as the bridge-content an implicature closely related to the “asif-content”, the strong implicature similar to the relevance-theoretic implicated premises. The notion of bridge content captures the central implicature carried by irony, which may be conducive to further implicatures. For instance, Grice’s example “You’re a fine friend” carries the meaning “You are not a fine friend” as the bridge-content, and this additional implicature may be “I have been a fool to believe in you” or “I should not have trusted you” (see Garmendia 2010: 404). Garmendia claims that these further implicatures are crucial for they communicate novel meanings rather than what the hearer already knows. This seems to be a bit far-fetched given the lack of any further context in Grice’s canonical example, whose central evaluative implicature seems to be only “You are a poor friend”. Garmendia’s (2010) extensions can be seen as further contextual implicatures, transcending the central evaluative implicature, not necessarily motivated in view of the situational factors provided by Grice. On the other hand, Garmendia (2010: 404) sees the bridge-content also as “the implicature that links the asif-content to the ironic content”, that is the central evaluative implicature, as though the bridge-content were distinct from the “ironic content”. In her analyses of examples, Garmendia (2010, 2011) always presents the bridgecontent as part of the ironic content. What she seems to be suggesting, therefore, is that the bridge-content may not be the central critical implicature (as is the case with irony that involves negative expressions, see Section 2.3). Overall, Garmendia’s (2010, 2011) conceptualisation of the bridge-content, which is essentially the first-level implicature, seems to conflate two distinct notions. The first one is the central negatively evaluative implicature that potentially serves as an inferential stepping stone for further contextually motivated implicatures, (see Camp 2012), and the second one is the intermediate level of truthful implicated meaning12 which promotes the central evaluative implicature (see Example 12 for both). As some of the examples in the discussion above have indicated, more than one inferential step and more than one intermediate implicature may come

12 This should not be mistaken for what is dubbed here “as if implicature”, an inferential step that involves overt untruthfulness and applies to metaphorical irony (see Section 7.2), surrealistic irony (see Section 6.4), or verisimilar irony (see Section 6.5).

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 117

into play before the central evaluative implicature is generated, and each level of meaning may involve complex operations (see also Kapogianni 2016b). Here is another instance, with the consecutive inferential steps spelt out. (18) [House and his team are discussing a case. House suspects that the female patient’s symptoms may have resulted from a sexually transmitted disease.] 1. Cameron: They’re completely devoted to each other. 2. House: Because? 3. Cameron: They love each other. 4. House: Or? 5. Chase: They’re overcompensating for guilt. 6. House: [to Cameron] Find out which it is. 7. Cameron: You want me to ask a man whose wife is about to die if he cheated on her? 8. House: No, I want you to be polite and let her die. 9. Cameron: [gives him a look] 10. House: Actually, I don’t want you to ask him anything. Foreman take the husband, Chase take the wife. Season 1, Episode 7 House’s turn addressed to Cameron (8) includes no evaluative expression but is overtly untruthful and invites an evaluative implicature referring to her prior turn (7). This turn also serves as a springboard for another contextually embedded implicature (Camp 2012), which House duly withdraws (10). Here are the consecutive inferential steps in neo-Gricean terms: a. making as if to say: “No, I want you to be polite and let her die” b. basic truthful implicature (no flouting of the first maxim of Quality): “I don’t want you to be polite and let her die” c. central evaluative implicature: “Your moral doubts are irrelevant; your question is silly” d. further conversational implicature: “Yes, this is what I want you to do; I want you to ask the husband if he cheated on his wife” In conclusion, the basic implicature typically arising as a result of some form of meaning reversal (but not necessarily reversal of the evaluative expression) eliminates the overt untruthfulness13 that is characteristic of all irony. The basic implicature, however, does not need to coincide with the central evaluative implicature.

13 The reversal of meaning usually pertains to “making as if to say” but it may concern also “making as if to implicate” in the case of verisimilar irony or metaphorical irony.

118 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

To reformulate, even though meaning reversal is usually necessary to bring out the speaker’s truthful meaning, the main evaluation frequently arises as another level of implicature, which motivates the utterance’s overt untruthfulness. The intermediate implicature(s) will come into being either when there is no evaluative expression present in an ironic utterance or when the central implicated evaluation does not coincide with the evaluation present in the utterance, whether or not this evaluative expression is subject to reversal (resulting in an intermediate implicature). The fact that two distinct levels and referents of evaluation may be present in one ironic utterance is of crucial importance to the notion of “positively evaluative irony”.

2.3 Optional positive evaluation Grice is known to have been of the opinion that irony can convey only a negative judgement, as evidenced by the following quotation: “I cannot say something ironically unless what I say is intended to reflect a hostile or derogatory judgment or a feeling such as indignation or contempt” (1989b [1978]: 53–54). This view is endorsed here. However, numerous authors (e.g. Muecke 1969; Myers Roy 1978; Brown 1980; Kaufer 1981; Sperber and Wilson 1981; Gibbs 1986a; Haverkate 1990; Dews and Winner 1995; Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Creusere 1999; Attardo 2000; Colston 2000; Hancock et al. 2000; Schwoebel et al. 2000; Dews et al. 1995; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995, Kreuz and Link 2002; Harris and Pexman 2003; Matthews et al. 2006; Colston and Gibbs 2007; Burgers et al. 2012b; Alba-Juez and Attardo 2014; Wilson and Sperber 2012) claim that the ironically expressed evaluation of a referent may be positive (praising or complimenting) rather than negative (criticising, condemning, mocking, ridiculing, etc.). Following up on this assumption, a distinction tends to be made between what is called here positively evaluative irony and negatively evaluative irony. These umbrella terms are seen as preferable to the differentiation between ironic praise (negative literal meaning conveying positive ironic meaning) and ironic criticism (positive literal meaning carrying negative ironic meaning) (Colston 2000; Hancock et al. 2000; Schwoebel et al. 2000; Harris and Pexman 2003; Kreuz and Link 2002; Colston and Gibbs 2007; cf. Burgers et al. 2012b), or ironic compliment and ironic criticism (Dews et al. 1995; Hancock et al. 2000; Gibbs and Colston 2012). This is because the latter labels may be considered ambivalent if not accompanied by definitions (e.g. in ironic criticism, is the criticism the intended meaning or is it just part of the expression?). Also, “negative evaluation” and “positive evaluation” are broad terms that capture subordinate ones, such as ridicule, criticism and condemnation, or compliments and praise respectively.

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 119

Positively evaluative irony concerns situations when negatively evaluative expressions are overtly untruthful and, based on meaning opposition, they invite positively evaluative implicatures. Thus, this concept does not encompass ironic utterances that involve positive evaluation, whether implicit or explicit, which is truthful and unaffected by the irony present in an utterance, as is the case with verisimilar irony (see Section 6.5) or irony nested in isolated lexical items in utterances which involve independent positive evaluation (see Section 6.3). Many authors agree that irony typically carries negative evaluation or expresses a derogatory attitude (e.g. Colston 1997; Sperber and Wilson 1981; Dews et al. 1995; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Gibbs 2000; Attardo 2000). This type of irony is prevalent both in real discourse and in exemplification data used by researchers. It is also hardly surprising that a vast majority of examples found in House should be consistent with this tendency. Incidentally, this may be taken as an argument in favour of the verisimilitude of characters’ interactions in film discourse (see Chapter 1, Section 6). Several attempts have been made to explain the bias in favour of negatively evaluative irony, which Clark and Gerrig (1984) call the asymmetry of affect. One of the explanations is that saying something negative that one does not honestly believe to be true leads to misunderstandings more easily than saying something positive that one does not believe to be true. This is because the former type of utterance seems to not only flout the first maxim of Quality but also “violate the maxim of politeness”, which is, nonetheless, “applied deliberately” because a positive judgement is actually communicated (Haverkate 1990: 90–91, see also Myers Roy 1978: 180). Consequently, since it fails to observe two maxims (on whether “politeness” can be considered a maxim at all and placed next to Grice’s, see Dynel 2013d), an ironic utterance couched in a negative expression is more difficult to understand. This explanation is debatable. The discussion of (im)politeness effects of irony aside (which are only marginally dependent on the literal means of expression), it is doubtful whether saying something seemingly impolite adds cognitive load to an overtly untruthful expression. Also, the possibility of a misunderstanding applies equally to all irony, being an unpredictable communicative anomaly consequent upon various factors (see Dynel 2017e and references therein). In any case, a potential misunderstanding can hardly be treated as a plausible explanation for the disproportion between the two types of irony. On the other hand, Giora (1995) contributes a claim that positively evaluative irony, which she sees as being rendered by a negative statement, is harder to process and involves more cognitive effort on the interpreter’s part, which can also account for its infrequency. In the light of Giora’s (2001) Indirect Negation View, ironic interpretation is derived by negating the salient meaning (i.e. that

120 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

coded in the mental lexicon, as affected by frequency, familiarity, conventionality or prototypicality) and prompted by the discrepancy between the statement and the context. According to Giora (2001, 2003), ironically verbalised compliments introduce more difficulty in the process of comprehension on the grounds that the literal meaning is subject to double negation. However, other researchers report that positively evaluative irony is actually readily understood when it echoes a previously stated belief (Gibbs 1986a; Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989) and when it alludes to some prior expectation, norm or convention (Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995). Also Wilson and Sperber (2012) discuss the normative bias in irony in the context of the ease of interpretation. Negatively evaluative irony couched in an explicit positively evaluative expression is generally subject to easy retrieval, whilst positively evaluative irony is more easily understood if preceded by corresponding negative utterances or predictions, which are thus echoed, according to the relevance-theoretic account. For their part, Kreuz and Glucksberg (1989) observe that irony based on “negative statements” necessitates “explicit antecedents”, which “positive statements” do not require. This is because the latter allude to societal norms and expectations, which are typically positive, in Kreuz and Glucksberg’s (1989) view. Sperber and Wilson (1981) and Sperber (1984) also attribute the asymmetry of affect to the general prevalence of positive norms and expectations, the violation of which leads to negative events. Consequently, it is (ostensibly) positive statements that carry irony orientated towards negative evaluation after a positive norm has been violated. This line of reasoning has evident shortcomings. First, an ironic utterance need not be a statement and irony need not involve a positive or negative evaluation marker, as in Section 2.2. Second, neither the positive formulation of norms nor positive evaluation carried by norms is a straightforward issue. For instance, drinking alcohol is generally frowned upon, but it is open to question whether the societal norm/expectation “Drinking alcohol is bad” or “Alcohol is harmful” is positive; this norm/expectation may be considered benevolent (positive) but it is couched in negatively evaluative expressions, and it is expressions that are crucial for irony. Additionally, drinking can elicit contradictory evaluations in people and it can be associated with local, contextualised norms. In some contexts (and in some cultures), drinking can be considered something positive, testifying to people’s solidarity and their ability to socialise and have fun. Thus, literally saying “You drank almost half a bottle of whisky yesterday!” may serve as an act of reproach (negative evaluation) or, perhaps less obviously, admiration (positive evaluation), depending on the speaker and the context. The positive evaluation may apply, at least from a speaker’s perspective, in the following context: a groom-to-be, a teetotaller, does not wish to drink anything even during his bachelor party, but his friends

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 121

cajole him into it (boys will be boys); the next morning one of the friends says, “You drank almost half a bottle of whisky yesterday! I’m proud of you!”. Therefore, it cannot be said that the societal expectation of not drinking alcohol is unequivocally positive or negative (“Drinking alcohol is good” or “Drinking alcohol is bad” may hold). Both evaluative norms may serve irony. Many of the authors quoted above are right in claiming that positively evaluative irony must be based on echoing/alluding to a previously expressed belief, expectation or opinion. Put simply, in the case of positively evaluative irony, the interlocutors must necessarily share some background knowledge of events, utterances or opinions in order to successfully communicate positively evaluative ironic utterances. There is a simple explanation for this: these necessary antecedents are actually the referents of the implicated ironic evaluation, which must be negative by definition. 2.3.1 Previous examples of ‘positively evaluative irony’ Despite the prevalent agreement that irony may convey positive evaluation, examples of irony carrying positive evaluation (whether alone or together with negative evaluation) are given in the literature only intermittently. Worse still, as will become evident in the light of the overview below, many of them do not actually present ironic potential, failing to meet the necessary conditions for the figure of irony: overt untruthfulness (whether explicit or implicit) and the central meaning in the form of an evaluative implicature. It must be emphasised again that “irony” is understood here as a technical, scholarly label for the rhetorical figure at hand, not a lay notion which language users (and some researchers alike) use with regard to humorous overt untruthfulness (see Chapter 5, Section 2.2). A statement can be ventured that some authors wish to focus on the figure of irony but conflate it with humorous phenomena, frequently fixated on proving that irony can carry only positive evaluation. Brown (1980: 114) gives the frequently quoted example of a stock broker saying, “Sorry to keep bothering you like this” as he’s calling for the third time during one night to inform the addressee about unexpected dividends. This utterance can hardly be classified as being ironic. It is a humorous but truthful14 comment on the situation at hand. Objectively, the stock broker is truly bothering the client, keen to break excellent news to him, which is a good excuse for the multiple calls during one night. The utterance does not display the crucial

14 Truthfulness and humour are not mutually exclusive, as is argued here (see Chapter 5, Sections 1.2 and 1.3.2)

122 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

characteristics of irony, inasmuch as it is both truthful and devoid of implicature. The same applies to Attardo’s (2000: 796) example “These American-made cars that break down after 100,000 miles!”. This utterance does involve a negative notion (“break down”) but ultimately carries positive information, which does not arise as an implicature though still necessitating some background information or inferencing: 100,000 miles is a long distance for a car. Along similar lines, also endorsing the notion of positively evaluative irony, Hamamoto (1998: 263) gives an example of “You are so naughty” said by a woman to her husband who “has juggled his traveling expenses and bought her a nice present”. Whilst the adjective “naughty” does carry a mildly negative evaluation, the woman primarily means to thank her husband for a nice present, being happy about the result of his misdemeanour. This example can hardly be treated as irony, being nothing but a humorous utterance that qualifies as friendly teasing. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the adjective is typically used to reproach children, but here it applies to an adult man. At the same time, the speaker cannot be said to be overtly untruthful. She means to communicate that her husband is guilty of a financial misdemeanour, but at the same time that she is actually quite happy to have benefited from it. Finally, in a recent paper, Alba-Juez and Attardo (2014: 100) illustrate positive irony with a real-life example involving a hearer’s reaction to an allegedly ironic utterance along the lines of “Daniel comes back home from school and shows his father his report-card, which is full of As, to which his father reacts in the following manner: Father: Daniel, I’m really worried; your grades are terrible! (with blank face), Daniel: (giggles) Thank you, Dad”. The giggles in the real-life example indicate the son’s humorous response, the elicitation of which must have been the father’s intention apart from complimenting his son. Daniel must realise that his father is pulling his leg and does not mean to criticise him, with such criticism being unfounded given the contextual evidence. The father’s utterance exhibits overt non-ironic untruthfulness that only happens to concern evaluation (the grades are wonderful, not terrible) and that is used for humorous (but non-ironic) purposes (see Dynel 2014a). Overall, none of these examples qualifies as irony. This is because they do not possess the defining characteristics of irony (i.e. overt untruthfulness, whether explicit or implicit; and implicated negative evaluation). The same conclusion applies to a list of examples couched in negatively evaluative words that are mentioned in passing and not explained, such as “How small you’ve grown!” said to a child, or “I don’t like you at all” said by one lover to another (Haverkate 1990: 90). Similarly, Burgers et al. (2012b: 232) give the following example to illustrate what they call “ironic blame”: “That’s a bad grade” uttered when somebody has received the highest possible grade. Without any contextual factors (and such are not provided in the papers cited), it is difficult to tell why anybody should actually produce

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 123

any of these utterances, which appear to be sketchily fabricated by the academics themselves for their own purposes. If at all possible in natural language use, they may be considered humorously overtly untruthful but not ironic. This is relevant also to two other examples. Kotthoff (2003: 1390) mentions the case of a “remark is laughingly made by a guest as a comment on a sumptuous menu: ‘Once again something simple out of a can’” as an example of positively evaluative irony. This utterance may work as a humorously paid compliment on the cook’s zeal. Finally, Schwoebel et al. (2000) present a very intriguing case: an utterance “You have a hard life” addressed to a friend going off to the Caribbean for an all-expense-paid holiday. Interestingly, this can hardly be interpreted as a positively evaluative implicature promoted by a negative expression, for the intended meaning “You have an easy life” is more of an expression of envy or even, in an appropriate context (if the speaker is a workaholic), criticism of the hearer, albeit veiled in humour. This instance indicates that the “positive” vs “negative” labels need to be assigned to words and expressions with care on the strength of the context. Essentially, all of these hypothetical utterances are characterised by overt untruthfulness and are humorous but not ironic. Making a similar point, Garmendia (2010) addresses the following example: a person says “It’s going to be difficult to park” when, together with a companion, he has arrived at an empty parking lot (Garmendia 2010: 408). Garmendia (2010) rightly concludes that the speaker must be communicating the opposite meaning “It’s going to be easy to park”, which is obvious to the hearer, so the utterance may even be deemed “nonsensical”. Indeed, there is hardly any other meaning, apart from the obvious one (that parking will be easy), that the speaker might wish to communicate to the hearer, while the formulation of the (potentially humorous) utterance seems to escape any rational explanation and does not seem to be a plausible specimen of natural language use. On the whole, most of the examples discussed so far are tantamount to nonironic humorous (truthful or overtly untruthful) utterances, which are indeed frequently mistaken for irony (see Dynel 2014a). A more plausible group of examples that motivate the existence of positively evaluative irony is premised on an assumption of some kind of antecedent utterance. Kreuz and Glucksberg (1989: 377) present the case of a woman saying “This certainly is awful weather” and thereby alluding to a faulty forecast of rain (see also Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995). A similar case is that of an utterance “You certainly don’t know how to cook” addressed to a cook who had claimed culinary incompetence only to prepare a superb dinner (Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995). Yet another example presents a speaker saying, “‘you sure are a bad basketball player’ after a player had said he was a bad player, but then played well” (Colston and Gibbs 2007: 15). Along these lines, Alba Juez provides an example of a student who, lacking confidence, frets

124 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

that he has failed an exam, but when the results do arrive it turns out that he has passed with a very good mark; this invites the comment “Oh, yes, you have failed, you did it all wrong, you are a very bad student!” (1995: 11). Rightly, Alba-Juez (1995) considers this utterance to involve both praise of the student’s performance and criticism of the student’s previous self-deprecating attitude, but she seems to regard the two aspects as being equally relevant. Similarly, Alba-Juez and Attardo (2014: 101) recognise a peculiar combination of positive and negative evaluations in this example: “An actress to one of her friends (F): A: I’m a total disaster. I’m never going to make it in the theatre world. I’m a rather mediocre actress. After some time, A gets an important award in recognition for her artistic performance, and after the ceremony her friend approaches her and says: F: Congratulations, dear friend! You certainly ARE a mediocre actress. I don’t know how they could give you this award!”. As the authors acknowledge, the ironic utterance combines a positive evaluation of the actress’s performance and a negative evaluation of her previous self-deprecatory judgment, representing the speaker’s “mixed feelings” (Alba-Juez and Attardo 2014: 102). What these few examples have in common is the combination of positive and negative evaluations of two distinct referents. The negatively evaluated one is an antecedent produced by the hearer of an ironic utterance or someone else. This appears to be the necessary condition for irony which involves negatively evaluative words and which conveys a positive evaluation next to a negative evaluation. This explains why the examples revisited at the beginning of this section do not qualify as irony; they all lack the necessary antecedent. 2.3.2 Negatively evaluated antecedent The presence of an evaluated antecedent is considered a sine qua non for wellformed positive irony. Addressing this issue, Wilson and Sperber (2012: 127) state that ironic comments based on negatively evaluative words, such as “How clumsy” said in reference to someone who has been graceful, “are only appropriate when some prior doubt about the performance has been entertained or expressed”. This echoing of a previous utterance is fundamental to the relevancetheoretic approach to irony (even though the echo-mention conceptualisation is much broader and encompasses a host of other notions, such as popular opinions or standard norms that may not have been verbalised by any particular individual), which is why it easily captures “positive irony”. Sperber and Wilson are not the first researchers to have argued that irony by negative statements is possible provided the ironist alludes to an explicit antecedent, a previously expressed belief, such as a faulty forecast of rain (Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989); or to a general expectation, such as that regarding commonplace

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 125

dirty subways, an expectation thwarted by a clean subway (Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995, Glucksberg 1995). This means that, in the authors’ opinion, the expectation or norm alluded to may also be tacit, being a matter of a widely held belief rather than any specific utterance. The broadening of the negatively evaluated antecedent to cover unexpressed widely held beliefs may give rise to misgivings, unless they are salient or have been brought to the speaker’s and hearer’s attention. Kumon-Nakamura et al.’s (1995) example, a comment “New York subways are certainly dirty!” made on seeing a very clean subway, can hardly be taken as a well-formed irony, unless, for instance, a famous documentary about dirty subways in New York has been broadcast the previous night on television. There has to be some anchoring referent of the negative evaluation rather than a general backgrounded assumption with no specific target (typically, a particular speaker). This critical echoing of unspoken assumptions may lead to classifying non-ironic utterances as irony, as the following case also indicates. Commenting on Hamamoto’s (1998) “You are so naughty” example (which has been shown not to qualify as irony in section 2.3.1), Sperber and Wilson (1998: 288) claim that the ironic speaker echoes and dissociates herself from the “justifiable public criticism”. This line of reasoning leads to a conclusion that the speaker negatively evaluates the “public criticism”. Rationally, this cannot be the case. The wife must recognise her husband’s wrongdoing, but she simultaneously appreciates the positive outcome of his rule-infringing act. The main thrust of the discussion above is that if there is an overtly untruthful negatively evaluative expression15 in an utterance, this utterance can be considered ironic only if there is another referent to be evaluated negatively, as all the relevant examples found in the literature indicate (see also Section 2.3.3). This referent takes the form of a specific utterance (or a set of utterances) communicating a belief the ironic speaker evaluates negatively. The speaker’s intention to negatively evaluate this antecedent is the motivation for the use of irony, even though his/her utterance does pivot on an explicitly negative expression that has to be reversed to yield the intermediate positively evaluative implicature. (19) [House and Wilson are looking at a patient’s X-ray images. The patient is a female doctor trapped at the South Pole.] 1. House: She’s annoying – refused to take the antibiotics because other people might need them. 2. Wilson: She said she cares about other people? What a poser. [...] Season 4, Episode 11

15 Needless to say, an ironic utterance may involve positive and negatively evaluative expressions that are truthful and are independent of the ironic untruthfulness and meaning reversal.

126 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

In his ironic remark “What a poser” (2), in which he purports to express surprise at the patient’s ethical conduct and criticism of her, Wilson ascribes the opinion he voices to House, the target of irony. The explicit negative evaluation (“a poser”) is overtly untruthful, for it is incompatible with Wilson’s beliefs (he is a kind, empathetic person who would act the same as the South Pole doctor, were he in her shoes). Via this positive evaluation of the patient as being a caring and honest person (intermediate implicature), Wilson criticises House for his cynicism and egoism emerging from his utterance (1) (central implicature). Essentially, without a specific negatively evaluated antecedent, the form of irony communicating an implicated positive evaluation cannot come into being. Examining Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) “How clumsy” example and its discussion, Garmendia (2015) correctly observes that the referent of the negative evaluation is the comment expressing somebody’s doubt that the person would perform gracefully. If no such doubt has been expressed, there is nothing to be evaluated negatively, whether or not via irony, given that the person referred to has been graceful (Garmendia 2015). “How clumsy” uttered without any doubt being previously cast on the performer’s future presentation does not come across as being a well-formed compliment paid by means of irony. It is then only the negatively evaluated doubt that renders this ironic utterance feasible. Therefore, what makes this irony work is the motivating negative evaluation that the speaker intends to communicate. To conclude, in the type of irony that involves positive evaluation stemming from an overtly untruthful negative expression, the central implicit evaluation must concern a prior utterance that expresses an opinion, belief or expectation and that the ironic speaker must mean to evaluate negatively. Examples found in the literature which do count as irony involve this negatively evaluative component as well, as shown above. Purely positive evaluation carried by an overtly untruthful negative expression with no other negatively evaluated referent is tantamount to humorous overt untruthfulness but not irony (see the examples addressed in Section 2.3.1). It is Grice (1989b [1978]: 54) himself that makes this clear as he states, “I can for example say What a scoundrel you are! when I am well disposed toward you, but to say that will be playful, not ironical, and will be inappropriate unless there is some shadow of justification for a straightforward application – for example you have done something which some people (though not I) might frown upon”. What Grice appears to have meant by a “playful” utterance is one lacking truthfulness and orientated towards amusement. Such a playful utterance can qualify as teasing, which must be distinguished from irony (see Chapter 5, Section 2.2).16 Interestingly, given the proviso that Grice adds, it

16 However, it cannot be denied that irony showing humorous potential may sometimes qualify also as teasing (understood as a broad interactional phenomenon).

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 127

also becomes clear that an utterance may display an ironic character if it signals the speaker’s dissociation from (and an echo of) other people’s opinion about the addressee of the utterance. Thus, although Grice does not explicate this, in this scenario, the utterance does communicate a negative evaluation of that opinion (the referent of the negative evaluation). 2.3.3 Implicated positive and negative evaluations The fact that the type of irony involving implicit positive evaluation communicated by dint of a negatively evaluative expression does entail negative evaluation has already been mentioned in passing (Barbe 1995: 21; Alba-Juez 1995) and discussed in more detail (Garmendia 2010, 2011, 2015; see also Dynel 2013a). The two evaluative implicatures are interdependent but distinct, which is why the speaker may evaluate one referent positively while alluding to another referent in order to criticise it (even more) implicitly.17 The two referents may (but do not need to) share one responsible individual, the target of the ironic evaluation. In the classic poor grade example, the praise of the hearer’s achievement in an exam is conveyed in tandem with the criticism of the hearer’s earlier self-deprecating attitude (Alba-Juez 1995). Here, the hearer is both the receiver of praise and the target of criticism. By contrast, in the faulty weather forecast example, such as “The weather is dreadful” said a day after the interlocutor insisted that it would be awful, the positively evaluated weather is a referent distinct from the referent of the negative evaluation, the interlocutor’s (the target’s) belief mentioned the day before. Here is another example of the latter kind. (20) [The team is treating a patient, a doctor fighting TB in Africa. The patient refuses to take any medicine so that he can appear on television and make a statement to help the needy.] 1. House: The nameless poor have a face, and it’s a pompous white man. 2. Cameron: Yeah, what a jerk, saving all those lives like that. Season 2, Episode 3 In response to House’s critical comment (1), Cameron is overtly untruthful, overtly pretending to agree with House and to label the patient “a jerk”. What she does is positively evaluate the patient’s altruism and help for the dying masses. The central implicature carries her negative evaluation of the opinion that House has just voiced, and it may read along the lines of “Your biting criticism is unfair”. This utterance, therefore, carries twofold evaluation of two distinct people, with

17 Implicitness is a gradable notion (see the chapters in Cap and Dynel 2017).

128 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

the central, necessarily negative, evaluative implicature being piggybacked on the positively evaluative one. Garmendia (2010, 2011) claims that positively evaluative irony is different from negatively evaluative (prototypical) irony in terms of the nature of the bridgecontent. In her view, in positively evaluative irony, negative evaluation appears at a stage later than the bridge content; whereas in prototypical irony, negative evaluation arises already at the stage of the bridge content, even though further critical implicatures may arise as well. As argued in Section 2.2, however, it is not necessarily the case that in irony devoid of untruthful negatively evaluative expressions, the central negatively evaluative implicature always arises on the first, reversal-based level of implicated meaning (Garmendia’s bridge-content). Nonetheless, it is true that in irony which communicates a positive evaluation via a negative expression, the implicated negative evaluation is always more implicit (emerges at a later inferential stage), for it is never present in the most easily available, intermediate implicature that communicates the truthful, typically reversalbased, meaning (Garmendia’s bridge-content). Most importantly, as Garmendia does indicate (2010, 2011), even if a positively evaluative implicature arises, the central implicature must negatively evaluate the pivotal ironic referent. The positive evaluation implicated in the intermediate implicature may seem to be, at a glance, the central one for it originates in meaning reversal of the overtly untruthful evaluative expression. In reality, the positive implicature promotes the central implicature, namely the negatively evaluative implicature of the ironic referent. The positively evaluative implicature is thus tangential to the central negative evaluation that irony communicates. Central to irony is the further implicated critical evaluation of the antecedent. Whilst both positive evaluation and negative evaluation co-construct this special type of irony, it is the negative evaluation that motivates its use. The negative evaluation of the ironic referent, typically a belief previously expressed by the target of irony, motivates the use of an untruthful negatively evaluative expression (in making as if to say), which is subject to meaning reversal, promoting the positive evaluation of the non-ironic referent. The authors who argue that positive irony is possible are “distracted by some apparently positive fact in the context, [and] they fail to see the negative attitude the speaker is actually expressing” (Garmendia 2015: 56). These authors do not explicitly recognise the reason for communicating a positive evaluation by means of overtly untruthful negatively evaluative expressions. Needless to say, a positive evaluation could be communicated in many different ways, which may involve implicit and witty means of expression (which is what irony is frequently considered to be). It transpires, therefore, that the underlying reason for the use of an overtly untruthful negatively evaluative expression is the communication of the

2 A neo-Gricean definition of irony 

 129

negative evaluation of a distinct referent, the antecedent. This is the driving force of all irony. Implicated positive evaluation is only an optional addition, just like many other linguistic phenomena that may serve irony, for instance other rhetorical figures, such as hyperbole, meiosis or metaphor (see Section 7), or sarcasm (see Section 4.2).

2.4 Interpretative stages: Meaning reversal and implicature(s) In the light of the discussion in the preceding sections, several conclusions can be drawn about the formal interpretative stages that depict the workings of irony in pragmatic-philosophical (theoretical) terms (see also Kapogianni 2016b). This theoretical description (not necessarily representative of the hearer’s actual mental processes) takes account of evaluative expressions (or their lack) and several levels of interdependent implicatures. Overall, except the simple prototypical cases of irony based on overtly untruthful positively evaluative expressions, the working out of the central negatively evaluative implicature necessitates a number of inferential steps and intermediate implicatures. It has been argued that some form of meaning reversal is always performed, which eliminates overt untruthfulness (originating in the flouting of the first maxim of Quality) at the level of making as if to say or, sometimes, making as it to implicate. This implicature or the implicature(s) piggybacked on the first-order reversal-based implicature must carry some form of negative evaluation, the communication of which is the paramount goal of irony, its underlying motivation. This implicated evaluation can be disentangled and (tentatively) paraphrased for theoretical purposes as the speaker’s central implicated meaning, which underpins the use of irony. An ironic utterance may (prototypically) encompass a positively evaluative expression that is subject to meaning reversal. This operation directly yields a negatively evaluative implicature or is just an inferential step leading to the central evaluative implicature. However, not all positively evaluative expressions in ironic utterances are subject to meaning reversal, which holds for verisimilar irony and irony whose untruthfulness resides elsewhere, not in the evaluative expression which is truthful. Thus, such ironic utterances will communicate independent evaluations of distinct referents, with the evaluation anchored in irony being necessarily negative. This non-ironic, truthful evaluation may be either positive or negative. Again, more typically, a negatively evaluative expression is part of the ironic force. Irony that recruits a negatively evaluative expression implicates a positive evaluation of one referent, based on evaluative meaning reversal, but it must necessarily implicate a negative evaluation of another referent, which is the driving force of irony.

130 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Two interdependent evaluative implicatures concerning distinct referents are involved: positive evaluation of one referent (which stands in contrast to a prior belief expressed by the ironic target); and negative evaluation of the second referent, the antecedent, the belief previously expressed by the target of irony, which the ironic speaker considers faulty/wrong/inadequate, etc. Finally, if no evaluative expression is present in an ironic utterance, the reversal of meaning (whatever its nature may be) invites the basic truthful implicature, and the central evaluative implicature is inferred as a distinct layer of meaning. In other words, when an ironic utterance contains no evaluative expression, a subordinate non-evaluative implicature is consequent upon meaning reversal, and the central one conveys the main irony-related evaluation, which is always negative. Positive evaluation communicated via ironic utterances is only an additional and optional component consequent upon an overtly untruthful negative expression or a truthful positive expression. Negative evaluation implicated by all irony displays different degrees of strength, while its sharpness shows a strong link with the meanness of irony (Garmendia 2011). Negative evaluation may not be very severe and may be quite playful, with no intention to disparage the target on the speaker’s part. This is related to the problem of whether the use of irony can actually mitigate or exacerbate criticism, a topic pursued in politeness studies, as well as experimental pragmatics.

3 Boosting or mitigating negative evaluation Irony is a vehicle for expressing an attitude/evaluation and it emphasises a discrepancy between what the speaker hopes/expects to happen/to have happened and what he/she believes to be the case, based on the evidence at hand (see Colston and Keller 1998; Gerrig and Goldvarg 2000; Katz and Pexman 1997; Pexman et al. 2000; Utsumi 2000; Kapogianni 2013). This discrepancy would not be equally emphasised if the evaluation were conveyed literally. Appreciating the evaluative capacity of irony, Partington rightly observes that this figure “does not simply hold up a mirror to some folly or vice or accident of fate – it shapes it, construes it, warps and exaggerates it to serve a speaker’s argument” (2007: 1567). There is, however, an ongoing debate concerning the capacity of irony to mitigate or exacerbate negative evaluation. Some assumptions on this topic can be found in politeness research. For example, Leech’s main proposal in reference to irony is that it exerts mitigating effects on offensiveness, keeping “aggression away from the brink of conflict” (1983: 144) and being “a substitute for impoliteness” (1983: 142). Leech (1983)

3 Boosting or mitigating negative evaluation 

 131

claims that ironic criticism prevents conflict, for the speaker seems to be overtly polite, which is why the hearer cannot respond impolitely (as if following a titfor-tat principle). This line of argumentation is not particularly appealing. Even lay language users must tacitly accept, whether or not being cognisant of the mechanics of implicitness and im/politeness, that the intended meaning is the implicated one. The fact that this meaning is not stated by the speaker and has to be worked out by the hearer (for instance, based on a seemingly polite expression) does not change anything. Irony coinciding with overt politeness does carry implicit face-threat, which both the speaker and the hearer will intuitively appreciate (as long as no misunderstanding arises in this respect). Thus, one may venture to claim that the hearer’s reaction to irony may actually be impolite or polite, whether or not involving implicitness. The reaction is contingent on various contextual, interpersonal and individual factors. Another dubious argument concerns the retractability of criticism. Brown and Levinson (1987) claim that, because of its intrinsic “indirectness” (a term that should be substituted by implicitness in a neo-Gricean approach),18 ironic criticism is less face-threatening than non-ironic (typically, simply literal) criticism, for it is the hearer that decides on how such an utterance should be interpreted, while the speaker is not entirely responsible for this inference. Consequently, irony allows the withdrawal of a message and facilitates the denial of intent and responsibility for the attack should such a need arise, that is if the hearer should find a given critical proposition immensely offensive (Jorgensen 1996). Thus, if need be, the speaker can retract an ironic remark on the grounds of the hearer’s (alleged) misinterpretation. In this vein, Taylor (2016b) holds an opinion that irony/sarcasm used for mock politeness exhibits the property of deniability (see also Mills 2003: 124). Taylor (2016b: 45) suggests that due to its inherent ambiguity (Whalen et al. 2013), irony allows the speaker to “absolve him/herself from responsibility”. Essentially, it is argued here that the hearer’s need to work out the meaning and the mere possibility of the speaker’s withdrawal of the ironic meaning should not be taken as arguments that ironic criticism is less face-threatening, and thus less impolite than non-ironic criticism. The implicatures arising from

18 Brown and Levinson (1987) appear to use the label “indirectness” as a folk linguistic term. However, in pragmatic research, this term is associated with Speech Act Theory and captures a phenomenon much narrower than “implicitness”. The latter concept encompasses various forms of implicit language use manifest as implicatures, not only indirect speech acts (e.g. a request performed by dint of an assertive) (see Haugh 2015; Cap and Dynel 2017 for different explanations).

132 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

ironic language use constitute primary intended meanings, with no what is said being present, except in verisimilar irony. These are the central meanings that ironic speakers wish to communicate and such can hardly be plausibly cancelled by means of any textual elaboration. This is because there are rarely alternative (rational and contextually plausible) meanings that the speakers could be willing to communicate. The situations when implicatures invited by irony can be plausibly withdrawn (e.g. on a pretext of a misunderstanding)19 are only intermittent. Cancellability, therefore, cannot be presented as a hallmark of sarcasm/irony explaining why it is used for mitigating purposes. Needless to say, such a cancellation is of no avail, if the hearer considers it dishonest and at odds with the initial intention. The mere possibility of the speaker’s withdrawal of the ironic meaning in some very rare cases should not be taken as an argument that irony has mitigating effects. What is of vital importance to an ironic communicative act is that the speaker intends to communicate some face-threatening meaning and that the hearer’s recognition of this meaning is the speaker’s paramount goal. The claims made in passing by politeness researchers (Brown and Levinson 1987; Leech 1983) do not appear to be theoretically substantiated (as indicated above) and have not been tested empirically. However, some consistently argue that negatively evaluative irony, even if it should have a target, alleviates the critical force of the negative evaluation. Several research findings testify that irony mitigates the harshness of a negative remark, “diluting” the condemnation it carries (Dews and Winner 1995; Dews et al. 1995; Jorgensen 1996), making a situation less face-threatening and serving politeness (Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995). The tinge hypothesis advanced by Dews et al. (1995) and Dews and Winner (1995) presents irony as a device employed primarily to mute criticism or praise by reducing the negative force of the former and diminishing the strength of the latter. The authors explain this on the grounds of the hearer’s longer inferential processing of irony. Also, evidence has been provided that even the targets of bitingly critical, here sarcastic, ironic (see Section 4.2) comments deem them humorous rather than merely aggressive (Jorgensen 1996). Humour is meant to produce amusement and distract the hearer’s attention from the face-threatening aspect of an ironic utterance. On the other hand, Jorgensen’s (1996) experiment also substantiates that virulent irony neither diminishes the guilt or shame experienced by the hearer nor induces in him/her the feeling of having been absolved.

19 Misunderstandings can sometimes happen indeed, especially when the hearer has little knowledge of the speaker and his/her preferences or feelings central to a given utterance (e.g. “I love dry meat”).

3 Boosting or mitigating negative evaluation 

 133

By contrast, many authors (e.g. Kreuz et al. 1991; Colston 1997, 2002; Toplak and Katz 2000; Colston and O’Brien 2000) propose that irony renders negative evaluation more virulent and hurtful in comparison to evaluation that is not expressed via irony. Irony contributes to the strength of condemnation (Toplak and Katz 2000) and promotes hostility and distancing (Gibbs and Colston 2002; Colston 2002). Irony aggravates the critical force in terms of both the speaker’s intention and the target’s perception. This may be because referring to the more desirable state of affairs which has not materialised heightens the contrast and causes the status quo to look worse by comparison (Colston 1997, 2002). In this vein, irony that brings about negative interpersonal effects, hidden under the terms “sarcasm” and “mock politeness”, is propounded as one of the strategies of impoliteness (Culpeper 1996, 2005; Culpeper et al. 2003; Bousfield 2008). This impoliteness strategy involves pretended politeness and corresponds to what Leech (1983) discusses as irony (see e.g. Culpeper 1996; Culpeper et al. 2003; Bousfield 2008). In sum, irony may be viewed as a form of impoliteness. A question arises as to how these divergent, if not contradictory, findings can be reconciled. The answer should be sought in irony’s heterogeneous nature, in diversified examples, as well as in different methodologies. Irony cannot be analysed as a homogenous concept but must be weighed against the context, because irony is applied to meet various goals. An array of irony types can be distinguished: defensive, protective, critical, friendly and arrogant (Kotthoff 2003). Researchers adduce evidence that irony performs a number of pragmatic functions serving: humour, condemnation or self-protection (Colston 1997, 2002; Colston and Keller 1998; Colston and O’Brien 2000; Roberts and Kreuz 1994; Jorgensen 1996; Toplak and Katz 2000). The main thrust of these studies is that irony cannot be regarded as invariably having either a positive or a negative social impact, inasmuch as its many forms can serve multiple communicative purposes, determined by conversationalists’ particular aims (Gibbs and Colston 2002). Therefore, the effect irony is meant to exert, and does exert, on the hearer depends on a number of factors. These include the interlocutors’ relationship, the topic and referent of an ironic statement, the target (see Section 5) of the negative evaluation, the verbal means whereby the negative evaluation is performed, or the circumstances of irony’s occurrence. As a result of these criteria, the strength of the negative evaluation can be boosted or reduced from the perspective of a given hearer or a subject in an experiment. In addition, in multi-party interactions, the perceptions of hearers may vary depending on their participatory status and on who the target is. Arguably, the divergent research findings do show variety in the context of these criteria, yet typically not accounting for them explicitly. However, some studies do address a few contextual factors. For instance, Colston (2002) suggests that subjects’ interpretation of irony depends on the

134 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

consequences of the situation for the listener. Also, Pexman and Olineck’s (2002) findings show that ironic criticism is more mocking than literal criticism when hearers probe speaker intentions, but when the social impressions created by ironic statements are taken into account, irony appears to display the muting function. Moreover, Dews et al. (1995) show that the impact of irony depends on who the target is and on whether the criticism is merited. Ironic remarks targeting the “addressee” are less critical than those which target a “third person”. Ironic remarks targeting the addressee are less critical because a co-present participant can deflect the criticism, whereas a “third person” target (i.e. a non-participant) cannot. In addition, irony decreases the negative impact of undeserved criticism, but it does not take the sting out of deserved criticism (yet it does not exacerbate it either). However, in the latter case, an ironic speaker is also perceived as not being overcome by negative emotions, and his/her irony has little negative impact on his/her relationship with the hearer. The change of perspective assumed by subjects will also have a bearing on the interpersonal effects which negatively evaluative irony brings about (Toplak and Katz 2000). When focusing on the speaker’s perspective, subjects noticed his/her verbal aggression, but when taking the hearer’s vantage point, subjects took sarcastic irony to convey severe criticism. More interestingly, Toplak and Katz’s (2000) findings show that subjects focused on the speaker’s intention were less likely to assume that a sarcastically ironic comment would have a negative impact on the speaker’s relationship with the hearer. However, if subjects focused on the hearer’s reaction, they perceived sarcastic irony as having a more negative effect on the speaker’s relationship with the target. This clearly indicates that the perception of negatively evaluative irony depends on what role a given individual assumes, which is crucial for multi-party interactions (see Dynel 2013b). This is also relevant to the workings of irony in fictional conversations, where the viewer’s role is similar to that of the subject in an experiment, both being outside observers of interactions. However, contrary to the subject, the viewer is not meant to engage himself/herself in conscious inferential work on the impact of negatively evaluative irony. In reference to the scripted language data discussed here, the viewer may not consciously recognise the detrimental interpersonal effects of irony, appreciating its humour instead (Dynel 2013b). Finally, the paradox of the duality of interpretation can be explained in reference to the intensity of contrast effects produced by a particular ironic statement (Colston and O’Brien 2000; Colston 2000, 2002). If there is a large contrast (discrepancy) between a positively evaluative utterance and the referent negative situation, the condemning effect is perceived to be of greater magnitude in comparison to a literal, but still negative, evaluative statement. This invites the interpreter’s realisation concerning the contrast effects, which shift the interpreter’s

3 Boosting or mitigating negative evaluation 

 135

perception towards the negative aspect of the referent situation/behaviour. Conversely, if the discrepancy is smaller, contrast effects are also smaller. Thus, if a slightly positive comment is made in relation to a moderately negative situation, the critical force is alleviated and slighter in comparison to the neutral, i.e. literal, comment due to the process of assimilation (Colston and O’Brien 2000; Colston 2000, 2002). Colston (2002) thus suggests that the differences in the findings regarding irony’s pragmatic effects may stem from disparities in language data used in the experiments, with the degrees of negativity and positivity of situations and related ironic comments not being comparable across studies. A vexing question arises as to whether any reliable measuring strategies of the negative force of irony can be proposed at all, given that ironic utterances can take innumerable forms, which empirical studies have hardly accounted for so far. Colston (2000, 2002) and Colston and O’Brien (2000) appear to base their judgements of the evaluative strength in their examples on their intuitions rather than well-defined criteria. Regardless of these various queries and problems regarding the empirical findings critically revisited above, it is clear that irony is designed to either decrease or increase the force of a negative evaluation, as Examples 21 and 22 illustrate. No sweeping generalisations should be made about irony taken as a whole. Each instance of the figure must be addressed independently so that its potential pragmatic functions can be depicted. (21) [Stacy is confiding in House, telling him about her marital problems.] 1. Stacy: He’s pushing me out of his life. 2. House: Maybe you’re misinterpreting. 3. Stacy: Did I misinterpret with you? At least this time I recognize it. That’s the benefit of convincing the only two men you’ve ever loved they’re better off without you. 4. House: [rolls his eyes] Yeah, it’s all your fault. You know, Stacy in the original Greek means relationship killer. 5. Stacy: [laughs softly then sighs] I’m going to go wash my face so I look like a grown-up again. Season 2, Episode 10 As House, who has feelings for Stacy, responds to her reflection on her relationships with men (3), he means to comfort her and mildly criticise her for blaming herself unduly (4). His ironic agreement that it is all her fault displays overt untruthfulness. What House means to implicate via the irony is that she cannot carry all the blame for her unsuccessful relationships. In the same turn, he also produces a humorously absurd statement (“You know, Stacy in the original Greek means relationship killer”), which promotes the ironic interpretation of the

136 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

preceding part of his contribution and affords Stacy a glimmer of amusement (5). Overall, House’s turn illustrates a benign form of irony that has politeness effects. (22) [House and Wilson are explaining the need for open-heart surgery, a very difficult procedure, to the teenage patient’s parents.] 1. Mother: What about the marrow registry? Maybe they’ll find a match. 2. House: Maybe they’ll ride it here on a unicorn. 3. Mother: [looks angry and offended] 4. Wilson: I’m afraid finding a viable new donor isn’t something we can realistically depend on. Season 3, Episode 21 House welcomes the mother’s naïve suggestion (1) with a bitingly critical ironic remark (2). In a rather abrupt, albeit creative, manner, House implicates that a marrow match is unrealistic and impossible (like the appearance of a unicorn), and thus that her suggestion was nothing short of stupid. House thus exacerbates the criticism that he might have expressed more mildly or refrained from producing altogether when breaking the bad news, which is what Wilson (4) does. The ironically conveyed criticism is particularly painful given the circumstances (the mother has just been told that her son’s chances of surviving are very slim). The mother’s non-verbal reaction (3) indicates that she has taken offence at House’s remark. This type of irony can be dubbed “sarcastic irony” (see Section 4.2). Sarcastic irony, as defined here, is targeted at a victim and must be based on the speaker’s intention to exacerbate criticism and cause offence (which may be taken by the hearer or not). The notion of sarcastic irony brings to focus another academic bone of contention, namely the relationship between irony and sarcasm (see also Dynel 2016f, 2017c).

4 Irony vs sarcasm There is an ongoing academic debate in linguistics on the definitions of, and the thorny relationship between, irony and sarcasm. One of the reasons why irony and sarcasm are associated (and mistaken for each other) may be that they tend to produce humorous effects and are frequently seen as categories of conversational humour. It is thus hardly surprising that “irony” and “sarcasm” should reverberate across the interdisciplinary literature on humour. It must be stressed, nonetheless, that neither irony nor sarcasm is inherently humorous, and both need to meet a few conditions to display humorous potential (see Dynel, 2013b, 2014). Overall, clear differentiation between the notions of sarcasm and irony, it

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 137

is argued here, is necessary in order to capture two distinct (albeit co-occurring) communicative phenomena.

4.1 Previous uses of the labels and definitional differences Brown (1980: 111) warns that sarcasm “is not a discrete logical or linguistic phenomenon”. Indeed, even though it seems to have some fundamental characteristics, “sarcasm” has fuzzy boundaries and escapes clear-cut linguistic definitions. It is a folk notion associated with popular (sometimes vulgar) language use. By contrast, irony is a clearly delineated rhetorical figure known since ancient times as a rhetorical tool used in elevated formal speeches. Given its complexity, this figure does pose definitional problems, as the countless scholarly approaches attest. Nonetheless, such a commonsensical distinction between irony and sarcasm is not widely supported. The relationship between the rhetorical figure of irony and sarcasm depicted in the academic literature in English is a problematic one. First and foremost, a mismatch is observed between lay language users’ (emic) views and researchers’ (etic) definitions (see Dynel 2017c). In American English, “sarcasm” is commonly used to denote the rhetorical figure of irony (Nunberg 2001; Attardo et al. 2003), as indicated by the quotations involving language users’ (here, scriptwriters’) metapragmatic labels at the beginning of this chapter. As Attardo (2013: 40) puts it, “the meaning of the word ‘sarcasm’ has taken over the meaning previously occupied by the word ‘irony’. ‘Irony’ has shifted to mean something unfortunate”. In this vein, Jones and Wilson (1987) report that language users have a tendency to overuse and abuse “irony” when referring to any odd events. This shows, for instance, in the famous song “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette (see Simpson 2011). On the whole, there is an ongoing debate among language users about whether it is valid to refer to a situation as “ironic” when it involves merely something odd or unfortunate.20 Be that as it may, in opposition to (many) researchers, laypeople “seem to perceive sarcasm as a linguistic device (i.e., something people do) and irony as a matter of fate (i.e., unexpected or surprising events that happen to people” (Creusere 1999: 219; see also Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Creusere 2000). Essentially, the authors claim (probably having American English in mind) that in popular parlance, that is in emic usage, “ironic” is used to mean “coincidental”, whilst “sarcastic” is a label applied to

20 e.g. http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/05/10/alanis-morissette-admits-theresnothing-ironic-in-ironic

138 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

utterances based on the rhetorical figure of irony. This usage also appears in the discourse of House, written by scriptwriters and performed by actors, all being lay language users. (23) [House is talking to Cuddy.] 1. House: Oh! Almost forgot. I need to give a sixteen-year-old magic mushrooms to treat a cluster headache. Is that cool? 2. Cuddy: [deadpan] Yeah, no problem. [House nods and walks out. Cuddy looks fearfully at House leaving, suddenly coming to the realisation that House may have (deliberately) misunderstood her. She races out after him. In the lobby, Cuddy catches up with House.] 3. Cuddy: I was being sarcastic. [House turns and keeps walking. Cuddy walks with him, towards the elevator.] Season 3, Episode 23 After House has suggested that he needs a hallucinogenic drug as medication (1), Cuddy replies with what may be considered an example of the figure of irony (2). By making an overtly untruthful utterance, she refuses to meet House’s demand and implicitly criticises it, with her intended meaning translating into “No way! This idea is unacceptable”. Since House may have mistakenly (but, in all likelihood, purposefully) taken her utterance at face value, Cuddy needs to resort to metalanguage to explain her communicative strategy. She uses the metapragmatic label “sarcastic” (3) with regard to her previous utterance, which is hardly surprising given that she (like the scriptwriters) uses American English. The label “sarcasm” used with reference to the rhetorical figure of irony has become prevalent also in the academic literature, presumably under the influence of everyday American English. Consequently, the scope of irony called “sarcasm” has broadened. As Taylor (2015a: 131) aptly observes, the elusiveness of the distinction between irony and sarcasm “represents a substantial challenge to research because it is not easy to distinguish exactly what construct a given paper is reporting on”. Frequently, researchers refer to previous literature without recognising the fact that the quoted authors’ understandings of irony and/or sarcasm are markedly different from their own. This has a bearing on the findings, which can sound contradictory, as is the case with the interpersonal consequences of irony (see Section 3). Terminological rigidity and the clarity of etic labels in academic writings are crucial for the epistemology of academic analyses (see Eelen 2001). Thus, lay notions should not be elevated to the status of technical terms and applied without much consideration (Haugh 2016). If they are, this may lead to misconceptions about irony and/or sarcasm lying at the heart of otherwise insightful investigations.

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 139

At a glance, the traditional folk and academic perspectives are unanimous in defining the term “sarcasm”. This is because academic definitions frequently refer to etymological and contemporary dictionaries of the English language. As many authors (e.g. Ball 1965; Seckman and Couch 1989; Berger 1993; Partington 2006; Rockwell 2006) report, the word “sarcasm” has its origin in Greek words that mean “tearing flesh” or “speaking bitterly” and “bitter laugh”. Sarcasm, as Rockwell (2006: 6) concludes, “is portrayed in most dictionary references as a negative behaviour; it is designed to wound, insult, or taunt. It is characterized as cutting and contemptuous”. In this vein, referring to a dictionary definition, Partington (2006: 212) notes that sarcasm is a matter of “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter gibe or taunt”. Similarly, Berger (1993: 49) states that sarcasm resides in the use of “cutting, contemptuous, and ‘biting’ remarks, delivered often in a hostile manner”. It also serves ridicule or mockery and is “a way of using language with the intent of hurting a listener” (Littmann and Mey 1991: 147). Sarcastic speakers’ prime goal is then to cause verbal harm, as many authors indicate (Ball 1965; Fowler 1965; Seckman and Couch 1989; Berger 1993; Littmann and Mey 1991; Partington 2006). Thus, speakers are perceived as being sarcastic when they have a propensity towards using putdowns, trenchant criticism or malicious wit. Haiman (1990: 188) claims that sarcastic remarks are “not just playful” but are “aggressive, and aimed at a target”. Despite its “non-playfulness”, understood as the ability to carry the speaker’s truthful meaning, as well as its aggressive and disaffiliative potential, sarcasm is very frequently reported to invite humorous responses (e.g. Berger 1993; Norrick 1993; Jorgensen 1996; Toplak and Katz 2000; Partington 2006; Dynel 2013b, 2013c, 2014a). However, it is important to note that sarcasm need not always be humorous, and whether or not it is perceived as amusing depends heavily on the participation structure and who the target of the sarcastic comment is (Gibbs 1994; Dynel 2013c). Essentially, sarcasm may induce humorous responses primarily in the hearers who are not the targets of the biting remarks. Therefore, sarcasm may be conceptualised as a form of disparaging or disaffiliative humour in multi-party interactions, including mass media ones, where humour is devised primarily for the viewer’s pleasure (Dynel 2016c and references therein). Also, sarcasm may not only consist merely in being abrupt but also involve some conceptual and/or verbal innovation. This is why sarcasm testifies to the speaker’s acerbic wit and verbal creativity, which may centre on implicitness, as the figure of irony always does. However, as opposed to irony, pure sarcasm does not involve overt untruthfulness or any meaning reversal consequent upon it. Sarcastic implicitness may show, for instance, in the speaker’s implicit communication of two distinct critical messages via one utterance.

140 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

(24) [House, Foreman, Thirteen (a bisexual female doctor) and Chase are discussing their female patient’s symptoms. Her high libido may be indicative of some disease.] 1. Foreman: Increased libido can be a symptom of adrenocortical carcinoma, which also explains her other symptoms. 2. Thirteen: A woman who likes sex must be sick? 3. House: Just because everybody in this room wishes that all women were horny all the time doesn’t make it so. 4. Chase: [looks amused] 5. House: Get an MRI of her adrenal glands. Season 6, Episode 19 House’s sarcastic turn (3) appears to carry genuine aggression against Thirteen and, admittedly, no humour to be appreciated by her since her personal, private sphere is invaded. Clearly, this utterance does not represent merely autotelic humour (see Chapter 5, Section 1.3.1), and the speaker cannot be seen to be “only joking”. Whether Thirteen is genuinely offended remains uncertain, for her reaction is not shown on screen. The speaker’s sarcastic intention appears to be undeniable in the context, though. Rather than simply dismissing her suggestion that the patient’s libido may not be a symptom (2), House implicitly criticises this idea by (again) implicitly disparaging Thirteen’s sexual orientation. Both these implicatures can be regarded as arising from flouting the Gricean maxims of Relation and Manner. In this way, House incites humorous responses in the other interlocutors, with at least one of them (Chase) being actually amused (4). Such humorousness is another point of similarity between irony and sarcasm. Witty humour appreciated by non-targeted hearers is also a frequent concomitant of irony. The question concerning the relationship between the concepts of irony and sarcasm is a particularly thorny one. Given that the technical label “irony” may cover not only the rhetorical figure but also other phenomena (notably, situational irony), some differences between irony and sarcasm are quite transparent and self-explanatory. Sarcasm is always associated with verbalisations and does not pertain to extra-linguistic phenomena, as does irony in its situational variant. Therefore, situations can be ironic but not sarcastic (being extra-linguistic), and people can be both ironic and sarcastic in their verbalisations (Haiman 1998). Claims are made that the distinguishing feature between sarcasm and irony (hereafter the focus is on the relevant rhetorical figure, unless a label such as “situational” is added) may be (lack of) the speaker’s intention (Haiman 1990, 1998; Gibbs et al. 1995; Gibbs 2012). Haiman (1998: 25) presents sarcasm as an intentionally made rhetorical figure recruiting meaning reversal and communicating aggressive meanings, stating that “sarcasm is characterized by the

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 141

intentional production of an overt and separate metamessage ‘I don’t mean this’ in which the speaker expresses hostility or ridicule of another speaker”. Haiman (1990: 187) states that in contrast to sarcasm, “irony may be innocent. To be ironic, a speaker need not be aware that his words are ‘false’”. Thereby, Haiman (1990) suggests that it is the hearer who may interpret an utterance as being ironic, although it is not ironic by the speaker’s design. This postulate flies in the face of the traditional, still prevailing definition of irony as a purposefully employed figure. It seems that Haiman (1990) makes this postulate only in order to be able to capture the intentionally produced rhetorical figure under “sarcasm”, while reserving “irony” primarily for situational irony, which seems to encompass also the rare cases of unintended overt untruthfulness. Similarly, proposing that irony does not have to be intentional, Gibbs (2012) conflates situational irony with the rhetorical figure, as borne out in his example of “unintentional irony”, namely “I would never be involved in any cheating” said by someone who has unknowingly been involved in cheating (Gibbs 2012: 107). In actual fact, this is an example of situational irony based on the speaker’s obliviousness to some goings-on. Specifically, as Kapogianni (2016a) rightly observes, this is an instance of dramatic irony (see Lucariello 1994). This irony involves a person whose expressed beliefs are in striking contrast with the actual state of affairs. Essentially, both irony and sarcasm need to be intentionally produced (even though the intention need not be conscious, and the speakers need not label their utterances the way that researchers do). Interestingly, Camp (2012) seems to interpret sarcasm as a notion that encompasses irony and that amounts mainly to irony. She claims that her “analysis of sarcasm can accommodate most if not all of the cases described as verbal irony”, even though she appears to differentiate between the two when she states that “sarcasm is typically more explicit than irony, and involves a simpler mapping from literal to figurative meaning” (Camp 2012: 625). It is difficult to explain how the two features she mentions (explicitness and simplicity) are to be understood and measured. All irony is implicit but may indeed involve varying degrees of inferential effort, and sarcasm may also demand inferential effort even if it need not entail implicitness. On the whole, most examples of sarcasm that Camp (2012) addresses and the literature she quotes concern the figure of irony. At no point does she mention that sarcasm displays aggressiveness. This leads to the conclusion that she takes “sarcasm” as a technical label for irony (see other references below). Nevertheless, some of Camp’s (2012) examples and the category of “likeprefixed sarcasm” cannot be classified as irony for they do not show the characteristics of irony, as Kapogianni (2016b) also notes. Apart from the isolated claims quoted above, three prevalent perspectives can be discerned in the scholarship. Some authors perceive sarcasm as being

142 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

independent of irony, others treat sarcasm as a subtype of irony, and still others use the label “sarcasm” as a synonym for “irony” or a substitute for “irony”. The members of the last group, even if cognisant of the fact that the denotation of irony is not precisely the same as that of sarcasm, seem to use the two labels, “sarcasm” and “irony”, interchangeably as if they are synonyms, not specifying any distinguishing features between the two notions (e.g. Jorgensen 1996; Gibbs 1986a; Toplak and Katz 2000; Gerrig and Goldvarg 2000; Long and Graesser 1988; Gibbs and O’Brien, 1991; Giora 1998; McDonald 1999; Schwoebel et al. 2000; Attardo et al. 2003; Coulson 2005; Fallis 2009; Sanders 2013; Drucker et al. 2014; Kunneman et al. 2015; Giora et al., 2015). Moreover, “sarcasm” appears to be given preference by these authors, even though they draw heavily on the literature on irony. This choice of a preferred label may be dictated by the use of “sarcasm” by lay language users of English, notably the American variety. The dominating view in the contemporary literature is that sarcasm is a type of irony. This is manifest in various strands of research, one of which concerns (im)politeness, specifically the notion of mock politeness (i.e. overtly pretended politeness) propounded as one of the strategies of impoliteness (see Culpeper 1996, 2005; Culpeper et al., 2003; Bousfield 2008; Taylor 2015a, 2015b; Dynel 2013c, 2016e). Leech, the original proponent of the notion of mock politeness, conceives of it as a synonym for “irony”, understood as “an apparently friendly way of being offensive” (1983: 144). In his more recent work, Leech (2014: 232) presents “conversational irony” as being synonymous with “sarcasm”. Developing on the notion of mock politeness, Culpeper (1996: 356) admits that he prefers “the term sarcasm to Leech’s irony, since irony can be used for enjoyment and comedy” but his “understanding of sarcasm is close to Leech’s (1983) conception of irony”. Culpeper (1996: 356) thus associates sarcasm with “mock politeness for social disharmony” or the irony that exerts negative interpersonal effects. It should be stressed, however, that sarcasm can also be used for “enjoyment and comedy”, i.e. for the sake of humour, but the humorous response can hardly be invited in the target (Gibbs 1994; Dynel 2013b). Generally, (im)politeness researchers’ view of sarcasm as a vehicle for impoliteness ties in with the prevalent view of sarcasm as an aggressive verbal activity. They also deem sarcasm a type of irony, narrowing down its scope to overtly pretended politeness. As Taylor (2015a: 127) rightly concludes, equating mock politeness with irony/sarcasm is ill-advised since “the label of sarcasm is simultaneously too broad, because behaviours labelled as sarcastic do not always perform mock politeness, and too narrow because there are mock polite behaviours which would not be labelled as sarcastic in either the lay or academic/theoretical senses”. Outside (im)politeness studies, sarcasm is commonly defined as irony that carries severe criticism (e.g. Long and Graesser 1988; Gibbs and O’Brien 1991;

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 143

Barbe 1995; Gibbs 2000; Caucci and Kreuz 2012). Sarcasm is thus perceived as the “crudest” form of irony (Muecke 1969: 20) or “an especially negative form of irony” (Gibbs 1994: 384). Gibbs seems to acknowledge that irony and sarcasm are independent notions when he states that “it is possible to make sarcastic remarks without being ironic” but also claims that “most sarcasm uses irony to get its bitter or caustic effect” (1994: 108).21 Based on a dictionary definition, Gibbs states that “sarcasm depends for its effect on bitter, caustic, and other ironic language that is usually directed against an individual” (1994: 108, italics added). Haiman espouses a belief that the essential feature of sarcasm “is that it is overt irony22 intentionally used by the speaker as a form of verbal aggression” (1998: 21, italics in original). The goal of this aggressive irony is to deprecate or even ridicule the victim (see Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Lee and Katz 1998; Channon et al. 2005; Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2005; Bowes and Katz 2011). Supportive of the assumption of the aggressive nature of sarcasm, a few authors explicitly ascribe meaning opposition (typically associated with standard irony) to sarcasm. For example, Haiman (1990: 181) claims that a sarcastic speaker “intends to mean the opposite of what his message would normally mean”. Similarly, Rockwell writes that “both sarcasm and irony describe utterances that express the opposite of the speaker’s true intent” (2006: 6) and conceptualises sarcasm as a subtype of irony, “a sharply mocking or contemptuous ironic remark intended to wound another” (2000: 485). For their part, Leggitt and Gibbs (2000: 5) propose that sarcasm “clearly contradicts the knowable state of affairs”, which irony does as well. Leggitt and Gibbs (2000) see sarcasm as more pointed and critical than irony but differentiate between the two also depending

21 At the same time, Gibbs (1994) refers to Seckman and Couch (1989), who claim that sarcasm may be bitter or mild, hence manifesting variable degrees of intensity. Even more interestingly, Gibbs (1994) abandons the sarcasm vs irony distinction when he claims that there are two prominent kinds of irony: “jocularity and sarcasm”, the former being produced in “a jesting manner” and the latter being “bitter and caustic” (Gibbs 1994: 372). On this reading, the term “jocularity” should not be equated with what seems to be the default reading: humour devoid of serious propositional meaning. Disregarding the parlance, Gibbs (1994) differentiates between two forms of irony: one benevolent and humorous, and the other hostility-oriented. He also rightly indicates that one instance of irony may show both aspects depending on a given hearer’s perspective. Later in his work, Gibbs (2000) gives a very broad view of “irony” as a blanket term for: jocularity, sarcasm, hyperbole, rhetorical questions and understatements. These are distinct notions that cannot be rashly subsumed under “irony”, although they may be used in service of irony (on humour, see Dynel 2013b, 2014; on rhetorical figures, see Dynel 2016d; Neuhaus 2016 and references therein). 22 Most irony is overt in the sense that the speaker typically wishes the hearer to recognise its presence in order to infer the intended meaning. However, instances of irony may show varying degrees of transparency.

144 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

on who an utterance is critical of. Irony, they claim, is not directly critical of the addressee,23 whereas sarcasm is. Contrary to what the two authors claim, the participatory status of the target (a hearer or non-participant) of a negatively evaluative utterance does not appear to be a solid criterion helping discriminate between the two notions. It is impossible to tell why an utterance cannot be sarcastic, i.e. bitingly critical, about someone who cannot hear it. The (non)participatory status of the target does not seem to have much bearing on the intended “meanness” of the speaker’s remark, even though this role is crucial for the interpersonal consequences sarcastic irony leads to. Proponents of what may be considered a “weaker view” hold that sarcasm is a subtype of irony which expresses any kind of negative attitude (Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kreuz and Roberts 1993). This view downplays the severity and face-damaging effects mentioned by others. By the same token, Alba-Juez and Attardo (2014: 100) define sarcasm as “negative irony”, “where an apparently positive comment expresses a negative criticism [sic] or judgement of a person, a thing or a situation”. This line of reasoning is untenable inasmuch as all irony is intrinsically critical, even if some positive evaluation of a distinct referent should be communicated as well (Garmendia 2010; see Section 2.3). It is indeed the case, though, that whilst verbal aggression inheres in sarcasm, irony (albeit still communicating negative evaluation) does not need to involve aggression and may even mitigate criticism (see Section 3 for an overview of findings). Finally, a number of researchers endorse a view, which is the one championed here, that sarcasm and irony are independent but potentially co-­occurring notions. As Kreuz and Glucksberg (1989: 374) rightly note, people “can use verbal irony without being sarcastic and can also be sarcastic without being ironic”. The same distinction is made in two influential works on the English language. Partridge (1957: 160) warns against confusing irony with sarcasm, “which is direct: sarcasm means precisely what it says, but in a sharp, bitter, cutting, caustic, or acerb manner; it is the instrument of indignation, a weapon of offense, whereas irony is one of the vehicles of wit”. What Partridge (1957) appears to communicate under the “direct” and “means precisely what it says” claim is that sarcasm does not involve the implicitness typical of irony, which may be defined as originating in overt untruthfulness (and the flouting of the Gricean first maxim of Quality). However, there is no reason to believe that sarcasm cannot entail implicitness of other kinds (e.g. seen as resting on flouting any of the other Gricean maxims, or even the first maxim of Quality yet

23 Leggitt and Gibbs (2000) seem to see this as a generic notion pertaining to any ratified hearer type, not accounting for the different (un)ratified hearer types (see e.g. Dynel 2011c).

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 145

not conducive to irony but metaphor, for example). Unlike Partridge’s (1957) view, Fowler’s (1965) perspective on the sarcasm vs irony distinction seems to be much clearer. Fowler (1965: 535) states that sarcasm “does not necessarily involve irony, [and] irony has often no touch of sarcasm. But irony [...] is so often made the vehicle of sarcasm or the utterance of things designed to hurt the feelings, that in popular use the two are much confused”. He concludes that the “essence of sarcasm is the intention of giving pain by (ironical or other) bitter words” (Fowler 1965: 535). In opposition to the prevailing sarcasm-as-irony view, a distinction between the two concepts is also drawn in contemporary literature. For example, Rockwell (2006: 6) claims that the two notions “differ in content in that sarcasm, [sic] is generally used to offer criticism, particularly to insult; whereas irony can be used for making any type of comment – positive or negative”. Unfortunately, this explanation seems to conflate two issues: the type of evaluation that irony carries with the interpersonal consequences that the use of sarcasm or irony invites. As stated above, all irony carries implicit negative evaluation. Glenwright and Pexman (2010: 432) aptly observe that both sarcasm and irony serve the expression of “a critical attitude with humor but sarcasm serves an additional ridiculing function that irony does not”, adding that “the target of sarcastic criticism is a person while the target of ironic criticism is not personal”. A disclaimer needs to be made that irony may be person-directed as well, but the critical evaluation need not be produced with a view to offending the evaluated individual. Reyes et al. (2013) also attempt to differentiate between the two constructs. They rightly state that sarcasm “is more often concerned with biting delivery and savage putdowns” (Reyes et al. 2013: 242) and that it “has an obviously mocking tone that is used against another” (Reyes et al. 2013: 260). However, less convincingly, Reyes et al. claim that “irony is often more sophisticated, more subtle and ambiguous, and even self-deprecating” (2013: 260) and that it often coincides with “playful pretense” (2013: 241). “Sophistication” is a feature that may equally apply to sarcasm and to irony, and both may lack sophistication (e.g. conventional irony “Oh, nice!”, and conventional like/as if sarcasm “Like I care!”). The feature of ambiguity is vague too. Irony does involve the utterance vs intended meaning distinction, but the speaker typically intends the hearer to infer the implicated meaning rather than to invite the two alternative interpretations, and hence purposefully promote ambiguity. Finally, irony needs to be distinguished from “playful pretence”, which the authors probably regard as some kind of humorous overt untruthfulness. Whilst irony is sometimes conceptualised as a type of overt pretence (see Section 6.1), it must not be mistaken for autotelic humour (see Chapter 5, Section 1.3.1), for it does communicate truthful (or covertly untruthful, see Chapter 4, Section 3.2) meanings, even if it should be humorous at the same time (see Chapter 5, Section 2).

146 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Yet another solution to the question about how irony can be differentiated from sarcasm comes from Kapogianni (2011), whose postulate is closest to the one put forward here. According to Kapogianni (2011), “counterfactuality” is the basic criterion discriminating between irony and non-ironic sarcasm, which encompasses negatively evaluative comments not conflicting with reality/the truth. In the neo-Gricean approach supported here, the focus is not on “the truth”, but on the speaker’s belief about what the reality is, and hence truthfulness, as reflected by the first maxim of Quality. As already mentioned, however, sarcasm can also be present in utterances which reside in implicitness that stems from the floutings of the Gricean maxims, inclusive of the first Quality maxim, thereby also showing non-ironic overt untruthfulness. This is why sarcastic meaning may not amount to the Gricean what is said when an utterance contains metaphor or hyperbole, for instance. In other words, non-ironic sarcastic utterances may also involve floutings of the first maxim of Quality, coinciding with overt untruthfulness conducive to a negatively evaluative implicature which does not necessitate meaning reversal typical of standard irony based on overt explicit untruthfulness. Here are a few instances that demonstrate various features characteristic of sarcasm. (25) [House enters the hospital lobby. Cuddy, who has recently become a foster parent, enters behind him. She looks tired.] 1. House: [conspicuously looking at his watch] Either I need a new watch, or Mowgli is cutting into your beauty sleep. 2. Cuddy: I was up all night looking at finance reports, and Rachel is doing great. Thanks for asking. Season 5, Episode 12 In his sarcastic turn (1) House implicitly criticises Cuddy’s tardiness and disparages her baby. This sarcastic utterance involves overt untruthfulness based on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, which underlies metaphoric language use. Making a reference to the main character in Kipling’s The Jungle Book, House conveys a negatively evaluative implicature that Cuddy’s baby is a foundling and an unsocialised orphan. Understanding this distasteful metaphor rests on recognising the relevant features of the metaphoric vehicle (“Mowgli”). Cuddy, however, seems to discount this jibe, as evidenced by her reply (2), which involves a statement involving pragmatic meaning reversal irony (untruthful thanks communicating implicated criticism). She is by no means thanking him for expressing his concern but implicitly criticising him for not having done so. Unlike in Example 25, sarcasm need not involve any implicature.

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 147

(26) [House has been trying to recruit his team members back. He has now come to Taub’s new workplace. Taub is known to have been a womaniser.] 1. Taub: I leave this office by 6:00 every day, I have my weekends again, I recognize my wife again. 2. House: Yeah, I agree. Does sound pretty dull. No wonder you want to work for me. Tox screen was clean. We ruled out viral encephalitis. [Taub smiles pleasantly and says nothing.] The only obstacle to you coming back is your wife…which has never been that much of an obstacle to you. 3. Taub: [one corner of his mouth twitches] Maybe you’re right. The only link between eye and muscle is the brain. [gets up and grabs his jacket; walks with House to the door] Tumor, seizure… [House walks out. Taub closes the door behind him and puts his jacket back on the coat tree.] Season 6, Episode 8 As House is trying to pick Taub’s brains and to encourage him to re-join the team, he produces sarcasm (2). Specifically, by referring to one of Taub’s reasons for retaining his present post, House criticises Taub’s tendency towards fornication. Albeit witty, for it smoothly combines two ideas (Taub’s work and relationship with his wife), this sarcastic evaluation is not a matter of implicature but literally expressed meaning, which can be paraphrased to better bring out its evaluative character (“You are weak if you let your wife decide where you work, but you do not really care about her; You have always cheated on your wife, returning to your mistresses again and again”). The target seems to take offence, which shows in non-verbal leakage (a twitch), as well as his decision not to follow House. Interestingly, sarcasm may also involve positively evaluative expressions commonly associated with prototypical irony. However, unlike in the case of irony, these expressions are not subject to meaning reversal, as the following two examples show. (27) [House has found out that his patient earns money by testing new drugs.] 1. Brandon: The clinical trials were supposed to be safe. The drugs are about to be approved by the FDA. 2. Thirteen: Drugs? How many trials are you on? 3. Brandon: Three. 4. House: Admirable. Not many idiots have that much ambition! Season 5, Episode 3 In his response to the patient’s revelation about his very reckless way of earning money (3), House produces a sarcastic comment (4) that opens with an evaluative

148 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

adjective that may, at first blush, be seen as overtly untruthful, and hence ironic. However, as the turn unfolds, it turns out that House has used the adjective truthfully, as he does believe that the patient’s unprecedented tenaciousness is worthy of praise (notice House’s lack of empathy for people and tendency to revel in their self-inflicted harm). Ultimately, the sarcastic turn implicitly, albeit virulently, criticises the addressee’s conduct along the lines of “You are an idiot to have been taking part is so many trials”. (28) [House has collapsed and passed out. He is now waking up while a nurse is shining a light in his eyes.] 1. House: Get that out of my face. 2. Nurse: Welcome back. I’m Nurse Dickerson. 3. House: I don’t need your name. And I got your profession from your super competent technique of melting my retinas. 4. Nurse: Verbal faculties seem to be intact. Do you remember passing out? Season 4, Episode 15 House’s turns (1 and 3) addressed to the nurse are particularly brusque. The utterance “I got your profession from your super competent technique of melting my retinas” qualifies as sarcasm in the sense that House is making a bitingly critical, disparaging comment on the nurse’s activity. The jibe, which constitutes a truthful statement, is couched in a positively evaluative expression which is truthful but refers to an act that does not entail much skill or competence. As House utters the sarcastic remark, he seems to promote an expectation of a genuine compliment, which is duly thwarted. Interestingly, Camp and Hawthorne (2008) and Camp (2012) identify a category of like/as if sarcasm.24 They take sarcasm as a notion superordinate to “irony”, either explicitly stating this (Camp 2012: 625) or making references to classical works on the figure of irony, such as Quintilian’s (Camp and Hawthorne 2008; Camp 2012). This special use of “like” or “as if” pivots on either of them being used as a prefix preceding a declarative sentence, whose force is conventionally reversed. In the light of a semantic-syntactic investigation, Camp and Hawthorne (2008) and Camp (2012) conclude that “like/as if sarcasm” can be explained as involving the expression of a reverse illocutionary force, an illocutionary act of denial. It may be argued, nevertheless, that the conventional uses of sarcastic “like” or “as if” cannot be equated with irony, specifically conventional irony (e.g. Giora 2003), such as “Nice!”. This is because expressions that

24 Camp (2012) presents like-sarcasm, along with propositional sarcasm, lexical sarcasm and illocutionary sarcasm. These three are compatible with three of the five types of irony put forward here (see Section 6).

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 149

are conventionally used in ironic senses are always conducive to (at least theoretically, cancellable, see Chapter 4, Section 3.3) conversational implicatures (which is what irony must invite), and/or they can easily be applied in non-ironic utterances (e.g. “Nice!” may carry explicit meaning and positive evaluation) just like unconventional irony. By contrast, in no way can the sarcastic “like”/“as if” prefixed sentences be used to convey non-negated literal meanings, which disqualifies them as conversational implicatures, and hence as the figure of irony. “Like/ as if sarcasm” is a contemporary idiomatic expression that carries a lexicalised negation-based meaning and is meant to disparage the target. It is a conventional form of non-ironic sarcasm, illustrated by Example 29. (29) [Cuddy has recently split up with House after a short-lived relationship. In her dining room, she is talking to her sister, Julia, who is encouraging her to start dating. Cuddy seems to be reluctant to meet the man her sister is telling her about.] 1. Julia: Is this about House? 2. Cuddy: What? Like I secretly wish I could alter the laws of the universe, change who we are, and magically make it work out! 3. Julia: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking. 4. Cuddy: My sarcasm indicated no. 5. Julia: No, your sarcasm indicated you wanted to avoid actually saying anything. Look, Lisa, all I know is you seem stuck. And I don’t like seeing you like that. Season 7, Episode 23 Via her sarcastic remark (2), which is metapragmatically labelled (see Dynel 2017c) “sarcasm” (2 and 5), Cuddy conventionally communicates that she does not “secretly wish she could alter the laws of the universe, change who they are, and magically make it work out”, thereby implicitly scoffing at the suggestion her sister has made (1). The use of “like”, which conventionally invites the reversal-based interpretation, blocks an alternative literal interpretation of Cuddy’s utterance. Let us take stock. The perspective promoted here is that sarcasm and irony are distinct phenomena but they may co-occur. The distinguishing feature of sarcasm is its aggressive nature or, to use different academic parlance, impolite, disaffiliative, disparaging or ridiculing potential. By contrast, although, by definition, irony communicates implicit negative evaluation, it may be benign and serve politeness (for an overview, see Dynel 2016e). The hallmark of irony is the overt untruthfulness that fosters the central evaluative implicature. This feature is not intrinsic to sarcasm, which may, but does not have to, invite any implicatures (Quality-based or otherwise).

150 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Sarcasm does not need to display the characteristics of irony and vice versa. Consequently, the interchangeable use of the labels “sarcasm” and “(sarcastic) irony” is not regarded here as being cogent, even if this practice is not entirely unfounded, given the frequent concomitance of the two phenomena (see Brown 1980; Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989). What most researchers who discuss sarcasm as the aggressive form of irony seem to have in mind is, technically, a combination of irony and sarcasm, which may be (more adequately) called sarcastic irony.

4.2 Sarcastic irony Sarcastic irony comes about when sarcasm and irony co-occur and mesh. Therefore, sarcastic irony has the characteristics of both irony and sarcasm, and it may be defined as a subtype of irony which is produced to disparage its target. Like pure sarcasm, sarcastic irony is deployed to bitingly criticise, and thereby disparage or even ridicule or mock, the target’s action, utterance, point of view, etc. (for similar views, see Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Dews et al. 1995; Barbe 1995; Jorgensen 1996; Gibbs 2000; Utsumi 2000; Toplak and Katz 2000; Campbell and Katz 2012; see also Muecke 1969; Clark and Gerrig 1984; Sperber and Wilson 1981). Sarcastic irony is also sometimes defined more narrowly as a seemingly positive verbalisation expressing an intended negative evaluation of a target (Jorgensen 1996; Colston and Gibbs 2007; Anolli et al. 2002). This view is not endorsed here, however, since irony (as argued in Section 2.2) can have no positive evaluation in the literal expression. It is examples of this type of irony that have been addressed in the studies that cite evidence in favour of irony being a vehicle for scathing criticism, as well as possibly also to produce humorous effects for the benefit of other non-targeted participants in an interaction. A non-targeted hearer may be intended, or at least expected, to find a sarcastically ironic utterance amusing. For example, Bowes and Katz (2011) testify that the target does not perceive a sarcastically ironic barb as humorous, as opposed to the speaker, who frequently does find it amusing. This is what Example 30 illustrates. (30) [The team members, who have so far failed to diagnose the current patient, are gathered around the conference table in the diagnostic room. House is holding and examining the model of a human brain as if it will give him answers.] 1. Chase: So now what do we do? Start over? We obviously missed something. 2. Thirteen: What about the liver? 3. Taub: What about her left toe?

4 Irony vs sarcasm 

 151

4. Thirteen: [looks surprised] 5. Taub: [with a gleam in his eye, clearly stifling a smile] Oh, sorry, I thought we were randomly picking out body parts that had nothing to do with her symptoms. 6. Thirteen: Liver’s responsible for proteins, immunological effects, production of red blood cells. Might be able to explain the lungs, the hallucinations. Season 6, Episode 16 As the team is brainstorming, Taub reacts to his colleague’s suggestion (2) with an absurd reply (3) that mimics the structure of the preceding turn and whose import the addressee cannot initially embrace (4). In his explanatory reply (5), Taub produces another overtly untruthful utterance. Its untruthfulness stems from the fact that he is not apologetic and he cannot have genuinely considered their brainstorming to be a matter of listing random body parts. This humorous ironic contribution sheds light on the previous turn (3) and brings out its ironic nature. Taub’s absurd proposal (3) may be conceived as surrealistic irony that not only criticises but also ridicules Thirteen’s suggestion, with the “liver” and “left toe” proposals being equally absurd (2). Thus, what Taub actually communicates is an implicature along the lines of “Your idea is silly, as the liver has nothing to do with the patient’s symptoms”, the meaning that the target of sarcastic irony further dismisses by providing her rationale for her medical opinion (6). Although the other interactants show no humorous reactions, it may be assumed that Taub has produced this turn in order to amuse himself and the other doctors except for Thirteen. It should be stressed that irony, which always carries negative evaluation, need not always be sarcastic. In contrast to sarcastic irony which is intended to insult the target, nonsarcastic irony is not meant to be insulting, even if critical of the target. Needless to say, irony must be nonsarcastic if it does not have a target, who is intended to take offence or who might take offence if they could hear it (in the cases when non-participants are targeted). In such “victimless irony” (Utsumi 2000), it is only the fate or set of circumstances that can be considered the object of criticism, yet not being the target of the irony (Winner 1988; Barbe 1995). In their empirical study, Dews et al. (1995) report that when ironic utterances concern situations beyond anybody’s control, the hearers have no reason to take offence. This is because they are not the targets of ironic remarks. Irony is also non-sarcastic if the critical force it carries is not purposefully exacerbated, as indicated by contextual factors (e.g. non-verbal signals, a playful context, etc.). The presence of such irony is reflected in the research highlighting the mitigating function of irony (see Section 3). To conclude, not all negatively evaluative irony

152 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

must be regarded as sarcastic, the differentiating criterion being the presence/ absence of ridicule/mockery/virulent disparagement of the target, a participant or a non-participant in the interaction.

5 Hearers vs targets of irony The majority of studies on irony take as their bedrock the participatory dyad, presupposing that irony is produced by the speaker and interpreted by the hearer, who is simultaneously the target. Rightly, Holdcroft (1983: 496) explicitly makes a distinction between the target of irony and the “audience”, here regarded as the totality of hearers, observing that the roles need not coincide and that the target may be a member of the audience but does not necessarily need to recognise the presence of irony, which seems to echo in Gibbs and Izett’s (2005) distinction between “wolves” and “sheep”, the latter not being privy to irony. This, it may be added, takes place when the speaker purposefully uses irony to deceive a hearer who cannot recognise its presence (see Chapter 4, Section 6.2) or does not consider the member of the “audience” a ratified participant, thereby not intending to communicate any meanings to him/her. The target vs hearer distinction seems to underlie Gibbs and Izett’s (2005) differentiation between “confederates” (hearers who share the ironic speaker’s vantage point) and “victims”, who are targeted by irony and disagree with it. Essentially, irony may occur in multi-party interactions which involve various configurations of hearer categories and distributions of the targets, who may be participants or non-participants. This has a bearing on the communicative and interpersonal functions irony performs. As Kapogianni (2016b) shows, using data from mass-media interactions, the speaker may “juggle” a number of intentions with regard to different “audience” members. A number of authors have proposed different, albeit not entirely dissimilar, classifications of participants in multi-party interactions, which escape the canonical dyadic model encompassing the speaker and the hearer (Hymes 1972, 1974; Goffman 1981; Clark and Carlson 1982; Bell 1984, 1991; Thomas 1986; Clark and Schaefer 1987, 1992; Levinson 1988; Schober and Clark 1989; Clark 1996; Verschueren 1999). The participatory roles presented here are allocated for each turn (which is comprised of one or more utterances). Also, each role may be collective, being performed by more than one individual (for details see Dynel 2010, 2011c, 2014b). It must be stressed that individuals perform the various hearer/listener roles distinguished here only if they can hear and do listen, making inferences and, importantly, developing beliefs, based on what the speaker is uttering.

5 Hearers vs targets of irony 

 153

Following Goffman’s approach, participants can be divided into unratified and ratified ones. The term “ratified participants” pertains to the speaker and ratified hearers/listeners, who typically take turns and interact as interlocutors in a conversation.25 Ratified hearers bifurcate into addressee and third party. The distinction between these two is conventionally made in the light of verbal and non-verbal cues, such as the presence or absence of terms of address, the use of second grammatical person and related pronouns, as well as posture or eye contact. Whilst sometimes the distinction between the addressee and the third party has little bearing on the nature of communicated meanings, in other situations the roles diverge considerably (see Dynel 2014b). In any case, ratified hearers do hold speakers accountable for their utterances and communicated speaker meanings. By contrast, unratified hearers, here also called overhearers, are defined as participants who can hear and do listen to a turn without the speaker’s and, prototypically but not always, ratified hearers’ authorisation. Unratified hearers are divided into bystanders and eavesdroppers depending on the speaker’s (lack of) awareness that he/she is being overheard. A bystander is an overhearer of whose presence (or only being within earshot) the speaker is aware, in contrast to an eavesdropper, of whose presence (or only being within earshot) the speaker is oblivious. A number of authors have mentioned that targets of irony may coincide with various hearer roles, yet most frequently not accounting for the full spectrum of participant types or explaining the participatory labels used. For instance, Weizman (2001) notes that the target may coincide with the addressee or an individual who is neither speaker nor addressee. Discussing irony in a televised interview, Weizman (2008: 88) observes that the target of irony can be “the ratified addressee [...]; a non-ratified third party [...]; and an absent third party, i.e. a person or a group of persons who are being talked about”. For his part, Cros (2001) differentiates between three types of targets: the speaker, the receiver and the third party. Similarly, Alba-Juez and Attardo (2014: 98) claim that irony “may be directed toward the hearer, a third party or the speaker herself, whereas the neutral cases normally do not show any special attitude toward any participant”. Incidentally, it is difficult to conceive of “neutral” irony, for the figure invariably carries some evaluation. What the authors may be willing to suggest is that targets may be non-participants.

25 Nevertheless, in some types of interactions, such as a lecture or a presentation of a project, ratified participants cannot be viewed as being interlocutors. Also, as will be shown here, irrespective of the interaction type, the third party need not be an interlocutor ratified to take the speaker role.

154 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Propounding a postulate that the speaker’s utterance may be understood as ironic regardless of the speaker’s ironic intention or lack thereof, Gibbs and co-researchers (Gibbs and O’Brien 1991; Gibbs et al. 1995; Gibbs 2012) provide two different scenarios of someone saying “I would never be involved in any cheating”. In the first scenario, the irony is intentionally produced by the speaker and perceived by two hearers (one involved in the act of cheating, and the other, the “addressee” who has posed the question and who bases his/her interpretation on contextual cues). In the alternative scenario, the speaker commits an act of deception rather than making an (intentionally) ironic utterance. As a result, “unintended irony” is recognised by the hearers who are oblivious to the speaker’s having cheated and who thus recognise the utterance as being ironic. Gibbs (2012: 107) states that in the second story, “only the addressees and overhearers see the irony in what the speaker actually said”. What Gibbs (2012) probably means under the terms “addressees” and “overhearers” is ratified hearers and other hearers respectively. Barbe (1995: 30) addresses the problem of several potential targets of irony: addressee/previous speaker, the person talked about, the person who did (not) do or say something (anything), an ignorant person or the speaker. This list is not a proper taxonomy, with the categories (by no means mutually exclusive) being distinguished along more than one criterion. Even in terms of participant types, this proposal is by no means adequate, inasmuch as Barbe assumes that there is only one hearer (the addressee), who needs to have contributed the previous turn. At the same time, following Freud (1960) and Stempel (1976), Barbe (1995) distinguishes three types of participants: the speaker (the ironist), the hearer (the target) and the audience, who is involved only as an observer or a censor. While Barbe (1995) rules out the possibility of a target being a nonparticipant when discussing this triad, she does mention that the target may be absent, which is crucial for irony’s outcome. Barbe (1995: 90) also claims when the victim is absent, irony can be more aggressive than when he/she is present. By contrast, according to Jorgensen (1996), sarcastic irony most frequently takes as the target the “addressee” (probably understood as any ratified hearer) rather than an absent third party. This may be explained by the fact that chastising an individual makes sense when this individual is cognisant of this fact. Jorgensen (1996) also makes in passing an apt comment that the full picture of irony should also account for the presence of overhearers. In their empirical study on the effects of sarcastic irony, Toplak and Katz (2000) investigate the speaker’s intention, as well as the listener’s interpretation from the speaker’s, listener’s and audience’s perspectives assumed by study participants. It may be gathered then that this research differentiates between the addressee who is the target (the listener) and hearers who are neither evaluated

5 Hearers vs targets of irony 

 155

nor addressed. The problem of the distinction between the hearer and the target of an ironic utterance is also touched upon by Dews et al. (1995) in their discussion of the strength of criticism. Essentially, to (be meant to) take offence, the target (who can be any hearer type) must be a hearer of the utterance. On the whole, irony may be performed in dyadic or multi-party interactions and, regardless of the number of participants, the target of ironic evaluation may be a non-participant, the speaker and/or any of the hearers, as the two instances below exemplify. The first one is an interesting case of irony that seems to merge two targets: a non-participant and the addressee. (31) [In previous episodes of House, House was Cuddy’s boyfriend and also her mother’s doctor. House is discussing a current case with his team when Cuddy enters.] 1. Cuddy: My mother’s lawyer called. She’s threatening to sue the hospital over our mistreatment of her. Says it slowed her recovery. 2. House: You know, I was just thinking how much I want a relationship with no sex, but where I still have to deal with your mother. [to the team] Go to the patient’s old workshop. Look for causes of toxic brain damage. Go take a new history, and see if there’s any lifestyle changes that would explain atherosclerosis. Go. [enters his office and Cuddy follows; pops a pill] Medicinal. I’m expecting a shooting pain in my ass. 3. Cuddy: My mom and I got into a fight. Because of our hip replacement, she can barely get around her own house. I told her she has to live with me while she recovers. 4. House: Oh, I’m starting to get the connection: yeah, she has a house, my name is House. 5. Cuddy: You’re the doctor that treated her, that illegally switched her meds after she fired you, that went behind the back of her actual doctor. Season 7, Episode 20 In his ironic turn (4) addressed to Cuddy (at this stage of the interaction, the only hearer present), House is untruthful when he states that he recognises the relevance of Cuddy’s report (1 and 3) to him, and the point of similarity he mentions, which pivots on a pun, is irrelevant and absurd in the context at hand. Using these tactics, House implicates that he is not to blame for whatever he is being accused of, and that the accusation is irrational (“I’m by no means responsible for your mother’s mistreatment/slow recovery, and this accusation is preposterous”). Cuddy’s mother, a non-participant in this conversational exchange, is the main target of the irony since she is presented as the author of the irrational accusation. Cuddy, the addressee, is also the target of this irony in the sense that she

156 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

must consider her mother’s complaint well-founded if she has chosen to pass it on to House. Indeed, Cuddy does have some rationale for blaming him (5). Example 32 illustrates irony that targets a ratified hearer who is not the addressee. (32) [An emergency doctor is talking to Luke, the son of a schizophrenic patient being treated. House is sitting nearby, hiding from Cuddy behind a newspaper. Luke has confessed that he has given his mother some vodka to pacify her.] 1. ER doc: The alcohol makes her pass out, she’s immobile for long periods of time… 2. Luke: That doesn’t happen. She’s not an alcoholic. 3. ER doc: She only drinks when you give it to her. We put her on blood thinners. You can probably take her home tomorrow. 4. Luke: It’s not the alcohol, it’s gotta be something else. 5. House: Of course it’s the alcohol! [Both turn to look at him.] Hello! This guy’s a professional doctor. Plays golf and everything, I bet. He’s not gonna tell you your mom’s an alcoholic without proof. I’m sure he scoped for varices, checked her esophagus, ran all kinds of blood tests. Doctors like this, they don’t make assumptions, they do the work! Season 1, Episode 6 A bystander to the exchange between the ER doctor and the patient’s son, House ratifies himself as he takes the floor and addresses the latter (5). House’s long turn contains three ironic utterances (“Of course it’s the alcohol!”, “This guy’s a professional doctor” and “I’m sure he scoped for varices, checked her esophagus, ran all kinds of blood tests”), intertwined with purely sarcastic utterances. This turn targets the ER doctor, another ratified hearer (the third party). House (whom the interlocutors cannot know to have a medical degree) resorts to irony to criticise the doctor for having reached an easy diagnosis without careful examination of the patient. Specifically, House does not believe the alcohol is the cause of the symptoms or that the doctor has run any of the listed tests that would confirm his diagnosis, which is hence based merely on an unfounded presumption. House thus implicates that the doctor has not acted like a professional. Overall, when irony is produced it is typically meant to be recognised by the ratified hearer(s) unless the speaker intends to deceive a hearer by hiding the presence of irony from him/her (see Chapter 4, Section 6.2). On the other hand, the speaker does not intend to make an ironic utterance available to unratified participants either because the speaker is oblivious to their participation or because the speaker is indifferent to these hearers’ reception of the irony or wishes to prevent it altogether (see Chapter 4, Section 8). In any case, regardless

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 157

of the presence/absence of the speaker’s intention to communicate an implicature via irony to a chosen hearer, this hearer may or may not recognise the presence of irony and infer (part of) the implicated meaning. This success or failure depends on whether this hearer is privy to the necessary background knowledge.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective As can be gathered in view of the discussion so far, great diversity can be observed in how the first Quality maxim is flouted, that is where the overt untruthfulness resides, how the meaning reversal is to be performed, and what its consequences are in terms of the levels of meaning. Based on these criteria, several salient categories of irony can be distinguished from a neo-Gricean perspective (for different proposals, see Haverkate 1990; Camp 2012; Kapogianni 2013, 2014, 2016a; Dynel 2013a).26 Even if Grice failed to recognise the heterogeneous nature of the figure, his general proposal, if adequately modified and extended, seems to be applicable to the various forms of irony. The five types of irony identified here should not be regarded as a strict taxonomy, inasmuch as the types may sometimes overlap or coincide, specifically in the case if surrealistic irony (a category that deserves to be distinguished, though).

6.1 Propositional meaning reversal irony In what is called propositional meaning reversal irony (cf. Holdcroft 1983 for a different view of “propositional irony”),27 the speaker verbalises an overtly untruthful proposition by making as if to say, and thereby he/she implicates a proposition opposite to the one expressed. In neo-Gricean terms, the meaning of making as if to say is subject to reversal so that an evaluative implicature can be ultimately generated. The reversal-based implicated proposition either communicates a negative evaluation or serves as a springboard for the central evaluative implicature. This is in line with the standard view of irony, according to which

26 Compared to my 2013 paper, the notion of “ideational irony”, originally an umbrella term for two distinct types of irony, is not used here. Also “meiotic irony” now substitutes “litotic irony” and is presented as cutting across the four types of irony listed in this section. 27 Apart from propositions, performed by describing, stating, reporting whose force is “reversed” (1983: 500), Holdcroft includes in this category also what is referred to as lexical meaning reversal.

158 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

one statement is made and an antithetical one is communicated, or “what is said” in a non-technical sense is the opposite of what is meant (see Amante 1981; Jorgensen et al. 1984; Wilson and Sperber 1992; Kumon Nakamura et al. 1995; Curcó 2000; Partington 2006, 2007; Camp 2012). Propositional meaning reversal irony relies on delivering what is “the contrary of a proposition that would have been expressed by a sincere [truthful] utterance” (Camp 2012: 588).28 However, the reversal may be achieved in various ways. Grice’s (1989a [1975]: 34) canonical example involves the speaker making as if to say “X is a fine friend” about a friend who “has betrayed a secret of A’s to a business rival”. The implicated meaning may be interpreted as “X is not a fine friend” (Garmendia and Korta 2007) or perhaps more adequately, “X is a poor friend”. Grice’s discussion does not clarify which is the case, for he does not give any paraphrase of the implicature. Along similar lines, providing the example “Brutus is an honourable man”, Bredin paraphrases it both as “Brutus is not an honourable man” (1997: 3, 9, 13, 17) and as “Brutus is a dishonourable man” (1997: 3). In examples like these, the meaning reversal which affects the meaning of the entire proposition can potentially be based either on grammatical negation or on opposing semantic relationships present in lexical items. Grammatical negation yields a “weaker” meaning than lexical reversal, but both can be seen as pertinent candidates for meaning reversal forms and are worth discussing. Haverkate (1990: 83) claims that irony in “assertives” typically does not involve the “negation of the proposition”, by which he must mean grammatical negation, but rather depends on “the contrary meaning of the predicate or one of its components”, which centres on “lexical opposition”. Haverkate bases this postulate on an example involving the “be” copula, in which the lexical item that follows it is swapped for its opposite. Haverkate (1990) states that if grammatical negation should have been used, it would have given rise to meiosis or litotes rather than irony. Indeed, some (but not all) negation-based paraphrases of implicatures may result in litotic or meiotic language use, whereby the implicated meaning is mitigated. By contrast, Camp (2012: 612, 613) claims that what she calls “lexical sarcasm” (see Section 6.3) typically relies on expressions involving the extreme end of an evoked scale (e.g. “brilliant” vs “idiotic” for “That’s a brilliant idea”), whereas “propositional sarcasm” typically involves non-extreme negation (e.g. “good” vs “not good” for “That’s a good idea”). This should be regarded as Camp’s (2012) attempt to provide a palpable difference29 between

28 Camp calls this type of irony “propositional sarcasm”. 29 Another difference she lists concerns intonation. As is consistently argued here, intonation or any other non-verbal cue cannot be taken as a definitional component of irony or any of its types.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 159

“lexical sarcasm” and “propositional sarcasm”, which may be difficult to differentiate, according to her. However, a question arises as to whether “That’s a good idea” cannot be interpreted as “That’s a bad idea”, which is based on lexical reversal but affects the whole proposition just like “That’s a brilliant idea” paraphrased as “That’s an idiotic idea”. Camp’s (2012) distinction is not very appealing. It is suggested here that local lexical meaning reversal irony (see Section 6.3) comes into being when the proposition per se remains intact, not being ironic in its entirety. Propositional meaning reversal irony, on the other hand, may involve lexical meaning reversal that necessarily affects the entire propositional meaning. If possible, both forms of irony will rely on antonymy (or other kinds of lexical meaning reversal) instead of grammatical negation in the paraphrases performed for academic purposes. This is because, as Haverkate (1990) states, irony is used to reinforce the intensity of an evaluation and lexical meaning reversal seems to have stronger effects than what can be seen as grammatical negation of the main verb, a copula. Thus, praise should be translated into criticism/reproach rather than merely non-praise (Haverkate 1990). Haverkate (1990) claims that it is only in rare cases that a paraphrase of irony by means of grammatical negation is possible, as in “Oh, I am just in the mood for music!” (1990: 84). These are by no means such rare cases, though. In propositions contingent on copulas and evaluative expressions (as in Grice’s classical “fine friend” example), propositional meaning reversal is performed by lexical means, notably by antonyms. These bring out the essence of irony better, inasmuch as its aim is to boost negative evaluation (even if politeness or mitigating effects should come into play too), and lexical opposites bring about stronger evaluative effects. However, where there are verbs other than copulas used or where no (evaluative) expression subject to meaning reversal appears in an utterance, grammatical negation is deployed, thereby reversing the meaning of the entire proposition on which the evaluative implicature is built. In propositional meaning reversal irony, this central implicature comes into being as a distinct level of meaning, with no evaluative expression being present at the level of making as if to say. This is probably what Camp means when she observes that “the evaluative scale in propositional sarcasm might be merely pragmatically evoked” (Camp 2012: 611). Examples 33 and 34 are two different cases of propositional meaning reversal irony. (33) [House is examining a patient in the clinic.] 1. Patient: I’m tired a lot. 2. House: Any other reason you think you may have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? 3. Patient: It’s kind of the definition isn’t it?

160 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

4. House: It’s kind of the definition of getting older. 5. Patient: I had a couple headaches last month, mild fever, sometimes I can’t sleep, and I have trouble concentrating. 6. House: Apparently not while researching this stuff on the Internet. 7. Patient: I was thinking it also might be fibromyalgia. 8. House: [looks contemplative and then serious] Excellent diagnosis! [House duly brings the patient some candies from the vending machine in Vicodin packaging.] Season 1, Episode 1 Given the preceding and the following context, House’s turn (8) containing an explicit (but untruthful) evaluation of the patient’s idea displays irony, which the patient may not be able to recognise. House’s exclamation “Excellent diagnosis” is an elliptical version of a statement “This is an excellent diagnosis”, which is subject to meaning reversal of the evaluative expression. Thus, House implicates, “Your diagnosis is ridiculous!”. (34) [Cuddy is in her office, from which she can see House impatiently picking up his Vicodin. As soon as House gets the bottle, he dry-swallows a couple of pills. Cuddy catches up with him as he exits the clinic.] 1. Cuddy: You know, there are other ways to manage pain. 2. House: Like what, laughter? Meditation? Got a guy who can fix my third chakra? 3. Cuddy: You’re addicted. 4. House: If the pills ran my life I’d agree with you, but it’s my leg busy calendaring what I can’t do. 5. Cuddy: You’re in denial. 6. House: Right, I never had an infraction in my leg... no dead muscle, no nerve damage. Doesn’t even hurt. Season 1, Episode 11 In one of his ironic responses (6) in this interaction, House makes a complex overtly untruthful proposition involving grammatical negation performed by dint of adverbs “never” and “not”, as well as the determiner “no”. His propositions are subject to grammatical negation in order for them to truthfully implicate (on the assumption that two negatives equal a positive) “I had an infarction in my leg. I have dead muscle and nerve damage. It hurts”. The reason for House’s overt untruthfulness needs to be sought in his underlying aim to mock Cuddy’s suggestion that he is in denial and to criticise her accusation (5) that he is repressing the thought of his addiction. House truthfully implicates that he needs Vicodin to alleviate the pain that he is experiencing as a result of his muscle damage. Thus, he implicates that Cuddy’s accusation is unfounded.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 161

As evidenced by Examples 33 and 34, propositional meaning reversal irony may manifest itself in incomplete sentences, including isolated lexical items. Such may be extended to untruthful propositions carrying implicatures. According to Gricean thought, saying and making as if to say alike may necessitate completion before speaker meaning can be gleaned (see Chapter 2, Section 3). On the other hand, propositional irony may be embedded in complex sentences, coinciding with subordinate or coordinate clauses (Camp 2012). (35) [The patient’s family want an exorcism performed on him, thinking he’s possessed. Foreman, now Dean of Medicine, and House are talking about this.] 1. Foreman: Why not? As long as he doesn’t feed the kid anything or put anything on his skin that we haven’t verified, it’s harmless. What’s the problem? 2. House: I agree. And since we’re establishing a new policy of “What the hell, we’ll try anything,” I’d like to hire Shakira to belly dance while singing Waka Waka. 3. Foreman: As long as you get the mom and Shakira to consent. It’s no different than having a priest or rabbi lead a prayer vigil. The mom is scared and confused and desperate for anything that’ll give her hope. Season 8, Episode 18 House’s reply (2) to Foreman’s suggestion (1) comprises three untruthful propositions. First of all, his agreement is only overtly pretended, implicitly communicating lack of consent (“I don’t agree” or “I disagree”). Secondly, House could not have concluded that the hospital is implementing a new, irrational policy of treating patients. Nor is he truthfully expressing his preference for treatment involving a performance by Shakira. These two ironic clauses are brought together in a causeeffect relationship, yielding a sentence whose two parts exhibit ironic untruthfulness. Essentially, by this entire contribution, House means to implicitly criticise Foreman’s consent to what he considers a foolish activity. The category of propositional meaning reversal irony seems to be compatible with the conceptualisation of irony as pretending to assert or pretended asserting, which some authors explicitly base on the Gricean idea of pretence as being crucial for irony.30 For instance, Currie (2006: 116) suggests that by “pretending to assert or whatever, one pretends to be a certain kind of person – a person with a restricted or otherwise defective view of the world or some part of it”. Similarly, Recanati (2004, 2007) claims that the ironic speaker “plays someone else’s part

30 However, not all irony qualifies as pretended asserting, as is shown here.

162 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

and mimics an act of assertion accomplished by that person” (2007: 227, italics in original). He also adds that what the ironic speaker does “is merely to pretend to assert the content of her utterance” (Recanati 2004: 71), and the act of assertion is “staged or simulated rather than actually performed” (Recanati 2004: 77). For his part, Walton (1990), who studies mimesis and simulation, endorses a view that pretence is associated with games of make-believe or pretend-play. Relating pretence to imagination in fiction, Walton (1990) claims that ironic utterances serve as props in games of make-believe, in which the speaker fictionally asserts that p, where p is true within fiction. The hearer is hence invited to imagine a world in which the content of the pretence would be true. Walton (1990) also adds that the ironic speaker mimics or mocks the authors of such claims in order to indicate their absurdity and ridiculousness. What all these approaches have in common is that the ironic speaker pretends to assert, but each approach resorts to a rather elusive (e.g. metaphorical) explanation of this act. Additionally, the notion of pretending to assert as a mechanism underlying irony is sometimes invoked from the perspective of Speech Act Theory (SAT) (see Section 6.2). It can indeed be concluded that propositional meaning reversal irony rests on pretended assertions or pretending to assert (see Williams 2002; Soames 2008; Stokke 2013a; Barker 2017). Neither the proposition expressed nor the intended proposition (implicature) can qualify as an assertion proper (Williams 2002; Soames 2008). As Williams (2002: 73) puts it, “an ironical assertion is not an assertion” inasmuch as the speaker is “merely pretending to make an assertion” in order to implicate a meaning which as such is not an assertion either. Grice (1989a [1975]: 34) is frequently taken to have conceptualised irony as involving a “proposition contrary to the one put forward”, which some authors extend to the notion of assertion. Although the two examples that Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]) uses in his discussion of irony rely on propositional meaning reversal and he also uses the notion “proposition” in reference to his canonical example (Grice 1989a [1975]: 34), the concept “proposition” does not appear to be central to his discussion of irony. Thus, Grice may not have conceived of other forms of irony, but he cannot be said to have excluded them, contrary to what some authors tend to suggest (e.g. Wilson and Sperber 1992; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Curcó 2000; Wilson 2006).

6.2 Pragmatic meaning reversal irony Making as if to say need not coincide with overtly pretended propositions or assertions. Most importantly, irony may reside not only in statements but also in other utterance types, notably questions and imperatives, which are amenable to

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 163

truthfulness evaluations, as is argued here. From a different but compatible perspective, irony may capitalise on speech act types other than assertives, namely on expressives, commissives, directives and declarations. Several authors have addressed such irony, frequently making use of this classical speech-act terminology to encompass all manner of speech acts, assertions included, that serve irony. Holdcroft (1983: 502–503) proposes the notion of “illocutionary irony”, which involves various kinds of “pretending”, such as “to agree”, “to approve”, “to admire”, “to urge trifling difficulties”. Overall, the various forms of pretending involve “a pretence of seriousness when one is not, or more rarely of pretended playfulness when one is serious” (Holdcroft 1983: 503). This postulate, which lacks further clarification (e.g. regarding the sense of “seriousness” and the tenability of the second condition), is illustrated with an utterance from The Great Gatsby. This utterance does not seem to be ironic (and may actually involve covert untruthfulness, and hence deception). In any case, it lacks sufficient contextual evidence that would point to its ironic character. After Tom’s vehement speech about the supremacy of his race, Daisy whispers “We’ve got to beat them down”. This is something which she may actually wish Tom to take at face value (and perhaps deceive him if she does mean this utterance ironically). On the other hand, she may just be repeating Tom’s idea while thinking about something else (and beating someone else down). Overall, this conceptualisation clearly allows for overlaps between illocutionary irony and propositional irony, which he does address too. At least some of the various forms of pretending Holdcroft (1983) lists typically involve propositions and can be easily explained as propositional meaning reversal. More adequately, not distinguishing propositional irony at all, some authors present all irony in terms of SAT. According to this account, irony consists in violating the felicity condition of sincerity concerning the psychological state expressed (Brown 1980; Haverkate 1990; Glucksberg 1995). Irony is thus viewed as involving some kind of insincere speech act (note that deception also relies on insincerity). Brown defines irony as a speech act flaunting the absence of the required sincerity conditions with the “psychological state requirement intentionally unfulfilled” (1980: 120). The psychological states include believing something, regretting something, desiring something, etc. Brown (1980: 114) provides examples of congratulations, thanking, requesting and apologising as being conducive to irony. In the same vein, according to Kumon-Nakamura et al. (1995), all irony involves pragmatic insincerity, which they equate with “pretence” and which they ascribe to assertives and the other four types of Speech Acts (see Searle 1969, 1979). Combining SAT with a Gricean approach, Colston (2000) ­mentions pragmatic insincerity in the context of (overt) violation of the first maxim of Quality but stipulates that not all irony involves it (notice the case of verisimilar irony).

164 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Here, the neo-Gricean notion of overt untruthfulness is given preference over the SAT concept of insincerity, which seems to be ambiguous, as it applies to both irony and deception (see Chapter 1, Section 2). As argued in Chapter 2, Section 3, the Gricean maxims, including the maxim of truthfulness, hold for all utterance types (parallel to speech acts), not only statements. The same will apply to ironic utterances. Since saying need not coincide with asserting and making as if to say need not amount to making as if to assert, flouting the first maxim of Quality does pertain to ironic imperatives, questions and interjections, contrary to what critics may claim. Even if these utterances cannot be “blatantly false” (Wilson 2006: 1726), they can be (overtly) untruthful. Irony may show in imperatives, questions and interjections, all of which can be seen as displaying overt untruthfulness, for the speaker is not producing them truthfully. Instead, the speaker pretends to be making believed-false contributions in order to implicate a truthful evaluative meaning. Propositional meaning reversal irony could indeed be regarded as depending on the reversal of the pragmatic force underlying assertions. However, this view is not prioritised here, since propositional irony seems to successfully capture the workings of standard irony based on overtly untruthful statements. Ironic utterances that do not coincide with overtly untruthful statements (and do not involve overtly pretended assertions) deserve to be addressed as a distinct type of irony. Pragmatic meaning reversal irony is proposed as non-propositional irony that affects the import of entire untruthful utterances based on making as if to say, other than statements, unless those do not involve propositional meaning reversal (see Example 51). The term “pragmatic meaning” is not meant to suggest that only this type of irony concerns pragmatics (rather than semantics). “Pragmatic meaning” concerns the functional import of the entire utterance that does not involve a proposition-carrying statement. Pragmatic meaning reversal irony basically coincides with Camp’s (2012) “illocutionary sarcasm”, which – as she aptly states – “expresses an attitude which is the opposite of one that a sincere utterance would have expressed” (2012: 589). In her view, this category encompasses various utterances which involve speech acts other than assertions, such as questions, offers or thanks, whereby “the speaker ‘makes as if’ to undertake a certain speech act” (Camp 2012: 618) in order to implicate a certain evaluation of an ironic referent. Camp (2012) also claims that this irony centres on a disparity between the circumstances in which this utterance would be appropriate and the actual circumstances, which are duly evaluated. According to Camp (2012: 618), the two sets of circumstances “occupy opposite extremes of an evoked scale, and the speaker’s utterance draws attention to the fact that Y [actual situation] lies at the opposite or inverse end from X”. Whilst such a mismatch is indeed important for pragmatic meaning reversal irony, it is not exclusive to it.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 165

Overall, the hallmark of pragmatic meaning reversal irony is that the speaker only makes as if to say by making as if to ask a question, make a request or express an emotion, for instance. The speaker thus does not commit the hearer to perform the activity at hand or to answer the question. By flouting the first maxim of Quality, the speaker is overtly untruthful and only overtly pretends to intend to attain the select pragmatic goal. The pragmatic meaning that the speaker does intend to communicate is rooted in some kind of reversal of the pragmatic force. This reversal may be labelled, for academic purposes, with the use of grammatical negation (e.g. not thanking) or antonymy (e.g. reproaching), and the central evaluative implicature can typically be formulated as an evaluative proposition, as the examples below will show. Referring to ironic directives, which may actually be performed indirectly by means of questions, Haverkate (1990: 94) proposes that irony based on impositives and non-impositives (depending on whether the speaker or the hearer benefits from them respectively) “is related to a state of affairs to be brought about in the future” and that meaning emerges from “propositional negation [grammatical negation] and oppositeness of lexical meaning” (1990: 95) as in “Come closer” (when the hearer is invading the speaker’s space) and “Very well, keep doing yourself harm”, which translate into “Don’t come closer” and “Don’t keep doing yourself harm” or “Stop doing yourself harm” (Haverkate 1990: 94–95). Clearly, the truthful directives involve meaning reversal, based on grammatical negation or antonymy, whereby the nature of the activity to be performed is reversed and an affirmative imperative is transformed into a negative one. On the other hand, Haverkate (1990: 96) also states that some imperatives do not involve such meaning reversal. The same seems to obtain for ironic questions or, as Haverkate (1990) calls them, interrogative speech acts. For instance, by asking “Do you have to make so much noise when you’re eating?” (Haverkate 1990: 96),31 the speaker pretends not to exclude a possibility that the hearer has a reason to show bad manners. According to the theoretical framework endorsed here, the speaker is overtly untruthful and only makes as if to ask the question, with the speaker meaning amounting to the evaluative implicature “I hate your making so much

31 Another example that Haverkate (1990: 85) gives to illustrate this claim is “Could you do me the favour of shutting up?”. This may be a sarcastic question, but it cannot really be classified as irony. This utterance is actually a truthful request not a question about the hearer’s ability, as Haverkate suggests. He thus fails to recognise the fact that this is, in the SAT parlance, an indirect speech act which does not violate the sincerity condition (the speaker wants the hearer to be quiet) but juxtaposes a politeness formula with an impolite, imposing verb. This is something that will qualify as mock politeness or sarcasm, but not irony.

166 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

noise while eating”, which Haverkate’s (1990) analysis seems to ignore, possibly together with an implicated request “Stop making so much noise”. Here are two examples illustrating the two different cases, with one communicating an additional implicature dependent on meaning reversal, alongside the evaluative one. (36) [The team is in House’s office, looking very sleepy.  They’re staring at the screen clueless with blank expressions.] 1. House: Well, don’t everybody talk at once! Season 1, Episode 22 The ironic imperative House makes (1) is not based on his true wish that the literally mentioned action should be performed (that the team should stop talking) since no one is saying anything. The realisation that House is not genuinely making the request in the context at hand and that his request is hence overtly untruthful serves as a springboard for the evaluative implicature “I disapprove of your silence”. Also, another layer of implicature may be gleaned based on meaning reversal: “Anybody, say something!”. (37) [House and Wilson are in the hospital cafeteria. Each is reading something.] 1. Wilson: You know that close to one percent of the population identifies as asexual? 2. House: We really gotta get you laid. If I have to plough that furrow myself, so be it. 3. Wilson: I have a patient who’s asexual. 4. House: Is she a giant pool of algae? 5. Wilson: It’s a valid sexual orientation according to this article, at least. Season 8, Episode 9 House’s question (4) strikes the hearer as being overtly untruthful; the speaker is not interested in finding out anything about the patient by asking the question. Thus, the question, which is absurd (see Section 6.4 on surrealistic irony), does not seem to involve meaning reversal of any kind. Rather, what House is doing is negatively evaluating Wilson’s statement (3) along the lines of “What you’re saying is completely impossible/nonsensical”. The evaluative implicature is then completely dissociated from making as if to say. Given the fact that ironic questions do not necessitate relevant replies, one may be tempted to regard them as rhetorical questions. Additionally, both may be sarcastic (i.e. witty and critical), being orientated towards disparaging the interlocutor, for instance by ridiculing their previous turn. However, rhetorical questions must not be equated with ironic questions. Assuming that questions may have propositions embedded in them, rhetorical questions do contain truthful

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 167

propositions (see e.g. Schmidt-Radefeldt 1977; Han 2002), whilst ironic ones do not. In a standard rhetorical question, typically a closed (yes–no) ­question, the answer is obvious, being embedded in the underlying proposition. The presupposed answer is truthful, and the question cannot be seen as being overtly untruthful, even though the speaker does not attempt to elicit a reply from the hearer. By contrast, an ironic question is overtly untruthful since the speaker only pretends to be in doubt and to be asking even though he/she may indeed not know the answer, and his/her central prerogative is to covey a negative evaluation of a relevant ironic referent. (38) [The doctors are focused on the case of Sebastian, a celebrity doctor who strives to fight TB in Africa, which House scoffs at, suspecting that Sebastian does not really do good pro bono. Sebastian is now talking to the doctors, trying to convince them to donate some money to his charity organisation, while they are discussing his case.] 1. Sebastian: Every minute four people die of TB. 2. House: Wow! How can you sleep at night? Season 2, Episode 4 House welcomes Sebastian’s revelation concerning death rate (1) with an ironic expression of surprise and an ironic question (2). House does not mean to make a genuine enquiry and elicit a reply about whether the interlocutor’s conscience allows him to sleep at night rather than save the dying people. He wishes, in turn, to pour scorn on Sebastian’s apprehension about the fate of people afflicted with tuberculosis, which he considers showy and hardly genuine. The evaluative implicature may then read “I find your worrying fake/otiose”. Also, House’s turn opens with an overtly untruthful interjection “Wow”, whereby he overtly pretends to be astonished by the revelation and implicates his indifference to the news. An ironic interjection is what Wilson and Sperber (1992), as well as Wilson (2006), regard as not being amenable to interpretation according to the Gricean approach. However, interjections, which do not convey propositions and, technically, have no truth value just like questions and imperatives (Wilson and Sperber 1992), may be viewed as being truthful or overtly untruthful. The pragmatic force of an interjection used ironically (i.e. overtly untruthfully) is then subject to meaning reversal when the standard pragmatic meaning it carries and the emotion it expresses are not what the speaker means to communicate. Instead, the speaker implicates and strengthens a markedly different emotion, possibly labelled via an antonym. The last group of ironic utterances capitalising on pragmatic meaning reversal can be thought of as ironic expressives, such as thanking or congratulating, which

168 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

constitute overtly untruthful utterances, with the speaker not being in the proper psychological state (see Haverkate 1990). Haverkate (1990) claims that ironic expressives cannot be captured by meaning oppositeness, as is evidenced by “I congratulate you on this stupid remark” (Haverkate 1990: 90). However, it may be argued that the central pragmatic force of this utterance is subject to reversal, inasmuch as the speaker is expressing not his/her congratulations but criticism (notice the awkward paraphrase of “Your remark is stupid”: “I criticise you for this stupid remark”). Similarly, Gibbs (1986b: 43) and Gibbs and O’Brien (1991: 525) note that in the case of ironic thanking, literal meaning opposition, such as “No thanks”, does not yield the intended meaning, which is rather “You have done something that I do not appreciate”. However, contrary to their suggestion, arriving at the ultimate evaluative implicature may involve an inferential step based on meaning negation, such as “It is not the case that I’m thanking you”. On the whole, all overtly untruthful expressives, which may constitute statements (and hence qualify as propositional meaning reversal irony), do flout the first maxim of Quality and are amenable to truthfulness evaluations (the speaker believes his/her expression of some attitude to be false). As in the other cases, reversing the pragmatic force of the overtly untruthful expressive (whether it is a statement or not) may (but does not have to) recruit lexical meaning reversal as the implicature is reconstructed. Meaning opposition must always be sought at the level of pragmatic force, the effect to be exerted on the hearer, being captured under antonymy-based labels. (39) [The team is working in a treatment room, brainstorming.] 1. Taub: Maybe it’s not hypochondria. She said she gets a lot of rashes. Add the fever – sounds like autoimmune, S.L.E. 2. House: Congratulations! You can think exactly like a semi-competent internist. Kaufman’s starting her on prednisone. But the heart problems were first. Season 7, Episode 11 Uttering “Congratulations!” (2), House means to chastise Taub rather than praise him for his suggestion (1), which becomes evident as his turn unfolds (being a semi-competent internist is not subject to congratulations if one has been hired as an expert in a diagnostic team). Thus, the pragmatic force of the overtly untruthful congratulatory act has to be reversed to arrive at the implicated meaning: a truthful act of condemnation. To summarise, it can be argued that the pragmatic force of an overtly untruthful utterance which is anything but a statement is subject to reversal and may be captured by antonymy-based or negation-based labels. Such irony may (but does not have to) involve clearly identifiable meaning reversal in the reconstructed

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 169

implicature. Regardless of the length of the ironic utterance (a one-word interjection or a sentence), meaning reversal affects the entire utterance as it does in propositional irony, as opposed to local lexical meaning reversal irony.

6.3 Local lexical meaning reversal irony Irony may be based on sub-propositional meaning reversal, not propositional meaning reversal, which does not seem to undermine the Gricean account in any way. It is argued here that such irony centres on the reversal of lexical meaning, an isolated untruthful lexical element which is responsible for the ironic nature of an utterance. In other words, one word or phrase (e.g. coinciding with the object or an adverbial) may be ironic within an otherwise non-ironic utterance, necessitating local lexical meaning reversal (Camp and Hawthorne 2008). In this kind of irony, “the operative ‘local processes’ include inverting the meaning of at least one expression” (Camp 2012: 611), which “delivers an inverted compositional value for a single expression or phrase” (Camp 2012: 588). For example, “As I reached the bank at closing time, the bank clerk helpfully shut the door in my face” (Wilson 2006: 1722, italics added) involves a semantic opposite/antonym of the ironically used word “helpfully”. The speaker’s intended meaning is “As I reached the bank at closing time, the bank clerk unhelpfully shut the door in my face”. Similarly, Camp (2012: 611, italics added) gives the following instance: “Because George has turned out to be such a diplomat, we’ve decided to transfer him to Payroll, where he’ll do less damage”. This is reminiscent of an example taken from Holdcroft (1983: 501), who talks about the reversal of “commendation” in “Take this gentleman to his room”. In each of these cases, only one lexical item is responsible for flouting the first Quality maxim and this lexeme’s antonym must be found so that the implicature can be inferred. Although speaker meaning otherwise coincides with what is said, it cannot be stated that the speaker’s utterance is truthful or that it does not involve implicating. This is at odds with Camp’s (2012: 611) suggestion that “lexical sarcasm” cannot be seen as irony that involves implicating. Camp (2012) does not seem to acknowledge that the first maxim of Quality may be flouted in various ways and that this flouting may concern only individual lexical items (see Kapogianni 2016a), being conducive to implicatures that do recruit a large portion of meaning from what is said. Also, according to Camp (2012: 611), “lexical sarcasm most naturally targets expressions which denote the extreme end of a conventionally-associated, normatively-loaded scale”. Camp (2012) seems to suggest that such reversal does not apply to propositional meaning reversal irony (her “propositional sarcasm”).

170 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

However, in Section 6.1, it was shown that propositional meaning reversal irony based on evaluative expressions may actually favour antonymy, and hence scalar extremity, if such is available. Camp’s (2012) two claims may be seen as her attempt to highlight the differences between propositional and local lexical meaning reversal irony. Ultimately, they are not so different. Local lexical meaning reversal irony is very similar to propositional meaning reversal irony which recruits evaluative expressions. Even though local lexical meaning reversal irony does not invite the reversal of the whole proposition, it does have a bearing on the truthfulness of the proposition in its entirety (notice the truthfulness vs untruthfulness dichotomy), as in the ­following two cases. (40) [Cuddy is talking to House about a new case – a patient who has been treated for paralysis by Dr Hamilton, who has chosen Foreman to manage the case.] 1. Cuddy: Foreman did his residency with Hamilton. 2. House: I know, I did accidentally glance at his resume before I hired him. 3. Cuddy: He wants someone he can trust. 4. House: He must have spoken to Foreman’s parole officer. 5. Cuddy: Someone who will stick to the pneumonia. John Henry’s on an experimental protocol for the paralysis. Season 1, Episode 9 The bulk of House’s reply (2) to Cuddy’s observation (1) amounts to truthful what is said. Knowing House, one can assume that he only glanced at the hired doctor’s CV rather than reading it carefully. However, it was not “accidentally” that he did this. House must have glanced at the CV “purposefully”. Thus, House’s utterance cannot be seen as being truthful in its entirety. The overt untruthfulness is apparent in the word “accidentally”, whereby he implicates “I did have a purposeful glance at his resume when I hired him”. What is important is that ultimately House means to negatively evaluate Cuddy’s utterance, specifically her ill-advised assumption that he is unaware of Foreman’s professional background, and thus ignorant of the potential reason why Foreman has been chosen as the main doctor for the case. (41) [House and his team are taking care of two newborns showing different ­symptoms. House believes that the two cases are connected and that the babies are suffering from one infectious illness. He is now talking to Cuddy.] 1. Cuddy: And you’re the only one who put this together because…? 2. House: Because I’m the only one who looked at both kids. I want them isolated; I want the maternity ward shut down. 3. Cuddy: Because you’re better at reading an x-ray than a radiologist.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 171

4. House: Radiologists always over-read babies’ x-rays, especially if they’re asked to rule out a pathology. He read into it what he wanted. 5. Cuddy: Which is exactly what you’re doing. You’re finding a cluster because you think it’s interesting to find a cluster. Two… plain old sick babies would bore you. 6. House: See, this is why I don’t waste money on shrinks, cause you give me all these really great insights for free. 7. Cuddy: Shrink. If you would consider going to a shrink, I would pay for it myself. The hospital would hold a bake sale, for God’s sake. Season 1, Episode 4 After hearing Cuddy’s critical assessment of his judgement about the two cases (5), House produces a witty and sarcastic riposte (6), which is amenable to complex (un)truthfulness considerations. Most importantly, in his comeback, House deploys irony restricted to the adjectival phrase “really great”. House does not find Cuddy’s insights into his decision-making and rationale “really great”, but rather completely unfounded and useless. Once the meaning reversal of the evaluative lexical item is performed, the implicated proposition is devoid of irony, albeit still overtly untruthful (“See, this is why I don’t waste money on shrinks, because you give me all these useless insights for free”). House does not have meetings with a psychoanalyst or a psychiatrist (which he would have to pay for) because he thinks he does not need those, not because he considers Cuddy’s insights sufficient. Ultimately, what House does is sarcastically criticise Cuddy for her assessment of his diagnosis and his tendency to make cases too complicated for the sake of self-entertainment.

6.4 Surrealistic irony Surrealistic irony (see Kapogianni 2011) is a type of irony in which the speaker flouts the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said, with the resulting overt untruthfulness amounting to widely recognisable counterfactuality and absurdity. Surrealistic irony resides in absurd utterances, which not only are untruthful (in the light of the speaker’s belief system) but may also be considered blatantly false. This is because surrealistic irony hinges on challenging commonsensical assumptions, macrosocial norms and widely available factual knowledge, which is why it is easily detected and understood, and it typically has humorous potential (Kapogianni 2011, see Chapter 5, Section 2.1). Kapogianni (2014: 598) presents this form of irony as a salient manifestation of the broader category of meaning replacement irony. It seems

172 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

that all validated examples32 of this species of irony involve absurdity/surrealism, which is why the term “surrealistic irony” is preferred here. The hallmarks of surrealistic (meaning replacement) irony are that the expressed meaning is far removed from the intended implicated meaning, which always conveys negative evaluation of the preceding turn (Kapogianni 2011, 2013, 2014). Needless to say, these characteristics are not exclusive to surrealistic irony. However, the mismatch between making as if to say and the communicated meaning is of a peculiar kind. Specifically, Kapogianni proposes that “there is no semantic relationship between the expressed and the intended meaning” (2014: 599) and that “the intended proposition (always some sort of negative evaluation towards a previous utterance [...]) completely replaces the expressed proposition” (2014: 600). Referring to Grice’s terminology (1989c), it may be proposed that an evaluative implicature emerging from surrealistic irony exhibits neither formality (the generated meaning is based on the conventional meaning of the signifying expression) nor dictiveness (the generated meaning is part of what the signifying expression says, not implies) (see Chapter 2, Section 3), being entirely independent of the literal means of expression. (42) [House (who is currently dating Cuddy) enters Wilson’s office. Wilson is behind his desk, working.] 1. House: What are you doing here? 2. Wilson: Pie-eating contest. 3. House: Cuddy’s biopsy is in an hour. You should be keeping her company. 4. Wilson: Okay. You’ve been worried that your relationship is getting in the way of your diagnoses, you’re protecting your patient. Either that or… you’re an ass. Season 7, Episode 15

32 Among the few non-absurd examples Kapogianni (2013, 2014) provides, not all instances necessarily qualify as irony (see the “plane” example discussed in Section 6.5.4). Kapogianni (2013) also discusses another form of meaning replacement irony based on detached utterances involving contrasting contexts. The speaker produces an utterance normally associated with a different context, which is evoked by dint of a contrast with the utterance and context at hand. To illustrate this category, Kapogianni (2013) provides two examples of pragmatic expressions in Greek commonly used to wish someone good luck in specific situations. For the sake of irony, they are deployed in an irrelevant context to criticise the interactant for something. However, this (admittedly, infrequent) ironic strategy can be classified as pragmatic meaning reversal irony. This is because the ironic speaker does not subscribe to the standard pragmatic force of the utterance, which is thus overtly untruthful and conveys the speaker’s criticism. The same can be said of pragmatic formulae in English such as thanking someone when no thanking is applicable in the context at hand (e.g. when someone has shut the door in your face).

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 173

Wilson’s response (2) to House’s question (1) exhibits overt untruthfulness. Wilson cannot possibly believe to be true what he is making as if to say, which is absurd (a pie-eating contest in the workplace or in a hospital is an absurd idea), as well as evident in the context at hand (Wilson is working at his desk). Taking House’s question (1) at face value (deliberately disregarding or failing to recognise its underlying criticism in (3)), Wilson implicates “Your question is stupid”, which bears no similarity to the semantic content of his ironic utterance. Kapogianni (2014) divides surrealistic (meaning replacement) irony into “context-relevant” and “context-irrelevant” types. This distinction seems to concern the presence or lack of a semantic/topical relationship between the ironic utterance and the preceding utterance it evaluates, the referent of irony. Albeit absurd, an utterance may be topically relevant to the negatively evaluated previous turn, as in “Here is where you are!” “No, it’s not us, it’s our holograms” (Kapogianni 2013: 55). When no such semantic relationship between the criticised utterance and ironic utterance can be found, the latter mirrors the grammatical/ pragmatic structure of the former, frequently preceded by “and”, thereby mocking the referent (see Iwata 2015), or by an overtly pretended agreement (“right”, “yes” or “yeah”). It is also interesting to observe that this form of surrealistic irony may recruit conventionalised expressions, such as “And I am the Queen of England” (Kapogianni 2011, 2013), and may be formulated as not only statements but also questions, such as “Have you visited planet Earth sir?” (­Kapogianni 2013: 54). However, and-mockery or conventionalised retorts critical of the preceding turns are not reserved for surrealistic irony or irony taken as a whole. A case in point is a non-absurd and non-ironic but sarcastic rhetorical question “Does the bear shit in the woods?”. Here are two examples representing what Kapogianni (2014) proposes as context-relevant surrealistic irony (Example 43) and context-irrelevant surrealistic irony (Example 44). (43) [House and his team are discussing a new case.] 1. Foreman: Drugs? 2. Chase: He’s a cop. 3. Foreman: Good point, how about… drugs? 4. House: Tox screen was clean, he did however get hit by a bullet. Just mentioning. 5. Cameron: He was shot? 6. House: No, somebody threw it at him. Season 2, Episode 20 House’s reply (6) to Cameron’s naïve question (5) is strikingly absurd based on the common assumption that a bullet hitting a man’s body (4) can mean only that he has been shot. However, despite its absurdity, House’s reply is

174 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

topically/semantically relevant to the question (“be shot” and “throw a bullet”). House implicates an evaluative meaning “Your question is stupid”, which is again ­independent of the semantic content of his making as if to say. (44) [Cameron and Foreman have been working in the laboratory, chatting about the way men treat women in the workplace. House enters the room.] 1. Cameron: So, a woman can’t express her interest in sex without it being some professional powerplay? 2. House: No. If you look the way you do, and you say what you said, you have to be aware of the effect that it’ll have on men. 3. Cameron: Men should grow up. 4. House: Yeah, and dogs should stop licking themselves. It’s not gonna happen. Season 1, Episode 3 Replying to Cameron’s statement (3), House echoes her use of the modal verb “should”, yet drastically changing the semantics, and thus the topic in “Yeah, and dogs should stop licking themselves” (4). The seeming topical shift is meant to indicate the parallel between Cameron’s unrealistic wishful thinking and the wishful thinking that House overtly pretends to be engaged in (there is nothing that can make dogs curb their animal instincts). House thus implicates an evaluative meaning different from the semantic content of making as if to say, namely “Your suggestion is preposterous”. Kapogianni (2013, 2014) contrasts meaning replacement irony with meaning reversal irony. She consistently asserts that in meaning replacement irony, “the intended meaning is not any sort of reversal of the expressed meaning” (Kapogianni 2014: 600). In her view, the understanding of a surrealistically ironic utterance rests on replacing the literal meaning with a distinct evaluative proposition, not related semantically to the literally expressed one. This expressed vs intended meaning replacement also explains why surrealistic utterances lack evaluative expressions, which would not take part in the generation of the intended meaning anyway. This is indeed what the examples given above indicate. Therefore, at first blush, surrealistic irony may be considered a category of irony that undermines one of the central premises of this chapter, namely that some form of meaning reversal is a hallmark of all irony. Interestingly, it is also Kapogianni (2016a, 2016b) that suggests in her later papers that all irony involves some kind of meaning reversal. Essentially, surrealistic irony does display overt untruthfulness and does involve meaning reversal, but its product is not part of the intended speaker meaning even if it may be considered an inferential step. The truthful meaning based on some form of meaning reversal does not have any semantic bearing on

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 175

the form of the ultimate implicature concerning the preceding turn produced by the previous speaker. For instance, Examples 42 and 43, “I’m not taking part in a pie-eating contest” and “Nobody threw it at him”, may both be considered the products of propositional meaning reversal; and Example 44, “I’m not suggesting that dogs should stop licking themselves”, represents pragmatic meaning reversal. This type of reversal will also be involved in the case of absurd questions or imperatives, whose pragmatic force will need to be cancelled (the speaker is not genuinely asking or requesting). Such cases are a potential point of overlap between surrealistic irony and pragmatic meaning reversal irony. After the reversal stage yielding an overtly untruthful as if implicature, further operations are in order to arrive at the implicated evaluative meanings. This kind of multi-stage process is by no means restricted to surrealistic irony. As shown in Section 2.2, apart from simple cases of irony contingent on untruthful positively evaluative expressions, most negatively evaluative implicatures are not directly related in terms of their semantics to the ironic utterances. Even if it is semantically compatible with the intermediate implicature, the evaluative implicature typically comes as a distinct layer of meaning. Apart from the reversal of meaning that holds for surrealistic irony, this is another reason why the reversal vs replacement dichotomy is not particularly appealing. The distinguishing feature of surrealistic irony is that it is anchored in absurdity and that the reversal-based propositional semantic meaning does not count as part of speaker meaning, the meaning that the speaker intends to communicate in the context at hand. Theoretically, surrealistic irony can take countless forms, depending only on the speaker’s creativity, with the evaluative implicature remaining the same in a given context, which Example 45 illustrates. (45) [House meets a new patient, Greta, who opens a large envelope and shakes onto House’s desk a few stacks of money. Based on one of the previous scenes which showed her taking a pilot’s test, the viewers know that she is a NASA captain.] 1. Greta: It’s for my medical bills. I need you to find out what’s wrong with me. 2. House: Insurance is usually cheaper than that. Cash means there’s something to hide. 3. Greta: I’m a captain in the Air Force about to start a new assignment: NASA’s astronaut training program. 4. House: I discovered salt and created FM radio. 5. Greta: Something is wrong... with my eyes, my ears. 6. House: Well if it’s fixable the Air Force will do it for free. If not, doesn’t matter. Season 4, Episode 2

176 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

In reply to the patient’s assertion concerning her profession (3), which she invokes to explain her rationale for paying cash, House produces an utterance replete with absurdity (4). House is being overtly untruthful, as he cannot have made the discovery, nor developed FM radio, as the history of mankind shows. House thus expresses disbelief and critical evaluation of the truthfulness of the woman’s assertion (“I don’t believe you; This is preposterous”). House could have communicated the same implicature with different absurd utterances based on markedly different semantics, whether or not related to the original sentence, such as “I am a female NASA Captain too”, “And I was born a poodle” or “And I drink only toilet water”. In each case, whatever the meaning reversal is like and whatever meaning it purports to carry, the ultimate ironically-motivated implicature remains the same. In a nutshell, the product of meaning reversal in surrealistic irony is not part of intentionally communicated speaker meaning, being more of an (overtly untruthful) as if implicature. Only if no speaker meaning arises at an intermediate stage can an absurd ironic utterance be considered surrealistic irony. Nonsurrealistic irony may also sound absurd, but the reversal of making as if to say does yield part of speaker meaning like in the following two instances, which do not qualify as surrealistic irony. (46) [Chase has extracted a piece of metal from the neck of a little boy, who insists that aliens have placed a chip in his neck. House and his team meet in the diagnostic room.] 1. House: Results came back. The lab cannot identify the metal. They said it might not even be terrestrial. 2. Chase: Really? 3. House: No, you idiot! It’s titanium. Like from a surgical pin, like the kind the kid had inserted into his broken arm four years ago, nice medical history. 4. Chase: That pin was removed six months after... 5. House: So what, a little piece broke off during removal. 6. Chase: Titanium is used to build nuclear subs, pieces don’t just break off. 7. House: Tell that to the guys on the Kursk. 8. Chase: And how exactly did it get from his arm to the back of his neck? 9. Foreman: Body attacks any foreign object. Inflammatory reaction could have eroded into a vein, fragment gets a free ride. 10. Chase: To his lungs, maybe. Not his neck. 11. House: Yeah, an alien chip makes more sense. [...] Season 3, Episode 2

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 177

In his ironic utterance (11), House dismisses and criticises Chase’s doubts (10) about the explanation for the source of the metal in the boy’s neck that House and Foreman have jointly formulated (3, 5, 7 and 9). Taken out of context, the ironic utterance might sound absurd (the idea of aliens implanting a chip in the boy’s neck is nonsensical) and be wrongly taken as surrealistic irony. House’s utterance is indeed untruthful but it is not absurd for it alludes to the claim which their patient (a boy with a vivid imagination) has made and which House is ridiculing (1). Thus, in this context, House does implicate that an alien chip makes little sense, and that they have only one medical hypothesis concerning the medical riddle. The operation of meaning reversal, therefore, does yield an intermediate implicature rather than being merely an as if implicature. This intermediate implicature, “The alien chip makes less/no sense”, serves as a basis for further implicatures, “This is the only rational solution we have” and “Your doubt is unfounded”. (47) [House has seen his clinic patient put a knife into an electrical socket and get electrocuted.] 1. House: Can’t let you leave if they think you’re still… suicidal. 2. Patient: I wasn’t trying to off myself. 3. House: No, that’s right. You were just trying to kill the wall. I check this box, and your next roommates are gonna be Jesus and Crazy McLoonyBin. That guy never had a chance. Season 4, Episode 3 House’s ironic reply (3) to the patient’s denial (2) of what the former believes to be obvious, opens with propositional meaning reversal irony. House thus overtly pretends to agree with the hearer and thereby he communicates his strong disagreement. The second ironic sentence defies common logic (walls are inanimate and cannot be killed), but it does allude to what the patient actually did (his action of putting a knife into the socket on the wall). Thus, the reversal based meaning “You (definitely) weren’t trying to kill the wall” is part of speaker meaning and a stepping stone to the central evaluative implicature “Obviously, you were trying to kill yourself, which I consider idiotic”. As it further unfolds, House’s turn (3) is not ironic but shows humorous potential apart from communicating the relevant meaning (“I tick this box and you will end in a mental hospital”), just as surrealistic irony typically does (see Chapter 5, Section 1.3.2. and 2.1). 6.5 Verisimilar irony A salient type of irony, here dubbed verisimilar irony (for a similar but broader use of the term, see Partington 2006, 2007), may be seen as a counterintuitive category invalidating the overt untruthfulness requirement. This, it has to be admitted,

178 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

relatively infrequent manifestation of irony does deserve ample space thanks to its salient non-prototypical characteristics. Verisimilar irony diverts from the Gricean conceptualisation in that it rests on truthfulness, being based on the speaker’s expression of his/her beliefs, and thus, as Grice would put it, on what is said (or what is truthfully implicated, as will be shown here). In this vein, it is also sometimes suggested that this type of irony disconfirms the assumption that irony is based on (overtly) pretended assertions (Recanati 2004; Soames 2008), insofar as it recruits sincere assertions (Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Colston 2000; Camp 2012; Stokke 2013a). However, it will be shown here that ironic overt untruthfulness may concern the level of as if implicature.33 Thus, overt untruthfulness, though typically explicit, may also be implicit, as is the case with verisimilar irony. What is called “verisimilar irony” has been recognised and discussed with the use of diversified terminologies and from various scholarly approaches (e.g. Haverkate 1990; Gibbs and O’Brien 1991; Hamamoto 1998; Sperber and Wilson 1998; Colston 2000; Attardo 2000; Utsumi 2000; Partington 2006, 2007; ­Garmendia 2011, 2015; Kapogianni 2011; Camp 2012). Frequently, when this ­problematic type of irony is addressed, one proverbial example is given in a form such as this one: A mother enters her son’s messy room and says, “I like/love children who keep their rooms clean” (Gibbs and O’Brien 1991: 525–526; Barbe 1995: 27; Hamamoto 1998: 261, 267; Sperber and Wilson 1998: 289; Utsumi 2000: 1780; Partington 2006: 187, 2007: 1549; Kapogianni 2011: 54). A statement can be ventured that some opposition in lexical senses, such as “love” vs “hate” or “clean” vs “untidy”, may be involved in inferring speaker meaning, which amounts to criticising the child’s messy room. However, the intended meaning is clearly not a matter of standard meaning reversal whereby the implicated meaning is a reversal of the overtly untruthful making as if to say. As an alternative account, it could be claimed that this example does necessitate meaning reversal, where the main verb and the adjective in the relative clause are replaced by their corresponding opposites, i.e. “I hate children who keep their rooms untidy”. This is essentially what Yamanashi (1998: 273) suggests in reference to a different but structurally similar case, namely “We admire those who are honest”. Even though Yamanashi (1998) does not explicate this instance, it seems to involve a truthful statement uttered with reference to the hearer’s dishonest behaviour, which is to be understood as “We despise those who are dishonest” (Yamanashi 1998: 273). This simplified interpretation fails to bring out

33 Other salient manifestations of an (overtly untruthful) as if implicature occur in surrealistic irony (Section 6.4), as well as metaphorical irony and sometimes also meiotic and hyperbolic irony (if they do not overlap with the ironic evaluative expression), where what is said is not present (see Section 7).

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 179

the distinctive feature of the type of irony in question, that is the speaker’s literal truthfulness (a truthful meaning coinciding with what is said) and the reason for performing the reversal of the two evaluative lexemes. Moreover, even though the reversal-based interpretations may indeed carry truthful meanings, they do not appear to be the main critical messages that the speakers wish to communicate in the contexts at hand, such as “I disapprove of your untidy room” or “I despise your dishonesty”. Without these implicatures carrying criticism of the hearers, the reversal-based paraphrases purport to be contextually irrelevant. Even if the implicatures with adequate referents were added to resolve this irrelevance, a query would persist concerning the reason for performing the twofold reversal. This kind of interpretation is then untenable. Partington (2007) seems to take an approach similar to Yamanashi’s (1998). In his evaluation reversal approach to irony, Partington (2007) presents an interpretative model which holds that the evaluation communicated by any ironic utterance needs to be reversed in order to be compatible with a given context. In reference to the canonical example, which he views as a case of verisimilar irony, Partington (2007: 1564) suggests that the mother is implicitly communicating a reversed evaluation, i.e. “hatred” rather than “love”, as in “I don’t like children (that is, you) who have untidy rooms” (see Yamanashi’s 1998 similar analysis, yet lacking the specified referent of evaluation). A question arises as to what (in theoretical terms) triggers the meaning reversal process and promotes this implicature. Additionally, what Partington does not spell out is that the reversal of the evaluative verb and adjective involves also a change of the referent of the main evaluation (“children’s rooms” vs “your room”). This seems to be based on a logical syllogism: “I don’t like children who have untidy rooms” and “You are a child and this is your room”, and hence “I don’t like you for having an untidy room”. Essentially, in verisimilar irony, the literal expression is not contradictory to the intended meaning. On the contrary, it may be regarded as part of speaker meaning, i.e. what is said, which serves as the springboard for the central evaluative implicature. Thus, the intended meaning is not a matter of standard (propositional or otherwise) meaning reversal, whereby the intended meaning is an inversion of the one expressed but not meant. Such irony is based on literally expressed genuine beliefs, and thus what is said, as in the following example: “I really appreciate cautious drivers” said to a neurotically cautious driver by his companion (Wilson 2006: 1726).34 This truthful utterance carries what is said,

34 Wilson (2006) states that this instance does not centre on what is blatantly false and that no corresponding implicature is involved. However, if this utterance is to represent irony, an implicature must arise.

180 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

“I really appreciate cautious drivers”, and invites an implicature along the lines of “You’re so cautious a driver that you are annoying”. What is dubbed verisimilar irony is typically claimed to reside in truthful literal meanings, here conceptualised as what is said. Alternatively, however, when another first Quality maxim flouting is involved, a truthful implicature (but not what is said) is engendered as an intermediate level of meaning. This happens when a verisimilar ironic utterance additionally contains hyperbole, meiosis or metaphor, each of which involves a flouting of the first maxim of Quality (see Grice 1989a [1975]: 33–34). When prototypical irony (based on making as if to say and meaning reversal) co-exists with any of the other Quality-based figures of speech, the latter are comprehended logically prior to the ironic meaning (on metaphor, see e.g. Yamanashi 1998; Stern 2000; Camp 2006, 2012; Popa 2009; Dynel 2016d) and this obtains also for verisimilar irony. Therefore, in verisimilar irony that deploys a subordinate Quality-based figure, making as if to say is always present but is independent of the irony. The irony essentially stems from a truthful as if implicature promoted by the hyperbole, meiosis or metaphor, which is subject to further interpretation so that the irony can be unravelled. Interestingly, this applies to the canonical mother example. Contrary to popular opinion, the mother’s utterance does not constitute a truthful assertion, and thus what is said. What does not appear to have been recognised in the previous discussions of this example is that the mother’s utterance rests on a hyperbole35, insofar as love and hatred of children, let alone all children, can hardly be developed merely on the grounds of whether or not they keep their rooms clean. The mother example can be dissected as follows: a) Hyperbolic/overtly untruthful utterance; making as if to say: “I love children who keep their rooms clean” b) Truthful as if ironic implicature: “I like it a lot when children keep their rooms clean” c) Ultimate evaluative implicature: “I do not approve of your untidy room” A truthful ironic implicature (i.e. implicature still containing irony) comes into being once the hyperbole is understood in the first stage of interpretation. No what is said is present due to the presence of hyperbole (“love”), a layer of

35 Barbe (1995) does mention that this example is contingent on a hyperbole, but her view of its workings is questionable. Barbe states that the speaker loves not all children but just her children, especially when their rooms are clean. However, this is precisely what the speaker does not wish to communicate in this context. The mother’s aim is to criticise her child for the messy room.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 181

meaning distinct from the ironic implicature. Consequently, this example should be viewed as being based on hyperbole-based making as if to say, and hence overt untruthfulness inviting an intermediate truthful but ironic as if implicature (e.g. “I like it a lot when children keep their rooms clean”), which promotes the central evaluative implicature, which consists in criticising the child (e.g. “I do not approve of your untidy room”). In addition, it can be argued that this instance of verisimilar irony will work similarly when no hyperbole is involved and the evaluative implicature arises directly from what is said (e.g. “It makes me happy to see children who keep their rooms clean” or “I like to see a child’s room that is clean”). It must be underscored that some attention has been paid in the literature to verisimilar irony which pivots on what is said, frequently referred to as “true” or “sincere” “assertions” (Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Colston 2000; Camp 2012; Stokke 2013a), whereas the alternative subtype (where no assertion or other form of what is said is present) does not appear to have been recognised so far. 6.5.1 Previous neo-Gricean accounts of verisimilar irony A number of attempts have already been made to account for verisimilar irony with reference to Grice’s notions. Some of them will be succinctly reviewed now and their shortcomings will be indicated (and a few other claims will be critiqued in Section 6.5.4, where other authors’ examples are discussed). Only a few of the tenets proposed previously are endorsed here. Attardo’s (2000) complex proposal of relevant inappropriateness applicable to all irony appears to have stemmed from his criticism of the Gricean account. In Attardo’s (2000) view, this account does not capture irony which fails “to violate a maxim” (2000: 817).36 By this, he seems to mean an ironic utterance’s failure to flout the first maxim of Quality. Attardo (2000) proposes that such an ironic utterance entails inappropriateness in a given context, albeit still being relevant. Appropriateness applies if all presuppositions of an utterance are identical to, or compatible with, those of the context, which does not hold for irony. In Attardo’s (2000) view, appropriateness is truth-sensitive.

36 In Attardo’s (2000) view, based on what seems to be a misinterpretation of the Gricean account of the Cooperative Principle (see Dynel 2009), irony is non-cooperative. In reality, irony is cooperative, in the Gricean sense, as long as the speaker produces it rationally and means to be understood, thereby observing the Cooperative Principle while legitimately flouting the first maxim of Quality. Attardo (2000), however, contends that irony violates the Cooperative Principle (which, as a principle of rationality, can hardly be violated), as well as “the maxim of Quality” (sic). In fact, irony legitimately flouts only the first maxim of Quality.

182 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

A query may be raised as to why Attardo’s (2000) postulate, which he propounds as an extension of the Gricean approach, should resort to the markedly different, competing research tradition, viz. Relevance Theory, endorsing a revised version of the notion of (contextual) relevance. Attardo’s (2000) model, therefore, combines disparate, irreconcilable tenets involving relation/relevance. The relevance-theoretic approach is premised on the assumption of relevance (importance) of a (verbal) stimulus, which must always be sought, predicated on the cost/effects ratio. By contrast, in the Gricean account, the Relation maxim (not “relevance maxim”, as Attardo calls it) may be flouted so that implicatures should arise. Although the rationale underlying “relevant inappropriateness” is intuitively appealing (an ironic utterance is invariably contextually inappropriate but it is at the same time relevant/sensible), Attardo’s (2000) proposal is overburdened with terminological and methodological problems consequent upon his (disputable) interpretation of Grice’s postulates. In actual fact, Attardo’s (2000) “relevant inappropriateness” appears to correspond to the simple case of flouting the Relation maxim. Put in Gricean terms, the speaker’s utterance is inappropriate in the context at hand, an explanation for which must be sought on the grounds of the underlying Cooperative Principle, whereby a relevant (in Grice’s sense) intended meaning in the form of an implicature is fostered. Irrespective of its bedrock premises, another shortcoming of Attardo’s (2000) postulate is that it does not account for how exactly the ironic interpretation is to be sought. Yet another query is that the notion of relevant inappropriateness could pertain to non-ironic utterances, as long as contextually inappropriate but relevant or simply contingent on the Relation maxim floutings. Therefore, Attardo’s (2000) proposal fails to address the features unique to (verisimilar) irony, in addition to being convoluted due to the “theoretical mergers” the author proposes. On the other hand, Colston (2000) supports the Gricean conceptualisation of irony, albeit extending the list of maxims that can be flouted to generate irony (see Section 6.5.4 for criticism). He also brings to focus the notion of contrast of expectations, desires, preferences or social norms against the actual events, which should, as is argued here, be formally depicted as what the speaker believes to be true events. In Colston’s (2000) view, therefore, irony comprehension (and, it could be added, production) necessitates the flouting of any of the Gricean maxims and what they portray, namely the contrast which can be achieved by overtly pretending to assert the expected events or by invoking them while speaking earnestly, and thereby being truthful or pragmatically sincere. The latter stipulation concerns verisimilar irony, which resides in truthful utterances evoking expectations that appear to have been defeated or norms that have been violated. In Colston’s (2000) words, irony which does not involve pretending “to advocate or assert expected events in contrast with reality” achieves this

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 183

contrast by “invoking those alternative events in the mind of the speaker while speaking earnestly” (2000: 316). This may be right, but it does not seem to delineate the scope of irony based on truthfulness, insofar as utterances which do meet this definition need not always be considered ironic (which may not be a problem for Colston’s analysis as such). For instance, eating a poorly seasoned steak prepared by his wife, who used to make palatable steaks for many years, a man says, “Something must have happened to your taste buds”. This utterance is not ironic, even though it flouts several maxims but not the first maxim of Quality, in accordance with Colston’s (2000) proposal. It alludes to the interlocutors’ common ground and the man’s expectations, conveying an implicit evaluative message “You probably cannot feel the taste of this steak and it is not nice”. Colston’s (2000) definition is then too broad, unless another stipulation is added to it, namely the flouting of the Relation maxim37, which he does address in his paper, but not as the sine qua non for pragmatically sincere irony. Colston (2000) only mentions that irony may sometimes rely on a pragmatically sincere utterance which flouts the maxim of Relation, insofar as it refers to a situation different from the one that has occurred. Generally, although it does contain a number of apt observations, Colston’s (2000) discussion fails to distil the essence of verisimilar irony or distinguish it from other implicit phenomena. Camp (2012: 607) observes that some irony (which she dubs “sarcasm”) can “target implicatures that would be generated by a fully sincere utterance of a sentence which is itself genuinely asserted”. It can be deduced from her analyses that the ironic/untruthful meaning subject to reversal can arise as an implicature which, in turn, originates in a truthful assertion. This proposal’s basic drawback is that it is very general and can only be better understood based on examples. Otherwise, it is difficult to grasp the ways in which the implicatures come into being. Regrettably, the examples that Camp (2012) provides seem to offer little help, being disputable (see Section 6.5.4). Moreover, it is difficult to tell whether Camp’s (2012) general conceptualisation would capture the canonical mother example, and if so, how exactly it should be interpreted. Generally, Camp (2012) gives no clear formula for how the implicature that irony “targets” is reached, and it seems that the range of implicatures stemming from what is said38 and inviting ironic interpretations is very narrow, much narrower than Camp (2012) proposes, based on a few (dubious) examples. Finally, Camp (2012) claims that this ­assertion-based

37 Colston (2000), however, calls it the “Relevance” maxim, and uses the labels “violation” and “flouting” interchangeably, which does not adequately represent Grice’s parlance and proposals. 38 Alternatively, verisimilar irony may hinge on making as if to say, thanks to another figure residing in flouting the first maxim of Quality (hyperbole, meiosis or metaphor).

184 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

irony should be classified as the “propositional” type, together with the standard meaning-reversal irony. By contrast, it is postulated here that this is more a matter of a distinct category of irony, insofar as the implicated meaning’s derivation is different from standard propositional meaning reversal irony. Lastly, Kapogianni (2011: 54) observes that ironic utterances possess intrinsic “counterfactuality”, either in the form of a direct contrast with reality (which is reconceptualised as what the speaker believes to be true rather than objective truth) or in the inferences an utterance promotes, which bears relevance to verisimilar irony. Kapogianni (2011: 54) thus suggests that the counterfactual (here, untruthful) meaning that needs to be negated can be the one “inferred” by the hearer, not the one “explicitly expressed” by the speaker.39 Also, the natural inference that “I like x” in a context means that “x is true in that context” must be “negated” (Kapogianni 2011: 54). The pending question is why and how this should happen. Regrettably, Kapogianni (2011) provides no clear-cut explanation of the meaning derivation process. However, she rightly notes that it is the inferred meaning, here conceptualised as implicature, that is counterfactual (here, untruthful) and she underscores the significance of context, a train of thought that will be followed here. An attempt will now be made to explicate the mechanics of verisimilar irony. Similar to Kapogianni (2011) and Camp (2012), the present work takes as its departure point a Gricean rational reconstruction theory of how meaning is inferred in the case of ironic utterances, with a distinction being drawn between verisimilar irony and standard irony (which rests on overt explicit untruthfulness). 6.5.2 A neo-Gricean approach to verisimilar irony Verisimilar irony seems to escape explanation in the light of the Gricean account of irony, which does not mean that the latter cannot be modified so that it should capture irony based on truthful meanings (in the form of what is said or implicature). The latter, it is contended here, comes into play when a non-ironic flouting of the first Quality maxim is involved and rectified at the first stage of interpretation, before the ironic meaning is arrived at. If an utterance contains a Qualitybased figure of speech other than irony, it cannot be considered as what is said but it does foster a truthful implicature, an intermediate level of meaning (as in the mother example). Thus, contrary to popular opinion, the generalisation that

39 It should be stressed also that the hearer’s and speaker’s perspectives are (ideally) aligned: what the hearer infers is actually what the speaker implicates, at least according to the explanatory theoretical models of irony.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 185

verisimilar irony originates from assertions, truthful statements or truthful literal meanings should best be avoided. In essence, verisimilar irony can be deemed to reside in truthful meanings, which may arise at the level of what is said or at the level of implicature. However, even if the speaker may be expressing his/ her belief, this is not what he/she means to communicate in the context at hand (Sperber and Wilson 1998), at least not as the most vital message, using the expression of his/her true belief as a springboard for the central evaluative implicature. It is this implicature that is the primary meaning (see Jaszczolt 2009) that the speaker intends to communicate. In either form, based on truthful what is said or truthful implicature, verisimilar irony may be seen as invalidating the claim that overt untruthfulness and meaning reversal are the hallmarks of irony. Indeed, as originally conceived by Grice, untruthfulness anchored in flouting the first maxim of Quality can hardly encompass verisimilar irony, which is sometimes regarded as corresponding to “factual reality” (Myers Roy 1978: 172). This notion should be substituted for “truthfulness”, for irony does not always refer to verifiable facts per se, and reality depends on an individual’s perception and belief about what is the case, as well as personal evaluations of the facts as seen by the speaker. This also coincides with Grice’s formulation of the first maxim of Quality, which concerns the speaker’s belief. One might then conclude that verisimilar irony does not capitalise on untruthfulness, for it does not rely on flouting the first maxim of Quality (optional subordinate figures of speech aside). A thesis may be put forward that verisimilar irony recruits overtly untruthful as if implicature arising from truthful what is said or truthful implicature, and that this overtly untruthful implicature necessitates meaning reversal conducive to the central evaluative implicature. An as if implicature is overtly untruthful meaning which does not constitute speaker meaning and which only serves as a potential inferential step leading to the central evaluative implicature in verisimilar irony. The process of this implicature’s emergence will be depicted in the course of this section. It is also argued that a hallmark of verisimilar irony is a contrast between a truthful meaning and the context in which it is communicated (see Gibbs and Colston 2012). Essentially, in verisimilar irony, what is said or what is implicated (in the case of non-ironic floutings of the first maxim of Quality) is truthful and reflects the speaker’s genuine belief, but it is inappropriate/inapplicable/irrelevant (in Grice’s sense) in a given context (see also Sperber and Wilson 1998; Gibbs and Colston 2012) with regard to the referent appertaining to the target of irony. Specifically, as is seen in the mother example, the speaker’s truthful evaluation is inapplicable in the context with regard to the referent (the state of the child’s room) and more generally the target of evaluation (the child). On a deeper level, verisimilar irony manifests a contrast between the evaluative belief the speaker expresses

186 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

and the belief he/she holds about the referent of the irony manifest in a particular context, as perceived by the speaker and, typically, the hearer. Usually, but not always, this context coincides with objectively verifiable facts. Also, this context may be non-verbal (e.g. an untidy room which interlocutors can see, or neurotically careful driving) or it may be verbal, determined by the import of the preceding utterances, which can be thought of as co-text, as construed by the speaker and, ideally (for irony is to succeed communicatively), by the hearer as well. Additionally, this context is at odds with the speaker’s expectations or beliefs, whether or not conscious, as represented by the expressed belief. The context is deserving of an ironic comment and a negative evaluation. Finally, it must be underscored that the contrast between the truthful meaning and the context should not be mistaken for the one concerning the overtly untruthful making as if to say and the contextual factors to which it refers (see Kapogianni 2013, 2016a), which is typical of standard meaning reversal irony based on explicit untruthfulness. The interpretative model proposed here is premised on an assumption that the contrast between a truthful meaning and the context can be conceptualised as flouting the Relation maxim. In other words, because they are transparently at odds with the context, truthful, verisimilar ironic meanings are inherently based on flouting the Relation maxim. It must be underscored that the Relation maxim is not dependent merely on discoursal relevance, which Attardo’s (2000) idea of relevant inappropriateness tacitly and unwittingly reflects. It is Grice himself (1989a [1975]) who appears to have indicated the vexing status of the “Be relevant” maxim, noting that its “formulation conceals a number of problems that exercise me a good deal: questions about what different kinds and focuses of relevance there may be, how these shift in the course of a talk exchange, how to allow for the fact that subjects of conversation are legitimately changed, and so on” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27). Interestingly, Grice addresses this maxim and its nonfulfilment in two distinct ways. Addressing the origin of conversational implicatures, Grice (1989a [1975]: 32) introduces a group of “examples in which no maxim is violated, or at least in which it is not clear that any maxim is violated”, which he exemplifies by the following two exchanges: “A: I am out of petrol. B: There is a garage round the corner”, and “A: Smith doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend these days. B: He has been paying a lot of visits to New York lately”. Whilst in contemporary neoGricean studies, these two examples will be regarded as flouting the Relation maxim, Grice suggests that in each of the examples, “the speaker implicates that which he must be assumed to believe in order to preserve the assumption that he is observing the maxim of Relation” (1989a [1975]: 32). At a glance, the replies provided by each B do not look as if they are immediately related to the preceding

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 187

turns, given their semantic content. This is why they depend on maxim floutings. The speakers produce overtly irrelevant replies, and it is the recognition of this fact that guides the hearers towards seeking the central implicatures, where the Relation maxim is observed. The rational speakers must wish the hearers to observe a tacit connection between the two parts of the adjacency pairs, together with the importance/relevance of the replies, and glean the implicatures (i.e. “You can get some petrol in a garage round the corner” and “Smith may have had a girlfriend in New York”). Another pertinent instance of the Relation maxim nonfulfilment (in Grice’s (1989a [1975]: 32) view distinct from flouting) is as follows: “Suppose that A and B are talking about a mutual friend, C, who is now working in a bank. A asks B how C is getting on in his job, and B replies, Oh quite well, I think; he likes his colleagues, and he hasn’t been to prison yet” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 24) in order to implicate that C is “potentially dishonest” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 31). With regard to this example, Grice uses the ambivalent term “apparent violation” of the “Be relevant” maxim (Grice 1989a [1975]: 31, 35). This apparent violation stands vis-à-vis the “real violation”, which appears to mean “flouting”.40 Specifically, addressing the issue of an implicature “achieved by real, as distinct from apparent, violation of the maxim of Relation”, Grice (1989a [1975]: 35) provides an example of discoursal exploitation of the Relation maxim, whereby the topic of the exchange is drastically changed to implicate that the preceding turn was a social faux pas. This is a matter of starting a new topical strand in reply to the preceding turn, as is evidenced by the following example: At a genteel tea party, A says Mrs. X is an old bag. There is a moment of appalled silence, and then B says The weather has been quite delightful this summer, hasn’t it? B has blatantly refused to make what he says relevant to A’s preceding remark. He thereby implicates that A’s remark should not be discussed and, perhaps more specifically, that A has committed a social gaffe. (Grice 1989a [1975]: 35)

It may seem, therefore, that any “real violation” of the Relation maxim must involve the speaker’s implicature that he/she is unwilling to refer to the previous utterance. “Real violation” will display very narrow applicability, i.e. for topic shifts, whilst the “apparent violation” will coincide with the contemporary understanding of the Relation maxim floutings.

40 The notion “real violation” is presented under the heading of maxim flouting/exploitation (Grice 1989a [1975]: 33) and it should not be mistaken for “violation” understood as covert nonfulfilment of a maxim.

188 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Regardless of the clarity of the Gricean account of the two types of nonfulfilment of the Relation maxim and Relation-driven implicatures, it appears that the Relation maxim manifests itself in two forms: at the level of discoursal coherence and at a deeper level of the communicated meaning’s significance in a given context, whether verbal or non-verbal. In verisimilar irony, the speaker flouts the Relation maxim understood primarily in the latter sense, even though discoursal incoherence may also come into play. In view of the above, an interpretative/explanatory formula can now be postulated for verisimilar irony. Albeit truthful, what is said or implicature carried by a verisimilar ironic utterance centres on flouting the Relation maxim, inasmuch as this truthful meaning is not compatible with the context (and the speaker’s belief about the context). This is what the hearer needs to be aware of, on the strength of the context available to him/her, which determines the nature of the evaluated referent. For instance, in the canonical mother example, the speaker is truly appreciative of the non-ironic referent of positive evaluation, namely children who keep their rooms clean, whereas the ironic referent, the room the woman is looking at, is untidy (the truth), and she must consider it as such (truthfulness). Also, given its contextual irrelevance (in Grice’s sense), the truthful evaluative meaning cannot exhaust speaker meaning, which the hearer is meant to recognise in order to arrive at the central implicature. Being at odds with the non-verbal context, the truthful evaluative meaning may be seen as flouting the Relation maxim. To render the truthful meaning and the context compatible, that is to resolve the Relation maxim flouting, the hearer may be seen as inferring an as if implicature (in the mother example, “I like your keeping your room clean now”). Even though this may be a good candidate for the meaning motivating the speaker’s utterance in the context, it can be only an as if implicature. This is because it is overtly untruthful and it cannot constitute speaker meaning. The as if implicature serves as the inferential basis for the central evaluative implicature because it flouts the first Quality maxim, which necessitates meaning reversal of two kinds41: one that involves the real context as perceived by the speaker (“Your room is not clean”) and one that involves the nature of the evaluation pertinent to this real context (“I don’t like it”). This evaluation must be made opposite to the evaluation pertinent to the invoked context, which is at odds with the actual one. This twofold meaning reversal is ultimately conducive to the implicature that negatively evaluates the target of the irony (the child) in regard to the referent (the state of the room) (e.g. “I don’t like

41 However, as will be shown in the next section, the two may coincide, depending on how an ironic utterance is formulated.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 189

your room being messy”). A statement may be ventured that verisimilar irony presents the same features as prototypical irony, but on the level of as if implicature, not making as if to say. In communicating a truthful meaning which flouts the Relation maxim, the speaker makes as if to implicate another piggybacked meaning that is subject to meaning reversal and promotes the central evaluative implicature. The following interpretative steps, technically philosophical analytic steps, can be reconstructed: a) Recognition of the basic truthful speaker meaning: what is said or implicature b) Recognition of flouting the Relation maxim in the context at hand c) Resolving the Relation maxim flouting by finding an as if implicature, which is compatible with the context but is overtly untruthful d) Reversing the meaning of the as if implicature so that it is truthful, compatible with the context and representative of the speaker’s genuine evaluation, which leads to the central evaluative implicature The proposal based on flouting the Relation maxim and as if implicature (subject to reversal and facilitating evaluative implicature) may be used as a verisimilar irony recognition procedure, helping distinguish this type of irony from utterances which represent other types of irony or utterances that are not ironic at all. In the next section, a number of examples of verisimilar irony found in the literature on irony will be critically addressed, the goal being to specify a few formal characteristics of verisimilar irony and delineate its scope against the backdrop of other communicative phenomena which may be, and sometimes are, mistaken for it. 6.5.3 Previous examples of verisimilar irony Manifestations of verisimilar irony are not easy to identify, and its instances are actually rarely found in the academic literature. Moreover, many of the examples that can be found are dubious, as will be shown below. Apart from the famous mother example, the topical literature offers just a few similar instances, such as “I (just) love people who signal (when turning)” (Myers Roy 1977: 172 1978: 17; Gibbs 1986a: 4; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Barbe 1995: 24; Coulson 2005: 129) or “I just love when people use their turn signals” (Colston 2000: 303), both said in the event of someone not having signalled before turning. Another example involves stating, “I love people with good manners” (Haverkate 1990: 92) in the context of someone’s having violated the rules of etiquette. All of these instances exhibit the same hyperbole-based pattern and the speaker’s truthful expression of appreciation inapplicable to the hearer as in the mother example. Thus, these are amenable to the same type of interpretation. First, the hyperbole residing in “love” is teased out. Then, the truthful implicature which flouts the maxim of

190 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Relation is transformed into a contextually relevant but untruthful as if implicature (“I appreciate the fact that this driver has used his turn signals” or “I appreciate your good manners”). This as if implicature gives rise to the ultimate evaluative implicature, based on meaning reversal concerning the evaluated activity so that it matches the actual context. This reversal involves also the reversal of evaluation so that it adequately represents the speaker’s opinion regarding this referent vis-à-vis the referent present in what is implicated (“I resent the fact that this driver has failed to use his turn signals” and “I disapprove of your bad manners”). On the other hand, Wilson’s (2006: 1726) example, “I really appreciate cautious drivers” said in reference to an over-cautious driver, shows the same pattern of interpretation (the positive evaluation does not pertain to the receiver of the utterance) but it does not include hyperbole. Here, it is what is said that flouts the Relation maxim. Thus, the following as if implicature is engendered: “I really appreciate your being a cautious driver” only to be negated, thus yielding an implicature, such as “I really disapprove of your being such a neurotic (not cautious, in a positive sense) driver”. It should be underscored that the word “cautious” used with regard to an over-cautious driver is indeed untruthful, just as meiosis and hyperbole flout the first maxim of Quality, not Quantity (Grice 1989a [1975]). Grice’s view is endorsed: truthfulness and untruthfulness form a binary opposition rather than being a matter of degrees. All three examples so far are rooted in the speaker’s truthful expression of some form of appreciation of a chosen category of people, an appreciation that is inapplicable to the target of irony. Haverkate (1990) captures this under the notion of referential defocalisation, i.e. the person or thing targeted by irony does not belong to the class of people referred to in the utterance. Hence, the target of irony is criticised on the grounds of him/her “not being a member of that category” (Gibbs and Colston 2012: 53). Given the interpretative model promoted here, it should be added that the attempt at eliminating the Relation maxim flouting relies heavily on perceiving the target of the irony as being a member of the positively evaluated category at the stage of the as if implicature. The ultimate conclusion is that the target is not such a member, thereby being evaluated negatively. Attardo (2000: 816) provides an example slightly different from the ones examined above, because it does not pivot on a category presented in the form of a plural noun: “Two farmers in a drought-stricken area are talking and farmer A says: ‘Don’t you just love a nice spring rain?’”. This verisimilar ironic utterance centres on a hyperbolic verb and a rhetorical question. Most importantly, it centres on a positive evaluation (in this case, a first-order implicature, based on the two figures), yet not of a group of people but of a natural phenomenon. In this case, the aspect of category non-membership presents itself otherwise (“rain” does not include “drought”, which is a markedly distinct weather condition). Once both

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 191

the rhetorical question and the hyperbole are accounted for, this utterance may be taken to carry a truthful implicature “I like nice spring rain”, which stands in marked contrast to the drought that the interlocutors have been experiencing. The as if implicature which makes this spontaneously produced utterance fit the context in accordance with the Relation maxim might read along the lines of “I like this nice spring rain that is falling now”. After the necessary meaning reversal which captures the actual context and the adequate evaluation, the farmer’s utterance implicates “I resent the drought”. Based on the examples quoted so far, one may get the wrong impression that verisimilar irony can only be based on an utterance which hinges on an evaluative verb (such as “love/like” or “appreciate” typical of the oft-quoted examples) conveying the speaker’s genuine likes, preferences, etc., which are at odds with (or have not been satisfied by) the action or utterance referred to, which constitutes a crucial part of context of the ironic utterance. Yet, a verisimilar ironic utterance may rely on different evaluative expressions. Myers Roy (1978: 143) and Haverkate (1990: 92) provide an example of verisimilar irony which changes the well-entrenched formula by lacking an evaluative verb and by depending on a “referential defocalisation” promoted by a singular noun: “There’s nothing like a delicious meal” uttered in a restaurant of mediocre quality. Although an evaluative verb is not present, this utterance is also evidently evaluative. “There’s nothing like” is a conventional formula for praising something. Thus, the as if implicature arising from this utterance is “This is a delicious meal”, which, at least from the speaker’s perspective, is not true. Incidentally, this example demonstrates that contextual factors are not always unequivocal and depend on what the speaker believes the context (and the referent) to be (the essence of truthfulness), being a matter of subjective judgement. However, for irony to succeed, the speaker and hearer should agree in their evaluations. As a result of meaning reversal, the ultimate meaning communicated is “This is a disgusting meal”. What can be extrapolated from these validated examples of verisimilar irony is that verisimilar irony consists in utterances communicating a positive evaluation of a generic referent (in what is said or implicated) in order to communicate the central implicature concerning the targeted ironic referent, which is not included in this positively evaluated generic referent and which is evaluated negatively. The truthful meaning coincides with the speaker’s positive evaluation expressed in a context in which it does not apply, and apropos of a referent to which it does not apply. This positive evaluation may take many forms and guises (e.g. evaluative verbs, adjectives or conventionalised evaluative formulae). For instance, the mother in the proverbial example could also say the following things to criticise her son for his untidy room: “Having a child who can keep his room clean is so nice”, “There’s nothing that can make a mother happier than her

192 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

child’s tidiness”, or “The ability to keep one’s room clean is such a virtue”. Positive evaluation seems to be a necessary component of verisimilar irony, which ultimately carries negative evaluation, as all irony does (Grice 1989b [1978]; see Garmendia 2010, 2014), of the target regarding a specific referent. Additionally, in verisimilar irony, the target that is negatively evaluated in the ultimate implicature is an entity distinct from the object of positive evaluation in what is said or what is non-ironically implicated. The positive and ironically implicated negative evaluations are typically opposites, insofar as the feature that is truthfully positively evaluated does not apply to the targeted referent, which is thereby negatively evaluated. Here are two examples from House, admittedly, the only two that can be found in the entire dataset that represent verisimilar irony. Both are amenable to the analytic steps proposed in Section 6.5.2, being couched in different forms of evaluative expressions. (48) [House approaches Wilson in the hospital cafeteria and flicks open a knife that his clinic patient has used to electrocute himself.] 1. House: [musing, preoccupied with his thoughts] If you’re going to try to take yourself out, why choose electricity? You’d eat a bullet or jump off a building... 2. Wilson: I love the team thing, by the way. 3. House: [refusing to be distracted] ...bury yourself alive in Cuddy’s cleavage. [flicks open the knife again to punctuate his statement] 4. Wilson: Team work... collaboration... all for the greater good.... 5. House: It could have been a suicidal gesture, as opposed to an actual attempt. Season 4, Episode 3 Each of Wilson’s turns (2 and 4) contradicts the conversational context that he (as well as House) is aware of, being irrelevant in terms of their coherence with House’s preceding turns (1 and 3) and, more generally, given House’s failure to engage in team work and negligence of his conversationalist. Wilson’s utterances carry a truthful implicature (“I appreciate the team work, by the way”), based on the “love” hyperbole (2) and what is said via asserting (“Team work and collaboration serve the greater good”) (4). Both truthful meanings flout the maxim of Relation. To render them relevant, one must arrive at overtly untruthful as if implicatures, such as “I appreciate your engagement in team work” (2) and “Your engagement in team work and collaboration make for the greater good” (4). Each of these as if implicatures shows overt untruthfulness (flouting the first maxim of Quality) and cannot possibly constitute speaker meaning. Thus the ultimate implicatures that Wilson must be communicating read along the lines of

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 193

“I disapprove of your lack of engagement in team work”, as well as “Your lack of engagement in team work does not do any good”. In Example 48, Wilson’s verisimilar ironic utterances represent the hyperbolebased positively-evaluative verb format (2), as well as a less explicit, impersonal form of evaluation (4). Here is another example of an evaluative expression that is based on an adjective and alludes to contextual information. (49) [Previously, Wilson subjected himself to a very strong and reckless chemotherapy treatment, which caused him to vomit a lot. Wilson and House are on a trip pending the results of the treatment’s success, Wilson just took part in a diner’s steak-eating competition; he ate a huge steak only to vomit at the very end. The two are in the diner’s washroom. House is cleaning his tennis shoes. Wilson approaches him and tries to clean up a bit over the sink.] 1. Wilson: Ah… 2. House: Must be nice to be puking for the old-fashioned reasons. 3. Wilson: Ah. I’m glad I did it. You see those people out there cheering for me? I was a hero. For one fleeting moment, for an incredibly stupid reason, for a bunch of morons I’ll never see again. God, it felt good. And now, if you’ll excuse me. I think I’ve made room for dessert. Season 8, Episode 20 In his ironic utterance (2), House must be alluding to Wilson’s previous bodily reaction to aggressive chemotherapy. This utterance is based on an “empathetic” form of evaluation, with the speaker reflecting on the hearer’s evaluation. Even if in general vomiting is not a pleasant activity, House must be suggesting that vomiting for “the old-fashioned reasons”, i.e. when it is not caused not by a hazardous life-saving treatment, is (relatively) nice to the person involved.42 However, grossly overeating for the sake of winning a prize can hardly be regarded as one of the traditional reasons (as opposed to nausea). Therefore, the referent of the positive evaluation (“vomiting for the old-fashioned reasons”) is irrelevant to the context and the referent at hand (“vomiting for reasons other than the old-fashioned ones”, which is why the overtly untruthful as if implicature (“I believe that it’s nice to be vomiting after eating a very large steak”) may come about. This as if implicature needs to be reversed to yield the ultimate evaluative implicature (“It’s horrible to be vomiting after eating a very large steak and what you did was idiotic”).

42 On an alternative interpretation, the speaker may be overtly untruthful, believing that ­vomiting cannot ever be nice, and thereby criticising the addressee for having acted foolishly.

194 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

6.5.4 Disputable examples of verisimilar irony The (verisimilar) ironic status of many examples found in the scholarship is questionable. Very frequently, examples used to corroborate a statement that irony need not involve untruthfulness, the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, or meaning reversal can hardly be deemed ironic in a technical sense, even though they may be considered cases of humour (see Section 2.3.1 and Chapter 5, Section  2.2) or biting and witty criticism, and thus sarcasm (see Section 4). Based solely on authors’ intuitions rather than precise formal definitions, such examples of verisimilar irony show typological problems yet they still tend to reverberate across the literature, being unquestioningly cited. Apart from being counterintuitive, such instances are not amenable to the interpretative model of verisimilar irony proposed here and they do not display the formal characteristics that the examples examined above show, frequently not qualifying as irony at all. In the discussion below (so as not to commit the mistake of circular reasoning), the problematic examples will be discussed by critiquing the quoted author’s explanations of the workings of these examples without resorting to the notions of implicit untruthfulness or as if implicature put forward here. The essential summative conditions for verisimilar irony, which the examples below are shown not to fulfil, can be summarised as follows: what is said/implicated carries a positive evaluation of the generic referent, which is irrelevant in the context at hand, for the generic referent does not include the targeted ironic referent, which must be evaluated negatively in the ultimate implicature. Moreover, as will transpire, many of these examples fail to meet two criteria that help verify the presence of all irony, according to some researchers (see Kapogianni 2011, 2013, 2016a43): implicated negative evaluation, here seen as an evaluative implicature (see Section 2.2); and a mismatch between an utterance and the context in which it occurs (see also Colston 1997, 2002; Colston and Keller 1998; Colston and O’Brien 2000; Burgers et al. 2011, 2012a; Kapogianni 2011, 2013, 2016a), whether verbal or non-verbal, and necessarily recognised by the speaker (this is in line with the notion of truthfulness and the belief-based approach endorsed here).44 As is argued here, the latter aspect translates into the speaker’s

43 Kapogianni also provides the condition of violated expectations or norms, whether foregrounded or tacit. However, this concomitant of irony seems to be inextricably connected with the implied evaluation condition. It is the reason for using irony. Also, it may sometimes be elusive to capture, being more of a logical extrapolation from a given example. However, it will always be present when the other two conditions for irony are met. 44 Whilst the context condition is central in the case of verisimilar irony, it does not appear to be a necessary condition for all ironic utterances, which may look contextually adequate but misrepresent the speaker’s beliefs, hence being overtly untruthful.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 195

overt untruthfulness (transparent to the hearer who shares the same context). In non-verisimilar irony, overt untruthfulness is explicit, i.e. the untruthfulness arises on the utterance level. By contrast, in verisimilar irony, overt untruthfulness is implicit. One of the dubious examples is the oft-quoted comment “You sure know a lot” that criticises someone arrogant who flaunts their knowledge (­Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995: 7; Colston 2000: 280; Garmendia 2011: 59; Camp 2012: 596, 606, 619). A view prevails that this is a true but ironic assertion, here what is said. Interestingly, Kumon-Nakamura et al. (1995), the first to have used this example, introduce it (but hardly discuss it) as an “insincere compliment”, because the attitude expressed is counter to the surface form of the “assertion”. In her discussion of this example, Garmendia (2011: 60) claims that the hearer realises that the speaker’s utterance does not match the “motivating belief’s referential content” of the speaker, i.e. that the hearer was showing off his knowledge. Although this may indeed be the case, it is difficult to gather how the hearer’s discovery of this meaning could be described in technical terms. This explanation does not seem to suffice to motive this example’s ironic character. This is a drawback of Garmendia’s (2010, 2011) Asif-Theory45, which may not be able to distinguish ironic utterances from utterances which promote non-ironic but also evaluative implicatures. Camp (2012), on the other hand, claims that this example represents “illocutionary sarcasm” (which she equates with “irony”) as long as this is an assertion (and should it not be, her “propositional sarcasm” would apply). In Camp’s view, this instance is anchored in pretence residing in the implicature that the speaker is paying the hearer a compliment, which is actually an insult, insofar as the speaker values other virtues more than knowledge, contrary to what the utterance suggests. However, for lack of adequate contextual evidence, it is disputable whether the speaker does implicate that he/she values the hearer’s other merits. Most importantly, Camp (2012: 619) suggests that the speaker “merely pretends to presuppose that knowledge ranks high”, which is at odds with the well-entrenched assumption that the speaker makes an assertion, an assumption to which Camp seems to subscribe. If such overt pretence (coinciding with overt untruthfulness) is involved, this utterance should not be seen as verisimilar irony. On balance, a different explanation needs to be sought for this example. If the speaker should genuinely believe that the hearer knows a lot, this utterance counts as a statement of a fact, and a non-ironic but sarcastic utterance

45 This theory has little to do with the notion of as if implicature proposed here.

196 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

that carries implicit criticism of the hearer’s boastfulness. Apart from what is said (conveying the speaker’s true belief), this utterance carries an evaluative implicature dependent on Quantity (saying too little) and Manner floutings (“I do realise you know a lot, but I wish you would stop bragging”). The manner of presentation, which is atypical of compliments and suggests the speaker’s distancing himself/herself from the belief, will inspire the inference that the message is critical. Overall, although this utterance may have originated in the speaker’s disappointment with the bragging person’s behaviour and carries an evaluative implicature, this implicature does not arise from any form of untruthfulness, and no contrast between the utterance and the context is perceptible. On the other hand, it is indeed the case that this utterance meets the condition of truthful positive evaluation coupled with implicated negative evaluation (one of the characteristic features of verisimilar irony, as proposed above). However, the positive evaluation in what is said is contextually insufficient rather than contextually incompatible. The contextual incompatibility/irrelevance is the second hallmark of verisimilar irony, a condition which this instance does not meet. Additionally, this example does not follow the standard pattern whereby the generic referent evaluated positively does not encompass the targeted referent of irony that is evaluated negatively, insofar as the positive evaluation and negative evaluation share one referent. These are the reasons why this utterance cannot be considered verisimilar irony. If this utterance is to be seen as being ironic, the speaker cannot subscribe to the opinion expressed, at least the moment he/she is voicing it (even if generally or, at least, on other occasions, the speaker may think the hearer to be knowledgeable), thereby being overtly untruthful (“You do nothing but brag, but you barely know anything on this topic”). If indeed ironic, this example will qualify as standard propositional meaning reversal irony (see Section 6.1). Analogous specious claims concerning examples representing v ­ erisimilar irony can be found when other maxim floutings are identified as triggers of irony (Sperber and Wilson 1981, Kaufer 1981, Attardo 2000, Colston 2000)46. As already suggested, Colston (2000) argues that irony may rely on floutings of maxims other than the first Quality maxim. Such irony will then involve “sincerity”, here referred to as “truthfulness”, which is why it must fall within the scope of ­verisimilar irony. For instance, Colston (2000: 314) claims that someone who says, “It’s raining”, having heard a weather report forecasting clear skies, produces irony based on flouting the second maxim of Quantity. This utterance

46 The examples of understatement presented as Quantity floutings are indeed ironic. Nonetheless, understatement is claimed to be based on flouting the first Quality maxim.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 197

appears to be a statement of a fact perceived by the speaker, generating both non-evaluative what is said and possibly an evaluative implicature (“The forecast was wrong”), as long as the speaker means to allude to the earlier forecast and his/her defeated expectation, which is not quite clear given the way Colston presents this example. Also, no contrast between the utterance and the context can be observed, since it is raining indeed. If this example represented irony, it would follow that all implicated critical meanings are tantamount to ironic language use. A similar case concerns the alleged irony stemming from flouting the Manner maxims, but not the first Quality maxim. The example which Colston (2000: 314) provides is a reply “The red one” to a question regarding which of the hundreds of red cars in the parking lot is the one to be hired. This may be a potentially humorous reply or a sharp retort, depending on whether the speaker means to amuse the hearer or merely bitingly comment on the uncanny and annoying situation, but it is by no means based on (verisimilar) irony. Given Colston’s insufficient description of this example, it is difficult to conceive of what evaluative implicature this utterance could carry, and it clearly does not display any literal evaluation or utterance vs context contrast. On the other hand, Kaufer (1981: 502) asserts that irony may arise even if all maxims should be followed, quoting the following example: “America’s allies – always there when they need you”. This, in his view, “is undeniably crafted as irony because of its obvious contrast with a much more common slogan that conveys an attitude diametrically opposed” (Kaufer 1981: 502). However, while this example may be bitingly witty and may indeed convey criticism, it can hardly be said to be ironic, contrary to what other authors who quote this example also suggest (Attardo 2000: 798; Partington 2006: 187, 2007:1549). The mere fact that it alludes to and distorts the well-known slogan (“America’s allies – always there when you need them”) and reverses the favourable evaluation of friends/allies (Partington 2006) does not suffice as a basis for regarding it as being ironic. In this example, even if some tacit disappointment can be intuitively felt, no evaluative implicature or utterance vs (believed) context contrast comes into play. In a similar vein, the following utterances exemplify irony that may be seen as rooted in truthful what is said: “Friends are always there when they need us” said by a person who has been taken advantage of by his friends (Hamamoto 1998: 261), and “Our friends are always there when they need us” (Martin 1992: 81). As Martin (1992: 82) rightly acknowledges, the proposition about friends is “truthful (since truth in matters of language is only what is vouched for by the speaker)”, but he also insists that it is ironic because it echoes legitimate expectations, which are disappointed. This utterance does indeed depict the speaker’s genuine belief, and it does allude to the expectations people have of their friends, but it is by no

198 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

means an ironic one, contrary to what the two authors suggest.47 It does not even carry an evaluative implicature, which is the primary characteristic feature of irony, the one easiest to detect. Also, in Hamamoto’s (1998) version, where some context is depicted, no utterance vs believed context contrast can be found. In either form, this example depends on explicit means of expression, whereby the speaker criticises his friends in a straightforward manner, albeit alluding to the well-known saying. All of this indicates also that the notion of an echo-mention alone, the bedrock premise of the relevance-theoretic approach, is not a sufficient condition for the presence of irony. Discussing the relevance-theoretic approach, Martin (1992: 82) gives two more examples of irony based on a “statement about reality” or “telling the truth”: “I have to say that what tortured me most in watching this film was boredom” taken from a review of a film entitled “Torture”, as well as “Christmas and New Year tribulations” said by a person overwhelmed by extravagant celebrations. Both the examples seem to capitalise on wordplay or allusions (a punning reference to the film title and sound similarity between “tribulations” and the invoked “celebrations”) but can hardly be viewed as ironic. These may be sarcastically critical or humorous utterances but they lack irony, for they do not show any implicitness, let alone promote negatively evaluative implicatures, with the criticism being explicitly communicated. Nor do they meet the condition of believed context vs utterance mismatch that holds for all irony. At this point, another similar candidate for verisimilar irony should be addressed. This example, “A stitch in time saves none!” said by someone who thought he had mended his umbrella only to discover that his attempt had not been successful, pivots on wordplay and a distortion of a proverb and is claimed to represent irony which “describes a state of affairs” (Hamamoto 1998: 262, see his “friends” example discussed above). This is clearly an allusion to the wellknown proverb “A stitch in time saves nine”, which is distorted via a pun so that its inapplicability in the situation at hand can be underscored. This humorous utterance, however, does not display the features of irony. Again, no evaluative implicature or contrast between an utterance and its context can be found here, and the speaker may be seen to use self-deprecating humour. This example may also be regarded as an acknowledgement of irony of fate (i.e. taking precautionary measures has turned out to be of no avail). This, in turn, might indicate that

47 Interestingly, Martin (1992) calls into question the ironic status of this example, albeit focusing only on the meaning of the word “friends”, who are not true friends if they cannot be counted on. He ultimately indicates, however, that “friends” should be understood in a broad sense that allows for a low degree of typicality, and thus he concludes that the utterance is ironic.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 199

Hamamoto’s (1998: 261) proposal concerning “ironical utterances which describe a state of affairs” (the “friends” and “stitch” examples) is rooted in a misguided conflation of irony of fate and irony understood as a figure of speech. Hamamoto (1998: 261)48 differentiates between this form of irony and irony based on “dissociation from a state of affairs”, which is epitomised in the mother example. However, “describing a state of affairs”, conceptualised as truthfulness (i.e. what the speaker believes to be a state of affairs), is also a feature of verisimilar irony. Overall, Hamamoto’s (1998) distinction is quite vague and the two types of irony can hardly be clearly distinguished. Moreover, the “friends” and “stitch” examples purport to coincide with verisimilar irony but are not irony at all. The same applies to Hamamoto’s (1998: 261) example which illustrates “dissociation from a state of affairs” just like the proverbial mother example49 “Our home is an environment” said by a son of two zealous environmental activists, who spend very little time at home. According to Hamamoto (1998: 261), the speaker “dissociates himself from the situation where his house has been neglected and left messy by his parents”. By expressing his true opinion, the speaker criticises the current state of affairs. Nonetheless, it is doubtful whether this is a case of verisimilar irony. This is mainly because it does not seem to rely on positive evaluation arising at the first stage of interpretation, which is a sine qua non for verisimilar irony. It does display contextual irrelevance, but this is related to the overt implicit untruthfulness typical of irony that involves a metaphor (see Section 7.2). Specifically, the boy’s utterance may be regarded as resting on a metaphor,50 a distinct figure involving the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, which has to be teased out first. “Home” is compared to “environment”, and the speaker makes as if to implicate that his home is looked after too, since this is what “environment” means to the parents (notice the overtly untruthful as if implicature “Our home is looked after”). This as if implicature arising from the metaphor’s elaboration represents standard propositional meaning reversal irony, because it is not the case that the boy’s home is actually taken care of, which serves as the basis for the final negatively evaluative implicature concerning the parents’ behaviour (e.g. “I disapprove of your not taking care of our home”.)

48 Hamamoto (1998: 261) also distinguishes irony which capitalises on “dissociation from an echoed opinion” (i.e. “regular irony”). 49 Since Hamamoto (1998) provides very little explanation, it is difficult to appreciate what this dissociation involves, and how the classic verisimilar irony example can be elaborated. 50 The following interpretation is done on the assumption that this indefinite article is merely indicative of Hamamoto’s non-native use of English, and “the environment” is the intended version. If “an environment” is really intended (i.e. “a general situation one is in”), the metaphorical interpretation crumbles.

200 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Alternatively, the boy’s utterance may be interpreted as a non-ironic reproach coupled with an implicit request, based on the speaker’s true belief (especially if the statement is uttered in a plaintive voice). The metaphorically expressed truthful but non-evaluative implicature may read “I believe that our home needs to be looked after”. When paraphrased, the ultimate implicature will read “You must take care of our home, as you take care of the environment” (see also Sperber and Wilson 1998). According to this interpretation, the boy’s utterance also carries implicit criticism of the parents’ negligence, but it does not bear the intrinsic features of irony. It must again be stressed that not all negatively evaluative implicatures are connected with irony. Sperber and Wilson (1998: 288–289) also view the boy’s utterance as ironic since the speaker “is echoing approvingly a thought that his parents should have” while dissociating himself “from the assumption implicit in this echo that his parents do have that thought”. This line of reasoning is hardly convincing. The shortcomings of the echo-mention approach aside (see Roguska 2007), this example escapes the relevance-theoretic explanation of irony as an echo combined with a dissociative attitude towards the echoed utterance (not any assumptions implicit in an echo). If the boy’s utterance were really an instance of irony capitalising on an act of “approvingly echoing”, any reproach produced as a truthful (positively evaluative) statement, of which the criticised individual does not seem to be supportive, would need to be ironic. For example, saying “Porridge is very nice” to a child who will not eat it and insists that it is disgusting would need to be regarded as irony. Yet another example which is claimed to represent verisimilar irony is a reply “He had nice shoes” to a question “How was your blind date?” (Winner 1988: 6; Barbe 1995: 25; Garmendia 2014: 646, 2015: 68). Assuming that the utterance above represents the speaker’s true belief (the woman did find the man’s shoes nice), this utterance can hardly count as irony. It may convey a critical additive implicature (“There’s nothing I liked about my blind date except for the man’s shoes, and this can hardly count as a redeeming feature”), but this does not suffice for the utterance to be classified as irony. If it were, practically any utterance conveying any evaluative implicature next to what is said would need to be classified as irony. That would be a spurious argument. In this case, the critical reply flouts the first Quantity maxim (she gives insufficient information relative to the question) and possibly also Manner maxims. Most importantly, it might be argued that it is also the Relation maxim that is flouted, inasmuch as the reply does not concern the blind date but focuses on a detail which is of secondary importance, if not entirely insignificant. Thereby, the speaker implicates that she does not think much of her blind date and may also mean to amuse the hearer by making this utterance in a witty, biting manner, which is why it may be considered sarcastic but not ironic (Dynel 2014a, 2016e, 2017c). All the floutings give

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 201

rise to a non-ironic evaluative implicature (“It was awful”), not an as if implicature along the lines of “The date was great, because he had nice shoes” leading to “The date was awful, because he had nice shoes”, which would be logically ill-founded. Clearly, the evaluative implicature arises differently, on a non-ironic inferential path: the floutings of the different maxims other than the first maxim of Quality lead directly to the central evaluative implicature. This discussion brings to mind Grice’s (1989a [1975]: 33) well-known example in which he illustrates the flouting of the first maxim of Quantity, namely a written testimonial about a candidate for a philosophy job: “Dear Sir, Mr. X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Yours, etc.”. Grice (1989a [1975]: 33) suggests that the letter’s author “must be wishing to impart information that he is reluctant to write down. This supposition is tenable only if he thinks Mr. X [the candidate] is no good at philosophy. This, then, is what he is implicating”. It is perhaps out of politeness (and not with a view to amusing the addressee, as in the failed date example) that the author does not assert that the candidate has insufficient skills, by flouting the first maxim Quantity and provides truthful but insufficient (and also irrelevant) information to convey an implicature that carries a negative evaluation. Needless to say, this example does not display any type of irony. Another candidate for verisimilar irony can be found in the following exchange between A (wanting to know the reason for B’s sudden departure) and B: A “What’s in the airport?”, B: “Planes” (Kapogianni 2013: 55, 2014: 599 translated from Greek). Through this answer, as Kapogianni (2013, 2014) claims, the speaker implicates that the question is annoying. In Kapogianni’s (2013) account, the reply flouts the first maxim of Quantity by being uninformative, albeit not flouting Quality. The reply also violates contextual relevance since it does not answer the question only to evaluate it critically. Kapogianni (2013) considers this to be an instance of “meaning replacement irony”, specifically a context-driven incongruous response, which involves “an obvious answer to a silly question”, whereby the question is negatively evaluated. However, a pending query is whether this reply that communicates obvious and insufficient information, in actual fact, is irony. Whilst the speaker may indeed tacitly communicate that he/she is not willing to provide a relevant answer by being evasive, it seems unfounded (at least, without sufficient context) to claim that the utterance involves any negative evaluation of the preceding utterance (with such evaluation being a sine qua non for this type of irony). Depending on the speaker’s attitude, this utterance can be regarded as either non-ironic sarcasm (with the utterance being tantamount to “That’s none of your business”) or playful teasing (Dynel 2014a). A few more potential candidates for verisimilar irony come from Camp (2012), who distinguishes a type of irony which concerns only implicatures generated by

202 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

assertions (here, conceptualised as statement-based what is said). To substantiate this claim, she provides a number of examples, including “You sure know a lot” discussed above, and a few others, yet not explaining in detail how the implicatures come into being. As a matter of fact, not all of the examples she provides can be seen as relying on “ironic implicatures” at all. For instance, “Would you mind very much if I asked you to consider cleaning up your room some time this year?” can hardly be taken as fostering an implicature that the “request is supererogatory” (Camp 2012: 596). This example is more a matter of what may be called pragmatic meaning reversal irony (see Dynel 2013a), which does involve overt untruthfulness at the utterance level. Thereby, the speaker merely overtly pretends to make a very polite request whilst ordering the hearer to do the cleaning. Also, Camp’s (2012) claim that this example involves ironic manner of expression is elusive. Irony needs to be defined in terms of formal criteria, such as those proposed here, whereas non-verbal cues (manner of expression), optional and ambivalent as they are, do not count as such. Particularly interesting are two other examples Camp (2012: 596) provides as cases of irony that “targets just the implicature”, with the semantic content being asserted. One of them is “The hotel room costs a thousand dollars a night. Of course, for that you get a half bottle of Australian champagne and your breakfast thrown in” (Camp 2012: 596; Bredin 1997: 7). Bredin (1997: 7) views it as a peculiar manifestation of irony which is rooted in “an implicatum as well as the sentence meaning – an implicatum which attaches to the sentence before the irony begins to kick in”. Following this train of thought, Camp (2012) argues that the irony in this example is promoted only by implicature. In her view, the irony-carrying implicature is that the hotel room is still good value for money or that the extortionate price is offset by the complimentary drink and breakfast. Neither Bredin nor Camp attempts to explain how this interpretation actually arises. Indeed, the ultimate implicature carrying a negative evaluation51 is “The hotel is extremely expensive, and half a bottle of champagne and a complimentary breakfast do not make up for the exorbitant price”. However, a query remains as to whether this instance represents verisimilar irony, namely whether the statement is unequivocally truthful. It can be claimed that the disjunct opening the second sentence, “of course”, is used untruthfully (for irony centred on isolated lexical items, see Wilson 2006; Camp 2012; Dynel 2013a). Without this disjunct, the second ­sentence

51 This utterance need not convey any negative evaluation at all if uttered by an affluent person, who merely describes the facts and does not find the hotel unaffordable, even if expensive. This is hardly surprising; if the negative evaluation is a conversational implicature, it is always possible to find a context in which it will not be triggered.

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 203

would lose its ironic nature, albeit being still implicitly critical. Essentially, the speaker deems it preposterous that a breakfast and some champagne (not even a whole bottle) should balance the cost, which is a matter of logical inference based on the background premises available to the interlocutors. The speaker is not truly indicating that the hearer must already know that what the speaker is saying is true or that the hearer expects this information, as the literal reading of “of course” would indicate. “Of course” is then used ironically, i.e. it is overtly untruthful. The disjunct sheds ironic light on the otherwise truthful proposition. On the whole, the utterance does display overt explicit untruthfulness typical of meaning reversal irony. Hence, it does not qualify as verisimilar irony. Another very similar example that Camp (2012: 596) gives involves the following conversational exchange: “A: I’m sorry Aunt Louisa is such a bother. B: Oh, she never stays for more than a month at a time, and she always confines her three cats to the upper two floors of our house”. Camp (2012) suggests that it is only the implicature that the visits are non-imposing that accounts for the irony in B’s reply. The ultimate evaluative implicature is, therefore, that the speaker finds the visits bothersome. Indeed, at first glance, the example depends on the speaker’s truthfulness at the level of what is said. The negative evaluation is a matter of an evaluative implicature arising from what is said, given the preceding turn: a month’s stay is a long time, and keeping one’s pets on two floors of someone’s house means occupying a lot of space. The two facts are phrased in a way that ostensibly minimises the aunt’s imposition, which ultimately amplifies the critical effect. However, doubt may be cast on whether the utterance is genuinely truthful in its entirety. It seems that it is anchored in an ironic use of “oh”. Devoid of this interjection, the utterance would lose its ironic character, even though it would still be considered sarcastic, with the negative evaluation having to be inferred. The interjection suggests that speaker B does not agree with the interlocutor’s negative evaluation of the person in question. Even though the main proposition is indeed truthful (“Aunt Louisa always stays a month or less and keeps her cats on two floors”), the ironic interjection seems to suggest untruthfully that the speaker makes light of the aunt’s visits, finding them unproblematic, and thus it renders the intended meaning at the level of what is said overtly untruthful. Consequently, the speaker’s meaning may be paraphrased as follows “I don’t find it a nuisance that Aunt Louisa always stays a month or less and keeps her cats on two floors”, which further promotes the central implicature along the standard lines of propositional meaning reversal. This is then an example of irony involving overt explicit untruthfulness, and it cannot be seen as verisimilar irony. An example similar to Camp’s can be found in Currie (2006). In his pretence proposal for irony, Currie (2006: 120) argues in favour of a “pretence of manner”, which enables the ironic speaker to “utter an assertoric sentence ironically, and

204 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

at the same time really be asserting it”. To illustrate this point, he provides the example of two passengers on a plane that touches down in both Melbourne and Anchorage. Although all signs indicate they are in Melbourne, one of the passengers asks where they are only to receive the fellow passenger’s reply, “Well, we are either in Melbourne or in Anchorage”. Currie maintains that the ironic speaker is making an assertion “yet pretending to have the kind of interest in it we normally have in disjunctions: namely, its providing us with the basis for an inference, should further information come in, of the form A or B, not A, so B, and so getting us to a definite conclusion about where we are” (2006: 120). Indeed, the speaker may be taken to be overtly pretending in the Gricean sense, and thus only making as if to assert. This overt pretence underlies the disjunction, which seems to suggest the speaker’s doubt as to which of the alternatives is the correct one, as indicated also by the ironic “well”, which marks the speaker’s overtly pretended hesitation. The speaker has no doubt about their whereabouts, and he only overtly pretends to be unsure. This utterance carries overtly untruthful meaning and involves making as if to say. Therefore, it does not qualify as verisimilar irony. If, however, the utterance were a genuine assertion and the speaker were making a logical statement “We are either in Melbourne or in Anchorage, but not anywhere else, and not in both at the same time”, he would not be able to be seemingly hesitant or doubtful, and hence ironic at the same time. Therefore, he would not be able to communicate the central implicit evaluative meaning the ironic reading affords, namely an implicit criticism of the silly question. In the light of all this, one may conclude that none of the utterances examined in this section disconfirms the assumption that verisimilar irony must rely on utterances carrying explicit or implicit evaluation which aligns with the speaker’s genuine beliefs but is irrelevant to the referent of evaluation in the context at hand. Whilst verisimilar irony is rarely the focal point of investigation and few validated examples can be found in the literature, most of the instances compiled and discussed in this section testify that some authors tend to overestimate the scope of verisimilar irony and see it also in utterances whose ironic status can be questioned, if approached formally, or utterances which represent other types of irony. Verisimilar irony appears to be a narrow-scope phenomenon that resides in truthful what is said or truthful implicature which carries a positive evaluation but which is contextually incompatible, i.e. it does not fit the speaker-believed context. This contextual irrelevance and the clash between the truthful meaning and the context is what triggers the inferential process of searching for the implicated meaning, which ultimately leads to a negative evaluation of the referent at hand. Whilst only two examples were identified as genuine cases of verisimilar irony in the entire database from House (see Section 6.5.2), several potential candidates were disqualified in the process of careful analysis and re-consideration

6 Types of irony from a neo-Gricean perspective 

 205

of the conditions for verisimilar irony. Some of those examples may be worth discussing here in order to draw attention to, and hence avoid, interpretative pratfalls. Here is an example similar to one of Camp’s (2012). (50) [House and his team are discussing a case. They enter the nurses’ locker room. House takes Cameron’s stethoscope and begins to break into a locker.] 1. Cameron: Pain persisted after he got lorazepam and morphine. Whose locker is that? 2. House: Mine. Chest, stomach, throat. What does it all mean? 3. Cameron: We’re in the nurses’ locker room! 4. House: I know that. [The locker opens.] Oh, that is so annoying! Wilson’s girlfriend has left her stuff in my locker again. 5. Chase: [disgruntled] Great... I hadn’t committed any felonies yet today. 6. House: Relax, you know they’re going to blame… Season 3, Episode 5 Realising that House has just broken into a nurse’s locker, and he himself may be considered an accomplice in this act, Chase contributes an ironic utterance which involves an evaluative element “great” subject to meaning reversal. This is followed by a truthful assertion. It is evident that the speaker is by no means glad that he is involved in House’s misdemeanour and criticises him for it. However, without the ironically untruthful lexical item, Chase’s utterance could hardly be considered irony. “I hadn’t committed any felonies yet today” said in isolation in this context would be truthful what is said, possibly implicating that he has previously committed felonies. However, no critically evaluative implicature would arise. The irony is then anchored in the overtly untruthful adjective (an ellipsis for “That’s great”), being a case of propositional meaning reversal irony. Chase’s turn may also be considered sarcastic. Yet another example involves a naïve answer to a naïve suggestion. This instance is problematic and necessitates discussion with regard to several categories of irony demonstrated here. (51) [House and Foreman are looking over their current patient’s MRI.] 1. Foreman: It’s a lesion. 2. House: And the big green thing in the middle of the bigger blue thing on a map is an island. I was hoping for something a bit more creative. Season 1, Episode 1 In his response (2), House is making an implicit comparison in order to show Forman how naïve his observation is. It definitely represents what Kapogianni

206 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

(2014) sees as meaning substitution irony and it can also be seen as “and mockery” (Iwata 2015). House makes a statement about what islands look like on maps in order to criticise Foreman’s previous contribution. This might seem to be a good candidate for verisimilar irony. However, even though the statement as such communicates an obvious observation about an objective fact (“the truth” about what islands on maps look like), it is not truthful in this context, for the speaker dissociates himself from the pragmatic force of the assertion he is making (as if echoing a naïve speaker, in relevance-theoretic terms). Consequently, this is the rare instance of pragmatic meaning reversal irony based on overtly pretended asserting, which does not involve propositional meaning reversal. Though the five types of irony described here are independent and mutually exclusive in theory, they may sometimes co-occur in ironic utterances, for example when two forms of meaning opposition (and hence reversal) come into play. For instance, “Thank you for your kind reply” after receiving an abrupt response may involve both pragmatic meaning reversal and lexical meaning reversal, since the speaker is not thankful and the reply was unkind. Here is another instance from House. (52) [Taub has recently resumed his post. His ex-girlfriend and his ex-wife have recently given birth to daughters. The previous day House was intent on finding the two babies Taub left in Wilson’s care. Taub now joins Wilson, who is having a meal in the hospital cafeteria.] 1. Wilson: Sorry about yesterday. House was like the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 2. Taub: Why is he so obsessed with my kids being my kids? Because he sees insecurity, and when House senses weakness, he pounces, and because his insecurity is the fact that other people can have faith and don’t have the obsessive need for physical proof. 3. Wilson: Also, he started a betting pool on which kid is yours and which isn’t. [chuckles] 4. Taub: An entire hospital betting on the legitimacy of my kids? It’s great to be back among friends. Season 8, Episode 5 Taub’s ironic statement (4) “It’s great to be back among friends” involves both propositional meaning reversal (“It’s great”), as well as lexical meaning reversal (“friends”). Based on the two forms of meaning reversal, Taub implicates, “It’s awful to be back among foes”. It seems, therefore, that two forms of irony may meet in one utterance. In a similar vein, irony can mesh or co-occur with any of the other Quality-based figures: metaphor or meiosis and hyperbole.

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 207

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures In the course of this chapter, irony has been shown to be a diversified phenomenon. Further complications are possible, with more subtypes of irony cutting across the five-fold division presented in the previous sections. In addition, irony may mesh with other Quality-based figures: meiosis and hyperbole, as well as metaphor. In the latter case, this leads to two levels of overt untruthfulness (see Dynel 2016d).

7.1 Irony coupled with meiosis or hyperbole It is widely recognised in the literature that irony may coincide with meiosis, often mistakenly referred to as “litotes”, giving rise to what is known as ironical understatement or litotic irony (e.g. Wilson and Sperber 1992; Seto 1998; Wilson 2006; Colston 2000; Partington 2006, 2007). The latter label seems more adequate since it presents irony as the pivotal figure. However, the term “litotic” should be substituted for “meiotic”. The latter is a more appropriate label because meiosis is a broader notion than litotes, as will be explained below. Hyperbole is also seen as a frequent concomitant of irony (e.g. Gibbs 199452, 2000; Roberts and Kreuz 1994; Kreuz and Roberts 1995; McCarthy and Carter 2004), thereby yielding what may be called hyperbolic irony. Of the two figures, it is “litotic” irony that seems to have garnered more interest from theoreticians, and hyperbole is tacitly accepted as an ironic marker/cue used in experimental/empirical studies. Thus the literature review below focuses mainly on “litotic” irony. Before the two types of irony are addressed, the notions of hyperbole and litotes/meiosis/understatement must be clarified. The definitions and relationship between hyperbole and litotes, as well as meiosis are thorny issues. Following Smith (1969 [1657]), hyperbole is sometimes defined as expression of extremity, excess or exaggeration that either magnifies (upscales) or minimises (downscales) a true state of affairs or fact (here superseded by the notion of truthfulness, i.e. what the speaker believes to be true). Consequently, two types of hyperbole tend to be identified: auxesis (exaggerated intensification or expansion) and meiosis (exaggerated reduction or attenuation) (Smith 1969 [1657]). Grice (1989a [1975]), however, regards meiosis as being independent of hyperbole, and he lists the two as distinct figures. This is compatible

52 In his various works, Gibbs lists hyperbole as one of the categories of irony. It must be stressed that hyperbole is a distinct figure, though.

208 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

with the traditional, still prevalent approach, according to which hyperbole coincides only with auxesis, a figure carrying bold exaggeration (e.g. Preminger 1974), whilst meiosis is deemed a distinct notion. This view is endorsed here, primarily because it aligns with Grice’s (1989a [1975]) approach, but it also corresponds to a large proportion of contemporary literature on the topic, where the two figures are addressed independently or even juxtaposed. In essence, hyperbole is defined as a figure used to emphasise ­evaluation through exaggeration, and meiosis is a figure which mitigates or attenuates evaluation. As Haverkate puts it, “the rhetorical effect of litotes [correctly: ­ meiosis] is brought about by a reduction of the proportions of the extralinguistic reality, whereas the rhetorical effect of hyperbole is brought about by an extension of those proportions” (1990: 103). In this context, it should be mentioned that “meiosis” and “litotes” enjoy different classical rhetorical definitions and are distinct notions (see Neuhaus 2016). Litotes “is the rhetorical figure in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary” (Jespersen 1917: 62). However, litotes is also sometimes considered a subtype of meiosis or understatement (e.g. Horn 1989; Gibbs 1999). For instance, according to Horn (1989: 303), litotes is “a form of understatement in which the affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary”. In a nutshell, meiosis (Greek “lessening”) is a type of understatement whose aim is to lessen, weaken, or reduce the characteristics of a given entity to show its insignificance, whereas litotes (Greek “plainness, simplicity”) is a type of understatement which deploys double negative constructions, whereby the assertion of a positive feature is generated by denying the opposite or contrary of the word or expression which would otherwise be used (Lausberg et al. 1998). Nonetheless, the two notions are at times used interchangeably, and it is this practice that seems to underlie the “litotic irony” label. This type of irony, however, very frequently does not rely on double negative constructions. Finally, it should be mentioned that “hyperbole” is frequently seen as being synonymous with “overstatement”, and “meiosis” with “understatement”. Often the terms are used interchangeably or are explicitly presented as being synonymous (e.g. Carston and Wearing 2015; Walton 2015). “Overstatement” and “understatement” must have originated from folk notions, which is evidenced by their etymologies and absence from lists of classical rhetorical figures. As Claridge (2011) rightly observes, “hyperbole” is a technical term, but “overstatement” is its non-technical counterpart. The same can be said about “meiosis” and “understatement” respectively. Also, the non-technical labels seem to enjoy broader meanings referring to various misrepresentations of reality, which need not coincide with purposefully applied figures of speech serving rhetorical purposes. Understatement and overstatement may be purely unintentional (see Gibbs 1994) or may serve manipulative goals by misrepresenting fact (e.g. bragging how big a fish one has caught, see

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 209

Walton 2015). The words “overstatement” and “understatement” are also frequently used by lay language users (e.g. “Saying that I was tired would be an understatement” or “To call this a decent meal would be an overstatement”). Also, the two terms seem to be quite frequently used in linguistics with reference to the figures of speech which promote implicatures (e.g. Israel 2006, Levinson 2000). This applies primarily to “understatement”, with the label “meiosis” being hardly ever used, whilst “hyperbole” appears to be deployed as frequently as “overstatement”. Here, next to “hyperbole”, the term “meiosis” is given preference, following Grice’s (1989a [1975]) parlance. Unless quoted verbatim from the literature, “overstatement” and “understatement” are avoided in the discussion that follows. As reported in Chapter 2, Section 5.1, Grice (1989a [1975]) lists meiosis and hyperbole among the figures that depend on flouting the first maxim of Quality. It may be extrapolated that, in Grice’s view, no what is said is present in meiosis and hyperbole (like in irony), but implicature arises as the sole level of speaker meaning. Rather than involving meaning opposition/reversal typical of irony, meiotic/hyperbolic implicature rests on a different type of operation affecting the overtly untruthful literal expression; this operation involves increasing/ decreasing the intensity via the use of distinct lexemes to make the speaker meaning truthful.53 Here is an example of meiosis, which necessitates increasing the relevant intensity. (53) [House has been released from a mental hospital, but he has lost his medical licence. The team needs him, and he wants to practise medicine again. He is talking to Cuddy and Foreman, who replaced him during his absence.] 1. Foreman: He’s not ready. He doesn’t have his license. 2. Cuddy: Then he can’t practice. But we’d be idiots not to listen to him. You’re in charge, he sits in on all the differentials. Until you get your license back, this is all unofficial. No procedures, no patient contact. 3. House: I think I can probably deal with that last one. Season 6, Episode 4 House’s reaction (3) to the fact that he will not be able to interact with his patients, something that he has always been reluctant to do, involves the use of the meiotic adverb “probably” in tandem with the verb “deal with”, which suggests that some effort must be invested into the relevant action. The implicature is that House

53 These are the features that differentiate meiosis from other forms of understatement where some information is kept covert, for instance when irrelevant, and where only what is said may be communicated.

210 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

most certainly (not probably) will have no difficulty avoiding his patients, and will actually be happy to do so. Like pure meiosis, meiotic irony tends to be seen as falling in-between truthfulness and untruthfulness. Bredin presents irony based on meiosis and hyperbole as “ironies of scale”, which entail “deviation by addition in one case and deviation by subtraction in the other. [...] Ironies of hyperbole and ironies of meiosis, carried to their extremes, become ironies of opposition” (1997: 13). In this vein, it is thought that non-meiotic irony forms greater contrast “with the actual event” than meiotic irony (Colston and O’Brien 200054: 1564). This contrast should preferably be regarded as concerning the literal content of an utterance and the speaker’s truthful evaluation of the referent, with the “actual event” not always being objectively verifiable. On the other hand, in Partington’s (2006, 2007) view, “ironic understatement” is a type of “true-seeming” or “verisimilar”55 irony, which is based on saying what one honestly means. This view does not seem well-founded. Indeed, folk theory may hold that meiotic irony revolves around partial truth(fulness) on its literal reading. This is because, at a glance, the speaker’s utterance does not display such a sharp contrast with what he/she intends to communicate. Nevertheless, technically, from the perspective of Grice’s philosophy of language, non-meiotic (reversal-based) irony and meiotic irony enjoy the same status in reference to untruthfulness: they overtly flout the maxim of truthfulness. As already suggested above, truthfulness forms a dichotomy with untruthfulness, and linguistic expressions, figures of speech included, must be encompassed by one or the other. With these premises being disregarded, meiotic irony is frequently viewed as escaping, or even invalidating, Grice’s account of irony by not being based on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, here conceptualised as recruiting untruthfulness. Arguing against this model, some authors favour a view that meiotic irony flouts the first maxim of Quantity (e.g. Sperber and Wilson 1981; Haverkate 1990; Wilson and Sperber 1992; Wilson 2006; Colston 2000; Utsumi 200056), not the first maxim of Quality. Nevertheless, the first maxim of Quantity operates differently and does not cover meiosis.

54 Whilst Colston and O’Brien address pure “understatement”, not its combination with irony, they view understatement as a type of irony (2000: 1563). Needless to say, meiosis may coincide with irony, but these are two distinct figures. 55 In Partington’s view, this notion encompasses also the type of irony which is dubbed here “verisimilar irony”. 56 Utsumi (2000) fails to differentiate between flouting and covert violation.

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 211

It is postulated here that meiotic irony is a matter of flouting the first maxim of Quality. Interestingly, this is precisely the view Grice will have endorsed, albeit never explaining it. As already reported in Chapter 2, Section 5.1, under the heading of flouting the first maxim of Quality, Grice explains meiosis, using the following example: “Of a man known to have broken up all the furniture, one says He was a little intoxicated” (1989a [1975]: 34, italics in original). Even though Grice does not acknowledge the irony involved, this example displays both meiosis and irony. Thus, he (perhaps, unwittingly) accounts for meiotic irony. This Qualitybased flouting appears to stem from the fact that it is not “a little” but “a lot” that the person in question was intoxicated, and thus the utterance implicates the opposite, namely “He was very intoxicated”. The meaning reversal is involved since the lexical item carries the central ironic meaning in the context constructed by Grice.57 Also endorsing the postulate of meaning reversal, Seto (1998) provides an alternative account of the workings of meiotic irony, which he dubs “ironic understatement”. Seto (1998) suggests that a two-stage process is in operation. First emphasis is added and then semantic reversal is performed. For instance, based on an utterance “I think maybe John just might be a little bit of a genius”, Seto (1998: 250) proposes that “a little bit of a genius” is transformed into “a real genius” and then “a real idiot”. This line of reasoning gives rise to misgivings. Since the example is given out of context, it is difficult to tell what the speaker intends to communicate. In the light of what the author argues, two distinct levels of ironic evaluation come into play, involving both the meiotic modifier and the non-meiotic but ironic epithet (which unnecessarily complicates the picture). This explains why the author proposes that the two stages of interpretation are necessary, though this is not characteristic of meiosis taken as a whole. What is most important here is that the meiosis processing stage concerns “a little bit” translating into “real”. (Seto’s choice of this word, instead of “complete” or “total”, seems to be a matter of a well-formed collocation.) Whilst Seto (1998) claims that this is just “emphasis”, it is proposed here, following Grice, that the expression actually involves untruthfulness, necessitating meaning reversal. A statement is ventured that any lexical item, even if classified as meiotic, will have its semantic opposite, which may potentially serve as a basis for irony. Thus, the speaker “evaluates an entity as little to imply the opposite, that is in

57 Admittedly, in the case of meiosis devoid of irony, this meaning reversal would not arise. This may be why Grice resorts to an example involving irony to make his point about the untruthfulness underlying meiosis more palatable to the readers.

212 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

reality a lot” (Partington 2006: 208).58 It is postulated here that in meiotic irony, meaning opposition/reversal is indeed involved, which is why it can be seen as a category of meaning reversal irony, affecting full propositions or isolated lexemes. Meiotic irony is based on scalar reversal (Kapogianni 2011) of a pivotal evaluative element whose semantic opposite is what the speaker intends to communicate. Meaning reversal will hold also for less transparent cases where the evaluative expressions do not coincide with adjectival phrases, as in “You can tell he is upset” when the person concerned is actually blind with rage (Wilson and Sperber 1992: 54). Two meiotic expressions are present in this utterance, one adjectival and one verbal, which together implicate, “It is transparent that he is furious”. Similarly, when two people are caught in a downpour and one of them says “It seems to be raining” (Sperber and Wilson 1981: 300), the emerging implicature is “It is raining heavily”. In either case, the paramount argument here is that the utterances cannot be regarded as being truthful and as carrying what is said. Therefore, meiotic irony should be viewed as being based on overt untruthfulness and flouting the first maxim of Quality rather than flouting the first maxim of Quantity. Here are two examples from House. (54) [House is in an examination room, with a little boy and his mother. The boy starts to wheeze a little and continues to do so while House is talking.] 1. House: Has he been using his inhaler? 2. Mother: Not in the past few days. He’s only ten. I worry about children taking such strong medicine so frequently. 3. House: Your doctor probably was concerned about the strength of the medicine too. She probably weighed that danger against the danger of not breathing. Oxygen is so important during those prepubescent years, don’t you think? Ok, I’m gonna assume that nobody’s ever told you what asthma is, or if they have, you had other things on your mind. […] Season 1, Episode 1 House’s longer turn (3) contains meiotic irony in “Oxygen is so important during those prepubescent years, don’t you think?”. Oxygen is not merely “important” but actually “indispensable”, and it is not exclusively in “prepubescent years” that a human needs it but “throughout his/her life”. Thus, based on these forms of meaning reversal, House’s utterance carries criticism of the mother’s decision not to give her son the medicine to facilitate his breathing.

58 Partington (2006) admits this, albeit being supportive of the “true-seeming” nature of “litotic irony”, which does not involve meaning negation, in his view.

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 213

(55) [House and Wilson have gone on a trip, which was Wilson’s idea. Wilson has made House give up his mobile phone. They are sitting at a table in a crude-looking roadside diner called “The New Olympus Diner: Home of the Big One”, looking at the menu.] 1. House: If we had a phone, we could’ve found somewhere a little less charming. 2. Wilson: If we had a phone, you’d be making calls, downloading porn, and playing Angry Birds. This trip is about me, and I like this place. Season 8, Episode 20 In his truthful wishful thinking scenario (1), House implicitly criticises Wilson for having made him leave his mobile phone. At the same time, House makes a meiotic reference to “a little less charming” restaurant, whereby he implicates that he would like to be in a “much more charming” restaurant, and that the diner where they are sitting is not “charming” but actually “unpleasant”. Hyperbole, the mirror image of meiosis, operates in a similar manner as meiosis. Hyperbole may be used ironically, whereby the evaluation is boosted and reversed. McCarthy and Carter suggest that hyperbole “magnifies and upscales reality, and, naturally, upscaling produces a contrast with reality which, given the right contextual conditions, may provide the kind of negation or mismatch with reality that is heard as ironic” (2004: 158). Contrary to what the two authors may be willing to suggest, it would be wrong to conclude that irony is an extension of hyperbole. These are distinct figures of speech (see Carston and Wearing 2015; Neuhaus 2016), although they may coincide, as is emphasised here. When they do, they form one figure involving overt explicit untruthfulness, and thus it necessitates meaning reversal, which yields the central implicated meaning. Hyperbolic irony is a frequent linguistic phenomenon (Gibbs 1994), relying on intensifying adverbs, such as “absolutely” or “certainly”, and collocating with extreme positive adjectives, such as “amazing”, “adorable”, “brilliant” (Kreuz and Roberts 1995) or “reasonable”, which the example below illustrates. (56) [A patient has gone missing on the hospital premises. Foreman and House are meeting his wife.] 1. Wife: Where’s my husband? 2. Foreman: He’s not in the hospital. 3. Wife: So he just walked out? 4. Foreman: All of the shift nurses had their hands full with a double code. 5. House: Perfectly reasonable explanation! Same thing happened to me. Couldn’t find my keys for days. Season 8, Episode 9

214 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

Resorting to a hyperbolic evaluation “perfectly reasonable” (5) of Foreman’s attempt at explaining the patient’s disappearance from the hospital (4), House boosts the negative criticism, if not ridicule, of the explanation implicating that it is “completely unreasonable”. This irony becomes transparent as House adds an absurd, or at least clearly irrelevant, detail as if to lend support to the explanation. Overall, meiosis and hyperbole are similar in the sense that “the intended meaning is reached through movement towards the upper or lower part of a scale” and the scale “may be of a relatively common kind containing naturally gradable notions, or may have been created ad hoc for the purposes of interpreting the current conversation” (Kapogianni 2011: 60). It is maintained here that this movement on the scale entails shifting between the two opposite poles of the evaluative continuum, and only the implicated one represents the speaker’s truthful evaluation. To sum up, both meiotic irony and hyperbolic irony do involve overt untruthfulness stemming from flouting the first maxim of Quality, which necessitates meaning reversal to arrive at the truthful evaluative implicature that the speaker intends to communicate. A distinct query concerns the processing of hyperbolic/meiotic irony and the levels of meanings involved in it. A generalisation may be made that if a meiotic or hyperbolic expression and irony meet in one utterance, they prototypically overlap and mesh, as in Grice’s example with the intoxicated man. In other words, an ironically evaluative expression usually coincides with the meiotic/ hyperbolic expression, constituting only one level of untruthfulness. Unlike in the case of metaphorical irony (see Section 7.2), which displays a distinct flouting of the first maxim of Quality, two-stage inferencing and two distinct but interdependent implicatures do not arise. The reason for this may be sought in the fact that like irony, meiosis and hyperbole are evaluative by nature. Interestingly, many authors discriminate between two functions of hyperbole. For example, Blair (1842) recognises descriptive hyperbole, which amplifies the objects of perception, and emotive hyperbole, which serves the speaker’s expression of an emotion towards a given object. By the same token, Spitzbardt (1965) mentions two dimensions of hyperbole: the predominantly objective-gradational dimension, which concerns the upscaling (or downscaling, i.e. meiosis) of a quantity or magnitude, and subjective-emotional sphere, which is related to the speaker’s emotions and attitudes, positive or negative, towards the evaluated entity. In this vein, McCarthy and Carter (2004) also report that hyperbole serves to overstate some features for affective and evaluative purposes. The evaluative/affective potential of hyperbole is also validated by Colston and O’Brien’s (2000) study. Even though Colston and O’Brien (2000) address only negatively evaluated situations, positive situations are also possible. Overall, however emotionally loaded it may be, hyperbole intrinsically carries evaluation by intensifying a particular feature

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 215

(see Carter and McCarthy 1997; McCarthy and Carter 2004; Carston and Wearing 2015). This evaluation may be positive or negative, cutting across all manner of scales (see Carston and Wearing 2015). Meiosis, by contrast, revolves around evaluative downgrading. Essentially, the speaker’s evaluation motivates the use of meiosis and hyperbole and accounts for the emerging implicatures, which necessitate also arriving at a truthful meaning by downgrading in hyperbole and upscaling in meiosis. As the examples given so far have shown, meiotic and hyperbolic evaluative expressions deployed in ironic utterances typically coincide with ironic evaluative expressions, forming single overtly untruthful clusters subject to meaning reversal. It seems difficult to conceive of an ironic utterance which is couched in meiosis or hyperbole that does not overlap with the ironically evaluative expression. This appears to tally with the examples of meiotic and hyperbolic irony found in the literature and the perception of hyperbole as a concomitant of irony. On the other hand, two exceptions to this predominant pattern may be proposed, even if perhaps difficult to find. One cannot entirely rule out cases where meiosis and irony do not coincide in one linguistic expression. Firstly, non-propositional, primarily lexical, irony and standard (non-ironic) meiosis/ hyperbole may be used independently in one utterance, as in “As I reached the bank not exactly in time, the bank clerk helpfully shut the door in my face” (cf. Wilson 2006) in a context where the speaker reached the bank a minute after the official closing time. In such a case, the meiotic (“not exactly in time”) and ironic (“helpfully”) expressions will be elucidated independently to promote the ultimate implicature “As I reached the bank precisely at closing time, the bank clerk unhelpfully shut the door in my face”. Such utterances cannot be treated as cases of hyperbolic/meiotic irony, though, with the two figures co-occurring but being used independently in one utterance. Secondly, meiosis/hyperbole may appear in utterances whose irony is not couched in evaluative expressions that are subject to reversal (see Section 2.2). In such cases, the former figure will be interpreted before the global ironic meaning emerges and will promote an untruthful as if implicature. A salient case of such irony in which meiosis/hyperbole may promote a distinct level of untruthfulness is verisimilar irony, as evidenced by the proverbial mother example (see Section  6.5.1), where the hyperbole-based as if implicature is elucidated prior to the irony-based implicature.

7.2 Irony coupled with metaphor Meiosis and hyperbole are typically responsible for the ironic evaluation, being the source of untruthfulness, as argued in Section 7.1. However, metaphor makes

216 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

for a distinct theoretical problem. In general terms, metaphor is a comparison (frequently implicit) of two seemingly unrelated concepts, usually one familiar and one unfamiliar, as a result of which the latter can be more clearly understood by the hearer. This is because the key features of the unfamiliar concept are revealed by analogy to the familiar concept. In Gricean terms, this communicative process rests on implicature, which is not usually evaluative (Garmendia 2010, 2015; see Chapter 2, Section 5.2), though it may be. Here is an interesting example of such an evaluative metaphor. (57) [House has been talking to his patient, a nun, in vain trying to dissuade her from checking out and to convince her to let the doctors diagnose her. She has come to terms with her terminal illness as being part of God’s will. House now meets Wilson in the hallway.] 1. Wilson: How’d it go? 2. House: She has God inside her. It would have been easier to deal with a tumor. 3. Wilson: Maybe she’s allergic to God. Season 1, Episode 5 The first part of House’s turn (2) displays overt untruthfulness, which may be conceptualised as metaphtonymy, a combination of metaphor and metonymy, whereby he implicates that the patient is deeply religious. Also, as the turn unfolds, House implicitly compares God to a tumour, which has to be removed. When House’s figurative utterance is translated into the literal form, namely “She is deeply religious”, it turns out to carry a statement of a fact. Only in view of the entire turn (and his earlier interaction with the patient) does it become evident that House is contemptuous of the patient’s faith (and her unwise decision to check out, premised on her religious beliefs). Ultimately, House’s reply implicates “It didn’t go well”. Neither form of evaluation arises from the utterance’s metaphor-related untruthfulness as such. Irony, in contrast, is always orientated towards communicating negative evaluation, which metaphor may also serve if it should coincide with irony. Interestingly, it is Grice himself who suggested the possible intertwining of irony with metaphor, two distinct sources of implicature: “It is possible to combine metaphor and irony by imposing on the hearer two stages of interpretation. I say You are the cream in my coffee, intending the hearer to reach first the metaphor interprétant ‘You are my pride and joy’ and then the irony interprétant ‘You are my bane’” (1989a [1975]: 34, italics in original). The understanding of the irony-based implicature is dependent on recognition of a subordinate implicature stemming from a distinct metaphor-based flouting of the first maxim of Quality. Therefore, it is postulated that the central implicature may be viewed as being

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 217

anchored in making as if to implicate and, consequently, an as if implicature that involves irony, not the standard case of making as if to say. Therefore, the overt untruthfulness associated with irony manifests itself at the level of the as if implicature. In theoretical terms, this can be thought of as overt implicit untruthfulness, while the overt explicit untruthfulness present in Grice’s example is the consequence of the metaphor used. Although Grice’s postulate concerning the integration of irony and metaphor does not appear to have been appreciated in the literature so far, except for Popa’s (2009, 2010) accounts, several researchers (Yamanashi 1998;59 Stern 2000; Bezuidenhout 2001; Livnat 2004; Camp 2006, 2012) briefly discuss the combination of irony and metaphor, arguing that the ironic interpretation is conditioned upon the metaphorical one, thereby unwittingly following Grice’s lead. The authors also unanimously agree on, and yet they seek different explanations for, the irony-after-metaphor order of interpretation. Their suggestions will now be critically revisited, and the relevant ones presented in neo-Gricean terms. Based on an example “Trying to decipher my clumsy, awkward, sloppy, thick, and messy handwriting on a public document, you say: ‘What delicate lace work’”, Stern (2000: 236) claims that it is impossible to determine the contrary of “delicate lacework” without the necessary context, by which he must mean the critical feature lying at the heart of the metaphor. Thus, the ironic interpretation can be made only after the underpinning metaphor has been understood. Stern (2000) argues that the metaphorical interpretation, which consists in finding the relevant feature, must take priority over the comprehension of irony, inasmuch as the reversed expression could not be found otherwise. This is correct, to an extent, but contrariness (or reversal of the literally expressed meaning) is not inherent in all irony (Haverkate 1990; Kapogianni 2011, 2013, 2014; Garmendia 2014). On the other hand, Stern (2000) claims that irony combined with a dead (or dying) metaphor does not show the same problem, and the order of interpretation has no bearing on the global interpretation. To illustrate this, Stern (2000: 236) provides the following example: “Shamir is a towering figure” and suggests that the order of interpretation is insignificant even if slight differences may be found between the alternatives. Unfortunately, Stern (2000) does not provide a step-bystep analysis of the irony-first interpretation, which is why it is difficult to grasp his arguments. Once it is paraphrased into the non-ironic counterpart, the initial metaphorical expression (“a towering figure”) disappears, being substituted for the opposite metaphorical expression (“a diminutive figure”). Because a different

59 Yamanashi (1998) addresses Grice’s example but fails to credit Grice for discussing it as irony based on metaphor.

218 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

metaphor is used as a result of the ironic interpretation hinged on meaning opposition, it cannot be said that the metaphorical-ironic expression is first interpreted on the ironic level and then on the metaphorical level. The non-ironic metaphor to be interpreted is, technically, a different one. By contrast, when the interpretation of metaphor precedes the interpretation of irony, the latter remains intact, regardless of the change in wording. Thus, Stern’s (2000: 236) interpretation is “a man of impressive ability and accomplishments, that is, of great stature, who commands great respect”, which is further understood as “an unimpressive man of little ability and accomplishments who commands little respect”. Another query concerning the irony-before-metaphor order is that a mirror-image semantic opposite which coincides with a metaphor can only rarely be serendipitously found for a dead metaphor. Stern’s (2000) neat example appears to be more of a rare exception (“diminutive” vs “towering”). Finally, and most importantly, a dead metaphor is a lexicalised item and can be treated as any other lexical unit carrying a conventional meaning rather than an implicated meaning. The same holds for idioms, which may coincide with dead metaphors. It is then hardly plausible that such a meaning should be amenable to metaphorical interpretation at all, given that its conventional meaning is salient. Therefore, claiming that the order of ironic and metaphorical interpretation is reversible seems to be an otiose theoretical complication. Camp (2006, 2012) also advocates the metaphor-before-irony order of interpretation, providing more evidence in favour of this view. Quoting Bezuidenhout (2001)60, Camp (2006: 290, 2012: 595) gives the example “She’s the Taj Mahal” uttered ironically by one man, in response to another’s question as to whether the woman discussed is attractive, to suggest that she is by no means thus. Camp (2012: 595) provides two other complex metaphorical examples: “The fountain of youth is plying his charms to the little goslings” said in reference to a prominent elderly professor (“the fountain of youth”) who strives to appear youthful to lure (“plies his charms”) incoming students (“little goslings”), and “The master tailor has stitched an elegant new suit, which he plans to debut for us at the gala ball” uttered about a distinguished philosopher (“master tailor”) who has come up with an implausible view (“has stitched an elegant new suit”) and will present it at the APA (“the gala ball”). Making the inferences about the speakers’ critical evaluations is only possible once the intricate metaphors in these utterances have been translated into literal (and thus more available) expressions. Not all

60 Bezuidenhout (2001) discusses this example to testify that metaphor (understood as creative metaphor) resides in what is said; see Camp (2006) for convincing counter-argumentation on the status of metaphor and the level of meaning on which it originates.

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 219

of the metaphorical expressions in the two complex propositions involve irony (e.g. “little goslings”, “the master tailor” and “the gala ball”), which is of crucial importance to the irony-metaphor relationship, as will be argued below. Following Stern’s (2000) approach, Camp (2006, 2012) argues that metaphorical meaning is processed prior to ironic meaning, because the former depends on expression and the latter concerns content (which can be delivered by metaphorical interpretation). Thus, the scope of metaphor is narrower than that of irony, the latter being based on propositional meaning. Camp concurs with Popa (2009, 2010), who, on the whole, proposes that irony operates globally (propositionally), whilst metaphor resides in lexical items. Popa (2009, 2010) also marshals diverse cognitive evidence testifying that metaphor is processed locally at the word level. Irony, by contrast, is processed post-lexically. It must be pointed out, nonetheless, that irony can revolve around isolated lexical items (Wilson 2006; Camp 2012; Dynel 2013a), not affecting entire propositions. Therefore, metaphor and irony could, theoretically speaking, occur in one utterance but be independent, being couched in distinct lexical units, as will be shown below. On the other hand, some metaphors may encompass entire propositions, but they will still be processed prior to the ironic level. On the whole, the prevailing irony-after-metaphor view is endorsed here. Put in neo-Gricean terms, the stage of irony-related overt untruthfulness can be achieved only after the underlying metaphorical meaning (also based overt untruthfulness) is understood. On the strength of this order of interpretation and the fact that it is irony that makes use of metaphor (not the other way around), the notion of metaphorical irony, i.e. irony based on metaphor, is given preference over the alternative, namely “ironic metaphor” (Popa 2010). A number of extensions will now be offered with reference to the types of irony endorsed here. Firstly, it is argued here that to comprehend a metaphor, the feature of the vehicle relevant to the tenor must be sought in the expression in its original form rather than its (non-ironic) paraphrase, insofar as metaphor is embedded in the composite meaning of the words it uses, not merely their individual semantic values (see Camp 2012). This is why substituting words comprising a metaphor for their non-ironic counterparts may cause the metaphor to fail (see Stern 2000; Camp 2012). Most importantly, when the metaphorical and ironic expressions overlap, substituting the ironic-metaphorical lexeme with its opposite first would simultaneously eliminate the metaphor and make the utterance impossible to understand. On the other hand, even when the metaphorical expression does not directly coincide with the expression subject to reversal (which may be absent altogether in the case of verisimilar irony), the metaphor must be processed first, as it obstructs the process of arriving at the irony-based evaluative implicature. A statement may be ventured that even if irony resides in an isolated lexeme

220 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

subject to reversal in an otherwise non-ironic utterance, the comprehension of the ironic lexeme necessitates processing the entire utterance, which constitutes the crucial co-text of interpretation. Without this co-text, the irony would not transpire or at least might not be comprehensible. Only after the metaphor has been understood can the nature and meaning of irony be specified. For instance, it becomes clear that a word or pragmatic force must be subject to reversal to make the utterance meaningful in the conversational and/or extra-linguistic situational context. The result of the process of metaphorical interpretation is subject to irony processing, in whatever form it may manifest itself. Regrettably, the authors quoted in the paragraphs above do not explicate the complexity of the subtypes of irony and metaphor and base their postulates on only a few examples which do not show the full spectrum of types of irony and metaphor. They appear to concentrate only on propositional meaning reversal irony, and Camp (2012) presents metaphorical irony as a manifestation of propositional irony. Needless to say, metaphor has many forms and guises (e.g. Brooke-Rose 1958; Miller 1993). As such, two main categories of metaphorical irony can be proposed: metaphorical irony in which the metaphor overlaps in scope with an ironic expression subject to opposition, as in Grice’s example, as well as all the other examples quoted from the literature in this section so far; and metaphorical irony which seems to have been neglected hitherto, a type in which the metaphor does not coincide with the ironic item amenable to reversal but is part of the ironic utterance, whether or not it involves meaning reversal. Thirdly, metaphorical reversalbased ironic expressions may appear independently in one utterance, which is why this utterance does not contain metaphorical irony but only irony and metaphor independently. In any case, the order of interpretation will be the same, but the outcome of the metaphorical interpretation contributes differently to the ironic interpretation. These differences depend on the type of irony distinguished in neo-Gricean terms and its relationship with the subordinate metaphor. Here are three examples taken from House that illustrate the two ways metaphor and irony may overlap. (58) [House has a guest presentation in front of students.] 1. House: I didn’t kill anybody. I have to be here, so I figured I’d punch up the stakes in the first act. But we did, and almost always do, search the patient’s home. And if we tell them first, then they can hide something that we need to know in order to figure out what’s wrong with them. 2. Sophie: Why would they hide something that could be killing them? 3. House: Because they are morons. They’re all morons, and everybody lies.

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 221

4. Gabe: Wait, if everybody lies, then that means you’re lying right now. 5. House: I didn’t say everybody always lies… Aristotle. And on that note, unless there are any questions… Good. Season 8, Episode 13 This instance illustrates a simple case of metaphorical irony in the form of a term of address “Aristotle” (5), by means of which House refers to the author of the preceding seemingly observant comment that points to a paradox (4). Interpreting the metaphorical irony, one needs to go through the stage of as if implicature devoid of the metaphor, such as “brilliant philosopher/thinker”, which is duly subject to meaning reversal to implicate that the observation is actually inapt and that its author is not a great thinker. Here, the metaphorical expression corresponds with the ironic one that has to be reversed. The relationship between the two figures may be more complicated, though. The metaphorical expression and the ironic lexeme promoting reversal need not coincide but may co-exist in one utterance, as in Camp’s (2012) complex examples cited earlier. Here are two instances of metaphor embedded in irony spanning a whole statement. Examples 59 and 60 demonstrate that metaphor may contribute to irony and be subordinate to it, yet without coinciding in one textual chunk. (59) [House has asked Adams to lend him a substantial sum of money, which she agrees to do, albeit conditionally.] 1. Adams: If… you double your clinic hours. Six a week. I’ve seen how you disrespect those patients. 2. House: So you want twice as many of them disrespected? 3. Adams: Spend more hours with them, you’ll treat them more humanely. 4. House: And this time, a land war in Russia will be a good idea. Season 8, Episode 4 House implicitly compares Adams’s suggestion (3) concerning his interactions with patients to a land war in Russia (4). The latter alludes to a well-known historical fact (after several victories, Napoleon conceded catastrophic defeat when he attempted to invade Russia and the severely cold winter set it). The metaphorical lexeme “land war in Russia” then stands for a completely unfeasible plan, which, as House duly implicates through meaning opposition affecting a different lexeme, is a “bad idea”. The ultimate implicature negatively evaluates the interlocutor’s suggestion, discrediting it as being very unwise. (60) [Cameron enters House’s office. House is staring at a file in his hand.] 1. House: Somebody left this on my chair. It’s clever. Forces me to either deal with the file or never sit down again. 2. Cameron: Cindy Kramer. I told her you’d see her.

222 

 Chapter 3: Overt untruthfulness: Irony

3. House:

You shouldn’t have told her that. She’s got metastatic squamous cell lung cancer, six months, tops. 4. Cameron: Have you even looked at the x-ray? 5. House: No, just guessing. It’s a new game. If I’m wrong, she gets a stuffed bear. 6. Cameron: A spot on an x-ray doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s terminal. 7. House: I love children, so filled with hope. 8. Cameron: It could be pneumonia. It could be sarcoidosis. Season 2, Episode 1 House’s seemingly irrelevant (Relation flouting) response (7) to Cameron’s observation (6) can be made sense of based on a premise that he is metaphorically comparing Cameron to a child displaying naïve hopefulness (“I love the fact that you are filled with childish/naïve hope”). This (hyperbole-based) as if implicature is subject to meaning reversal that ultimately communicates House’s critical evaluation of Cameron’s unfounded suggestion. Thus, whether or not he really loves children is insignificant and the metaphor needs to be dissected first, before the evaluative meaning can be gleaned. Interestingly, more than one metaphor may be present in one ironic proposition, as is the case of Camp’s (2012) complex examples. Additionally, as the “plying charms” instance indicates, metaphor may concern not only a noun phrase, which is the most frequent pattern, but also the main verb. This is also the case with “You’ve massacred the test” said to someone who previously fretted over the results, claiming that he/she had not answered any questions correctly and would certainly fail but turns out to have passed with flying colours. First, the metaphor must be dissected. Namely, “to massacre”, in this context, will mean “to fail to complete the test correctly”, which yields the overtly untruthful as if implicature subject to meaning reversal. The ultimate result is the opposition-based implicature (“You have done perfectly well”), with the central evaluative implicature reading along the lines of “You were silly to have worried so much”. It is worth mentioning that in verisimilar irony, centred on a truthful statement, a subordinate metaphor will invite the first as if implicature. This is the case with a reformulated version of the canonical example, “I love children whose rooms are not pigsties” said by a mother to her son on entering his untidy room. The metaphorical lexeme “pigsty” has to be reinterpreted as “a very dirty place”, so that the interpretation of the irony can proceed. This means that two levels of making as if to implicate will be involved. Finally, surrealistic irony, which does not rely on meaning inversion, does not seem to mesh with metaphor, since the absurd meaning does not lend itself to interpretation, being only a springboard

7 Irony and the other Quality-based figures 

 223

for a distinct implicature criticising the previous turn. Even if a metaphor should be deployed, it might contribute little to the meaning conveyed. Overall, this section has shown that irony may co-occur, and even fully overlap, with the other Quality-based figures, namely meiosis, hyperbole, and metaphor. This is another complication in the intricate picture of irony, which is a problematic and heterogeneous figure of speech, as this chapter has shown. Irony poses huge definitional problems, being easily mistaken for essentially distinct phenomena, notably sarcasm or some forms of humour. Additionally, irony has many different formal manifestations and can be divided into a number of salient categories, depending on the nature of overt untruthfulness and meaning reversal. Moreover, albeit always negatively evaluative, irony can serve a number of communicative purposes (boosting/minimising criticism), and these may be different for each hearer type in multi-party interactions. Finally, as the discussion in Chapter 4 will show (see Sections 3.2 and 6.2), irony may serve deception in two different ways, and in Chapter 5 the relationship between irony and humour will be addressed (Section 2).

Chapter 4 Covert untruthfulness: Deception House: It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what. Season 2, Episode 21 Jodi: I’m not lying. House: Of course you are. You have no idea what happened. You have no memory. Season 1, Episode 10 Jane: You just think we gotta be lying — House: [cuts her off] White lies? Jane: What are those? House: Those are lies we tell to make other people feel better. Jane: I don’t lie. House: Rationalizations? Jane: What are those? House: Those are lies we tell to make ourselves feel better. Jane: No, we don’t — House: [cuts her off again] Lies of omission? Season 4, Episode 10

This chapter examines the manifestations of deception distinguished on the basis of the various forms of maxim nonfulfilment. Grice’s framework and terminology, albeit considerably modified, are applied in order to give a coherent account of the various types of deception, which is not limited to lying, contrary to what lay metapragmatic labelling may suggest (see the quotations from House above). The common denominator between the different categories is the violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of: what is said (covert explicit untruthfulness), hearer-inferred what is said and implicature (covert implicit untruthfulness). Conceptualising deception in neo-Gricean terms, this chapter gives a critical survey of the philosophical and linguistic literature on notions such as lying, deceptive implicating, bullshitting and withholding information, as well as bald-faced lying, which does not qualify, it is argued, as deception. A number of forms of deception teased out here, notably covert irrelevance and covert ambiguity, have not attracted much scholarly attention thus far. The same can be said about deception performed in multi-party interactions. The presence of multiple hearers has a bearing on the operation of covert untruthfulness, to which some interlocutors may be (made) privy.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-004

1 Approaching deception 

 225

1 Approaching deception This section presents a definition of deception and briefly examines its components. In order to meet this goal, a number of crucial distinctions are made, such as deception vs misleading and verbal vs non-verbal deception. This is followed by an overview of previous categorisations of deception, some of which deploy (neo-)Gricean terminology. This survey of the extant literature shows that a more detailed account is in order.

1.1 Defining deception Deception is equated with the production of messages that pivot on covert ­untruthfulness, i.e. untruthfulness unavailable to the target (or victim) who must be a hearer, a technical, generic term pertaining to the receiver role (regardless of the mode of communication). Extrapolating relevant conditions from ­previous definitions (e.g. Bok 1978; Fuller 1976; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Mahon 2007; Carson 2010), deception may be understood as an intentional verbal or nonverbal communicative act of attempting to cause the targeted hearer to (continue to) have a false belief,1 that is to believe to be true something the deceiver believes to be false. This definition is closest to Mahon’s (2007: 189–190), who states that “to deceive is to intentionally cause another person to have or continue to have a false belief that is known or truly believed to be false by bringing about evidence on the basis of which the person has or continues to have the false belief”. Two issues need some explanation. Firstly, the “evidence” in Mahon’s (2007) definition does not have to be factual information or any palpable artefact. As Mahon (2015) explains, the false belief is “caused by evidence”, which “is brought about by the person in order to cause the other person to have the false belief” (see also Linsky 1963: 163; Fuller 1976: 23; Schmitt 1988: 185; Barnes 1997: 14; Mahon 2007, as quoted by Mahon 2015), as opposed to inviting false beliefs by operating on the target’s brain, giving them an electric shock or drugging them. Also, according to Mahon (2015), the evidence condition is not met for instance if, based on someone’s recommendation, the target reads a novel and develops a false belief as a result of

1 Technically, here, a “false belief” is shorthand for a “a belief the deceiver regards as false” or a “believed-false belief”, for the deceiver intends to induce in the hearer a belief that he/she considers false, but which need not correspond to objective falsehood/untruth.

226 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

its contents. The recommending speaker cannot be said to be responsible for the evidence that has caused the target to have the false belief. Instead of the evidence condition, a stipulation is added that deception is an intentional communicative act, whether synchronous or asynchronous (the production and reception take place at different times), whether verbal or non-verbal. Secondly, whereas Mahon’s (2007, 2015) definition is anchored in the grammar of the verb “deceive” and presupposes that deception must be successfully performed, the definition offered here does allow for the fact that an act of deception need not succeed, which happens when the hearer, for whatever reasons, discovers the speaker’s covert untruthfulness or does not trust the speaker. In such a case, the speaker cannot be said to have deceived the hearer. This would be counterintuitive due to the impact of the emic use of the verb “deceive”, which is a success verb. However, it cannot be denied that an act of deception has been performed but failed (for a different view, see Mahon 2007). (1) [House has just dealt with a secret task assigned by the CIA. He has missed a day of work at the hospital. He has already talked about his special assignment with several of his colleagues, who won’t believe him. Having returned in the evening, House is on his way out of the hospital, when Cuddy comes up behind him.] 1. Cuddy: Where have you been? And don’t say the CIA. 2. House: Okay. By the way, one of my employees... 3. Cuddy: Either you’re gonna have to get someone from the CIA to call and confirm your story, or [smiling] you’re doing eight clinic hours and Wilson is doing sixteen. 4. House: [looks as though he’s about to divulge a big secret; seriously] I was in the Hamptons. I was helping some rich hedge-fund jerk treat his son’s sniffles, fascinating as that sounds. 5. Cuddy: For your honesty, I will forgive your hours. 6. House: Thank you. [turns slowly, making an effort not to smile at his boss’s naïveté; moves a couple of steps towards the door] 7. Cuddy: No! [House turns] The only thing less likely than your helping the CIA is your helping some rich guy on Long Island. You’re doing your hours and Wilson’s. Season 4, Episode 6 Since Cuddy will not believe his truthful account of where he has been (1 and 3), House tries to win her trust and makes up a lie (4). He performs an act of deception by lying, that is by saying what he believes to be false (i.e. House believes he was not in the Hamptons helping a rich man’s son) in the hope that Cuddy will find him truthful. Incidentally, House boosts his chances of being considered truthful by

1 Approaching deception 

 227

adding a truthful meaning implicated via irony, which involves overt untruthfulness (House cannot possibly find treatment of a cold fascinating). Cuddy’s initial reaction purports to suggest that she believes his statements about a private visit to be truthful (5). However, in the light of her next turn (7), it transpires that she has seen through the deception, yet she chooses to deceive him that she has believed him. It is possible that Cuddy is, for a brief moment, successfully deceived rather than recognising the mendacity of House’s statement the moment it is produced, the latter being the more likely scenario. In either case, this statement may be deemed an act of deception, albeit (from the outset or ultimately) unsuccessful inasmuch as the hearer recognises its covert untruthfulness. On the other hand, Cuddy’s untruthful reaction (5) seems to be an act of successful deception for House is indeed taken in, as his verbal and non-verbal reactions suggest (6). This seems to be the case unless Cuddy was successfully deceived at that stage (5) only to appreciate House’s untruthfulness with the benefit of hindsight (7). Several other components of the definition of deception endorsed here also need to be briefly discussed against the backdrop of the previous literature. Deception is typically presented as depending heavily on the deceiver’s beliefs and lack of truthfulness (see Mahon 2015), which results in his/her communicating what he/she believes to be false, not objective falsehood (e.g. Bok 1978; Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Meibauer 2005, 2011; Mahon 2007; Gupta et al. 2013), even if the two cases may, and frequently do, coincide. Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981: 752–753) rightly stipulate that the definition of deception “must involve the speaker’s beliefs concerning the truth or falsity of the information he is conveying to the hearer, and his intention to convey either true or false information as such, not the actual truth or falsity of that information”. Thus, even if what the deceiver communicates should correspond to the factual reality, unbeknownst to him/her, he/she is wrong but does perform an act of deception as long as he/she intends to cause or sustain a false belief in the targeted hearer. This topic has been most frequently pursued with reference to lying (see Section 2.2). Deception is typically seen as residing in the speaker’s intention to sustain or induce a false belief in another individual’s mind. However, in their seminal paper, Chisholm and Feehan (1977) propose eight types of deception, the basic differentiation being that between commission and omission, each further divided into positive and negative deception. By an act of positive deception, the deceiver causes (commission) or allows (omission) the hearer to acquire a false belief or to continue to have a false belief. On the other hand, employing negative deception, the deceiver causes or allows the target to cease to nurture a true belief or to fail to acquire a true belief. The category of negative deception incorrectly includes cases of an individual’s failing to develop or losing a true belief; thus, he/she may only be kept in ignorance but is not deceived (Mahon 2007; see Section 4.1).

228 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

According to the prevailing view, for deception to come into being, the intention to promote not only lack of a true belief but also the presence of a false belief in the target’s mind is mandatory, which may be a consequence of the former. When performing an act of deception, the speaker nurtures an intention to induce a false belief in the targeted hearer without having this intention recognised. The speaker, therefore, has the intention to communicate the deceptive meaning as if it is truthful. According to Fraser (1994: 145), “where the speaker intends the hearer to accept the false information [or rather what the speaker believes to be false] as true [...] the speaker’s intention to mislead is necessarily covert: you cannot expect to mislead the hearer by explaining that”. Rightly, Castelfranchi and Poggi (1994) and Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981) make a distinction between “communicative communicated goals” (as well as intentions) and “concealed super-goals” typical of deception. The latter are inextricably connected with covert untruthfulness and must not be revealed. If the speaker should signal in advance that his/her message will not be truthful, no deception can come into being. (2) [The patient, a young man, is shaking and sweating all over. House walks over to check his pupils and pulse. Ken, the patient’s overprotective father is in the room. Previously, House has found out that he told his son that his mother had a car accident caused by a drunk driver, but in actual fact she must have caused the car accident herself.] 1. Ken: What’s that mean? I mean… what’s happening? 2. House: You want the truth? Or you want me to make something up to protect you? We think a drunk driver broke into his room. 3. Ken: [angry] What’s happening to my son? 4. House: The truth is... I have no idea. Season 2, Episode 5 In his reply (2) to the father’s question (1), House forewarns his interlocutor that he will not tell him the truth. Thus, “We think a drunk driver broke into his room” cannot be taken as a covertly untruthful statement; it is overtly untruthful (and absurd). However, taken as a whole, House’s turn does perform a deceptive function, apart from implicitly criticising Ken for the protective lie he had told his son previously. The covert untruthfulness (and thus deception) stems from the fact that House gives a false impression that he knows what disease the patient is suffering from but before giving the answer chooses to sarcastically chastise the father. However, House duly reveals that he does not know the cause of the symptoms (4), and thereby he discloses the act of deception he has just performed. It is proposed here that deception rests on two levels of intentionality, and hence two levels of communicative intentions (i.e. intentions related to

1 Approaching deception 

 229

communicating meanings). The speaker’s intention to invite a false belief in the targeted hearer is inherently covert and unavailable to this (successfully) deceived hearer. It is dubbed here the second-order communicative intention, and it stands vis-à-vis the first-order communicative intention to communicate a meaning as if it is truthful. This is an intention to induce a false belief in the targeted hearer by communicating speaker meaning which is ostensibly truthful, even though it may additionally involve overt untruthfulness in making as if to say. The firstorder communicative intention is made available to the hearer, with the speaker meaning being covertly untruthful. The hearer is not meant to appreciate the speaker’s underlying second-order intention, which must remain covert (for as long as the speaker wishes to) for the deception to be successful. Needless to say, in practice, the inferential process does not need to involve conscious recognition of the speaker’s intentions (see Section 8.1). Whilst most philosophers assume that deception can only be practised intentionally, and not by chance or accident (e.g. Linsky 1963; van Horne 1981; Barnes 1997; Mahon 2007; Carson 2010; Saul 2012; Faulkner 2013), others hold an opinion that deception may be performed unintentionally, that is inadvertently and/or as a result of a communicative mistake (Demos 1960; Fuller 1976; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Adler 1997; Gert 2005). This bone of contention seems to be a terminological issue, which can be resolved if a separate term is used for unintentionally causing the target to (continue to) have false beliefs. “Misleading” is a good candidate. As Carson (2010: 47) rightly notes, in contrast to the verb “deceive”, “mislead” does not imply negative evaluation, such as reproach or condemnation.2 It may indeed be useful to distinguish between “misleading” – an ­inadvertent/unintentional act of causing another individual to (continue to) have a false belief – and “deception”, which is reserved for intentional actions. Misleading may be a result of the speaker’s being wrong, i.e. his/her unwittingly having false beliefs, which he/she shares (see Example 8). An alternative source of misleading, as the following example illustrates, is miscommunication, specifically a misunderstanding on the hearer’s part (see Dynel 2017e and references therein), as in the following situation (see also Example 14).

2 In Carson’s (2010: 47) view, however, “misleading” seems to cover both intentional and unintentional acts.

230 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(3) [Previously, Cuddy split up with House. Thirteen, who has just been released from jail, does not know about this relationship at all. Cuddy’s previous boyfriend used to be Lucas, a private detective House had hired to spy on her.] 1. Thirteen: You know, I’m actually kind of hurt that you don’t know what I did. I’m not worth bribing a court official or hacking into police records? 2. House: Where’s the fun in that? 3. Thirteen: You could have at least hired Cuddy’s weird boyfriend. 4. House: Lucas? 5. Thirteen: Mm-hmm. 6. House: You don’t know? 7. Thirteen: What, is he dead or something? 8. House: [deadpan] No. Actually, until a couple of weeks ago, I was Cuddy’s weird boyfriend. 9. Thirteen: [laughs loudly] You’re gonna have to do a lot better than that. 10. House: [says nothing; an awkward pause follows] 11. Thirteen: Are… are you okay? Season 7, Episode 18 When House makes a truthful statement about his relationship with Cuddy (8), he has no intention of deceiving Thirteen, allowing her to acquire a true belief. However, she takes his utterance as being devised as covertly untruthful, as an act of attempted deception that she instantly manages to uncover (9). Thirteen thus develops a false belief about her interlocutor’s conversational move and about what happened when she was imprisoned (i.e. she falsely believes that House is joking and Cuddy and House were not a couple). This is a consequence of the fact that she knows House to have used deception a lot, also for humorous purposes (see Chapter 5, Section 3), and she attributes deceptive intention to him, especially given that she finds the relationship between Cuddy and House impossible. This kind of misunderstanding related to a hearer’s developing false beliefs is seen as related to an act of misleading, though here quickly clarified based on House’s silence (10), which enables the hearer to revise her belief (11). However, the term “misleading” has also been applied differently in the literature. Firstly, “misleading” and “deceiving” are sometimes used as if they are synonymous (Bok 1978: 13; Castelfranchi and Poggi 1994: 276; Fraser 1994: 145; Green 2001: 76; Horn 2017a, 2017b). For example, according to Bok (1978: 13), “when we undertake to deceive others intentionally, we communicate messages meant to mislead, meant to make them believe what we ourselves do not believe”. Secondly, some authors use the label “misleading” or “merely misleading” in reference to intentional promoting/sustaining a false belief in the hearer

1 Approaching deception 

 231

that does not involve lying inasmuch as only a truthful statement is made, that is the speaker says/states what he/she believes to be true (Green 20113; Saul 2012; Stokke 2013b, 2016b; Marsili 2014). The distinction between lies and other forms of deception is indeed important and is the crux of a great proportion of philosophical writings on deception, especially when their aim is to meticulously present fine nuances and determine whether something is or is not a lie. The label deception without lying (Carson 2010: 55; Dynel 2011a) is endorsed as an all-encompassing notion for all manner of verbal and non-verbal deception forms exclusive of lying. In order to make a similar distinction, but focussing on verbal deception, several researchers use different terminology. For instance, Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981) and Vincent Marrelli (2004) differentiate between direct and indirect lying (see also Meibauer 2014a). The latter captures all the cases where the speaker’s statement is truthful but promotes deception, that is “where a speaker asserts or directly expresses a proposition he assents to, while having the supergoal that B infer from it a further proposition which A does not assent to, or actively dissents from” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 758–759). Vincent Marrelli (2004: 234) associates “indirect lying by saying what is true” with several tools of deception: “indirect lies”, “insinuation”, “reticence” and “half-truths”. Whilst the very label “indirect lying” may give rise to misgivings, the concept it represents seems to capture a vast area of deception performed by means of truthful statements. Based on similar rationale, Fraser (1994) distinguishes between different deceptive strategies (presumably, only verbal ones) on the assumption that “fraudulent information” can be presented via a lie or may not be stated “explicitly” requiring it to be inferred by the listener. In his view, lying is “direct/explicit deception”, which stands vis-à-vis deception performed by “indirect” means (that is by inference), being contingent on allusions, suggestions or insinuations, as well as by “implicit” means, such as entailment, presupposition or implicature.4 Regrettably, Fraser (1994) does not attempt to give a clear-cut classification of deceptive strategies.

3 According to Green (2001: 160), misleading involves “saying something that is either true or has no truth value”. 4 Fraser’s terminology may give rise to misgivings given that concepts such as “indirectness”, “implicitness”, “inference” or “presupposition” belong to different theoretical traditions and seem to overlap in scope.

232 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

1.2 Previous classifications of deception strategies It is mainly in communication studies and psychological research that attempts have been made at proposing taxonomies or, at least, lists of deceptive strategies (see Gupta et al. 2013), whilst philosophical studies are typically devoted to individual types of deception (in particular: lying, bullshitting or the non-deceptive phenomenon of “bald-faced lies”). The types of deception presented in communication studies, in many cases, have little to do with the philosophical notions. Also, given their different foci of interest, these studies do not show the terminological rigidity typical of philosophical studies. However, some of these terms, albeit more precisely defined, will be invoked in the course of this chapter. For instance, in their study based on subjects’ self-reports on their honesty, Turner et al. (1975) differentiate between “distortion”, “concealment” and “diversionary responses” (providing different or irrelevant information). The former two are further subdivided into: “lies”, “exaggeration” (giving more information than necessary or strengthening by hyperbole), “half-truths” (disclosing only part of the information or mitigation by meiosis), “secrets” (withholding information altogether) or “diversionary responses”. On the other hand, Metts (1989) proposes a continuum of strategies of deception, ranging from “­falsification” and “distortion” (“exaggeration”, “minimisation” and “evasion”) to “omission”. Finally, in their theoretical study, Vincent and ­Castelfranchi (1981; see also Vincent Marrelli 2004), list (non-verbal) “faking”, “lying” and a host of “indirect deception” strategies, some of which they label “indirect lying”, namely: deceptive “insinuation”,5 “reticence”, “half-truth”, “precondition or presupposition faking”, “deliberate ambiguity (or equivocation)”, “pretending to lie” and “pretending to act or joke”. What will become transparent in the course of this chapter is that these classifications/lists of strategies are not exhaustive (some of the categories addressed by philosophers are not mentioned at all, as is the case with deceptive implicatures), and the specific categories overlap (which may explain why some of them are not addressed by philosophers). Moreover, not all of the categories of acts distinguished in the previous scholarship must invite false beliefs in the target or involve covert untruthfulness, which is the case, for instance, with evasion or diversionary responses, giving more information or hyperbolising (which may be overt), and keeping secrets (see Sections 4.2 and 5.1).

5 Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981) rightly state that not all insinuation (see Bertuccelli Papi 2014) involves “indirect lying”, here deception. In their view, deceptive insinuation involves implicating pejorative attributes which do not apply (i.e. which are untruthful).

1 Approaching deception 

 233

Most importantly here, relatively little has been written on deception categories in view of Grice’s model. Some remarks on the use of maxim nonfulfilment towards deceptive ends have been made in passing (e.g. Bowers et al. 1977; Bhaya Nair 1985; Thomas 1995). Also, only select maxims and forms of nonfulfilment have been addressed to account for specific forms of deception (e.g. Fallis 2009, 2010, 2012). Even though there have been a few proposals for systematically conceptualising categories of deception based on Grice’s framework have also been made, these do not seem to be sufficient. Specifically, some attention has been directed towards the notion of maxim violation in pragmatics. Mooney (2004: 914) observes that the violation of “the [first] maxim of Quality” lies at the heart of all deception, which can be realised by means of “false implicature”. However, she claims, providing no argumentation or evidence, that “violations of other maxims when possible seem better placed in other categories of nonfulfilment” (Mooney 2004: 914). Mooney (2004) also makes an unsupported claim that except for the maxims of Quality, the other maxims can hardly be successfully violated, because such violations are typically detected. However, contradictorily, she does allow for “lies of omission” consequent upon the violation of the first maxim of Quantity, but she does not explain how this form of untruthfulness relates to the first maxim of Quality. On the other hand, Thomas (1995: 73) suggests that maxim violations foster “misleading implicatures”. As will be shown in several sections, this claim contradicts Grice’s postulate that implicatures can be worked out thanks to maxim flouting, which constitutes a type of nonfulfilment of which the speaker is aware. Incidentally, in her brief discussion, Thomas (1995) uses the terms “misleading”, “deceiving” and “lying” practically interchangeably. For her part, Vincent Marrelli (2004) compiles a list of all maxims violations, devoting most space to the first maxim of Quality (as being central to deception). She also discusses at length the maxims of Manner (not all of which seem to display any covert violation, though) and a few cases of Quantity violations. Interestingly, she suggests that violating the maxim of Relation is hardly feasible. In her otherwise insightful work, Vincent Marrelli (2004) does not try to submit any general conclusions about how the other violations relate to one another, or how the untruthful meanings can be classified. Outside pragmatics, the violation of Grice’s maxims is one of the premises in McCornack’s (1992) Information Manipulation Theory, which goes beyond linguistics, not to mention pragmatics or, even more narrowly, Grice’s philosophy. As Gupta et al. (2013: 11) report, “McCornack (1992) followed Bowers et al.’s (1977) suggestion that ‘deviant’ messages mislead by violating Gricean maxims, and concluded that Turner et al.’s (1975) categories of Distortion, Concealment, and Diversionary responses, as well as Bavelas et al.’s (1990) Equivocation are directly

234 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

related to Grice’s maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relevance, and Manner”. Regrettably, McCornack’s theory (mistakenly) takes as a departure point “four maxims” regarded as dimensions in which information can be manipulated, which is why the postulate of the four violations and resulting deception forms is oversimplified, if not wrong. In line with McCornack (1992), Burgoon et al. (1996) postulate five dimensions through which information can be manipulated: “veridicality” (Quality), “completeness” (Quantity), “directness/relevance” (Relation), “clarity” (Manner) and “personalisation”, which represents the speaker’s opinions and thoughts, and thus, technically, beliefs. Burgoon et al. (1996) state that personalisation is not reflected in the Gricean framework. Nonetheless, it is quite clear that personalisation underlies the first maxim of Quality. Burgoon et al.’s (1996) specious conclusion seems to be the result of their focus on the objective truth (“veridicality”) and their rather superficial treatment of Grice’s philosophy. The most recent and, it has to be emphasised, the most elaborate account of verbal deception in the light of Grice’s framework6 comes from Gupta et al. (2013).7 Gupta et al. (2013) list twelve categories of deception (some sub-divided into two types if further inferences are involved)8 largely on the basis of the previous literature (notably, Turner et al. 1975; Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981). Except for the category “pretending to lie”, the other eleven categories are duly divided into those which are based on maxim floutings and those which centre on maxim violations, further grouped into four categories, depending on which of the maxims is/are violated. Firstly, deceptive floutings give rise to “implicature” and “contrived distraction” (urgently changing the topic), which involves the flouting of “the maxim of Relevance” (sic). Secondly, “fabrication” (“an outright lie”), “overstatement”, “understatement” and “denial” (knowing contradiction of something believed to be true) are presented as violating Quality. Quantity is violated in “half-truth” and “augmentation” (adding trivial, distracting information), which also violates “Relevance”. Finally, the violation of Manner shows in “equivocation” (being ambiguous), “obfuscation” (being incomprehensible), and “abstraction” (using generalisation), which involves also Quantity as the secondary violation.

6 In addition to the classification based on Grice’s maxims, Gupta et al. (2013) present a fourfold taxonomy based on “intentions”, largely inspired by Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) account. 7 Despite the critique offered here, I do agree with a number of the observations the authors make. I need to add that I found their paper only after finishing the first draft of this book. 8 This subdivision seems to be redundant. The inference-involving sub-cases basically show that apart from the central violations, utterances may invite specific implicatures in specific contexts.

1 Approaching deception 

 235

The main flaw in this approach is that the authors take Grice’s four maxim categories as four maxims per se, and thereby they fail to specify which of the Gricean maxims is violated (e.g. half-truth and augmentation cannot violate one and the same maxim, being opposites). Additionally, it seems that some of the categories may be redundant and/or subordinate to others. For instance, denial can be reduced to a standard lie (roughly, a covertly untruthful assertion) produced in reply to an accusation. Similarly, deceptive overstatement and understatement, which the authors rightly present as violating Quality, can be thought of as a special class of lying (see Sections 2.6). On the other hand, some categories of deception are not accounted for. Finally, the relationship between the violation of the first maxim of Quality (covert untruthfulness) and the other maxim violations is not addressed. In the light of this summary, it seems that more research into the neo-Gricean pragmatics of deception is in order, and the present chapter attempts to fill in this gap by accounting for a spectrum of categories of deception addressed in the philosophy of language and pragmatics (see also Dynel 2011a). In neo-Gricean terms, the production of any deceptive message can be thought of as violating the first maxim of Quality, the maxim of truthfulness. In standard lies, this violation manifests itself at the level of what is said (even though non-prototypical lies may originate in making as if to say, with the maxim at hand being violated at the level of implicature). Overt explicit untruthfulness encompasses standard lies and non-assertions that involve the violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said. By contrast, many forms of deception exhibit truthfulness at the level of what is said (whether or not taking the form of a statement), showing the violation of the first maxim of Quality at an implicit level of meaning: either implicature (arising when any maxim is flouted at the level of what is said, or when making as if to say is deployed) or hearer-inferred what is said (arising when any maxim but the first maxim of Quality is violated at the level of what is said). Thus, the notion of covert implicit untruthfulness is proposed to cover these diverse cases that display truthfulness at the level of what is said or that do not recruit what is said at all (non-standard lies performed with the use of Qualitybased figures based on making as if to say). This account helps bring together two neo-Gricean premises: violations always involve deception, and covert untruthfulness (i.e. deception) is necessarily dependent on the first maxim of Quality. The proposal for distinguishing between covert explicit untruthfulness and covert implicit untruthfulness (recruiting hearer-inferred what is said or implicatures originating in making as if to say or what is said) fine-tunes Mooney’s (2004: 914) convoluted claim about deception, namely that “[s]uccessful violations can be implicated; in such cases the implicature generated will be false. In terms of which maxim is finally violated (rather than exploited), this will always be the [first] maxim of quality.

236 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

Another maxim can be flouted, however, in giving rise to the false implicature”. Mooney (2004) is right in associating the violation of the first maxim of Quality with deception, but she fails to convincingly associate this with Grice’s proposals on maxim nonfulfilment and types of speaker meaning. According to neo-Gricean thought, speaker meaning may be communicated non-verbally (see Dynel 2011d for discussion). Grice even equates non-verbal actions with verbalisations, i.e. “‘utterance’ (my putting down the money)” (Grice 1989d [1969]: 94), and states that while “the normal vehicles of interpersonal communication are words, this is not exclusively the case; gestures, signs, and pictorial items sometimes occur” (Grice 1989c: 354). Hence, saying and implicating can be performed by means of not only spoken or written utterances but also non-verbal expression. This chapter is devoted primarily to the gamut of forms verbal deception may take, but some discussion of non-verbal deception is in order, given that non-verbal acts may perform the communicative function of verbal acts in interactions.

1.3 Non-verbal deception Although this chapter is concerned primarily with deceptive verbalisations, some space must be devoted to deception performed non-verbally insofar as, in line with Grice’s thought, meanings can also be communicated non-verbally and translated into linguistic expressions (i.e. into utterances). It is also frequently observed that deception may be performed verbally and non-verbally (e.g. Linsky 1963; Siegler 1966; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Bok 1978; Ekman 1985; Simpson 1992; Smith 2004; Meibauer 2005; Vrij 2008; Mahon 2007, 2008a, 2009, 2015).9 Non-verbal deception may involve purposefully made, controllable signals (such as gestures or facial expressions), as well as actions (e.g. tying a shoelace) or their artefacts (e.g. fake pictures), which may co-occur as in Example 4. (4) [In the diagnostics room, House and the team (Chase, Foreman, Taub and Thirteen) are discussing their male patient’s latest symptom, which is lactation.] 1. House: If he can’t tell his fiancée he’s gay, how is he gonna tell her he’s pregnant? 2. Chase: [handing the container of breast milk to Foreman] His therapists loaded him with hormones.

9 This should not be mistaken for the various non-verbal cues that help detect deception (e.g. Ekman 1985; Vrij 2008).

1 Approaching deception 

 237

3. Foreman: [looking at the container] Male hormones don’t make you lactate. [Foreman hands the container to House, who unscrews the lid.] 4. Chase: Except they could screw up your thyroid. 5. Foreman: That was over three months ago. We just started milking him last night. 6. House: [pours the breast milk into his coffee cup] 7. Chase: So something else screwed up his thyroid. Graves’, Hashimoto’s. [The team members are watching House with looks of complete astonishment on their faces, which he seems not to notice.] 8. House: Nope. TSH was normal. [screws the lid back on the empty container and looks up at them, but he is only waiting for medical opinions and looks completely oblivious to their reactions to him putting the breast milk in his coffee] 9. Taub: Pituitary tumor. Could also explain his libido and heart issues. 10. House: [starts to take a sip of coffee, then pauses, looking at Taub; again puts the cup to his lips, but Thirteen distracts him] 11. Thirteen: And if the tumor’s big enough, his headaches and syncope. 12. House: [pauses, considering Thirteen’s comment before again raising the cup to his lips; Chase abruptly speaks up; the team clearly does not want House to drink the coffee] 13. Chase: Except we – we cleared him for cancer. 14. Taub: [again distracting House from the coffee] Didn’t say cancer. Prolactinomas can be benign. 15. House: [begins to take a sip] [The team is watching with looks of incredulity on their faces as once again he pauses.] 16. House: Check his prolactin level, then MRI his pituitary. [The team lingers, staring at House and waiting to see if he will actually drink from the cup, but he gestures for them to leave.] 17. House: [grimaces and puts the cup down] Season 6, Episode 20 During the course of this interaction, House teases the team by deceiving them for the sake of self-amusement (see Chapter 5, Section 3 on the overlap between deception and humour). Throughout the diagnostic discussion, House reinforces the false belief in his interlocutors that he is going to drink the male patient’s breast milk with his coffee, as if it is a natural, by no means repulsive, thing to do, which is not what he believes to be the case (17). Thus, he performs the act of pouring the milk into his cup (6), and the naïve expression drawing on his

238 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

face falsely indicates that he is impervious to the interlocutors’ disgust (8). House reinforces the false belief that he will drink the coffee by the repeated action of bringing the mug to his lips (10, 12, 14 and 15). Deception can also be performed by means of natural human behaviours, which are encompassed by the notion of natural meaning (Grice 1989e [1957], 1989d [1969], 1989f [1982], 1989c). Within natural human behaviours, a distinction can be drawn between signs, which carry information but do not perform an indicating function (e.g. shivers or hoarse voice), and signals, which are communicative and do have an indicating function (e.g. laughter).10 Both signs and signals play a role in intentional communication (see Wharton 2009). Firstly, natural behaviours can be deliberately produced constituting nonnatural meaning that aims to deceive. Secondly, the communicator may capitalise on a natural meaning by deliberately manifesting it to a chosen individual, thereby getting a (deceptive) message across. In other words, a natural signal or sign, even if usually unintentional, may be intentionally exploited for deceptive communicative purposes, for covert “pretending” or “faking” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981). Whether fake signs or signals that a person gives (sometimes permanent properties, for instance when some physical changes to one’s appearance are involved) do count as deception depends on whether he/she intends to cause another person to believe something that he/she believes to be false, that is whether the intent to deceive is involved (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981). Example 5 illustrates the use of natural signs for the purpose of deceiving the target. (5)  [Anica, diagnosed with Munchhausen’s (she fakes diseases or purposefully self-induces the symptoms), has been released from hospital, contrary to House’s insistence that she is genuinely suffering from another disease, anaemia, and is not faking all of the symptoms. Anica has been discharged and House has just met her outside of the building. House is talking to her about what she has done to self-induce various symptoms in the past.] 1. House: [...] I’m trying to give you what you want, and save your life. You have aplastic anaemia. 2. Anica: What, are you trying to scare me now?

10 Incidentally, natural signals may sometimes be uncontrollable (e.g. laughter one cannot stifle) or may be performed when an individual is alone (e.g. laughing when watching a comedy), in which case they do not display the indicative function.

1 Approaching deception 

3. House:

 239

It means you’re not just sick in the head. The problem is the rest of you appears well, so I’ve got to make you seem as sick as you’re supposed to be by injecting you with a drug that simulates the symptoms that you actually have. All you need to know is, you’ve hit the Munchausen’s jackpot. I’m going to give you a cocktail of insulin for seizure, and colchicine to kill your white blood count. This will absolutely confirm my diagnosis of aplastic anaemia. There is one small catch. If you’ve actually done something to yourself to cause the anaemia, then I’m wrong, and if I do what I plan to do, then the treatment will kill you instead of saving you. So I need to know, have you been taking anything besides the insulin, the ACTH, and the pills Cameron left in your room? No. Good. Give me your arm. [sticks her with the needle]

4. Anica: 5. House: [...] [He walks back inside as Anica collapses and starts to seize.] 6. Foreman: So, barely out the door and she has another seizure. 7. Chase: She must have somehow grabbed insulin on the way out. 8. Foreman: Once she’s stable we need to get her out of here, before she does more damage to herself. 9. Cameron: We can’t. Her white count’s down. 10. House: Sorry, I missed that. My hearing’s been off since the Ricky Martin concert, some chulo kicked me in the head. 11. Foreman: White count, hematocrit and platelets are all off. The bone marrow’s shutting down, she actually has aplastic anaemia. [...] [Anica is having a blood transfusion. House has burst into the procedure room.] 12. House: She doesn’t have aplastic anaemia. She has an infection. [...] 13. Chase: She had no fever. 14. House: Because her self-inflicted Cushing’s suppressed her immune system, stopped her from having a fever, hid the infection. Clostridium perfringens could cause the bruising, the schistocytes, the anaemia… 15. Chase: Explains everything except the white count. 16. House: Augmentin is a lot safer than destroying her immune system, why don’t we try that? 17. Foreman: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re taking the safe course? What’s going on?

240 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

18. House: There’s lots of explanations for low white count. 19. Cameron: Name one that fits her case. 20. House: Colchicine. I figured that she got her hands on it and just, uh, self-medicated. 21. Foreman: That’s brilliant of her. Take the exact medication that would confirm your diagnosis. Season 2, Episode 9 When House gives Anica an injection (5), he lays the foundation for an act of non-verbal deception that emerges in another scene when the doctors discover the symptoms. The symptoms the patient develops as a result of the injection are medically induced natural signs: seizure and low white count. The former is recognised by the target (the team) as deceptive (6–8), even if the deceptive agent is chosen incorrectly (they blame the patient for self-inducing the seizure thanks to insulin). The latter causes the doctors in House’s team to develop a false belief that the patient’s white count is naturally low, which is indicative of a special type of anaemia (9 and 11). Although the doctors’ belief that the patient is suffering from this disease corresponds to House’s misguided but true belief (1), he does manage to deceive them into believing that the symptoms are purely natural in order to confirm his diagnosis. Finally, House’s deceptive act performed on the patient is disclosed, as evidenced by Foreman’s irony (21), even though House will not admit to it openly (18 and 20). Most importantly for the present purposes, if intentionally produced, all kinds of non-verbal signals and messages may stand in for uttered words and perform the role of turns in verbal interactions. In other words, a non-verbal signal may constitute speaker meaning, whether it is at the level of what is said and/or implicature in a given conversational context (Schiffer 1972; Dynel 2011d). Grice (1989d [1969]: 109) mentions the case of “displaying a bandaged leg (in response to a squash invitation)”, through which the communicator may mean that he cannot play squash, based on the meaning that his leg is bandaged. Although Grice does not appreciate this fact explicitly, this signal, technically a “pantomime” (see Dynel 2011d and references therein), carries what is said “My leg is bandaged”11 conducive to an implicature “I must decline the invitation, I cannot play squash because I have a bad leg”. As in the case of verbally communicated meanings, either level or both levels of meaning may be used for deceptive purposes. Grice (1989d [1969]: 109) actually suggests that the bandage might be fake. Example 6 is an interesting case of non-verbal implicating, and more examples will follow in Section 2, devoted to

11 Ironically, Grice considers this interpretation to be untenable given the preceding turn.

1 Approaching deception 

 241

lying, which (as will be argued) can be performed non-verbally on condition that non-verbal messages are translatable into verbal assertions. (6) [Detective Tritter is intent on taking punitive action against House for his addiction and maltreatment of patients, trying to convince his team members to tell on him. Cameron and Foreman have had their accounts frozen. Chase has also told the team that his account is frozen. Tritter and Chase sit at a table in the hospital cafeteria.] 1. Tritter: You told your associates that, uh, I’d frozen your accounts. 2. Chase: Yes. 3. Tritter: Smart lie. You figured they’d think there was a reason that you’d been singled out. Like that, uh, you’d agreed to testify against House. 4. Chase: Yeah, I assume that’s why you did it. 5. Tritter: You have a, uh, reputation as a bit of an opportunist. You already gave your boss up once, from what I’ve heard. 6. Chase: To save my job. He goes down now, I lose my job. 7. Tritter: If you lose your job, you find another one. You get fired, [shakes head] chances don’t look so hot. 8. Chase: [shaking his head in confusion] Why would he fire me? 9. Tritter: Because you rolled on him. 10. Chase: I haven’t rolled on him. 11. Tritter: I think you will. And he’s gonna think you already did. 12. Chase: As far as he knows, my accounts are frozen, just like everyone else’s. 13. Tritter: In twenty-four hours, all three of you will have access to your accounts again. 14. Chase: Why would you do...? 15. Tritter: If I was looking at this, as an outsider [points to the other people in the cafeteria], I would say it was because Detective Tritter had what appeared to be a very pleasant lunch with Dr. Chase. [The team has met to discuss the current case.] 16. House: [sighs] Okay, you guys are sulking. I don’t really care why, but apparently I can’t do my job without finding out. 17. Cameron: Tritter released our bank accounts. 18. House: Horrible, horrible news. Wow! I’m glad we didn’t let that fester. If she did have Reye’s, then it could be varicella or associated... 19. Foreman: [persisting] He released our money. You do know what that means? [...]

242 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

20. Cameron: Pain, not paralysis. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, on the other hand, rash, fever, anaemia, paralysis and I didn’t say anything to Tritter. 21. Foreman: Neither did I. 22. Chase: Maybe he wants us to think that one of us talked. 23. Foreman: It worked. 24. Cameron: You were with him. 25. Chase: We were all with him. 26. Foreman: We weren’t laughing with him. [...] 27. Chase: Can we talk? Season 3, Episode 9 As the interaction between Chase and Tritter shows (1–15), the latter is intent on convincing the other team members that Chase has reported on House. Once their accounts are released, Cameron and Foreman seem to draw a conclusion that House has been incriminated and that Tritter now has the evidence he has strived to obtain, insofar as he does not need to stoop to blackmail anymore (17 and 19). The act of releasing the two doctors’ funds (performed by Tritter and his associates) can then be thought of as non-verbally communicating truthful what is said, “Your account is not frozen any more”, together with a covertly deceptive implicature, “I do not need to blackmail you, as I have the testimony I need”. Only Chase can see through this act of deception thanks to his previous interaction with Tritter. Whilst House purports to be impervious (18), Cameron and Foreman are taken in (20, 21 and 23). Knowing that they have not done anything wrong, they believe Chase to have reported on House, given his friendly meeting with Tritter (24 and 26). Tritter and his associates’ non-verbal deceptive action cannot be deemed lying, even though, as will be argued in Section 2, lies can sometimes be told non-verbally.

2 Lying The notions lying (technically, a communicative activity) and a lie (technically, the linguistic product of this activity) have generated long-standing academic interest among deception researchers. The paramount goal of most theoretical scholarship on deception is to provide an adequate definition of lying/a lie, which is by no means an easy task. In the light of the many detailed problems and counterexamples, Fallis (2009, 2010, 2012) draws a palatable conclusion that although there may be more and less prototypical instances of lying (see Coleman and Kay 1981),

2 Lying 

 243

theoreticians may still seek a definition that captures the central concept best (see Mahon 2015 on the (un)necessary conditions for lying). Some researchers who are not preoccupied with the fine theoretical distinctions (e.g. Ekman 1985; Smith 2004; Vrij 2008; Scott 2006) propose very broad definitions of lying, to the effect that any form of verbal behaviour orientated towards causing others to form false beliefs is seen as lying. Hence, such authors seem to equate lying with (verbal) deceiving, which renders further useful distinctions on the landscape of deception impossible. Philosophers, by contrast, have proposed numerous definitions of lying. Despite their divergences and potential shortcomings (see Fallis 2010; Mahon 2008a, 2008b, 2015), a number of frequent common denominators between the various definitions can be found: the speaker’s statement/ assertion, false belief, and intention. Here are a few examples. L [speaker] lies to D [hearer] = There is a proposition p such that (i) either L believes that p is not true or L believes that p is false and (ii) L asserts p to D L asserts p to D = L states p to D and does so under conditions which, he believes, justify D in believing that he, L, not only accepts p, but also intends to contribute causally to D’s believing that he, L, accepts p. (Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 152) A person lies when he asserts something to another which he believes to be false with the intention of getting the other to believe it to be true. (Kupfer 1982: 104) The speaker lies at t, iff (a) the speaker asserted at t that p, and (b) actively believed at t that not p. (Falkenberg 1982: 75) [M]aking a statement believed to be false, with the intention of getting another to accept it as true. (Primoratz 1984: 54) The only intentions a liar must have, I think, are these: (1) he must intend to represent himself as believing what he does not (for example, and typically, by asserting what he does not believe), and (2) he must intend to keep this intention (though not necessarily what he actually believes) hidden from his hearer. (Davidson 1985: 88) A lie is “an assertion, the content of which the speaker believes to be false, which is made with the intention to deceive the hearer with regard to that content. (Williams 2002: 96) A person S tells a lie to another person S1 iff: 1. S makes a false statement x to S1, 2. S believes that x is false or probably false (or, alternatively, S doesn’t believe that x is true),12 3. S states x in a context in which S thereby warrants the truth of x to S1, and 4. S does not take herself to be not warranting the truth of what she says to S1. (Carson 2006: 298)

12 These two are not synonymous. Not believing that something is true may coincide with the speaker’s lack of certainty.

244 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

To lie is “to make a believed-false statement (to another person), either with the intention that that statement be believed to be true (by the other person), or with the intention that it be believed (by the other person) that that statement is believed to be true (by the person making the statement), or with both intentions. (Mahon 2008a: 227–228) S lied at t, if and only if (a) S asserted at t that p, (b) S actively believed at t that not p. (Meibauer 2014a: 103) S asserted at t that p iff (a) S uttered at t the declarative sentence ơ meaning p, (b) by uttering the declarative sentence ơ, S presented p as true, (c) by uttering the declarative sentence ơ, S M-intended that an addressee H to whom S uttered p actively believes that p. (Meibauer 2014a: 99)

The following version of the “standard” definition of lying, the simplest and adequate one, is taken as the point of departure here: a speaker lies if he/she says, specifically asserts, something that he/she believes to be false13 at the moment of speaking, intending to deceive the hearer (Kupfer 1982: 104; Williams 2002: 96; see also Mahon 2008a, 2015; Fallis 2010). The interdependent components of this definition need to be carefully explained and expanded upon, which is the goal of Sections 2.1–2.5. 2.1 Target Although some authors claim that no hearer is necessary for a lie to be performed (Shibles 1985; Griffiths 2004), most definitions of lying are predicated on what Mahon (2008a, 2015) dubs “the addressee condition”,14 here called the “target condition”. Mahon (2008a, 2008b, 2015) states that lying is only possible if it is directed to an “addressee”, thus arguing against definitions which do not specify that a lie must be directed to another person. This is also what Fallis (2009: 40) seems to mean by proposing that a lie must originate in making “a statement to

13 This part of the definition is endorsed also by deceptionists (e.g. Sorensen 2007: 256; Fallis 2009: 33). 14 Those who favour a view that utterances spoken in a so-called neutral context or null context can be assertions (because the illocutionary point is coded in the structure of the utterance) may also claim that one can lie (i.e. make an untruthful assertion) even if no hearer is present. However, supporters of the view that speech acts are necessarily connected to communication with the hearer (a view endorsed here in accord with the traditional definitions of lying) will maintain that utterances spoken in isolation can never constitute speech acts.

2 Lying 

 245

the person”. This person may be called the target of deception, a ratified participant in an interaction, not necessarily the addressee in terms of the hearer’s participatory status (Dynel 2016g; see Section 8). Overall, it can be concluded that, for it to come into being, a lie needs both the speaker (an individual who tells a lie whether in speech or in writing) and the targeted hearer. Therefore, uttering what the speaker believes to be false in an empty room with no hearer to be deceived present is not considered a lie (Newey 1997). Nor is a mendacious utterance addressed to a person who is deaf or dead (Siegler 1966) or to a burglar whom the speaker supposes to be downstairs but who is not there (Chisholm and Feehan 1977). On the other hand, Mahon (2015) rightly claims that a lie will arise in these contexts as long as the addressee is a “believed other person”, even if this person should not be there in objective terms like the alleged burglar that turns out not to have been there at all. Also, if self-talk (see Goffman 1981) is taken into account, an individual who is speaking only to himself/herself may be thought to be committing an act of self-deception. This may then be another possible, even if rare, counterexample to the claim that lying in an empty room is not possible. Here is an interesting case of a lie told by a speaker that is part of the hallucination of the hearer, who is also its unwitting author. It must be underlined that film discourse affords examples like this, and whilst they could appear in real life too, they would be practically impossible to detect. (7) [House and his team have not yet been able to solve a current case. Throughout this episode, House has been hallucinating; he has been talking to Amber, Wilson’s late girlfriend. (As it turns out later, this hallucination is the effect of House’s pangs of conscience and his addiction to Vicodin.) House has already figured out that she is an evil part of his subconscious cajoling him into taking wrong decisions, which have severe repercussions. House thinks that this is the result of his temporary insomnia. He goes back home shutting the door in Amber’s face. When House turns around in his apartment, Amber is inside, waiting.] 1. Amber: I’m you. You can’t just shut a door. 2. House: You tried to kill Chase. I need to push you back down. You’re dangerous. [His cell phone rings.] 3. Amber: It’s the hospital. 4. House: Not answering. [He answers on the second ring] Hello? [Cut to a treatment room with Cuddy, Taub, Foreman and Thirteen in it. As the conversation continues, it cuts back and forth between the hospital and House’s apartment.] 5. Cuddy: I’m here with your team, trying to sober them up so they can help treat your dying patient.

246 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

6. House: Foreman’s dying patient. 7. Cuddy: What causes lung failure plus your patient’s previous symptoms? 8. Amber: Eosinophilic pneumonitis. White blood cells accumulate, clog up the lungs, lead to heart problems. It fits. 9. Cuddy: House, are you there? 10. House: It’s not eosinophilic pneumonitis. I gotta crash. 11. Cuddy: House, don’t hang up. We need your help. 12. House: I can’t. [Later it turns out that the patient does not have Eosinophilic pneumonitis.] Season 5, Episode 22 The psychological/psychiatric plausibility aside, the interaction between House and Amber, the drug-induced figment of imagination and his alter ego, can be thought of as an internal dialogue between House and an imagined individual that he unintentionally conjures up. This non-existent but believedtrue interactant is endowed with independent goals and intentions beyond House’s conscious control. Amber joins the conversation House is holding with the other doctors and makes a medical suggestion (8) in response to a ­question of another interactant, Cuddy (7), with House being the only addressee, the only individual who can hear it. Given his prior negative experience (2), House is able to detect the mendacity of Amber’s contribution, as evidenced by his utterance “It’s not eosinophilic pneumonitis” (10). This realisation does not change the fact that Amber has lied (8), purposefully making believed-false assertions to deceive House so that he should falsely believe eosinophilic pneumonitis to be the actual cause of the patient’s symptoms. In practice, the act of (failed) deception between the speaker and hearer takes place in one individual’s mind. What is important for a lie to come into being is that the target must be able to understand the statement (Siegler 1996) and be able to develop false beliefs accordingly, at least as expected by the speaker (Mahon 2015). Consequently, if a communicative barrier (of which the speaker is aware) occurs, such as the prospective hearer’s insufficient intellectual capacity (e.g. in the case of an infant) or linguistic competence (e.g. lack of knowledge of a foreign language), or simply inability to hear an utterance, of which the speaker is aware, an act of lying does not come into being. Needless to say, lies may be performed in different modes and through different channels, in both synchronous or asynchronous communication. It is possible to lie in a television broadcast addressed to an entire nation, in an email addressed to multiple receivers, or in a website post addressed to a largely unspecified audience, as in an act of trolling (see Dynel 2016h).

2 Lying 

 247

2.2 Beliefs and untruthfulness In opposition to dictionary definitions and folk understandings (see Coleman and Kay 1981; Turri and Turri 2015, 2016), most scholars agree that lying depends on the speaker’s communicating what he/she believes to be false rather than on objective falsehood/untruth (e.g. Bok 1978; Meibauer 2005, 2014a; Fallis 2010; Mahon 2015; Wiegmann et al. 2016; Horn 2017a, 2017b), even though a few authors seem to suggest that falsehood may be taken into account as well (e.g. Carson 2006: 284; Saul 2012; Horn 2017a). The dependence on the speaker’s beliefs (which are subjective and subject to change over time) instead of objective facts is frequently referred to as the “untruthfulness condition” (Mahon 2015). More precisely, it can be called the covert untruthfulness condition for lying, which essentially means making covertly untruthful statements. Alternatively, it is called the “insincerity condition”, with lies being “insincere statements” or “insincere assertions” (e.g. Williams 2002; Fallis 2012; Stokke 2014; Meibauer 2011, 2014a; Marsili 2014, 2016, forth). The (covert) untruthfulness condition is consonant with the traditional philosophical thought on lying. As Augustine (1952: 55) puts it, “a person is to be judged as lying or not lying according to the intention of his own mind, not according to the truth or falsity of the matter itself”. Similarly, Aquinas (1972) makes the famous distinction between “material falsehood” (i.e. lack of truth, which is independent of the speaker’s intention) and “formal falsehood” (i.e. untruthfulness, which is based on the intention to deceive). Thus, if one says something false thinking it to be true, this is not a “perfect” lie, insofar as we “judge of a thing according to what is in it formally and essentially rather than according to what is in it materially and accidentally” (Aquinas 1972). The speaker may think himself/herself to be telling the truth but be in error, in which case lying (or deception) does not come into being. Example 8 presents a reconstructed statement that contains material/objective falsehood but does not qualify as a lie, since it does not meet the untruthfulness condition. (8) [Thanks to a phone call from another hospital, Cuddy and Wilson have found out that House has an appointment with an oncologist, a specialist on brain cancer, in Boston. Cameron, in turn, has found House’s plane tickets and knows about an opening at Harvard. She suspects House is applying for the post. Cameron catches up with Wilson in the parking lot.] 1. Cameron: Wilson! [runs up to Wilson] Just spoke to Cuddy. She can’t confirm whether House is applying for a job at Boston. 2. Wilson: Yeah. I’m late for a... 3. Cameron: If I have to look for work, I have a right to know.

248 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

4. Wilson: [stops walking and sighs, closing his eyes] [scene cut] [Although this is not explicitly shown, Cameron shares the information with Chase and Foreman since, for a good part of the episode, the whole team is fixated on diagnosing House and disproving his cancer diagnosis based on the information in the patient’s file, which they indeed manage to do at the end. They have just broken the good news to him.] 5. House: I was sure it was cancer. 6. Chase: Then why aren’t you celebrating? 7. House: [turning around, loudly] Because... it wasn’t my damn file! 8. Cameron: [non-plussed] You faked cancer? 9. House: The real patient is in the Witherspoon Wing. Feel free to tell his wife he’s not gonna die, but he is cheating on her. 10. Chase: Why would you want us to think you...? 11. House: [exasperated] I didn’t! I wanted the guys at Boston to think that I had cancer. I wanted the guys, who were gonna implant a cool drug right into pleasure centre of my brain, to think that I had cancer! Season 3, Episode 15 What can be extrapolated from these extracts from two interactions is that in his interaction with Cameron, Wilson, after a moment of pause (4), must have told her something along the lines of “House is meeting an oncologist in Boston” (an objectively true statement that is unintentionally deceptive) and, more importantly here, “House suspects he has brain cancer” or “House (probably) has brain cancer” (an objectively false statement, a potential lie). This is what Cameron must have duly reported to the two doctors in House’s team. Neither Wilson nor Cameron intended to lie to (or otherwise deceive) their hearers, but they unwittingly communicated falsehood. In other words, both speakers intended to be truthful, but they misled their interlocutors, having inadvertently developed false beliefs themselves. Neither can be claimed to have lied when saying “House suspects he has brain cancer”; they were simply wrong, having acquired the false belief. Additionally, as a result of his misleading, all House’s co-workers developed the same false belief about him; House initially had no intention of deceiving anybody but the doctor at a different hospital into believing that he (House) has cancer (11). However, when he learnt about the doctors’ having the false belief, he did deceive his friend and colleagues by withholding information and sustaining the false belief in them. In contrast to the situation presented above, an untruthful statement may be objectively true (Mahon 2015). This happens when what one says contains

2 Lying 

 249

falseness intentionally and truth accidentally, which qualifies as lying (Aquinas 1972). In other words, one can lie by making untruthful statements which carry the truth unbeknownst to the speaker, who can thus be said to have lied but not to have deceived the hearer about the objective truth despite the speaker’s intention to do so (see Siegler 1966; Isenberg 1964; Mannison 1969; Lindley 1971; Kupfer 1982; Mahon 2008a, 2015; Faulkner 2013). (9) [Cameron has just proved that a patient, Anica, has Munchausen’s, which means that she habitually fakes various diseases. Cameron has reached this conclusion by leaving medicine in Anica’s room for her to take, lured by the information that it may cause seizures. The medicine also turns bodily fluids orange. At the end of the episode, House proves that the patient does have a serious infection. Cameron is now talking to Anica, who is crying orange tears.] 1. Anica: I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! I had a seizure! I’m sick! I need your help! 2. Cameron: Not from this department. The half-life of rifampin is three hours, after that you’ll get your psych referral, and your discharge papers. Season 2, Episode 9 In her turn addressed to Cameron (1), the patient tells a series of lies, covertly untruthful statements, for she does know what Cameron is talking about (presumably, accusing her of having taken the medicine left in the room). In addition, unless she has also performed a successful act of self-deception, she believes that she is not sick and that she does not need the doctor’s help. This is because the patient is fully cognisant of the fact that the symptoms she has developed (orange urine and tears, as well as the seizure) are all self-inflicted. However, House later proves her to have been ill, which suggests that two of the believed-false statements (“I’m sick” and “I need your help”) were actually true, which, however, does not change their status and so they remain lies when viewed in retrospect. In conclusion, according to the standard untruthfulness condition for lying, the speaker must believe that what he/she states is false. However, a weaker view holds that the speaker “does not believe” that what she says/ asserts is true (Isenberg 1964: 466; Carson 2006: 286, 2010: 17; Sorensen 2007: 256) or believes that his/her statement is “not true” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 152). Marsili (2014, forth) plausibly argues that lying may be based on either believed-false statements or believed-not-true statements. This is an interesting theoretical addition fine-tunes the present understanding of covert untruthfulness (even though the “believed-false” label is used as shorthand in the remainder of the discussion for it depicts the prototypical and prevalent scenario). The covert untruthfulness condition relies on the speaker’s beliefs

250 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

other than strictly true beliefs. It invokes the speaker’s intention to deceive the hearer, which co-determines the presence of lying, regardless of the strength of the speaker’s belief about the falsehood he/she intends to communicate. In practice, based on natural language data, it may be hardly possible to judge on speakers’ certainty and degrees of beliefs. Here is one of the exceptions, where some conjectures about the speaker’s lack of full certainty can be made. (10) [The patient, a single mother by the name of Maggie, is bound to die if she doesn’t find a marrow donor, which is very unlikely. Her daughter Jane (10 years or so) approaches her.] 1. Jane: Mom… The doctors told me what’s happening. 2. Maggie: It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart. [nods] I promise you. Doctors can be wrong. There’s still a chance I can be – 3. Jane: [cuts her off] You really believe that? 4. Maggie: [trying to be strong] I do. 5. Jane: [shakes her head] No, mom. You’re dying. Nobody can help you. It’s not going to be okay. Season 4, Episode 10 Maggie’s two turns (2 and 4) contain white lies which seem to be based on believed-not-true statements. Quite plausibly, any patient who has just been diagnosed with a terminal disease but stands some (even if slim) chance of surviving, will not lose all hope that this can happen. Thus, while Maggie is not truthful when she asserts, for instance, that she is going to be fine or that she believes this, she cannot be claimed to be making believed-false statements if she does nurture some hope.

2.3 Two types of intentions to deceive the hearer Lying is a rational and intentional communicative activity, and the speaker’s goal is to instil in the hearer a false belief. Therefore, according to the standard definition, which is endorsed here, lying involves the speaker’s intention to deceive the target (e.g. Augustine 1952; Mannison 1969; Bok 1978; Kupfer 1982; Williams 2002; Faulkner 2007; Mahon 2008a, 2015). Consequently, lying is frequently presented as a type of deception (e.g. Bok 1978; Kupfer 1982; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Sweetser 1987; Barnes 1994; Simpson 1992; Castelfranchi and Poggi 1994; Fraser 1994; Adler 1997; Newey 1997; Faulkner 2007; Mahon 2006, 2008b). However, some philosophers (“non-deceptionists”) have argued that lying does not need to involve the speaker’s intent to deceive (e.g. Shibles 1985; Griffiths 2004; Carson 1988, 2006, 2010; Sorensen 2007, 2010;

2 Lying 

 251

Fallis 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015a; Saul 2012; Stokke 2013a, 2013b, 2014; Shiffrin 2014). This claim is premised primarily on the assumption that a definition of lying must encompass “bald-faced lies”, as well as “knowledge lies”, which are not deceptive and which seem to disprove the assumption that lying is a category of deception. This view is not endorsed here (see Section 7). According to the “deceptionist” view, lying proper necessitates the speaker’s intention to deceive the hearer. Hence, the speaker is not lying when he/she is saying something believed-true but, objectively, wrong. Also, the mere production of a covertly untruthful statement which is done “innocently”, or at least without the intent to deceive the hearer, does not qualify as lying (see Siegler 1966: 130; Frankfurt 2002: 340; Fallis 2009: 38).15 (11) [House is talking to his friend Crandall (a naïve man who is easily duped), explaining to him a very dangerous procedure that his daughter needs to be subjected to.] 1. House: It’s a map of the electrical pathways of the heart. We send electricity to each, one at a time, until one fails. 2. Crandall: It sounds dangerous. 3. House: It’s a risk I am prepared to take. 4. Crandall: If she’s got an electrical problem, couldn’t more electricity blow her whole system? 5. House: Well, who’s been watching Bill Nye the Science Guy? The test is perfectly safe. We do it every day. 6. Crandall: [prepares to sign] 7. House: And you believe me. 8. Crandall: I shouldn’t do the test? 9. House: It’s crazy dangerous. Just sign the damn form. Season 2, Episode 23 As he is trying to convince Crandall to sign a consent form for a dangerous procedure, House is trying to implicitly allay Crandall’s fears, but he does not deny the risk (3). House then makes a believed-false statement (5). It seems that he does not intend to deceive the hearer but merely test his gullibility and check whether he will uncover what the speaker considers to be overt, and quite transparent, untruthfulness, which is only seemingly covert. Since the hearer fails to

15 It is open to doubt whether lies can exist out of context, without the author and his/her intent, which seems to follow from Siegler’s (1966) distinction between “telling a lie”, that is saying what amounts to an objective falsehood, and “lying”, which requires beliefs. This distinction is not drawn here, and telling a lie and lying are taken synonymously.

252 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

recognise the untruthfulness and is indeed successfully deceived (6), House post factum explicitly reveals the covert untruthfulness and suggests what his intention has been (7 and 9). Therefore, the main untruthful statement (5) cannot be said to have been devised as a blatant lie, i.e. as a brazen believed-false statement intended to deceive the interlocutor. Also, passing along a believed-false statement whose untruthfulness the speaker does not reveal to the hearer does not qualify as lying if it is performed without an intent to deceive, that is without a genuine intent to induce a false belief in the hearer. Moreover, a statement can be ventured that if the speaker is not committed to what he/she is stating, the speaker is not saying or asserting anything. This may come into being, for instance, in the case of uttering a believed-false statement in order to meet a superior’s request in the workplace, as in the following example. (12) [A few infants have developed the same symptoms. In two babies, the disease is most advanced and involves kidney failure. The team is now debating and has just come up with two alternative options of what the cause may be, but the doctors do not know which is correct.] 1. House: There’s no point in guessing. Take one kid off vancomycin and the other off aztreonam. 2. Chase: They have the same disease, you want to give them different treatment? 3. Foreman: What the hell are you doing? 4. House: Therapeutic trial to find the cause of the infection. 5. Foreman: That’s wrong. 6. House: We have four sick kids, at least. Who knows how many more haven’t started showing symptoms yet! 7. Foreman: We have a duty to these two! 8. House: If these two have different reactions we know how to save the rest. 9. Foreman: So you’re condemning one of these kids to die based on random chance. [a pregnant pause] 10. House: I guess I am. [Later, Foreman is talking to the parents of one baby, and Cameron is talking to the other one’s simultaneously, with the two interactions intertwining on screen. Each doctor needs to get one parent’s consent for the treatment assigned to them by chance.] 11. Foreman: Your daughter’s kidneys are shutting down… 12. Cameron: Your son’s kidneys are failing. 13. Foreman: …so we’re going to take her off the aztreonam.

2 Lying 

 253

14. Cameron: 15. Ethan: 16. Kim: 17. Cameron: 18. Foreman:

We’re taking him off vancomycin. But, uh, but what made her sick in the first place? What do you think is causing it? It seems to be a germ called Pseudomonas. We think it’s MRSA. Methicillin-resistant staph aureus. It’s a very resistant form of very common bacteria. 19. Cameron: We’re hoping the aztreonam will clear it up. 20. Foreman: vancomycin is the best treatment for MRSA, so we’re gonna keep giving it to her. 21. Ethan: Right. Is it gonna cure her? 22. Foreman: Your child is very sick. You need to know that. This is a ‘Hail Mary’ pass. It might cure her, it might not. [Ethan sits back on the couch, defeated.] 23. Judy: So, so that’ll cure him? 24. Cameron: We’ll know in 24 hours if it’s working. [Judy and Kim look very happy. Cameron walks away from them; Wilson is at the reception desk.] 25. Wilson: What did you tell them? 26. Cameron: I told them the truth. 27. Wilson: They seemed relieved. You tell them how sick their son is? 28. Cameron: I explained what was going on. 29. Wilson: Allison, their baby’s dying. If the parents weren’t in tears when you left, you didn’t tell them the truth. 30. Cameron: That’s not how I see it. 31. Wilson: Do you want them blindsided? Want them coming up and saying “My God, my baby died, why didn’t you warn me?” 32. Cameron: So now it’s about worrying about them yelling at us? 33. Wilson: No, it’s about getting them prepared for the likely death of their child. 34. Cameron: If their son dies tomorrow, do you think they’ll give a damn of what I said to them today? It’s not going to matter; they’re not going to care; it’s not going to be the same ever again. Just give those poor women a few hours of hope. [walks away] Season 1, Episode 4 In their interactions with the parents (11–24), both Foreman and Cameron make statements which they believe to be false, apart from presenting what they believe to be true with regard to the offspring’s health. However, their intentions underlying the untruthful statements seem to be different, as can be gathered based on Foreman’s exchange with House (3–10) and Cameron’s

254 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

interaction with Wilson (25–34). In (17) and (18), Cameron and Foreman respectively produce believed-false statements. Even though they both deploy hedging devices, “it seems” and “we think”, which mitigate the certainty of each of the diagnoses (see Marsili 2014), the statements cannot be considered truthful. This is not merely a matter of deceptively withholding information (see Section 4) by giving insufficient information whilst stating the truth. By not accounting for the alternative cause of the symptoms, either by presenting the alternative or expressing doubt about whether this is indeed the cause, both doctors say what they believe to be false. Interestingly, with the benefit of hindsight, Cameron does not think that she has said anything untruthful at all (26, 28 and 30). She does recognise that the women are labouring under a misapprehension after their conversation with her, but she thinks she has acted in a bona fide manner (34). Even in her truthful statements, she has purposefully withheld the relevant information to cause the parents (a lesbian couple) to believe that their child will be fine rather than emphasising the real possibility of death. On this basis, it may be claimed that she may have intended to deceive them, and thus that she has lied in (17). Moreover, Foreman’s previous reactions (5 and 7) suggest that he does not intend to lie. Although he is doing his duty (he needs to get the parents’ consent) and is not giving any cues that would disclose his untruthfulness, he seems not to care whether the parents believe him; he does not intend to deceive them. This shows also in the fact that he reveals the possibility of the treatment’s failure to the parents (22). In a nutshell, reporting a believed-false statement to the hearers (17) does not need to amount to lying on the understanding that Foreman has no intention of deceiving the hearers. Philosophers tend to address two types of intentions to deceive. Essentially, a liar may “deceive his victims about matters of two distinct kinds: first, about the state of affairs to which he explicitly refers and of which he is purporting to give a correct account; second, about his own beliefs and what is going on in his mind” (Frankfurt 1992: 6). To reformulate, the liar’s intentions concern causing the hearer to believe that the asserted proposition is true, and that the speaker believes the asserted proposition to be true. Some of the definitions of lying present only the condition to deceive the hearer about the content of the assertion the speaker is making without mentioning the latter intention (see Kupfer 1982: 104; Williams 2002: 96; Mahon 2008a; Fallis 2010). However, other philosophers (e.g. Simpson 1992; Faulkner 2007) advocate that it is necessary for the speaker to have the intention that the hearer believe that the speaker believes his/her statement to be true. This is because the untruthfulness condition for lying is premised on the assumption that lying involves “an indication he is expressing his own opinion” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 149). In this vein, Reboul (1994: 294) observes, a liar “has an intention, the intention that his hearer will believe

2 Lying 

 255

that he (the speaker) believes that p, when in fact he (the speaker) doesn’t [...] it is crucial to the satisfaction of his intention, and hence to the success of the lie, that his hearer shouldn’t be aware of this intention”. This view is also sometimes nested in the definition of an assertion, in which “a speaker’s intention to inform the hearer about the truth, and to inform the hearer about his beliefs, fit naturally together – they are two sides of the same intention” (Williams 2002: 75). Prototypically, liars intend to deceive the targets with regard to the contents of their assertions, and in order to achieve this goal, they also intend to deceive the target about their believing their assertions to be true (e.g. Simpson 1992; Frankfurt 1992; Faulkner 2007; Mahon 2008a, 2015; Fallis 2010). Simpson (1992: 625) points out that the two intentions are nested, for “in lying the liar intends to deceive the liee regarding some matter, and intends to satisfy that first intention (at least partly) by deceiving the liee regarding the liar’s belief regarding that matter”. On the other hand, Faulkner (2007: 536) states that “a liar’s primary intention is to deceive as to some matter of fact and the liar aims to accomplish this deception by asserting what he believes to be false. In doing so, the liar intends to deceive as to this matter of fact by further deceiving as to his beliefs about it”. Overall, it is reasonable to assume that the “primary deceptive intention” (Simpson 1992: 624) the prototypical liar has is to deceive the target about the contents of the assertion but this intention is conditioned upon the intention to deceive the target about the speaker’s belief regarding the assertion, which is why the two cannot be regarded merely as a conjunction (Fallis 2010). The importance of the two intentions for prototypical lying can be best appreciated on the basis of two examples: an unsuccessful blatant lie or brazen lie (Example 13), as well as an act of potential misleading (Example 14). (13) [Cuddy’s in her office. House limps inside, pushing open the doors with his cane.] 1. House: [cheerfully] How can I help you this beautiful morning? 2. Cuddy: You got any cases? 3. House: [ostensibly pretending to think] Three. Got a teenage AfricanAmerican lung transplant... [starts to count with his fingers] 4. Cuddy: [cutting him off] Next few days, you’ll be doing nothing but clinic work. 5. House: I just said... 6. Cuddy: You were lying. 7. House: Then why’d you ask? 8. Cuddy: Because if you’d told the truth, I was gonna give you only one day of clinic duty. Season 3, Episode 12

256 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

As House gives a reply (3) to Cuddy’s question (2), he tells a blatant lie (that he has three cases, and that one of them is a teenage African-American lung transplant), and his non-verbal expression indicates that he will not try to avoid the suspicion that he is lying. And yet, he still hopes that the lie will succeed in order to pursue his agenda (avoid clinic duty). Incidentally, this is quite typical of House, who frequently lies brazenly to show his power over the interlocutor, who can do nothing but accept his utterances as if they are truthful and communicate truthful content (for lack of evidence indicating otherwise). Thus, House does intend to deceive Cuddy, as evidenced in another turn of his (5), which is why his utterances here cannot be seen as bald-faced lies (see Section 7). In this case, however, Cuddy will not let herself be deceived, possibly, having checked the relevant hospital files. Therefore, she does not take House’s assertion to correspond to the truth, nor does she believe that House is presenting what he believes to be true. (14) [In the clinic, House is talking to an elderly woman, Georgia, who has had erotic thoughts. She is telling House about her infatuation with Ashton Kutcher.] 1. Georgia: So I watched it. And it had this actor in it. This kid called Ashton Kutcher. Now, I think about Ashton all the time. All the time. 2. House: Aha. [has a telling smile on his face, quite benevolent] 3. Georgia: You remind me of him. Same bedroom eyes. 4. House: [smiling flirtatiously] People are always mixing us up. 5. Georgia: [begins unbuttoning her shirt] I suppose you’ll need to check my heart? Season 1, Episode 8 During this interaction, House must have inferred that the overly flirtatious patient displays symptoms of a mental disease, as a result of which she seems to have lost the ability to pass rational judgement when sexual matters are at stake. (House does not look anything like Ashton Kutcher, of which the former must be aware.) Thus, when he makes the untruthful statement in (4), he does not expect the patient to be able to recognise the untruthfulness of the statement as such, or House’s lack of belief that what he is stating is true due to her fixation and detachment from reality. On the other hand, he does not mean to lie to (or otherwise deceive) her either. Objectively, his overtly untruthful utterance may be regarded as being based on autotelic humour (see Chapter 5, Section 1.3.1), specifically teasing centred on overt pretence (see Dynel 2018). The addressee may not be able to recognise this, though, due to her mental incapacity, taking his utterance at face value as a truthful assertion, and thus being the target of House’s misleading.

2 Lying 

 257

The two intentions depicted here appear to be the sine qua non for standard lying. Nevertheless, some philosophers argue that a liar may intend to deceive the target solely about his/her belief, namely that he/she believes the assertion he/she is making to be true, whilst not intending to deceive them that the believed-false assertion is true (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Davidson 1985; Newey 1997; Fallis 2010; see Mahon 2008a, 2015). This concerns cases when the speaker believes that the hearer believes the content of the assertion to be false. This is why the speaker stands a chance of deceiving the hearer only about the speaker’s believing what he/she is asserting, not about the content of the assertion. For example, Newey (1997: 100) proposes that sometimes “the target-belief” may be “the belief that S [speaker] believes that p. Thus S may lie by trying to represent her beliefs as being that p, although S knows that A [addressee/hearer] knows that not-p, and therefore does not intend to induce in A the belief that p”. This ties in with Newey’s version of the intentionality condition, which holds that “S [speaker] cannot intend to get A [hearer] to believe that p [false statement] if S knows, or believes, that it is impossible to get A to believe that p” (1997: 96; see also the “cognitivists” references in Marsili 2016). To illustrate this peculiar case, Mahon (2008a, 2015) and Fallis (2010: 9) discuss the example of a crime boss who has discovered that his henchman is an FBI informant. Not wanting the latter to realise that his treachery has been uncovered, the boss says to him, “I have a really good organization here. There are no rats in my organization” (Fallis 2010: 9).16 Whilst asserting something he believes to be false (the primary condition for lying), the speaker does not intend to cause the hearer to believe the content of the assertion to be true. In other words, the speaker does not attempt to have the hearer believe that there are no informants in their midst (since the hearer does believe this to be false, and the speaker is cognisant of this fact). This believed-false assertion may be considered a lie, albeit involving deception only about the speaker’s belief that the proposition is true (Fallis 2010; see Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Davidson 1985; Newey 1997). However, this does not necessarily correspond with some of the classical definitions of lying which assume that the speaker needs to intend to deceive the hearer into believing what the speaker states/asserts (e.g. Williams 2002: 96; see also Mahon 2008a; Fallis 2010). Example 15 illustrates this kind of deception.

16 As Fallis (2010) rightly notes, this is not a bald-faced lie (which, technically, does not count as a lie, as proposed here). This is because this instance does involve deception about the speaker’s belief: the speaker’s belief that what he is saying is false is covert from the hearer, which would not be the case with a bald-faced lie.

258 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(15) [Previously in this episode, thanks to House’s encouragement, Wilson invited Lisa Cuddy to watch a play with him at the theatre. House also told him that Cuddy likes him. House is reading a tabloid in the hospital gift shop.] 1. Wilson: You were right. 2. House: Of course I was. What are we talking about? [holds up the magazine] They printed my letter. 3. Wilson: Great. Cuddy. [looks unnaturally agitated] 4. House: You want to see her naked. 5. Wilson: No, no, no. She wants to see ME naked. She sent me flowers. 6. House: Just thanking you for the play. You see some people feel an emotion called gratitude. 7. Wilson: There’s a card. House: I suspected. Explains how you knew who they were from. 8. Wilson: [pulls out the card and shows it to House] Let’s do it again. Soon. X X. Lisa. Xs are the kisses right? 9. House: No… I think they’re the hugs. I think Os are the kisses. 10. Wilson: No, no, Xs are definitely the kisses. Soon is its own sentence. [sees Cuddy in the clinic] I got to go. [walks off quickly in a very peculiar manner] 11. House: I’ll miss you. You were a good friend. [walks into the clinic, approaches Cuddy and holds up the magazine] They printed my letter. How was the play Mrs. Lincoln? 12. Cuddy: What’s up with Wilson? 13. House: He’s just a little freaked. 14. Cuddy: Why? 15. House: I sent him flowers. [smiles mischievously] 16. Cuddy: [looks confused] [Later in the episode, it turns out that Wilson had known from the start that the flowers came from House, not Cuddy.] Season 3, Episode 19 In the light of how the plot in this episode develops, it can be surmised that when Wilson has approached House, he shares with him the news about the flowers (5), cognisant of the fact that House is behind the prank and he is the one who has sent them. Specifically, by making the central believed-false assertion, “She sent me flowers” (5), Wilson successfully deceives House into believing that he (Wilson) believes that the flowers he has received came from Cuddy. However, Wilson does not attempt to cause House to believe falsely that the bouquet is indeed from Cuddy, insofar as Wilson believes that it has been sent by House (15). Apart from telling this lie, in the interaction (based on mutual deception), Wilson deceives

2 Lying 

 259

(albeit not through lying per se) House into believing that he (Wilson) believes Cuddy to be interested in him sexually and that he is perplexed by this fact. On the other hand, it is not the case that lying must entail the speaker’s intention to deceive the hearer about his/her belief that a given proposition is true. A liar may intend to deceive the target only about the content of his/her proposition without intending to deceive the latter about his belief that the proposition is true, as discussed by several philosophers (e.g. Davidson 1985; Newey 1997; Mahon 2008a, 2015; Fallis 2010) with reference to cases when the speaker has developed a reputation for being insincere (or incompetent), at least in the hearer’s eyes. As a result, the hearer believes that the speaker cannot be trusted and will lie. In this case, a liar may say the opposite of what he wants the hearer to believe in order to deceive the hearer. As Davidson (1985: 88) states, “while the liar may intend his hearer to believe what he says, this intention is not essential to the concept of lying; a liar who believes that his hearer is perverse [distrustful] may say the opposite of what he intends his hearer to believe. A liar may not even intend to make his victim believe that he, the liar, believes what he says”.17 In this context, an example taken from Augustine’s (1952: 57–59) writings is very frequently cited in the literature (e.g. Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 153; Newey 1997; Simpson 1992; Fallis 2010: 12):18 a man believes that a road is besieged by bandits and fears for his friend’s safety but, at the same time, he knows that his friend does not trust him; he thus decides to “assert” that there are no bandits on the road so that his friend will not choose this road. This is an example of a believed-false proposition the speaker makes to ultimately cause the hearer to believe something the speaker believes to be true. Augustine refers to this as “false faith”, Chisholm and Feehan (1977) call it “double-cross” and Newey (1997: 103) labels it “countersuggestion”. Interestingly, contrary to what most researchers postulate, Chisholm and Feehan also state that the speaker “has acted with the intention of causing” the hearer to believe that he (the speaker) “believes that there are no bandits on the road” (1977: 154). Nonetheless, it is doubtful that this is the speaker’s intention, since he is aware of the fact that the hearer does not trust him and will consider him to have lied/been untruthful. The speaker does not intend to deceive the hearer about the speaker’s genuine belief that there are no bandits on the road. Given the

17 If taken literally, this may suggest that Davidson is not averse to the notion of lying by making truthful statements (see also Fallis 2010). 18 Another complex example (of two conmen lying to their victim about a business deal), in slightly modified forms discussed by Newey (1997), Mahon (2008b, 2015) and Fallis (2010), represents the same scenario: a distrusted speaker makes a believed-false statement that he knows will be taken as being mendacious, because he is not trusted.

260 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

lack of trust on the hearer’s part, the speaker expects the hearer to believe (in line with the speaker’s genuine belief) that the speaker believes that there are bandits on this road (see Fallis 2010; Mahon 2015, for a similar view). At least according to a version of the standard definition (see Davidson 1985; Newey 1997; Fallis 2010; for a different view, see Chisholm and Feehan 197719; Simpson 1992; Mahon 2015), the above situation qualifies as a lie, given that the speaker makes a believed-false statement and attempts to deceive the hearer about the content of the statement. A person may lie by issuing a statement/ assertion which he/she believes to be false, whilst not intending to deceive the hearer about his/her beliefs, because the hearer thinks he/she can see through them. Therefore, it can be said that “the speaker does not intend to represent himself as believing what he does not – rather, he intends to represent himself as intending to represent himself as believing what he does not” (Simpson 1992: 628). The hearer expects the speaker to be untruthful and is distrustful of whatever the speaker communicates. Consequently, the hearer is expected to falsely believe to be true something that is false, typically something opposite to what the speaker has asserted. Needless to say, this kind of deceptive act can work only when the speaker knows that the hearer is not aware of the fact that the speaker knows that the hearer is mistrustful (Fallis 2010). Interestingly, Fallis (2010: 14) and Mahon (2015) bring together “counter-­ suggestion” (Newey 1997: 97) and “double-bluffing” (Moran 2006: 290) as if the two are synonymous notions, even though the examples that the two quoted authors provide are markedly different. The term double bluffing can be applied in reference to the deceptive strategy anchored in truthful statements that are expected to be seen as covertly untruthful (Moran 2006: 290; Faulkner 2007: 537; Mahon 2008a, 2015). Both Moran (2006) and Mahon (2008a, 2015) illustrate this with a version of the proverbial Minsk – Pinsk deceptive act, thought to be based on Freud’s favourite joke, as Mahon (2008a, 2015) reports (see also Cohen 2002: 238), “I tell you I’m traveling to Minsk, knowing you’ll take me to be lying and attempting to conceal my plans to travel to Pinsk, and hence meaning to deceive you about my genuine plans to go to Minsk after all” (Moran 2006: 290). Relevant in this context is also St. Augustine’s (1952) second example (see Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Simpson 1992): a man truthfully tells his distrustful acquaintance that there are bandits on the road so that the latter, because of his distrust of the speaker, should actually take the road and be captured by the bandits.

19 In Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) view, the utterance in question is not a lie, since they deny the status of an assertion to the speaker’s believed-false statement.

2 Lying 

 261

Overall, “double-bluffing” is a term that is sometimes taken to encompass two distinct notions (e.g. Fallis 2010; Mahon 2015): an act of non-prototypical lying, as well as an act of deception that may be labelled covert pretending to lie. This term is in accord with the view of Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981), who call this strategy “pretending to lie” (see also Faulkner 2007). For their part, Chisholm and Feehan (1977: 154) dub this “counterdeception”, which is an act of deception but not a lie, in their view, inasmuch as the speaker believes the asserted proposition to be true, even though he intends to deceive the hearer into believing that he (the speaker) “believes that there are no bandits on the road”. Whilst this truthful assertion cannot be conceptualised as a lie, as in the previous scenario construed by Augustine, it is dubious whether the speaker has an intention to deceive the hearer about his belief if he expects that the hearer will not believe him and will wrongly take the assertion as a lie. This deceptive activity cannot be a lie, premised on the basic statement untruthfulness condition for lying (Mahon 2015); the statement that the speaker produces is actually truthful. The speaker “says what he believes to be the truth with the intention that B [the hearer] believe he is lying to him” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 764). In other words, the speaker covertly pretends to be lying whilst making a truthful statement, cognisant of the fact that the hearer will (wrongly) believe what the speaker has said to be believed-false, which is the goal of the deceptive scheme. In practice, this may mean (at least in the standard case) that the hearer will choose to believe to be true something opposite instead. In neo-Gricean terms, in covertly pretending to lie, “the speaker hopes that the hearer will wrongly believe that in fact he or she is not being cooperative and is attempting to violate the [first] Quality maxim (i.e., to not tell the truth)” (Gupta et al. 2013: 29). However, the speaker is covertly observing the maxim at the level of what is said in order to violate it at the level of hearer-inferred what is said. Rather than representing the case of previously developed mistrust, Example 16 capitalises on mixed signals (see also Section 3.1 for further discussion of this sophisticated deception). (16) [House and Wilson have recently moved into a new flat together, as neither of them is currently in a relationship with a woman. They have a female neighbour, Nora, who suspects they are gay based on her previous interaction with Wilson, who zealously denied her assumption. Both men find Nora very attractive. House now meets Nora, as she is opening her mailbox.] 1. House: 3-B? You’re Nora, right? My roommate tells me you’re the one to thank for all the tips about the neighborhood. Greg. [smiles fully and extends his hand before opening the mail box for 3-F] 2. Nora: Nice to meet you. 3. House: I hear you thought that Wilson and I liked to polish each other’s swords, and by swords, I mean pistols.

262 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

4. Nora: Of course he told you about that. 5. House: Oh, don’t worry. Actually, I’m surprised that doesn’t happen more often. We’re both straight. [There’s a flat package, about 6 feet tall, wrapped in brown paper, leaning against the wall. House rips the paper off. The content is an enormous, framed poster from A Chorus Line. House steps back and clasps both hands and his mouth, admiring it.] Oh, my God, that is beautiful. We finally have the room to display it the way it deserves. Would you – would you help me get this upstairs? 6. Nora: Absolutely. [takes hold of one side of the poster as he gets the other] 7. House: Nice shoes, by the way. Louboutin? Season 6, Episode 11 In this interaction, House performs a complex deceptive act in order to cause Nora to believe that he and Wilson are a gay couple (in order to seduce her later). By his non-verbal and verbal signals (indicative of clichéd gay behaviour), he attempts to induce in her a false belief that he is gay, which clashes with the deceptive statements that he makes (3 and 5). Most importantly here, his stating “We are both straight” (5) is a double-bluff based on covert pretending to lie. The assertion is truthful (House believes that they are both straight), but the speaker wants the hearer to believe it to be false and believed-false in the light of the fabricated evidence made available to her, which she is meant to consider true.

2.4 Untruthful stating/saying/asserting A few authors claim that any statement made with an intention to deceive the hearer is a lie, thereby allowing for the possibility that truthful statements can be lies (Bok 1978; Barnes 1994; Davidson 1980). This is at least what can be gathered on the basis of how they formulate the definitions. Bok (1978: 13) states, “I shall define as a lie any intentionally deceptive message that is stated”. Following this line of thought, Barnes (1994: 11) proposes that “a lie, for our purposes, is a statement intended to deceive a dupe about the state of the world, including the intentions and attitudes of the liar”. On the other hand, some authors endorse a broader definition of lying by applying the label “indirect lies” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Vincent Marrelli 2004; Meibauer 2014a). Thereby, the authors account for special types of “lies” which do not centre on mendacious statements but on truthful statements that involve other deceptive strategies. Most authors, nonetheless, are unanimous that lying resides in making believed-false statements. This is what may be captured as the insincere statement condition

2 Lying 

 263

(e.g. Stokke 2014; Marsili 2016, forth) or untruthful statement condition (e.g. Mahon 2008a, 2008b, 2015). This condition rules out deceptive but truthful statements and utterances other than statements as being lies. The various definitions of lying are contingent on the use of words such as “say” (Siegler 1966; Fallis 2009, 2010; Saul 2012), “state”/“statement” (e.g. Bok 1978; Carson 2006, 2010; Sorensen 2007; Fallis 2009, 2010) or “assert”/“assertion” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Kupfer 1982; Adler 1997; Newey 1997; Williams 2002; Stokke 2013a, 2014; Meibauer 2011, 2014a). As a matter of fact, these terms are sometimes used practically interchangeably. However, they need not be rashly perceived as synonyms, especially given that the authors define asserting and saying in many different ways (on asserting, see Jary 2010; Brown and Cappelen 2011; see Chapter 2, Section 3). Whilst to some of the philosophers, “saying” is synonymous with “stating”, to others, saying boils down to uttering a meaningful sentence and/or does not necessitate making a statement but issuing a command or asking a question (see Fallis 2009: 34–35, 2010: 2–3). Following either understanding, saying falls short of asserting, which rests on the speaker’s commitment to the content of the proposition at hand. According to a much simplified, standard account, asserting is making a declarative sentence,20 a statement; and committing oneself to it, to the proposition it carries, i.e. presenting this proposition as true. Thus, one cannot lie when making a believed-false statement without commitment, for instance merely repeating what one has been told (like an actor on stage) or being overtly untruthful, which entails lack of any intent to deceive. In the technical Gricean sense endorsed here, “saying” gives rise to “what is said”, the type of meaning to which the speaker is committed and which may be performed as any utterance type, that is in any mood (see Chapter 2, Section 3). In the Gricean sense, not all saying is making statements or more specifically assertions (but see Saul 2012).21 However, like asserting, traditionally understood, Grice’s “saying” (conducive to what is said) involves the speaker’s commitment (1989b [1978]: 42) to the meaning expressed; in a nutshell, it is speaker meaning. Thus, it can be concluded that saying bifurcates into assertoric and non-assertoric saying, for instance by posing questions or making requests. Hence, in the present neo-Gricean approach, “saying” is too broad a term to be

20 It must be underscored, however, that there can be asserting “in which what one utters is used elliptically for a sentence that does explicitly present the proposition in question” (Alston 2000: 120). Thus an assertion may need to be elaborated to arrive at the speaker’s proposition in a given context. 21 Saul’s (2012) conceptualisation of saying as minimal truth content facilitates her description of lying.

264 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

used in the definition of lying, which needs to reside in asserting, here deemed a type of saying. Saying based on violating the first maxim of Quality encompasses not only covertly untruthful statements (i.e. assertions) but also other forms of deceptive utterances. Scholars are practically unanimous that lies must be performed in the declarative/indicative mood rather than via questions (interrogative mood), commands or requests (imperative mood), which follows from the statement condition (see Mahon 2008a, 2015). Several researchers explicitly state that lies cannot be performed by means of questions, imperatives, interjections, etc. (Green 2001; Mahon 2008b). A notable exception is Leonard (1959), who claims that lies can be performed by means of questions and imperatives. This is, admittedly, because his proposal involves a simple dichotomy between “honesty” and “dishonesty” synonymised with lying instead of deception. Leonard (1959) may not have envisaged the complexity and diversity of dishonesty (i.e. covert untruthfulness), and hence deception. Nonetheless, he is right that imperatives and interrogatives are amenable to truthfulness considerations, based on the speaker’s expressed concern with the topic, as well as, wherever present, the topic of concern, which is a proposition that can be true or false. Here is an example of deceptive saying in the form of a question not tantamount to lying. (17) [House joins Chase, who is flirting with a woman he has just met in the hospital.] 1. House: Hey! How’s that anal fissure? Did it heal yet or is it still draining? [looks at the woman] Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t realise you’d come back for seconds. I figured that after the girl on the stairwell you’d be done for the night. 2. Chase: He’s joking. 3. House: No Adam’s apple, small hands. No surprises this time. [smiles and nods in amusement] 4. Woman: [looks very uncomfortable] I’ll er... see you later. [House winks at her as she leaves.] 5. House: Got a case. 6. Chase: Well you could have just said that, you didn’t have to screw with me. 7. House: Yeah if I didn’t screw with you, you’d spend the whole night thinking you might get laid, which means you’d be useless. Better to extinguish all hope. Get Foreman and Cameron and meet me upstairs, stat. Season 2, Episode 17 As he joins in the interaction, House is not sincerely asking Chase about his wound (1), to which the latter is privy. House asks the two questions to deceive the woman

2 Lying 

 265

into believing that Chase has had an anal fissure, which either has healed or is still healing and which, as transpires in the context of this and the next turn (3), has been caused by the intercourse Chase has had the same night with a transsexual male. House is untruthful since he is not genuinely interested in the state of Chase’s wound (the expressed concern with the topic). Since House believes that the anal fissure does not exist, it cannot have healed or cannot still be draining (the topic of concern). Overall, the untruthful/insincere questions (possibly anchored in the believed-false presuppositions) cannot be conceptualised as lies, even though they do constitute deception performed at the level of what is said. The same can be said about imperatives, such as the one in the following example. (18) [House is trying to diagnose Nick, a patient suffering from a neurological condition, frontal lobe disinhibition, whose symptom is that he verbalises any honest thought that nudges at his mind. House, Foreman and Thirteen, who is an attractive young female in her late twenties, are in radiology. Cuddy enters.] 1. Cuddy: House paged. 2. Nick: Whoa, I would do her in a minute with fudge and a cherry on top. Would someone please explain to this woman? There’s only so many apologies [...] 3. Nick: Your tush is like the pistons in a Ferrari. [Cuddy leaves and House follows her into the hallway outside of radiology.] 4. House: You’re welcome. 5. Cuddy: That was for my benefit? 6. House: You’re 40 years old… 7. Cuddy: 38. 8. House: The administrator of a hospital… 9. Cuddy: Dean of Medicine. 10. House: People don’t get personal with you, except for me. And you dismiss me for a jerk who’s jerking you around. But that guy can only tell the truth. And he prefers your body to that of a smoking young hottie. 11. Cuddy: So that was your way of saying I look good today? 12. House: You don’t get the slightest kick out of that? 13. Cuddy: Don’t be ridiculous House. [House turns back and leaves.] 14. Cuddy: [smiles widely when the elevator door has closed] Season 5, Episode 17 Cuddy formulates her utterance (13) closing her interaction with House as an imperative. This utterance is deceptive, as her non-verbal reaction (14) later

266 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

indicates. She says what she believes to be false by making a covertly untruthful request, for she does not want House to stop being ridiculous, essentially because she does not find him ridiculous to begin with. Accordingly, Cuddy is untruthfully implicating (see Section 3) that she finds what House has said ridiculous, and that she is by no means flattered by the patient’s crude but honest compliments. Neither Cuddy’s what is said in the imperatival form nor the implicature qualifies as lying, according to the standard view. In order to rule out interrogatives or imperatives, saying conducive to lying must be restricted to asserting. However, asserting is not to be understood narrowly as one element in the five-fold division of speech acts into five distinct categories: assertives, commissives, directives, expressives and declarations (Searle 1969). As Marsili (2016) convincingly argues, there is a relationship of entailment between speech acts, such as promising, and asserting. Those acts are performed in a declarative mood but their sincerity, at a glance, does not concern beliefs per se but other mental states, such as intentions to do something. These speech acts do entail asserting, which is intrinsically based on false beliefs that, for instance, one will do something (Marsili 2016). Consequently, one can lie by making any covertly untruthful statement as long as it satisfies the assertion condition, thereby conveying beliefs together with other mental states. This happens whenever the speaker believes the asserted statement’s content to be false at the moment of production. Just like beliefs, intentions and emotions are transient. (19) [House suspects that his patient has a brain anomaly rather than the cancer for which she is being treated. He needs to get Cuddy’s approval to find the anomaly in the patient’s brain by cutting her skull off.] 1. Cuddy: You’ve no proof. 2. House: I have the brain scan. 3. Cuddy: The normal brain scan. 4. House: This is why I need to take off her head. 5. Cuddy: To treat or to prove you’re right? 6. House: To treat. Chemo’s not killing anything. It’s just hiding the real problem. She’s gonna crash. If we wait until she does crash, it might be too late. 7. Cuddy: So the next step is what? I say no, and then you do something to make her crash so that I’ll think you’ve proven your theory? 8. House: I would never do that. 9. Cuddy: No, you won’t. [Cuddy puts uniformed guards at the door to the patient’s room.] Season 5, Episode 2

2 Lying 

 267

In his hypothetically expressed assertion (8), which Cuddy can rightly recognise as being mendacious (9), House denies his capability to attempt to make the patient crash so that Cuddy will believe that his hypothesis is correct. However, House believes himself capable of doing such a thing (and he is actually willing to do so), which is why his assertion can be considered a lie, which additionally communicates a deceptive implicature in the form of a promise along the lines of “I won’t do such a thing to this patient”. (20) [House has made Lucas (a private detective) swap the patient’s medication in order to induce a seizure in her. Thereby, House has deceptively proved his hypothesis and got permission to have the patient undergo very dangerous surgery. House and Lucas are now in the observation area, as a surgical operation is in process.] 1. Lucas: Is that someone’s brain? 2. House: Except for the part that isn’t brain. 3. Lucas: Hey, that’s the patient I – You said she’d be fine. 4. House: I’m a better liar than you are. 5. Lucas: I swapped her meds. I mean, she’s got a brain problem. I could have killed her. Season 5, Episode 2 Based on Lucas’s report (3) and House’s reaction (4), it can be inferred that when House made Lucas change the patient’s medication, he promised/expressed his belief mendaciously that she would be fine as a result, whilst being well aware that Lucas’s act would have serious medical repercussions and necessitate a surgical operation on the patient. House can thus be claimed to have lied when giving this guarantee to Lucas, even though House may indeed believe that the patient will be fine in the end. 2.5 Non-verbal saying via asserting A common assumption in the philosophical scholarship is that, as opposed to deception taken as a whole, lying must be produced verbally that is with the use of words, whether written or spoken statements that amount to assertions (see Mahon 2008a, 2008b; 2015). The canonical example quoted in the literature to substantiate this claim comes from Kant (1996b [1797]) and concerns a man who packs his bags in order to signal to a potential thief that he is setting off, which is an act of deceiving but not lying. This has to do with a fact that by performing non-verbal actions or using body language one is not asserting anything and not even stating anything, thus not meeting a sine qua non for lying. However, a number of disclaimers are in order.

268 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

Firstly, there is also no denying that asserting, and hence lying, can come into being in conventional code systems operating without the use of words (written or spoken) per se but making use of other conventional signs, inclusive of sign language, semaphore signals or Morse code (e.g. Siegler 1966: 128; Bok 1978: 14; see also Fallis 2009; Mahon 2008a, 2008b, 2015). These do count as producing (non-natural) speaker meaning, and hence saying in Grice’s sense. Although they do not seem to acknowledge Grice’s work, Chisholm and Feehan (1977: 149) rightly observe that “saying” is not restricted to using words in speaking or writing, and hence one can lie non-verbally, “by nodding his assent, say, or by making other gestures, or by using sign language, or by making smoke signals”. Indeed, nonverbal signals, such as nodding one’s head, can function as lies insofar as they carry conventionalised meanings and replace words communicating speaker meaning. Several authors concur that lies can be performed non-verbally (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Bok 1978; Green 2001; Mahon 2008a, 2015),22 specifically by nonverbal signals, inclusive of gestures (e.g. thumbs up) or facial expressions (e.g. winking). These signals carry conventional (sometimes polysemous) meanings that can be translated into what is said, specifically verbal assertions in particular contexts (e.g. “I have done well” or “It’s going to be fine” respectively). (21) [An old friend, Crandall, visits House with his daughter, whom he has just met and of whose existence he was not cognisant for 16 years. House won’t believe that Crandall is her father, as he is Caucasian, while the girl is AfroAmerican. Crandall believes that he is her father, having no proof for that. House approaches the girl as she is in her bed intubated.] 1. House: Don’t try to talk, you’ve got a big medical thing in your mouth. Just blink if you understand. 2. Girl: [blink] 3. House: Fantastic. Blink if you lied to Crandall about everything. You picked up a fungus somewhere. If you were living in the shelter like you told your new daddy I got nothing to go on, and you will die. So, did you lie to Crandall? 4. Girl: [stares, not blinking]

22 This list of authors does not include psychologists who do not seem to differentiate lying and deception and use the terms practically interchangeably (e.g. Ekman 1985; Smith 2005; Vrij 2008). For instance, Smith (2004: 14) claims that “[b]reast implants, hairpieces, feigned illnesses, faked orgasms, and phony smiles are just a few examples of nonverbal lying”. However, it is not certain that all these signals can count as deception, not to mention lies (e.g. breast implants and hairpieces may not be intended to deceive; their owners may be well aware that others can tell the hair or breasts are fake).

2 Lying 

 269

5. House: You’re a lousy con artist. First rule of the game is know your mark. Once you got Crandall to bite on the poppet thing you had him. You could have told him that you were servicing Al Qaeda’s suicide bombers for crack, this guy would still let you pick out the colors in your new room. Did you lie to Crandall? 6. Girl: [blink] 7. House: [puts a pen and paper in her hands] Where were you? Season 2, Episode 23 Since the girl is incapable of talking during this conversation, House establishes that blinking stands for an affirmative reply “yes” (1 and 3), which can be seen as an elliptical assertion (Alston 2000). In (2), the girl non-verbally communicates “Yes, I understand”. In opposition, the lack of blinking (4) communicates an assertion “No, I didn’t lie to Crandall”, which House suspects to be untruthful (5), as the girl duly confirms by admitting to having lied (6). In conclusion, the lack of blinking translates into a covertly mendacious elliptical assertion, which qualifies as a lie. As Example 21 indicates, interactants may agree on assigning specific (arbitrary) meanings to chosen non-verbal signals, as well as silence. Although there is an agreement that lies cannot be performed by complete silence, that is by omitting to make a statement (Mahon 2003; Griffiths 2004; see Mahon 2015), interlocutors may sometimes agree that silence (or inaction) carries a certain propositional meaning, which may be duly exploited for the sake of lying. As Fried (1978: 57) rightly observes, “if you know that your silence will be taken as assent, and you know that the other person knows that you know this, and you intend your silence to be so understood, then your silence can be a lie”. Moreover, a postulate is put forward that the products of non-verbal actions can serve as mendacious assertions when used to perform a communicative function, as in the following example. (22) [Wilson and House are living together. We see Wilson walk up the door of the building to House’s apartment. He’s carrying his briefcase and takes out his keys. He unlocks the front door but spots a stethoscope hanging over the doorknob of the door to the apartment. He sighs. House’s motorbike is noticeably parked right next to the steps. Over the song “Pain in My Heart” by Otis Redding, we see a progression of scenes where Wilson sits on the steps in front of the building, waiting for House. Wilson settles down in front of the door, lying back against the wall and reading a magazine, only to fall asleep. The sky turns from bright daylight to dark night before House finally steps out of his apartment in his rumpled shirt, pokes Wilson with his cane and gestures for Wilson to get in.] 1. Wilson: [closes the door] Where is... [House raises his eyebrow.] the hooker, I assume?

270 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

2. House: [taps his head] Right up here, buddy. [turns on a light and slips on to the couch] 3. Wilson: You said you’d hang the stethoscope if you were having sex. 4. House: I didn’t say it had to be with another person. 5. Wilson: [suddenly flinches away, with extreme exasperation and a touch of horror lining on his face] 6. House: Can you think of anything that would tie together anaphylaxis and heart failure? 7. Wilson: No. I was waiting out there, for hours! 8. House: Now I need a lot of foreplay, and then there’s the cuddling afterwards. [Wilson looks fed up and throws his briefcase on the floor.] Any way that anaphylaxis isn’t anaphylaxis even if it responds to epi? 9. Wilson: No. Well no wonder you were in the mood. This month’s New Jersey Journal of Cardiology. [picks up the magazine on the table] 10. House: Have you seen the centre fold? There’s no WAY those valves are real! Any chance that the heart failure could be unrelated to... 11. Wilson: No. If you need time alone to work, you just have to say so. You don’t have to lie about it. Season 2, Episode 16 Based on the previous attribution of meaning (3), a stethoscope hanging on the entrance door functions as the statement “I am having sex”, which House and Wilson can understand. In the asynchronous form of interaction, House presents the non-verbal signal as his speaker meaning, a non-verbally expressed what is said, specifically an assertion, to be received and grasped by Wilson when he arrives, which he does. This signal for Wilson to see can be conceptualised as an asynchronous lie, a believed-false non-verbal assertion by means of which House intended to deceive Wilson into believing that he was having sex, whilst, in actual fact, he was working (6–11).

2.6 Lying as the violation of the first maxim of Quality Several authors have associated lying with the (intrinsically covert) violation of the first maxim of Quality (McCornack 1992; Burgoon et al. 1996; Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012]; Mooney 2004; Vincent Marrelli 2004; Fallis 2009, 2012; Meibauer 2005, 2014a; Dynel 2011a; Gupta et al. 2013; Stokke forth). The postulates the authors make are not identical, for they draw on Grice’s work in different ways and to various degrees. Several of the authors only mention that

2 Lying 

 271

lying involves the violation of Quality, frequently not specifying which maxim. For example, ­McCornack (1992) observes merely that covert violations of Quality (technically, the first maxim of Quality) involve the falsification of information. Similarly, Burgoon et al. (1996) associate the violation of Quality with lack of veridicality, i.e. objective falsehood, whereas Grice’s focus is the speaker’s beliefs and truthfulness. Within the field of pragmatics and philosophy, many authors agree that the violation of the first maxim of Quality leads to lying, but they make refinements of this proposal, which are not always compelling. For instance, Mooney (2004: 914) perceives successful “violations of [the first maxim of] Quality” as resulting in lies. The term “successful” used with regard to “quiet and unostentatious violations” appears to be otiose. This qualifier is not meant to suggest that the hearer is actually deceived/stays oblivious to the violation. Successful violation is juxtaposed with unsuccessful violation (distinct from flouting), which pertains to humour, in Mooney’s (2004) view. Mooney (2004) makes the claim that humour “violates” the Gricean maxims, which in this case seems to be a matter of opting out of the first maxim of Quality, even though humour may also centre on maxim violations proper (see Chapter 5, Section 3). Once the different forms of maxim nonfulfilment are appreciated, the qualifier before “violation” may be dropped. Stokke (forth) shares the opinion that standard lies involve covert violations of the first maxim of Quality, as well as the supermaxim of Quality, in order to differentiate lying from irony (see Chapter 1, Section 4 for criticism). It is indeed the case that the violation of the first maxim of Quality will entail the violation of the supermaxim of Quality, but the latter contributes little as a definitional component of lying. Stokke (forth) also claims that some lie-inducing violations may be made overtly, which allows him to propose that bald-faced lies can be considered lies since they do involve violations, albeit of a type different from standard lies. However, according to Grice’s proposal, violations (as opposed to floutings) must be made covertly and they are conducive to deception. Bald-faced lies, in turn, are not deceptive and seem to rest on overt nonfulfilment, which amounts to flouting the first maxim of Quality (see the discussion in Section 7). The most elaborate (to date) account of lies as violations of the first maxim of Quality comes from Fallis (2009, 2012). Fallis (2009: 34) gives the following definition: You lie to X if and only if: (1) You state that p to X. (2) You believe that you make this statement in a context where the following norm of conversation is in effect: Do not make statements that you believe to be false. (3) You believe that p is false.

272 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

Fallis (2009, 2012) sees the first maxim of Quality as a norm of conversation that a liar believes to be in effect in a chosen context. The liar “believes that” he/she is “violating Grice’s first maxim of quality (Fallis 2009: 33). Fallis (2009, 2012) then transfers Grice’s theoretical conceptualisation of the maxim to the format of a social norm of which people are aware and which they believe themselves to be violating when they tell a lie. Later, this prompts Fallis (2012) to engage in discussion of lies told by young children, who are oblivious to the norm. This problem could have been eschewed if the norm in question had been restricted to a purely theoretical, explanatory dimension, consonant with Grice’s view. It is also open to doubt whether competent language users are aware of the Gricean philosophical norm. Moreover, language users do not need to be consciously aware of any other similar but non-academic norm, whenever they commit lies. This is particularly salient in the case of lies performed instrumentally and/or on the spur of the moment. A pragmatic-philosophical definition of lying based on Grice’s theoretical tenets should avoid attempting to account for cognitive or social processes from language users’ perspective. In his revised account of lying, Fallis (2012: 572) posits that “you lie if and only if you intend to violate the norm of conversation against communicating something false by saying that thing. This definition rules in prototypical instances of lying and bald-faced lies”. Fallis (2012) emphasises that the speaker must intend to violate this norm of conversation in order to exclude involuntarily produced believed-false utterances (e.g. misspeaking). However, intentionality seems to be presupposed in the definition of violation or any other maxim (non)fulfilment designed by Grice (1989a [1975]). Consequently, Fallis’s (2012) addition of intention to the central stipulation seems to be redundant. Also, Fallis (2012) underscores the conditions of “communicating” and “saying” in order to rule out the possibility of the inclusion of irony in his definition, which is something that can easily be handled if one brings to focus the violation vs flouting distinction, and the fact that irony involves making as if to say, not saying. Moreover, this distinction between covert and overt maxim nonfulfilment helps us understand why baldfaced lies, which are overtly untruthful, do not recruit the violation of the first maxim of Quality and cannot be formally defined as lies (see Section 7). Finally, Fallis’s (2012) revised account is based on “saying” rather than “stating”. Following the Gricean view of “saying” (see Chapter 2, Section 3), Fallis’s (2012) definition seems to include non-statements as lies, which is why it appears to be too broad.

2.7 Lying by saying or making as if to say It is proposed here that a prototypical lie may be defined as a ­violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said necessarily in the form of a

2 Lying 

 273

statement. Such a statement is an assertion since what is said taken as a whole, a form of speaker meaning, presupposes the speaker’s commitment (see Chapter 2, Section 3). Therefore, in line with the standard definition, prototypical lying boils down to covertly untruthful asserting. A standard lie is an assertion that violates the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said, being the basic form of covert explicit untruthfulness. When the speaker is lying, hence violating the first maxim of Quality, “the hearer is meant to assume that the maxim of truthfulness [the first maxim of Quality] is still in force and that the speaker believes what she has said” (Wilson and Sperber 2000 [2002, 2012]: 218; see also Stokke forth). The liar’s intention is to have the hearer believe his/her statement to be true, as if it satisfies the first maxim of Quality (see Chapter 2, Section 4). Thus, when a successful lie is performed, from the target’s perspective, this maxim and the Cooperative Principle remain intact. One of the fundamental assumptions here is that what is said violating the first maxim of Quality can be seen as covert explicit untruthfulness. It is not always tantamount to lying, though. Following the prevailing definition of a lie as a believed-false assertion, it may be concluded that a lie comes into being primarily when the covertly untruthful what is said is performed as an assertion (rather than a question, imperative or exclamation, all of which may indeed perform the function of what is said). Since saying is not necessarily asserting, not all violations of the first maxim of Quality are tantamount to lying. Thus, a lie can be defined as a violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said in the form of an assertion. As already suggested (see Chapter 2, Section 2), the first maxim of Quality “Do not say what you believe to be false” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27) can be tentatively paraphrased as “Say what you believe to be true”, which seems to be the echo of Kant’s categorical imperative, according to Vincent Marrelli (2004). Whether or not this is the case, this reformulation indicates Grice’s inspiration by Kant’s (1949: 349) moral philosophy, according to which “Each man has not only a right but even the strict duty to be truthful in statements he cannot avoid making, whether they harm himself or others”. This has important consequences for the definition of lying in Grice’s terms. The violation of the first maxim of Quality can only be performed by saying (or more generally, contributing) what the speaker believes to be false, and not by merely not saying what the speaker believes to be true. Consequently, lying, performed via the violation of the first maxim of Quality, does not encompass deception by not revealing the truth, that is by withholding believed-true information, as Vincent Marrelli (2004) observes. On the other hand, the violation of this maxim does encompass not only believed-false saying but also believed-not-true saying (see Marsili 2014, forth). Covert explicit untruthfulness present in saying covers assertions which are lies (and non-lies: insincere interrogatives, imperatives and interjections)

274 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

that are not fully truthful, or whose truthfulness the speaker cannot guarantee. In other words, the enemy of truthfulness in what is said is covert untruthfulness or lack of (full) truthfulness, which show numerous forms. Truthfulness and untruthfulness are opposites. According to Augustine (cited by Horn 2017a: 153), a liar “says the opposite of what he thinks in his heart, with purpose to deceive”. However, this opposition should not be understood only as simple grammatical negation or lexical meaning reversal. Frequently, lies reside in saying something different from what the speaker believes to be true, which may take countless forms, depending on the situation and the speaker’s goal. As Montaigne (1842: 15) perceptively observes, whilst there can be one unique truth, “the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes, and a field indefinite, without bound or limit”. Similarly, Nyberg entitles one of his chapters, “the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes” (1993: 46). Untruthfulness amounts to whatever cannot be seen as the representation of the speaker’s true belief. Truthfulness and untruthfulness are binary opposites that cannot be seen as forming a continuum or as showing degrees; a meaning either is truthful or is untruthful. Contrary to popular folk opinion, a minimal departure from what is believed to be true (an element of untruthfulness in an otherwise truthful statement) is as much a lie as a completely fabricated assertion. To illustrate this: if a woman eats a whole bar of chocolate for breakfast and says, “I’ve had a small chunk of chocolate for breakfast” or “I’ve had a bowl of porridge for breakfast”, she lies either way. Lay people would say that the first utterance is closer to the truth, but this does not mean that it is not a lie. An assertion can be either truthful or covertly untruthful rather than falling somewhere in-between (but see discussions such as Marsili 2014). (23) [House has a patient, Eve, a rape victim. He wants her to confide in him, which is why he shares a personal story with her to cajole her to reciprocate.] 1. House: It’s not as bad as what happened to you, I don’t think. I don’t know what happened to you. And given how lousy you’re responding, I assumed it was worse than getting abused by your grandmother. 2. Eve: What did she do to you? 3. House: Parents travelled a lot, leaving me with her. She liked things the way she liked them. She believed in discipline. She was right, I suppose. I hardly ever screwed up when she was around, too scared of... being forced to sleep in the yard or take a bath in ice. [beat] Your turn. 4. Eve: Your parents, they-they never stopped her? 5. House: [sitting down] Never told them. 6. Eve: Why not?

2 Lying 

 275

7. House: Usual reasons. I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me and I was afraid they’d think I’d done something wrong. [beat] I opened up to you, you open up to me. 8. Eve: What did you call her? 9. House: Oma. 10. Eve: And you kept calling her that after this? 11. House: Dutch for grandmother. She’s still my grandmother. And she was still Dutch. 12. Eve: [sceptically] Is any part of that story true? 13. House: All of it. 14. Eve: [shakes her head] You wouldn’t keep calling her “Oma”. [angry] Something would have to change. [...] 15. Eve: I’m angry because you’re lying to me. [...] 16. Eve: [calming a bit] Your story. Is it true? 17. House: [sighs] True for somebody. 18. Eve: But not for you. [House talks to Eve later.] 19. House: [getting up] These things happen. Happened to somebody. What do you care if it happened to me? [slowly brings his right leg out from between the table and bench and sits facing away from the table] 20. House: [softly] It was true. 21. Eve: What was? 22. House: Wasn’t my grandmother, but it was true. 23. Eve: Who was it? 24. House: It’s my dad. Season 3, Episode 12 When House tells his interlocutor about his childhood: his relationship with his grandmother and his feelings (3, 5 and 7), he is covertly untruthful, which Eve discovers (14, 15 and 16) and House admits (17). As it later turns out (24), House’s account corresponded to what he believed to be true, except that it involved the wrong agent. Even though language users might be inclined to conclude that the story was partly true (20), in technical terms, each of the assertions House produced (3, 5 and 7) was a lie due to the reference to his grandmother rather than his father. This change of the individual affected the entire propositional content of each assertion: “Parents travelled a lot, leaving me with her” (“Mother travelled a lot, leaving me with him”), “She liked things

276 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

the way she liked them. She believed in discipline. She was right, I suppose” (“He liked things the way he liked them” etc.), “I hardly ever screwed up when she was around, too scared of being forced to sleep in the yard or take a bath in ice” (“I hardly ever screwed up when he was around”), “Never told them” and “Usual reasons. I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me and I was afraid they’d think I’d done something wrong” (“I never told my mother for obvious reasons. I was afraid my mother wouldn’t believe me and I was afraid she’d think I’d done something wrong.”). The binary opposition between truthfulness and covert untruthfulness has important ramifications for the status of deceptive statements based on understatement or overstatement (see also Marsili 2014 on fuzzy lies based on graded truth values), inclusive of their manifestations as figures of speech: meiosis and hyperbole (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1). It is argued here that the two are tantamount to lies as long as they occur in statements (not questions, for instance). Literal understatement and overstatement involving covert mitigation or strengthening respectively, normally produced for the sake of politeness effects, are responsible for the violation of the first maxim of Quality, not Quantity as in the so-called “halftruths”. This shows, for instance, in the use of individual lexical items that depart from the truth by overstating or understating it, such as “hit someone” vs “beat someone up” (see Section 4.4). Along similar lines, Gupta et al. (2013: 27) claim that “Overstatement [hyperbole] and Understatement [meiosis] violate Quality because they modulate an aspect of something mentioned in the proposition, thus affecting the truth value of what is said”. The presence of understatement or overstatement is not to be recognised by the hearer, and hence the utterance should be taken as what the speaker truthfully says. This holds when understatement and overstatement (which do not need to involve figures of speech, namely meiosis and hyperbole) are rendered literally by means of specific lexical items or full propositions denoting degree/intensity that departs from the believed-true ones. (24) [Wilson has cancer. Together with House, he has gone on a fun trip. They’re in a bar. Wilson is wearing a bald cap to look sicker. He is planning to pick up a girl to have casual sex.] 1. Wilson: This thing is peeling. 2. House: Well, that is the cost of cowardice. Should’ve gone for the real thing. 3. Wilson: I feel like I’m cheating. [...] 4. Wilson: Bartender seems nice. 5. House: Seems female. [As she is cleaning nearby tables, the bartender turns to Wilson and House.]

2 Lying 

 277

6. Waitress: Want something to eat? 7. House: My friend is dying of cancer. 8. Bartender: Oh, you poor thing. It took my mother two years ago. But you can’t give up hope. [pats him on the shoulder] 9. House: He’s pretty much resigned. Just wants to go out with a bang. And another pun, what time do you get off? 10. Waitress: [smiles at them] Season 8, Episode 20 Although Wilson has indeed been diagnosed with cancer, he is not in the terminal stage (in fact, Wilson may have a few years to live). House makes a believed-false assertion that his friend is already dying of cancer (7), to which Wilson’s deceptive appearance (fake baldness after unsuccessful chemotherapy) testifies. House can then be claimed to have lied to the waitress by saying that Wilson is dying of cancer, which would not be the case if he had merely said, “My friend has cancer”. This is a lie as much as House’s assertion (9) that Wilson is “resigned” and that he wants to finish his life after doing something exciting. What House believes to be true is that at least for the time being Wilson is not pessimistic (having already gone through a more difficult period) and does not consider the prospective sexual intercourse to be the last exciting thing he will ever do in his life. The figures of meiosis and hyperbole, which involve implicatures, are more complicated since they are forms of understatement and overstatement respectively that depend on making as if to say rather than saying. According to Gricean thought, the standard case of non-deceptive use of the two figures involves flouting the first maxim of Quality. However, the two figures may also serve deception directly, being the root of covert untruthfulness. Although the primary proposal made in this section is that standard lying arises at the level of what is said that manifests the first Quality maxim violation, a crucial addition must be made that lying may arise at the level of making as if to say and at the level of deceptive implicature rooted in it. This is where the violation of the first maxim of Quality manifests itself. Thus, this kind of lie seems to meet the untruthful statement condition, but, clearly, it does not meet the untruthful assertion condition. However, unlike other prototypical lies, meiosis-based and hyperbole-based lies centre on overt untruthfulness, which is embedded in covert untruthfulness. Although the hearer can recognise the presence of a rhetorical figure, which rests on overt untruthfulness and the flouting of the first maxim of Quality in making as if to say conducive to implicature, he/she is not meant to appreciate the fact that the maxim is actually violated at the level of making as if to say and the emerging implicature as well. For instance, alluding to Grice’s

278 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

example of meiosis (or meiotic irony, see Chapter 3, Section 7.1), one may give an example of “He was a little tipsy” said in reference to a man who was “very drunk”, which the speaker wishes to keep covert. This statement is not only a deceptive implicature based on flouting the first maxim of Quality (the speaker evaluates the state of intoxication as insignificant) but also, if not primarily, a lie based on violating this maxim, inasmuch as the speaker is not “a little tipsy” but just the opposite, “very much drunk”. Here is a similar example from House. (25) [House is sitting in front of the transplant committee. He is being interrogated about his patient, Carly, who needs a heart donor. He knows her to be bulimic and suicidal, which disqualifies her from the transplant programme.] 1. Cuddy: Any psychiatric conditions, history of depression... 2. House: She’s a little blue. But it turns out she needs a heart transplant. [Cuddy glances at Vogler, who gives her a pointed look.] 3. Cuddy: Dr. House, if you subvert or mislead this committee, you will be subject to disciplinary action. 4. House: Dr. Cuddy, do you have any reason to think that I would lie? 5. Cuddy: I simply want you to answer the question! Is there anything on the recipient exclusion criteria that would disqualify your patient from getting a heart? 6. House: [looks at Wilson and Vogler before answering] No. Season 1, Episode 14 When Cuddy asks a question (1) immediately relevant to the information House needs to keep covert, he tells a lie, coupled with a deceptive implicature based on the first maxim of Quality. Via the meiotic expression “a little blue”, whose presence the hearers can recognise (3), House deceptively implicates that he does not evaluate the patient’s sadness as very serious. More importantly, he ­misrepresents, via the violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of what seems to be making as if to say what he believes to be true, namely “She is depressed/suicidal”. As argued here, in Gricean terms, this kind of meaning substitution qualifies as a lie, just like the elliptical covertly untruthful assertion in (6). In Gricean terms, based on how the first maxim of Quality is conceptualised, a non-meiotic statement “She is sad” cannot be considered truthful if, in actual fact, the speaker believes that “She is depressed/suicidal”. Example 25 shows how meiosis may be used to deceptively downgrade a chosen believed-true feature, thereby violating the first maxim of Quality. Here is another example that illustrates an opposite situation, namely meiosis used to mitigate a non-existent, believed-false feature, which results in the same type of violation at the level of making as if to say.

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 279

(26) [Cuddy and House’s romantic affair has just started. They are lying in bed when her assistant calls. House takes the call from Cuddy’s secretary.] 1. Alex: Dr. Cuddy? 2. House: No, this is Dr. Cuddy’s nanny. She’s, uh, feeling a little under the weather now, so she won’t be coming in today. 3. Alex: Oh. I hope she’s all right. Would you mind asking her if– Season 7, Episode 1 Telling the assistant that Cuddy is “feeling a little under the weather” (2), House seems to be overtly communicating that her illness is not very serious, thereby deceptively explaining her absence at work. However, since House believes Cuddy to be perfectly healthy, the making as if to say, as well as the emergent implicature, can be seen as violating the first maxim of Quality. House’s utterance qualifies as an outright lie even if it does not involve what is said, just as much as his preceding statement that he is Cuddy’s nanny (who takes care of her daughter) (2). Overall, given the lack of what is said in cases like the ones above, it seems useful to distinguish deception based on Quality-based figures as a special category of lying (encompassing also metaphor and irony) rather than deception short of lying, as is frequently done (e.g. Saul 2012). This non-prototypical lying will be further discussed after the notion of covertly untruthful implicature is examined in the next section.

3 Covertly untruthful implicature The fact that deception can be performed by means of conversational implicatures has been recognised by several researchers (e.g. Siegler 1966; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Sweetser 1987; Simpson 1992; McCornack 199223; Adler 1997; Mooney 2004; Meibauer 2005, 2011, 2014a, 2016a; Mahon 2008a, 2015; Fallis 2009, 2010; Dynel 2011a, 2015, 2016b; Saul 2012; Stokke 2013a, 2013b, 2014; Gupta et al. 2013), with some merely mentioning the issue in passing and others expanding upon the topic, albeit only rarely making reference to Grice and his proposals regarding conversational implicature. The phenomenon that is the focus of attention here has been called “false implicature” or “falsely implicating” (Adler 1997; Meibauer 2005, 2011; Fallis 2009, 2010; Stokke 2013a, 2013b, 2014; Gupta et al. 2013), but the terms preferred here are: deceptive implicature (McCornack 1992) or covertly

23 McCornack suggests that some messages “mislead not through the manipulation of information, but through the generation of deceptive implicatures” (1992: 14).

280 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

untruthful implicature. This is because falsehood vs truth distinction (the objective dimension) is avoided here, and the speaker’s beliefs are fundamental. The speaker implicates a message which he/she believes to be false, a message which is untruthful. 3.1 Revisions and extensions Meibauer (2014a) traces the first mention of deceptive implicature in Grice’s writings, specifically in Grice’s claim that “[s]ince the truth of a conversational implicatum is not required by the truth of what is said (what is said may be true – what is implicated may be false), the implicature is not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said, or by ‘putting it that way’” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 39). This quotation comes from a section in which Grice (1989a [1975]) compiles a set of features of implicature. A claim can be ventured that this quotation involves a contradiction. Essentially, the information in the parentheses may include a chiasmuslike typo, and Grice appears to have had the opposite in mind: what is said may be false – what is implicated may be true. Grice (1989a [1975]) thus explains the nature of implicatures which originate in the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, necessitating untruthfulness at the level of an utterance, but he does not conceive of deceptive implicatures. It would be strange if he should have done so since, in his model of communication, lying and deceiving are illegitimate, and hence disallowed, activities (see Chapter 2, Section 4). However, there is no denying that deceptive implicatures do exist in natural communication. Deceptive implicature constitutes a level of covertly untruthful meaning that is inferred on the basis of any maxim flouting (e.g. Saul 2012; Gupta et al. 2013). In view of the nature of the preceding turn or conversational expectations, the speaker wants the untruthful implicature to be inferred by the hearer as the primary meaning, even if some truthful what is said should be communicated as well. In formal neo-Gricean terms, the central deceptive implicature exhibits covert untruthfulness. It is at the level of this implicature that the first maxim of Quality is violated. Deceptive implicature is then a category of deception presenting covert implicit untruthfulness. (27) [Foreman is now Dean of Medicine. Earlier in the episode, we have discovered that House wants to see a boxing match, but, on parole, he cannot leave without Foreman’s permission. House enters Foreman’s office.] 1. Foreman: [taking a large envelope from his desk] Just got this. The American Association of Rheumatology wants you to speak, 9:00, Saturday, in Atlantic City. Dr. Neusinger canceled on them at the last minute.

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 281

2. House: I hate conferences. 3. Foreman: This is a big one, and it’s the premium slot. I’d like you to do it. I’ll clear it with your parole officer. What do I need to do for you? 4. House: Halve the clinic hours that you recently doubled and double the hooker budget that you recently halved. I think you refer to it as petty cash. 5. Foreman: Fine. Just one thing. I’m gonna ask them to put you on in the morning. We’re doing them a favor. Why should you have to spend the night? 6. House: You said that 9:00 was the premium slot. I mean, I want to feel like I’ve earned my hookers. 7. Foreman: The place will be a madhouse, especially since it’s two miles from the Rubio fight at the exact same time. Nice try. You called up, pretended to be Neusinger, cancelled, and suggested yourself as a replacement. You go to that fight, you go to prison. 8. House: But that’d be redundant, when I have an angry black guy waiting for me to drop the soap right here. 9. Foreman: Better go do some of those clinic hours I recently doubled. Season 8, Episode 6 As it transpires at the end, the entire interaction between Foreman and House is based on mutual deception, with each of the interlocutors having their covert intentions. In the present context, turn (2) is of most crucial significance. House’s truthful what is said, “I hate conferences” (this statement is truthful, as can be gathered on the basis of his various reactions to other events in the course of the series), yields a covertly untruthful implicature along the lines of “I don’t want to go to this conference”, which directly contradicts the speaker’s genuine wish. This implicature is worked out in the light of maxim flouting, most importantly the maxim of Relation (notice the incompatibility between Foreman’s and House’s turns). In Example 28, a rather complex one, what is said communicates a truthful implicature and, simultaneously, an untruthful one, directed to different hearers (see Section 8). (28) [Previously, House discovered that a clinic patient by the name of Jill is pregnant. She is not sure if her husband is the father and would like a paternity test performed without her husband’s knowing this. House is leaving his office. Jill runs up, together with her husband.] 1. Jill: Look, Doctor, this is about the mono you said you thought I had. 2. House: The mono? 3. Jill: Yes. You know, shouldn’t Charlie be tested? You know... [House looks at Jill as if she’s insane.] The test. The blood test.

282 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

4. House: [a sign or recognition drawing on his face] Right. Yeah, I’m sorry, I sometimes forget patients. I thought you were this idiot who doesn’t know how to use birth control. [gives Jill a pointed look] 5. Charlie: I can’t have mono. I don’t even feel sick or anything. Season 1, Episode 4 At first, House seems not to recognise Jill’s deceptive act (1 and 3) that takes House as her accomplice and targets her husband. House’s turn (4) displays the truthful what is said, “I thought you were this idiot who doesn’t know how to use birth control” in order to communicate, in view of Manner floutings, the main untruthful implicature, “But I was wrong; you are actually not this idiot who doesn’t know how to use birth control”. House implicates this covertly untruthful meaning with a view to deceiving Jill’s husband only and offending Jill, who will recognise this untruthfulness and deception aimed at her husband, inferring the truthful implicature addressed to her, namely “And I was right; you are this idiot who doesn’t know how to use birth control”. Fallis (2010: 7) notes that deceptive implicatures arise when the speaker says “something true” or does something, expecting that the hearer “will infer something false”. This claim raises three queries. Firstly, it is indeed the case that implicatures can be communicated verbally or non-verbally (see Dynel 2011d). It is also the case that deception can be performed verbally or non-verbally (see Section 1.2). However, only some non-verbal acts foster deceptive implicatures, whilst others may give rise to deceptive what is said, and hence lies. Therefore, Fallis’s (2010: 7) generalisation that deceptive playacting (pretending to be an actor and pretending to be foreign) promotes false implicatures is not wellfounded. Everything depends on how the playacting is done, whether verbally or non-verbally. Fallis (2009: 40) provides a complex example of a man wishing to deceive the hearer that he is an actor by taking a theatrical pose and by intoning, “I am the Prince of Denmark”. By this impersonation (an act of overt untruthfulness), the speaker wants the hearer to falsely believe not that he is the Prince of Denmark but that he is an actor. The speaker thus wishes the hearer to be deceived by gleaning an untruthful implicature, “I am an actor”, based on the verbalisation (overtly untruthful statement flouting the first maxim of Quality) and supported by the non-verbal cues (a pompous tone of voice and body language). This is indeed an instance of a deceptive implicature as long as this turn is placed in an adequate conversational context, for instance elicited by a question such as “What do you do for a living?”. Secondly, not all deception performed by means of truthful saying amounts to covertly untruthful implicature, as is consistently argued in this chapter (notice the different forms of deception originating in the violation of any of the maxims but the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said). Overall, the misguided

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 283

assumption that truthful what is said may lead only to one category of deception, i.e. deceptive implicature, seems to have led to a few dubious examples in the literature. For instance, Stokke (2013a) addresses the case of Abraham saying “She is my sister” about Sarah, who is both his sister and his wife, when revealing the latter fact may cost him life (see also Adler 1997). Stokke (2013a) makes a disclaimer that Adler (1997) does not see it as an instance of conversational implicature. However, Stokke (2013a) chooses to regard it as such, since it “exploits Grice’s First Maxim of Quantity”. This claim is ill-conceived. Abraham’s utterance does violate the first maxim of Quantity, and this violation (like any other violation) is covert, which is why it cannot be the source of implicature. Implicature, whether or not deceptive, must be worked out by the hearer based on the flouting he/she can recognise so that the operation of the Cooperative Principle can be secured (see Grice 1989a [1975]: 31). A problem similar to the Abraham example can be found in the famous Saint Athanasius example. When soldiers asked a stranger (not knowing it was Athanasius) about Athanasius’s whereabouts, Athanasius truthfully said, “He is not far away” (Fallis 2010: 2). Fallis (2010: 2, 16) considers Saint Athanasius’ reply as a case of “false implicature” along the lines of “I am not Saint Athanasius”. However, “He is not far away” is another instance of withholding information, which centres on violating the first maxim of ­Quantity rather than any maxim flouting (see Section 4.4). Also, “I am not Saint Athanasius” is more of a covertly untruthful presupposition of the ­utterance. It mirrors the false presupposition (“You are not Saint Athanasius”) that the soldiers unwittingly have when asking the question, a presupposition which the deceptive speaker purposefully does not clarify. Neither the Athanasius example nor the Abraham example manifests any maxim flouting (maxim nonfulfilment to be recognised by the hearer). Therefore, neither can be regarded as inviting a deceptive implicature, which must originate from maxim flouting. Thirdly, with regard to Fallis’s (2010) observation quoted above, it must be pointed out that deceptive implicatures need not be rooted in truthful what is said. Incidentally, Fallis is not the only one to suggest this. For instance, Thomas (1995) also proposes that “intentionally misleading implicature” (1995: 73) arises when the speaker says “something which is ‘true’ (as far as it goes) in order to imply an untruth” (1995: 74). Ironically, she reaches this conclusion based on an example that does not involve maxim flouting but maxim violation, and thus it does not belong in the deceptive implicature category. Meibauer (2005, 2014a)24 rightly observes that deceptive implicatures may stem from what is said that is either truthful or untruthful as such. In Meibauer’s

24 Meibauer (2014a) also dwells on the problem of generalised and particularised conversational implicatures, accounting for their differences in the context of their deceptive/lying capacity.

284 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(2014a: 127) words, this is the intriguing case of “falsely implicating while saying the falseness [what is believed false]”, whereby two forms of deceiving come into play (in Meibauer’s 2014a view, both constituting lies, see Section 3.3). Indeed, there do exist cases of covertly untruthful what is said, for instance assertions, giving rise to false implicatures in a given context, being doubly deceptive. When a lie is produced, it may easily eclipse the importance of the deceptive implicature, but, in theoretical terms, both are equally significant deception-wise, being orientated towards exerting the same type of epistemic effect on the hearer, i.e. a false belief. Also, from the perspective of the Gricean framework, the implicature is the central, primary level of meaning that the speaker intends to communicate. From that perspective, this is the more “important” level of meaning. Interestingly, Chisholm and Feehan (1977: 155) provide a relevant example: “D has requested L to go on a certain errand” and L deceptively replies to this request, “My leg isn’t bothering me too much today”, whilst “his leg does not bother him at all” and “it never has”. Chisholm and Feehan (1977: 155) propose that the utterance “may be taken to suggest (it ‘implicates’ or ‘contextually implies’) that his leg does bother him to some extent and that it has done so to a greater extent in the past”. However, in more technical, pragmatic terms this example should perhaps be analysed otherwise. The meaning that the authors report on is more a matter of what is said coupled with a deceptive (implicating) presupposition. The utterance communicates a covertly untruthful assertion (what is said), tantamount to a lie, and it also gives rise to the following covertly untruthful implicature in the conversational context (based on the Relation maxim f­ louting): “I cannot go on this errand because my leg is bothering me a little”. In technical terms, the special case of twofold deception at hand can be described as follows: what is said that involves the violation of the first maxim of Quality simultaneously displays the flouting of any maxim (except the first maxim of Quality, the flouting of which blocks the presence of what is said) that fosters an implicature which also shows the violation of the first maxim of Quality. (29) [House and his team are trying to diagnose their current patient. Cuddy has given them an hour to do this, as there is an epidemic and the hospital is swamped with patients to handle. Cuddy enters the diagnostic room.] 1. Cuddy: You, in the lobby, now. 2. House: I hurt my leg. I have a note. 3. Cuddy: You had your hour. Three, actually. 4. House: Dr. Chase, I told you to tell us when our time was up. She has intestinal bleeding. 5. Cuddy: She’ll wait. Two more buses just arrived. We need you downstairs. Season 1, Episode 19

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 285

When House addresses Chase (4), he tells a blatant lie, with Cuddy being its target (see Section 8). On the understanding that House cannot be bothered to do his clinic duty, it can be surmised that he did not ask Chase to keep track of the time, hurt his leg or got a note, which would have prevented him from going to the lobby (2). Producing the believed-false assertion in (4), which constitutes the basic level of deceptive meaning in the form of Quality-violating what is said, simultaneously, House untruthfully implicates, based on the Relation maxim flouting, “I haven’t realised that our time is up and that three hours have already passed”, which constitutes the second level of covertly untruthful meaning. Incidentally, neither of the covertly untruthful meanings stands much chance of deceiving Cuddy, who is aware of House’s attitude to clinic duty, but they do count as covert untruthfulness, and hence attempts at deception (rather than being bald-faced lies, see Section 7). Cuddy cannot be sure that House has not asked Chase to let him know when the time is up, or that House was aware of the passage of time, being preoccupied with the case at hand. Interestingly, apart from the case of deceptive implicature originating in deceptive what is said (if in the form of a statement, it is a lie), deceptive implicature may be anchored in making as if to say (see Section 3.1). Moreover, deception may be rendered by two piggy-backed deceptive implicatures, with the first one being based on making as if to say contingent on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality. (30) [House has been talking to Tritter, a police officer bent on putting the former in jail. On a different matter, House knows that Cuddy is planning to have artificial insemination and is looking for a sperm donor.] 1. Tritter: I think working around a bunch of nurses has given you a false sense of your ability to intimidate. [walks out of the clinic while House glares daggers at his back; Foreman and Cameron walk in to see House] 2. Cameron: Who’s that? 3. House: Apparently, Cuddy’s widened her sperm donor search to include Neanderthals. 4. Foreman: Cuddy’s looking for a sperm donor? 5. House: It’s a joke. Like Cuddy would ever want a kid. Or a kid would ever want Cuddy. Season 3, Episode 6 In response to Cameron’s question about House’s interlocutor (2), House produces a doubly deceptive reply that additionally deploys overt untruthfulness, based on the use of a metaphor that flouts the first maxim of Quality. The first level of untruthful implicature coincides with a non-metaphorical paraphrase of

286 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

making as if to say “Cuddy has widened her sperm donor search to include very primitive men”. Even though this alludes to what House believes to be true (Cuddy is indeed looking for a donor), this implicated proposition is not truthful per se, and hence it violates the first maxim of Quality. At the same time, this deceptive implicature flouts the Relation maxim in the light of Cameron’s preceding question. The ultimate deceptive implicature then reads “This was Cuddy’s potential sperm donor”. Needless to say, this implicated proposition is also characterised by the violation of the first maxim of Quality. Thanks to this kind of deception, little support is given to Meibauer’s (2011: 286, 2005, 2014a) claim that “a false implicature only comes about through a verbal act of assertion to which it is bound”. Quality-based figures conducive to (deceptive) implicatures are never bound to assertions, but they are bound to making as if to say (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1). Additionally, deceptive implicatures, whether or not Quality-based, like regular non-deceptive implicatures, may be rooted not only in statements but also in questions, imperatives or even interjections. As shown in Chapter 2, Section 3, Grice’s what is said and what is implicated can arise from all utterance types. (31) [House leaves a clinic patient, Tritter, with a thermometer between his buttocks and walks out of the clinic room to the nurse’s counter.] 1. House: Leaving early today. [returns the patient’s file] Did you ever get that thing where you’re sure you’ve forgotten something but you can’t figure out what? 2. Nurse: [shakes her head] 3. House: Guess it can’t be that important. [throws away the swabbing test he did on Tritter and walks off] Season 3, Episode 5 As House is leaving the clinic, he is fully aware that he is purposefully abandoning a patient in a very inconvenient situation. However, as he asks the nurse a casual (truthful) question (1), he deceptively implicates to her that he has a feeling that he has forgotten something but does not know what it is. Overall, three combinations of speaker meaning involving deceptive implicatures have been distinguished here: truthful what is said promoting deceptive implicature, covertly untruthful what is said (including believed-false asserting, i.e. lying) inviting covertly untruthful implicature, and making as if to say (originating in flouting the first maxim of Quality) conducive to covertly untruthful implicature or even two layers of such implicatures. Whilst some authors have considered deceptive implicatures to be “­ indirect lies” (Thomas 1996; Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Vincent Marrelli 2004; Meibauer 2014a), the prevailing view is that implicatures must be unequivocally

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 287

dissociated from lies, inasmuch as they are never stated or asserted (Siegler 1966; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Simpson 1992; Adler 1997; Mahon 2008a, 2015; Fallis 2009, 2012; Saul 2012; Stokke 2013a, 2013b, 2014). Here, it is proposed that the two forms of deception are essentially distinct, but deceptive implicature arising as the central speaker meaning from making as if to say (consequent upon the flouting of the first maxim of Quality) can be conceived as non-prototypical lying. The salient category of deceptive implicature, associated with the use of irony and metaphor (as the most crucial representatives of the Quality-based figures), will be the focus of attention now.

3.2 Deceptive implicatures based on irony or metaphor The fact that irony may serve deception has been recognised in the literature (Simpson 1992; Meibauer 2005, 2014a; Mahon 2015). For example, Mahon (2015) observes that deception via irony is possible while making a general claim about deception performed with the use of a truthful statement that is not an assertion, which amounts to “telling the truth falsely” (Frank 2009: 57). Mahon (2015) illustrates this with the example of a man who stole some money, and when asked if he did, replies, “Yeah, right, of course I did”. In this vein, following Falkenberg (1982: 126), Meibauer (2005: 1394, 2014a: 166, see also Kapogianni 2013, 2016b) provides a similar example inspired by Agatha Christie’s Why didn’t they ask Evans?. A man crashes into the wall in order to deceive others that he has had a traffic accident; a witness comments “Jesus! Did you have a traffic accident?” to which the former replies, “No. I crashed into the wall deliberately”. Meibauer (2005: 1394, 2014a: 167)25 explains that the speaker “dissociates himself from the possibility that someone crashes into the wall deliberately” given “the standard expectation that no one crashes into a wall deliberately”. At the same time, Meibauer (2005, 2014a) proposes that the speaker’s true proposition promotes a false implicature along the lines of “I didn’t do it deliberately”. This instance can also be analysed as a modified version of what Kapogianni (2014: 600) calls “meaning replacement irony”, whose hallmark is “lack of semantic relationship between what is expressed and what is intended”, as a result of which “the intended proposition (always some sort of negative evaluation towards a previous utterance [...]) completely replaces the expressed proposition”. Specifically, it may be argued that, apart from intending to deceive the hearer by means of

25 He considers this instance not only as a false implicature, but also as “lying while being ironical” (see Section 3.3 below).

288 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

the intermediate reversal-based implicature along the lines of “Of course I didn’t crash into the wall deliberately!”, the speaker intends to convey the central critical implicature, which can be formulated as “What a stupid question!”. Needless to say, this implicature is also covertly untruthful, and thus deceptive (for the question is actually well-founded given the circumstances and the ironic speaker must believe it to be such). Although propositional meaning reversal is involved, the implicature “I did not crash into the wall deliberately” is just a stepping stone leading to the central evaluative implicature which concerns the interlocutor’s prior turn. The presence of this kind of implicature is the definitional component of irony. Here are two examples taken from House based on propositional meaning reversal irony. The first one is based on a covertly truthful assertion, whose truthfulness is quickly revealed to the deceived hearer. (32) [The team has been trying to diagnose a teenage patient, with the likely suspect being multiple sclerosis (MS). The previous night the boy escaped to the roof. Doctors Cameron and Chase are in House’s office. House enters.] 1. House: Anybody tell the family that their boy almost stepped off a roof? They must be thrilled. 2. Cameron: They’re not suing, but I think only because Chase asked them. 3. House: Why does everyone always think I’m being sarcastic? This is great news! He doesn’t have MS. The parents should be thrilled, well, the mom anyway. Of course, the dad probably doesn’t know… 4. Foreman: Why doesn’t he have MS? 5. House: He was on the roof thinking he was on the lacrosse field, conscious, and therefore not a night terror [...] Season 1, Episode 2 This interaction opens with House’s turn (1) that seems to involve irony in “They must be thrilled” in the light of widely available knowledge (i.e. any patient’s parents must be shocked to hear that their son nearly fell off the hospital roof, blaming the doctors for allowing this to happen). Consequently, House appears to be implicating “The parents must be furious”, as well as implicating his criticism of the team “It was incompetent of you to leave him unattended”, which at least Cameron understands (2). In his next turn (3), House (deceptively) implicates that he has been misunderstood and that his previous utterance is not meant to have been ironic (in lay metapragmatic terms, “sarcastic”). House claims to have been suggesting that the parents must be happy that the patient is not suffering from the serious disease the doctors had suspected. Even though from his perspective, the news about the incident is indeed “great” (3), House must be deceiving the hearers into believing that he did not design his previous utterance to be taken

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 289

as irony. This is because the parents, as House is well aware, could not possibly have concluded from the fact that their son had climbed to the roof and had nearly fallen from it that he is not suffering from a serious disease (MS). This medical diagnosis is not even obvious to the doctors (4). House can be considered to have designed his utterance “They must be thrilled” as irony only to later deceptively deny, and thereby uncover, the deception underlying this proposition, post factum presented as being truthful rather than being overtly untruthful. The result of the deceptive use of irony (the hearer’s false belief) obtains only until House’s next turn is performed, when the ironic proposition turns out to have been truthful what is said (an assertion). Presumably, House carries out the entire deceptive act for the sake of superiority-driven self-amusement (see Chapter 5, Section 3.2.2). Example 33 is different from Example 32 in the sense that it does not involve a truthful assertion hiding under irony. (33) [House has kidnapped an actor (called Evan) who is featured in his favourite medical soap opera in order to diagnose him. House has just finished running the tests. Forman is in the room.] 1. Evan: What’s the test say? 2. House: As I suspected, you have significant losses in the upper right quadrant of your visual field. 3. Evan: Are you serious? 4. House: No, it’s a joke. Two guys go into a bar and one has significant losses in the upper right quadrant of his visual field. And the other one says, ‘You’re gonna need an MRI to confirm the type and location of the tumor.’ 5. Foreman: That readout says his vision’s fine. 6. House: No, it doesn’t. 7. Foreman: Yes, it does. 8. Evan: You lied to me? 9. House: I kidnapped you. You’re surprised that I lied to you? [Evan jumps out of the chair and grabs his jacket.] It just means that the symptoms are intermittent. Season 4, Episode 14 In response to the patient’s question that expresses his doubt about the diagnosis (3), House contributes a turn which appears to involve irony (4). Deploying the expression “No, it’s a joke”, House implicates the seriousness/truthfulness of the proposition he has made. As if for the sake of wordplay on the word “joke”, House does produce a narrative that resembles a canned joke. However, this narration is actually relevant to the context at hand and tacitly communicates a message that testifies to the adequacy of House’s diagnosis. Nonetheless,

290 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

in the interaction that ensues (5–9), it emerges that House’s whole turn has been deceptive, and most importantly here, the irony has been used deceptively. The patient is successfully deceived, as devised by House, until Foreman steps in (5). Technically, uttering “No, it’s a joke” (4), House means the addressee to glean the meaning that he is criticising the latter for questioning his medical judgement or honesty (this is what “Are you serious?” (3) communicates rather than signalling the interlocutor’s jocular intent, as an alternative reading of “a joke” might suggest). House’s utterance, “it’s a joke”, is then to be interpreted as being overtly untruthful. It necessitates propositional meaning reversal and invites an implicature “Of course, it is not a joke; I am serious/­truthful”. This level of meaning, in turn, fosters a negatively evaluative implicature along the lines of “Your question is silly”. Both the implicatures are deceptive (i.e. covertly untruthful) and involve the violation of the first maxim of Quality inasmuch as House believes himself not to have been truthful and the man’s question not to have been silly. Needless to say, other forms of irony (see Chapter 3, Section 6) can also mesh with deception. Here is an example of pragmatic meaning reversal irony that serves deception. (34) [Earlier in this episode, House made a bet with Wilson that a boxer, Foley, would win. Given that Foley lost, not even putting up a fight, House is intent on proving that the boxer is ill. House has just had Foley undergo an EKG test, which shows nothing worrying.] 1. House: One normal EKG does not a healthy person make. 2. Foley: Look, I told you I just suck. 3. House: Oh, you make me so sad. Don’t talk like that. 4. Foley: [turns to face House] Why do you care so much? 5. House: Kill me for loving my patients! It’s just what I do. 6. Foley: [snorts and takes off down the hall] Season 7, Episode 21 What the regular viewers of the series are well aware of is that House is not a doctor with a bedside manner, and he regards his patients’ illnesses merely as riddles to solve. This is also the case with Foley, about whom House has made a bet and in whose disease he now has a vested interest, of which the viewers are also cognisant. Therefore, they will be privy to the information that the irony that House produces when saying “Kill me for loving my patients” (5) is actually meant to deceive the addressee, even though this goal does not seem to be attained, as is evidenced by the patient’s non-verbal reaction (6). In other words, Foley senses the covert untruthfulness. In technical terms, the ironic imperative “Kill me for loving my patients” (5) includes hyperbolic words (“kill” and “love”), which rely on the flouting of the

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 291

first maxim of Quality independent of the irony. The first-level implicature will then read “Do criticise me for caring about my patients!”. Thereby, the speaker overtly pretends to be making this request, and the pragmatic force of the overtly untruthful imperative needs to be reversed. Once this overtly untruthful ironic expression is eliminated, based on pragmatic meaning reversal, the intermediate implicature may read along the lines of “Don’t criticise me for caring about my patients”. Ultimately, the central evaluative implicature, which the addressee is intended to appreciate, is “Your query is silly/unfounded; I care about you just like I care about other patients”. Both of these implicated propositions involve covert untruthfulness and the violation of the first maxim of Quality. (House does believe the patient’s query to be well-founded, and he does not care about his patients.) The second-order complications aside, this example rests on overtly untruthful making as if to say and covertly untruthful implicature arising from it. The co-occurrence of deception and metaphor, unlike irony, does not seem to have been the focus of academic attention. However, Saul (2012: 16) presents the following instance of a deceptive metaphor when arguing against lying via metaphor: “We’ve got tomatoes coming out of our ears” said by a gardener who has had a bad crop but wishes to hide this fact. Unfortunately, Saul (2012) does not account for the workings of this utterance, merely stating that it is not tantamount to lying in her approach even though “intuitively, we would judge it to be one” (2012: 16). Incidentally, this example seems to rely on not only a metaphor but also a hyperbole. What the gardener implicates by dint of the metaphoricalhyperbolic overt untruthfulness is “We’ve got a very abundant crop of tomatoes”. This implicature centres on the violation of the first maxim of Quality and is covertly untruthful, and therefore deceptive. Here is a complex example of a deceptive use of metaphor taken from House. (35) [House and Wilson have recently moved into a new flat together, as neither of them is currently in a relationship with a woman. They have a female neighbour, Nora, who suspects they are gay based on a previous interaction with Wilson, who zealously denied her assumption. Both men find Nora very attractive. House now meets Nora, as she is opening her mailbox.] 1. House: 3-B? You’re Nora, right? My roommate tells me you’re the one to thank for all the tips about the neighborhood. Greg. [smiles fully and extends his hand before opening the mail box for 3-F] 2. Nora: Nice to meet you. 3. House: I hear you thought that Wilson and I liked to polish each other’s swords, and by swords, I mean pistols. 4. Nora: Of course he told you about that. Season 6, Episode 11

292 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

This intriguing interaction is based on House’s double bluff that involves different forms of verbal and non-verbal deception meant to induce in the neighbour a false belief that he is in a homosexual relationship with Wilson and that he is ineptly trying to conceal this fact. House’s underlying goal (which emerges later in this episode) is to seduce Nora when she least expects it. Most importantly, House resorts to the conventional practice of creating a metaphor-based codefor-gay expression (3). This metaphorical expression (naturally centred on overt untruthfulness) does not coincide with the full propositional content of the utterance (unlike in Examples 32, 33, and 34). Once the metaphor, which compares male intromittent organs to two types of weapons, is elucidated, House’s utterance (3) may read “I hear you thought that Wilson and I like to have homosexual intercourse”. This essentially truthful implicated meaning, in turn, serves as the basis for the key implicature “Your assumption is wrong; it is not the case that we have a homosexual relationship”. Again, this is a truthful implicature, but the speaker intends it to be retroactively taken to be meant as covertly untruthful but recognised by the hearer contrary to his (the speaker’s) intention (in the light of his non-verbal signals), whilst not being held accountable for this intention. This implicature thus shows no maxim violation, but the addressee is led to falsely believe that it does, which is how the truthful implicature is used for deceptive purposes. It must be stressed that the metaphor performs a subordinate role to the deceptive implicature and is not directly responsible for the deception. This stands in contrast to Example 32, where the translation of the ironic making as if to say into the intended implicature coincides with the untruthful proposition. Yet another complicated example rests on a combination of metaphor and, seemingly, irony, which serves deception. (36) [House is going through Vicodin detox. He is in his room, lying on his bed still playing with his toy. Voldemort, a male nurse, walks in with House’s medicine.] 1. House: Pick a colour. 2. Voldemort: [ignores him and hands him the meds] Medication time. 3. House: [opens the toy up and reads Voldemort his fortune] You are a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. [House takes his meds. Voldemort walks out.] [Later on, House admits to Wilson that Voldemort has been bringing him Vicodin.] Season 3, Episode 11 House’s utterance addressed to the male nurse (3) is very complex, comprising several layers of meaning. First of all, when House ostensibly ‘reads’ the message, it is quite transparent that he is actually its author, given its relevance to the addressee.

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 293

This ‘read-out’ utterance is couched in a metaphor, with the implicated meaning reading “You give some hope/joy when there is none around”. Given the context (Voldemort is not very talkative and merely performs his duty), this meaning must be seen as an as if implicature that contains irony. Thus, the ultimate message is “You give no hope/joy, which I dislike”. However, with the benefit of hindsight, it turns out that the speaker has communicated no such implicature, at least not to Voldemort, who has been in on House’s scheme. Thus, whilst House’s utterance is indeed metaphorical (maxim flouting does occur) and positively evaluative, it is not genuinely ironic. The ironic interpretation is ­deceptively enforced in order to deceive anybody who is listening (except for Voldemort) and will infer the covertly untruthful implicature.26 It is time to take stock. In Gricean terms, producing a Quality-based figurative utterance, the speaker means the hearer to recognise the fact that the words uttered do not correspond to the (intended) speaker meaning and constitute making as if to say (except for verisimilar irony). The hearer is thereby invited to derive an implicature based on maxim flouting with no what is said being present. The implicature emerges through regular flouting of the first Quality maxim (overt untruthfulness) typical of non-deceptive language use. However, this implicature, which is a translation of the figurative expression into a literal one, can carry deception either in itself or in another implicature (and further implicatures) that it promotes. In other words, the implicated meaning originating in a Quality-based figure (sometimes involving another intermediate implicature when two figures are piggy-backed) may as such be truthful but serve as a springboard for deception, for example via another implicature or double bluffing. Essentially, any deceptive (covertly untruthful) implicature pivots on the violation of the first maxim of Quality, to which the hearer should be oblivious for the deception to succeed. Interestingly, in some cases of the deceptive use of Quality-based figures, a most uncanny situation takes place (as in Example 32).27 The speaker produces an utterance that is meant to be recognised as ironic or metaphorical, that is overtly untruthful, whilst concealing the fact that the utterance is, in actual fact, truthful. In other words, the speaker produces (overtly untruthful) making as if to say when covertly delivering truthful what is said (typically, in the form of an assertion),

26 It is primarily the viewer who is deceived. It is difficult to tell if there is any other hearer in this interaction. 27 Example 33 cannot be given here, since House’s reply is anchored in the polysemous and ambivalent word “joke”, which tends to be equated with a category of humour or any kind of playful/humorous non-truthfulness for its own sake (see Chapter 5, Section 1.1). In any case, “No, it’s a joke” cannot be seen as a truthful assertion pertaining to what House has said previously.

294 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

inasmuch as the first maxim of Quality is covertly observed. Thereby, the speaker says what he/she believes to be true but deceptively invites the hearer to draw an inference that he/she is overtly untruthful. This is something that Vincent Marrelli (2004: 119) dubs “pretending to be ‘flouting’”, which involves a violation as a higher-order goal. To narrow down the nature of this flouting, this peculiar ­strategy can be dubbed covert pretending to make as if to say. This is the type of pretence of which the hearer is not made aware for the sake of the deception.

3.3 Non-prototypical lying or deceiving by implicating? A few researchers posit that it is not just deception but its specific form, namely lying, that can be performed by means of implicature arising from irony (Simpson 1992; Meibauer 2005, 2014a; Viebahn 2017). Moreover, Meibauer (2014a) proposes the same for tautology, hyperbole and understatement. Nonetheless, the prevailing assumption is that irony, as well as metaphor, meiosis or hyperbole, does not reside in assertions (e.g. Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Williams 2002; Soames 2008; Stokke 2013a, 2014; Barker 2017), whereas lies, as traditionally defined, need to be anchored in assertions (e.g. Mannison 1969; Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Kupfer 1982; Adler 1997; Williams 2002; Sorensen 2007; Faulkner 2007; Mahon 2008a, 2015; Fallis 2009, 2010, 2012; Stokke 2013a). Therefore, this traditional assertion-based view of lying disqualifies untruthful implicatures rooted in Quality-based figures as being lies. This is also a tacit assumption in the works that are supportive of the assertion condition even if they should not explicitly address the status of figures. A generalisation is also frequently made by default that deceptive implicatures are not tantamount to lies (Fallis 2009, 2012; Stokke 2013a, 2014, 2016a). Also, from the research that explicitly discriminates between irony or metaphor and lying (see Chapter 1, Section 4), one can extrapolate a logical conclusion that a lie cannot stem from irony or metaphor. A few authors make this point explicitly when they appreciate the fact that irony or metaphor and deception may actually mesh (Saul 2012; Stokke 2016a). It must be emphasised that most authors simply make an a priori assumption that lies must be assertions (Meibauer 2014a) rather than pondering the characteristics of deceptive irony (and the other figures) that determine whether or not they can constitute lying. For example, differentiating between figurative language use and lying, Saul (2012) indicates that lies cannot be told in non-literal language, that is via implicatures. Saul (2012: 12, italics in original) insists that what she is ­interested in “is lying as opposed to misleading, a notion for which what is actually said is crucial. Once we recall this, it no longer seems so problematic to rule out lying via metaphor”. Saul (2012) also takes “deception” to be the blanket term that covers lying and misleading, for example by means of metaphor. On the other

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 295

hand, the proposals that conceive of implicatures based on irony or metaphor as lies may also be considered unconvincing. Simpson (1992) claims that the speaker may “lie ironically” or “indirectly”. This takes place when the speaker presents “himself as insincerely asserting” and “as not committed to what he says, and is insincere in this” (Simpson 1992: 630). As a result of proposing that one can lie via irony, Simpson (1992: 630) comes up with a notion of an “indirect assertion (or in-effect assertion)” (see also Keiser 2016; Viebahn 2017). Overall, neither of these contradictory claims is properly validated or supported by substantial arguments. Viebahn (2017: 4) rightly observes that figure-based non-literal speech acts amount to “non-literal lies” since the speakers “intend to communicate only things they believe to be false”, not communicating anything truthful in addition, and the speech acts “do not permit responses to accusations of lying that are possible in cases of mere misleading”. Claiming that additive implicatures (those added to what is said) are not based on the speaker’s commitment, Viebahn (2017) states that substitutional implicatures (based on making as if to say) do involve the speaker’s commitment and can be conceptualised as assertions, if defined according to commitment-based accounts. Thus, speakers lie if they believe the propositions in substitutional implicatures to be false. The main problem with this account is that commitment is not the sole defining feature of an assertion, and the bold (and unsupported) claim that implicated meanings are assertions (or that assertions need not coincide with what is said) stands in stark contrast to the prevalent assumption endorsed by philosophers. For his part, Meibauer (2005, 2011, 2014a, 2016a) champions a view that implicatures (not only those related to tropes) qualify as lies, for which he gives a number of arguments.28 Meibauer rightly observes that “conversational implicatures are additional propositions” and “these propositions should be

28 Apart from giving the main reasons cited here, Meibauer (2014a: 136) states that “since in a Gricean framework tropes are interpreted on the basis of maxims, this seems to prove the point that lying (sic) while using false implicatures is a case of lying”. This argument appears to be somewhat elusive. It is difficult to tell why the fact that figures of speech are based on maxims (specifically, involving maxim floutings) should “prove the point” that false implicatures count as lies (Dynel 2015). Addressing this criticism, Meibauer (2016a: 12) elucidates that he did not mean to suggest that “this can explain anything; conversely, since Grice interprets tropes as maxim floutings, my approach can model this in a coherent way, at least to some degree”. He thus argues that there must be a systematic link between the proposition encoded in the literal meaning of an utterance and the proposition arising as the implicature/meaning of a trope, both constituting Grice’s “total signification”. However, the pending query is whether this systematic link is reason enough to see deceptive implicatures as lies. Although Grice’s framework can indeed be extended to capture implicatures serving deception, there are several differences between what is said and what is implicated, which may have a bearing on how the deceptive meanings conveyed by either should be conceptualised technically in deception theory.

296 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

either true [truthful] or false [believed false]” (2005: 1380, 2011: 285, 2016a: 13). Indeed, implicatures, once computed from what is said or made as if to say (which may necessitate a few inferential steps), typically take the form of literal propositions, and these propositions may be truthful or deceptive. However, implicatures are not assertions, as Meibauer (2016a) also concedes. Meibauer, however, consistently maintains that false implicatures are “bound to assertions” and are “directly intended” (2005: 1382, 2011: 285, 2014a: 136, 2016a: 12) in the sense that without a given assertion, a relevant implicature will not arise (Meibauer, private communication). This proposal raises a few doubts. Firstly, one implicature may be generated from a number of different utterances, whether or not they are assertions. More importantly, not all implicatures originate in assertions, with some being rooted in utterance forms other than statements. What is most significant here is that apart from not being assertions, implicatures based on irony or metaphor cannot stem from assertions either (except for verisimilar irony) but only from overtly pretended assertions (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Williams 2002; Soames 2008; Stokke 2013a; Barker 2017; see also Viebahn 2017). Furthermore, (un)truthful implicatures arising from the Quality-based figures addressed here may hinge on utterances other than overtly pretended assertions. For instance, irony may reside in overtly untruthful questions or interjections (see Chapter 3, Section 6.2), and these can also give rise to covert untruthful implicatures. Meibauer (2016a) does acknowledge this, but he is adamant that implicatures are typically based on asserting in the case of lies. Thereby, it seems, Meibauer (2016a) narrows down the scope of his proposal: implicatures based on assertions (but not other utterance types/speech acts) can be classified as lies. This would exclude many metaphorical or ironic deceptive implicatures. Meibauer (2005, 2014a) regards assertion-based implicatures as lies, illustrating his proposal with the example of irony inspired by Agatha Christie’s novel. It is indeed the case that deceptive irony may pivot on asserting, but this is a special type of asserting. The speaker deceptively conceals the assertion from the deceived hearer so that the latter should take it as an overtly untruthful utterance (an overtly pretended assertion) and look for an implicature, which is covertly untruthful. In conclusion, following Meibauer’s train of thought, only some of this implicating could count as lies (contrary to the proposal he makes at the outset), namely that which coincides with covert asserting. This is not the only form of irony-based deceptive implicating. As regards Meibauer’s (2005, 2011, 2014a, 2016a) “direct intention” claim, the pivotal feature of implicature, as conceptualised by Grice, is indeed that it is a type of speaker-intended meaning next to what is said. However, this does not suffice as the reason why deceptive implicatures are to be seen as lies, especially given that implicatures can be cancelled. In defence of his view, Meibauer (2014a: 125)

3 Covertly untruthful implicature 

 297

insists that the cancellation of false implicatures may not be convincing or plausible in many situations, insofar as “q [implicature] is intimately connected to p [statement] and the calculation of q is evidently intended by the speaker”. This is consonant with Adler’s (1997: 446) claim that “in falsely implicating, rather than lying, the outcome is still directly intended, not merely a foreseen consequence”. Indeed, some implicatures are not amenable to plausible cancellation (even though a speaker can sometimes adamantly insist that his/her intentions have been ­otherwise), but this does not appear to be the consequence of the strong connection between the two levels of meaning and the fact that implicatures are bound to assertions, as Meibauer (2016a) insists. It is rather the matter of the implicatures being “primary meanings”, as will be argued below. Whether or not all deceptive implicatures can be regarded as lies is open to doubt. Nonetheless, a hypothesis is put forward here that statements (but not other utterance forms) carrying covertly untruthful implicatures anchored in the rhetorical figures that revolve around the floutings of the first maxim of Quality can be conceived as non-prototypical lies which involve covert implicit ­untruthfulness. Therefore, although prototypical lying arises at the level of what is said that coincides with an assertion violating the first maxim of Quality, a crucial addition is made that sometimes this violation may concern the level of making as if to say and the emergent implicature. The implicature must be anchored in the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, epitomised by metaphor and irony (and the other Quality-based figures: meiosis and hyperbole discussed in Section 7) used in statements. This kind of implicature qualifies as lying, whether or not the making as if to say that promotes it coincides with covert asserting. The reason for classifying covertly untruthful implicatures stemming from the two Quality-based figures (irony and metaphor) as non-prototypical lies is due to the criterion of cancellability (see also Meibauer 2014a; Viebahn 2017), a standard property of implicatures (Grice 1989b [1978]; see also Sullivan 2017). Cancellability is crucial for deceptive implicatures, since the speaker enjoys the right to withdraw them, should the deception be detected by the deceived hearer, unlike in the case of standard assertion-based lies, whose cancellation leads to contradiction. Nonetheless, in practice, implicatures promoted by ironic and metaphorical language use are not amenable to easy cancellation, insofar as they are primary meanings. As Jaszczolt (2009) convincingly explains, strongly intended implicit meanings often surface as primary meanings (intended by the model speaker and recovered by the model hearer). These meanings may not lend themselves to unproblematic cancellation. However, this does not affect their status as regular implicatures, which are juxtaposed with what is said. This is because even if implicatures cannot be cancelled explicitly by adding “but not p”

298 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(Grice 1989b [1978]: 44), they will be subject to the alternative test for implicatures: contextual cancellability (Jaszczolt 2009). In other words, there will be an imaginable situation in which the implicature will not arise (Grice 1989b [1978]: 44). Fulfilling one of these conditions, an implicit meaning will still count as an implicature, a layer of meaning distinct from what is said, its strength and lack of liability to explicit cancellability notwithstanding. The fact that some ­implicatures are not subject to explicit cancellation alone does not suffice to draw a conclusion that, if untruthful, they should be classified as lies. What seems crucial for making this claim is the primacy of these implicated meanings. This primacy is typically coupled with lack of an alternative meaning that could take the position of the intended meaning within the “total signification” (Grice 1989b [1978]: 41). Quality-based implicatures are substitutional implicatures rather than additive implicatures, which arise next to what is said (see Meibauer 2006; Dinges 2015; Viebahn 2017). The alleged truthfulness of “what is said”, initially absent but potentially claimed with the benefit of hindsight by the deceptive speaker, is simply untenable (being absurd or nonsensical, whether in general terms or in a given context), whilst an alternative implicature cannot be plausibly generated either. Therefore, should the speaker wish to retract a deceptive implicature, his/her denial will hardly sound plausible, taking into account the salience of the original implicature and lack of what is said or implicature that could serve as an alternative meaning. Thanks to these characteristics, deceptive implicatures stemming from the use of Quality-based figures bear a strong similarity to mendacious assertions, even though they are not assertions per se (see Viebahn 2017). This deceptive implicature-as-lying postulate does not concern other maxim floutings inasmuch as, in those cases, the deceptive implicatures are piggybacked on what is said, whether truthful or mendacious on its own (for the different combinations, see Meibauer 2014a). When what is said constitutes part of speaker meaning, even if not the most crucial part, a deceptive implicature may be successfully cancelled and what is said can be presented as the sole speaker meaning. A few disclaimers are in order. Interestingly, the implicatures that might pass the explicit cancellability test are those originating from metaphors with more than one possible interpretation (e.g. in poetry). However, such metaphors with multiple implicated meanings will hardly be used for deceptive purposes, as they offer little guarantee of the deception’s success. Noteworthy is the class of metaphor-based or irony-based implicatures residing in covertly made assertions. The explicit cancellability of such implicatures might be considered feasible thanks to the alternative interpretation in the form of (truthful) what is said, however uncanny a meaning it may be. In practice, caught red-handed in an act of deceiving, the speaker may mendaciously claim that the hearer has wrongly

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 299

interpreted the utterance as being ironic. However, the covertly untruthful implicature is still the primary intended meaning, which is why it may be deemed lying, albeit anchored in a truthful assertion. Finally, it must be underscored that the account of lying based on ironic and metaphorical implicating does not encompass cases where the implicature arising from the figurative language use is truthful but serves as a departure point for another level of meaning conducive to deception such as a double bluff.

4 Deceptively withholding information As Kant observed, humans have a tendency to “withhold” one’s own thoughts, “a nice quality that does not fail to progress gradually from dissimulation [i.e. concealment or reticence, as paraphrased by Mahon (2009)] to deception and finally to lying” (1974 [1798]: 32). Lying necessitates withholding information (Galasiński 2000; Fallis forth1), and the same can be said about deception taken as a whole. In other words, withholding information is crucial for deception in its various forms and guises. This is because the deceptive speaker must keep covert some information which he/she believes to be true. Also, the speaker needs to keep covert the very act of deceiving that is being performed or has been performed as long as the speaker wants to sustain a false belief in the targeted hearer. This may be done by means of lying and other forms of deception (Carson 2010). However, an act of what is called here deceptively withholding information, or simply ­withholding information (Mahon 2008a, 2015), may be used strategically as a source of deception per se, that is as a source of inviting or sustaining a false belief in the targeted hearer. The label “withholding information” is used as technical shorthand for the more adequate, albeit wordy, term “withholding the expression of one’s (true) beliefs”, which is an important manifestation of covert untruthfulness (inherently associated with the speaker’s beliefs rather than objective falsehood), and hence deception, which is related to sustaining or encouraging the hearer’s false belief.

4.1 Withholding information (non)deceptively It must be emphasised that not all withholding information is tantamount to deception. As Aquinas rightly observed, “it is possible for one to conceal his own sin without deceiving” (1972: 173, see also the quotation from Kant above). More­ over, Carson (2010: 46) sees “withholding information” as distinct from deception, as “merely a case of failing to correct false beliefs or incomplete information”.

300 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

However, what seems to matter most when passing judgement on this situation is the epistemic goal that the “information withholder” has. Contrary to what Carson suggests, failing to correct false beliefs or providing incomplete information may actually sustain or promote (respectively) the hearer’s false beliefs, thereby being conducive to deception. On the other hand, failing to furnish a person with some information may just leave that person in a state of ­ignorance or obliviousness. A little more serious in consequences, yet not tantamount to deception either, is an act of keeping someone in the dark (Carson 2010; Fallis forth2). According to Fallis (forth2), it can be equated with the notion of keeping a secret as discussed by (Bok 1983) and Mahon (2009). Keeping a secret involves intentionally blocking some information or evidence from someone (Bok 1983). Mahon states, “[o]ne may intentionally keep information (or believedinformation) from others simply because one believes that sharing information (or believed-information) is not required, in the context of the conversation (or more generally, the interaction) that one is having” (2009: 22). Only if such information is required does keeping a secret come into being, thereby going beyond mere “reticence” or “reserve” (Mahon 2009: 28). Additionally, one may keep people in the dark even if no conversation is held at all (Fallis forth2). In the technical sense advocated by Carson (2010: 54), keeping someone in the dark means preventing this person from learning something or failing to inform the latter about something. This happens, in his view, necessarily in a context when either the speaker knows that the hearer wants the information or the speaker, given his/her role or position, is expected to provide the information to the hearer. Carson (2010: 54) unequivocally distinguishes deception from “keeping someone in the dark”, but he concedes that one may keep another person in the dark “by means of lying and/or deception”. For his part, Fallis (forth2) proposes that keeping someone in the dark means intentionally leaving them without a true belief. Fallis (forth2), therefore, suggests that keeping someone in the dark is similar to deceiving, but the two show different epistemic goals, namely leaving the hearer without a true belief vs inviting the hearer’s false belief respectively. He also lists several similarities and differences between keeping someone in the dark and deceiving someone). Interestingly, Fallis (forth2) discusses withholding information as a means of keeping someone in the dark, not an act of deception. Overall, people do not need to tell one another everything (which would be impracticable anyway), whether or not this should qualify as keeping someone in the dark. In other words, rather than causing a hearer to (continue to) have a false belief, and thereby deceive, a speaker who keeps some information to himself/ herself may only prevent the hearer from developing a “true belief” (Carson 2006: 56) or may not cause any belief at all in the hearer (Mahon 2006, 2007, 2008a). As Mahon (2007: 187) summarises the issue, “[s]o long as a person does not

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 301

acquire, or does not continue to have, a false belief, then allowing that person to remain ignorant, or allowing that person to become ignorant, or keeping that person ignorant, or making that person ignorant, is not deceiving that person”. Following this train of thought, only an act of withholding information that promotes or sustains the hearer’s false belief can be perceived as deception, which is in accord with the essential conditions for all deception (see Nyberg 1993: 74; Mahon 2007). What is noteworthy is that the hearer’s ultimate false belief may be only kept in the background rather than being consciously nurtured. Most importantly, what determines the deceptiveness of withholding information is the speaker’s intention to foster or sustain the hearer’s false belief. This aspect of intention helps distinguish between deception, which is intentional but may be unsuccessful (and hence the hearer does not have a false belief), and misleading, which is inadvertent. Moreover, the very act of deceptively withholding information must be covert. In other words, the hearer cannot be aware that some information is deliberately not revealed to him/her. Here is an example of nondeceptively withholding information, to which the hearer is privy. (37) [House and his team are brainstorming.] 1. House: [searching through some books on his shelves] What does the seizure tell us? [turns around to see Chase leaning against the desk] Move. 2. Cameron: What are you looking for? 3. House: Same as you... love, acceptance, solid return on investment. [going through the papers on the desk] Differential diagnosis, go. Season 2, Episode 12 House gives an evasive, humorous reply (3) to Cameron’s question concerning his current non-verbal activity (2). Cameron is thus openly left in the dark but not deceived. What she, as well as the other team members (who have not posed any query and may not be as inquisitive as Cameron), can infer is that House is reluctant to reveal why he is rummaging through his things. This is the only belief, a true one at that, which the hearers can develop in the light of what House says and keeps to himself. Moreover, distinguishing between being deceived and merely being kept in ignorance seems to depend partly on whether a given matter is crucial for an individual and whether, oblivious to the information (the speaker’s belief), the hearer does or does not develop a belief he/she would like to have. As Carson (2010: 56) puts it, “withholding information can constitute deception if there is a clear expectation, promise, and/or professional obligation that such information will be provided”. What seems to matter then is the “relevance” (Castelfranchi and Poggi 1994) of the withheld information for the hearer, of

302 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

which the speaker is cognisant. In other words, deception may come into being if a piece of ­information vital from the hearer’s perspective remains unavailable to him/her as a result of the speaker’s purposeful communicative action or inaction. Let us illustrate this point with an example that Mahon (2007: 187) gives when discussing non-deceptive keeping an individual in ignorance: a person hides a newspaper which contains information about a discovery of a new bird species, as a result of which another person is merely oblivious to the ­discovery. It may be argued, however, that if the other person is an ornithologist preoccupied with discovering a new species of bird in the same area, this act, if performed purposefully, will be a matter of deception, for the party concerned will nurture a belief that no new species has been discovered and will continue searching for it (until he/she reads the new journal report). In conclusion, it is the relevance of the withheld information, necessarily coupled with the intention to encourage/sustain a false belief in the targeted hearer, that may be claimed to constitute the jointly sufficient condition for deceptively withholding information. Example 38 meets only one part of this condition, and thus it does not qualify as deception. (38) [In the clinic, House, who is now dating Lisa Cuddy, is reading results and writing on a chart.] 1. House: EKG’s unremarkable, thyroid, liver, and kidney function seems fine. You’re perfectly healthy. [The camera pans and we see a blonde woman in her sixties, dressed in pink, very elegant, listening to him intently.] 2. Woman: I wish that you would take a second look. I’m tired all the time, and when it’s cold, I get this weird pain in my shoulder. 3. House: I have a pain in my leg. You don’t hear me complaining… [small smile] Except for just now. 4. Woman: How do doctors get this idea “you’re better than everyone else”? 5. House: Probably all that pulling people back from the brink of death. It’s just a guess. 6. Woman: My own daughter is a doctor. She makes a hobby of dismissing my concerns. 7. House: [smiles again and starts to leave] She sounds smart. 8. Woman: Did she tell you to say that? 9. House: [scoffs and stops at the door] I’ve never met your daughter. 10. Woman: That’s hard to believe, since you’re currently shtupping her. [turns back to House, who looks stunned] Season 7, Episode 9

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 303

House cannot possibly presuppose that the woman is anybody but an ordinary clinic patient, which is the source of his false belief. Only at the end of the quoted interaction (10) can he infer that he has been examining his girlfriend’s mother. Although House will consider the information to be of crucial significance, of which the woman might be aware, his staying oblivious to it until the end of this interaction (11) cannot be deemed the result of an act of deception performed by the woman. Specifically, the woman’s failure to state at the outset that she is Lisa Cuddy’s mother cannot be taken as an act of deception, being more a matter of misleading. This is because she seems to believe (8) that the interlocutor is already cognisant of who she is, suspecting that her daughter has already warned House that she is coming to the clinic. Also, she may expect that the doctor paid attention to the familiar surname when reading her EKG results. Therefore, she feels no need to introduce herself and mentions her daughter rather casually (8) as she has repartee with the interlocutor, as if they both know who the daughter is. 4.2 Withholding information and similar notions Several concepts appear to be related to deceptively withholding information. Addressed independently in the literature, upon a closer inspection, the different terms depicted below denote the same phenomenon, or at least they seem to show similarities. Some of the notions may be considered particular subtypes of deceptively withholding information. A number of authors talk about concealment (Ekman 1985; Castelfranchi and Poggi 1994: 284; Burgoon et al. 1996), which looks like a label synonymous with withholding information. Nonetheless, Fallis (forth2) regards concealing information as the main way of (non-deceptive) keeping someone in the dark, whereas Carson (2010: 46) states that concealing information often constitutes deception. Carson (2010) differentiates between withholding information and ­concealing information, which is hiding information from someone so that they should not discover it, which also frequently amounts to an act of deception. As an example of this phenomenon, Carson (2010: 57) presents the case of a car owner who covers the rust with paint before selling the car to a client in order to make the latter falsely believe that the body is free of rust. By contrast, an example of withholding information that Carson (2010: 57) provides is as follows: a person is selling a car that, as he knows, will not start in cold weather; the buyer arrives on a warm day, when the car starts with no problems, and concludes (not asking any questions and not getting any information) that the car starts well, regardless of weather conditions. Although Carson (2010) suggests that withholding

304 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

information can lead to deception, he claims that this particular instance does not amount to deception (as opposed to running the car for an hour to warm it up before the prospective buyer arrives on a cold day). This conclusion is debatable, for the seller is well aware that the buyer has developed a false belief about the condition of the car by coming on a warm day (by a quirk of fate) and that the information about the car’s malfunctioning must be relevant to him, but the seller does not reveal it. In any case, based on the juxtaposition of withholding information with concealing information (whether or not aimed to deceive the hearer), Carson (2010) seems to suggest that withholding information is doing nothing and letting fate take its course, whereas concealing information is taking deceptive action. In the case of deception, this (in)action is meant to induce a false belief in the hearer. A question arises as to how Carson’s distinction might translate into language use. Withholding information depends on saying nothing at all, even when one is supposed to. In opposition to this, concealing information will show in saying something untruthful to hide the truth. Ekman (1985) proposes concealment (next to falsification) as a primary method of lying, which he equates with deceiving. In Ekman’s (1985: 28) opinion, in an act of concealing, “the liar [technically, a deceiver, not a liar] withholds some information without actually saying anything untrue”. Similarly, in an act of concealment, as conceptualised by Castelfranchi and Poggi (1994: 284), the speaker “hides some information by giving H some other information that is true but is not the relevant one for H’s goals”. They also make a distinction between concealment and omission,29 another construct frequently quoted in the literature. According to Castelfranchi and Poggi (1994: 284), in performing an act of omission, the speaker “omits to give H some information that she thinks or knows is relevant to H’s goals”, whereby deception comes into being. In the light of these two definitions, one may conclude that concealment is actually a strategy of omission, which appears to be a superordinate notion. Indeed, other researchers use the concept of omission as a blanket term for various forms of purposeful information concealment. Like withholding information and concealment, omissions do not need to be deceptive, which explains why the authors add qualifiers to the term, thereby writing about deceptive omission (Fallis forth1) or deception by omission (Galasiński 2000; Vincent Marrelli 2004) with regard to various ways of withholding information with a view to deceiving the hearer. The term “omission” as seen by these authors seems to be synonymous with “withholding information” and must not be rashly equated with the famous

29 The remaining two categories the authors list are falsification and masking.

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 305

commission vs omission distinction made by Chisholm and Feehan (1977), as some authors seem to do. By an act of commission, the speaker may cause the hearer to acquire a false belief, to continue to have a false belief, to cease to nurture a true belief, or to fail to acquire a true belief. On the other hand, employing omission, the speaker allows the hearer to acquire a false belief, to continue nurturing the false belief, to lose a true belief, or to continue without a true belief (see Mahon 2007). On the other hand, Chisholm and Feehan (1977) propose a distinction between positive deception and negative deception, each of which can be performed by omission (allowing) or by commission (causing). Negative deception concerns the hearer’s being merely ignorant, and hence not developing a true belief rather than developing a false belief (which is normally taken as a sine qua non for deception, see Section 1). Consequently, the authors mention “hiding the truth prudently” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 144) as a form of negative deception by commission. Essentially, only positive deception counts as deception proper, i.e. causing or sustaining false beliefs. On the other hand, withholding information straddles Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) omission and commission. In other words, withholding information may cause or allow the hearer to acquire a false belief. In the context of concealment and omission, one must not forget about the labels “lie of omission” (Ekman 1985; McCornack 1992; Mooney 2004; cf. Fallis 2009) and “lie of concealment” (Ekman 1985). The authors seem to use these folk terms loosely by either not taking a stand on whether they constitute lying proper, or broadening the understanding of the label “lying” to all kinds of deception, as Ekman (1985) does. Distinguishing lies of commission from lies of omission, which he equates with evasions, Douglas (1976: 59) states that the latter are not “outand-out lies”. Technically, there can be no such thing as a lie of omission (e.g. Douglas 1976; Mahon 2008a, 2015), insofar as, according to the classical definition, lying involves asserting what one believes to be false. This observation is not new, for as Augustine noted, “concealing the truth is not the same as putting forth a lie” (1952: 191). “Lie of omission” is only a lay term, a misnomer elevated to the status of an academic term by some (which resembles the case of a “bald-faced lie”, see Section 7). What also contributes to this view is that it is impossible to lie by omitting a statement (Mahon 2003; Griffiths 2004; see Mahon 2015). However, this (otherwise correct) argument seems to neglect the case of lies performed through silence (Fried 1978), that is when the participants have previously agreed that silence carries a meaning that coincides with an (untruthful) statement (see Mahon 2008a, 2008b, 2015). This kind of “propositional silence” may actually be thought of as an act of commission, not of omission (see Mahon 2015), since the “speaker” needs to refrain from saying anything and performs the silence actively, purposefully and meaningfully in order to induce a false belief in an interactant by the silent statement. Also, omission need not involve not making a statement

306 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

entirely, only limiting its content in various ways. However, even such a form of “omission” will not count as lying, contrary to what some authors may claim. What seems pertinent in this context is also Vincent and Castelfranchi’s (1981) and Vincent Marrelli’s (2004) notion of “indirect lying” (a blanket term for a number of different phenomena) originating in reticence. In Vincent and Castelfranchi’s (1981: 761) words, “[i]f the information the speaker is being ­ reticent about and wants B to infer is intentionally false, then naturally we have a case of indirect lying”. The speaker lets the hearer understand that he/she is leaving something unsaid or is keeping quiet about something with a particular goal in mind, making this goal overt to the hearer. Yet another relevant concept is evasion (e.g. Bradac 1983; Galasiński 1996, 2000; cf. Gupta et al. 2013). Galasiński’s (1996, 2000) view of this notion is very broad and encompasses non-deceptive and deceptive, or rather simply manipulative conversational strategies. He distinguishes between overt and covert evasions, the latter of which he seems to equate with the “deceptive” type. In the case of an overt evasion, the speaker explicitly signals that he/she will not give a reply to a question and thus that he/she is “unwilling to co-operate”. A covert evasion, on the other hand, involves the speaker not giving a relevant/adequate reply “in a clandestine way” (Galasiński 1996, 2000: 20). Galasiński (1996: 19) also mentions that covert evasion is related to the “violation of conversation maxims” but he does not dwell on this issue. Most of his examples of covert evasions do not show any indication of the speaker’s attempting to induce false beliefs in the hearers (i.e. the sine qua non for deception), whilst only a few do (e.g. via deceptive implicatures). Overall, covert evasions are more of unannounced but transparently irrelevant, discourse-manipulative responses that may indeed help the speaker avoid giving adequate replies, which he/she may indeed be willing to hide or may actually be incapable of providing (compare with Carson’s (2010, 2016) evasive bullshitting). Gupta et al. (2013) distinguish evasions from what they dub “contrived distraction”, insisting that the latter is deceptive (while the former is not) and that it involves the flouting of the Relation maxim. It seems that “contrived distraction” does not differ much from evasion, though. Essentially, the speaker distracts the hearer and makes him/her focus on another matter, as in this example: a child says “My friends say that Santa Claus isn’t real”, to which his mother, wanting him “to continue believing in the existence of Santa Claus, tries to distract him by saying ‘Never mind that for now. Show me what homework you have today’” (Gupta et al. 2013: 23). The drastic change of topic must be transparent to the hearer, but it does not seem to invite an implicature of any kind. If it did, “contrived distraction” would be a type of deceptive implicature based on flouting the Relation maxim. Here, however, no maxim flouting comes into being. This example is deceptive, which is consequent upon the fact that the mother

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 307

allows the hearer to continue nurturing a false belief. The mother’s transparently evasive reply enables her to deceptively withhold information. Withholding information quite clearly overlaps with half-truths whenever making utterances directly relevant to the false belief is involved. Half-truths, sometimes also referred to as palters (Schauer and Zeckhauser 2009), amount to not telling the whole ‘truth’ (see Turner et al. 1975; Garfinkel 1977; Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Buller and Burgoon 1994; Vincent Marrelli 2003, 2004, 2006; Carson 2010; Dynel 2011a; Fallis forth1). Half-truths can be explained as true statements that fall deceptively short of the whole truth (Fallis forth1) or that depend on “selective display” or “editing the truth” (Vincent Marrelli 2003, 2006: 37; see Nyberg 1993). The “truth” that is edited out amounts to information relevant to the hearer and his/her goals (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981). According to Carson, half-truths place emphasis on some facts and, simultaneously, “selectively ignore or minimize other relevant facts” (2010: 58). Half-truths are deceptive because “though literally true”, they “are false, in that they engender false inferences” (Garfinkel 1977: 138) and because they are performed “with the goal of getting him [the hearer] to make only partially true conclusions, which amounts to false assumptions” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 762; Vincent Marrelli 2004: 237). On the whole, the speaker does say what he/she believes to be true but does not lie, in a technical sense, although Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981) and Vincent Marrelli (2004) call such cases “indirect lies”. As Vincent Marrelli (2004, 2006) rightly observes, “half-truth” is a vague (folk) term that covers diversified strategies for presenting select aspects of the truth, or rather – technically – what one believes to be true (i.e. “half-truthfulness”). As will be shown here, the lay notion “half-truth” encompasses a range of linguistic phenomena present in essentially truthful what is said30 orientated towards deception. “Half-truths”, i.e. truthful but incomplete utterances promoting false beliefs, can be juxtaposed with the second superordinate method of deceptively withholding information: withholding relevant utterances. This may boil down to remaining silent altogether (Bok 1983; Verschueren 1985; Mahon 2008a, 2008b), and thus not contributing anything to a conversation, even non-verbally, or not holding any conversation at all. Alternatively, withholding relevant utterances may mean producing utterances that communicate meanings and encourage beliefs dissociated from the central false belief.31 In either case, the (silent) speaker withholds information that he/she believes true so

30 Unless they involve any of the figures based on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality. 31 This should not be mistaken for deceptive evasion, which concerns providing seemingly relevant and informative replies.

308 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

that the hearer should (continue to) believe to be true something the speaker believes to be false. This type of deception seems to encompass the standard cases of withholding information listed by Carson (2010: 56) and Ekman (1985: 28), which involve withholding full utterances (whether or not uttering something markedly different instead) in order to keep the deceived parties in a state of ignorance and make them nurture false beliefs (e.g. that they cannot save any money on taxes or that they will recover soon, see Section 4.3).

4.3 Conceptualising deceptively withholding information Mahon (2009) defines keeping a secret (which he sees as distinct from deception) in terms of the first maxim of Quantity, which he regards as a norm: “Attempting to keep a secret, I contend, involves intentionally violating the norm of believedinformativeness. It involves being intentionally less believed-informative than one believes is required by the conversation (or more generally, by the interaction) at hand” (Mahon 2009: 25). However, this view does not correspond with Grice’s conceptualisation of maxims, which are not really social norms to be obeyed and which can be legitimately flouted to generate implicatures. Since keeping a secret is distinct from deception, the “violation” that Mahon has in mind cannot be covert (notice the interdependence between deception and maxim violations). On the other hand, the “violation” cannot be overt either, which would amount to flouting, for this normally involves communicating implicatures. Keeping secrets is not inextricably connected to implicatures, though. The violation of the first maxim of Quality is, nonetheless, a useful construct for explaining deceptively withholding information. The violation of the first Quantity maxim is proposed as the pivotal definitional component of deceptively withholding information. Specifically, utterances (frequently, but not always, in the form of statements/assertions) that are truthful but involve withholding information, as well as silences that foster/sustain the hearer’s false beliefs (whether or not any conversations are held or utterances are exchanged), may be conceptualised as violating the first maxim of Quantity, i.e. “Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange)” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26) or “Be as informative as is required” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 30). The first maxim of Quantity concerns “believed-information”, which also explains why the information that the speaker communicates may be objectively false, whether or not he/she aims to deceive anybody (Mahon 2009). As a matter of fact, similar (but not the same and less terminologically rigorous) observations have been made previously. Vincent Marrelli (2004: 237) speaks about the violation of “Quantity maxims” with reference to “half-truths”,

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 309

as does Mooney (2004: 914) when she mentions the notion of “lies of omission”.32 Also McCornack (1992) puts forward a postulate of “covert violations” of Quantity. The three authors do not state which of the maxims of Quantity is violated and what the effect is. Fallis (2009: 39) correctly observes that “lies of omission”, which are technically not lies, involve violating one of Grice’s Quantity maxims and the speaker “not being ‘as informative as is required’”. More specifically, when violating the first maxim of Quantity, the speaker is not as informative as is required (by the hearer) in what the speaker says, sometimes going to the extreme by saying nothing at all and remaining silent. The speaker covertly fails to provide the information that he/she believes the hearer to require, thereby deceiving the hearer. A hallmark of utterances qualifying as deceptively withholding information is that the communicated meaning in the form of what is said is truthful, i.e. it does not exhibit the violation of the first maxim of Quality.33 The first maxim of Quality is then violated on a deeper level. The speaker may not say what he/she believes to be false, but does not say what he/she believes to be true and what he/she is supposed to say. The speaker who performs such an act of deception by withholding information is “only” not informative enough, of which the hearer is not cognisant and makes inferences resulting in his/her false belief that the speaker has covertly communicated. In other words, the hearer derives a meaning which (unbeknownst to him/her) is characterised by covert implicit untruthfulness. The violation of the first maxim of Quality is present at a level of meaning other than (the speaker’s) what is said. A pending question is what this covertly untruthful meaning (conducive to the hearer’s false belief) amounts to with regard to the Gricean levels of meaning. An answer to this question has already been provided in Chapter 2, Section 4.2; the Gricean constructs do not suffice, and the notion of hearer-inferred speaker meaning must be put forward. However, several authors suggest that the level of implicature is involved. Garfinkel (1977: 138) presents a “half-truth” as “a statement which is l­ iterally true, but false at the level of implicated meaning”, which seems to be tantamount to the notion of untruthful implicature. Similarly, Vincent and Castelfranchi

32 Also, Mooney (2004) points out that Quantity maxim violations entail social implications when one is saying too much (being unable to talk to the point, being patronising, etc.) or too little (not being able to say more, being reticent, knowing only a little, etc.). However, if these effects were indeed recognised by the hearer, following the speaker’s intention, such forms of nonfulfilment, if purposefully employed, would count as floutings. 33 Not all deception performed by means of truthful what is said amounts to deceptively withholding information, relying instead on alternative mechanisms of deception: covertly untruthful implicatures or the violation of the other maxims.

310 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(1981: 762) propose that in “half-truths”, “the inferrable false assumptions are accomplished, or induced it would seem, by the generation of implicatures”. Vincent Marrelli (2004: 237) later extrapolates from this that the label “halftruth” pertains to “indirect lies where the inferrable false assumptions are accomplished, or induced, by the generation of implicatures as Garfinkel hinted, but, in particular, from the Quantity maxim”. In a similar vein, Thomas (1995: 74) states that violating the first maxim of Quantity may lead to what she calls “misleading implicatures”, whereby “speakers can imply a lie”, which stands in marked contrast with the standard view that lies cannot be implicated, as they arise from assertions. As will be evidenced by several examples (see Section 4.4), it is disputable whether deceptive implicatures do indeed stem from truthful what is said that violates the first maxim of Quantity per se or, in other words, whether truthful what is said that violates the first maxim of Quantity can serve as a basis for covertly untruthful implicatures. Logically, following Gricean thought, no maxim violations can generate implicatures. Implicatures, at least according to the original conceptualisation, stem from maxim floutings that are (meant to be) recognised by the hearer. Violations, which occur unbeknownst to the hearer, cannot instigate a logical inferential process that would lead the hearer to the implicated meaning. Violations may result only in hearer-inferred what is said (see Chapter 2, Section 4.2). However, it is true that utterances that deceptively withhold information, involving the violation of the first maxim of Quality, can simultaneously deploy maxim floutings conducive to deceptive implicatures. Cases like these indicate that different forms of deception may co-occur when false beliefs are encouraged/sustained in the hearers, and also that figures of speech based on flouting the first maxim of Quality (cases of overt untruthfulness) can feed into deceptive meanings that arise at the level of implicature rather than what is said (see Section 3).

4.4 Previous examples of deceptively withholding information Illustrating deception by withholding information, non-linguists tend to submit very general, non-contextualised examples which typically amount to failing to produce relevant utterances or even hold conversations altogether. According to Carson (2010: 56), “if a tax adviser is aware of a legitimate tax exemption her client can claim that would allow the client to achieve considerable tax savings, her failure to inform the client about it constitutes deception. She thereby intentionally causes her client to believe falsely that there is no way for him to save more money on his taxes”. In a similar vein, Ekman (1985: 28)

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 311

gives the following examples of deception, which can be seen as withholding information: “if the doctor does not tell the patient that the illness is terminal, if the husband does not mention that he spent his lunch hour at a motel with his wife’s best friend, if the policeman doesn’t tell the suspect that a ‘bug’ is recording the conversation with his lawyer”, they are all engaged in deception. From a linguistic perspective, for the sake of classifying particular utterances, or lack thereof, as deceptive acts, specific interactional contexts seem crucial (e.g. whether the client, patient, wife, and suspect ask questions or state that they wish to be given the relevant information, or whether the false beliefs are only backgrounded). As the succinct overview of interactional examples below will indicate, withholding information is associated with two distinct characteristics, which also appear in the two strategies of telling “half-truths”, as seen by Turner et al. (1975). These characteristics are downscaling (by giving lower numbers or quantities or lower-intensity words) and not revealing (some part of) the truthful propositional content at all. It is argued here that only the latter counts as withholding information, whereas the former is tantamount to lying. Thomas (1995: 73) provides an example which she rightly sees as being based on the violation of Quantity (she does not specify which maxim). The literary example between spouses is as follows: with regard to the husband’s question, “Is there another man?”, the wife replies, “There isn’t another man”, but she deceptively fails to add that there is actually another woman. Thomas (1995: 73) recognises the wife’s statement as an “assertion” that does not communicate “the whole truth”. The woman’s utterance is technically truthful, albeit deceptive. However, Thomas (1995: 73) wrongly concludes that the speaker intentionally conveys a “misleading implicature” (see Section 3). It is not the case that a misleading implicature arises insofar as the reply at the level of what is said does not show any maxim floutings that would promote it. What is said invites the misguided inference on the hearer’s part about the speaker’s what is said along the lines of “My wife is not having an affair”, consequent upon the default, albeit faulty, presupposition34 (“My wife is heterosexual”). This is precisely the inferential path the speaker must have devised for the hearer. Hence, the central covertly untruthful meaning is implicit (but not implicated), for it is not communicated at the utterance level and relies on the hearer’s presupposition-based inference, with crucial information being withheld. It qualifies as hearer-inferred

34 As Neale points out, as a result of his careful analysis of Grice’s writings, Grice’s view is “that any alleged presupposition is either an entailment or an implicature, and hence the notion of presupposition, to the extent it was ever coherent, can be dispensed with altogether” (1992: 522). The kind of presupposition, as used here, is more of a background assumption that the hearer has.

312 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

speaker meaning, where the violation of the first maxim of Quality resides, with the speaker’s what is said involving the violation of the first maxim of Quantity. Presenting a very similar instance, Vincent Marrelli (2004: 130–131) observes that when the speaker says, “No, there isn’t another woman” (presumably, in the context when it is the speaker’s wife who suspects betrayal), two deceptive scenarios are possible. Firstly, this “truth masks another”, the “truth” that there is a man, thereby violating not only Quantity but also Quality maxims; or it conceals the “full truth” by “implied violation” of the first maxim of Quantity, with the hidden meaning being that there are other women. At first blush, it appears that Vincent Marrelli (2004) is right in juxtaposing the case of meaning oppo­ sition (man vs woman) with scalar information (one vs many), which seem to correspond with the Quality and Quantity categories respectively. However, upon more consideration, the two situations may need to be interpreted otherwise. If the man has had a relationship with another man, he does indeed say what he believes to be true when denying a relationship with a woman, albeit violating the first maxim of Quantity by not adding the crucial information and thereby inviting a believed-false hearer-inferred what is said (similar to the analysis of Thomas’s example above). On the other hand, manipulating the numbers (a speaker cannot truthfully say “One/a” if actually he believes “more than one”), which is consonant with degree/intensity/scale, is not a matter of Quantity but Quality in Grice’s account. This shows in his elaborations on the consequences of flouting the first maxim of Quality in meiosis and hyperbole, which do not rely on Quantity, contrary to popular opinion (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1). Thus, deceptive downscaling is not a matter of withholding some information but rather a matter of providing different information, which is tantamount to a lie. (Notice the internal contradiction in “No, I’m not having an affair with another woman. However, I’m having affairs with other women”.) Therefore, denying that there is a woman because there are actually many, the speaker may be considered to be violating the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said, and therefore performing an act of lying. Saying “There is a woman” when the speaking man has two mistresses is untruthful and constitutes a lie (for it invites a natural inference that there is only one, and no more), as much as saying “There are two women” when the speaker has only one mistress. Following a similar line of reasoning, Meibauer (2014a) observes that generalised conversational implicatures share a greater affinity with prototypical lies. In Meibauer’s (2014a: 135) view, if a child says “One” in reply to the mother’s question “How many cookies did you take?”, he/she implicates “Not more than one”, and if this is untrue, the utterance counts as a lie. However, it may be argued that the child’s stating the exact number is tantamount to a standard lie, as the one-word reply is an elliptical assertion (Alston 2000), whereby the

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 313

speaker asserts what he believes to be false. The elaboration “not more than” is not, it may be claimed, a generalised conversational implicature in Gricean terms, being a matter of logical entailment. In a similar vein, deeming “half-truths” a type of “indirect lies” that arise as implicatures driven by Grice’s maxims, Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981: 762) claim that a boy who says that “he gave a punch to his little sister” when he actually “used several punches and kicks” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 762) withholds information of two kinds: the number of punches (scalar information) and the fact that another form of violence, kicking, was involved (absence of information). The mendacious understatement “I gave my little sister a punch” can hardly be seen as inviting an implicature along the lines of “I gave my little sister one punch and no more”, as the two authors suggest. This inference is indeed devised by the speaker, but it is more the matter of the hearer’s developing on what is said, as covertly intended by the speaker. Similar to the previous examples, this part of the utterance can be considered a lie based on the violation of the first maxim of Quality, which is combined with an act of deception by withholding information. The aspect of “kicking” is the type of information that the hearer cannot infer at all and is indeed associated with violating the first maxim of Quality. Referring to this example in her later work, Vincent Marrelli (2004: 237) claims that since “kicking is done with your feet and is more serious (opprobrious) too, there is, therefore, a lie by omission on this aspect of Quality (the literal veracity of it)”. This line of reasoning is debatable. Again, the intentional, deceptive failure to mention one form of violence used seems to be the epitome of violating the first maxim of Quantity and withholding information at the level of what is said. This, in turn, invites a believed-false inference, hearerinferred what is said that displays covert untruthfulness, i.e. the violation of the first maxim of Quality, which is not present in the speaker’s what is said. Vincent Marrelli (2004: 131) also gives an example of scalar implicature (see e.g. Horn 1972, 2009; Levinson 1983), as in “Yes I ate some cookies” (in response to a question “Did you eat any cookies?”), which is “meant to imply falsely not all of them”. Used deceptively, in her view, this utterance is literally true but violates the first maxim of Quantity, for it is not as informative as required. In a similar vein, Meibauer (2014a: 129) addresses the issue of a half-truth or a case of saying “the truth but not the whole truth” (Falkenberg 1982) with regard to a deceptive use of generalised conversational implicatures in the form of scalar implicatures. He gives the following example: “Some colleagues were drunk” said by someone who believes that all colleagues were intoxicated. The truthful utterance implicates “Not all of them were drunk”, which amounts to deception via implicature and therefore, in Meibauer’s (2014a) view, lying. In Meibauer’s (2014a: 129) words, “[t]he speaker pretends to observe the first maxim of Quantity and expects the

314 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

hearer to derive the relevant implicature; in fact, however, they suppress information and consequently violate the maxim”. Meibauer (2014a) proposes that the first maxim of Quantity is violated.35 Altogether, it is not evident whether this violation is performed at the level of what is said or what is implicated. What both Vincent Marrelli (2004) and Meibauer (2014a) appear to have in mind is that what is said involves the violation of the first maxim of Quantity. Failing to observe the lack of sufficient information, the hearers draw generalised conversational implicatures, which are deceptive. Following the terminology adopted here, these covertly untruthful implicatures rest on violations of the first maxim of Quality. Overall, this line of reasoning might indicate an overlap between withholding information and covertly untruthful implicatures. An alternative account is possible, though. In the light of Grice’s original conceptualisation of (the floutings of) the first maxims of Quantity and Quality, it is argued here that “Yes I ate some cookies” and “Some colleagues were drunk” do not involve the violation of the first maxim of Quantity but, instead, they constitute lying,36 which is based on violating the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said. Following Grice’s train of thought, the truthful “all” (which the speakers keep covert) stands in marked contrast to the untruthful “some”, which is more obvious when strengthened to “only some”. It is not the case that the speakers believe that they ate only some cookies or that only some colleagues were drunk. Nor do they implicate via Quantity flouting that they are not sure about the exact proportions of the eaten/remaining cookies or the drunk/sober colleagues. Grice’s (1998a [1975]: 32) example “Somewhere in the South of France” illustrates this kind of implicating of uncertainty in the light of the first maxim of Quantity. The fact that what is said is covertly untruthful in the two examples based on “some” renders the theorising about potential deceptive (scalar) implicatures otiose. The utterances are covertly untruthful assertions; they are lies. This reasoning is in line with the other examples depicted above where a singular noun is used instead of a plural one, or where a verb showing less intensity/gravity is used instead of a verb denoting a more intense, and hence markedly different, action. The issue of intensity/degree (rather than numerals) shows in another example of Vincent Marrelli’s (2004: 130), namely saying “Yes,

35 At the same time, Meibauer (2014a) sees understatement [meiosis] and overstatement [hyperbole] as flouting the first maxim of Quality, not Quantity (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1). This seems to be an internal contradiction in his writings. 36 Although this conclusion is compatible with Meibauer’s, we reach it in two markedly different ways.

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 315

I hit him”, when the speaker “actually beat his little brother up”, which she gives as an instance of violating the first maxim of Quantity. Nonetheless, following Grice’s philosophy, the speaker violates the first maxim of Quality by this deceptive understatement (which does not constitute the figure of meiosis), saying what he believes to be false (“hitting someone (once)” and “beating someone up” are distinct activities rather than being in a relationship of subordination). A conclusion can be drawn that some of the examples presented in the literature as withholding information based on scalar information, specifically downscaling, can actually be seen as standard lies.37 Such lies are told by deceptively lowering the number or weakening the intensity of something; or denying a lower number when a higher one corresponds to what the speaker believes to be true. Even if in truth-conditional semantic terms, stating numbers lower than the ones the speaker believes to be true (“one” vs “two”; “some” vs “all”) may be true, in Gricean terms, this is not the case (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1). What is said always amounts to what is meant/intended by the speaker in a given context, even if it should concern numerical data (see Recanati 2003). As Recanati (2003) argues, “I have three kids” may mean either “no less but possibly more” or “exactly three” depending on the context. It may be argued that the latter is a default option, but the former needs special contextual circumstances (e.g. when three kids is the minimum number to apply for governmental assistance). Cardinal numbers involve underspecification or exact semantics (e.g. Breheny 2008; Weissman and Terkourafi forth). The underspecification view holds that the use of a cardinal may mean “at least”, “at most”, or “exactly” depending on the context. However, according to the exact interpretation postulate, a numeral is typically understood as “exactly + numeral”, while pragmatic inferencing may promote lower-bound interpretations only in specific contexts. The examples of deceptively used numerals found in the literature seem to lack such specific motivating contexts, and that is why they qualify as lies. This view has recently gained empirical support (see Weissman and Terkourafi forth). Given the context and/or co-text (i.e. the preceding eliciting utterance) in each of the examples above, as well as the workings of Quality and Quantity maxims, it cannot be concluded that the speaker is truthful in what he/she says. In addition, one may extrapolate from all this an important observation about meiosis (the rhetorical figure involving understatement); deceptive statements anchored in meiosis (and hyperbole as well) are tantamount to lies,

37 If the relevant scalar implicatures are indeed elaborated, as Meibauer (2014a) and Vincent Marrelli (2004) suggest, they are untruthful too. Thus, both what is said and what is implicated are deceptive (see Meibauer 2014a).

316 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

since they violate the first maxim of Quality, while seemingly only flouting it (see Section 2.7). Less problematic cases of withholding information can also be found in the literature, next to Thomas’s (1995) “another man” example. One of such instances is a pupil who admits to the headmaster that “she did smoke in the toilets, omitting to tell him exactly what it was she was smoking” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 762), which invites a default inference (believed-false by the speaker) that she was smoking cigarettes. Adler (1997: 436) gives the example of Abraham, who “venturing into a dangerous land and fearing for his life if Sarah is taken as his wife, tells Abimelech the king that she is his sister”, whilst, in actual fact, she is both his sister and his wife. Referring to Augustine’s interpretation of this example, Adler (1997: 436) reports that the speaker is thought to have “concealed something of the truth”. Indeed, this is a perfect instance of withholding information by presenting only part of what the speaker believes to be true about the person in question. Another case is the canonical Athanasius example found in the literature (e.g. MacIntyre 1994: 336; Williams 2002: 102; Fallis 2010: 2;38 Saul 2012: 2;39 Stokke 2016b). It qualifies, but is only rarely discussed (see Fallis forth1), as withholding information: when his pursuers, who did not recognise him, asked Saint Athanasius, “Where is the traitor Athanasius?”, he replied, “Not far away”. This truthful statement keeps covert the crucial information that he is not only not far away but also so close that the hearers are actually looking at him. Another instance that has spurred some academic debate (e.g. Saul 1999, 2000; Moore 2000; Carson 2010; Meibauer 2014a) and can be regarded as withholding information concerns a real-life example, namely President Bill Clinton’s (in) famous statement made during a nationally televised press conference on 26 January 1998.40 The President said, “I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky [...] These allegations are false”.41 However, on 17 August 1998, President Bill

38 Fallis (2010) sees this example as an instance of “false implicature”, which is at odds with what he proposes later (forth1). 39 Saul (2012) subsumes this example under the category of “merely misleading”, her term for what is typically referred to as deception other than lying. 40 Not engaging in philosophical debates on what the speaker may have meant according to alternative counterfactual utterance scenarios and Aspect-Sensitivity (see Saul 1999, 2000; Moore 2000), some conclusions can be drawn, based on the available evidence, about what the speaker’s intentions may have been. No claims are made, however, that the interpretation suggested here presents the facts, the truth, which is never to be known. 41 http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3930

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 317

Clinton made another statement about the deposition in January 1998, “While my answers were legally accurate, I did not volunteer information. Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong”.42 The latter quotation is evidence enough that the speaker believed that he had been truthful (“legally accurate”) but he did admit to having withheld information (“I did not volunteer information”), which, in turn, suggests that he must have been aware of the (deceptive) message that the January statement communicated to the audience. The pending query is where its ­deceptive potential resides. According to Vincent Marrelli (2004: 129), Clinton’s utterance “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” violates the first maxim of Quality, insofar as the speaker was well aware that the nation would take “sexual relations” to mean any kind of sexual contact, and not the technical sense of penal-vaginal intercourse that he was talking about. Vincent Marrelli (2004: 238) also hesitantly suggests that this example is based on “lexically wider or narrower choices than appropriate, perhaps as also of Quality through Manner (as well as Q ­ uantity)”. Later, however, Vincent Marrelli (2006: 42–43) adds that the same utterance “might be analyzed as exploiting the first Quality sub-maxim [...] to deceive through implicature, while ‘saying’ the truth. It might also be seen as being triggered by violating Grice’s Quantity 1 perhaps, and Manner 2 (­ambiguity)”. These explanations may be considered confusing, and some clarification is in order. As is argued consistently here, deception coincides with covert untruthfulness, explained as the violation of the first maxim of Quality. However, this violation need not occur at the level of what is said, which is the case with withholding information, with the utterances communicating truthful what is said. President Clinton’s deceptive utterance is based on a narrow definition of the term “sexual relations”, coupled with the prioritised agency (the use of “I” rather than “Monica Lewinsky” in the subject position).43 This boils down to violating the “Avoid ambiguity” Manner maxim, in tandem with the first maxim of Quantity in order to pave the way for a covertly untruthful speaker-inferred what is said. The speaker will have assumed that, unaware as they were of the narrow legal definition of “sexual relationship” that he himself had learnt (“penal-vaginal intercourse”), the general audience would glean the meaning dependent on the default, folk sense of “sexual relationship”. The speaker thus kept covert the “intended” alternative, narrower, technical/legal sense, as well as the very presence of this ambiguity. This allowed the speaker to make what can be thought to have been a truthful statement (or what is said), yet withholding the crucial information

42 http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/17/speech/transcript.html 43 http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/17/time/clinton.html

318 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

about the nature of the relationship, which led most people to believe that his relationship with the intern had not been intimate at all. Interestingly, before making the infamous “sexual relations” statement, President Clinton contributed another instance of deceptively withholding information, which capitalises on the broad (and truthful) notion of “improper relationship”. On 21 January 1998, the former President had an interview on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer”, which includes the following exchange: Clinton: “I did not ask anyone to tell anything other than the truth. There is no improper relationship. And I intend to cooperate with this inquiry. But that is not true”. Lehrer: “No improper relationship. Define what you mean by that”. Clinton: “Well, I think you know what it means. It means that there is not a sexual relationship, an improper sexual relationship, or any other kind of improper relationship”.44 Again, “There is no improper relationship” may be a truthful statement per se, but it is deceptive thanks to the tense used (see Tiersma 2005; Saul 2012; Horn 2017a, 2017b). President Clinton himself defended the truthfulness of this statement during the Presidential Grand Jury Testimony,45 pointing out his previous use of “is”. By describing the situation in the present tense, and thus, technically, speaking only about the current situation, the speaker withheld all (compromising) information about the past events, thereby deceiving anybody who took him as referring to both present and past. Saul (2012) presents this example as “deliberately misleading” (her term for deceiving other than lying). More specifically, it displays the mechanism of withholding information by editing out the inconvenient truth via the use of the present tense. The discussion above has indicated that some of the examples found in the literature do not necessarily qualify as withholding information but may be thought of as lying, following Grice’s conceptualisation of Quality and Quantity maxims. On the other hand, the few examples of deception involving the violation of the first maxim of Quantity at the level of what is said illustrate that withholding information can take various linguistic forms. An attempt will now be made to compile a list of forms of deceptively withholding information may take. It must be emphasised that this list is open-ended in terms of the salient subordinate realisations and linguistic mechanisms which facilitate the violation of the first maxim of Quantity.

44 http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/01/21/transcripts/lehrer/ 45 https://www.c-span.org/video/?111990-1/presidential-grand-jury-testimony

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 319

4.5 Pragmatic forms of deceptively withholding information Firstly, deceptively withholding information may be performed by dint of silence, whether or not the speaker actually has an interaction with the deceived hearer. The deceivers may purposefully not engage in an exchange, whilst they know they should because they have some relevant information to share with the target. Secondly, a deceiver may contribute utterances that do not communicate any meanings directly related to the false belief that the hearer develops, only blocking his/her arrival at a meaning that would help him/her develop a new true belief, and thereby discontinue a false belief. A statement may be ventured that although nothing relevant to the false belief is said (and even no interaction is held), the speaker is covertly untruthful by this “not saying”. Examples 39, 40 and 41 illustrate the different means of withholding information, following this general strategy. (39) [The team is working on a case of a woman, called Hannah, whose liver has shut down. Cameron happens to find out that the patient wants to leave her female partner, Max, about which she informs the other doctors. House is now talking to the two women about the difficulty in finding an organ donor.] 1. House: Well, it may give us an extra day or two, but, no procurement agency is going to let a liver go to a patient with an undiagnosed pre-existing... 2. Max: Hannah and I have the same blood type. Couldn’t I be the donor? 3. House: It is medically possible for us to take a part of your... 4. Max: Please, I don’t care about the risks! 5. House: [to Hannah] You’re very lucky to have such a devoted partner. [Cut to House’s office area] 6. House: I just bought us 36 hours. Differential diagnosis – which monster eats your liver, screws up your sleep, and causes bleeding? 7. Cameron: Does Max know Hannah plans to leave her? 8. House: Didn’t come up, so I guess, no. 9. Cameron: If she knew, there’s no way she’d go through with this. [...] 10. Cameron: We have an ethical dilemma. 11. House: No we don’t. Continue. 12. Chase: What about splenic cancer, or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma? She’s the right age. 13. House: It could explain the bleeding. Maybe the liver failure.

320 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

14. Cameron: We’re withholding information relevant to her decision to risk her life. How is that not an ethical dilemma? [Later, as Cameron and Max are talking, it turns out that Max did know that Hannah wanted to leave her.] Season 2, Episode 17 Interacting with the two women, House seems to have a conversational opportunity to break the bad news to Max, which he does not do, suspecting that it may cause her to withdraw her generous offer to save the patient’s life (2 and 4). Hence, having acknowledged Max’s commitment, he addresses his truthful utterance to Hanna (as if he wants her to appreciate her partner and reconsider her decision to split up with her) but utters nothing that might change Max’s false belief about her relationship, and thus he deceptively keeps her in the dark. As it turns out later, Cameron consciously recognises the deceptive act House has performed in his interaction with the two women (9, 10 and 14), but following her employer’s policy, she does not decide to hold a conversation with Max and share the sad news with her. Thus, Cameron also sustains the act of deception by letting Max operate on the default but believed-false assumption that she is in a happy relationship, preventing her from developing a true belief about what her partner wants to do. The doctors deceive Max by withholding information via silence. However, as it transpires later, she had held the belief to which the deceivers would not make her privy. Withholding information via utterances tangential to the false beliefs may be employed even when the deceived individual attempts to elicit relevant replies in order not to be kept in the dark. (40) [House and Wilson have been sharing a flat for some time. Throughout the episode, House has heard whispery, whooshy sounds when lying in his bed, which distresses him very much. Creeping near Wilson’s room and eavesdropping one evening, House discovers that the sounds are actually produced by Wilson talking to his late girlfriend as he is lying in his bed. In the morning, House is sitting on the couch in the living room.] 1. Wilson: No breakfast? 2. House: Not today. I’m hallucinating. 3. Wilson: [worried] What happened? 4. House: It’s nothing visual this time. I hear whispering. 5. Wilson: Is that why you’ve been acting so weird? Is that why you quit? 6. House: I’m losing it. 7. Wilson: I’m sure there’s a rational explanation. The wind? A neighbor’s TV? 8. House: I checked everything. What’s really scary is that I hear whispering while not on Vicodin. I’m gonna check myself back into Mayfield.

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 321

9. Wilson: Okay. 10. House: Okay? You don’t think there might be a logical explanation? Something I missed? 11. Wilson: You’re the smartest guy I know. If you haven’t thought of it, it doesn’t exist. I’ll drive you over. I just need to make some tea first. [turns to the counter] 12. House: You know. 13. Wilson: [dropping something on the counter and turning back, annoyed] That you’re an ass? Yeah. You overheard me talking to my dead girlfriend and thought to yourself, “What kind of fun can I have with this?” 14. House: Why are you talking to her? You run out of living people? You can talk to me. I’m right here. 15. Wilson: I miss her. Talking to her makes me feel better. You don’t. Season 6, Episode 6 This interaction is rife with deceptive turns, lies included, produced by House, who has actually inferred the source of the sounds, but covertly pretends that he has not in order to make Wilson pluck up the courage and reveal the compromising fact. Thus, House no longer (falsely) believes he is hallucinating and is intent on inciting Wilson to admit to talking to his late girlfriend. More importantly here, though, Wilson, even after having surmised at some point in this interaction (around turn 4) that House can actually hear his whispers, chooses to allow him to hold a false belief that he is hallucinating and prevent him from developing a true belief. What Wilson does is ask truthful questions (5), offer sound advice that a rational explanation can be sought (7), accept House’s decision to undergo treatment (9), as well as make a comment about House’s intellectual capacity (11). Although the entire conversation revolves around the false belief of House’s with regard to the source of the voices in his head, Wilson does not address this issue directly until he explicitly signals (13) that he knows that House has been taunting him. Additionally, the speaker may provide what is known as covertly evasive replies (see Galasiński 1996, 2000),46 which are not covertly untruthful statements per se but may facilitate deception. Although truthful as such, they allow the deceiver to skirt the issue and thereby deceive the hearer about a matter ­relevant to them.

46 Carson might be willing to perceive it as “evasive bullshitting”.

322 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(41) [House is sitting in front of the transplant committee. He has just presented the medical details about his patient, Carly, who needs a heart donor. He knows her to be bulimic and suicidal, which disqualifies her.] 1. Cuddy: Is there any exclusion criteria we should know about? 2. House: CAT scan revealed no tumors and Dr. Wilson found no trace of cancer. 3. Cuddy: What about any other criteria? 4. House: No atherosclerotic vascular disease... 5. Cuddy: Are there any... 6. House: No pneumonia, no bacteriemia, no Hep-B or C or any other letters. 7. Cuddy: Substance abuse? Any history of... 8. House: No alcohol, no drugs. Season 1, Episode 14 In reply to Cuddy’s persistent questions (1, 3, 5 and 7), House produces fast replies, all truthful (2, 4, 6 and 8), thereby pre-empting more precise questions on her part. He thus presents what he believes to be the truth about the patient’s health, with all the truthful statements orientated towards hiding the crucial information so that the hearers should have a false belief that the patient is healthy enough to qualify for a heart transplant. On the other hand, when utterances commonly thought of as “half-truths” are produced, when relevant meanings are communicated, the crucial information is withheld in order to encourage a false belief in the targeted hearer. As conceptualised here in neo-Gricean terms, such deceptively withholding information amounts to producing truthful what is said that violates the first maxim of Quantity in order to communicate covertly untruthful hearer-inferred what is said (since the hearer is oblivious to the nonfulfilment of the first maxim of Quantity) that is contingent on the violation of the first maxim of Quality. This line of reasoning is in accord with Adler’s (1997: 437) suggestion that in his Abraham example and similar ones, “speakers do not conversationally implicate the conclusion drawn by the hearer. Rather, the conclusion is closer to what is asserted (or said)”. The deceivers’ utterances may rely on various linguistic means of withholding information. These include manipulating the tense or using obscure lexical items (see the Clinton examples) or generalisations, which are comparable to Gupta et al.’s (2013) “abstraction”, thereby recruiting also violations of chosen Manner maxims, which facilitate the violation of the first maxim of Quantity. Another mechanism, a very important one, underlying withholding information is editing out chunks of utterances that would otherwise communicate part of the propositional meaning as in Vincent and Castelfranchi’s (1981) instance of “several punches and kicks”. Example 42 is an interaction that illustrates a number of these strategies.

4 Deceptively withholding information 

 323

(42) [House has discovered that a twelve-year-old patient is pregnant and is suffering from Thrombocytopenia purpura, TTP. He is now breaking the news to the patient’s parents.] 1. House: Your daughter has TTP. Don’t worry, it’s curable, she’ll be fine. 2. Mother: Well, wait! What does TTP stand for? 3. House: Some really big words that you’ve never heard before and when we’re done will never hear again. Have a nice day. 4. Mother: Well, when can we take her home? 5. House: Uh, in a few days. She needs some minor surgery to remove the underlying cause before we can do the… another really big word. 6. Mother: What’s the underlying cause? 7. House: She has an abnormal growth in her abdomen. 8. Mother: What kind of surgery? 9. House: It’s very simple. We do it here all the time. 10. Mother: Could you be a little more specific? 11. House: Actually, no. I’m sorry. Season 1, Episode 19 In this interaction with the underage patient’s parents, House keeps withholding information thereby preventing the parents from developing a true belief about their daughter’s pregnancy (1, 5, 7 and 9), apart from committing other acts of deception, notably lies (5 and 11) and being very abrupt but not deceptive (3). Specifically, in (1), House’s truthful what is said communicates only partial information about the patient’s health, revealing only one of the two problems (“Your daughter has TTP [and is pregnant]”). On the other hand in his other two turns, House is purposefully obscure in his expression, using generalisations: “some minor surgery” and “underlying cause” (5), as well as “abnormal growth in her abdomen” (7), which are truthful but show broad and/or vague denotations, withholding essential information: “abortion”, “pregnancy” and “foetus” respectively. Thanks to these generalisations, the speaker develops and sustains the belief in the parents that their daughter is suffering from a minor illness (a default interpretation) rather than being pregnant. Also, House’s confirmation about the simplicity and frequency of the surgical procedure (9) leaves the interlocutors in the dark about what the procedure really is. Although the parents do recognise House’s reticence to talk, if not brusqueness, and the obscurity of his expression (10), they remain oblivious to the crucial piece of information, and nurture a false belief about their daughter’s medical condition. Another salient pragmatic strategy of withholding information rests on exploiting a default assumption, i.e. a presupposition, that underlies a communicated meaning, and on purposefully not clarifying that it does not apply in a given context.

324 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(43) [House has caught a rat in Stacy’s house. He notices that the rodent is suffering from a disease, as it keeps tilting its head. House is now talking to Foreman, who is a neurologist.] 1. House: I need a consult on another case. 2. Foreman: You have another case? 3. House: It’s a hip-pocket deal. Patient presents with a distinct neck tilt. 4. Foreman: Wry neck. Is he an athlete? 5. House: He’s a regular runner. 6. Foreman: Any pain associated with movement. 7. House: None that he’s complained of. 8. Foreman: Best case scenario, an infection in the ear or lungs; worst case, brain stem tumor. Should do an MRI, CAT scan, full work-up. 9. House: Uhh… I don’t think so. No insurance. Season 2, Episode 7 When House presents the informal medical case with which he is dealing to Foreman, he fails to mention that it does not concern a human but merely a rodent. Presumably, House does so in order not to reveal that his interest in the case at hand is rooted solely in his predilection for solving riddles. When House calls the rat a “patient” and presents a sequence of truthful meanings, when he mentions the main symptom, the head tilt (3), when he describes the patient as a regular runner (5), when he reports the patient has not complained of any pain (7) and that he has no insurance (9), he relies on Foreman’s default assumption that all this refers to a human being. This default assumption is the false belief that House allows Foreman to nurture, by violating the first maxim of Quantity in each of his utterances (3, 5, 7 and 9). As Example 44 shows, withholding information (for instance performed via a deceptive presupposition) may also be couched in a question. (44) [House is at a betting parlour. House strikes up a conversation about the horse race contestants with a woman by the name of Anica. When she has thanked House for his tips, she collapses.] 1. House: [focussed on watching the race] Is anybody here a doctor? [Anica is seizing, and one man straddles her and prepares to start CPR.] You trying to cop a feel? 2. Man: I took a CPR class at the Y. 3. House: That would be useful if she was having a heart attack instead of a seizure. 4. Man: Seizure? Hold her tongue down? 5. House: If you want to get a finger bitten off. Call an ambulance. 6. Man: Methodist is three blocks down, I could drive her.

5 Bullshit 

 325

7. House: Just make the call. [sees something interesting, and pulls up Anica’s shirt slightly to see very discolored stretch marks or bruises] 8. Man: What the hell is that? 9. House: How should I know? Tell the paramedics to take her to PrincetonPlainsboro. The doctor’s name is House. Season 2, Episode 9 As House asks the question “Is anybody here a doctor” coinciding with truthful what is said (1), he deceptively withholds information that he himself is a doctor (in order to stay focussed on the game), based on a believed-false assumption that he is aware the hearers will have (i.e. if he were a doctor, he would not be asking). He seems to be successful in sustaining this false belief in others that he is not a doctor, despite the expertise that he may be seen to show (1, 3 and 5). Additionally, House’s final utterance “The doctor’s name is House” (9) is reminiscent of the canonical Athanasius example. In his otherwise truthful utterance, House talks about himself in the third person, thereby inducing in the hearers a default, presupposition-based false belief that he is not the doctor he is talking about.

5 Bullshit Bullshit is a peculiar form of deception that has occupied philosophers for a few decades but still seems to be an elusive notion, as the discussion here aims to show. Focused on fine-tuning the original account of bullshit (which is not free from problems) over the years, philosophers seem to have been diverting more and more from the technical definition of this strategy of deception, interpreting bullshit as non-deceptive nonsense. 5.1 Bullshit vs nonsense The term “bullshit” is credited to Frankfurt (2005: 5),47 who introduces it as a less polite synonym for Black’s (1983) “humbug”, which is deliberate deception “short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes” (Black 1983: 143). Frankfurt (2005) thus presents bullshit along these lines (deception but not lying) but rejects the aspect

47 The seminal essay first appeared in Raritan in 1986 to be reprinted in 1988, and later as the 2005 monograph. Quotations given here are taken from the monograph.

326 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

of “­pretentiousness”, which is more of an optional motive for producing bullshit rather than its hallmark. Frankfurt (2005) does not specify whether bullshit can be performed only verbally. Intuitively, this seems to be the case, though. Most importantly, Frankfurt (2005) adds to the definition of bullshit a crucial feature: the speaker intends to deceive the hearer about his/her enterprise, i.e. what he/she is up to. Ultimately, Frankfurt summarises the characteristics of bullshit as follows: “The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts48 or what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to” (Frankfurt 2005: 54). What a bullshitter hides, and hence deceives the hearer about, is that his statements are “produced without concern for the truth” (Frankfurt 2005: 47) and that “the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it” (Frankfurt 2005: 55). Discussing one of his examples, Frankfurt (2005: 33–34) presents bullshit as being “grounded neither in a belief that it [a statement] is true, nor as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth – this indifference to how things really are – that I regard as of the essence of bullshit”. Essentially, a bullshitter holds no belief about the content of his/her utterance inasmuch as he/she is not concerned with it at all, necessarily keeping this covert and thereby deceiving the hearer. A bullshitter does not intend to deceive the hearer into believing what he/she is communicating49 to be true. A number of more recent works present other definitions of bullshit. It is claimed that bullshit: need not involve the intent to deceive (Carson 2010: 60, 2016 [on evasive bullshit]; Fallis 2015b), may coincide with lying (Carson 2010, 2016; Fallis 2015b),50 and may not rest on the bullshitter’s indifference to the truth of what he/she is communicating (Kimbrough 2006; Carson 2010, 2016; Fallis 2015b; Wreen 2013; Stokke and Fallis 2017). These revisions and the examples the authors adduce do not seem to qualify as Frankfurt’s notion of bullshit (see the disclaimers in Carson 2016), representing independent understandings of bullshit. Assuming that bullshit, as put forward by Frankfurt (2005), is a useful notion capturing a

48 “Facts” seem to correspond with “objective truth”, but even Frankfurt’s own examples involve the presentation of feelings, which are more elusive than facts. 49 Typically, the authors quoted in this section use the word “saying”. However, given the technical, Gricean understanding of “saying” endorsed here, a different term is used instead unless verbatim quotations are provided or the Gricean sense is introduced. 50 Fallis (2015b) goes as far as to suggest, quite boldly, that most lies are bullshit, which is the logical consequence of his new conceptualisation of bullshit.

5 Bullshit 

 327

peculiar form of deception, these re-conceptualisations are ill-advised, or at least, they give rise to markedly different understandings of the academic notion of bullshit. These lead to overlaps between bullshit and other distinct phenomena (which should perhaps be kept separate), as will be shown below, as well as in Section 5.2, where the examples found in the literature are dissected. Firstly, the lack of intent to deceive is related to the two understandings of bullshit, both found in the Oxford English Dictionary: “Nonsense, rubbish” or “Trivial or insincere talk or writing” (Cohen 2002). The former definition seems to represent the popular folk understanding of the vulgar word (which Cohen elevates to the status of an academic term), whilst the latter is closer to the technical notion introduced by Frankfurt with regard to a type of deception (notice the insincerity aspect). For no apparent reason, Cohen (2002) links the two definitions given in the OED to two different “genres” of bullshit that are defined by the kind of discourse in which they occur: convoluted academic argumentation (in which Cohen is interested) and ordinary everyday discourse (which he believes Frankfurt to focus on) respectively. The other differences and potential overlaps aside (see Cohen 2002;51 Carson 2016), Cohen’s bullshit, amounts to nonsense, essentially coinciding with a folk understanding of the vulgar word “bullshit”. Such a lay interpretation of bullshit seems to have initially sneaked into Frankfurt’s account too. Frankfurt mentions the prevalence of bullshit due to people’s “ignorance” coupled with their need to take the floor: “Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus, the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic” (Frankfurt 2005: 63). It seems, therefore, that the lack of concern for the truth may actually be associated with, or motivated by, lack of knowledge. This, however, does not undermine the status of bullshit as a peculiar strategy of deception. Carson (2010: 61) claims that bullshitters may not hide the nature of the act they are engaged in and may even wish their “bullshitting to be transparent”. Such acts can be labelled bald-faced bullshit (Carson 2016; Fallis 2015b), parallel to bald-faced lies. Bald-faced bullshit corresponds to non-deceptive nonsense and is beyond the scope of this chapter, possibly not even deserving philosophers’ attention (at least, not as much as it has garnered so far). Following Frankfurt’s

51 Among other things, Cohen (2002) claims that Frankfurt’s notion is more focused on the aspect of activity (in which the intention is crucial) rather than the product, the utterance(s). However, this conclusion is open to question. In any case, in bullshit and bullshitting per se, the speaker’s intentions are indeed crucial.

328 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

lead, the bullshitter’s “only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to” (Frankfurt 2005: 54). The postulate of bald-faced bullshit, therefore, flatly contradicts the central misrepresentation tenet proposed by Frankfurt (see also Meibauer 2016b). Interestingly, after discussing his technical definition of bullshit, Frankfurt (2005: 34) addresses the folk notion of a bull session, where “it is understood by everyone in a bull session that the statements people make do not necessarily reveal what they really believe or how they really feel” and where “the usual assumptions about the connection between what people say and what they believe is suspended” (Frankfurt 2005: 37). This can be perceived as a special type of opting out of Grice’s Quality maxims, which has little to do with bullshitting proper. Secondly, Frankfurt explicitly distinguishes between bullshit and lying, based on the premise that a liar “is guided by the authority of the truth” (2005: 60–61; 2005: 47–48) and is concerned with the truth, whereas the bullshitter is not and does not think “he knows the truth” (2005: 55). Frankfurt does note that bullshitting may coincide with lying, though. He illustrates this point with reference to advertising discourse, which, in his view, amounts to bullshit, even if the advertisers “may also happen to know, or they may happen to subsequently discover, disadvantageous truths about their product. In that case what they choose to convey is something that they know to be false, and so they end up not merely bullshitting but telling lies as well” (Frankfurt 2002: 341). Such advertisers are “liars only, as it were, incidentally or by accident” (Frankfurt 2002: 341). What Frankfurt seems to have in mind then is the case of inadvertent production of verbal falsehood. Although he uses the term “lying”, in a technical sense, of which Frankfurt is supportive, lying involves the speaker’s intention to deceive about the content of his/her assertion, which is absent in the peculiar case of an act of bullshitting. Lying and bullshitting are then mutually exclusive. This intuitively and logically appealing premise is something a few researchers have recently opposed, thereby blurring the difference between bullshit and lies, and denying the basic properties of bullshit that helps distinguish it from other forms of deception: no intent to deceive about the propositional content of the message consequent upon the speaker’s lack of concern for the truth. Thirdly, the lack of concern for the truth as such has been questioned by several authors who claim that people can bullshit but, at the same time, care for the truth of what they are communicating. To capture such cases, some of the authors propose new definitions of bullshit. Stokke and Fallis (2017) define bullshitting as making statements that purport to be contributions to some inquiry (in a Stalnakerian sense) when, in fact, the speaker is indifferent to whether or not his/her statements help that inquiry, i.e. help make conversational progress.

5 Bullshit 

 329

They propose that the hallmark of bullshit is the speaker’s indifference not to the truth/falsity of what he/she is stating (or “asserting” in the authors’ parlance) but to the assertions’ effects on conversational progress. Along similar lines, Fallis (2015b) holds that a bullshitter lacks a concern for the inquiry getting to the truth, which he claims to hold also for the situations when a bullshitter cares for the truth of his/her “assertion”. A few neo-Frankfurtian definitions of bullshit have also been proposed, but they can hardly be seen as showing much improvement on the original definition. For example, Wreen (2013) sees bullshit as a piece of discourse produced by the speaker as if it is an activity of conveying information, in which the speaker is not truly engaged, for the speaker is more or less indifferent to its truthfulness/falsity. Thereby, the speaker attempts to achieve his/her paramount goal: manipulate the audience’s opinions and attitudes. The problem with this definition is that it does not specify what this manipulation involves and how it relates to deception (Meibauer 2014a). On the other hand, according to Meibauer (2014a, 2016b), a bullshitter shows “loose concern for the truth” and intends to present an assertion as “neither true nor not true”. Contrary to what Meibauer seems to claim, this does not correspond directly to Frankfurt’s (2005) “lack of concern for the truth” condition (compare the speaker’s beliefs in Frankfurt’s definition and presentation thereof in Meibauer’s). Based on Frankfurt’s definition, Meibauer’s (2014a, 2016b) second definitional component is “misrepresentational intent” (the speaker does not wish his/her loose concern for the truth to be recognised by the hearer, which is the essence of its deceptive capacity. Meibauer (2014a, 2016b) adds another condition to his revised proposal: presentation of excessive certainty, which can indeed be considered as a hallmark of bullshit. As Meibauer (2016b) notes, his condition of “too much certainty” may be related to the violation of the second maxim of Quality (Dynel 2011a; Fallis 2009, 2012), since if the speaker presents a statement without having adequate evidence, he/she has too much certainty with respect to his/her epistemological basis. Incidentally, this condition seems to be incompatible with the first condition, as put forward by Meibauer (i.e. the speaker cannot come across as being too certain and, at the same time, present something as neither true nor not true). The various definitions of bullshit depict it as a heterogeneous phenomenon that escapes a neat definition or even point to the polysemy of the term in the scholarship. The same can be said about the illustrative examples, some of which obfuscate the picture of bullshit as a category of deception. As will be shown, examples of bullshit per se are difficult to find, contrary to Frankfurt’s (2005) claim about its prevalence.

330 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

5.2 Previous examples of bullshit Frankfurt (2005: 16) illustrates the central notions of lack of concern for the truth and misrepresentation (i.e. deceiving the audience about what one’s enterprise is) with the now canonical example of the 4th of July orator who talks “bombastically” about his country’s past along the following lines: “our great and blessed country, whose Founding-Fathers under divine guidance created a new beginning for mankind”. As Frankfurt explains, the speaker does not consider his statements false, nor does he wish to deceive the audience about American history. What he is concerned with is for people “to think of him as a patriot, as someone who has deep thoughts and feelings about the origins and the mission of our country” (2005: 17–18). This appears to be the quintessential example of bullshit. The second example presents an exchange between Fania Pascal and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Fania Pascal writes, “I had my tonsils out and was in the Evelyn Nursing Home feeling sorry for myself. Wittgenstein called. I croaked: ‘I feel just like a dog that has been run over.’ He was disgusted: ‘You don’t know what a dog that has been run over feels like.’” (Frankfurt 2005: 24). On the understanding that Wittgenstein in the story is not merely teasing Pascal, he recognises her utterance as bullshit, Frankfurt argues. This is because Pascal cannot have any knowledge of how a run-over dog feels, of which she is also aware, which is why she cannot be lying, as Frankfurt stresses. What seems to disgust Wittgenstein is that Pascal has no concern for whether her statement corresponds to the reality, the relevant facts, whether it is accurate. However, Pascal’s utterance is couched in a metaphorical simile (see also Meibauer 2014a, 2016b), and it seems to serve the regular rhetorical purpose of metaphorical language. Metaphor, prototypically, helps the speaker elucidate the unknown entity (here, the speaker’s physical state) via another one, based on the salient feature, which becomes the metaphor’s tertium comparationis (here, feeling really bad), apart from producing further rhetorical effects consequent upon the colourful language use. Bullshit, like any other form of deception may involve the use of metaphor or a different Quality-based figure, thereby recruiting overt untruthfulness, but this instance can hardly qualify as bullshit. Even though Pascal cannot possibly have any personal experience of, or evidence for, the invoked fact (how a run-over dog feels), she must have an intuitive idea (just like anybody endowed with a sense of empathy) of the dog’s mishap, which suffices for the metaphor to serve its purpose. Hence, to Pascal’s mind, she cares for and has (intuitive) evidence for the concept she is referring to. Consequently, Pascal’s utterance shows no indication of being in any way deceptive (covertly untruthful) in terms of what she is up to. Nor is it the case that she shows no concern for the truth of what she is communicating (albeit intuitionbased), whether with regard to the image invoked for the sake of comparison or

5 Bullshit 

 331

with reference to the description of her physical condition. This instance, it may be concluded, fails to illustrate Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit. Meibauer (2014a: 173, 2016b: 73) provides a real-life example of bullshit from advertising discourse. The “Fractional Neck Lift Concentrate” advertisement he quotes is replete with statements that defy common sense but may be orientated towards deceiving the gullible into believing that the advertisers are committing themselves to the truth of these statements, such as those in the following extract: “And the active clinical results? Too many to name, but a 350% improvement in wrinkle appearance during an 84-day third-party study of 60 volunteers stands out as unprecedented proof. [Avant-garde aroma: earth tones and floral roots]”. This extract abounds in “doublespeak” involving covert ambiguity (e.g. what does “wrinkle improvement” mean?: that the wrinkles are more or less visible?), being inherently deceptive. More importantly here, it is strikingly nonsensical and illogical (notice the lack of coherence between the scientific proof and “avant-garde aroma”), being indicative of unrestricted creativity of the copywriter who must have written whatever sprang to mind. The text qualifies as nonsense, and whether or not it really is bullshit depends on what the underlying goal was.52 It is bullshit if the advertisers’ expected the gullible to believe that the advertisers were concerned with the truth of the text and were trying to present the product’s merits. In bullshit, deceiving with regard to the propositional content is irrelevant. On the other hand, if the advertisers were making believed-false assertions in the hope that the gullible should believe these to be true, the text may be regarded as comprised of lies, and blatant ones at that. Another example that Meibauer (2014a, 2016b) provides is a press release concerning the separation of the German model Heidi Klum and the pop singer Seal. Klum stated that they “have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal and happy years of marriage” but, “after much soul-searching”, they “have decided to separate” although they “continue to love each other very much” (Meibauer 2014a: 174; 2016b: 75). It seems that Meibauer questions the cause and effect relationship, with the reason for the couple’s separation being vague, possibly to them as well. Hence, he depicts their statement as presented as neither true nor not true, as being based on their indifference to the truth. Also, Meibauer (2016b: 76) adds that this statement shows too much certainty, whilst, in fact, “Heidi Klum may not be certain that she enjoyed all these seven very loving, loyal and happy years of marriage”. According to Meibauer, since Klum and Seal wish their mental states to be covert from the audience, thereby deceiving them, their statement will then

52 As suggested in Chapter 1, Section 5.2 the study of deception with the use of real-life examples carries a burden of unintelligibility of the deceiver’s real beliefs and intentions.

332 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

be tantamount to bullshit. Even though this line of reasoning may be palatable to some, it relies on heavily mere speculation about the celebrities’ intentions and beliefs. Indeed, the couple are reticent to reveal the genuine cause of their separation, but there are no reasons to believe that their statements are not truthful. Separating with no animosity, but merely out of boredom in the relationship, for example, the couple may be generalising on their happy marriage (in such situations, people tend to subconsciously minimise the importance of the rough times that must have happened); they may love each other (being somehow emotionally attached after so many years), but may not be in love with each other (not being attracted to each other anymore). It is then difficult to take this instance as a cut-and-dried case of bullshit. Carson (2010, 2016) proposes that bullshit frequently helps evade answering questions. He illustrates evasive bullshitting with the following example: In a televised political debate, a candidate for President of the United States, who is against abortion, is asked this question: “I want to ask you about your criteria for nominating people to the US Supreme Court. Would you be willing to nominate anyone who supports the Roe vs. Wade decision? Or, will you make opposition to abortion and Roe vs. Wade53 a necessary requirement for anyone you nominate?”. Although the candidate firmly intends to nominate only people who oppose abortion, she answers, “There are many things that need to be taken into account when nominating someone for the Supreme Court. This isn’t the only relevant consideration. Many other factors are also important. The Supreme Court is a venerable institution and, as our Founding Fathers wisely intended, a central pillar of our blessed democracy. We need outstanding people to sit on the Supreme Court. I would nominate someone with an outstanding intellect and legal mind who has adequate judicial experience and supports my judicial philosophy of following the Constitution as it is written” (Carson 2010: 60, 2016: 57). Contrary to what Carson (2019, 2016) claims, the politician’s reply does not miss the preceding question entirely. The politician deliberately focuses on the first question in the sequence, not willing to answer the controversial one, presumably in order not to antagonise any of the potential electorate. Despite a few otiose sentences (which can be considered gibberish), the speaker may be truthful and committed to what she is communicating, which corresponds to the scenario Carson (2010) presents. If the candidate is “concerned with the truth” of her statements, it is then difficult to tell why this contribution should qualify as bullshit (see also Meibauer 2016b). Incidentally, the “inquiry” arguments do not apply here, since the speaker is addressing the inquiry underlying the first

53 Roe v. Wade was a US Supreme Court ruling that legalised abortion in the USA.

5 Bullshit 

 333

question. Therefore, if any deception is performed, it is withholding information (see Section 4). Carson (2010, 2016) claims that evasive bullshitters typically intend that the hearers (mistakenly) believe that they are trying to answer the questions they have been asked, but he also admits that some speakers bullshit transparently with no intention of deceiving anybody. The latter case disqualifies bullshit as a category of deception, being closer to what “bullshit” means in popular parlance. On the other hand, if the bullshit answer indeed were presented to be taken as being relevant to the question, this would count as deception by violating the maxim of Relation (see Section 6.1). Ultimately, no example of evasive bullshitting that Carson provides appears to fulfil this condition (contrary to what Carson seems to suggest about the example above). Rather, the examples he provides illustrate what he dubs “bald-faced, transparent bullshitting”, which involves no deception at all. This is also the case with the famous example of a student writing an incompetent essay off-topic to what was assigned in the hope that this will earn her a positive grade merely because she has written something (Carson 2010: 61). The non-deceptive essay can hardly count as bullshit in a technical sense; it is only talking nonsense (in writing) with a specific, pragmatic goal in mind. In a modified version of this example, Carson argues, the student is concerned with the truth of what she says, “she knows that the teacher will bend over backwards to give her partial credit if he thinks that she may have misunderstood the question, but she also knows that if the things she writes are false she will be marked down” (Carson 2010: 62). The student’s care to report on the facts in the hope of leading the teacher to think that she has misunderstood the question seems to be an act of deception indeed, but again it does not represent bullshit per se, fulfilling none of Frankfurt’s conditions.54 It does not even seem to be indicative of nonsense (typically, the reason why the “bullshit” label is (mis)applied), since the information is selected carefully to correspond to a version of the factual ‘truth’ that the student had been taught. It is then difficult to explain why it should be seen as bullshit, and hence why its definition should be modified to cover instances like this. Essentially, equating bullshit with any irrelevant or evasive answer that is believed-true (but still has no concern

54 Generally, irrespective of the precise conditions in this scenario, the very act of exam-taking seems to be a special type of discourse in that students, as a matter of principle, rarely do care about the truth of what they write, their ultimate goal being only to pass the exam. Exam-taking frequently amounts to parrot-fashion repetition of what they have been taught without asserting or meaning (and hence, in Gricean parlance, saying) anything by the discourse they are producing, and they are not interested at all in getting the inquiry close to the truth.

334 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

for the central inquiry getting closer to the truth) seems to yield a counterintuitive picture of bullshit, which also contradicts Frankfurt’s definition. Carson’s bullshit coincides with evasion (see Galasiński 1996, 2000), i.e. an evasive reply, in whatever form, that does not address the preceding question and can sometimes involve deception. Carson (2010, 2016) also gives an example of evasive bullshitting that involves lying (see Fallis 2015b): asked whether a person is an atheist, a bullshitter provides an evasive answer, revealing many irrelevant facts, including statements he knows to be false (lies). Carson thus claims that a bullshitter “can tell a lie as a part of an evasive bullshit answer to a question” (2010: 61). Contrary to this, it may be argued that the presence of a lie cancels the status of the overarching bullshitting act55 insofar as in order to lie, the speaker needs to believe what he/ she asserts to be false, hence being concerned with the truth. On the other hand, the other utterances which communicate what the speaker believes to be true (the “facts”) but irrelevant to the question are only evasive, falling short of deception altogether, and thus not qualifying as bullshit in a technical sense. For his part, Wreen (2013: 110) gives an example of a man who believes that he has devised a flawless system for beating the casinos and travels “across the United States lecturing about it to various groups, enthusiastically touting its virtues”, whereas “the system is seriously defective and contains multiple errors, silly even egregious errors”. This is a clear instance of nonsense, coupled with its author’s being wrong (and possibly unwittingly misleading others). This instance clearly falls outside the scope of bullshit in the technical Frankfurtian sense. This section has shed some light on the key problems concerning the conceptualisation of bullshit as a category of deception. An attempt will now be made to position this notion with the Gricean framework.

5.3 Bullshit in neo-Gricean terms According to a previous suggestion (Fallis 2009, 2012;56 Dynel 2011a), bullshit involves the violation of the second Quality maxim “Do not say that for which you

55 As Meibauer (2016b) rightly observes, most instances of bullshit presented in the literature amount to texts and combinations of sentences rather than individual sentences. 56 Fallis (2015b) dismisses this approach based on the assumption that bullshitters may have adequate evidence, as allegedly indicated by Carson’s (2010) careful exam taker, who cares about the truth of what she writes. However, as seen here, this instance hardly qualifies as bullshit proper.

5 Bullshit 

 335

lack adequate evidence” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27). When bullshitting, the speaker lacks the evidence underlying what he/she purports to be saying (or implicating when a Quality-based figure of speech is involved).57 As is the case with everything in the Gricean framework, the evidence is, at least partly, dependent on the speaker’s intentions and belief system rather than hard facts (see the WittgensteinPascal example) at the moment of speaking,58 and the evidence at hand need not be objectively true (see Wreen’s example above). It must be underscored that the maxim reads “you lack adequate evidence” rather than “there is no evidence”, which supports the subjectivity aspect: the adequacy of evidence is decided on solely by the speaker. Also, this maxim does not specify anything about the speaker’s beliefs, specifically whether the speaker has any beliefs with regard to what he/she says (or implicates), which is indeed the essence of Frankfurt’s bullshit. On the whole, by violating the second maxim of Quality, a bullshitter clearly violates the super-maxim of Quality, for he/she will not (even) try to make his/her contribution one that is true. From a neo-Gricean perspective, the condition of violating the second maxim of Quality in what is said (or implicated) seems to be exclusive to bullshit; in other words, there is no other (deceptive) phenomenon that meets this condition. This maxim does not play an immediate role in the emergence of the other forms of deception, which seem to rely on the speaker having what he/she considers adequate evidence to the contrary rather than on not having such evidence. Therefore, the violation of the second maxim of Quality seems to be a sufficient test for the presence of bullshit, understood in a technical sense as a distinct type of deception. As predicted, from among the examples presented in Section 5.2, this test will be unequivocally passed only by Frankfurt’s orator example. This approach to bullshit as communicated meanings about whose validity the speaker does not have sufficient evidence, and hence knowledge or beliefs, ties in with a view that, in practice, ignorance is frequently the driving force of bullshitting, as Frankfurt (2005) seems to have suggested. A bullshitter typically does not “have the slightest idea whether or not it [a statement] is true” (Carson 2006: 286). Also, the notion of perceived evidence in the relevant maxim that is violated mirrors the idea of “facts” in Frankfurt’s definition. However, the covert lack of evidence is not the fundamental definitional component of bullshit, as

57 The implicature-based alternative seems to be quite natural in bullshit and can actually be found in some of the examples given here. 58 Deception is always context-dependent and relies on the speaker’s intentions at a given time. Thus, one may bullshit even when one has access to the relevant knowledge but chooses not to make use of it on a given occasion.

336 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

presented by Frankfurt (2005), whose conditions need to be explicated for the sake of a full picture of what bullshit constitutes. In essence, a bullshitter not only lacks evidence but also has no concern for the evidence or facts, i.e. the (objective) truth, at least at the moment of speaking and has a misrepresentational intent such that he/she wants the former intention to be covert from the hearer. It is then not the case that a bullshitter violates the first maxim of Quality in what he/she is saying (or making as if to say). Technically, a bullshitter neither observes nor nonfulfils this maxim, inasmuch as he/she does not care either about it or about the truth. It is not the case that a bullshitter says what he believes to be false, but he/she does not say what he/she believes to be true either. A bullshitter does not intend to deceive the hearer into believing that the propositional content of his/her utterance is true (see the orator example). However, a bullshitter may intend the hearer to believe that the bullshitter believes this content to be true. More generally, bullshit aims “to give its audience a false impression concerning what is going on in the mind of the speaker” (Frankfurt 2005: 14). Nonetheless, at the level of hearer-inferred what is said (or implicated when a Quality-based figure is in operation), bullshit does involve the violation of the first maxim of Quality, the maxim of truthfulness, and the supermaxim of Quality as well. All inferencing on the hearer’s part takes place on the assumption that the first maxim of Quality is in operation and that it is observed (see Chapter 2, Section 4.1). Even though the speaker technically is not concerned with this maxim and has no beliefs about what he/she is communicating, the expression of true beliefs is naturally ascribed to him/her by the hearer. This seems to be necessary for the deception about the speaker’s enterprise to come about: the hearer must develop a false belief that the speaker is saying (or implicating) what he/she believes to be true in order to develop a false belief about the speaker’s communicative enterprise. The latter is a bullshitter’s principal objective. In this context, it seems relevant to observe that Meibauer (2016b) sees bullshit as a (covertly) pretended act of assertion, as opposed to lies which are insincere assertions. Bullshit then boils down to presenting one’s statements as if one is committed to them, when one is not, in actual fact. It must be emphasised, though, that bullshit need not involve (pretended) assertions and may appear in utterances other than statements, notably questions and imperatives to which the speaker is not genuinely committed and which are insincere. Bullshit may also originate in making as if to say, Example 45 indicates, when it is performed by means of a Quality-based figure of speech. Such bullshit will then be tantamount to covertly pretended implicating. These observations transcend Frankfurt’s (2005) view of bullshit but do not seem to contradict them.

5 Bullshit 

 337

Overall, it may be claimed that, premised on the assumption that a bullshitter neither fulfils nor nonfulfils the first maxim of Quality but violates the second maxim of Quality, he/she produces no speaker meaning (whether what is said or implicated), whilst intending the hearer to take him/her as genuinely communicating this meaning. Thus the maxim of truthfulness is violated at the level of the hearer-inferred what is said/implicated, as the unsuspecting hearer takes the speaker’s utterance to communicate speaker meaning and ascribes the relevant mental states to him/her, letting himself/herself be deceived. (45) [The hospital lawyer, Stacy, has told Cuddy and House to reach an agreement on the course of action with regard to a patient with gangrene in his arm. House has the expertise, but Cuddy has the right to undermine his decision. House is now trying to convince Cuddy to authorise the patient’s arm amputation, which she is reluctant to do, feeling responsible for the patient. He is a handy man that has fallen off her roof and she knows that he will not be able to support his needy family after this surgery.] 1. Cuddy: He loses his home, his kid brother drops out… 2. House: American dream destroyed. Very sad, very emotional. Not one medical fact in the whole pathetic tale. You’ve lost perspective, Cuddy. You’ve stopped looking at this as a doctor. You’re acting like someone who shoved somebody off their roof. You want to make things right? Too bad. Nothing’s ever right. [They enter Stacy’s office.] 3. House: I’m happy to report that we’re now so in sync we’re actually wearing each other’s underwear. Chop, chop time. 4. Stacy: Is this true? 5. House: No, I’m lying. Stupid to do with her in the room, I guess. 6. Stacy: This is a big decision. 7. House: We made it. Season 2, Episode 3 Couched in hyperbole, House’s first utterance (3) displays overt untruthfulness, which carries the following bullshit message at the level of implicature: “I am happy to report that we are now unanimous”. The use of the hyperbole only emphasises House’s certainty (see Meibauer 2016b), but the overt untruthfulness it involves has no bearing on the covert untruthfulness underpinning bullshit, which is grounded in the central implicature. In actual fact, House has no concern for what Cuddy currently believes and whether she has ultimately caved in. House is not only unconcerned but also ignorant (Frankfurt 2005) of Cuddy’s opinion, as their discussion terminated quite abruptly, with no reply on Cuddy’s part to House’s turn (1). House’s bullshitting then violates the second maxim of Quality, as he has no evidence for what he is implicating as he is making as if to

338 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

say. House must believe Cuddy’s medical opinion so far to have been driven by guilt and sympathy for the patient, and hence to be completely compromised. Standing in front of Stacy, House thus bullshits to pursue his agenda and get the final approval for the surgery, which he believes to be the right course of action to save the patient’s life. What he intends to deceive the addressee about is that he cares about Cuddy’s opinion in the first place. When Stacy questions his truthfulness with regard to the unanimous decision having been reached (4), having found his ostensive certainty suspicious, House responds audaciously via irony (5), whereby he deceptively implicates that his previous utterance was devoid of deception (in the technical sense, he did not tell a lie, but he did deceive via bullshit). As he brazenly performs this act of deception, House simply assumes that Cuddy will not object and that she needs to concede to the decision that has just been made on her behalf. This example of bullshit may be juxtaposed with a case of lying that relies on nonsense and that some may wrongly take to be a case of bullshit interwoven into lying. (46) [House and Chase enter the room of Donny, a young man who is suffering from a mysterious hereditary disease. The team hasn’t managed to diagnose him.] 1. House: I’m Dr. House. 2. Donny: You couldn’t find anything, could you? 3. House: You have Ortoli syndrome. 4. Chase: [his eyes open wide as he stares at House in surprise] 5. House: Dr. Chase? 6. Chase: You sure? 7. House: Tests don’t lie. 8. Chase: Right. Ah. [clears his throat] Well, it’s-it’s a... It’s a very rare disorder that short-circuits the adrenals, which short-circuits the heart. 9. House: Blah, blah, blah, blah. Who cares about medical mumbo jumbo? Tell him the treatment. 10. Chase: It’s... weh-well, it’s-it’s complicated. 11. House: [pouring a glass of water] Doctors always want to make everything sound so complicated. It’s Nabasynth. 12. Chase: What? 13. House: Nabasynth. 14. Chase: [nods pompously] Yes. So all we have to do now is write a prescription and, uh, have him pick up the pills. [House opens his hand under Chase’s nose, revealing the mints he took from the tin. He gives them and the glass of water to Donny.] Season 6, Episode 6

6 Deception via other maxim violations 

 339

In order to deceive the patient, both House and Chase produce a series of covertly untruthful utterances, including blatant lies, some of which are based on complete nonsense. Not having managed to diagnose the patient, House comes up with the name of a non-existent disease as well as medicine, which are central to the believed-false assertions, and thus the lies he tells (3 and 10). Once Chase realises what kind of activity House is engaged in and is encouraging him to join, he contributes a nonsensical believed-false assertion that gives a fictitious description of the non-existent disease (8). It may be said that neither of the doctors has any evidence for what they are saying and they are unconcerned with the truth when they are talking gibberish. However, their utterances cannot be classified as bullshit, insofar as they believe what they are saying to be false, and thereby the violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said comes into operation. This seems to be the overriding effect.

6 Deception via other maxim violations The previously recognised categories of deception have been presented through the lens of Grice’s framework as select maxim violations (conducive to lying and other forms of covert explicit untruthfulness, as well as covertly untruthful hearerinferred what is said) and all maxim floutings (yielding deceptive implicatures). When Grice’s model of the Cooperative Principle and the different maxims are taken as a departure point for theorising about deception, it transpires that the primary categories of deception zealously studied by philosophers do not exhaust the scope of the phenomenon. Other forms of deception can also be distinguished and explained as violations of Grice’s remaining maxims: Manner maxims, the maxim of Relation and the second Maxim of Quantity. All of these violations will promote covert implicit untruthfulness so that the deceptive meaning arises as hearer-inferred what is said.

6.1 Covert irrelevance and covert ambiguity Deception may come into being thanks to the violation of the second Quantity maxim, “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 26). As Grice (1989a [1975]: 27) himself observes, “the hearers may be misled [deceived] as a result of thinking that there is some particular point in the provision of the excess of information”. It is not the case, however, that deceived hearers appreciate that this maxim is not fulfilled. Instead, they must

340 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

consider the maxim to be fulfilled and all the information to be pertinent for the sake of developing a given false belief. It is difficult to conceive of an example of deception that deploys only the violation of the second maxim of Quality, though. Typically, it seems to co-occur with another maxim violation or flouting. Among other things, the violation of the second maxim of Quality is a natural concomitant of the violation of the Relation maxim, “Be relevant” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27), which yields what is dubbed covert irrelevance. In a similar manner, Gupta et al. (2013) propose the category of “augmentation”, which involves giving surplus information and violates both Quantity and Relation.59 Vincent Marrelli (2004) also observes that the violation of the second maxim of Quality tends to overlap with the violation of the maxim of Relation, as well as the third maxim of Manner. Essentially, this kind of deception involves adding more information, more discourse as if it is relevant. Contrary to what Vincent Marrelli (2004: 132) suggests, the violation of this maxim does not involve the use of hyperbole or a “stronger item from a scalar set”, which, following Gricean logic, are instances of violating Quality (just like covert understatement and downscaling are not withholding information, which is based on violating the first maxim of Quantity, see Sections 2.7 and 4.4). At first blush, what seems germane in the context of covert irrelevance is Galasiński’s (1996, 2000) notion of covert deceptive evasions. He does state, albeit not elaborating on this problem, that the speaker can deceive “by a clandestine violation of the Gricean maxim of relevance [sic]. In this case the hearer is a target of a manipulative action: s/he is intended to accept the relevance of an irrelevant answer without being aware of it” (Galasiński 1996: 20). Regrettably, none of the examples the author provides illustrates this phenomenon, with all instances of covert violations being rather transparently or detectable irrelevant replies. The irrelevance of the reply, albeit unannounced, can easily be recognised by an attentive hearer (e.g. as a topic shift or topic narrowing/extension). The deception proper (if any) uses a distinct mechanism such as a deceptive implicature, as Galasiński’s (1996, 2000) various interactional examples indicate, on closer inspection. For instance, “A: Would you vote for the Senate anti-abortion bill? B: What kind of stance can a member of a Christian party take?” (Galasiński 1996: 18) can be seen as an implicature based on the flouting of the maxim of Relation.

59 However, their sole example is not entirely convincing: a man is having an affair with a secretary but does not want to reveal this fact; asked by a colleague, “Did I see you having dinner with Mary last night?” he replies, “Yes you did; we used it as an opportunity to discuss some important project issues” (Gupta et al. 2013: 24). It is open to doubt whether the otiose explanation is indeed covertly irrelevant but truthful; if it should be untruthful, it is simply a lie.

6 Deception via other maxim violations 

 341

This may be a deceptive implicature if B, a member of a Christian party, should actually disapprove of the anti-abortion bill. By contrast, the violation of the maxim of Relation is necessarily made covertly and is not supposed to be detected for the deception to succeed. Thomas (1995: 73) quotes a real-life instance of a deceptive act that serves as a good example here (see also Vincent Marrelli 2004), but Thomas (1995) wrongly perceives it as a case of “misleading implicature”: A press officer comments on an athlete’s pulling out, “She has a family bereavement; her grandmother has died”. Although the statement is truthful and corresponds to the facts, it transpires the next day that the real reason for the sportswoman’s withdrawal must be her having tested positive for drugs. The press officer’s utterance seems to be based on the violation of the Relation maxim, as well as perhaps the first and second maxim of Quantity (the speaker says too little and too much at the same time), insofar as the general public is meant to perceive the assertion as being relevant to the sportswoman pulling out, which must be the presupposed topic of the press conference. The quoted utterance then yields covertly untruthful hearerinferred what is said, “She has pulled out because her grandmother has died and she has a family bereavement”. Here is a conversational example from House. (47) [House and Stacy, his ex-fiancée and now the hospital’s lawyer, are in the clinic room. House has been examining a patient, who is experiencing lung problems, and responding to Stacy’s questions about Chase’s alleged ­misconduct.] 1. House: Uhh… [checks the patient’s file] Chuck. I’m going to break from the parable of the wicked doctor and tell a little story about a patient. Let’s call him… Buck, who has low O2 stats and crackling lung sounds. 2. Chuck: Like I have? 3. House: Buck has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. His lung tissue’s turning to rock. There’s no known cause, no treatment. He is slowly ­suffocating. 4. Chuck: You’re talking about me? 5. House: Lung transplant’s about a half a million dollars, but this poor sucker’s got no insurance. If he tried to sign up now, he’d be excluded, pre-existing condition. But let me confirm with my lawyer. [turns to Stacy who doesn’t respond] She confirms. If only Buck hadn’t been diagnosed with fibrosis before he got insurance. So... back to the exam. 6. Chuck: [looks scared and shocked and wordlessly leaves the clinic] 7. Stacy: That’s how you tell this guy he’s dying?

342 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

8. House: Oh relax. He’s got a cold, and soon, health insurance. 9. Stacy: Such a hero; always righting wrongs. Who cares who you have to manipulate. 10. House: I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you and Buck were so close. [walks out of the exam room] Season 2, Episode 8 Having examined the patient and glanced at his file, House develops an expectation in the addressee that the utterances presenting a medical story across his turns (1, 3 and partly 5) are relevant in the conversational context (i.e. when the doctor is supposed to be providing his current diagnosis). As House tells the medical story about the fictional patient, he makes sure to indicate the character’s similarity to Chuck (notice the likeness of names and similar symptoms) so that the relevance of the story is transparent (the fulfilment of the Relation maxim). The patient is thus meant to infer that House is addressing his case and giving him an implicit suggestion that he should get a health insurance policy before he is diagnosed. However, as it later transpires in the interaction between House and Stacy (7–10), who has also developed a false belief that Chuck is terminally ill, House’s entire anecdote is centred on the violation of the maxim of Relation at the level of what is said, for the fictional patient’s case bears no resemblance to the real patient’s, except for the lack of health insurance. This deceptive act is facilitated also by other mechanisms, notably withholding information (3 and 5) by disregarding the patient’s questions (2 and 4) so that his false beliefs are sustained. Manner maxims are violated whenever the hearer is not meant to appreciate the speaker’s deliberate failure to be “perspicuous”, as Grice’s (1989a [1975]: 27) supermaxim stipulates (see Vincent Marrelli 2004 for more examples). The violation of the first maxim of Manner, “Avoid obscurity of expression”,60 can be conceptualised as obfuscation (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Gupta et al. 2013), which amounts to being truthful at the level of the expression on an assumption that the hearer will not be able to fully grasp the truthful meaning, and hence develop a false belief of some kind (based on understanding an utterance differently). Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981: 764) state that this deceptive strategy frequently involves “manipulative language”, that is the use of technical jargon, euphemisms, “verbal cosmetics” or dysphemism. They exemplify this with the instance of “coney” used instead of “rabbit” in order to deceive fur-coat buyers not familiar with the former

60 Grice does not devote much attention to the maxims of Manner, not even in the context of flouting, and thus it is sometimes difficult to tell how they apply in practice.

6 Deception via other maxim violations 

 343

terms, and “partisans” with regard to rebels whom, for instance, broadcasters wish to be regarded with sympathy (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 764). These two examples are markedly different, though. The former lexical item gives rise to lack of understanding (and a potential client might enquire about the animal). The latter, on the other hand, is – depending on the context – either a matter of blatant mendacity (a rebel, who fights against the government, is not a partisan, who fights against an enemy that has taken control of the country) or purposefully employed non-deceptive language use. It is actually difficult to conceive of any example of pure obfuscation that promotes deception. Several researchers have recognised the possibility of deception that can be conceptualised as the violation of the second maxim of Manner “Avoid ambiguity” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27). This deceptive mechanism is dubbed here covert ambiguity. Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981) discuss “deliberate ambiguity”, which is essentially synonymous with deception by equivocation (Bavelas et al. 1990; Burgoon et al. 1996; Gupta et al. 2013; see also Chisholm and Feehan 1977). According to Bavelas et al. (1990), equivocation in deceptive messages can be achieved by manipulating the manner in which the information is presented. In McCornack’s (1992) view, “equivocation” results from the “violation of manner”. More specifically, the violation of the first maxim of Manner, which in practice may involve also the violation of the first Manner maxim, “Avoid obscurity of expression”. Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981: 763) list “deliberate ambiguity” as a form of deception whereby an utterance invites two alternative interpretations, one of which is “true”, whilst the other one, the favourable one, is “false”. They illustrate this claim with an example of an advertising slogan No heat costs less than oil heat (whose salient but “false” reading is “Oil heat is the cheapest of all types of heat”, with the “true” reading being “One pays less for using no heat than for using oil heat”) (see Vincent Marrelli 2004). This example manifests a form of what is known as doublespeak in folk theory (Lutz 1987). This is an umbrella term for manipulative or deceptive language use in persuasive discourse (e.g. in politics or advertising), one of whose vehicles is syntactic or semantic ambiguity. Chisholm and Feehan (1977) go as far as to suggest that when the speaker “equivocates”, he/she lies. This is because the speaker knows that the utterance is “true if taken in the one way and that it is false if taken in the other: he utters it in order to cause D to interpret it in the second way and thereby believe a proposition that is false” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977: 156). According to a weaker view, which is endorsed here, the speaker deceives but cannot really lie by means of covert ambiguity inasmuch as he/she is truthful on one of the alternative readings: at the level of what is said or at the level of what is implicated, even though he/she does not intend to have the hearer glean this truthful meaning, wishing

344 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

it to remain covert. Instead, the speaker intends the hearer to recognise only the alternative meaning, the covertly untruthful one, which the hearer is meant to take as the only intended meaning (truthful by default), while remaining oblivious to the ambiguity. Covert ambiguity can serve deception in various linguistic or communicative phenomena. Apart from the abovementioned doublespeak, covert ambiguity is exploited in humour based on the garden-path mechanism, whereby the hearer is deceived only to be made aware of this fact (see Chapter 5, Section 3.2.1), as well as the peculiar category of covertly produced irony and metaphor, whose presence is not to be recognised by the hearer, at least initially, which will be discussed in depth below. Covert ambiguity may facilitate other forms of deception, as in the Clinton “sexual relationship” example considered as a case of withholding information (see Section 4.4). Covert ambiguity can recruit two versions of what is said, one truthful and one covertly untruthful. Additionally, in the case of covert tropes (see Section 6.2), covert ambiguity can depend on covertly untruthful what is said coupled with truthful but covert implicature, or even two versions of making as to say that invite two implicatures, one truthful and the other one untruthful. Here is an example that seems to be a pure form of deception via covert ambiguity that capitalises on two versions of what is said. (48) [Having gone through Vicodin detox, House is now a patient in a mental hospital. Anne is another patient, a mute woman. Lydia, her sister-in-law, has come to visit her and is now playing the piano.] 1. House:  Nice. You’re a little heavy on the right foot, though. [sits next to Annie] 2. Lydia: See her head? It bobs to the music. It’s the only real reaction I’m getting from her. [House takes Annie’s wrist.] It feels like… we’re talking. 3. House: You’re not talking. [Lydia stops playing and looks at him.] Her head is bobbing to her pulse. 4. Lydia: Are you a new doctor on the ward? 5. House: Technically, yes. [The door to the outside opens. Two orderlies come in, followed by Dr Beasley. House stands up and tosses his cane to the first orderly who catches it.] 6. House: Can I lead this time? 7. Orderly: Come on. Season 6, Episode 1 Even though he takes care not to lie (notice the disclaimer “technically”), when House confirms (5) Lydia’s conjecture (4) based on the perceptive observation he

6 Deception via other maxim violations 

 345

has made (3), he purposefully allows her to continue to hold the relevant false belief (until he is escorted out of the room). House’s utterance can be elaborated as “Technically, I am a new doctor on the ward”. This assertion centres on the violation of the first and second Manner maxims and, consequently, covert pragmatic ambiguity: the contextually salient interpretation of “doctor on the ward” as someone who treats patients on the ward at hand (the salient interpretation) and as someone who is a patient on the ward but is a doctor in his professional life. Lydia is thus meant to remain oblivious to the latter truthful interpretation and the ambiguity too, taking the former alternative as the speaker’s truthful meaning realised as what is said. In actual fact, the hearer’s false belief arises from the communicated hearer-inferred what is said, which violates the first maxim of Quality (covert implicit untruthfulness). Deception based on the covert production of a rhetorical figure (notably, irony and metaphor) can be thought of as a special case of covert ambiguity, which deserves closer attention due to its complexity. 6.2 Deception via covert irony and metaphor Both irony and metaphor can be purposefully made unavailable to the hearer, who is thereby deceived. This form of deception can be dubbed covert pretending to say (while, in fact, covertly making as if to say) and regarded as “planned misunderstanding” purposefully devised by the speaker, as opposed to the hearer’s misunderstanding which the speaker has not envisaged. In technical terms, the speaker violates the second maxim of Manner by making the metaphor-based or irony-based flouting of the first maxim of Quality, and hence the presence of a truthful implicature, which is unavailable to the hearer. Consequently, the hearer considers the utterance to be based on what is said,61 which, in actual fact, is the hearer-inferred what is said representing what the speaker believes to be false and manifesting the violation of the first maxim of Quality. The hearer, in accordance with the speaker’s deceptive plan, operates on the assumption that there is no implicature, no alternative meaning, and no ambiguity in operation. This hitherto neglected mechanism of deception is facilitated by the fact that sometimes the literal reading of a figurative utterance is a plausible candidate for speaker meaning, and it is also the salient one, as is the case with the following example of covert metaphor.

61 In more complex cases (see the first example below) where another figure is used, implicature rather than what is said comes into being.

346 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(49) [Performing his clinic duty, House diagnoses a patient by the name of Jill.] 1. Jill: My joints have been feeling all loose, and lately I’ve been feeling sick a lot. Maybe I’m overtraining; I’m doing the marathon, like, ten miles a day, but I can’t seem to lose any weight. 2. House: Lift up your arms. [She does so.] You have a parasite. 3. Jill: Like a tapeworm or something? 4. House: Lie back and lift up your sweater. [Jill lies back and still has her hands up.] You can put your arms down. 5. Jill: Can you do anything about it? 6. House: Only for about a month or so. After that it becomes illegal to remove, except in a couple of states. [starts an ultrasound on her abdomen] 7. Jill: [naïvely surprised] Illegal? 8. House: Don’t worry. Many women learn to embrace this parasite. They name it, dress it up in tiny clothes, arrange playdates with other parasites. 9. Jill: Playdates? 10. House: [shows her the ultrasound] It has your eyes. Season 1, Episode 4 As House presents his diagnosis (2), he deceives the patient, possibly for the sake of self-amusement, knowing that the patient’s default interpretation recruits the literal sense of “parasite”. Indeed, the deception comes off as the metaphoricity is initially lost on the hearer, as evidenced by her query (3). Incidentally, House blatantly disregards it and, by withholding information, sustains her false belief (4). However, he does elaborate on the metaphorical interpretation across his turns (6, 8 and 10, which itself is based on untruthfulness), yet not explicating the intended meaning underlying the metaphorical turn, which the addressee (who is rather slow on the uptake) needs to glean on her own. Overall, House utters “You have a parasite” with a view to this being interpreted as covertly untruthful hearer-inferred what is said, whilst, according to his covert intention, this is making as if to say that implicates “You are pregnant with a baby” (a foetus/a baby is compared to a parasite, in the light of the similarities: living inside the organism and getting food from it, which is normally not beneficial for the host). This deceptive use of Quality-based figures can also be found in multi-party interactions where different hearer types and different meanings communicated thereto can be distinguished (see Section 8). Sometimes, both the speaker and one hearer join the deceptive scheme, knowing that another party will take an utterance at face value, oblivious to the irony (Holdcroft 1983). Quite controversially, Fowler (1965: 305–306) claims that irony necessitates “a double audience”

6 Deception via other maxim violations 

 347

and may be defined as the use of words intended to convey one meaning to the uninitiated part of the audience and another to the initiated, the delight of it lying in the secret intimacy set up between the latter and the speaker”. Needless to say, it is not the case that such “uninitiated audience” who is deceived regarding the speaker’s meaning must always be present. Irony only sometimes serves deception in multi-party interactions. Clark and Gerrig (1984) also observe that irony may be available only to chosen hearers, those with whom they share common ground, i.e. shared beliefs and mutual knowledge and suppositions (Clark and Carlson 1981; Clark and Marshall 1981). Thus, an utterance may sound ironic to one hearer but not to another, who is not privy to the information which would enable his/her recognition of the irony and who is thus deceived (Clark and Gerrig 1984).62 Similarly, in his definition of irony, Attardo (2000) adds a proviso that at least part of the “audience” must recognise the speaker’s ironic intention. Thus, he allows for the fact that not all irony must be made available to all hearers. What Attardo (2000: 818) appears to have in mind is then the case of the speaker’s directing an ironic utterance to distinct hearers, with the “butt” being deceived for they cannot recognise the presence of the irony. In this vein, Currie (2006: 120) makes an observation in passing that an utterance can simultaneously convey an assertion and ironic message (“a pretended assertion”) to two different “audiences”, suggesting that irony and lies may “coexist in the same performance, where one audience is supposed to see the point and another to be deceived”. Although Currie (2006) does not properly discuss or exemplify63 this observation, his claim may be interpreted to mean that the speaker has a twofold communicative plan: to convey a truthful implicature via irony to one hearer and to deceive another. Thus, the hearer who takes the utterance at face value, that is as a literally communicated meaning, is deceived, in Currie’s (2006) view. Here are two examples illustrating the use of irony (Example 50) and metaphor (Example 51), both covert from the perspective of select hearers in the interactions. The case of irony is further complicated by the fact that the utterance deploys another rhetorical figure overt to the deceived hearer.

62 This, together with Grice’s remark on pretending, prompts Clark (1996) to reconceptualise the pretence theory of irony (Clark and Carlson 1982, Clark and Gerrig 1984) as being based on two layers of communication (representing two scenes). Layer 2 involves an implied speaker and an implied hearer based on the literal level of an ironic utterance, and Layer 1 entails the speaker and the hearer jointly pretending that the event in Layer 2 is taking place. Here the implied (or imaginary) interlocutors are not accounted for. 63 Currie makes a reference to the novel Emma but fails to explicate the utterance in question or describe its workings.

348 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(50) [In this episode, House is being exceptionally nice, which is because he is taking a dangerous drug called methadone. He and his team are discussing the case of a patient, a boy who was originally born with an indeterminate sex and who, they suspect, has a blind uterus. The child’s parents enter the diagnostic room.] 1. Mother: We think that he has a blind uterus, he should have an MRI. 2. House: [looking at Thirteen] Did you send them a text? 3. Father: Over the past thirteen years, we’ve educated ourselves. 4. House: Well, who needs med school when you’ve got Wi-Fi? [to the team] Go schedule their son for an MRI with contrast right away. Season 5, Episode 16 In response to the parents’ correct hypothesis about their child’s medical condition (1), as well as their admission to the informal medical self-study over the years (3), House asks a rhetorical question (4), which involves the flouting of the first maxim of Quality. Due to the overt use of this figure, no what is said arises. The parents must regard the doctor’s utterance as communicating an implicit compliment rendered via a (by default, truthful) implicature along the lines of “Med school is not necessary and Wi-Fi suffices to be able to diagnose a patient, as your case shows”. On the other hand, the team will be aware that House typically frowns upon people who seek medical advice on the Internet, which is why they are able to infer the alternative version of making as if to say and the alternative covert critical implicature stemming from the covert irony. Even though House does delegate the work to the team, seemingly based on the parents’ suggestion (which is actually in accord with House’s diagnostic assumption), his polite utterance comes over as being deceptive, from the perspective of the interactants familiar with House’s beliefs, which he cannot have suspended. The team members must then recognise that the utterance shows covert ambiguity (Manner violation at the level of making as if to say) and the implicature the parents can infer is covertly untruthful (violation of the first maxim of Quality). Ultimately, House implicates that “Wi-Fi (information on the Internet) cannot replace med school”. (51) [Previously, House’s former patient appeared with a gun in House’s office and badly injured the doctor. Consequently, Cuddy had House’s blood stained carpet changed. House opens the door to Cuddy’s office.] 1. House: I want my old carpet back. [bangs his cane on to her desk, while Cuddy is talking on the phone] 2. Cuddy: Err... we’re going to have to do this later. A kid in the clinic had an accident. [puts the phone down] Generally when people are on the phone– 3. House: I want my old carpet back. Season 3, Episode 4

7 Bald-faced lying 

 349

As House has burst into her office, Cuddy produces one utterance “A kid in the clinic had an accident” (2) to communicate two distinct meanings simultaneously to two hearers: the addressee on the phone and the newly ratified hearer who is standing in front of her. The hearer on the phone is intended to take this utterance as communicating a truthful assertion, as what is said. This assertion is covertly untruthful, though. Cuddy thus intends to deceive the addressee in order to save face and not to have to account for the situation in the office. By contrast, House is to recognise the metaphor and the fact that he is being compared to a child, and thereby criticised for his puerile behaviour. Despite the fact that he is not (intended to be) deceived, he must be aware of the deception being performed. To conclude, the form of deception discussed in this section is based on the speaker producing a truthful implicature (originating in maxim flouting) but making it covert, and hence unavailable, to the deceived hearer. This covertness is the consequence of the violation of the second maxim of Manner. If the deception is successful, the hearer is oblivious to the presence of a rhetorical figure and the resulting ambiguity. Consequently, this hearer is deceived into believing that the speaker is communicating what is said (or implicated), failing to recognise the flouting of the first maxim of Quality at the level of hearerinferred what is said (or implicature), as devised by the speaker. In the prototypical scenario (where no independent maxim flouting is involved next to the covert one), the speaker’s utterance deceptively communicates to the hearer a meaning that coincides with what is said, as if there is no flouting of the first maxim of Quality in this utterance, and hence as if no rhetorical figure is present. The deceptive (covertly untruthful) what is said (which the speaker actually sees as making as if to say) might even be interpreted as a lie (Currie 2006), as the speaker believes the statement (covertly, not an assertion) he/she is making to be false. However, what differentiates this case from a lie is that the speaker not only deceives the hearer about his/her belief and the content of the assertion (the essence of lying), but the speaker also deceives the hearer into believing that he/she is making an assertion, whilst keeping covert the truthful implicated meaning.

7 Bald-faced lying Some attention must be paid to a notion that is prevalent in the philosophical literature on deception but, as will be argued here, does not constitute deception per se. A bald-faced lie, a label introduced in the academic discourse by Sorensen (2007), is frequently viewed as a believed-false statement or assertion that does not involve the speaker’s intention to deceive. The notion of a “bald-faced lie”

350 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

has divided philosophers into “deceptionists” and “non-deceptionists” (Mahon 2015). Pointing to bald-faced lies, the latter (Carson 2006, 2010; Fallis 2009, 2010, 2012; Sorensen 2007, 2010; Saul 2012; Stokke 2013a, 2013b) advocate a view that the intent to deceive the hearer is not a definitional component of lying, and thus that lying is not part of deceiving. Another argument in the discussion is the existence of “knowledge-lies”64 (Sorensen 2010; see Staffel 2011 for criticism). Thus, when bald-faced lies and knowledge lies are classified as lying, the (pleonastic) term “deceptive lying” is sometimes used (e.g. Fallis 2010) with regard to lying proper. Deceptionists, in turn, argue that a “bald-faced lie” is a misnomer denoting something that is not a genuine lie because it lacks the intention to deceive (Faulkner 2007; Dynel 2011a, 2015; Mahon 2015; Meibauer 2014a, 2014b, 2016c; Keiser 2016),65 or that bald-faced lying actually involves an intention to deceive and is a type of deception (Lackey 2013).66 Sorensen (2007: 251) states that when a bald-faced lie is told, it is “common knowledge between everyone involved (the addressee, the general audience, bystanders, etc.)” that the speaker is lying. In a nutshell, a bald-faced lie revolves around a common belief shared by the speaker and the hearer(s)67 that the speaker is making a statement which they believe to be false (and which is frequently just plain false, based on the available evidence). However, as Fallis (2009, 2010) rightly notes, it may suffice for the speaker to believe that it is a common belief that the statement is false. In this context, it must be emphasised that bald-faced lies should not be confused for blatant lies, brazen lies or “bare-faced lies” (Williams 2002), which are produced audaciously and/or which are duly recognised as being lies. It is perhaps because of conflating these two concepts that Meibauer (2014b) conceptualises bald-faced lies as acts of aggression or insults. Meibauer (2014b: 105) illustrates this point with the following scenario: “Imagine a husband

64 Sorensen defines a “knowledge-lie” as follows: “An assertion that p is a knowledge-lie exactly if intended to prevent the addressee from knowing that p is untrue but is not intended to deceive the addressee into believing p” (2010: 610). As Staffel (2011) shows, Sorensen’s definition of deception is very narrow. 65 Keiser (2016) claims that a bald-faced lie is not a contribution to a conversation but only a contribution to a language game. 66 For this purpose, Lackey (2015) draws a distinction between deceit and deception, the latter having to do only with the concealment of information, which constitutes a “weaker” definition. As Fallis (2015a) convincingly shows, bald-faced lies do not show any traces of deceiving. 67 Most examples of bald-faced lies presented across the literature involve multiple hearers, typically not just one, who are privy to the information that will prevent them from being deceived. Also, the authors tend to conceive of potential hearers as oblivious to the crucial information.

7 Bald-faced lying 

 351

coming back early in the morning excusing himself by uttering I had to stay in the office this night, while it is mutually obvious to both him and his spouse that this is not true”. Meibauer (2014b: 105) explains that the man’s statement is not a lie “because the falsity of what is said is completely transparent to the interlocutors”. This example and the theoretical claim which it illustrates are debatable. It is open to doubt what “mutually manifest” and “transparent to the interlocutors” mean. The husband must have a belief that he did not stay in the office and did something else instead (e.g. he had a meeting with his mistress), but the wife may only suspect that this is the case (e.g. if she senses that her husband is having an affair, is a womaniser and/or does not love her; but she may be wrong). The basic question concerns the husband’s intentions as he produces the untruthful utterance in the particular context. Meibauer does not explain whether the husband actually intends to deceive his wife about anything (even if the man believes that he stands little chance of doing this), or whether he wishes to pursue a different agenda and communicate another message based on the overtly untruthful statement, which does not qualify as an assertion. If the latter is the case, this is not an act of deception at all. Indeed, in Meibauer’s (2014a, 2014b, 2016c) view, bald-faced lies are not lies in a technical sense. The husband must then be aware that his wife has some incriminating evidence, which is the source of her belief about where he was the previous night. However, it is difficult to picture what the husband could possibly mean to implicate or what his communicative purpose might be, and why his utterance should be taken as being aggressive. A more likely (and psychologically plausible) interpretation is then that the husband is aware that his wife holds a weak belief (not supported by any hard evidence) that he did not stay in the office. However, he is a tenacious cheat and tells the barefaced lie, hoping that his wife might change her belief if he will adamantly dispel her suspicions. In this sense, the husband’s utterance can be deemed an act of verbal aggression (but still not an insult). Even if one should insist that examples like the one above are instances of bald-faced lies, the property of aggression cannot be seen as a hallmark, not to mention a definitional component, of bald-faced lying. As standard examples of bald-faced lies found in the literature show (see below), there is hardly anything aggressive or insulting in the overtly untruthful statements.68 This cannot be said about bare-faced lies, which the target may indeed recognise as face-threatening manifestations of power stipulated on their acknowledgement of the presence of

68 Although Meibauer (2014b) does cite previous examples of bald-faced lying, he does not attempt to explain in what ways they might be considered acts of aggression.

352 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

these lies (see Williams 2002). Here is an example of such audacious (bare-faced) lying, similar to Meibauer’s (2014b) “unfaithful husband” case. (52) [House has learnt that Mark, Stacy’s husband (whom House hates), is participating in therapy for people coping with disability. A group therapy session is in progress when House walks in.] 1. Mark: [...] When can I safely book a game of squash? When am I going to stop being angry? 2. House: Not today. I’ve come for the healing. Dr. Harper, as you know, I errr, I have a bum leg. What you don’t know is I’m upset about it. I need to talk. 3. Mark: You know House! You know we have a history! 4. House: You’ve been telling me for years that I should come by. Here I am. [to the group] Hi guys! 5. Dr. Harper: Got a Thursday group. 6. House: Poker night. 7. Dr. Harper: Monday morning? 8. House: Book club. Well look, if it’s a problem, I’ll just go deal with my rage privately. 9. Dr. Harper: Wait. If you two could resolve this tension, you could really help each other. 10. House: [nods thoughtfully] I’m tired of fighting. 11. Mark: [laughs] What? So either I say yes or I’m the jerk? 12. House: Oh god, I know that feeling. Season 2, Episode 6 From the beginning of the interaction, House does not hide his dislike for Mark. For example, he indicates that his presence will make Mark angry (2), and all his contributions to the interaction can be seen as acts of aggression. In the various turns, House (very likely) tells lies; what he wants the doctor to know is that he is upset about his bad leg and that he needs to talk (2), that he has poker nights on Thursdays (6) or book club meetings on Monday mornings (8), that he is willing to manage his anger on his own (8) (in fact, he is not willing also because he has no anger that he would like to contain), or that he is tired of quarrelling with Mark (10). House produces all of these lies, fully aware of the fact that at least some of them Mark will see right through, and perhaps the doctor will as well. House is thus prepared for the fact that his deception will fail, at least with regard to one of the hearers (see Section 8), specifically Mark. Nonetheless, however unbelievable House’s claims may be, it is not the case that the hearers can be sure that the speaker is not telling the truth, at least in some of the cases (e.g. House might

7 Bald-faced lying 

 353

have these pokers nights). Also, even if his utterances should sound suspicious to Dr Harper, the speaker means to deceive her so that he may be allowed to stay in the group rather than expecting her to discover his mendacity. Essentially, House’s brazenly mendacious utterances can indeed be deemed aggressive, but they are not bald-faced lies. A canonical bald-faced lie is Sorensen’s (2007) example of Taklef’s saying to a Norwegian reporter that everything Hussein “did in the past was good and everything he will do in the future is good”, which he knows as a result of his “belief in the party and his leadership [...] Everybody knows Taklef is lying and everybody knows everyone knows it” (Sorensen 2007: 251). Yet another classic example from Sorensen (2007: 253) is as follows: a journalist, Seierstad, sneaks into a civilian hospital ward crowded with wounded soldiers, and a doctor says, “There are no soldiers here” and “I see no uniforms”. In both examples, the speakers are aware that the hearers (journalists and, ultimately, the general audience) will not take them to have been truthful. Consequently, they cannot possibly mean to induce false beliefs in anybody, as they cannot expect that their words will be taken as an expression of their true beliefs given their absurdity (in the context of widely available facts) or the evidence at hand. The statements are then overtly false and believed-false. In another standard example, a scared witness makes a false statement for fear of the defendant’s vengeance but does not intend to deceive anyone (and “hopes” that nobody will believe the testimony), with the deception being “merely an unintended ‘side effect’” (Carson 2010: 20). One of the many underlying problems in the dispute over whether bald-faced lies are lies in a technical sense is that Carson’s (2006, 2010: 20–21) oft-quoted witness example tends to be oversimplified in the literature. As Carson (2006, 2010) himself notes, intentional deception may still be involved if it should concern the speaker’s belief that what he is testifying is true, rather than concerning the content of the statement, whose untruthfulness is overt to the hearers. Carson (2006, 2010) views this case as being a lie involving intentional deception, not merely an utterance liable to mislead beyond the speaker’s intention. Thus, Carson fine-tunes the context of this example: “Suppose that I know that the crime and my presence at the scene of the crime were recorded on a video camera so that there is almost no chance that the jury will believe that I believe what I am saying” (2006, 2010: 20). In this case, there can be no intention to deceive on the witness’s part, inasmuch as he is well aware that hard evidence is available and his denial will be regarded as being untruthful by the jury (and other people involved), who are familiar with the objective truth. It is actually doubtful that anybody aware of the facts should be deceived. However, even if someone not in the know should be taken in by

354 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

the witness’s testimony, the speaker can hardly be accused of having lied deliberately. Given all the available assumptions, what the speaker tacitly wishes to communicate to the hearers is that he is afraid to tell the truth consistent with the recording. At the same time, he may be signalling to the defendant that he is doing his utmost to cast doubt on the past event and that he is thereby succumbing to the blackmail. Meibauer (2014a: 108) postulates that bald-faced lies are not lies, for the speaker’s utterances are “manifestly insincere” (here, untruthful) and that this manifest insincerity “is [leads to] conversational implicature”. Referring to the witness example, Meibauer (2011, 2014) defends a view that bald-faced lies are conducive to conversational implicature along these lines: “S asserts p but wants me to think that I do not believe p” (2014a: 105) promoted by the maxim of Relation. Regrettably, Meibauer does not expand on this idea in terms of how the maxim of Relation invites the implicature and what exactly its nature is (see Dynel 2015 for further criticism). Also, Meibauer (2014b: 128) mentions that in telling bald-faced lies, the speaker is opting out of the Cooperative Principle. This is hardly tenable. Opting out, the way Grice (1989a [1975]: 30) conceives this notion, means saying nothing at all and signalling one’s withdrawal to the speaker. Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]) puts forward the Cooperative Principle as the principle of rationality, which is inoperative only when interlocutors are irrational. Meibauer’s (2014b) statement about opting out is also incompatible with the postulate that bald-faced lies promote conversational implicatures, based on the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, which is possible only when the Cooperative Principle holds. Meibauer (2014a: 109) rightly states that bald-faced lies are not lies for it is “mutually known to the participants that what the speaker says is false” or rather what the speaker says is what he/she believes to be false. Meibauer’s (2014a) arguments and counterarguments against the non-deceptionist approach need buttressing, though. Essentially, bald-faced lies are not, technically speaking, lies because the speaker does not intend the utterance to be taken as (truthful) what is said and does not intend to deceive the hearer(s) (Dynel 2011a; Faulkner 2013; Mahon 2008a; Meibauer 2011). Moreover, bald-faced lies cannot be considered lies thanks to their overt untruthfulness (i.e. untruthfulness available to the hearer) rather than covert untruthfulness, which is the essence of lying. It would then be wrong to suggest that bald-faced lies are reliant on the (covert) violation of the first maxim of Quality, as is the case with standard lying. If anything, speakers only overtly pretend to be lying, with their untruthfulness being manifest to the hearers. Bald-faced lies may then be considered to be dependent on flouting the first maxim of Quality rather than (covert) violation of

7 Bald-faced lying 

 355

it. This flouting is performed so that the hearer can make inferences related to the speaker’s motivation, communicative goal and implicated meaning. It is proposed here that bald-faced lies may be regarded as enjoying a status similar to the Quality-based figures listed by Grice (1989a [1975]: 34), namely: metaphor, irony, hyperbole and meiosis, all of which are conducive to conversational implicatures. These figures (except verisimilar irony) do not convey what is said, but rather they promote implicatures originating from “making as if to say” (Chapter 2, Section 5.1) and are contingent on the speaker’s overt untruthfulness. Each of the phenomena has their distinct properties, their common denominators being only the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, overt untruthfulness, and implicature as the intended meaning. The goal of metaphor is to make an implicit comparison, the goal of irony is to communicate negative evaluation, and the goal of hyperbole/meiosis is to augment/downplay a given feature as evaluated by the speaker. Similarly, bald-faced lies are deployed in special conversational contexts to communicate various contextually-motivated implicated meanings. The similarity between bald-faced lies and the Quality-based figures has actually been recognised from the very beginning. Sorensen (2007: 252) points out that “bald-faced lies do not fool anyone. They are no more a threat to truth telling than sarcastic [ironic] remarks”. Sorensen (2007: 263) also acknowledges the fact that those who see the intent to deceive the hearer as an inherent property of lying “would regard the bald-faced lie as no more a lie than metaphor, hyperbole, and sarcasm [irony]”. Indeed, all share the same features: they show non-deceptive overt untruthfulness and they invite implicatures. Interestingly, in his recent paper, Stokke (2016a) mentions in passing that implicatures are generated from bald-faced lies, which, as he insists, are “open or undisguised lies”. Needless to say, the implicatures originating in what is known as bald-faced lies are not deceptive/covertly untruthful implicatures and do not bear any affinity with deception. In conclusion, the phenomenon of bald-faced lying is classified as lying (giving rise to the postulate of non-deceptive lying) primarily because of the lay label under which it functions. All of its features, however, point to the fact that bald-faced lying is a species of overt untruthfulness and is based on flouting the first maxim of Quality conductive to conversational implicature. (53) [House has administered medication, Prednisone, to a patient, after which she started seizing. Cuddy, House and his team are now in the diagnostic office.] 1. Foreman: Patient tested positive for herpetic encephalitis. 2. House: So what does that tell us?

356 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

3. Cameron: Her immune system is severely compromised. 4. Cuddy: Ooh, I know! Prednisone compromises the immune system. Isn’t that the medicine you gave her for the thing she doesn’t have? 5. House: Yeah, but… hey. I’m think that’s a trick question. 6. Cameron: Her immune system is severely compromised. Two doses of Prednisone wouldn’t do that. 7. Cuddy: Are you hanging your diagnosis on an adverb? 8. House: In ten seconds, I’m gonna announce that I gave her the wrong dose in the clinic. 9. Cuddy: You’re gonna admit negligence? 10. House: Unless you leave the room. If you stay, you’ll have to testify. 11. Cuddy: [stays put] 12. House: Five, four, three, two…. So, there I was in the clinic, drunk. I open the drawer, close my eyes, take the first syringe I can find... [The team members smile. Cuddy leaves.] Season 1, Episode 5 Accused of malpractice by Cuddy (4 and 7), House first retorts via irony (8), thereby denying the accusation and questioning Cuddy’s judgement, only to draw Cuddy into his blackmailing game, clearly signalling his intent (10). As Cuddy non-verbally refuses to leave (11), House presents an overtly untruthful, if not absurd, scenario, whose untruthfulness is easily recognised by everybody present (12). Thus, House flouts the first maxim of Quality in order to implicate that he is not going to admit to having administered the wrong dosage to the patient and that his goal is to cajole Cuddy into leaving the room, which he has already unsuccessfully attempted to do (10).69 House’s utterances following the countdown (12) cannot be seen as (untruthful) saying, but as overt untruthfulness. House is making as if to say with a view to communicating a complex implicated meaning. The first objection that might be raised against this proposal is that the figures listed above do not constitute assertions, whereas bald-faced lies are viewed as assertions (Fallis 2010; Sorensen 2007; Stokke 2013a, 2014; Goldberg 2015). In Sorensen’s words, “Takhlef is not merely pretending to assert that Saddam’s leadership is perfect. He wants to be on the record. He defends the proposition by words and deeds” (2007: 252). Premised on an assumption that lying “is just

69 This example does show some aggression, which has to do with the nature of this particular conflictual conversational context.

7 Bald-faced lying 

 357

asserting what one does not believe” (Sorensen 2007: 256), Sorensen argues that bald-faced lies are assertions, contrary to metaphors which show “clear falsity” or humorous utterances, thanks to which the speaker can be seen to be “kidding”. As Keiser (2016) observes, the accounts that present bald-faced lies as lies along these lines will have trouble distinguishing genuine assertions from non-literal speech. Moreover, as is argued here, bald-faced lies may be considered a type of non-literal, implicit, language use. Technically, metaphor and other figures do manifest overt untruthfulness (and sometimes objective falsity), but Sorensen does not appear to offer any consistent evidence in favour of why bald-faced lies should be different in this respect and why they should reside in assertions, as a result. Overt untruthfulness underlying metaphors is typically more transparent, relying on widely available assumptions, unlike non-absurd jocular utterances (which may or may not be assertions) and bald-faced lies. However, technically, the status and function of the speaker’s intended overt untruthfulness in metaphors and bald-faced faced lies are the same. Some of the authors propose new definitions of assertions to be able to encompass bald-faced lies in them. According to Goldberg (2015: 5), “assertions are speech acts in which a given proposition is presented as true, then to present something as true in speech is something one can do even under conditions in which it is mutual knowledge that no one believes or will believe that the proposition is true”. For his part, Fallis (2009, 2010) endorses a definition of asserting devoid of the component of the speaker’s intention to have the hearer believe what he/she is uttering in order for it to encompass bald-faced lies. He thus follows Peirce’s classical approach that “to assert a proposition is to make oneself responsible for its truth” (Peirce 1934: 384; see Brandom 1983). This attempt to salvage the view that bald-faced lies are indeed embedded in assertions may not be entirely successful. The speaker’s tacit commitment to (the guarantee of) truth, and hence the speaker’s truthfulness, that Fallis (2010) champions is at odds with the fundamental feature of bald-faced lies. They exhibit no truthfulness, let alone truth, for which the speaker can be held responsible, and both the speaker and hearer(s) are aware of this. Bald-faced lies present overt untruthfulness, as do the figures of speech which arise from the flouting of Grice’s (1989a [1975]) first maxim of Quality. Interestingly, Fallis (2009) does invoke Grice’s maxims in his account of asserting, predicated on the speaker’s belief that the maxims (most significantly, the first maxim of Quality) are in operation when a statement is made. Both bald-faced lies and the figures in question flout/overtly violate the first maxim of Quality. The figurative utterances are not seen as assertions; nor are bald-faced lies.

358 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

Referring to Carson’s cynical Dean example,70 Stokke (2013a) claims that bald-faced lies are assertions (e.g. “I did not plagiarise”) and that they become part of common ground, even if the relevant common knowledge should be otherwise (e.g. the student did plagiarise). Stokke (2013a: 54) thus concludes that the liar “wants to make sure that the common ground comes to include the false information that she did not plagiarize. The student wants herself and the Dean to mutually accept that she did not plagiarize”. Stokke (2013a: 48) takes as a point of departure a weak definition of common ground, according to which it “is to be defined in terms of an attitude weaker than belief. The main reason is that common-ground information that is known (or believed) to be false is no obstacle to conversational smoothness”. From Stalnaker’s (1984, 2002: 716) perspective, “[t]o accept a proposition is to treat it as true for some reason. One ignores, at least temporarily, and perhaps in a limited context, the possibility that it is false”. In Stokke’s interpretation, acceptance is a “propositional attitude weaker than belief. That is, that a subject S accepts that p does not entail that p is true, nor that S believes that p” (2013a: 49). Originally, however, Stalnaker (2002) posits that acceptance may depend on a belief, but it may rely on other forms of propositional attitudes as well. In any case, on the strength of Stalnaker’s (2002: 716) observation that communication may rely on “presuppositions that are recognized to be false”, Stokke (2013a) suggests that the speaker intends some false information to be accepted but not believed. Stokke’s (2013a) proposal seems palatable at first blush, but it modifies significantly Stalnaker’s (2002) conceptualisation of acceptance and, more importantly, misrepresents the communicative purpose of bald-faced lies. Stalnaker’s examples of acceptance not anchored in beliefs rest on some inferential mistakes that speakers make, which hearers do not need to rectify given their communicative goals. For instance, when asked about the age of his baby daughter, a man need not offer that the baby is a boy but may accept the

70 “Suppose that a college Dean is cowed whenever he fears that someone might threaten a law suit and has a firm, but unofficial, policy of never upholding a professor’s charge that a student cheated on an exam unless the student confesses in writing to having cheated. The Dean is very cynical about this and believes that students are guilty whenever they are charged. A student is caught in the act of cheating on an exam by copying from a crib sheet [...]The student is privy to information about the Dean’s de facto policy and, when called before the Dean, he (the student) affirms that he did not cheat on the exam” (Carson 2010: 21). This example is, overall, problematic, inasmuch as while the speaker is untruthful, the hearer cannot be certain that this is the case (unless provided with palpable evidence). This is typical also of the other instances of bald-faced lies reverberating across the literature. Despite this uncertainty/lack of evidence, the hearer takes the speaker’s mendacity as his departure point, as a matter of principle.

7 Bald-faced lying 

 359

false presupposition and give the baby’s age, for the “pretense will be rational if accepting the false presupposition is an efficient way to communicate something true” (Stalnaker 2002: 718). This pretence is one-sided only and is covert from the (mistaken) hearer’s perspective, motivated by the lack of relevance. This stands in marked contrast to bald-faced lies, where both the speaker and the hearer know that the utterance is not true, and the speaker necessarily communicates an implicature, capitalising on this fact. Furthermore, even if bald-faced lies were treated as assertions to be accepted only temporarily, as if for the purpose of the argument, as Stokke (2013a) appears to suggest, they would still show the same features of mutually acknowledged pretence as do irony, metaphor, hyperbole and meiosis. However, Stokke (2013a) states that the figures rely on pretended assertions (except for irony based on truthful statements, i.e. assertions), whereas bald-faced lies are assertions. Again, a question arises as to why both these phenomena cannot fall under the umbrella of (overtly) pretended assertions. As already suggested, given the speaker’s communicative goal (to convey an implicit message carried by an overtly untruthful statement), it may be argued that the speaker is not communicating any meaning at the level of literal expression, and he/she is thus only overtly pretending to assert or “making as if to say”. Therefore, the speaker does not assert “what is said”, the central communication being the implicature promoted by the overt untruthfulness manifest to the hearer. Thus, bald-faced lies are not lies in a technical sense because they are not assertions (see also Leland 2015; Keiser 2016). Supporters of the view that bald-faced lies are lies in a technical sense may still criticise this approach, maintaining that bald-faced lies are not like the Qualitybased figures of speech, since the speaker “goes on (the) record”. What both Carson (2006, 2010) and Sorensen (2007) seem to mean under this formulation is that the speaker can publically be held accountable for his/her utterance. In this vein, Saul (2012) emphasises that the speaker clearly warrants the truth of what he is saying, as is the case of speakers under oath in the court of law. Incidentally, Saul (2012) is sceptical about the “lie” status of the totalitarian state examples, where the warranty of truth is not so transparent. Stokke (2013a), on the other hand, equates being on the record with the speaker’s wanting false information to become the common ground. Based on this, the authors might also claim that bald-faced lies cannot be cancelled,71 namely that the speaker cannot later deny having genuinely communicated the untruthful message. Nevertheless, should a bald-faced liar be later confronted and accused of mendacity, he/she may protest

71 This is independent of cancellability as the property of implicatures, which is germane also to the implicatures rooted in bald-faced lies.

360 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

that they did not expect anybody could possibly take his/her utterance at face value and assume that it represented his/her true belief, even if the utterance was made publically, in a formal context, under oath, etc. The bald-faced liar may then claim his/her utterance to have been misunderstood and his/her intentions and motivation not to have been appreciated. As Sorensen’s (2007) account seems to indicate, a hearer may misunderstand a bald-faced lie, not being privy to some crucial information, contrary to the speaker’s belief about the common belief he/she shares with the hearer. Needless to say, a bald-faced lie may be incomprehensible (according to the speaker’s intention) to an unratified hearer, i.e. a hearer whom the speaker does not ratify or even envisage (e.g. when an utterance is later publicised). Sorensen (2007: 255) attests that bald-faced lies are assertions which show narrow plausibility (“someone who only had access to the assertion might believe it”) but not wide plausibility (“credibility relative to one’s total evidence”). Sorensen’s (2007) postulate of narrow plausibility as the rationale for conceptualising a bald-faced lie as a lie is hardly convincing because any covertly/overtly untruthful utterance is communicated to a particular hearer or hearers and the mere fact that another individual may potentially be deceived is not reason enough for regarding baldfaced lies as lies per se. To the actual hearer(s), the speaker’s untruthfulness is overt and is meant to be such, as is the case with the Quality-based figures of speech. Incidentally, it is also the hearers of ironic (and some metaphorical and hyperbolic) utterances that could take them as truthful assertions if they should lack the necessary knowledge to recognise the speaker’s communicative intention and the implicit meaning conveyed. Hence, the same kind of misunderstanding might come into being, which is yet another point of similarity between baldfaced lying and the ­Quality-based figures of speech. Furthermore, a statement may be ventured that going on record will be significant only if the bald-faced liar should later need to answer to the oppressor or another individual with power and leverage, in which case the bald-faced liar may state that he/she was truthful or at least wanted the hearers to take him/her as truthful, denying the prior implicature. Such a denial would be an act of deception, based on the speaker’s covert untruthfulness. As a matter of fact, a similar type of deceptive backtracking on an implicature could be done by a speaker who produced an utterance couched in a figure of speech. Whether or not this backpedalling is regarded as being plausible by the hearer(s), it is equally possible theoretically in both figures of speech and bald-faced lies. To recapitulate, in the prototypical case of performing a bald-faced lie, the sanctioned hearers are meant to pay heed to the overt untruthfulness and to seek the underlying reason for it in the form of an implicature (a type of speaker-intended meaning), as defined by Grice (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]).

7 Bald-faced lying 

 361

Interestingly, Fallis (2012) argues that bald-faced lies are amenable to a neoGricean interpretation but considers them as lies in the light of Believe-Normin-effect-Lying. Specifically, the speaker intends to violate the relevant norm of conversation against communicating something false (i.e. the first maxim of Quality) precisely by saying and communicating something false. Fallis’s (2009, 2012) approach is premised on a peculiar understanding of Grice’s first maxim of Quality as a social norm which people are aware of. This seems to be a major deviation from Grice’s model of communication, which is focused on human rationality and offers a philosophical account rather than capturing what interactants consciously aim to achieve. The fact that people are aware of the unethicality of saying what they believe false shows little relevance to Grice’s (1989a [1975], 1989b [1978]) philosophical theory. This does not mean that folk and philosophical understandings of the truthfulness maxim cannot be brought together as long as Grice’s original premises are upheld. As Fallis (2012: 570) does recognise, there is a difference between flouting (typical of irony, for instance) and (covert) violation of a maxim, but he concludes that “someone speaking sarcastically [ironically] does intend to violate [technically, flout] the norm against saying what he believes to be false. But even if he does, he definitely does not intend to violate the norm against communicating something false”. Indeed, an ironic speaker does not intend to communicate something false, because he/she is merely flouting a maxim, making his/her untruthfulness overt to the hearer. Nonetheless, Fallis (2012) maintains that it is the violation of this relevant norm that underlies bald-faced lies, since the speaker wishes to communicate something false. He does not acknowledge the fact that the nonfulfilment of the first maxim of Quality is made overt to the hearer, and only a truthful meaning is communicated via implicature. Although Fallis (2012) accepts that a bald-faced liar may wish to communicate some truthful meaning, he is adamant that the speaker “wants what he actually says to be understood and accepted for purposes of the conversation” (2012: 572). It can be extrapolated from this that Fallis (2012) espouses an idea that untruthful “what is said” is communicated in bald-faced lies, which are then lies. If that were the case, the hearer would not recognise the speaker’s untruthfulness, covert as it would need to be, or would not arrive at any implicature on this basis. Therefore, it is argued here that no “what is said” is communicated, as the speaker dissociates himself/herself from the overtly untruthful literal meaning only to convey an implicature. Thus, the hearer realises that the speaker is not truthful and that the purpose of his/her utterance is to convey a distinct truthful meaning. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the concept of a bald-faced lie is sometimes associated with a cynical assertion understood as a declarative sentence

362 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

uttered “in a context such that the speaker does not believe what is said, and there is a situationally transparent lack of illusions about this fact” (Kenyon 2003: 241). Whether or not the two notions can really be equated (see Kenyon 2010; Sorensen 2007; Meibauer 2014a, 2016c), a cynical assertion involves no intent to deceive anybody, and thus it can hardly be seen as deception. A cynical utterance is not an assertion proper, as the speaker dissociates himself/herself from the proposition expressed. Thus, it may be thought of as being a category of irony, based on the echoing of a proposition that someone else is supportive of. A bald-faced lie is a concept similar to this type of irony/cynical (pseudo)assertion in that it is overtly untruthful (the speaker does not nurture the belief he/she expresses) and invites an implicature, which is not evaluative, though, but communicates some other types of implicated meaning.

8 Deception in multi-party interactions The bulk of the philosophical scholarship on deception and lying appears to be tacitly premised on an assumption of a communicative dyad, which comprises a deceiver or a liar and a person who is deceived or lied to. This simplified participatory framework is taken by default in all manner of definitions and examples, which centre on speaker-hearer dyads hidden behind letters (used in formulae), names or general labels such as “individuals” or “people”. Moreover, the role of the deceived tends to be marginalised, which shows in the prevalent use of the verb “deceive” as if it were an intransitive one, which is manifest in the frequent formulation “intent to deceive” (e.g. Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Mahon, 2007). So far, theoreticians have only rarely dwelt on the problem of multiple recipientship or different communicative effects devised by a deceiver for the participants at the reception end. Moreover, very few linguists and philosophers who study deception provide examples which involve more than one hearer. The few that do are not focused on the issue of a participatory framework. For instance, bald-faced lies are occasionally discussed from the perspectives of different (sometimes only potential) hearers (e.g. Sorensen 2007; Carson 2010). Also, some studies of deception, especially outside the field of philosophy, seem to presuppose the presence of multiple, and even infinite numbers of, deceived individuals performing the same reception role, as is frequently the case with deception in Internet forums. However, a deceptive utterance may be directed at hearers in various participatory roles, with the speaker intending to deceive only one or a few of them (see also Clark and Carlson 1982), or even performing different types of deception with regard to each of them, as many of the examples quoted from House in the previous sections of this chapter have shown. This topic is in need of

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 363

further investigation. First, however, a number of relevant postulates concerning the classification of hearers and communication of meaning must be revisited.

8.1 (Un)ratified hearers and inferring speaker meaning As indicated in Chapter 2, Section 1.4, several types of hearers can be distinguished, falling into ratified and unratified categories. Speakers do not intend to communicate meanings towards unratified listeners. Nor do they intend to induce any beliefs in unratified hearers. What is more, overhearers are assumed not to understand speakers (Clark and Carlson 1982), who “are responsible for making themselves understood to the other participants but not to overhearers” (Schober and Clark 1989: 212). Therefore, as Schober and Clark (1989) rightly note, overhearers are at a disadvantage for they normally fail to share the common ground between the speaker and the ratified hearer(s) (Clark and Schaefer 1987). It may be claimed that a situation when a bystander gleans meanings communicated by a speaker is consequent upon the speaker’s indifference to the bystander’s presence or the speaker’s insufficient concealment of the communicated meaning. Essentially the same will hold true for eavesdroppers, except for the fact that the speaker does not even know that such an unratified hearer is participating in an interaction. Bystanders’ and eavesdroppers’ inferring meanings and developing beliefs transcend the Gricean account of communication hinged on reflexive speaker meaning. Arundale (2008) states that hearers hold the speaker accountable for the interpretation that they have made, based on the speaker’s utterance and on the assumption that the speaker has designed it for this interpretation. Nonetheless, this does not apply to overhearers, who “continue to presume reflexive attribution and accountability, but because they cannot engage the three position architecture [a jointly constructed turn-taking sequence], their interpretings remain provisional” (Arundale 2008: 256). Provisional as overhearers’ inferences may be, they do arise. Unratified hearers process meanings which they consider to be intentionally communicated to another hearer/other hearers, but they may hold the speaker accountable for the meanings they have gleaned, regarding these (not necessarily correctly)72 as being intentionally communicated to the ratified hearer(s). Moran (2005b: 22) observes, “[i]f one person gives his word on something to another, whether as promise or assertion, someone overhearing this may derive a sufficient

72 The meaning inferred by an overhearer can easily diverge from the speaker’s intended meaning if the overhearer is not privy to some of the background context that the interlocutors share. However, such miscommunication can occur even between interlocutors.

364 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

reason to believe, say, that the speaker will in fact do what he promised or that what he asserted is true”. Overall, the overhearer’s development of a belief is then based on his/her assumption concerning the speaker’s undertaking responsibility for the meaning he/she is communicating to the ratified hearer(s). A distinction must be drawn between the folk understandings of “overhearer” or “bystander” and the technical terms denoting hearers to whom meanings are intentionally communicated. In commonsensical non-technical terms, a physical context (e.g. being in a different room) or a social context (e.g. sitting next to a stranger in a train compartment), as well as no right to take the floor in an ongoing interaction due to his/her non-interlocutor position, will grant a participant an unratified status in an interaction performed by ratified individuals. A few authors do follow this folk understanding in their theoretical approaches. This understanding poses problems for the theoretical conceptualisations, which may be seen as involving internal contradictions: unratified hearers are actually meant to listen, which means that they must be ratified. Notably, the sociologist Goffman claims that an overhearer may be “encouraged” (1981) or “intended” (1981c [1979]: 136), which suggests that an individual remains an overhearer even if the speaker purposefully communicates meanings to him/her. Similarly, L ­ evinson (1988) distinguishes the targeted overhearer, who is a ­channel-linked recipient of a message but is not overtly addressed and stays a “non-participant”. By the same token, Clark and Schaefer (1992) claim that speakers may intentionally convey messages to overhearers. Moreover, Clark and Schaefer (1992) champion four attitudes speakers may have towards overhearers: ­indifference (whereby speakers pay no heed to whether overhearers can grasp any meanings), concealment (via which speakers overtly hinder overhearers’ understanding, which the latter acknowledge), disclosure (through which speakers design utterances with a view to being understood by overhearers) and ­disguisement (i.e. “disclosure of a misrepresentation”, thanks to which ­speakers facilitate overhearers’ comprehension, inviting their ill-advised inferences). As suggested above, the speaker may indeed show indifference to an overhearer and may also conceal meanings from them, as a result of which the would-be overhearer may become a non-participant incapable of hearing any utterances and making any inferences. However, disclosure and disguisement, the latter of which is immediately relevant to the topic of deception,73 are indicative of the

73 As Clark and Schaefer (1992: 256) put it, “[f]or any part of what they mean, speakers can design their utterances so that the overhearers will be deceived into thinking it is something that it is not”. Incidentally, not preoccupied with the philosophy of deception, the authors do not deploy the standard parlance and concepts (“believing” not “thinking”; or “intention to tell the truth”, not the “(objective) truth”).

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 365

speaker’s intention to communicate a meaning to, and thus the ratification of, a hearer. Moreover, concealment may be a method of deceiving the hearer if it promotes deceptively withholding information (see Section 4). Supportive of the speaker’s communicative intention as the basic criterion for differentiating between ratified hearers and overhearers, Clark and Schaefer (1992) are adamant that the Gricean conceptualisation of reflexive intentionality underpins ratified participation. Disclosing to an overhearer may look at first just like informing a side participant [here the third party], but it isn’t […] [When informing a side participant, the speaker] intends the listener to infer what he means by recognizing that very intention (Grice 1957, 1968) […] [the speaker] leads a listener to think she is guaranteed to have everything she needs to understand him, he is treating her as a side participant. If he gives her any reason to doubt this guarantee, he is treating her as an overhearer. (Clark and Schaefer 1992: 265)

It is difficult to determine what having “reason to doubt this guarantee” means in practice, but Clark and Schaefer’s (1992) disclosure towards a participant whom they deem an overhearer is clearly premised on the assumption that the Gricean reflexive meaning is not operative, as manifest in a few examples indicative of the speakers’ non-reflexive intent. One of the instances presents a man who asked his wife if he could use her fork, making sure that his request was within the waitress’s earshot, as he intended her “to hear him without recognizing that he had intended her to hear him” on the grounds of politeness (Clark and Schaefer 1992: 270). Nonetheless, it may be claimed that the waitress might have conjectured that she was intended to hear the message, given its relevance to her. Here is another similar instance that Clark and Schaefer (1992) provide: having talked with her son in German, a woman queuing to be served at a post office suddenly exclaimed in English, thereby notifying the clerk, that she did not have her wallet on her. Both examples testify to the fact that speakers actually intend to be listened to and understood not only by the addressees but also by the other hearers. These hearers are ratified but not openly invited to recognise that they are. The non-addressed hearers in such situations may appreciate this tacit ratification whenever they do make the relevant inferences and act accordingly (e.g. bringing a fork or inviting another queuing customer to approach). Clark and Schaefer’s (1992) proposal can then be challenged. Firstly, the reflexive meaning is an empirically non-verifiable philosophical notion which should perhaps be avoided in interactional analysis. Clearly, at least part of communication does not involve it. Secondly, the participants who are initially unratified in an interaction, given their socio-spatial positioning, do have meanings intentionally communicated to them, even if the speakers should deliberately not make their communicative intentions perfectly transparent,

366 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

for instance by means of verbal or non-verbal cues. Incidentally, such cues need not be made even with reference to fully legitimate third parties, who are interlocutors from the beginning of an interaction. A hearer, it is argued here, is ratified as long as the speaker intends to communicate a meaning to him/her. This happens whether or not this hearer is intended to, and/or does, acknowledge that he/she is intended to listen and glean meanings (as well as develop beliefs), and whether or not he/she is entitled (in terms of etiquette) to join the interaction as a speaker, thereby claiming the status of an interlocutor. Listening and making inferences are the sine qua non for an individual to be classified as a hearer in the proposed model. A line of reasoning similar to Clark and Schaeffer’s (1992) can be found in Németh T.’s (2008) paper, which focuses not on hearer types but on lack of communicative intention. Although she does not state this, Németh T. (2008) seems to follow the relevance-theoretic notion of mutual manifestness and the distinctions between: conveying and ostensively communicating, informative and communicative intentions, and covert vs ostensive communication (see Wilson and Sperber 1993). She does, however, elucidate a few differences between her proposal and the relevance-theoretic one. Németh T.’s (2008) paramount argument is that language may be used non-communicatively for the sake of verbal information transmission without communicative intention. This also has a bearing on the status of intentions: “One can have informative intention without having an intention to make it manifest to the other person, i.e., without a communicative intention” (Németh T. 2008: 165). She thus claims that in the case of verbal information transmission, “the speaker has only an intention to inform somebody about something but does not have an intention to make this intention, i.e., the communicative intention, mutually manifest, therefore the principle of communicative intention can only be applied to communication” (Németh T. 2008: 172). Following the prevalent parlance, inspired by Gricean thought, Németh T. (2008) does not regard as “communication” messages that are purposefully (intentionally) relayed to hearers other than the addressee (even though she does not use this label or dwell on the problem of multi-party ­interaction). Also, informing seems to be too narrow a term, for a great proportion of communicated meanings does not “convey information” but rather attain other goals (e.g. giving orders, see Grice 1989e [1957]). Németh T. (2008) illustrates these claims with examples of multi-party interactions. One of them involves a husband praising his wife’s cuisine in front of some of the guests, but talking loud enough for the wife and other guests to hear from the other part of the room. Németh T. (2008: 157) thus claims that whilst the husband has a communicative intention towards his company of guests with whom he is interacting, he “does not have an intention that his wife believe that he wants to inform her about his satisfaction. The only

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 367

intention the husband has towards his wife and her group of guests is to “inform them about his satisfaction”. Although Németh T. (2008) does not elaborate on this, this kind of information transmission involves the speaker’s ratification of a third party, i.e. his wife (and the guests who are her current interlocutors). He intends her to glean the communicated meaning, even though she is not the addressee, and this “informative” intention is also made overt to her. In essence, the speaker need not make his/her communicative intention open to a newly ratified hearer. Such a hearer may recognise this intention, all the same, or may remain oblivious to the fact that the speaker has intended to communicate meanings to him/her, whilst still successfully inferring them. What is more, the speaker’s intent to communicate a meaning may be deliberately hidden from the ratified hearer, which constitutes a peculiar type of deception. This is what Bach and Harnish (1979) call covert collateral acts. In the authors’ words, “covert collateral acts succeed (the intention with which they are performed is fulfilled) only if their intent is not recognized, or at least not recognized as intended to be recognized. The idea is to get someone to think you think something and thereby to get him to think it without recognizing that that’s what you want him to do” (Bach and Harnish 1979: 101). In other words, the speaker may deceive a hearer by concealing the fact that he/she has the first-order intention to communicate a meaning to this hearer. In this vein, Németh T. (2008) allows for “manipulative intentions”, which are involved if the speaker intends a hearer to believe that he/she accidentally overhears an utterance. Németh T. juxtaposes this with examples of multi-party interactions (taken from Clark and Carlson 1982) where, next to the addressee, another participant is ratified. In conclusion, ratification, it is argued here, may be tacit. Moreover, a tacitly or covertly ratified hearer may sometimes nurture a belief that the speaker is not aware of his/her presence, finding himself/herself an eavesdropper, while the speaker appreciates the presence of this participant and wants him/her to glean relevant meanings. On the other hand, even if the speaker’s communicative intention is not abundantly clear or is purposefully made covert, the hearer may rightly infer that he/she is intended to glean some meanings based on the speaker’s utterance, given the relevance of the message to him/her. None of these cases is captured by the reflexivity tenet central to Grice’s original understanding of speaker meaning. Non-addressed ratified hearers, i.e. third parties, ratified from their initial position as overhearers will glean the meanings made available to them (including those contingent on disguisement, i.e. deception). Third parties will hold the speakers accountable for the meanings they have inferred and beliefs they have developed on the strength of the meanings (they see as being) communicated to the other ratified hearers, whether or not surmising the fact that the meanings have been made available to them intentionally.

368 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

8.2 Previous postulates on deception and multiple hearers Although there does not seem to have been any research concentrated specifically on the workings of deception in multi-party interactions, several authors have made observations related to this topic in the pragmatics of interaction and in the philosophy of deception (notably, concerning lies). In their discussion of speech acts and common ground, Clark and Carlson (1982) address the issue of deception as a side topic, which they do not discuss theoretically, merely making a number of commonsensical claims with regard to chosen examples. They argue that deception may come into being when the speaker is aware of the different scopes of common ground he/she shares with two participants, because of which the speaker can communicate distinct meanings to the two hearers. Based on a series of contrived examples, the authors list three situations: “collusion between the speaker and an addressee”, collusion “between the speaker and a side-participant” and “disparity in common ground between two addressees” (Clark and Carlson 1982: 368). The speaker can thus deceive the third party (in their words, “a side participant”) whilst communicating a non-­deceptive meaning towards the addressee, thanks to a secret code they have agreed on. On the other hand, the speaker may deceive the addressee whilst communicating a truthful message to the third party. The third category concerns the case of addressing two individuals but deceiving only one of them. Clark and Carlson (1982) discuss deception only among the simple interactions of ratified participants. Except for two examples which reside in untruthful assertions, the other examples in Clark and Carlson (1982) concern cases where the speaker makes a truthful assertion, interpreted in the same manner by both ratified hearers, whilst the deception arises as some implicated meaning that is incomprehensible to the target of deception. Clark and Carlson (1982) do not explicate this inasmuch as they are not concerned with the categories of deception. Elaborating on the addressee condition for lying, Mahon (2008a, 2015) rightly observes that it is possible to lie to a number of individuals at a time (e.g. by sending an e-mail to various people on a mailing list or making a false statement on a tax return) or even the general public (e.g. in a magazine advertisement or a television commercial). Deception may be performed in different communicative modes and its effects may be seen asynchronously, since the hearers may receive an untruthful message at different times. In Mahon’s account, the many individuals at the reception end play the same collective addressee role. On the other hand, Carson (2010: 29–30) allows for the fact that “in making a given statement or utterance on a particular occasion, one might be lying to some members of one’s audience, but not to others”. Thus, he adds a relevant hearerrelated proviso to his definition of lying. In another publication, Carson (2006)

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 369

raises the issue of a statement addressed to a group of individuals with different levels of knowledge and sophistication, as a result of which some of them have access to the truth. It can be extrapolated from these observations that lying and other forms of deception always need to be defined in reference to a hearer in a particular participatory role. While one hearer may be deceived, another need not be. A number of deception philosophers have recognised a hearer category other than the addressee when depicting the view that lying cannot be performed in front of a hearer regarded as an “overhearer” or an “eavesdropper”. For instance, in order to demonstrate that intention to deceive is not a sufficient condition for lying, Horn (2017a: 156, 2017b: 27) states that believed-false statements may be intended to deceive a “third party” but are not lies directed to “primary or ratified addressee”. Thereby, Horn (2017a, 2017b) seems to suggest that one cannot lie to a participant other than the addressee. Generally, arguing in favour of a definition of a lie which necessarily assumes the presence of an “addressee”, several authors insist that lying will not take place if an “overhearer” or “eavesdropper” is deceived (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Mahon 2008a, 2008b; Fallis 2009, 2010). Chisholm and Feehan (1977: 156) provide the following example: L is speaking to C and he knows that D overhears the conversation; L says to C, ‘There are no police on the road in front of us,’ and he says this with the intention of causing D to believe that there are no police on the road; but L believes that there are police on the road; and the accomplice C believes, as L does, that there are police on the road in front of them and he knows why it is that L has made his statement.

Chisholm and Feehan (1997) state that L has lied neither to C nor to D. Firstly, the speaker has not lied to his accomplice, for his utterance does not count as an assertion (Chisholm and Feehan 1977). Indeed, C, the addressee, is not in any way deceived, insofar as he has access to the speaker’s true belief and has the same belief, and the speaker does not intend to induce any false belief in him. Secondly, Chisholm and Feehan (1977: 156) explain that the speaker has not lied to the “overhearer” D since “L [the speaker] has not made his utterance with the intention of causing D [the overhearer] to believe that he, L, intends to cause D to believe that there are no police on the road”. Therefore, L has an intention to deceive D but he keeps covert not only the intention that D should take L to have expressed something that D believes to be true (typical of all deception), but also the intention that D should develop any belief based on L’s utterance. Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) line of reasoning is reminiscent of the Gricean view of speaker meaning as being based on reflexive intentions, even though Grice’s conceptualisation is not mentioned. Inspired by Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) example, Mahon (2008b: 218) imposes the addressee condition on the act of lying and claims that the speaker is

370 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

not lying but intends to deceive the individual whom he knows to be “eavesdropping”. Mahon (2008a) also illustrates this point with the following example: “If A pretends to be talking to another person on the phone, and makes the untruthful statement to no one, ‘The pick-up is tomorrow at 6:00 p.m.,’ with the intention that eavesdropping B believes that statement to be true, then A is not lying, even if A is attempting to deceive”.74 As in the police case, the speaker thus tacitly recognises the presence of B and intends to deceive him about the fact that he is talking to the addressee on the phone in order to cause B to develop a false belief. The “eavesdropper” is actually the only listener, whom the speaker intends to deceive, which Mahon (2008a) does recognise. Also referring to Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) example, Fallis (2009: 40) argues that one cannot lie to an “eavesdropper”, understood as a person whom the speaker knows to be listening in on a conversation he/she is having with a “companion, who is in on” the scheme. Firstly, Fallis (2009: 40) doubts that this can be a lie since the speaker is not making “a statement to” the eavesdropping hearer, which might suggest that only the addressee can be lied to. Also, because lies are assertions and assertions need to “have an intended audience” in his view, what such an “eavesdropper” hears can be regarded neither as an assertion nor as a lie. Also, Fallis (2009: 40) claims that no assertion is made even to the companion and that Grice’s (1989a [1975]) first maxim of Quality is not “in effect” when the speaker makes this false statement to the companion. Indeed, since this hearer is privy to the speaker’s plan, he must recognise the utterance’s overt untruthfulness, appreciating an explanation for it, viz. the speaker’s intent to deceive another individual. Also, in another paper, Fallis (2010) agrees with Mahon (2008a) on that one cannot lie to an “eavesdropper”, illustrating this with an example from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Fallis (2010: 15) claims that if the speaker knows that Benedict is eavesdropping from behind the bushes and the speaker says what he believes to be false to his companion (who is in on the speaker’s “little scheme”) in order to deceive Benedict into believing that Beatrice is in love with him, the speaker is not lying. Fallis (2010) claims that for a lie to succeed, communication must be “open”, as specified by Grice. Generally, Chisholm and Feehan (1977), Mahon (2008a, 2008b) and Fallis (2009, 2010) assign the labels “overhearer” or “eavesdropper” to hearers whom the speakers intend to listen, which resembles the recurrent tendency to technically call hearers according to folk criteria. If, it is argued here, an individual is intended

74 In the recent revision of the encyclopaedia entry, Mahon (2015) no longer uses the term “eavesdropper” but refers to an individual “whom one believes is listening in on a conversation” and changes the conceptualisation of this example (see the discussion below).

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 371

to infer the key (here, untruthful) meaning and develop a (here, false) belief, he/ she must be thought of not as an unratified hearer but as a ratified one, dubbed the “third party”. This third party is ratified, thereby abandoning the social role of an overhearer (whether a bystander or an eavesdropper), even if he/she should not acknowledge this ratification. The speaker hence intends to deceive this covertly or tacitly ratified third party, who is the “intended audience”, to use Fallis’s (2009) words. So far, only one deception researcher appears to have indirectly appreciated the difference between unratified and ratified hearer categories, allowing hearers other than the addressee to be considered as ratified, yet not proposing a full-fledged classification of hearers. Taking as his point of departure Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) definition of lying, Newey (1997) discusses the problem of lying that arises from an assertion directed to an “interlocutor”. Newey (1997: 95) distinguishes between the (deceitful) speaker’s “interlocutor”, whom the speaker typically wishes to develop a given target belief, and a “third party”, whom the speaker also wishes to develop a target belief but who is not the speaker’s “interlocutor”. The latter seems to be the case with audiences listening to political talk, who cannot take the floor. However, Newey (1997: 115) makes a disclaimer that a “third party” may be eavesdropping, unbeknownst to the speaker and the “interlocutor”. This seems to blur the picture of what kind of hearer the “third party” actually is. Apart from the case of “eavesdropping”, which is compatible with the technical definition endorsed here, Newey (1997) mentions in passing a few cases relevant to multi-party interactions. Specifically, an assertion may be made by the speaker towards the “interlocutor” in the presence of “hearers”. Newey (1997) uses labels “interlocutor” and “hearer” as if they are independent, i.e. the listening interlocutor is not a hearer (cf. the classification of participatory roles and terminology used here). In his view, the term “hearer” captures a participant who does not take the floor in an interaction, unlike an individual labelled “interlocutor”. “Hearers” may be “eavesdropping”, “kibbitzing”, or they may be the recipients of “disclosure” or “bogus disclosure” (Newey 1997: 115). “Kibbitzing” captures the case of a hearer who is listening in on an utterance directed only to the interlocutor, and his/her act of listening is known to the interlocutors. This coincides with the role of a bystander, as defined here.75 On the other hand, “disclosure” pertains to the case when an utterance is intended not only for the interlocutor but also for the “hearer”, who is conceptualised

75 Newey (1997) does not provide any examples here. Given that he is preoccupied with political discourse, he may be thinking of the role of a television viewer. As argued elsewhere (Dynel 2011e), the viewer needs to be conceived as a distinct hearer type: the recipient.

372 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

as a type of third party who does take the floor or as the recipient of media discourse. Finally, “bogus disclosure” captures the case when “the first and second parties know that the hearer is listening in” but “the hearer does not know that they know this” (Newey 1997: 115). This situation is compatible with the vexing case of a ratified hearer, specifically a third party, who is unaware of his/her being ratified, which some deception philosophers (mistakenly) view as an eavesdropper/overhearer case. Rightly, Newey (1997: 115) observes that “some utterances are made with the intention of inducing beliefs (not necessarily beliefs identical with the propositional content of the utterance) in the hearer, whether the latter is kibbitzing, or the receiver of a disclosure, or of a bogus disclosure”. The “hearers” may be witnesses to lies performed for the “interlocutor”, or they may be the targets of deception themselves, as Newey (1997) concedes. To reformulate, the speaker may intend to induce a false belief in a “hearer” even though he/she does not lie to the “interlocutor”. When criticising Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) approach, Newey (1997) does not state whether or not the speaker can lie to a “hearer” if he/ she is not asserting to the “interlocutor”. Newey (1997: 115) merely states that it is “implausible to say” that the speaker “does not lie in third-party cases where S does not lie to her interlocutor”, and that it seems “intuitively plausible” that the speaker “lies in this situation”. However, Newey does not specify if the speaker does “lie to” any of the “hearers”. Mahon (2008a) extrapolates from Newey (1997: 95) that the latter proposes that one can lie to an “eavesdropper”, something that Newey (1997) does not state. This seems to be the result of Mahon’s treatment of “eavesdropper” as any hearer other than the addressee, which he rectifies in the revised account (Mahon 2015). Briefly commenting on Newey’s (1997) work, Mahon (2015) concludes that it is impossible to lie in the case of eavesdropping or kibbitzing but hypothesises that it may be possible to lie in the case of disclosure and bogus disclosure. This sheds new light on his “pick-up” example presented as non-lying (Mahon 2008a, 2015). Retroactively, Mahon (2015) submits this as a potential act of lying to the F.B.I: Mickey talks to Danny, believing that the F.B.I. is monitoring their telephone conversation and says “The pick-up is at midnight tomorrow” in order to deceive the F.B.I. (bogus disclosure). Also, Mahon (2015) illustrates disclosure with an example from a film interaction, where the speaker lies to NASA handlers who are monitoring him: The speaker asks his wife to tell their son, “When I get back, I’m gonna take him to Yosemite again, like last summer”, but the previous summer he took him to Flatbush, of which the woman is aware (Mahon 2015). In both cases, the speakers are not making assertions to the addressees but rather utterances that may be deemed bald-faced lies, simultaneously making untruthful assertions, and hence lying, to the covertly ratified hearers, the NASA

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 373

handlers. Mahon’s conceptualisation of lying as possible with regard to not only non-addressees but also covertly ratified hearers stands in contrast to what has been proposed so far in the philosophical scholarship. The main thrust of the extant literature on deception in multi-party interactions is that one can deceive, but not lie to, non-addressed tacitly ratified hearers (wrongly) dubbed “overhearers” or “eavesdroppers”. Despite Grice’s (1989f [1982]) objection against lying and “sneaky intentions” in his communicative framework, some philosophers deploy the Gricean speaker meaning in their definitions of lying. Faulkner’s (2007) definition of lying is based on Grice’s reflexive intentionality; the speaker must intend that the hearer believe what the speaker asserts as a result of recognising that the speaker intends that the hearer believe what the speaker asserts: “In asserting that p and lying the speaker intends that the audience’s reason for acceptance be the recognition of his intention that the audience come to believe that p and intends that it be so because the audience believes he believes that p, or believes he is sincere” (Faulkner 2007: 537). Similarly, Fallis (2010) argues that lying rests on intentional and “open communication” (see Davis 1999; Simpson 1992: 625),76 a term which is (wrongly) attributed to Grice (1989e [1957]). Actually, Grice (1989e [1957]: 218, italics added) mentions non-technically “deliberately and openly letting someone know” only once when juxtaposing it with “telling”, which seems to be equivalent to speaker meaning (cf. Moran 2005b). Grice is not the author of the term “open communication”, by which Fallis (2010) may be referring to the communication of speaker meaning dependent on reflexive intentionality. Fallis (2010) contends that lying resides in intending to deceive the hearer to whom one communicates an assertion, whereas other forms of deception do not necessitate such “open communication”. This reflexive intentionality tenet underpins also a few conceptualisations of lying which do not overtly invoke Grice’s work (Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Simpson 1992; Fallis 2009). As already mentioned, Chisholm and Feehan (1977) base their conclusion that one cannot lie to an “overhearer”, who is actually (intentionally) deceived, following the stipulation that lying rests on the speaker’s reflexive intention to have his/her intention to induce a belief recognised by the hearer. In this vein, Castelfranchi and Poggi (1994: 285) define lying in the context of the speaker’s goal that the hearer believes p (which is false), as well as the speaker’s goal that the hearer believes that the speaker wants the hearer to

76 “We present our belief to the one to whom we lie, and we present it openly, in the sense that we intend to give them reason to think, through features of context and manner, that we intend them to recognize the presentation of belief” (Simpson 1992: 625, italics added).

374 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

believe p. This is yet another echo of Grice’s reflexive meaning. In a similar vein, Simpson (1992: 625) advocates the criterion of trust as being central to lying: “The invocation of trust occurs through an act of ‘open sincerity,’ by which I mean that we attempt to establish a mutually acknowledged recognition, by the one to whom we lie, both that we believe some proposition and that we intend them to realise that we believe it”. Deploying Chisholm and Feehan’s (1977) canonical example, Simpson argues that the speaker cannot be said to have lied to the “overhearer” for she has not invited the latter’s trust in the presentation of her belief. Alice [the speaker] has not acted with, and has not acted on, the intention that the overhearer, Clive, think that Alice intends Clive to think that Alice believes that there are no police on the road. Clive is intended to be deceived regarding Alice’s beliefs, but not by way of a trust invoked through an open sincerity. Clive may mistakenly think77 that Alice is sincere, but is given no reason to think that Alice intends Clive to think that Alice is sincere, and so Alice is not insincere at this higher level. (Simpson 1992: 626)

In sum, what the authors propose is that not openly talking to an “overhearer” or “eavesdropper”, the speaker does not give the former any assurance that his/her assertion is true or that he/she can be trusted (see Faulkner 2007). Following a similar train of thought, Fallis (2010) claims that if the falsehood should transpire, the deceived “eavesdropper” has no right to complain. However, this holds not only for a mendacious assertion (a lie) but also for any other deceptive utterance if the deceived individual has not considered himself/ herself ratified by the speaker. Thus, such a hearer’s lack of entitlement to accuse the deceitful speaker of deception cannot be taken as a differentiating criterion between lying and other forms of deception. In any case, the tacitly/covertly ratified hearer will hold the speaker accountable for the communicated meaning and beliefs he/she has developed. Moreover, in practice, if social circumstances allow this (e.g. in interactions among family members or friends), a deceived third party or even a misled (unratified) overhearer may complain about having been led to nurture a false belief. On the other hand, it is indeed the case that if a mendacious speaker should be later confronted by an eavesdropper, a bystander, or even a ratified hearer who considers himself/herself unratified, he/she can easily deny his/her responsibility for the false belief the latter has developed. In the case of a tacitly ratified hearer who has been intended to develop a false belief, such a denial would be an act of deception.

77 The formulation “may mistakenly think” is misleading, for the hearer’s mistaken thinking is actually the false belief that the speaker has intended rather than being an inferential mistake on the hearer’s part.

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 375

8.3 A new look at deception in a multi-party participation framework Except for the discussion in Newey (1997) and a brief comment in Mahon (2015), the philosophers of deception have not taken into account lying to ratified hearers other than the addressee. Not even the third party who is a legitimate interlocutor aware of his/her state of ratification has been considered in the philosophical discussion as the target of a lie. However, it seems quite plausible that a speaker can lie to a third party, who is an interlocutor. A third party aware of his/her legitimate status in an interaction has every reason to assume that a given assertion is directed to him/her. What appears to be more problematic is the case of an individual ratified from the position of an overhearer, whether a bystander or an eavesdropper, who is not an unequivocally openly ratified interlocutor. The “overhearer/eavesdropper”, as hitherto discussed by deception scholars, does not qualify as an overhearer in a technical sense, insofar as the speaker (tacitly) ratifies him/her and intends to communicate the meaning to him so that he/she should develop a specific false belief. If the speaker has the intention to induce a (false) belief in this hearer by means of a mendacious assertion communicated to him/her, there are no plausible reasons to deny the status of a lie to this type of deception, as long as the other conditions for lying are met. This happens regardless of whether or not this newly ratified individual is cognisant of the ratification granted to him/her by the speaker. The reflexive intentionality provision à la Grice is inoperative in all such cases. In this vein, pointing to the instance of a tape-recorded assertion, which may coincide with a lie directed to a non-identifiable audience (see also some of Mahon’s 2015 examples), Newey (1997: 97) rightly states that “not every assertion is intended to get the hearer to believe that the speaker intends the hearer to believe that the speaker believes it”. He thus concludes that not all lies meet the condition proposed by Chisholm and Feehan (1977), namely the reflexive intentionality condition that has been upheld by many philosophers. This observation seems to be relevant not only to the asynchronous messages communicated to mass audiences that Newey (1997) mentions but also to tacitly ratified hearers in synchronous face-to-face multi-party interactions. By contrast, the speaker cannot lie to (or otherwise deceive) a bystander or an eavesdropper, inasmuch as he/she does not intend to communicate any meaning to them or induce a (false) belief in them, while he/she is communicating truthful or untruthful meanings to the ratified hearers. Thus, a false belief that an overhearer may develop will be a matter of him/her being misled, not lied to or deceived, both of which are inherently intentional. A few examples culled from House may help discern the criticisms of the previous postulates, coupled with a number of other problems related to the workings of deception in multi-party interactions that have not yet stimulated

376 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

philosophical interest. Example 54 presents an interesting case of three interlocutors, one of whom is repositioned during portions of the discourse as a nonparticipant via acts of concealment (Clark and Schaefer 1987). (54) [House has no funds and has no team members. He is now focused on the case of a businessman, Barton. The patient is lying in bed, and his daughter (Ainsley), who is his business partner, is standing on one side and House on the other. House has just told them that Barton is suffering from a migraine.] 1. House: [grabbing his pad to write the prescription] Well, if you really want to thank me, my department’s not really a department. ‘Cause my boss says he doesn’t have the money. Which provides a nice contrast… with you. 2. Ainsley: Trying to find money in our budget so we don’t have to move our operations overseas. 3. House: I get it. Answer’s no. Shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just glad that the symptoms showed up before you left for China. [hands Barton the prescription] ‘Cause I’m not sure the doctors over there would be so optimistic, considering… [speaking Mandarin] How they look down on mental illness. 4. Barton: [surprised, speaking Mandarin] You speak Mandarin? 5. Ainsley: What are you guys talking about? 6. House: Oh, just how different the two cultures are. For example, our opinions on mental illness. Here, it’s considered a normal and treatable condition. [speaking Mandarin] There, it’s taboo enough to destroy a high profile business deal. 7. Ainsley: Is everything okay? 8. Barton: Everything’s fine. 9. House: [speaking Mandarin] I’d never breach confidentiality, but… I could have you checked into a facility that exclusively treats mental disorders. [speaking English] How does that sound? 10. Ainsley: Whatever’s gonna get him better. 11. Barton: Let’s try the medication first. [speaking Mandarin] How much do you want? Season 8, Episode 3 Whenever House or Barton switch to Mandarin Chinese (3, 4, 6, 9 and 11), sometimes halfway through a turn, they put the third interlocutor in a position of a non-participant. Albeit physically present, she has all meanings blocked from her, being incapable of drawing any inferences as the men switch to a linguistic code unavailable to her. Thereby, the two interlocutors deceptively withhold information, for they prevent her from acquiring true beliefs about two issues

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 377

that appear to be relevant to her. As a result, the two deceivers cause her to continue with false beliefs about the nature and consequences of her father’s illness and House’s unsuccessful extortion, the beliefs which she has developed in the light of the parts of the interaction in English she has been privy to. Overall, this example shows that a non-participant can be deceived. Typically, in multi-party interactions, the speaker may deceive both types of ratified hearers, the addressee and the third party, and the nature of the deceptive act and the deceptive meaning communicated towards each of them may be different. The two types of ratified hearers can be lied to or otherwise deceived, simultaneously or not. A non-deceived ratified listener is typically privy to the fact that the speaker is deceiving someone else. The hearer who is in the know will consider the speaker’s utterance to be an overtly untruthful one (according to the speaker’s intent). As in the canonical police example, as well as the Shakespearean ones used in the literature, this hearer may be “in on the scheme”, realising that the speaker aims to deceive another participant. Here is an example to illustrate these points. (55) [Previously, having diagnosed Mr Lambert with herpes, House implied that he must have caught it from his wife (if he had always been faithful), while she, in turn, must have betrayed him with their daughter’s karate instructor, “Miyagi”. Mrs Lambert complained about this insinuation to Cuddy, who subsequently diagnosed Mrs Lambert with herpes and arranged a meeting with House so that he could remedy the situation with the displeased couple, telling him “And don’t be calling in sick or saying that your team needs you for some kind of emergency consult”. The Lamberts and Cuddy are in her office when House enters. Cuddy is standing, and the couple are sitting opposite her desk with their backs turned to the entrance.] 1. Cuddy: Mr. and Mrs. Lambert’s appointment was over an hour ago. 2. House: [looking at Cuddy and approaching her desk] Sorry, I was sick and my team needed an emergency consult. [looking at Mr Lambert] Your wife has herpes. 3. Wife: What? That’s impossible. I don’t have any... [The couple are quarrelling over which of them first caught the herpes virus. Some interaction ensues, involving House and Cuddy, who are standing next to each other, facing the two patients, who are seated.] 4. House: Either of you two ever sit on a public toilet? [silence] Well? 5. Wife: [nods] 6. Husband: Of course. 7. House: [looking at the couple] Herpes can live for short periods of time outside the body.

378 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

8. Cuddy:

[looks shocked and turns to House] Dr. House, you know you can’t get herpes from.... 9. House: [frowning] Some politically correct doctors will tell you that it’s impossible to get infected by a toilet seat, but they’ll also tell you not to use the same bath towel to wipe your crotch and your face during an outbreak. See the contradiction? 10. Wife: I always use a paper cover. 11. House: Always? 12. Wife: Yes, of course. 13. House: What about you? 14. Husband: No. I never knew. 15. Wife: Oh, please, this is ridiculous. 16. House: Damn, I was sure it was Miyagi. 17. Wife: What? 18. House: He could believe that you could get herpes from a toilet seat, or he could be cheating on you and be happy to have an out. 19. Husband: The toilet seat makes sense, doesn’t it? 20. House: Sure, but she’d only refuse to believe such a well presented lie if she were innocent. And since you both can’t be innocent, you ruddy jackass. 21. Wife: You… [takes off her wedding ring and drops it on the floor] 22. Husband: Thanks a lot. 23. House: My pleasure. 24. Husband: Honey? Wait, please! Season 2, Episode 15 This interaction contains a few deceptive utterances performed by House in front of three ratified hearers, namely his employer and two patients, whose hearer roles change in the course of the interaction and who hold House accountable for the meanings they believe him to communicate. In his first turn (2), House gives an untruthful explanation for his being an hour late. This is a mendacious assertion, which can be interpreted as a lie told to the third party, the Lamberts. However, rather than attempting to deceive Cuddy, the addressee, he seems to be teasing her by blatantly disobeying her previous request. Cuddy is well aware of the utterance’s overt untruthfulness. In another turn (7), House seems to intend to lie to the addressee, Mr Lambert, and one of the two distinct third parties, Mrs Lambert (that herpes can live on a toilet seat), as well as deceive them by means of a conversational implicature (that Mr Lambert may be suffering from herpes contracted from public toilets). However, House cannot intend to deceive the other third party, i.e. Cuddy. He

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 379

must be aware that she would not let herself be deceived into believing the content of his assertion, thanks to her medical expertise, or believing that he is expressing his true belief, owing to his medical expertise. However, Cuddy seems to be misled (but not deceived) with regard to what House believes to be the case, as her answer suggests (8). It indicates that she has taken his words at face value and has not appreciated his tricky communicative plan regarding the other interlocutors. Salvaging his lie and crafty scheme from being discovered, House produces another deceptive turn (9), which brings to focus a non-existent contradiction between the claims and advice offered by doctors, in order to sustain the central false belief (i.e. that one can contract herpes by using a public toilet seat) in the collective addressee of this turn. Although Cuddy, the third party, may be confused about House’s rationale, as in the previous case, House can hardly be said to have attempted to deceive her. As the interaction unfolds (16–20), the other three participants grow to realise House’s covert communicative enterprise to deceive the two patients in order to elicit truthful replies from them and ascertain which of them has been unfaithful. Essentially, House’s logic is that it is only the promiscuous spouse that can believe his brazen lie (that herpes can be contracted by using a public toilet seat without a paper cover) in order to keep his/her extramarital intercourse secret. As this example shows, not all ratified hearers must be (intentionally) deceived when a deceptive utterance is performed; some may be merely (unintentionally) misled. As suggested in the previous sections, deception may also purposefully target a hearer who, contrary to his spatial or social stance, is ratified and attains the status of the third party, sometimes unbeknownst to him/her. The speaker’s disguisement of meaning to this particular hearer necessitates the speaker’s ratification of him/her. Expecting that an initially unratified hearer, specifically a bystander (who the speaker is aware of), will listen, make inferences and develop beliefs, the speaker intentionally communicates a covertly untruthful meaning to this listener, whether or not simultaneously deceiving other ratified hearers. The speaker may perform this ratification tacitly or even covertly, wishing the third party not to know that he/she is ratified, and hence intended to listen and develop (false) beliefs. Thus, two levels of covertness are involved. The speaker intends not only to induce a false belief in the targeted hearer but also to keep the hearer oblivious to the fact he/she is intended to make any inferences and develop any beliefs, thinking himself/herself an eavesdropper or bystander. Therefore, such a hearer believes that he/she is involved in an illegitimate and sometimes even stealthy (in the case of an eavesdropper) activity, but he/she may still be deceived and even lied to. On the other hand, a bystander tacitly ratified to the position of the third party may recognise the topical relevance of the speaker’s utterance, appreciating that it has been directed to him/her intentionally. As a

380 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

result, socio-contextual factors permitting, such an individual may act according to what he/she has heard and may even take the floor in the ongoing interaction. Whether or not privy to the fact of being ratified, the third party will hold the speaker accountable for the meaning which he/she regards as having been communicated to the listening interlocutor(s) and which he/she has inferred, forming a (false) belief. Needless to say, unlike in the canonical police example, the speaker may simultaneously intend to lie to the interlocutor(s) not cognisant of the untruthfulness of the assertion. Examples 56, 57 and 58 illustrate three different cases of deceiving (and in one case, lying to) third parties ratified from the initial overhearer positions. (56) [Previously in this episode, a woman, Cecelia, complained to Cuddy, about having been offended by House. In reality, House had asked Foreman to substitute for him in the clinic, wearing his badge, and it is Foreman who is responsible for having been abrupt. Cuddy, oblivious of this switch, wants House to apologise to the patient. House has just been talking with Cameron about the intricacies of automatically judging people. The two are now approaching the clinic.] 1. House: The reality is irrelevant. [looks into the clinic and sees Cecelia sitting there] I’ll prove it. People who know me see me as an ass, treat me as an ass. People who don’t know me see a cripple, treat me as a cripple. What kind of selfish jerk wouldn’t take advantage of that fact? [enters the clinic and walks by Cecelia, deliberately leaning his cane on her boot] 2. Cecelia: Ow! 3. House: [looking at Cecelia] Oh, my goodness, are you okay? 4. Cecelia: Yeah. [Cuddy quickly approaches the glass door of her office, being able to see House and Cecelia through the pane.] 5. House: [staring at Cuddy, emphasising each word] I am so sorry. [looking at Cecelia] It was completely my fault. 6. Cecelia: It’s nothing, I’m fine. 7. House: Well, I’m very relieved. I feel terrible. 8. Cecelia: Don’t worry about it, I’m fine. 9. House: You sure? 10. Cecelia: Mhm! 11. House: Okay. [House and Cecelia shake hands. Cuddy and House make faces at each other. As House leaves, Cuddy walks through her office door to Cecelia. Cameron is smiling.] Season 2, Episode 4

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 381

With each of the deceptive utterances he produces (3, 5 and 7), House means to communicate different meanings to three ratified listeners: Cecelia, the addressee (House grants her this status despite his lack of eye contact with her in the first assertion in 5), as well as Cuddy and Cameron, each of whom performs the role of a distinct third party. Cuddy, who might initially be considered a bystander in social terms, being separated by a glass wall, finds herself ratified thanks to the content of House’s first utterance that she can hear (3), as well as the eye contact he establishes with her (5). Indeed, House must intend her to listen to his exchange with the patient (knowing that the wall is not soundproof) and to acknowledge the apology Cuddy thinks he owes the patient. On the other hand, Cameron has been explicitly introduced to the exchange, which serves as an illustration of House’s point that strangers tend to regard him as an innocent disabled person (1). Of the three ratified hearers, only Cecelia is House’s interlocutor, who takes the speaking role alternately with House. Each ratified listener to House’s deceptive turns holds him accountable for the meanings she infers, based on the evidence she has. House thus deceives each of the ratified listeners in a different way, communicating various covertly untruthful meanings to them. He deceives Cecelia into believing that he is genuinely sorry for having accidentally leaned on her foot. At the same time, he deceives Cuddy (unaware of the cane “accident”) into believing that he is apologising for his previous misconduct in the clinic. Cuddy may suspect that House’s utterances addressed to Cecelia are covertly untruthful, as House is never truly sympathetic to his patients, let alone apologetic for his manner of expression. For this reason, it may even be suggested that House does not intend to deceive Cuddy with respect to the content of the assertions addressed to Cecelia. Cuddy is deceived, nonetheless, regarding the rationale for House’s apologies to the patient. Finally, Cameron is also privy to the covert untruthfulness of House’s utterances directed to the patient, considering the dyadic exchange to be an illustration of his argument that strangers will make allowances for House, due to his handicap. She, in turn, is deceived about House’s intentions underlying the exchange, performed for Cuddy’s sake. In two of the deceptive turns (5 and 7) House lies to the addressee, Cecelia, by making false assertions via the expression of an apology and related emotional states relevant to the addressee (“He is not sorry for hurting her foot”, “He is not relieved that she is fine” and “He does not feel terrible because of what he has done”). Nevertheless, he cannot be said to have lied to Cuddy, to whom the expression of these emotional states does not pertain directly, i.e. she is not the receiver of this apology. Also, she sees a different reason for the expression of these emotional states, which is where her false belief resides.

382 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

(57) [Previously, House’s underage patient escaped to the roof of the hospital, which is why House was summoned at night. He met Cuddy at the hospital entrance, as she was leaving, dressed in a tennis outfit (a tight hoodie and a mini skirt). In reply to her naïve question as to whether he was seeing a patient, House said that he was meeting a prostitute (referring to her as “a hooker”). House and his best friend, Wilson, are now exiting an elevator and discussing House’s patient.] 1. Wilson: You actually treated him? 2. House: a. All I know is that he sued some doctors, who am I to assume that they didn’t have it coming to them. b. [seeing Cuddy coming down the stairs and starts speaking much louder, turning to Wilson] The cutest little tennis outfit, my God I thought I was going to have a heart attack. c. [acting surprised] Oh my, I didn’t see you there. That is so embarrassing. 3. Cuddy: [unaffected] How’s your hooker doing? Season 1, Episode 2 As he is addressing Wilson in the first two parts of his long turn (2a and 2b), House tacitly ratifies Cuddy as the third party as soon as he realises that she is in the vicinity. This ratification manifests itself in the sudden topic change and the fact that he speaks much louder so that she can hear (2b). He does this in order to induce in her a false belief that he has been gossiping about her. He also deceives her into believing that he has been oblivious to her presence so that she finds herself in the role of an eavesdropper. However, it is impossible to tell what his genuine opinion about Cuddy’s outfit was, and whether or not he is expressing his true belief (with the use of a hyperbole conducive to overt untruthfulness). Wilson may not be able to grasp the speaker’s intended meaning from the deceptive part of the turn (2b), but, holding House accountable for it, he will infer that it is orientated towards Cuddy’s understanding and promotes her false belief concerning the ongoing conversation. It is only in the final part of his turn that House explicitly appreciates Cuddy’s presence and addresses her by telling two lies to her (2c) for he did see her and is by no means embarrassed. At the same time, he changes Wilson’s role to that of the third party, who can probably see through the deception, understanding House’s rationale for the preceding part of his turn. Overall, because of her unemotional reaction, it is difficult to determine whether or not Cuddy has appreciated House’s deception and her own ratified status in (3).

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 383

(58) [The team is trying to diagnose a patient called Mickey, a mafia member (actually, an undercover policeman). Thirteen is taking chemical samples from a former drycleaner’s where the mafia keeps their stash. Eddie, Mickey’s mafia friend, has shown her the place (violating mafia rules) and is accompanying her. A heavy metal door slides open somewhere.] 1. Eddie: No one’s supposed to be here. [There are footsteps approaching. Thirteen reaches over and pulls Eddie towards her.] 2. Thirteen: [whispering] Come here. [loudly, shoving him away] I said ‘no kissing’! 3. Guy: Eddie. I didn’t know you’d be here. 4. Eddie: Um... uh... 5. Thirteen: Look, the deal was just for you. This guy wants to watch, it’s an extra 50. 6. Eddie: Yeah, private party, man. Uh... I got it covered tonight. 7. Guy: [walks off, giving Eddie the thumbs up] Season 6, Episode 11 As they are caught red-handed in a place where they should not be, Thirteen performs a deceptive act, covertly ratifying the bystander in order to induce in him a false belief that she is a prostitute oblivious to where and with whom she has found herself, based on subordinate false beliefs invited by the three assertions in her turns (2 and 5). The speaker does not intend them to be regarded as assertions or deceptive utterances by the addressee, Eddie, who must recognise the turns’ untruthfulness (to him, overt) and the speaker’s underlying motive. Specifically, addressing Eddie with an utterance that seems to falsely indicate that she has already requested he stop kissing her (2), she produces an assertion that is covertly untruthful to the third party that she is ratifying. This may be interpreted as an act of lying to the covertly ratified third party. The same holds for the other two assertions which constitute Thirteen’s other turn (5) and falsely inform the third party about the prior arrangement and a new condition relevant to him. The third party cannot recognise the fact that he has been covertly ratified by the speaker. However, he does listen (feeling entitled to verify who is on the premises) and does hold the speaker accountable for what he deems assertions addressed to Eddie. Thereby, he is lied to about the content of each assertion, which he takes as being truthful, as indicated by his non-verbal reaction (7). Given that deception is an act intentionally produced with reference to specifically determined (albeit sometimes unidentified) listeners, it is not the case that the speaker can deceive an unratified hearer, a bystander or eavesdropper,

384 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

since the speaker does not intend to induce any, let alone false, beliefs in the unratified hearers. A hearer’s status may change mid-way through an interaction from an unratified one to a ratified one, thus making a formerly unratified hearer vulnerable to lying. On the other hand, when the speaker deceives a ratified hearer, an unratified hearer may simultaneously be misled. In other words, overhearers who develop beliefs promoted by a deceptive utterance are misled, but not (purposefully) deceived, when they develop a false belief. The following example presents another interesting case of misleading a bystander. (59) [House is dining with Nora. He has managed to deceive her that he is in a gay relationship with Wilson. He is now telling her that he has had a major argument with Wilson. Nora is offering House a sleepover, which House considers an opportune time to seduce her. Wilson approaches their table.] 1. Wilson: House. 2. House: What are you doing here? 3. Wilson: I’m here because... 4. House: Nothing you can say is going to change anything. [Wilson takes a step closer to the table. Plucking up the courage, he turns his head away and announces, loudly, to the whole restaurant…] 5. Wilson: I love this man. And I am not wasting another moment of my life denying that. [pulls something out of his overcoat pocket and kneels down next to the table; the “something” is a ring box, which he opens] Gregory House... will you marry me? 6. House: Wow. This is unexpected. [House stares at Wilson. Wilson stares back. Nora smiles, happy for them. House stares, still not talking. Wilson cocks his head, asking a silent ­question.] 7. Lady: Say yes! Season 6, Episode 11 In his central contribution to the interaction, Wilson makes two untruthful statements (“I love this man” and “And I am not wasting another moment of my life denying that”) and untruthfully asks House to marry him (5), not intending to deceive the addressee (House), Nora (the third party) or the bystanders (strangers in the restaurant). House is privy to the untruthfulness but, according to Wilson’s plan, he finds himself in an uncomfortable situation (6), faced with the choice of either deceptively accepting the proposal or revealing the complex deceptive act (targeted at Nora) in which he has been engaged. Although Wilson’s contribution is covertly untruthful from Nora’s perspective, he cannot be said to have intentionally lied or otherwise deceived her, even though he does sustain her false belief about the gay relationship he has with House and invites her to

8 Deception in multi-party interactions 

 385

develop a new false belief, namely that he wants to marry House. This is, however, more of a side effect. Also, Wilson may be hoping that House will finally make a clean breast of it in front of Nora, and so his proposal can be duly withdrawn and explained. Moreover, Wilson inadvertently misleads other people dining at the restaurant, with at least some of them ending up with false beliefs similar to Nora’s, as one of the stranger’s reaction (7) testifies. Thus, not privy to some common ground the ratified interactants share, an overhearer, whether a bystander or an eavesdropper, may make inferences and develop false beliefs despite lack of intent to deceive any hearer on the speaker’s part. A most peculiar case of misleading an eavesdropper can be found in Example 60, where the misleading does not reside in the meaning communicated by the speaker but rather in the very act of uttering something. (60) [House is living with Wilson in the latter’s flat. House’s room is a “shrine”, a room full of pictures of Amber, Wilson’s late girlfriend. House lies on his back, awake. A whispery, whooshy sound can be heard. House sits up, surprised. He turns on the light. He props himself up on his elbows and looks around. The next day, House seeks medical advice, worrying that his hearing is impaired, but the doctor allays his fears. House thus starts thinking that he has mental problems. Another night, he can hear the strange sound again. He cocks his head, listening and looking around. By the wall, he pushes something out of the way and finds a heating vent, half-hidden under the rug. House leaves his room and peeps into Wilson’s bedroom. Wilson is lying on his side, facing away from the door.] 1. Wilson: I had pea soup today. You’d love my breath right now. I didn’t get a chance to run tonight. House is... is having issues. I missed you a lot today. All I want to do is... [sighs] You know. Season 6, Episode 6 By addressing his truthful assertions to his late girlfriend, a non-existent/imagined addressee, Wilson does not intend to induce a false belief in anybody. However, House turns out to be an unwitting eavesdropper on Wilson’s whispered utterances. This eavesdropper cannot glean any meanings the speaker communicates and is not misled with regard to their propositional content. However, the eavesdropper is a victim of an act of misleading and develops false beliefs (that he has hearing problems and/or mental issues) until he makes the discovery about the source of the sounds. Thus, their producer, Wilson, can be thought to have inadvertently misled House. On the whole, this section has shown that one deceptive utterance may bring about different communicative effects for the different hearers participating in interactions in all manner of configurations. The speaker need not intend to

386 

 Chapter 4: Covert untruthfulness: Deception

induce a false belief in each ratified hearer simultaneously, with some being privy to the presence of covert untruthfulness. On the other hand, the speaker may perform different forms of deception simultaneously, inducing various false beliefs in the addresses and third parties. This also concerns the problematic case of an individual who joins an interaction as an overhearer but who is (openly, tacitly or covertly) acknowledged by the speaker as a ratified participant and intended to glean the relevant believed-false meaning, which may be tantamount to lying. On the other hand, unwittingly, the speaker may mislead overhearers. The discussion of deception in multi-party interactions contributes another ­dimension to the ongoing research on the categories of deception and the fine theoretical distinctions between them. Overall, this chapter has offered a new approach to classifying deception, perceived as covert untruthfulness, from a neo-Gricean perspective.

Chapter 5 Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness Wilson: You were just jerking Cuddy around? House: You seriously thought I wanted to stop her? Wilson: One thing Cuddy is not is clueless. House: No, first causality of this case is her sense of humor. Wilson: Weird, nothing funnier than almost killing a guy. Season 3, Episode 2 [House is fixated on finding out what led Kutner to suicide. House and his team are brainstorming the case of the current patient.] House: So, what can shred an epiglottis and make muscle disappear? Foreman: Mr. and Mrs. Kutner. They caused Kutner’s death. Why not Charlotte’s? House: Mourning period’s over. Foreman’s sense of irony is back! Season 5, Episode 20 Wilson: [...] If you need time alone to work, you just have to say so. You don’t have to lie about it. House: Lying’s more fun. Wilson: Being lied to, not as much fun. Season 2, Episode 16

This chapter focuses on humour, a very broad and diversified phenomenon that cuts across the truthfulness vs untruthfulness divide, as well as the irony vs lying/ deception distinction. When humour (or any of its specific subtypes) is described or defined, it is often placed in opposition to seriousness. In other words, a ­humorous utterance is considered nonserious and a serious utterance is considered non-­ humorous. Whilst in some cases, this may certainly be true, it is not very helpful in accounting for all types of humour, especially humour which does involve seriousness on various levels of meaning. Thus, in this chapter, an alternative characterisation of humour in terms of (un)truthfulness is suggested. Specifically, humour may display truthfulness, covert untruthfulness, overt untruthfulness that promotes speaker meaning or overt autotelic untruthfulness. In addition, two concepts in humour studies which are tightly linked with “seriousness” – irony and deception – are reconsidered in terms of their humorous capacity. Firstly, humour may capitalise on irony. In other words, irony may (but does not need to, contrary to popular opinion) show humorous potential. Secondly, humour and deception (though distinct concepts) may coincide. Specifically, categories of humour may reside in deceptive mechanisms or, alternatively, genuine deception may bring about humorous effects.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-005

388 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

1 Approaching humour Many studies on humour, not only in linguistics but also in other disciplines, tacitly take as their point of departure an assumption that humour involves nonseriousness, jocularity, play(fulness) and the like (see Section 1.1 for references). Intuitively understood, these notions have been elevated to the status of widely accepted academic terms without adequate consideration of their actual meanings or technical definitions. Humour is juxtaposed with seriousness, which captures any kind of communication that is not orientated towards causing amusement. In this vein, a distinction is traditionally drawn between a humorous frame and non-humorous frame (captured also under several other labels). At the same time, researchers emphasise that the two frames can, and frequently do, overlap inasmuch as humorous utterances can carry serious meanings. This seems to render the seriousness vs humour dichotomy unnecessary. The primary aim of this chapter is to critically revisit the prevalent terms and notions associated with non-seriousness, as discussed in humour research and outside this field, notably in the philosophy of language, and to propose alternative concepts that capture the distinctions better. A postulate is put forward that the concepts of truthfulness, covert untruthfulness, overt untruthfulness and overt autotelic untruthfulness may be employed with reference to humour (in various forms and guises). A distinction is thus made between speaker-meaning-telic humour, which carries speaker meaning relevant outside the humorous frame, and autotelic humour (“humour for the sake of humour”), which communicates no speaker meaning. Within speaker-meaning-telic humour, which communicates truthful (or covertly untruthful) meanings, a distinction is made between truthful meanings that arise as what is said and those that come into being as implicatures (or both). Several methods of communicating the truthful meaning are also depicted. Interestingly, truthful implicatures may be based on overt untruthfulness involving the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, whether related to the use of rhetorical figures or performed otherwise.

1.1 Previous conceptualisations of humour Humour is frequently taken as a communicative activity in which people engage solely for the sake of pleasure and amusement of self and others. This presumption goes back to classical philosophy: “As Thomas Aquinas said of ludicra vel jocosa, playful or joking matters, they are ‘words and deeds in which nothing is sought beyond the soul’s pleasure’” (Morreall 2009: 34). Additionally, the “serious” vs “humorous” dichotomy can be found as early as in Plato’s writings on poetry.

1 Approaching humour 

 389

A generalisation can be made (see Holt 2013) that in the bulk of contemporary studies, humour tends to be juxtaposed with seriousness, and thus equated with non-seriousness. Many authors (e.g. Emerson 1969; Berlyne 1972; Mulkay 1988, Kotthoff 1996) make this distinction, and it has frequently been taken as a bedrock premise in the conversation analytic approach to conversational humour in its various forms and guises (e.g. Drew 1987; Schegloff 2001; Partington 2006; Kotthoff 2007; Norrick and Chiaro 2009; Norrick and Bubel 2009; Priego-Valverde 2009; Haddington 2011; Holt 2013; Bell 2015; Haugh 2016). Although most of these authors (and other ones referred to in the course of this section) do not use the label “humour” at all, they do address specific second-order phenomena (e.g. teasing or joking) that qualify as humour inasmuch as they are orientated towards inviting amusement in (select) participants. A generalisation can then be made that with regard to these specific categories, the authors make a distinction between serious utterances and non-serious, i.e. humorous, utterances by means of which the speaker does not intend to communicate any serious meanings. Non-seriousness in the field of humour studies is rarely explicitly defined and seems to be based on the folk understanding of the term. However, outside this field, non-seriousness is sometimes taken as a broader technical notion (­Schegloff 2001). In their seminal work, Chisholm and Feehan (1977: 151) juxtapose lies, which reside in assertions, with statements made “in play or irony”, which are “non-serious” because they do not reside in assertions.1 For Chisholm and Feehan (1977), therefore, seriousness is what characterises “assertion”. Non-seriousness denotes all manner of non-assertions encompassing figures of speech (here seen as displaying overt untruthfulness), such as irony and metaphor, together with absurd humour or “joking” (e.g. Fallis 2009). In such cases, the speaker is “not to be taken seriously” (Fallis 2009: 35). On the other hand, the Quality-based figures, which communicate implicated speaker meaning, may (but do not need to) demonstrate humorous potential (see Dynel 2012, 2013a, 2014a; see Section 2 on irony). Even though an ironic utterance may carry a “metamessage” along the lines of “I don’t mean this message” or “I’m not serious” (Haiman 1998: 30, 1990: 181), it typically does carry a serious meaning, whether or not it is simultaneously humorous. From a different perspective, utterances

1 The notion of the non-seriousness of humour reverberates in the philosophical literature on deception, when the authors differentiate between humour and lying, or deception in general (see Chapter 1, Section 4). For instance, Carson (2006: 286) states that “[s]ometimes people say things that are false in order to make a joke. If I say something that is clearly false as a joke that is not intended to be taken seriously, I am not lying”. Similarly, premised on an assumption that lying “is just asserting what one does not believe”, Sorensen (2007: 256) claims that humorous utterances are not assertions as the speaker is only “kidding” (see further in this section).

390 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(specifically, performatives) made in joking, poetry writing or acting on stage lack seriousness in the sense that they are “hollow or void”, for they are not embedded in the speaker’s commitment (Austin 1962: 22). Non-seriousness is thus taken to denote a variety of communicative activities falling into what is sometimes captured in the philosophy of fiction as games of make-believe. Bringing together these diversified views, Clark (1996: 353) regards non-serious language as being germane to disparate concepts: “novels, plays, movies, stories, and jokes, as well as teasing, irony, sarcasm, overstatement, and understatement”. For her part, Vincent Marrelli (1994: 259, 2004) distinguishes between two types of non-seriousness: non-serious non-playful talk and non-serious playful talk, the latter of which seems to correspond to humour and which she discusses on the basis of joking and teasing (two vexing notions in humour studies). The non-playful bifurcates into “light talk”, i.e. “talk which involves superficiality and/or underdetermined degrees of beliefs and intentions” (Vincent Marrelli 1994: 259); and “loose talk”, which depends on “underdetermined degree of literalness” (Vincent Marrelli 1994: 259). In Vincent Marrelli’s (1994) opinion, non-seriousness is not necessarily “playful” or “play”, which she seems to associate with humour. Some categories of humour are indeed related to playfulness, which is sometimes juxtaposed with seriousness (e.g. Glenn 2003: 28). In this vein, humour tends to be regarded as a form of play (Kotthoff 1996: 309; Morreall 2009). The latter notion has a number of classical definitions. For example, Santayana (1987 [1896]) defines play as any spontaneous activity not carried out under pressure of external necessity or danger. Play also involves “stepping out of reality that is distinct from ordinary life” (Huizinga 1949: 13). In the light of these definitions, it is easy to understand that “play” (although a well-entrenched concept in humour studies), technically, does not need to involve humour (e.g. pretend play performed by children or media recipients’ immersion in fiction, both being games of make-believe). The term “play” has been popularised in humour studies thanks to Bateson’s (1953, 1956, 1987 [1955, 1972]) writings, which state that the hallmarks of play are: “(a) that the messages or signals exchanged in play are in a certain sense untrue or not meant; and (b) that that which is denoted by these signals is nonexistent” (Bateson 1987 [1955, 1972]: 188–189). Bateson (1953, 1956, 1987 [1955, 1972]) is reported to be the first to have proposed that actions can be framed as either playful or non-playful. His central claim is that any playful activity carries an individual’s metacommunicative message “this is play” to be recognised by an interactant. In play, people are “saying or doing something non-seriously – as a joke, in jest, for fun, without meaning it, only fooling, just kidding” (Morreall 2009: 37, italics added). Indeed, both humour and play, which need not coincide,

1 Approaching humour 

 391

can be associated with non-seriousness, as Berlyne also suggests, “[h]umor and most play are accompanied by cues that mark them as not ‘serious’” (1972: 56). Inspired by Bateson’s (1953, 1956, 1987 [1955, 1972]) works, the concept of framing has been discussed in humour scholarship (see Dynel 2011f) under several similar, albeit competing, labels2 which capitalise on terms such as “play”, “non-seriousness” or “humour”. These include play frame (Fry 1963; Kochman 1983; Norrick 1993, 2003; Ardington 2006; Kotthoff 2006; Partington 2006, 2008a, 2008b; Coates 2007), humorous frame (e.g. Hay 2000, 2001; Everts 2003; Dynel 2011f), non-serious frame (Haugh 2010, 2016), jocular frame (Haugh 2010), non-serious key (Norrick and Bubel 2009), humorous key (e.g. Kotthoff 1999, 2006; Holmes 2006; Lampert and Ervin-Tripp 2006) or humorous mode (Mulkay 1988), all pertaining to humour, as opposed to serious forms of communication. For example, Yus (2016: 82, italics in original) states that “a play frame captures an essential feature of humour (it is not serious)”. Humorous utterances or interactions may thus be considered to be dissociated from serious communication, being enclosed within a special frame of reference. The humorous and nonhumorous frames can be swiftly shifted, with a humorous utterance being followed by a non-humorous response (e.g. Sacks 1972; Drew 1987; Haddington 2011). From a cognitive perspective, this kind of play coincides with activity that necessitates at least partial detachment from serious and goal-oriented behaviour (de Jongste 2013). Apter’s (1991) paratelic3 mode and Morreall’s (2009) play mode relate to the facilitating state of mind which is conducive to amusement in response to humorous stimuli. In Apter’s (1991) socio-biological cognitive theory, “paratelic” means “playful” and devoid of a survival-related meta-motivational goal. Non-seriousness, play and playfulness are also presented as overlapping with, or even equated with, the concept of jocularity (Haugh 2010; Sinkeviciute 2013, 2014) and jocular behaviour, as seen in terms such as “jocular mockery” (e.g. Holmes 2000, Schnurr 2009, Schnurr and Chan 2011, Haugh 2010; Haugh and Bousfield 2012) or “jocular abuse” (e.g. Pawluk 1989; Hay 1994; Holmes 2000; Schnurr 2009; Schnurr and Chan 2011; Haugh and Bousfield 2012). In jocular mockery, the speaker “jocularly” or “non-seriously” imitates or makes

2 Yet another label frequently found in the literature is the “non-bona-fide mode” of communication, advocated by Raskin (1985), together with Attardo (e.g. Raskin and Attardo 1994). This term carries a methodological burden, though. It is the authors’ erroneous view of the Gricean framework and his alleged term “bona-fide mode” that led them to conclude that humour is at cross purposes with, or even violates, the Cooperative Principle, which allegedly represents the “bona-fide mode” (see Chapter 2, Section 6.1; see Dynel 2008, 2009). 3 This should not be mistaken for the notion “autotelic” humour/untruthfulness that is proposed here.

392 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

fun of another individual, which may be interpreted as playful and friendly or truly aggressive (Haugh 2010, 2014). Likewise, Haugh and Bousfield (2012) define jocular abuse as a form of insulting within a “non-serious or jocular frame”. This is juxtaposed with cases of genuine abuse or insults representative of what the speaker believes to be true (e.g. Dynel 2013c, 2016e). Jocularity is then used synonymously with non-seriousness. Kidding and joking are yet two more labels that reverberate across interdisciplinary literature, typically being used as folk notions with no need for much explanation. “Kidding” is sometimes explicitly juxtaposed with seriousness (La Fave et al. 1977). Morreall (1983: 118) states that in an act of kidding, “we are taking forms of speech intended for serious communication and discarding the serious purpose”. In more formal terms, a kidding speaker “R-intends [reflexively intends] to say something without meaning it” and “R-intends [reflexively intends] h [the hearer] to recognise this” (Bach and Harnish 1979: 97). As Haugh (2015: 26) puts it, the speaker produces such acts “without being held committed to what has been said”. On the other hand, kidding is frequently associated with put-ons (Sherzer 2002, see Section 3.2.2), whereby speakers present their utterances as being serious only to backtrack on what they have communicated and claim humorous intent. An even more widespread term “joking” seems to be used in reference to (select forms of) conversational humour (Drew 1987; Norrick 1993, 2003; ­Kotthoff 1996; Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Lampert and Ervin-Tripp 2006). ­Equating “humour” with “joking”, Morreall (2009: 36) concludes that it involves “a special play mode of using language in which we suspend ordinary rules of communication and give each other comic license to say anything, as long as the group enjoys it”. Alternatively, “joking” has been defined narrowly as overt non-deceptive intentional non-seriousness (Vincent Marrelli 1994, 2003, 2004, 2006). On the latter reading, “joking” seems to be related to the prevalent understanding of canned jokes in humour research as short fictional narratives and/or dialogues ending in a punchline, which are (re)told for the sake of amusement and do not carry serious meanings. Thus, joking tends to be (tacitly) indicated by the “only joking” or “just kidding” metacommunicative messages, which signal the ­speaker’s dissociation from what he/she is uttering. If verbalised, following humorous utterances, such metamessages are also used as the basis of ­researchers’ evaluations of interactional goings-on (see Kane et al. 1977; Norrick 1993; Haddington 2011; Bell 2015; Haugh 2016). As this overview has shown, the literature abounds in competing labels for specific humorous practices, many of which are not well defined and are used intuitively. From a bird’s-eye-view perspective, not all (verbal) humour can be labelled “joking”, just as not all humour is purely playful or non-serious. Nor can humour be

1 Approaching humour 

 393

rigorously juxtaposed with seriousness. Although the dichotomy between the variously labelled non-humorous and humorous frames is unequivocal in theory, this distinction is not so clear-cut in practice. Very frequently, the two frames merge. Utterances which are intended to invite humorous responses and/or are classifiable as categories of humour may indeed communicate “serious” meanings.

1.2 Humour coupled with seriousness Humour is a heterogeneous phenomenon and, in its entirety, it cannot be reduced to play, jocularity, non-seriousness, etc.4 Although a distinction between humorous and non-humorous frames is a useful one (an utterance or non-verbal action either is or is not humorous), humour, taken as a whole, cannot be juxtaposed with seriousness. Whilst produced with a view to causing amusement, humorous utterances tend to convey “serious” meanings (as observed by countless researchers with the use of different terms) and to be used for varying communicative purposes. For example, the blurry boundaries between humour and seriousness have been widely discussed in socio-cultural studies of humour in public discourse (e.g. Billig 2005; Simpson 2003; Lockyer and Pickering 2005, 2008; Holm and Veldstra 2015). One of the claims made is that humour cannot be set diametrically in opposition to seriousness, since it can have serious implications and repercussions and it can communicate ideologies (Lockyer and Pickering 2008). Conversational humour is another “useful resource for accomplishing serious tasks” (Walle 1976: 217). A body of research across disciplines, notably linguistics, psychology and sociology, indicates that humorous utterances are deployed to accomplish serious goals. Speakers may have, frequently sub-conscious, “supergoals” outside the humorous frame, even when they communicate no truthful propositional meanings. These super-goals coincide with the functions of humour addressed in socio-psychological and socio-pragmatic studies, such as exerting interpersonal effects by promoting solidarity or boosting one’s likeability (for an overview and further references, see e.g. Attardo 1994; Martin 2007). Humour may also be deployed strategically to attain particular communicative goals. For example, extensive research testifies that humour has a cushioning effect: it is

4 What is crucial here is the speaker’s intention rather than the hearer’s perception of the speaker’s utterance. Although the two perspectives may be at odds (e.g. the speaker does not mean to communicate any serious meaning, but the hearer reads such an intention into the speaker’s utterance), for the sake of clarity, an idealised view of communication is presented in the bulk of this chapter.

394 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

used to mitigate the force of criticisms, reprimands or requests and it helps diffuse conflicts. Humour is added to a serious piece of communication in order to take the sting out of a potentially offensive utterance. It also signals to the hearer that he/she is invited to share the humorous experience rather than being confronted (Morreall 1983). Thus, requests or criticisms voiced in a humorous manner give the hearers leeway to disregard the serious implications of these acts, as long as they can see such implications and respond to the humour instead. On the other hand, Mulkay (1988) ventures to claim that, via humorous utterances, speakers can avoid committing themselves too strongly to what they are communicating. He observes that “it is precisely the symbolic separation from the realm of serious action that enables social actors to use humour for serious purposes” (Mulkay 1988: 1). It is then also the speaker that may avoid repercussions if the hearer should regard his/her utterance as an act of imposition. The speaker may thus backtrack and (untruthfully) claim purely jocular intent. Therefore, “[f]or the very reason that humour officially does not ‘count,’ persons are induced to risk messages that may be unacceptable if stated seriously” (Emerson 1969: 169–170). In a nutshell, humour added to an utterance that conveys a message grants the hearer an opportunity to take it seriously or not, and the speaker an opportunity to disavow responsibility for it (Grugulis 2002). The main thrust of the short summary above is that humour is an important way of facilitating the achievement of both transactional and relational objectives. Here, the focus is primarily on the level of an utterance as a purposefully employed carrier of serious meaning.5 As Nash metaphorically puts it, “what is said in jest is stalked by the ghost of what might be conventionally said in earnest” (1985: 9). This is something that many authors have noted with the use of diversified terms and with regard to different forms of humour. Practically all types of humour can carry meaning relevant to the ongoing interaction, with the informative function being made more or less transparent. Even canned jokes can serve as glosses or comments on the conversation at hand and can be “deliberately employed to communicate messages” (Oring 2003: 96).

5 Emerson (1969: 169) claims that “Covert [i.e. implicit] messages contained in jokes may emerge into the open as an inadvertent consequence of failure to have a gesture accepted as a joke or as the result of negotiations to transpose the topic from a humorous to a serious framework”. This seems to suggest that the speaker may unwittingly express a serious meaning. There is also a possibility that the speaker may be uncertain about what he/she is communicating, or having intended to produce a perfectly non-serious utterance, he/she may realise that it may be considered to carry some serious meaning. The hearer is thus invited to make a decision on how he/she interprets the utterance in question.

1 Approaching humour 

 395

The observation that the speaker may aim to amuse the hearer(s) and simultaneously to communicate non-humorous meanings has been most frequently made with regard to (categories of) conversational humour. Emerson (1969) talks about humour that may be a “joke” or a message with some “serious” import, whilst Alberts (1992: 158) notes that humour, such as teasing, is “an activity comprised of two orthogonal dimensions: playfulness and seriousness”. In this vein, Kotthoff (2006: 287) states that “playful keying does not necessarily suspend any of the serious meanings created”. Moreover, interactants may use the serious vs non-serious ambiguity strategically (Glenn 2003; Holt 2013, see Section 1.3.2). Overall, it is difficult to clearly differentiate between seriousness and humour. The presence of humour “does not automatically re-categorize a communicative act as ‘non-serious’. This is because humour – which is connected with a speaker’s intention to achieve a humorous effect – can take various forms and is a component of many ‘serious’ acts of communication as well” (Chovanec 2017: 36). Given the overlapping and non-categorical nature of humour and seriousness (together with its near synonyms), an alternative characterisation of these two notions will be presented in the following sections.

1.3 (Un)truthfulness as a dimension of humour In the light of the succinct overview given in Sections 1.1 and 1.2, it is evident that a wide range of folk labels seem to be applied with reference to (select categories of) humour regarded as “non-seriousness”, a label that goes beyond humorous phenomena in philosophical research. In addition, academics see humour, or its specific forms, as being enclosed in a special communicative frame that suspends “serious” message transmission. Nonetheless, at the same time, claims are made that the two frames can actually overlap, which seems to make the basic dichotomy otiose, and the diversified terminology confusing: humour/jocularity/ playfulness is juxtaposed with seriousness, but, at the same time, humour/ jocularity/playfulness can also convey serious meanings and cannot be reduced to non-seriousness. A pending query remains as to which of the concepts reported on best captures the hallmarks of humour, and as to whether some distinctions between the different notions should be drawn. Some attempts in this direction have already been made. Holt (2016) states that playfulness and non-seriousness need to be distinguished although they are related. Holt (2016: 101) proposes that “the technical use of the term ‘playful’ invites consideration of the packaging of turns and actions, while ‘non-serious’ invites consideration of whether the turns do what they might otherwise be treated as doing (complaining, requesting, etc.)”. This view of playfulness is

396 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

associated with the formal packaging of a message, and seriousness is related to the presence of the meaning to be communicated. Playfulness thus understood is reminiscent of what Young and Bippus (2001) call humorously phrased messages or what Dynel (2011f) calls utterances imbued with humour. This concept also echoes Kotthoff’s (2006: 282) suggestion in favour of “simply differentiating between serious and playful ways of speaking” rather than distinguishing a special mode of communication for humour. What these proposals have in common is that they focus on the humour residing in the form (formal properties) of an utterance that communicates an intended meaning. In order not to (unwittingly) cause any contradictions with previous scholarship and existing terminology, a new proposal is offered here to capture the peculiar nature of humour and its ability to communicate “serious” meanings. The neo-Gricean notion of truthfulness (together with covert untruthfulness)6 is invoked to account for the meanings humour, regardless of its specific form, may communicate. This conceptualisation captures theoretically all humour and avoids using the vexing notions such as playfulness or seriousness and erroneously juxtaposing/comparing humour with other phenomena (notably irony and deception, with which it may overlap). It is postulated that items of intentional conversational humour, that is utterances that (are intended by the speaker to) produce humorous effects7 for the speaker and/or the hearer, can be divided into two main types, depending on the presence/lack of speaker meaning: autotelic humour (humour for the sake of humour) and speaker-meaning-telic (humour that communicates truthful/ covertly untruthful meanings). The telicity-based dichotomy proposed here does not account for any interpersonal or social implications that humour invariably carries in some form (e.g. image management, defusing conflict or solidarity building), capturing only the presence/absence of speaker meaning arising from an utterance. The primary dichotomy between the two forms of humour proposed here seems to fine-tune Mulkay’s (1988) suggestion for distinguishing between pure humour which is “taken by the participants to have no implications beyond the realm of the humorous discourse” (Mulkay 1988: 156) and applied humour,

6 Speakers may also communicate covertly untruthful meanings via humour, whereby they wish to deceive hearers. As Vincent Marrelli (1994: 254) observes, “non-serious talk can be used either sincerely or not”, where insincerity is related to deceptiveness. 7 Humour may be intended or not (see Dynel 2016c for further divisions). However, intentionally produced humour may fail (see Bell 2015), and hearers may be amused by utterances not designed for humorous purposes.

1 Approaching humour 

 397

which carries (subversive or supportive) meanings contributing to the “serious” content of an interaction. Some authors have addressed the issue of (objective) truth/falsity in humour. For example, Simpson (2003: 167) argues that satirical texts embody “referfictionality”, which captures “satire’s capacity to straddle the poles of “truth and falsity”, which is similar to the proposal made here, albeit with reference to truthfulness. For her part, Vincent Marrelli (1994) uses the notions of both truth and truthfulness with reference to teasing, a broad type of conversational humour traditionally viewed as involving an overt pretence of hostility serving genuine friendliness (Radcliffe-Brown 1940; see e.g. Partington 2006; Martin 2007; Geyer 2010; Haugh 2010; Dynel 2011f, 2016e; Sinkeviciute 2013). She sees teasing as a “playful non-serious” talk (Vincent Marrelli 1994, 2004), which “may or may not occur in a ‘−Truth relevant’ frame (i.e. it can occur in a ‘+Truth relevant’ frame too). And its higher order goals may or may not be ‘serious’, i.e. not-lightly meant. What it does seem to do is purport to ‘play’ both with seriousness (as opposed to ‘lightness’), and/or with truthfulness, as opposed to non-truthfulness” (Vincent Marrelli 2004: 291). The essence of this description seems to be that teasing may be or may not be amenable to considerations of truth(fulness), and that teasing may sometimes carry truthful (“serious”) meanings. The notions of beliefs, sincerity and truthfulness (i.e. communicating what one believes to be true) have been mentioned in passing in previous research on humour but not explained or consistently addressed. Alberts (1992: 163) raises the issue of the speaker’s beliefs when she writes that the target of a humorous but aggressive utterance must “decide to what extent the negative characterization represents the speaker’s true belief (and therefore is functioning as an indirect criticism/complaint)”. For their part, Young and Bippus (2001: 40) explain that the “only joking” label means that the speaker “does not truly believe in the content of his or her messages”, associating it with lack of “sincerity”. Similarly, Drew talks about teases as utterances “not to be taken seriously”8 and “not intended as real or sincere proposals – by being constructed as very obviously exaggerated versions of some action etc.; and/or by being in direct contrast to something they both [the speaker and the hearer] know [believe] or one has just told the other [expressed shared beliefs]” (1987: 232). This obvious exaggeration or insincerity may be associated with the notion of overt autotelic untruthfulness proposed here. Morreall (2009: 35) makes a longer comment on the importance of “beliefs” in “joking”, namely that “you use the standard format of an assertion but without

8 However, many authors emphasise that teasing may communicate “serious” meanings.

398 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

intending that I believe that assertion, or that I believe that you believe it”. Indeed “joking” can be contrasted with “asserting”, by means of which “we give advice, and warn people, we use words in standard ways to bring about certain mental states in our listeners” (Morreall 2009: 35). In an act of joking, an assertion cannot be made (Sorensen 2007), inasmuch as the speaker is not committed to communicating any meaning. If at all, joking may involve pretended assertions which do not serve as a vehicle for communicating further meanings, unlike irony. It must also be stressed that not all “joking”, or more generally conversational humour, needs to resemble asserting, being anchored in other utterance types (exclamations, questions or imperatives), which do lend themselves to analysis with regard to their truthfulness. Finally, endorsing the notion of the non-bona-fide mode of communication, which (in his view) stands vis-à-vis Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Attardo (1994: 206, cf. 1994: 213)9 suggests that the non-bona-fide mode is non-truthfulnessoriented, and the Cooperative Principle is truthfulness-orientated. It is then commonly assumed that truthfulness is suspended in the humorous frame. In this vein, Lampert and Tripp (2006: 53, italics added) raise the issue of lack of truthfulness when they state that “a playful key can lead to the suspension of the presupposition of truthfulness”. However, as Attardo (1994: 206) concedes, humour may carry “bona-fide (BF) information”, and thus, as can be extrapolated, truthful meanings. This is precisely why, it is argued here, truthfulness should rather be conceptualised as an independent dimension that straddles the humorous vs non-humorous frame distinction and may be used as an alternative to “seriousness”, which (as has been shown) is a problematic term. Although this discussion is strictly theoretical, with the principal aim being to theorise on the status of truthfulness/overt untruthfulness in humour, an essential empirical problem must be addressed. The relationship between truthfulness and overt autotelic untruthfulness frequently shows ambiguity, as proposed in the literature in the context of merging humorous and non-humorous frames (see Section 1.1). In Bateson’s view, a frame is “metacommunicative”, which means that a message, “which either explicitly or implicitly defines a frame, ipso facto gives the receiver instructions or aids in his attempt to understand the messages included within the frame” (1987 [1955, 1972]: 193). This is an ideal picture of framing, which many examples of humorous utterances frequently fail to fit, being purposefully ambivalent. A lot of research provides evidence that human communication is replete with dubious cases and ambivalent communicative situations, irrespective of the level of familiarity between

9 Attardo (1994: 213) admits that jokes can carry BF information.

1 Approaching humour 

 399

interlocutors and their common ground. Much humour revolves around the “is this play?” metamessage (Bateson 1987 [1955, 1972]: 188), with the speaker not making it transparent whether he/she truly believes what he seems to be communicating, and/or with the hearer being unclear about this as well. This is a problem that many humour researchers have addressed, invoking the notion of “seriousness” and/or “playfulness”. As Glenn (2003: 137) puts it, the “‘serious’ or playful status of utterances may not be clear to interactants” (see also Sacks 1992; Schegloff 2001; Dynel 2011f). Thus, many authors, especially those doing conversation analysis (e.g. Sacks 1972; Schegloff 2001) emphasise that it is frequently impossible to determine (by a hearer or a researcher, alike) whether an utterance falls into the humorous frame or communicates truthful meanings, as designed by the speaker. Essentially, the speaker’s “intentions cannot be ‘proved’” (Zajdman 1995: 333).10 Thus, a speaker may later protest that his/her intention has been different, even if both interlocutors should be aware that the hearer’s suspicions are correct, whether or not they let it show. Thus, a speaker can purposefully communicate some meanings, not wishing to be held accountable for them and presenting them as falling into the humorous frame. Even so, the hearer may tacitly recognise the allusions/insinuations, with no valid proof at hand. Here is an interesting case taken from House. (1) [House has feelings for Stacy, his former fiancée, and is intent on winning back her heart. She is going through a rough patch with her disabled husband, who is depressed and both emotionally and physically detached from her. She seems to be bonding with House. House previously read Stacy’s file and he knows that she is not happy and that she has grievances against her husband (such as that he will not help her do the dishes, which she loathes). In her kitchen, Stacy has been confiding in House. Mark, her husband, is back home and enters as they are doing the dishes.] 1. Mark: What’s going on? 2. House: [drops everything and turns around looking rather guilty] It’s not what you think. I know it looks like we’re cleaning dishes, but actually we’re having sex. 3. Stacy: We’re working. 4. Mark: Wow, wish I’d become a doctor. Place would be spotless. [smirks and wheelchairs himself away] Season 2, Episode 7

10 Inferring the speaker’s intention seems to be more feasible in the case of fictional interactions, which serve illustrative purposes here.

400 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

House’s humorous turn addressed to his rival, Mark, has a number of layers. It clearly shows overt untruthfulness inasmuch as (contrary to what he states) House and Stacy are indeed cleaning dishes, rather than having sex, which is precisely how this activity looks. It might seem that House is just being “jocular”. However, by means of his overt untruthfulness and overtly pretended guilt, House may be willing to cover up his true anxiety; he is well aware that Mark is not pleased about his wife and her ex-fiancé spending time in his own house, which is what Mark’s sarcastic reaction (4) indicates. More importantly, House will likely wish to maliciously irritate Mark by bringing up a touchy topic, this being the “serious” import of his turn. On the one hand, Mark must be aware that his wife’s sexual needs have not been satisfied (but he does not know that House has learnt about this), and on the other, he can sense the sexual tension between the two former lovers. House could easily deny this interpretation if he had to. Cases like this one are not amenable to easy description and escape the theoretical qualification proposed in this section. Humour confers on the speaker the right to convey serious meanings, while appearing to be “only joking” (e.g. Nash 1985; Mulkay 1988; Vincent ­Marrelli 1994; Oring 2003; Glenn 2003; Simpson 2003; Kotthoff 2007; Haddington 2011; Sinkeviciute 2013; Holt 2013; Haugh 2016). As Holt observes, “[s]ensitive actions can be performed and responded to under the guise of nonseriousness” (2013: 89). Consequently, the speaker can convey unpalatable messages under the guise of “only joking” and thereby prevent the target’s taking offence (see Kahn 1989; Grugulis 2002). It should be stressed that speakers may wish truthful meanings to be gleaned by the hearers, even if they may sometimes wish not to be held accountable for them. This explains why humour’s potential to carry serious meanings is addressed in the context of (seemingly) feigned facethreat or aggression (e.g. Straehle 1993; Zajdman 1995; Young and Bippus 2001; Sinkeviciute 2013). The underlying tenet repeated in the literature is that ­humorously produced aggressive messages are mitigated with humour, or even designed to be taken as non-serious. This does not change the fact that both the speaker and the hearer may share a tacit agreement that such a message has indeed been communicated.11 In this vein, according to Glenn (2003: 137), framing an utterance “as play” means that this utterance “does not carry the ‘serious’ consequences it might otherwise”, which does not mean, however,

11 What makes this even more problematic is that frequently there is no way of categorically knowing what the speaker’s intentions truly are and how much aggression is meant or how much is taken and shown (see e.g. Sinkeviciute 2013).

1 Approaching humour 

 401

that this utterance does not carry “serious” meanings. This only suggests that “a person is not held responsible for what he does in jest to the same degree that he would be for a serious” act (Emerson 1969:169). Additionally, deploying humour to convey truthful meanings clouds intentionality and facilitates speaker decommitment (Kane et al. 1977). In other words, humour paves the way for the possibility of a relatively easy retraction of a truthful meaning, if necessary (Johnson 1990). Capitalising on the protection humour affords, speakers may attempt to (deceptively) retract truthful meanings through disclaimers,12 thereby disavowing the truthfulness of their utterances (e.g. Kane et al. 1977; Mulkay 1988; Norrick 1993; Kahn 1989; Grugulis 2002; Dynel 2011f; Bell 2015; Skalicky et al. 2015; Haugh 2016; see also Haddington 2011). “Only joking” and “just kidding” are well-known adages in conversation analytic works, which function as retrospective explanatory meta-comments absolving humorous speakers from any truthful meanings recognised in their humorous comments, the meanings that do represent their true beliefs. Speakers may hence resort to these “pleas of misframing” (Goffman 1974: 323)13 in order to claim innocence or merely divest themselves of responsibility should a humorous remark appear to have fallen on unreceptive ears or have been considered offensive.14 In other words, non-seriousness (technically, overt untruthfulness) may be post factum laminated onto what seems to have been taken as a serious (technically truthful) comment (Haddington 2011; see also Holt 2013; Haugh 2016). As Attardo (1994: 327) puts it, “the speaker can deny the responsibility for what he/she is saying, at least in part. If the speaker’s assertions are found to be socially unacceptable, he/she has the option of denying their truthfulness by claiming that the assertions belonged to the humorous, NBF mode, and so are false [untruthful], strictly speaking”. Here is a relatively simple example illustrating a momentary misframing.

12 On the other hand, the meta-comments may “inoculate” the speaker by pre-empting the hearer’s taking offence at the humorous utterance (Bell 2015; Skalicky et al. 2015). 13 However, contrary to what some authors report, Goffman never wrote about humour or nonseriousness with regard to framing. 14 A distinct question is whether the hearers find this kind of denial plausible. Johnson’s (1990) study shows that people tend not to believe other speakers’ claims to what is dubbed humorous overt untruthfulness, whilst they regard their own humorous comments as dissociated from their own beliefs.

402 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(2) [In the clinic room, House is talking to a man dressed up as Santa Claus, who is suffering from severe stomach problems.] 1. Santa: It’s one thing to have to go to the bathroom every hour, but when the kids sit on my lap, it’s…. The store sent me home, they’re gonna fire me. Can’t you put me back on 5ASA? Maybe it’ll work this time? 2. House: Not likely. I’m giving you a prescription. It’s cheap, which is good because your insurance company won’t pay for it. [gives Santa a prescription, who puts on his glasses to read it] 3. Santa: [trying to read House’s writing] Cojorius? 4. House: Cigarettes. One twice a day, no more, no less. Studies have shown that cigarette smoking is one of the most effective ways to control inflammatory bowel, plus it’s been established that you look 30% cooler. 5. Santa: Are you kidding me? 6. House: About the looking cooler, yeah. The rest is true. Season 1, Episode 5 House’s medical advice (4) raises the patient’s suspicions, as indicated by his “are you kidding me?” reaction (5). The uncanny medication (commonly considered unhealthy) prescribed by the doctor and his twofold motivation (cigarettes successfully control inflammatory bowel and they improve one’s looks) cause the patient to believe that the speaker cannot be truthful. As House’s (6) response indicates, his previous turn merges truthful content (cigarettes have the relevant medicinal properties) with untruthfulness (they do not make a smoker look 30% more attractive). In humorous utterances, truthfulness in what is said or implicature (the latter potentially arising, among other things, from overt untruthfulness based on flouting the first maxim of Quality), and overt autotelic untruthfulness alike, may show different degrees of transparency to the hearers. Sometimes speakers are purposefully ambiguous in terms of their communicative intentions, not wishing to be held accountable for the meaning they have indeed intended to communicate.15 From the speaker’s vantage point, speaker meaning may be made transparent, it may be ambivalent or it may be purposefully kept covert, whereby the hearer is deceived into believing that the speaker is only overtly autotelically untruthful. Ultimately, the “correct” conjecturing of the speaker’s intentions and inferring speaker meaning by the hearer heavily depend on the common ground

15 This is a salient counterexample against Grice’s proposal of reflexive intentionality underlying speaker meaning (see Dynel 2016c; see Chapter 2, Section 1.3).

1 Approaching humour 

 403

between the interlocutors, the verbal or non-verbal cues, as well as the hearer’s sense of humour and mental capacity, as the following example illustrates. (3) [House is doing his clinic duty. The current patient is a middle-aged nerd-likelooking man with a side parting. He is wearing glasses and a checked shirt.] 1. Patient: It’s usually worse in the morning. Especially if I’ve slept on my arm. [massaging his shoulder] If I sleep on my back or you know, with my arms out, I’m usually ok. 2. House: So your arm only hurts after you lie on top of it all night. 3. Patient: Yeah. 4. House: Hmm. [seemingly pensive] Well, have you thought about, I don’t know, not doing that? 5. Patient: Yeah, but it’s how I sleep. It’s how I’ve always slept. 6. House: Well there’s always surgery. 7. Patient: To do what? Like clean out some cartilage or something? 8. House: You’re not sleeping on some cartilage; you’re sleeping on your arm. 9. Patient: [shocked] You wanna remove my arm? 10. House: [in a light-hearted manner] Well, it is your left, a guy’s gotta sleep. 11. Patient: Are you insane?! 12. House: [returns a confused look] 13. Patient: [storms out of the exam room] Season 3, Episode 6 Having recognised the patient’s ailment as being self-induced (1 and 2), and possibly perceiving the neurotic patient as a nuisance, House decides to tease him for the sake of self-amusement and possibly also with a view to inviting the interlocutor’s humorous reactions, at least at the beginning. Before making his first suggestion (4), House overtly feigns hesitation. It simply cannot be genuine, given the obviousness of the idea that the patient should have arrived at himself.16 Thereby, via irony (overt untruthfulness), House implicitly offers the simple advice and simultaneously tacitly criticises the patient for not having solved the problem on his own. The latter seems to be oblivious to the humour and responds to the implicated truthful meaning, adamant that he will not change his sleeping position (5). Hence, House decides to tease him further and points out to the man the extremeness of his tenaciousness, which verges on

16 The exchange reworks an old “Doctor, doctor” joke: Patient: Doctor, doctor, it really hurts when I do this Doctor: Then don’t do that!

404 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

stupidity (“I will not change my sleeping position even though my arm hurts as a result”). House ridicules the patient’s stubbornness by making an implicit suggestion across his turns (6 and 8), which is tantamount to overtly untruthful meaning, an overtly pretended implicature (“You can undergo surgery and have your arm removed”), which flouts the first maxim of Quality. Rather than encouraging this (false) belief in the patient, House hopes that the latter sees his own recalcitrance as equally absurd and extreme. In other words, the overtly untruthful implicated suggestion is meant to give rise to speaker meaning in the form of another implicature, a truthful one (“You must stop sleeping on your arm – this is the only possible solution; stop being so stubborn”), and possibly to invite a humorous reaction. However, the patient seems to be outraged by House’s advice (9), clearly having failed to recognise both its overt untruthfulness and the truthful implicature. The patient’s taking the doctor’s suggestion at face value can be explained by the fact that the former is seeking a medical opinion and is clearly not in the frame of mind that facilitates humour reception, not to mention the fact that his reaction borders on sheer stupidity. House duly makes use of this fact, brazenly developing on the absurd suggestion he has made by rationalising it (10), as well as non-verbally confirming the allegation of his insanity (12). Although both the turns exhibit overt untruthfulness (“You can have your arm amputated, especially if it’s only the left one, in order to be able to sleep” and “Yes I am insane”), which can be easily recognised, House must be convinced that the gullible hearer will let himself be deceived into believing whatever is purportedly communicated to him, and thus that the overt untruthfulness is not transparent to him. Ultimately, House allows the patient to leave the clinic room with a false belief that the insane doctor has recommended that he amputate his left arm. Even if House may not have had any intention of deceiving the patient at the beginning, the latter’s failure to recognise the humour-oriented overt autotelic untruthfulness prompted the astute, mischievous doctor to produce more messages that, he expected, would be misunderstood by the hearer fixated on the seriousness of his medical condition. As Example 3 testifies, the relationship between overt untruthfulness, overt autotelic untruthfulness, covert untruthfulness and truthfulness in humour can be very complex and difficult to determine in practice. Altogether, as suggested in Chapter 2, Section 6.2, in theoretical terms, humour displays a four-fold relationship with Grice’s maxims (being based on observance, flouting, violation and opting out), which will be corroborated in the remainder of this chapter. Humour may exploit more than one form of maxim (non)fulfilment at the same time. Speaker-meaning-telic humour has three main realisations. Firstly, such humour may be centred on maxim violations, thereby capitalising on deception, whether permanent or temporary (see Section 3), leading to the communication

1 Approaching humour 

 405

of speaker meaning to select hearers, covertly untruthful (to the target), and sometimes also truthful to the (ultimately) non-deceived hearer. Secondly, some humour may be based on flouting maxims, including the first Quality maxim, thereby involving overt untruthfulness conducive to implicatures. This concerns the use of humorous Quality-based figures, as exemplified by irony (see Section 2). Thirdly, humour may capitalise on what is said, and thus maxim observance. In practice, this kind of humour may co-occur with that involving implicatures stemming from floutings of maxims other than the first maxim of Quality. When the other maxims are flouted, what is said is always present next to additive implicature. These three forms of speaker-meaning-telic humour stand in contrast to autotelic humour, which revolves around opting out of the first maxim of Quality, and hence the other maxims as well. Autotelic humour may recruit maxim flouting and violation, but the ultimate product of inferencing contributes no speaker meaning. However, autotelic humour may carry some non-propositional meaning, independent of what is said or implicated, and it may have interpersonal effects (such as positive image management or solidarity building). This does not change the fact that autotelic humour, based on opting out of Grice’s maxims, seems to correspond to the folk conception of humour as not amenable to truthfulness considerations. The two primary types of humour will now be presented in greater detail, with the main focus on their subtypes and particular realisations.

1.3.1 Autotelic humour What is technically dubbed here “autotelic humour” is a type of humour which tends to be informally referred to as “joking” and which has caused humour (unjustly) in its entirety to be described being enclosed in the “non-serious” frame. This category of humour is regarded as being characterised by overt autotelic untruthfulness, or simply autotelic untruthfulness (since covert untruthfulness cannot be autotelic). The term “autotelic” helps distinguish this category of humour from other forms of overt untruthfulness associated with flouting the first maxim of Quality, which invites implicatures and may also be connected with humour. Autotelic untruthfulness does not involve flouting the first maxim of Quality but only “opting out” of it, as Wilson and Sperber (2000 [2002, 2012]) suggest with reference to “joking”. This conceptualisation also accords with Vincent Marrelli’s (1994, 2003, 2004, 2006) view of “joking” as a phenomenon representing “overt non-truthfulness”. The intrinsic characteristic of autotelic humour is that it does not carry any speaker meaning in the form of what is said or implicature, even though when producing it, the speaker may have (whether

406 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

or not conscious) communicative goals, next to inviting humorous reactions. Example 4 illustrates such a situation. (4) [House has a stalker, a lovely 17-year-old girl called Ali, who is sweet on him. Cuddy has had a restraining order imposed. However, the girl is very tenacious and has been waiting for House in the parking lot. They are now ­conversing.] 1. Ali: I wanted to see you. 2. House: Yeah, I got that. So did everyone else, they think you’re a stalker. 3. Ali: One could argue those people might be jealous of your attention. 4. House: Yes I actually made that argument. 5. Ali: You going home? 6. House: That’s the plan. 7. Ali: In Iceland the age of consent is 14. 8. House: I’m surprised that tourism isn’t a bigger industry up there. [There’s the sound of an elevator dinging before Cuddy appears.] 9. House: Gotta go! 10. Cuddy: House. 11. House: Doctor Cuddy, do you happen to know the way to the Icelandic consulate? This young woman, a stranger to me, was just asking directions. 12. Cuddy: Security was going to call the police. I don’t want to do that to you. Go home. 13. House: She needed a ride. 14. Cuddy: She got here on her own she can get home on her own. Now! [Ali grudgingly gets off House’s bike.] And if I see you on hospital grounds again, I will call the police. [Ali gives House a sweet smile accompanied by a flirtatious look before walking off, House blinks at her and Cuddy gives a shocked look.] 15. House: After that look, I’m feeling a little frisky. Looks like you’re up. 16. Cuddy: [assertively] I’m ovulating, let’s go. 17. House: The frisky – it went away. 18. Cuddy: House, this isn’t a game. Season 3, Episode 4 When Cuddy arrives at the spot of the “secret tryst” between House and the teenage girl, House comes up with a humorous contribution that displays overt untruthfulness, if not absurdity (11). House cannot possibly believe, or intend Cuddy to believe, that the girl (whom he considers a stranger) has asked him for directions to the Icelandic consulate, a very obscure destination as such. Nor is he really soliciting advice from Cuddy on this matter (i.e. he believes his question to be false

1 Approaching humour 

 407

and intends it to be seen as such). Even though House must have an underlying agenda when producing this entire turn (essentially, he wishes to diffuse potential conflict between the two women), it is not the case that it carries any speaker meaning per se to either hearer in this multi-party interaction. House only opts out of, but does not flout, the first maxim of Quality in this autotelic humorous turn addressed to Cuddy. At the same time, however, House is alluding to what he and the girl had been talking about (7) before Cuddy’s arrival. This allusion, which can be perceived by only one hearer, does not seem to change the autotelic nature of this utterance, even from the girl’s perspective. Additionally, when the girl has left, House produces another instance of autotelic humour (15). Even if he is genuinely sexually aroused (and is truthful in the first part of his turn), his statement “Looks like you’re up” can be treated as humorous autotelic untruthfulness, just like Cuddy’s retort (16) produced in a deadpan manner. Whether or not she is genuinely ovulating, she overtly pretends to be willing to have intercourse with House with a view to conceiving a child with him. (Should there be some tacit mutual sexual tension between House and Cuddy, they do not let it show.) Interestingly, despite the generalisation made above that autotelic humour is not, by definition, centred on the flouting or violation of the truthfulness maxim, these forms of nonfulfilment may be optionally present in it as well. Even though at the subordinate level, autotelic humour may purport to involve maxim floutings or violations, ultimately these are not conducive to any speaker meaning. This is because the final inferential product indicates that the speaker has actually opted out, as the following example shows. (5) [House and Cuddy are walking along the hallway and talking about a new patient. Cuddy tells House that the man who has brought the girl is waiting for him in the corridor and that he claims to be House’s friend.] 1. Crandall: G-man! [runs toward House as though he’s going to hug him, but stops] You thought I was going to do it, didn’t you? 2. House: [surprised and stand-offish] Do I know you? 3. Crandall: Come on, it’s me, Crandall! 4. House: [frowning] Doesn’t ring a bell. 5. Crandall: [confused] Man, I can’t believe you didn’t... 6. House: Unless you mean Dylan Crandall, [his face lightens up] the man who’ll believe anything. [amused] See, I just made you believe that I…. 7. Crandall: You haven’t changed. Heard about your leg. 8. House: Yeah, pulled a hamstring playing Twister. Just gonna walk it off. So, who’s the girl? Season 2, Episode 23

408 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

At the beginning of the interaction, the seeming stranger gives an impression as if he wants to embrace House, which he immediately denies (1). Whether or not House is indeed taken in for a brief moment, Crandall reveals that his non-verbal gesture was covertly untruthful (1). It may then be considered as an act of nonverbal violation (see Dynel 2011d) of the first maxim of Quality. In the ensuing part of the interaction, House reciprocates deception in the course of two turns (2 and 4), communicating the covertly untruthful message that he cannot recognise his friend only to disclose this act of deception (6) as soon as he realises that it has succeeded (5). Both instances of verbal and non-verbal covert untruthfulness are duly revealed, with no speaker meaning being actually communicated based on the violation of the first maxim of Quality. Therefore, both constitute opting out of the maxim for the sake of autotelic humour, even though House may have the “super-goal” of communicating that his sense of humour has not changed, which Crandall does recognise (7). Further, House welcomes his friend’s empathetic comment (7) with a reply exhibiting autotelic humour. He provides an overtly untruthful reason for his limping (induced during a simple game) and untruthfully suggesting that it is only temporary. As House is well aware, Crandall must have heard about House’s potentially terminal medical condition, which led to serious surgery on his thigh muscle, leaving him permanently crippled. This is something that House probably does not want to discuss, as his autotelic humorous turn devoid of speaker meaning per se might suggest. However, this tacitly communicated message can hardly count as House’s implicated speaker meaning that the hearer is necessarily meant to compute. At first blush, it may be assumed that Morreall’s (2009) view of “joking” will serve as a neat description of autotelic humour. He sees joking as involving a number of practices: “We may exaggerate wildly, pose questions sarcastically, say the opposite of what we believe, express emotions we don’t feel, make hostile remarks to friends, and break other linguistic conventions” (Morreall 2009: 35). Morreall’s (2009) list suggests that what is popularly dubbed “joking” involves producing utterances that display some kind of overt untruthfulness. Nevertheless, exaggeration (technically, hyperbole); sarcastic questions (technically, ironic questions); seemingly hostile utterances made to friends (technically, teasing or ritual abuse); and other means of “saying the opposite of what we believe” (technically, untruthfulness) may be conducive to implicated truthful meanings, coinciding with flouting-based overt untruthfulness rather than being a matter of autotelic untruthfulness. Overall, no utterance form is restricted to autotelic humour, and each instance of conversational humour must be addressed individually, even if some tendencies can be observed.

1 Approaching humour 

 409

Absurdity (sometimes referred to as surrealism, see Kapogianni 2011) is one of the common means of producing autotelic humour. However, absurd humour may serve the communication of truthful meanings, which is the case with surrealistic irony. Absurdity rests on notions that fly in the face of reality, defy common sense or logic, and/or violate the universal rules of the world. Therefore, an absurd utterance’s overt untruthfulness is extremely striking. In humour studies, absurdity has been addressed primarily by literature experts and psychologists, who define it as humour which lacks any coherent meaning or logicality, and whose incongruity cannot be (fully) resolved (Rothbart and Pien 1977; see also Oring 2003). Absurd humour may occur in any discourse type, here represented by interactional turns. It involves the speaker’s overt pretence dependent on (easily recognisable) untruth, not ‘merely’ the speaker’s untruthfulness, which need not always be easily understandable without the necessary context and/ or insight into the speaker’s mental states. Typically, making sense of absurd humour boils down to appreciating that the speaker cannot possibly intend to communicate the literal meanings stemming from the utterances he is making. Absurdity produced by interlocutors across turns in conversations may lead to exchanges dubbed fantasy humour (Hay 2000, 2001), fantasy layering (Clark 1996), joint fictionalisation (Kotthoff 1999) or joint fantasising (Kotthoff 2007; Chovanec 2012; Stallone and Haugh 2017). As Stallone and Haugh (2017) report, giving a number of references, the same phenomenon is also captured under the labels fantasy jamming, fictional narratives, collaborative play, collaborative fantasy, joint fantasy and escalating absurd humour. “Joint fantasising” appears to be the adequate label, inasmuch as it signals the co-construction of a fantasy scenario. This fantasy scenario is created by alternate turns contributed by speakers, who frequently attempt to emulate one another, manifesting their creative imagination. Most importantly, in the light of the emergent absurdity, typically, hardly any speaker meaning can be found in jointly constructed flights of fancy. (6) [Wilson has come to visit House in a fancy hotel where House is now living lavishly, after his split-up with Cuddy. A concierge, Carnell, comes in, wheeling a food service cart. There’s a champagne bottle in a bucket and strawberries, amidst all the food.] 1. Carnell: [beaming] Good morning, sir. I’ve got your deluxe breakfast for two. 2. House: [deadpan] Do I have to count the strawberries? 3. Carnell: [smiling] Don’t worry. You can trust me with anything, including your food. 4. House: [points to Wilson, deadpan] After he and I have sex, [Carnell freezes, as if shocked] I’m gonna slit his throat and then disembowel him in the bathtub.

410 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

5. Carnell: [enthusiastically] Oh, no problem. I’ll cancel the morning maid service. Would you like me to have them clean up later when they come to turn down your bed? Season 7, Episode 16 This interaction contains three turns (2, 4 and 5) that may be seen as autotelic humour, all involving opting out of the first maxim of Quality. When the concierge has brought breakfast, House asks him an overtly untruthful question (2). It will be quite transparent to Carnell that the hotel guest has no intention of counting the strawberries, whose number cannot be a significant matter. Carnell, however, replies in a non-humorous tone, truthfully communicating his reliability (3). House duly tests it by sharing his absurd (and gory) plan (4), which he cannot possibly wish to materialise (for no prospective perpetrator of a sane mind would disclose his scheme). Whilst the first chunk of the scenario relating to homosexual intercourse might have been truthful, and thus considered as such by the hearer (notice Carnell’s non-verbal response indicative of him being aghast in 4), the unfolding part of House’s utterance can be taken only as overt autotelic untruthfulness. Once Carnell recognises this, he must backtrack on the potentially truthful meaning he has gleaned, based on the preceding part of the turn, as well as the meaning he may have (wrongly) inferred from the situational context available to him (the hotel guest and a male stranger in his room). Essentially, the absurdity/overt untruthfulness of the murder scenario appears to discount the possibility of gay sex between them as equally absurd. On the whole, this example bears out the idea that overt autotelic untruthfulness may have variable degrees of transparency to the hearer. Ultimately, when it has become clear to the concierge that House cannot possibly have made a truthful assertion, the former decides to co-construct the absurd scenario as if House’s plan were a genuine one (5). Carnell thus contributes an overtly untruthful turn, whereby he does not communicate any speaker meaning even though he may tacitly attest to his dependability and discretion. A pertinent notion in the context of autotelic humour like this is “pretence”, a polysemous word that has been employed as an explanatory technical term with regard to several distinct philosophical problems: make-believe games, reception of fiction, irony or, by contrast, deception (see Dynel 2018). Therefore, ­differentiation between overt and covert pretence is proposed. Both forms are relevant to humour production. Most importantly here, when Vincent Marrelli (2004: 102) presents joking as overt non-truthfulness, she also deploys the term “obvious pretending” (as opposed to deception, which in her view is tantamount to “pretending”). Overt pretending in humour encompasses “overt pretending to

1 Approaching humour 

 411

say” or, to use Gricean parlance, making as if to say. In this vein, presenting an instance of teasing between two spouses, Clark (1996: 353–354) claims that the teaser is only acting “as if she were making an assertion”, whilst she is only “pretending to assert”. Unlike prototypical irony, which is based on overtly pretended assertions, non-ironic teasing utterances that coincide with overtly pretended assertions do not typically carry any implicatures. They overtly contravene the first maxim of Quality and display overt autotelic untruthfulness. Also, it must be emphasised that such humorous utterances (similar to irony) may make as if to say by deploying not only pretended assertions but also other pretended utterance types (as evidenced by Examples 5 and 6), which corresponds with the view of untruthfulness endorsed here. Vincent Marrelli (2004: 230) uses the notion of “acting” as a “nondeceptive sister of pretending” (for “pretending” involves deception, in her view), which is based on the entertainment of two worlds: the real one and the “imaginary” or “fictional” one, where the utterances produced are true (Vincent Marrelli 2004: 230). Clark (1996) subscribes to a similar view when he proposes layers of action in joint pretence with regard to conversational humour and canned jokes, among other activities. Layer 1 represents the real actions (which Clark quite misleadingly calls “serious’”, as the actions may actually involve playful/humorous activities), and layer 2 stands for the imagined, fictional actions. Additionally, Clark (1996) conceptualises teasing (as well as irony among other figures of speech) as staged communicative acts, wherein the speaker stages for the hearer “a brief improvised scene in which an implied Ann [the speaker] (like an implied author) performs a sincere communicative act toward an implied Bob [the hearer]” (1996: 368). Whether or not all of Clark’s (1996) notions and suggestions can be supported, and whether or not his explanations of the specific examples are tenable, the core conceptualisation is indeed relevant to some conversational humour displaying overt autotelic untruthfulness. Clark’s (1996) layering and Vincent Marrelli’s (2004) acting seem to be most easily applicable to joint fantasising that involves humorous role playing. Engaged in role playing, the interlocutors construct overt pretence-based humour as they alternately take the floor. However, it must be e­ mphasised that truthful meanings may also arise from, or feed into, fantasy-based roleplayed utterances. Example 7 presents an instance of joint fantasising. Whilst some of the turns in this interaction exhibit autotelic humour, other ones anticipate the second major type of humour (speaker-meaning-telic), the type where truthful (or covertly untruthful) meanings spill into the non-humorous frame.

412 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(7) [House and his team are trying to diagnose a teenage girl. Suspicions have arisen that the girl has been molested by her father, but only Cameron wants to report on this to the authorities. House is taking an MRI test, as he has not been feeling well. The machine is clicking with House inside.] 1. Wilson: [to the microphone, in a low solemn tone, with an echo] House this is God. 2. House: [stifling a gentle smile] Look, I’m a little busy right now. Not supposed to talk during these things. Got time Thursday? 3. Wilson: [continues in the God-like tone] Let me check... Aw, I’ve got a plague. What about Friday? 4. House: [laughing] You’ll have to check with Cameron. 5. Wilson: [continues in the God-like tone] Oh, damn it. She always wants to know why bad things happen. Like I’m gonna come up with a new answer this time. [Cuddy enters the MRI laboratory.] 6. Cuddy: House! 7. House: Quick, God, smite the evil witch! 8. Cuddy: Are you sitting on evidence that your patient was sexually abused by her father? 9. House: God, why have you forsaken me? 10. Cuddy: Don’t worry. I have contacted child services for you. I let you get away with more than anyone in this hospital. Shielding a child abuser isn’t covered. [Inside the MRI machine House silently mimics her “preaching”.] Cooperate with this investigation or I’ll fire you. Season 2, Episode 13 Making use of the fact that House is in a tube but can hear the voice from the outside thanks to the audio system, Wilson playfully pretends to be God by introducing himself in an elevated tone (1). Incidentally, Wilson’s tacit goal underlying this autotelic untruthfulness may be to alleviate tension, pending the MRI test results. House’s reply (2) is partly non-humorous and truthful as he communicates his belief concerning the work of the MRI machine (taking an MRI test, one should lie still and refrain from talking). On the other hand, House enters into the joint fantasising by assuming the role of a person with whom God can have a conversation. He also overtly pretends to brazenly suggest that God should talk to him another day (overt autotelic untruthfulness). Wilson responds also with overt autotelic untruthfulness, overtly pretending that he has a schedule with “god-like” issues on the agenda, and he overtly pretends to suggest another day for a prospective conversation (3). House’s reply (which alludes to earlier events in the episode) implicitly communicates that Cameron’s decision to act (whether or not she reports on him) will determine whether he will be available to talk

1 Approaching humour 

 413

with “God” (4). Even though the implicature that House is at Cameron’s mercy may be truthful, the plan-making with “God” is again an act of overt pretence that qualifies as overt autotelic untruthfulness. Similarly, in (5), Wilson refers to what he genuinely believes to be Cameron’s tendency to sympathise with those who suffer and question “God’s choices” (Cameron seems to be religious), which can be thought of as the truthful content of the utterance. However, at the same time, he is overtly pretending to fear that he may need to answer to her (possibly about the girl being molested). When Cuddy has arrived, clearly having been tipped off by Cameron, House continues the role play with Wilson (7 and 9), even though the latter no longer contributes to the exchange. By resorting to religious parlance, House overtly pretends to seek “God’s” help and protection, whilst truthfully commenting via implicature on his bad luck and the arrival of Cuddy (metaphorically called “the evil witch”), whose goal is to rebuke him (10). House’s utterance (7), therefore, shows twofold overt untruthfulness, namely in the metaphor (flouting the first maxim of Quality conducive to implicature) and in the contribution to the ongoing role play (opting out of the first maxim of Quality). Even though House cannot possibly mean Wilson to attack Cuddy, he does implicitly communicate that he acknowledges Cuddy’s presence and her intentions to reprimand him. As this complex example indicates, overt untruthfulness need not be autotelic and can be in various ways intertwined with the communication of speaker meaning. In sum, House’s two turns (7 and 9) despite their partial autotelic untruthfulness qualify as speaker-meaning-telic humour. 1.3.2 Speaker-meaning-telic humour The second major and diversified class of humour, speaker-meaning-telic humour, concerns utterances that have a capacity to amuse and simultaneously communicate the speaker’s beliefs, and thus truthful meanings, which are not part of the humorous frame. This is compatible with the notion of “sincerity” in humorous utterances mentioned by Young and Bippus (2001). On the other hand, as already suggested, the speaker may humorously communicate meanings which the hearer is meant to take as being truthful but which involve covert untruthfulness, causing the hearer to develop false beliefs and being tantamount to deception (see Section 3). On the whole, truthful meanings can be interwoven into humorous utterances in numerous ways that escape any easy clear-cut classification, manifesting themselves on different levels of Gricean speaker meaning: what is said and/or what is implicated. Thus, truthful meanings can be communicated as implicatures, originating from overtly untruthful making as if to say. This overt untruthfulness is typically based on the Quality-based figures of speech: hyperbole, meiosis, metaphor or irony, which the example below illustrates.

414 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(8) [House and his team are trying to help diagnose a female doctor working in the South Pole. Foreman and Wilson are in the laboratory, testing possible stain substitutes for proper laboratory components, so that the doctor in the South Pole can use something at her disposal to do a biopsy of her enlarged node.] 1. Foreman: He’s letting her take part in the differentials. 2. Wilson: Of course he is. He likes her. Big shock, spaghetti sauce doesn’t work as a lymph tissue stain. I’ll try... the coffee. 3. Foreman: He’s annoyed by her, doesn’t respect her as a doctor, constantly insults her. 4. Wilson: That’s House’s version of courtship. 5. Foreman: Oh, God! He’s been wooing me for years. 6. Wilson: She’s the perfect woman for him. Willing to literally go to the end of the earth for her career, making her unavailable for a real relationship. And she’s afflicted with a mysterious illness. Season 4, Episode 11 As they are working, Foreman and Wilson are engaged in a conversation about House’s attitude towards the patient, which purports to be negative (3) but which, as Wilson claims, is a testament to House’s feelings for the woman (4). In his humorously ironic response to this evaluation of House’s behaviour, Foreman makes an overtly untruthful, absurd suggestion (5). He cannot possibly believe that House has been courting him (with both being straight), which must be overt to Wilson. By flouting the first maxim of Quality, Foreman implicates that House has treated him the same way as he is treating the woman (being annoyed by him, disrespecting him as a doctor and insulting him), whereby he further implicates his disbelief in the conclusion made by Wilson, who does recognise this, as evidenced by his reply (6) in which he gives further rationale for why House must be partial to the patient. Here is another example of ironic language use involving two levels of implicated meaning. (9) [Chase, Cameron and Foreman meet House in the morgue. House is going through the freezers, checking on the bodies.] 1. Chase: What are you looking for? 2. House: I called my mom, she didn’t pick up. What did the angio tell us? Season 2, Episode 20 House’s witty ironic retort (2) following Chase’s question (1) is overtly untruthful in terms of both the literal reading coinciding with making as if to say (for it is hardly plausible that House did call his mother and she did not pick up, since he never calls his mother), and the implicature which can be generated from it on the assumption that the maxim of Relation is flouted (“I’m looking for my

1 Approaching humour 

 415

mother’s corpse, as she must be dead if she did not pick up”). This as if implicature (since a person’s failure to take a phone call does not necessarily mean that he/she is dead) is the source of the central truthful implicature, which may read “Your question was stupid; it is obvious that I am looking for a corpse”. At the same time, it can be inferred (yet not via a speaker-intended implicature) that House is reluctant to reveal what corpse he is looking for, which is why he quickly changes the subject with his angio question. Some conclusions are in order about overt untruthfulness serving truthful implicatures in conversational humour. As Examples 8 and 9 illustrate, overt untruthfulness that implicitly communicates meanings may be tantamount to absurdity, a concomitant of humour, sometimes wrongly associated solely with autotelic untruthfulness. When meanings are implicated, overt untruthfulness, albeit humorous, cannot be considered autotelic. Such overt untruthfulness is typically associated with Quality-based figures, notably hyperbole, meiosis, metaphor and irony, which, according to Gricean thought, always deploy the flouting of the first maxim of Quality (see Chapter 2, Section 5.1). Although philosophers will see the four figures as non-assertions and hence “non-serious” statements, these typically do carry truthful meanings, even if they should also sometimes invite humorous reactions, especially when they are creatively constructed. Creativity results in humorous incongruity. Incidentally, the humorous potential of metaphor has been the topic of investigation in humour studies (see Dynel 2012). Irony, in turn, tends to be taken for granted as a category of humour, even though it need not exhibit humorous potential (Dynel 2013b, 2014a, see Section 2). Also, examples of hyperbole, associated with exaggeration, are frequently presented in humour research (e.g. Schegloff 2001; Holt 2013), which is hardly surprising, given its affinity with absurdity. The examples addressed so far have indicated that humorous overt untruthfulness and making as if to say (sometimes coupled with other maxim floutings) can give rise to truthful meanings at the level of implicature. This may be juxtaposed with instances in which what is said is truthful and is capable of generating truthful implicatures when maxims other than the first maxim of Quality are flouted. Here is an interesting example of what is said coupled with humour originating in a sexual innuendo the hearer reads into the speaker’s utterance. (10) [House and his bosom friend, Wilson, are taking a cooking class. House is shaping meatballs, and Wilson is stirring sauce.] 1. Teacher: In a lot of ways, cooking is like music. Different elements combine to make a symphony. 2. House: [to Wilson only] Difference is that Beethoven’s 5th isn’t gonna be poop tomorrow. 3. Wilson:  What was my one condition for allowing you to tag along?

416 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

4. House: “Try not to be a jerk”. I’m trying. I’m just failing. 5. Wilson:  [deadpan] Roll your meatballs and keep an open mind. 6. House: [gives a lopsided smile as if he has just realised something] Season 6, Episode 3 In his witty observation (2), produced with a view to amusing Wilson, House playfully undermines the meaning of the metaphorical comparison (1) made by the teacher (who cannot hear House). Deploying scatological humour, House makes a comment based on truthful what is said, aptly indicating the difference between the two compared entities. In response to Wilson’s non-humorous reaction (3), House contributes a relevant non-humorous reply, adding some self-deprecating humour at the end of his turn (4), which involves no maxim floutings at all. Essentially, quite unexpectedly, House truthfully admits to his failure not to “be a jerk” (whether or not he is genuinely trying not to be). In another humorous utterance in this exchange (5), Wilson communicates truthful what is said (“Roll your meatballs and keep an open mind”). However, on the alternative interpretation involving a metaphorical understanding of “meatball”, whether or not intended (Wilson’s facial expression may indicate his genuine seriousness or deceptively hide his humorous intent), this utterance carries a taboo meaning thanks to the lexical ambiguity (the reference to male g ­ enitalia), which is the source of (possibly inadvertent) humour for the hearer (6). If this meaning was indeed intended by Wilson, it arises at the level of implicature given the metaphor. However, this purportedly implicated meaning might still not count as speaker meaning, being more of autotelic untruthfulness, based on opting out (i.e. Wilson can hardly be thought to truthfully give House any advice on sexual matters). In either case, therefore, Wilson communicates speaker meaning only in the form of what is said, simultaneously inducing amusement in House, who seems to recognise the sexual allusion (6). Another instance represents humour that communicates truthful what is said, this time in tandem with a truthful implicature. (11) [House is intent on getting the case of a jazz musician, who has been suffering from paralysis for two years but is now in hospital with pneumonia. He is trying to convince Cuddy to assign this patient to him so that he can diagnose the paralysis.] 1. Cuddy: Marty Hamilton is his primary physician out in California. He’s dealing with the paralysis. 2. House: Know all about it. Multiple treatments, multiple surgeries. Making real progress. Fixed everything but the legs. 3. Cuddy: Dr. Hamilton already called and asked for your team. And by “team”, I don’t mean you.

1 Approaching humour 

 417

4. House: Like I always say, there’s no “I” in “team”. There is a “me”, though, if you jumble it up. [They leave her office.] 5. Cuddy: Foreman did his residency with Hamilton. Season 1, Episode 9 House’s humorous reply (4) to Cuddy’s refusal to assign a new patient to him, communicates truthful meaning both at the level of what is said and i­ mplicature. First House uses the stock witticism based on wordplay, which conventionally carries the idea of team work. House, however, takes up on the wordplay, making a truthful metalinguistic observation in the form of what is said about the word “team”, whereby he intends to communicate to Cuddy an implicature along the lines of “If you assign this task to my team, you must count me in”. The following two examples represent truthful meanings embedded in what can be thought of as humorous utterances, which show the properties of humour thanks to their form/stylistic construction. (12) [House is now Cuddy’s boyfriend. Her mother, Arlene is now a patient in their hospital. Diagnostics conference room. House is adjusting a listening advice. The team watches.] 1. Arlene’s voice: Which button? 2. Cuddy’s voice: The one by your right hand with the design of the bed next to it and the arrows pointing up or down. 3. Taub: You bugged the room? 4. House: I absolutely, without apology, will admit that someone may have allegedly done so. 5. Masters: Guess we can pass unethical and skip straight to illegal. 6. House: Not according to the recent Supreme Court case of bite versus me. Season 7, Episode 11 In (4), House truthfully admits to having bugged the room of the patient, his girlfriend’s mother. He formulates this utterance in a humorous/creative way by juxtaposing lexemes denoting brazenness (“absolutely” and “without apology”) with mitigation and uncertainty (“may” and “allegedly”). He thus develops an expectation that he will boldly confess to the misdemeanour only to thwart this expectation. Ultimately, however, he does implicate that he has done so, which tallies with the context. Also, in his retort (6) to Masters’s critical remark (5), which points to the illegality of the act in which House is engaged, House implicitly communicates his imperviousness to the criticism. Deploying legalese as if he were quoting a relevant ruling, he produces the colloquial expression “bite me”.

418 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(13) [Previously, Wilson was diagnosed with malignant cancer. The scene opens on a bright spot on a radiology film. The camera pulls back to reveal Wilson, who is staring at the scan. He is in his t-shirt, holding his shirt in his hands. House enters.] 1. House: [in a casual tone] Is that our precious little bundle of tumor? They grow up so fast, don’t they? [Wilson turns around to find House limping into the room, his backpack slung across his shoulder. They appear to be in a doctor’s office in a downtown New York City hospital.] 2. Wilson: [calmly] How did you know I was here? 3. House: How do you think? 4. Wilson: Foreman. 5. House: [grimacing] Actually, that would have been easier. No, I followed you. 6. Wilson: It didn’t occur to you that that might mean I don’t want you involved in my cancer treatment? 7. House: I’m not here as a doctor, [smugly] I’m here as a towering pillar of strength. 8. Wilson: [in a cool tone] Be a pillar in the parking lot. 9. House: No. How many times have I told you I wanted to be alone and you’ve made yourself a pain in the ass? I owe you. [Wilson looks helpless.] My word, not a word. 10. Wilson: [in a submissive tone] Realizing I’m most likely going to regret this, all right. [Wilson goes back to look at the radiology film on the wall. House sits down on the couch, unzips his backpack and pulls out a small liquor bottle, an aluminium canned drink and a collapsible wine cup and puts them all out on the coffee table.] 11. Wilson: [stunned] What – what are you doing? 12. House: [mixing himself a drink; as if annoyed] My best friend has cancer. Cut me some slack. [in a casual tone] Also, spring break. I’m on vacation. [puts an umbrella in his drink and settles back on the couch] Although looking at you now, I can tell the wet t-shirt contest is probably gonna suck. 13. Wilson: [overtly dismayed, turns back to House] Season 8, Episode 19 Even though he does not let it show in this interaction, House has been devastated by the news of his friend’s illness. He seems to make light of Wilson’s predicament, which is typical of his standard acerbic wit. However, House’s

1 Approaching humour 

 419

rationale underlying all the humorous utterances above, as well as his presence, boils down to his care for his best friend. Throughout this conversation, House may have benevolent motives and means to raise Wilson’s spirits, regardless of what his communicative behaviour, both non-verbal (e.g. mixing a drink) and verbal, may ostensibly indicate. Primarily, however, House’s humour is a coping mechanism, a tool to address the painful taboo topic (his friend’s cancer). Quite understandably, he fails in all his attempts to amuse his friend, insofar as the latter is not liable to experience humour, given his plight. He must, however, recognise House’s transparent attempts to produce witty, even if quite ribald, utterances and uncanny, uncouth behaviour, in general (all humorous from the viewer’s perspective). House’s opening turn is quite abrupt, even if witty, bringing to mind a conventionalised formula about offspring as a source of great joy (1). Later, House produces an utterance (7) which may be considered self-deprecating irony, based on overt untruthfulness, which communicates truthful implicit meaning. Hardly ever has he shown empathy or offered his help, whilst this may be his intention now. In this vein, in (9), House truthfully presents his relationship with Wilson, who was always there for him, offering support, which House (an anti-social introvert) typically had not solicited. House considered Wilson’s benevolence annoying in the past, and he is aware that Wilson is annoyed by his presence, different as their rationale may be. Further, House purports to downplay the importance of Wilson’s health problem by pitying himself (12), which (knowing House) represents his genuine beliefs; if he is sorry for Wilson it also because he is concerned about himself (this egocentrism may be amusing for an outside observer). His humorous intention is transparent, thanks to the fact that he talks to Wilson as if he were not the main referent in the first sentence of his turn. House closes his turn with autotelic humour as he evokes the image of a holiday resort, jocularly depicting Wilson as a participant in the wet t-shirt contest. Overall, the few examples presented in this section have borne out that truthful (or covertly untruthful) speaker meanings may be conveyed by dint of utterances that are: “jocular in tone” (Mulkay 1988: 29), “camouflaged [...] by a humorous delivery” (Schegloff 2001), “imbued with humour” (Dynel 2011f) or “playful” (Holt 2016). In such cases, humour originates in the form of a verbalisation, and the communicated meaning, whether what is said or implicature, as such is truthful. This effect can be produced in numerous ways, such as an unexpected sequence of ideas that gives the hearer a mental jolt (Morreall 2009), special uses of swearing (e.g. Holt 2016), or, on the whole, what Partington (2006, 2008a) calls “colourful language”. This term covers utterances involving a wide array of creative language forms, such as: paradoxes, wordplay, register clashes, innovative collocations, neologisms, allusions, as well as Quality-based figures

420 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(which involve overt untruthfulness and promote implicatures, with no what is said present), and all manner of other stylistic or pragmatic tools that give rise to creativity and humorous incongruity. To conclude, humour, in its entirety, cannot be equated with jocularity, non-seriousness and the like. This necessitates a new conceptualisation that ­facilitates the description of conversational humour as a source of speaker meaning. Essentially, humour may be anchored in truthfulness (observing the first maxim of Quality), covert untruthfulness (violating the first maxim of Quality), overt untruthfulness (flouting the first maxim of Quality by making as if to say), or overt autotelic untruthfulness (opting out of the first maxim of Quality). The different forms of nonfulfilment may co-occur. On a different axis, humour can be divided into autotelic humour (necessarily involving overt autotelic untruthfulness) and speaker-meaning-telic humour (which carries ­ speaker meaning relevant outside the humorous frame). This is possible regardless of the pragmatic, semantic or stylistic forms humour may take. No form of humour, absurdity included, is restricted exclusively to the autotelic untruthfulness. All forms of humour may be deployed to convey truthful meanings, thereby straddling humorous and non-humorous frames. Also, within the category of humour that carries truthful (or covertly untruthful) meanings, a distinction can be made between truthful meanings that arise as what is said and those that come into being as implicatures (or both). Interestingly, truthful implicatures may be based on overt untruthfulness, which involves the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, which is related to the use of rhetorical figures (irony, metaphor, hyperbole and meiosis). (Un)truthfulness may show varying degrees of transparency, and speakers can purposefully produce utterances that are ambiguous in terms of their (un)truthfulness and intentions. This allows speakers to juggle their intentions as the interaction ensues in order not to be held accountable for communicating any truthful meanings. On the strength of the discussion so far, it can be safely concluded that humour is a heterogeneous phenomenon that cuts across the truthfulness vs untruthfulness divide. In addition, humour may coincide with irony and deception. These complex forms of overlap will be addressed independently in the next two sections.

2 Humour and irony Speakers produce ironic utterances to attain a range of communicative or ­interpersonal goals, whether or not consciously recognised. It is universally acknowledged that one of the objectives an ironic speaker may have is to invite humorous reactions in the hearers (e.g. Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Dews et al. 1995;

2 Humour and irony 

 421

Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kreuz et al. 1991; Littman and Mey 1991). The correspondence between humour and irony has been widely observed both in humour research and outside this field in all manner of other studies focussed on irony. Needless to say, humorous irony has the characteristics of all irony in terms of its formal properties. It displays overt untruthfulness (explicit or implicit) consequent upon the flouting of the first maxim of Quality, being conducive to implicated negatively evaluative speaker meaning. Humorous irony is then a type of speaker-meaning-telic humour that communicates prototypically truthful (but see Chapter 4, Section 3.3), negatively evaluative implicature. Very frequently, as evidenced also by many claims quoted in the course of this monograph, authors, who are not preoccupied with humour, tend to make the mistake of equating irony with humour by listing “irony” next to labels denoting folk forms of humour, such as “joking”. It is important to remember, nonetheless, that only some irony qualifies as humour. On the other hand, not all humour which exhibits overt untruthfulness or which communicates negatively evaluative speaker meaning can be technically dubbed “irony”. These two issues concerning the interface between irony and humour are the focus of this section.

2.1 Humorous irony A number of authors researching into irony or humour rightly observe and/or discuss the overlap between humour and irony or the humorous potential of irony (e.g. Kaufer 1981; Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Littman and Mey 1991; Kreuz et al. 1991; Roberts and Kreuz 1994; Norrick 1993, 2003; Hutcheon 1994; Dews et al. 1995; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995; Giora 1995, 1998, 2001, 2011; Barbe 1995; Jorgensen 1996; Colston and O’Brien 2000; Gibbs 2000, 2012; Attardo 2000, 2001, 2002; Gibbs and Colston 2002; Pexman and Olineck 2002; Kotthoff 2003; Partington 2006, 2007; Kapogianni 2011; Simpson 2011; Hirsch 2011; Veale 2013; Gibbs et al. 2014; Dynel 2013b, 2014a; Yus 2016). As Kapogianni (2011) notes, the ­relationship between irony and humour is not stable but depends on various contextual, stylistic and intentional factors. Humorous irony, even of the surrealistic type (based on absurdity), falls into the category of speaker-meaning-telic humour. Like non-humorous irony, humorous irony must implicate (truthful) evaluative meaning, with the humour being an additional effect. On the whole, the humorous potential of irony can be sought in two properties, one of which is its creativity, which has a bearing on the humorous ­incongruity underlying such irony (see Dynel 2013b). Thus, humorous irony is amenable to the incongruity-resolution framework of interpretation, according to which the incongruity, which manifests itself in several dimensions (most importantly, the literal expression vs what the speaker believes to be the case in a

422 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

given context, as recognised by the hearer) is resolved once the speaker-intended, necessarily implicated, meaning is generated by the hearer. In humorous irony, it is usually not the case of simple meaning reversal of an evaluative expression. This is thanks to the creative formulation of an utterance. The postulate of creativity explains why surrealistic irony, which coincides with absurd humour, is typically humorous (Kapogianni 2011, 2014). The second concomitant of humorous irony is its sarcastic nature and deprecation of the target, the explanation of which can be sought in the superiority theory of humour (see Dynel 2013c and references therein). Sarcastic irony may be perceived as disaffiliative humour (see Dynel 2013c, 2016e). In this type of humour, the target is not meant to be amused but rather be offended by what the speaker is truthfully implicating about or towards him/her. Thus, the target of sarcastic irony stands hardly any chance of finding it amusing, unlike the speaker and/or nontargeted hearer, for whose amusement such irony is produced. There are also other idiosyncratic and contextual factors that account for whether a given instance of irony can be considered humorous (see Dynel 2013b for detailed discussion). Here are two examples which illustrate the two hallmarks of humorous irony. (14) [Cameron has reported on a case of a patient, a ten-year-old girl who has had a heart attack.] 1. Foreman: Ten-year-olds do not have heart attacks. It’s gotta be a mistake. 2. House: Right. The simplest explanation is she’s a forty-year-old lying about her age, maybe an actress trying to hang on. 3. Foreman: I meant, maybe the tests were wrong. Season 1, Episode 16 House’s reply (2) to Foreman’s expression of doubt (1) opens with a conventionally ironic evaluative adverb “right”, which implicates the speaker’s lack of agreement with the preceding turn. It shows no humour, conventional as it is. House’s turn unfolds as surrealistic irony, whose literal sense challenges commonsensical assumptions and displays great creativity. House’s explanatory claim that a fortyyear-old (an actress) can look like a ten-year-old and (successfully) deceive others about her age is a pure flight of fancy. The implicature that arises in the light of this absurd utterance is “Your idea is ridiculous. This cannot be a mistake!”. (15) [House is talking to George, a very obese patient, who is lying in bed.] 1. House: So, you would rather be a blind invalid than admit the fact that maybe you might have a little problem with overeating? And by a little problem of course, I mean you’ve eaten yourself half to death. [...] 2. George: I am not diabetic!

2 Humour and irony 

 423

3. House: Grocery stores giving away medical degrees with the free turkeys now? Season 2, Episode 7 House resorts to an ironic question (3), which borders on absurdity, in order to criticise the patient for an attempt at a self-diagnosis (2). This is because the patient has called into question the doctor’s medical opinion. Needless to say, House cannot possibly assume that the patient has a medical degree, let alone that he has obtained it from a grocery shop. As he overtly pretends to ask the absurd question, House simultaneously disparages the patient, with regard to not only his unfounded belief, not supported by any medical training, but also his love for eating, and possibly also gluttony (a free turkey would mean one has bought a lot of groceries). This is an instance of sarcastic irony. As already suggested (see Chapter 3, Section 4.2), the humorous potential of sarcastic irony, a type of disaffiliative humour, is manifest in multi-party interactions, where, together with the speaker, one hearer (or more) may be amused at the expense of the target of irony. Most researchers (but see Barbe 1995; Dews et al. 1995; Gibbs 1994, 2000; Partington 2007) seem to have neglected the fact that sarcastic irony’s humorous (albeit disaffiliative) effects tend to be mutually dependent and contingent on the distribution of hearers in multi-party interactions (see Chapter 2, Section 1.4; Chapter 3, Section 5) and the types of meanings the speaker intends them to appreciate. Differentiating between benign and malevolent irony, in his terms “jocularity” and “sarcasm” respectively, Gibbs (1994: 372) observes that the two forms are rarely distinguished, because they frequently co-occur in practice and “elicit solidarity among some participants and distress and distance among others”. Bowes and Katz (2011) rightly testify that the target does not perceive a sarcastically ironic barb as humorous, as opposed to the speaker. In many cases, it is primarily the non-targeted ratified hearer who is expected to, and does, find a sarcastically ironic utterance amusing. A few authors have reached similar conclusions with regard to chosen hearer types, without accounting for all participants comprising a full participation framework. Alluding to the diversity of hearers, yet not discussing this issue explicitly, Gibbs (2000) states that irony can be quite humorous to, at least, some “addressees” and “overhearers”. On the other hand, Partington (2007) notes that irony can be affiliative in that it can bind the speaker and the hearer when a “third party”, understood as any other individual, is the object of criticism. According to Dews et al. (1995), an ironic act criticising a third person allows the speaker and the “addressee” to laugh at the target and align themselves against him/her. However, it should be underscored that the addressee may coincide with the target, with the humour being appreciated by another hearer/other hearers.

424 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(16) [House and his team (Cameron, Foreman and Chase) are discussing the results of their patient’s MRI.] 1. Chase: There’s some bowing, there. An upward arch. 2. House: Are you guessing? 3. Chase: Yes. 4. House: Too bad, you’re right. 5. Foreman: He probably just moved, nobody stays perfectly still for their entire MRI. 6. House: Yeah, he probably got restless and shifted one hemisphere of his brain to a more comfortable position. Something is pushing on it. 7. Cameron: [laughs] 8. Chase: [laughs] Season 1, Episode 2 House welcomes Foreman’s sceptical comment (5) with a sarcastically ironic turn (6). House resorts to surrealistic irony since, as anybody with rudimentary medical knowledge can tell, it is impossible for anybody to be able to move a hemisphere of one’s brain, whatever the goal might be. By conjuring up an absurd image (the patient purposefully changing the position of his brain) House scoffs at the addressee’s suggestion that the MRI’s results are flawed, thereby ­disparaging him. The implicated evaluation House communicates via irony is then a negatively loaded version of “Your simple explanation is specious”. As evidenced by their non-verbal reactions (7 and 8), Cameron and Chase, the third party, find this amusing. Essentially, the role of the target may be performed by any hearer type, ratified (the addressee or third party) or unratified (the bystander or eavesdropper), or a non-participant, whilst the (remaining) ratified hearers are meant to find the irony humorous. Listening illegitimately, any unratified hearers may enjoy the humour as long as they understand it. Also, in the case of film discourse, the hearer who derives pleasure from sarcastic irony is the recipient, i.e. the viewer (Dynel 2011e). This is particularly salient in dyadic conversations held by interlocutors on screen in which sarcastic irony targets the only hearer present, the addressee, who is meant to feel disparaged, whereas the viewer takes vicarious, humorous pleasure in this act.

2.2 Humorous irony vs non-ironic humour The figure of irony tends to be mistaken for, or inadvertently conflated with, other communicative phenomena, especially those demonstrating humorous

2 Humour and irony 

 425

potential, whether or not carrying some (implicitly) critical truthful speaker meanings. This results, for instance, in misguided recognition of (verisimilar) irony in utterances which are not ironic at all (see Chapter 3, Section 6.5.4), in the myth of purely positively evaluative irony (with the examples amounting to various humorous utterances, see Chapter 3, Section 2.3.1), or in equating humorous sarcasm with irony (see Chapter 3, Section 4). The latter frequently involves the participation of non-targeted hearers in multi-party interactions. Such hearers may be (intended to be) amused at the expense of the target of sarcasm, a category of disaffiliative humour. (17) [Together with his colleagues (Foreman, Taub and Masters), Chase has just discovered that one of the girls he dated, took and, as Chase insists, photoshopped a naked picture of him in a hotel room. House can be heard singing. Chase clicks quickly to close the page on the screen. House enters. Each member of the team grabs a file of the new case and sits down at the table.] 1. House: 38-year-old former marine came into the E.R. with back pain. Now his bladder aches as much as his back because he can’t empty it. What are we looking at this morning? Up-skirt celebrity? Endearingly funny cat? 2. Chase: Another study about gays being better parents. We were lured in by the word “lesbian”. Has he taken any antihistamines or anticholinergics? 3. House: Nope. And the E.R. ruled out enlarged prostate, stopped colon, and spinal injury. 4. Masters: [going through the file] Military history – In suspiciously good shape for his age. Makes a living bullying kids. I’m thinking… steroids? 5. House: Fascinating. 6. Masters: [smiles] Thanks. We can wean him off– 7. House: Steroids isn’t fascinating, it’s moronic. There’s no other sign of hormonal imbalance. What’s fascinating is that you equate discipline with bullying. Which means that your parents either disciplined you too much or too little – I’m guessing too little. 8. Masters: It’s hardly surprising you agree with our patient’s philosophy. You run your department like a boot camp. As if cruelty ensures performance. 9. House: [a long pause] Oh, is this where I’m supposed to disagree with you?

426 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

10. Chase:

The diagnosis of urinary retention depends on the particular mechanical cause. We need to know if there’s a blockage in the urethra versus a nerve or a muscle problem with the bladder. 11. House: Fascinating… without misdirect. Cath him and see what’s stopping him from emptying his bilge. [gets up to leave but stops at the door] Oh, not you, Chase. Sending Captain Micropenis to deal with what is probably normal-sized equipment, it’s too cruel, even for me. 12. Team: [except Chase gets up, quietly laughing] 13. Chase: [lingers in his chair, embarrassed] Season 7, Episode 10 House’s reply (5) to Masters’s conjecturing (4) may be considered sarcasm, and possibly also a peculiar case of irony, which he wants to stay covert, at least initially, and thereby to deceive her (see Chapter 4, Section 6.2). When Masters has taken House’s utterance of “fascinating” at face value as a compliment on her apt suggestion (6), House contributes a turn (7) that undermines this inference and explicitly criticises her suggestion, bringing to the fore his intended meaning (based on meaning reversal), which he must have wished to be unavailable to her hitherto. With the benefit of hindsight, it turns out that the referent of House’s evaluation in what is said is the association that Masters has made, not her medical opinion, which he considers unfounded (or “moronic”). Also House’s next turn addressed to Masters (9) involves sarcasm that indicates his imperviousness to the criticism of his workplace politics that she has voiced (8). Finally, House’s evaluative turn directed at Chase (11) opens the same way as his previous evaluative turn addressed to Masters (5) but carries a literal positive evaluation of his suggestion, as House’s metalinguistic comment indicates. However, House’s turn ends with a sarcastic comment on Chase’s looks, produced on the pretext of House’s politeness and benevolence. At this stage, it turns out that House has been deceptive when asking about the content on the screen (1) and that he must have known about the photograph of Chase. As the non-verbal reactions indicate, House’s sarcastic (but not ironic) utterance “Sending Captain Micropenis to deal with what is probably normal-sized equipment, it’s too cruel, even for me” invites amusement in the interactants but for the target (12), who is rather disgruntled (13). Next to non-ironic sarcasm, some utterances are labelled “ironic” in the literature merely because they show humorous potential and are based on overt pretence (Dynel 2018) or overt untruthfulness, whether autotelic (based on opting out of the first maxim of Quality) or conductive to speaker meaning (based on flouting the first maxim of Quality), yet not in the form of critically evaluative

2 Humour and irony 

 427

implicature central to irony. For example, Gibbs (2000, 2012) isolates “jocularity” as a distinct type of irony, referring to one of the functions of irony. However, Gibbs admits that the other types17 of irony he discerns can also be humorous. One may extrapolate from his examples that jocularity need not involve irony, defined as a rhetorical figure, and encompasses forms of humour centring on overt untruthfulness. The examples involve evidently untruthful utterances subsumed under the humorous frame, for the speakers do not mean to genuinely convey meanings tantamount to the sum of the words they produce. Similarly, referring to Gibbs’s (2000) work on irony in interaction and calling it “collaborative irony”, Colston (2000) presents an example of what can be regarded as a humorous exchange of overtly untruthful utterances, albeit not based on irony. Such conversations may then be thought of as mutual teasing or banter. Indeed, discussing aggressive humour overlapping with irony, Gibbs (2000) suggests that it coincides with banter and teasing. However, irony need not serve any interactionally constructed humorous activities, which is how teasing and banter are typically seen. Also, whilst teasing and banter may show overt autotelic untruthfulness, communicating no speaker meaning, irony (even if humorous) is conducive to speaker meaning in the form of evaluative implicature. As Wilson (forth: TBD) rightly concludes, “while jocularity, playfulness, banter and teasing may occasionally be put to ironical use, they are not inherently ironical, contrary to the widespread assumption in the experimental literature”. Not only in experimental literature but also in theoretical studies do authors deploy examples of irony which, in actual fact, are not

17 Altogether, Gibbs (2000) lists five types of irony: jocularity, sarcasm, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, and understatements. While the last three refer to the stylistic form of irony, the first two are based on entirely different criteria. Contrary to what Gibbs (2000) argues, these categories may then overlap. For example, sarcastic irony may be humorous to the hearers who are not criticised, and jocular and sarcastic irony may be couched in the three stylistic figures (hyperbole, rhetorical question, or understatement). Similarly, Leggitt and Gibbs (2000: 5–6) compile a list of five “forms of irony”: irony (not critical of the “addressee”), sarcasm (critical of the “addressee”), hyperbole/ overstatement, understatement and rhetorical question. The fact that the authors treat “irony” both as the overarching notion and its subtype may be merely a matter of lack of terminological rigidity. More importantly, the list seems to be based on two distinct criteria, which is why the forms may coincide. Hyperbole, understatement and rhetorical question are tropes which may coincide with the figure of irony, being its frequent concomitants. Irony and sarcasm are distinguished in the light of the critical component. What the authors seem to mean is that sarcasm is critical of a hearer, whereas irony is not. As is consistently argued here (see Section 2.2), all irony is critical, and so is sarcasm, but sarcasm exacerbates the criticism, whilst irony may actually mitigate it (see Sections 3 and 4). Moreover, the role of the target of irony and sarcasm may be performed by different participants or non-participants (see Chapter 3, Section 5).

428 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

irony in a technical sense but demonstrate humorous potential, being classifiable as humorous sarcasm (see Chapter 3, Section 4), teasing or banter. This extended view of what “irony” denotes seems to coincide with lay (emic) uses of this label in American English (see Dynel 2017c). As reported in Chapter 3, it is Grice (1989b [1978]: 54) himself who suggested that an utterance that is overtly untruthful may be “playful”, which is to be understood presumably as “humorous”, but not “ironic”, which is when the speaker is overtly untruthful but does not display “a hostile or derogatory judgment or a feeling such as indignation or contempt” but is “well disposed” towards the hearer. This claim could be refined, inasmuch as irony is not necessarily a matter of a general disposition towards an individual but a particular evaluation of a referent (an action or an utterance, for instance), which is a sine qua non for irony. Based on an example “Sorry to keep bothering you like this”, discussed as an instance of irony by some scholars (see Chapter 3, Section 6.5.3), ­Garmendia (2010: 410) rightly proposes that utterances like this cannot be treated as ironic merely because the speaker “does not mean to communicate the locutionary content of the utterance” and that criticism-carrying implicatures must also be present. What is also very important is that in humorous utterances, not all overt untruthfulness amounts to flouting the first maxim of Quality that promotes implicatures, being a matter of opting out of the maxim (see Chapter 2, Section 6.2) that gives rise to overt autotelic untruthfulness, with no speaker meaning arising from the utterance at all (see Section 1.3.1), even if some communicative interpersonal effects should be brought about. The following two examples illustrate these points. (18) [Foreman, the current Dean of Medicine, has re-employed House, who is now on parole. We see Foreman and two uniformed men following a radio receiver signal down a hall of the hospital. The signal gets stronger as they approach a door. They open it to reveal House sitting on the side of a therapeutic whirlpool bath reading a magazine. He has his trouser legs rolled up above his knees and both legs in the water, together with the tracking monitor he needs to wear. He looks up as they enter.] 1. House: [theatrically acting surprised] Oh, my God, the water! This is completely my fault. [naïvety drawing on his face] 2. Foreman: [looks extremely angry] Season 8, Episode 6 House’s expression of ignorance, surprise and remorse are a matter of overt ­untruthfulness (based on opting out), which he makes transparent to the hearers, thanks to his non-verbal exaggeration (1). House cannot possibly have just realised only now that the tracking monitor loses signal under water. He must have

2 Humour and irony 

 429

drowned it deliberately, violating the conditions of his parole. House’s admission of guilt tallies with the facts but it is not sincere and does not constitute the intended speaker meaning, as he is transparently not repentant. The nonironic nature of his turn does not necessarily stem from the fact that it is not subject to meaning reversal typical of most irony, for the reversal of pragmatic meaning might apply (an expression of surprise vs stating the obvious, of which the speaker was aware, shouldering the blame vs not being remorseful). What speaks in favour of this turn (both the surprise and the apology) not being ironic is that it is lacking in any implicated negative evaluation of a referent. House’s motivation is to annoy Foreman and display his disobedience but not to communicate any speaker meaning, let alone criticise anything or anybody. (19) [House is with Stacy. Her mobile rings. She takes the call and passes the phone to House. Cut to Wilson calling from a phone at the nurse’s station.] 1. Wilson: Do you know your phone’s dead? Do you ever recharge your batteries? 2. House: They recharge? I just keep buying new phones. 3. Wilson: I thought you should know your aphasia guy is tasting metal. Season 2, Episode 10 In reply to Wilson’s questions (1), House overtly feigns surprise and comes up with a retort based on overt untruthfulness (2), by which he means to amuse the addressee and to deflect the problem of his phone being dead. However, his turn carries no speaker meaning, being a matter of autotelic humour, based on opting out of the first maxim of Quality. Nor does it appear to carry any evaluation of Wilson’s previous turn. These two features disqualify it as irony. This is then an instance of friendly teasing, which, however, the interlocutor does not seem to find amusing, returning to the main topic of his call (3). In conclusion, humorous utterances based on overt untruthfulness (for the different types of humour displaying this property, see Dynel 2014a) are not ironic if they do not fulfil the condition of implicated negative evaluation of the referent, which irony always does. In other words, an overtly untruthful humorous utterance cannot count as irony when it does not invite an evaluative implicature, let alone if it does not promote any speaker meaning at all, at any level of implicated meaning.18 The latter situation is a case of autotelic humour.

18 A false positive in this case may be a humorous Quality-based figure other than irony which simultaneously carries negative evaluation. In such cases, however, the negative evaluation is just an optional component and is not related to the flouting of the first Quality maxim in a way that irony-based evaluation is (see Chapter 3, Section 2.2).

430 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

These theoretical distinctions may, however, be difficult to apply to all natural language data, where the speaker’s intentions and (un)truthfulness are difficult to determine. This is pertinent also to scripted discourse, which is another indication of its verisimilitude. The following interaction illustrates this problem, being ambivalent in terms of the irony vs non-irony and humorous irony vs ­autotelic humour distinctions. (20) [House has been recruiting new members for his diagnostic team. House and the candidates (labelled as numbers), among them Kutner (a man of Indian origin) and Thirteen (the number stays with her after she is employed), are in the lecture hall. House has just presented a new case for them to analyse.] 1. Thirteen: Patient has spinal muscular atrophy. It’s genetic, incurable. This is not a diagnostic mystery. 2. House: You have just given a state secret to the enemy. 3. Thirteen: What enemy? 4. House: New patient, new rules. Today you’re gonna split yourselves into two teams. The first to figure out what’s threatening to deprive the patient of the twenty or so miserable years he’s got left with SMA gets to keep their jobs. Take off your numbers, you look stupid. I think I know who you are by now. 5. Kutner: Wait, how do you want us to split up? 6. House: Good question [pauses, clearly thinking]…overly excited former foster kid. There’s ten of you, I was thinking six against six. No, wait… 7. 15A: How about women versus men. 8. Dr. House: Excellent suggestion…fat twin. More interesting than “evens versus odds”, less interesting than “shirts against skins”. If your sex organs dangle – you’re the Confederates. If your sex organs are aesthetically pleasing – you’re the Yanks. Season 4, Episode 3 House’s evaluation (6) of Kutner’s question (5) as a good one cannot be easily classified as either irony or non-irony, given how House’s turn and then the interaction develop. House finishes his contribution (6) with humorous overt untruthfulness, which borders on absurdity and involves his overtly pretended consideration and hesitation. On the ironic (and humorous) reading, House may be implicating that the question is stupid and that the answer is obvious, that is that the doctors should split into two groups of five. This would explain the ensuing overtly untruthful part of this turn, which may also be considered ironic (based on pragmatic meaning reversal) and which ridicules the question and its author in front of the other hearers. However, on the non-ironic (and essentially non-humorous) reading, House truthfully evaluates the question as a good one,

3 Humour and deception 

 431

considering the choice of the criterion for the division into two groups an important one, as evidenced by the ongoing exchange (7 and 8); but even so he decides to finish his turn with autotelic untruthfulness. Strictly for humorous purposes, House overtly pretends to question the obvious numerical division rather than focusing on the criterion for assigning the candidates to the groups of five, which Kutner’s question must have concerned. The reason for employing this humour may be that House has just forgotten the addressee’s name, contrary to his previous assertion (4) that he remembers everybody (i.e. the irony of fate) and, having invented a humorous (creative but potentially offensive), nickname for the doctor, he chooses to stay within the humorous frame. It is impossible to tell for sure which interpretation is correct. Despite interpretative problems like the one above, it has been argued in this section that humour and irony are distinct phenomena although they do show some overlap. The humorous potential of irony originates in its creativity, as well as in the sarcastic, deprecating function of irony, which manifests itself primarily in multi-party interactions, where hearers other than the target of irony are present. Secondly, some explanation has been offered as to why irony may be, and frequently is, mistaken for non-ironic humour. On the one hand, humorous sarcasm may be taken for humorous irony on the grounds of the negatively evaluative speaker meaning it carries, whilst the former lacks the necessary condition of meaning reversal. Additionally, the scope of humorous irony is sometimes unduly extended to cover utterances that exhibit overt untruthfulness, whether or not of the autotelic kind. Non-ironic humorous utterances either do not carry speaker meanings or do, but such meanings are not negatively evaluative, which is a sine qua non for irony.

3 Humour and deception At first blush, the notions of humour and deception may seem incompatible, if not mutually exclusive. Deception is no laughing matter, because (if it should transpire) it carries negative interpersonal repercussions, and is typically regarded as being immoral and manipulative (e.g. Barnes 1994; Saul 2012), even though the possibility of “white lies”, which are told for the sake of the deceived, cannot be discounted. Humour, on the other hand, is seen as a pro-social phenomenon, which fosters solidarity and promotes interpersonal bonding, helps resolve conflicts, testifies to the speaker’s wit, and performs a number of other beneficial functions in human interactions19 (see Attardo 1994; Martin 2007). It is thus hardly

19 However, this does not necessarily pertain to genuinely aggressive humour, which performs a disaffiliative function (see Dynel 2013c).

432 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

surprising that humour and deception should be presented as markedly distinct phenomena in the literature. Moreover, humour or any of its categories, hidden under different labels, is frequently juxtaposed with deception (e.g. Chisholm and Feehan 1977; Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981; Galasiński 2000; Vincent Marrelli 2004; Carson 2006; Sorensen 2007; Saul 2012; Mahon 2015).

3.1 Previous observations It was first Augustine that dissociated “joci” from deception (see Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981). In his view, “joci” are “non-mendacious since they evidently display their nontruthfulness” (Vincent Marrelli 2004: 230). Following Morris (1976), Mahon (2015)20 observes that telling jokes (as well as being ironic, writing fiction or acting in a play) does not qualify as lying since the speaker does not have the intention that the hearer believe the untruthful statements to be true. Similarly, Saul (2012: 7) presents an act of joke-telling as saying “something false” that is not tantamount to lying, insofar as the speaker does not intend to deceive the hearer. Referring to Hopper and Bell (1984), as well as Buller and Burgoon (1994), Galasiński (2000: 23) claims that communicative acts such as “irony21, jokes, and teasing are neither types of lying nor, indeed, deception” because “such acts are not intended to mislead”. On the other hand, the authors who are not supportive of the intent-to-deceive condition for lying (i.e. non-deceptionist) argue that the distinguishing feature between lies (including bald-faced lies) and joke-telling is the presence or lack (respectively) of a warranting context (Carson 2010; Saul 2012). In this vein, Carson (2010), Fallis (2009) and Stokke (2013a) suggest that telling a joke involves telling untruth and cannot be considered lying regardless of the audience’s expectations that they will hear a non-humorous or humorous story. For their part, Vincent and Castelfranchi (1981) claim that joking and some irony, which should be understood as categories of humour, share characteristics with “acting”, which is not deceptive. Acting involves communicating that one is pretending in the real world, and it is also anchored in “a fictional or imaginary world, where x is true” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 755). In other words, the speaker who is acting or producing humour will make his/her pretence overt to the hearer (see Dynel 2018), not intending to deceive him/her. Incidentally, pretence is a nebulous notion and does not seem to have been consistently

20 Nonetheless, Mahon (2015) does acknowledge that it is possible to deceive by means of joking. 21 It must again be stressed that not all irony is humorous (Dynel 2013b, 2014a; see Section 2.2).

3 Humour and deception 

 433

defined, although it serves as a basis for a number of proposals concerning the interpretation of irony and fiction, as well as deception (see Austin 1958). Pretence may also be understood in terms of the speaker’s untruthfulness, which may be overt or covert. Generally, the prevalent belief is that humour is hinged on what is called here overt autotelic untruthfulness, whilst deception is contingent on covert ­untruthfulness. Thus, the speaker expresses a false belief either to amuse or to induce a false belief in the hearer respectively. Nonetheless, it is argued here that some humour rests on truthfulness, overt but non-autotelic truthfulness and, most importantly in this context, covert untruthfulness, and this humour may ultimately be autotelic or speaker-meaning-telic. Additionally, genuinely deceptive utterances may display humorous potential, as will be shown here. Only rarely have these issues been discussed in the literature so far with the use of different labels. For instance, Hopper and Bell (1984) propose playings, manifest in joking, teasing, kidding, tricking, bluffing and hoaxing, as a blanket notion for forms of deception performed for the sake of amusement. Also, their study shows that these forms display a high degree of detectability.22 For his part, Sherzer (2002: 53) proposes the notion of put-on humour, which comes into being when “an addressee in a conversational interchange or an audience is tricked into believing that something is the case that is actually not the case”. It is difficult to decide based on Sherzer’s list of examples of Native American humour whether the hearer is ultimately allowed to recognise that he/she has been deceived, but it may be the case. On the other hand, the humour researcher Morreall (1983) states that people are often amused by lies, due to the incongruity between what is asserted and what is known to be the case. This claim appears to be premised on the presupposition of the hearer’s realisation that the speaker is lying. This line of argument misses the point of a liar’s pivotal goal: a lie should remain undisclosed to the deceived hearer. The assumption that deception may carry humour seems to underlie Goffman’s (1974) notion of benign fabrication, which he discusses in his seminal monograph on framing. Goffman juxtaposes fabrication with keying and defines it as “the intentional effort of one or more individuals to manage activity so that a party of one or more others will be induced to have a false belief about what is going on”

22 This is why they define playings as overt deception, which may be considered misleading. Deception is an inherently covert activity, but it may be made overt post factum, which is the essence of this form of humorous deception. Also, some of the categories on their list, such as teasing, typically show overt untruthfulness.

434 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

(Goffman 1974: 83). This tallies with the view of deception, understood as verbal and, importantly, non-verbal behaviour. Although he initially presents a fabrication as relying on a “nefarious design”, “a plot or treacherous plan”, (Goffman 1974: 83) he distinguishes between benign fabrications, which are in the interests of the deceived individual(s), or at least, which do not do them any harm; and exploitive fabrications, which harm the deceived individuals. In drawing this distinction, Goffman seems to be preoccupied with the negative/positive impact on the deceived individual, which is why benign fabrications might encompass not only what can be viewed as humorous deception but also deceptive acts performed for the benefit of the deceived (e.g. lying to children about Santa Claus so that they behave well), which Goffman (1974: 99) dubs “paternal constructions”. Playful deceit is only one of the subtypes of benign fabrications23 and it involves deceiving an individual “for the avowed purpose of fun – harmless, unserious, typically brief entertainment” (Goffman 1974: 87). It involves disclosure to the target, who is expected to take it “in good spirit” or “in the right frame”, i.e. within the humorous frame (see Section 1.1). In this context, Goffman (1974) adds that a jokester may have a witness privy to the fabrication, who can testify to the jokester’s intention if need be and may also be amused. Goffman (1974: 87) also lists a number of manifestations of “playful joking”, which he differentiates from put-ons (i.e. a “less innocent” practice): kidding, legpulling, practical jokes and corrective hoaxing. The first three notions tend to recur in the literature on humour, but they do not seem to display unequivocal definitions, which is why Goffman’s conceptualisations are worth considering. In an act of kidding, “the perpetrator merely contains the victim for the duration of a phrase, or sentence, or turn at talking, and lets him in on the joke before the utterance is over” (Goffman 1974: 88). This conceptualisation seems to coincide with what is commonly called “put-on” humour (see Section 3.2.2), whilst “kidding” is deployed as an informal label covering any form of meaning enclosed within the humorous frame, whether or not related to deception (as reported in Section 1). Secondly, Goffman (1974: 88) defines leg-pulling in the context of the target’s “being caused to perform some act under false auspices”. Leg-pulling then involves more than a momentary false belief on the hearer’s part; it involves the dupe’s action performed in the light of the wrong belief. Thirdly, a practical joke rests on fabricating “the victim’s nonverbal environment in order to lead him into a misconception of what is happening” (Goffman 1974: 89). However, in

23 The other ones are: “experimental hoaxing”, “training hoaxes”, “vital tests”, and “paternal constructions”.

3 Humour and deception 

 435

contemporary understanding, practical jokes need not involve deception, being more a matter of springing a surprise on the target by an annoying act (e.g. the “wrap it up” prank popular in the USA for the past few years). On the whole, Goffman’s (1974) cutting-edge discussion of humorous deception seems to be the best to date, but it does not do justice to the variety and complexity of deceptive practices which are intended to induce amusement in hearers. The principal objective of this section is to elucidate the issue of humorous deception, which intrinsically involves maxim violations, and hence covert untruthfulness (see Chapter 2, Section 4). Humorous deception exhibits two basic forms. The hearer may be deceived only to discover this fact as a result of the speaker’s intentional revelation, thereby experiencing humour, which coincides with Goffman’s (1974) playful deceit. On the other hand, humour may emerge as a result of genuine deception from the perspective of a hearer who knows that the speaker is deceiving another hearer, dubbed the target of deception. Hence, two distinct sources of amusement may be distinguished: taking pleasure in surprising recognition that one has been deceived, with no repercussions following; and/or vicarious pleasure derived from another individual’s being genuinely deceived. On a different, yet compatible axis, a distinction may be drawn between categories of humour, notions studied by humour researchers, which deploy the mechanisms of deception; and genuine deception which is meant to deceive but may simultaneously carry humour, either for the target or for the hearers other than the deceived individual.

3.2 Categories of humour involving deception A few of the wide spectrum of humour categories reside in deceptive mechanisms. A pivotal feature of these categories of humour is the disclosure of deception immediately after it has been performed for the sake of the target’s amusement. Essentially, the targets of deception may be amused at discovering that they have just been taken in by the speaker operating within the humorous frame (whether or not any truthful or covertly untruthful speaker meaning is ultimately communicated). 3.2.1 Garden-path humour Covert ambiguity (see Chapter 4, Section 6.1) may be a source of humorous deception. A fundamental characteristic feature of ambiguity-based humorous deception is the speaker’s revelation of the alternative “correct” interpretation, soon after the hearer has developed the “wrong”, false belief. What is crucial

436 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

is that the deception is purely benevolent, for the hearer is expected to experience humorous surprise and be amused upon discovering the presence of ambiguity and the alternative interpretation. This is known in humour studies as the garden-path mechanism underpinning jokes and witticisms, as well as spontaneous conversational turns (see Hockett 1972; Yamaguchi 1988; Attardo and Raskin 1991; Attardo 1994; Attardo 2001; Dynel 2009; see also Ritchie 1999, 2004). It constitutes the most salient category of deception-based humour, but it does not appear to recruit lies per se (see Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981). One-line jokes, witticisms and conversational turns pivoting on the gardenpath mechanism may be relevantly intertwined into non-humorous discourse, with hearers being unprepared for a jocular jolt, and thus applying the belief system and communicative norms typical of non-humorous talk. This differs from canned jokes, i.e. humorous narratives or dialogues ending with punchlines (Dynel 2009 and references therein), which the speaker typically signals in advance or which receivers recognise as texts typically enclosed within the humorous frame. However, not only witticisms and spontaneous turns but also canned jokes may be produced in conversation for the sake of conveying truthful speaker meanings (see Section 1). A garden-path text deceives the hearer into arriving at a default interpretation, which has to be ultimately cancelled on the strength of an incongruous punchline, which invites a concealed sense (in part) of the preceding text revealing its hitherto hidden ambiguity. The prerequisite for a garden-path humorous text is thus twofold. Its first part must entail covert ambiguity, with only one meaning being effortlessly accessible to the hearer, and the second part of the text (the punchline) must invalidate the interpreter’s earlier inference and prompt him/her to backtrack and reprocess the initial part of the text to appreciate an alternative meaning, congruent with the import of the punchline or the closing part of the turn. The covert ambiguity24 central to the garden-path mechanism may be of a semantic (specifically lexical and/or syntactic) or a pragmatic kind, which account for different categories of the deceptive meaning inferred. In garden-path texts presenting pragmatic ambiguity, the initial interpretation coincides with implicature, which is subsequently cancelled in the light of the punchline. In the case of semantic ambiguity, the first salient interpretation arises as what is said, which is duly substituted for another, “correct” what is said, motivated by the alternative sense of the ambiguous chunk of text.

24 Nonetheless, one can conceive of put-on humour centred on covert ambiguity that surfaces across turns, not within one turn.

3 Humour and deception 

 437

(21) [Wilson suspects that House is attracted to Cuddy.] 1. Wilson: If you want her... ask her out. 2. House: My God, man! She’s not some floozy in a bar. She’s the floozy I work for. There’s gotta be no radical steps here. Gotta be subtle. We happen to attend the same party, the chat happens to turn personal. Season 6, Episode 7 House’s reply (2) to Wilson’s (1) encouragement opens with garden-path humour. Based on “She’s not some floozy in a bar”, House invites the salient interpretation along the lines of “Cuddy is not one of those promiscuous women one can meet in bars”. However, as his turn unfolds, it transpired that the quoted chunk has an alternative interpretation, based on a different scope of meaning reversal, i.e. “Cuddy is a promiscuous woman I work for”. This is the meaning that House prioritises for humorous purposes. Ultimately, it is doubtful whether House believes that Cuddy is promiscuous, which is why the garden-path part of the turn can be seen as autotelic humour (see Section 1.3.1) Focusing on canned jokes, Yamaguchi (1988: 326) claims that it is the first maxim of Quality (i.e. saying what is false-believed) and the first maxim of Quantity (i.e. saying too little) that are conducive to garden-path jokes, while the violation of other maxims is of secondary importance, with the exception of the second maxim of Quantity and third and fourth maxims of Manner, which bear little significance for garden-path jokes. These may indeed be secondary maxim violations found in the canned jokes that Yamaguchi (1988) examines, but the common denominator between all manifestations of garden-path humour seems to be different. This feature may be conceptualised as (covert) violation of the second maxim of Manner, namely “Avoid ambiguity” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 27). The speaker purposefully and surreptitiously deploys ambiguity by initially making it covert and prioritising one interpretation only to later spring a humorous surprise on the hearer. In the case of semantic ambiguity, the first salient interpretation arises as hearer-inferred what is said, which is duly ousted by an alternative, hitherto hidden, what is said. This accords with Gricean thought on disambiguation concerning lexemes, which takes place prior to determining what is said, being determined by conventional linguistic meaning and context, as evidenced by the discussions of the word “pump” (Grice 1989e [1957]: 222) and of the expression “in the grip of a vice” (Grice 1989a [1975]: 25). On the other hand, in garden-path jokes contingent on pragmatic ambiguity, the initial interpretation conducive to the garden-path effect resides in an implicature, which is subsequently cancelled, paving the way for another inference. Whilst the first implicature, which later proves to be incorrect, may arise thanks

438 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

to any maxim flouting, it necessarily shows the violation of the second Manner maxim, which is duly disclosed in order for another (correct) implicature to arise. 3.2.2 Put-ons and other deception-based teasing Put-on humour (cf. Sherzer 2002) relies typically on the speaker’s lying, i.e. asserting what he/she believes to be false, or otherwise deceiving only to allow the hearer to recognise the deception immediately afterwards. Put-ons are, as Haddington (2011) notices, humorous utterances that appear to be “sincere” and “serious” only to turn out to have been produced deceptively. Incidentally, the hearer need not be successfully deceived, seeing through the deception, or at least being sceptical about the speaker’s truthfulness. Frequently, the untruthful message sounds uncanny to the hearer but is very convincingly presented by the speaker, which boosts the surprise effect after the speaker has revealed ‘the truth’. The hearer is intended to hold a false belief only for a moment, with the speaker soon retracting his/her previous utterance. The humour (admittedly, standing little chance of being truly amusing for the deceived individual) originates in the hearer’s recognising the fact that the speaker has just deceived him/ her or attempted to do so. In the case of multi-party interactions or media talk, humorous effects may also arise from the perspective of the non-targeted individual present or recipient in front of the screen, albeit deceived as well. (22) [House and Chase are in Cuddy’s house. They are looking for clues to solve a medical case. House is going through her dresser drawer, whose contents are not shown on the screen.] 1. House: Oh my God, she’s got pictures of you in here! 2. Chase: [extremely surprised] 3. House: Just you, it’s like some kind of weird shrine. 4. Chase: You’re kidding. [approaching the dresser] 5. House: Yeah. 6. Chase: [looks disgruntled] Season 2, Episode 3 While the two doctors are searching for clues, House produces an utterance (1) which the addressee is meant to and, as his non-verbal reaction (2) indicates, does take to be truthful. House makes another contribution in the same vein (3), but this time Chase questions its truthfulness, refusing to be deceived. Each of House’s turns (1 and 3) coincides with covertly untruthful what is said, of which the target is made aware (5) instantly after he has been taken in, which causes his disgruntlement (6) rather than amusement. Put-on humour may be thought of as a special subcategory of friendly teasing, a very broad type of humour widely discussed in humour studies in the context

3 Humour and deception 

 439

of its capacity to bring about (truthful) meanings outside the humorous frame and (im)politeness effects related to the speaker’s malevolent or benevolent intentions (see e.g. Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Keltner et al. 1998; Martin 2007; Geyer 2010; Haugh 2010; Dynel 2013c, 2016e; Sinkeviciute 2013). A statement can be ventured that teasing may capitalise on deception, which serves humorous purposes. This deception-based type of teasing is what Haugh (2016: 125) dubs “jocular pretence”, which “initially designed as a form of covert pretence” is duly “revealed to be an overt form of pretence, and so jocular pretence constitutes a playfully deceptive form of teasing”. Besides simple one-turn put-ons like the one in Example 23, it is also more sophisticated forms of friendly teasing that can revolve around deception, frequently captured as “kidding” or “joking”, with the untruthfulness initially not being made overt to the hearer. This involves, for instance, blatant lies, as in this interaction between two friends: (23) [Wilson is eating a sandwich in the cafeteria. House walks in and sits down at his table. They start talking about Cuddy. As far as the viewers know, neither of them has had intercourse with her.] 1. House: You’re trying to have sex with Cuddy. 2. Wilson: [looks at House] Fries? 3. House: You took her to a play. You only take women to plays because... 4. Wilson: No, YOU only take women to plays for that reason. That’s your theory. 5. House: Ok, then why did you take her to a play? 6. Wilson: She’s a friend. 7. House: A friend with a squish mitten. 8. Wilson: It is possible to have a friend of the opposite sex without... 9. House: Blasphemer! She’s not a friend of the opposite sex, she’s a different species. [takes a fry] She’s an administrator. She’s going to eat your head after she’s done. 10. Wilson: Yes, I slept with her. 11. House: [shocked] Seriously? 12. Wilson: No. 13. House: [not convinced] Yes you did. 14. Wilson: [quietly] Yes I did. 15. House: [shocked] Seriously? 16. Wilson: No. You’ve got a problem House. Season 3, Episode 19 As the two friends are conversing about Wilson’s relationship with Cuddy, House (jealous as he seems to be) is adamant that the former had sexual intercourse with her. Averse to this assumption, Wilson starts teasing House by producing

440 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

a lie (10), whose untruthfulness he duly reveals (12). Since the interlocutor does not seem to have believed the sincerity of the backtracking (13), Wilson lies for the second time (14) only to backpedal again (16). In his consecutive turns, Wilson means to tease House by being covertly untruthful in confirming House’s misguided belief, only to uncover his mendacity. Whilst Examples 22 and 23 discussed above rest on two interlocutors’ multiturn interactions, deceptive teasing (covert untruthfulness followed by its revelation) may be enclosed within one turn, not necessitating the target’s verbal indication of being deceived. Such humour centres on following a covertly untruthful utterance with a pause and a textual element, such as “not”, “just joking” or “I don’t think”, which cancels the untruthful meaning just communicated, thereby revealing its untruthfulness. A similar deceptive strategy involves developing an expectation of what is to follow only to thwart it, as in the following example. (24) [House is talking to a teenage patient’s parents.] 1. House: Does your son smoke? 2. Father: I’d kill him. 3. House: [smiling] So, he talks to you about sex, crack, anything except cigarettes. He has a cigarette burn on his wrist, also a fading nicotine stain between two fingers. Bad news, your son has a filthy, unhealthy habit. Good news, he’s trying to quit. Bad news, the quitting is killing him. Good news, I can cure him. Bad news... nope, that’s the end of it. Season 2, Episode 12 The deception in House’s turn (3) rests on a surprising violation of a verbal pattern which he has developed, namely intertwining “bad news” and “good news”. When, after two sequences, he indicates that another item of bad news is to follow, he must be well aware that there is no further bad news to be mentioned. Thus, he deceives the hearers that another entity is to follow only to reveal that this is not the case, which he means to operate as a humorous stimulus. The following example relies on undermining the explicitly presented meaning. (25) [House and his team have just done brainstorming on a current case.] 1. House: Heavy metal it is. Do a home search and a peripheral smear. 2. Taub: [stopping] I can’t. I have a personal errand to run. 3. House: [stops and turns to Taub] Trying to catch your wife cheating? 4. Taub: Oh… Why would you say that? 5. House: Missing mojo. Posture’s slumped. Expression defeated. Didn’t try to back up your theory. And Chase told me. Go. Find your mojo. Season 7, Episode 8

3 Humour and deception 

 441

House covertly pretends to have inferred Taub’s personal problem (3), which he motivates with a sequence of pieces of evidence (5). However, once he has listed the four reasons, he reveals a fact “Chase told me” that sheds entirely new light on not only the importance of those but also his powers of deduction. Essentially, House deceives Taub with regard to the reason of the belief he has about Taub, a belief that corresponds with the latter’s belief, only to reveal this fact. Overall, the central mechanism underlying all these forms of humour necessitates the cancellation of the previously communicated message, typically what is said, which the hearer (ideally) has taken as being truthful but which is duly explicitly presented as having been untruthful. This untruthfulness usually stems from the violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of what is said.

3.3 Genuine deception coupled with humour The second kind of overlap between humour and deception concerns genuine deception, i.e. the communication of covertly untruthful speaker meaning, which simultaneously involves the production of humour to be appreciated either by the deceived target or by another participant in an interaction. 3.3.1 Humorous deceptive utterances As shown in Section 1, conversational humour can carry truthful meanings outside the humorous frame. On the other hand, speaker-meaning-telic humour may also carry deceptive meanings. A humorous utterance may communicate covertly untruthful speaker meaning, which the hearer, the receiver of humour and the target of deception, gleans as if it is truthful, oblivious to the deceptive act. (26) [The previous night House was babysitting for Cuddy, and Rachel, her daughter, swallowed a coin, which House wants to see leave the girl’s body. Cuddy has just approached House to ask him to babysit again.] 1. Cuddy: [...] I was actually hoping that you could baby-sit. 2. House: [overly dramatic] Nooo... 3. Cuddy: Please. 4. House: [whiny] Two nights in a row? 5. Cuddy: Please. 6. House: I have a life, you know. 7. Cuddy: [leans over his desk, deliberately exposing her cleavage] I will make it worth your while.

442 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

8. House: I am not going to bargain babysitting for sex. [seems to be distracted by Cuddy’s cleavage] Who the hell said that? Of course I will. 9. Cuddy: Thank you. [They kiss, and Cuddy leaves. House looks very satisfied with himself.] Season 7, Episode 5 In all of the turns he contributes to this interaction (2, 4, 6 and 8), House intends Cuddy to believe that he is reluctant to look after her daughter. It is typical of him not to be willing to look after her child, which makes the deception succeed. His feigned reluctance underlies also the humorous turn (8), in which House purports to be holding a dialogue with himself, as if he were experiencing an inner struggle over whether he will succumb to Cuddy’s sexual bribery. In actual fact, House is very happy to be able to take care of Rachel this time, let alone if he additionally gets a reward for his favour. What transpires from Example 26 is that a humorous utterance may communicate the speaker’s false belief and deceive the hearer. On the other hand, the speaker may convey his/her genuine belief, for instance critical of the hearer, in the guise of autotelic humorous untruthfulness, and thereby deceive the hearer too. This strategy has been dubbed “pretending to joke25” or “pretending to act” (Vincent and Castelfranchi 1981: 766; Vincent Marrelli 2004). “Pretending to act or joke” involves the speaker passing off something that he/she “believes to be true in the real world, as if he were acting, joking (or kidding)” (Vincent ­Marrelli 2004: 242). In other words, it rests on a genuine belief that the speaker does nurture but presents it as if he/she did not and as if he/she were being overtly untruthful for humorous purposes alone. This is very similar to the production of deceptive utterances via the use of irony (see Chapter 4, Section 3.2), which may also be humorous. However, whilst irony depends on flouting the first maxim of Quality, this kind of pretending rests on opting out of this maxim, which is why no truthful meaning is to be sought. Conceptualised this way, pretending to joke/act is a matter of purposefully employed deceptive strategy, which may be captured under the label deceptive autotelic humour, whereby the speaker ­ eceiving covertly pretends to be overtly untruthful for humorous purposes, thereby d the target with regard to his/her genuine beliefs and communicative intentions. Essentially, overt untruthfulness (seemingly, by opting out of the first maxim of Quality) serves covert untruthfulness and, prototypically, boils down to hidden truthfulness. The hearer is not meant to question the speaker’s humorous intent and overt autotelic untruthfulness. This is the speaker’s underlying assumption for

25 Such lay use of “joke” should best be avoided.

3 Humour and deception 

 443

the deception to come off. On the other hand, should the hearer discover this underlying motivation and express his/her inference, the deceitful speaker reserves the right to backtrack on the truthful assertion on account of the underpinning humorous intent. Covertly pretending to be overtly untruthful, the speaker may indeed induce a humorous response in the unknowing target, simultaneously displaying his/her superiority over the latter. This is the main source of amusement for the speaker, as well as another hearer/other hearers should they be present (in multi-party interactions). In this kind of communicative activity, the speaker intends the targeted hearer not to suspect that the speaker may be communicating speaker meaning. This should not be mistaken for the situations when the truthfulness vs overt untruthfulness distinction is intentionally blurry (see Section 1.3). (27) [The previous night, Cuddy and House kissed passionately. They both deny the significance of this fact, even if their true feelings seem to be otherwise. Anxious, Cuddy has approached House and they are now talking in the hospital hallway, in front of the conference room, separated by a glass wall. Following Cuddy’s suggestion, they agree that they want to keep this event secret, together with the topic of their current conversation. House goes back into the conference room, where his team members are sitting.] 1. Thirteen: What did Cuddy want? 2. House: [in a superior tone] I kinda hit that last night, so now she’s all on my jock. 3. Thirteen: Wow! She looks pretty good for someone on roofies. Season 5, Episode 7 When Thirteen asks about the rationale for Cuddy’s conversation with House (1), he replies in a manner that seems to be deliberately deceptive. Although House’s utterance (2) essentially communicates his true belief at the level of what is said (elucidating the slang expressions, he did kiss Cuddy passionately, and she does indeed need his attention because of this), he produces it in a manner that suggests he cannot possibly be communicating what he believes to be true. House performs this deception via a seemingly overtly untruthful utterance in order to act in accordance with his agreement with Cuddy. What facilitates this deception is the team’s background knowledge about the relationship between Cuddy and House, which is based on continual power struggle and animosity, even if coupled with intermittent exchanges of tokens of friendship (with no signals of mutual affection being ever present). Thirteen’s humorous response that Cuddy would have needed to be drugged in order to be attracted to House (3) indicates that she has taken House’s utterance as jocular and overtly untruthful, and perhaps as tacitly communicating an implicit message that House is unwilling to provide a

444 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

relevant answer to her question. Therefore, she appears to have been deceived, possibly together with the other team members. (Incidentally, as it turns out later, House’s ulterior motive behind his utterance might have been for the deception to be detected, so that he could brag about his conquest.) 3.3.2 Genuine deception in multi-party interactions The fourth main point of overlap between humour and deception concerns the use of genuine deception in multi-party interactions (see Chapter 2, Section 1.4; and Chapter 4, Section 8), whether or not the speaker has any intention of amusing anybody. Humour (whether or not intended) arises typically at the expense of the deceived target, who is not (meant to be) amused. Humorous experience stems from the deceiver’s and non-targeted individual’s feeling of superiority over the target. A speaker may intend to deceive a chosen hearer without attempting to be humorous, but his/her deceptive utterance may still promote humour when it is performed in a multi-party interaction and a non-deceived hearer recognises the speaker’s mendacity and dexterity (notice Cameron’s reaction to House’s intricate deceptive strategy in Example 56, Chapter 4). On the other hand, a speaker may deceive one interactant and simultaneously aim to amuse another who can see through the deceptive act, sharing the common ground with the speaker, to which the deceived individual is not privy. In either case, deception can promote disaffiliative humour, bringing about different communicative effects for the distinct hearers, being humorous to those who are not the deceived targets but are dissociated hearers experiencing the feeling of superiority over the deceived hearer(s). Deception that brings about humorous effects qualifies as speakermeaning-telic humour, communicating covertly untruthful meanings to the target, and possibly also truthful meanings to the hearer in the know. Here are three different examples that illustrate the mechanisms of deception serving humour. What these cases have in common is that, part of media discourse, the deceptive utterances are orientated towards amusing the viewer, whose participation turns the dyadic interactions on screen into multi-party ones (see Dynel 2013c, 2016c). (28) [House has been trying to diagnose a patient by the name of Jeff, who cannot move. He ends the discussion with his team by saying, “I have always wanted to do this”. He now enters the patient’s room, and injects something in the patient’s thigh.] 1. House: You are healed! Rise and walk. 2. Jeff: Are you insane? 3. House: In the Bible, you just say “Yes Lord” and then start right in on the praising.

3 Humour and deception 

 445

4. Jeff:

First you tell me I’ve got cancer, and then you tell me that my manager [starts making a hand gesture and realises he can actually move his hand] What did you do? 5. House: No, what did you Lord. Thymoma is a tumor in the thymus gland. It’s a bit of a wimp, but he hangs with the tough guys. PRCA and an auto-immune disease called myasthenia gravis. MG causes muscle fatigue, including respiratory problems and difficulty swallowing. [...] 6. House: You don’t need your thymus. Take it out, everything else is manageable. 7. Jeff: Manageable. I thought you just cured me. 8. House: Nuh uh, this is just diagnostic. This just erases the symptoms of MG for five or six minutes [Jeff suddenly starts wheezing again and drops on to the floor. House stands there without raising a hair.] Sometimes less. This is exactly why I created nurses. [calling out from the room] Clean up on aisle three! Season 2, Episode 6 House’s mendacious utterance, “You are healed” (1), causes the patient to believe that he is miraculously healed thanks to one injection. The hearer takes the speaker’s turn as truthful and there are no signals to the contrary as the interaction unfolds, for House continues to deceive the patient (3 and 5) by withholding pertinent information until later in the interaction (6). At that stage, the hearer has reasons to believe that the speaker cannot have been truthful, if the illness is only manageable, as his answer (7) indicates. This is followed by House’s full revelation (8), thanks to which the patient is fully aware of having been deceived. Even though the target of deception does learn about House’s mischievous plan post factum, he can hardly find this situation amusing, unlike its producer, who seems to be taking pleasure in acting out this “god” scene. In the example below, House resorts also to deception by means of a Manner maxim violation, which is not revealed to the deceived hearer even post factum. (29) [House is entering a clinic room, where a young woman is lying on a bed with her legs up and a sheet over her pelvis, waiting for a gynaecological examination.] 1. House: Good afternoon. I’m going to be looking at your... [realises that the patient is ready for an examination] Perfect. Excuse me. [picks up the phone and invites Foreman to consult] So when did this start? 2. Woman: A couple weeks ago. I didn’t want to get pregnant. Jake’s not into rubbers so I got on the jelly. You think I’m allergic or something?

446 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

3. House: You have an infection. Gonna need a sample. 4. Woman: I brought the jar. 5. House: No, I meant a sample of your... [looks up to see her holding a jar of strawberry jelly] Okay, we have a neurological problem here. 6. Woman: There’s something wrong with my brain? 7. House: [smugly] Oh yeah. You can cover yourself up, got what I need. [...] 8. House: Okay, I’m gonna give you some antibiotics, and you probably shouldn’t have sex for a while. 9. Woman: How long? 10. House: On an evolutionary basis, I’d recommend forever. [Scene cut] Season 2, Episode 9 Having realised that the woman has been using strawberry jelly as contraception (clearly not understanding the notion of spermicidal jelly), House produces a witty comment (5), which is based on ambiguous what is said and is conducive to deception. As House truthfully says “Oh yeah”, he confirms (7) the woman’s incorrect understanding (6) of his diagnosis. He thus deceptively keeps her in the dark (covert untruthfulness) about the underlying meaning of his previous turn, an alternative reading of what is said (the “neurological problem” is a “medical condition” or “stupidity”, the latter truthful meaning remaining unavailable to the target). House’s contribution (5) can be seen as sarcastic/disaffiliative humour based on wittily deceiving the addressee thanks to the violation of Grice’s “Avoid ambiguity” Manner maxim. On the other hand, House’s closing turn (10) carries not only truthful what is said but also a truthful implicature, based on the flouting of the “Avoid obscurity of expression” Manner maxim, along the lines of “To my mind, you should never have sex in order not to have children as stupid as you are”. This is again a meaning that may elude the patient. Example 30 illustrates the case of deception which the speaker uses for humorous purposes, merging genuine deception targeted at one hearer with humour based on the garden-path mechanism to be appreciated by the other interactants. (30) [Cuddy has a dream, which resembles a sitcom scene shot in a studio with a live audience but features House, Wilson and Rachel, her daughter. House enters wearing a sports shirt straight from Two and a Half Men. He’s holding his cane in one hand and a model airplane in the other. He’s chewing gum and blows a big bubble. The studio audience cheers his entrance.] 1. House: I don’t know why you’re here, but I didn’t do it. 2. Wilson: What’s the problem, officer?

3 Humour and deception 

 447

3. Cop:

She was shoplifting down at the mall. Are either of you this girl’s father? 4. House: Nope. But since her mom died, she’s my favorite tax write-off. Officer, you have my word it won’t happen again. [The policeman walks out.] ‘Cause next time… [flips the door closed] she won’t get caught! [The studio audience laughs and cheers. House and Rachel look happy. They “high five” each other and hug. Wilson leans in to join the hug.] Season 7, Episode 15 House’s turn addressed to the police officer (4) involves garden-path humour, to which the addressee stays oblivious, leaving the interaction with a false belief. This belief concerns House’s promise along the lines of “She will never shoplift again”. However, when the police officer has left, House foregrounds the alternative reading of “It won’t happen again”, which concerns not getting caught, as opposed to not shoplifting again, which is what the policeman had been led to falsely believe, to the amusement of the other interactants. On the whole, the interface between humour and deception exhibits two groups of phenomena: categories of humour which pivot on deception and genuinely deceptive utterances which exert humorous effects. Thus, several notions were elucidated: garden-path humour, put-ons and other deceptionbased teasing, humorous utterances with deceptive meanings and deceptive autotelic untruthfulness, and genuine deception in multi-party interactions. Whilst the prime goal underlying prototypical deception is to cause the hearer to nurture a false belief over a period of time, in humour based on deception, the speaker’s untruthfulness is initially covert to the hearer only to be revealed immediately afterwards. On the other hand, humour and deception can coincide in a sense that a humorous utterance may simultaneously cause the hearer to develop false believes. Moreover, sometimes a deceptive utterance may bring about different communicative effects for the hearers in a multi-party interaction. Albeit not humorous from the perspective of the deceived target, a deceptive utterance may amuse the non-targeted hearers in a multi-party interaction, who are privy to the deception and enjoy their superiority over the target, as well as appreciate the deceiver’s dexterity. Overall, this chapter has shown that humour can be divided into autotelic humour (a term more accurate than some previously used labels), which involves overt autotelic untruthfulness (even if maxim floutings or violations should be used as well), and speaker-meaning-telic humour (the “serious” species). The latter communicates speaker meaning, which may be truthful (based on maxim flouting or observance) or covertly untruthful (based on maxim violation), in

448 

 Chapter 5: Interfaces between humour and (un)truthfulness

either case involving what is said and/or implicature. In addition, both irony (overt untruthfulness) and deception (covert untruthfulness) display some overlap with humour, which this chapter has also examined. Firstly, humorous irony, a type of speaker-meaning-telic humour, based on flouting the maxim of truthfulness, must not be mistaken for, or conflated with, autotelic humour, which relies on opting out of this maxim. Secondly, deception, traditionally contrasted with humour (wrongly limited to overt untruthfulness), can serve as a humorous mechanism in a number of ways.

Epilogue This monograph has explored select manifestations of overt untruthfulness and covert untruthfulness, the complex notions of irony and deception, as well as conversational humour. The three are independent, heterogeneous phenomena, which may co-occur and coincide in many ways. It seems useful to present a simplified picture of the most salient subtypes of overt and covert untruthfulness studied in this book against the backdrop of Grice’s scholarship. This overview of the crucial untruthfulness categories is based on two graphic representations, one for each of the fundamental types of untruthfulness.

Fig. 1: Overt untruthfulness

Overt untruthfulness can be divided into three categories. Apart from the primary forms of explicit and implicit untruthfulness, autotelic untruthfulness is distinguished. This captures the case of opting out of the Gricean maxim of truthfulness (the first maxim of Quality), as well as the other maxims, which results in autotelic humour, namely the type of humour that communicates no speaker meaning. Overt explicit untruthfulness amounts to flouting the first Quality maxim at the utterance level, which coincides with making as if to say (not saying) conducive to substitutional implicatures. Bald-faced lies emerge from flouting the first maxim of Quality rather than violation of this maxim. Performed ostentatiously, they do not qualify as deception, let alone as lies, in a technical sense. A more significant group of overt explicit untruthfulness is comprised of Quality-based https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-006

450 

 Epilogue

figures. These include metaphor, hyperbole and meiosis. Most importantly, this is where most types of irony distinguished in this book belong: propositional meaning reversal irony, pragmatic meaning reversal irony, local lexical meaning reversal irony and surrealistic irony (potentially overlapping with the standard reversal-based irony). Last but not least, verisimilar irony is a salient type of irony that represents overt implicit untruthfulness, relying on what is said (or making as if to say if dependent on another Quality-based figure). It is also in the case of the irony – metaphor co-occurrence that the pivotal irony-motivated implicature may stem from subordinate untruthful (as if) implicatures arising from metaphor-motivated floutings. When the focus is on irony, metaphorical irony can be considered a type of overt implicit untruthfulness, unlike meiotic or hyperbolic irony. The latter two typically show only one layer of overt untruthfulness, with the meiosis/hyperbole overlapping with the ironic pivot. Overall, the natural examples of irony interwoven into the discussion have helped testify that the mechanics of this figure are much more intricate than most research has recognised so far, basing their theoretical claims on prototypical (frequently fabricated) examples. Irony exhibits various forms of meaning opposition, and hence it necessitates a range of different meaning reversal procedures. Although implicated negative evaluation is a definitional component of all irony, ironic utterances need not contain any evaluative expressions. On the other hand, some ironic utterances may include negatively or positively evaluative lexical items, which either serve as the ironic centre (subject to meaning reversal) or are truthful and not amenable to meaning reversal. Grice’s notions help to distinguish between lying and a number of other manifestations of deception, bringing to light also types of deception that have not stimulated much academic interest so far. On the whole, covert untruthfulness is inextricably linked with the violation of the first maxim of Quality, which emerges at different levels of meaning. This results in a tripartite division of covert untruthfulness. In covert explicit untruthfulness, the first maxim of Quality is violated at the level of what is said, giving rise to standard lies when what is said coincides with asserting, or to mendacious questions or imperatives, which do not qualify as lying. Simple as this description may be, any definition of lying faces numerous philosophical conundrums, many of which were addressed in this book. Covert implicit untruthfulness resides in violations of maxims other than the truthfulness maxim, as well as in maxim floutings. Violations of maxims other than the first maxim of Quality performed at the level of what is said lead to the violation of the first maxim of Quality at the level of meaning proposed in this book: speaker-inferred what is said. This allows accounting for the various categories of deception within the neo-Gricean framework. First, deceptively

Epilogue 

 451

Fig. 2: Covert untruthfulness

withholding information is the consequence of violating the first maxim of Quantity at the level of what is said. Second, the problematic category of bullshit capitalises on the violation of the second maxim of Quality. Third, the proposed notion of covert irrelevance originates in violating not only the maxim of Relation but also the second maxim of Quantity. Fourth, covert ambiguity is rooted in the violation of the “Avoid ambiguity” Manner maxim, and sometimes also other Manner maxims. The different forms of maxim violation can mesh in one utterance, constituting more complex forms of deception. In all of these cases, maxim violation results in covertly untruthful implicit (but not implicated) meaning that violates the maxim of truthfulness. On the other hand, deceptive maxim floutings promote covertly untruthful, that is deceptive, implicatures, which are characterised by the violation of the first maxim of Quality. Some of these implicatures (notably the ones dependent on metaphor or irony) can be seen as non-standard lying, insofar as these are the primary meanings, with no alternative interpretations being (typically) available. What follows from the above is that although deception (covert untruthfulness) and irony, as well as other Quality-based figures, (overt untruthfulness) are ­theoretically distinct constructs, overt and covert untruthfulness may sometimes co-exist, and hence they may be mutually dependent. This is when deception is performed by means of the Quality-based figures. Deceptive use of meiosis or ­hyperbole is conducive to (standard) lying in tandem with deceptive implicatures.

452 

 Epilogue

On the other hand, as stated in the paragraph above, deceptively used metaphor and irony may invite covertly untruthful implicatures, which qualify as non-­standard lying. In peculiar situations, this also coincides with the interesting phenomenon labelled covert pretending to make as if to say. This involves the speaker covertly saying what he/she believes to be true but intending the hearer to develop a false belief that no saying but making as if to say via metaphor or irony is involved. Moreover, metaphor and irony can be used covertly as if the speaker were saying rather than making as if to say, which is supposed to remain undetected and to ultimately lead the hearer to develop a false belief based on the alleged saying. This peculiar mechanism can be dubbed “covert pretending to say”, which is a consequence of violating the “Avoid ambiguity” Manner maxim. These two cases of covert pretending (one inextricably linked with deceptive implicating, the other with covert untruthfulness) are consequent upon implicit untruthfulness. However, they are presented in Figure 2 as falling into another class of covert untruthfulness, a class that encompasses mechanisms manipulating different levels of Gricean meaning and the covert vs overt untruthfulness distinction. Two other mechanisms captured by the rather peculiar “covert pretence” category of covert untruthfulness are covert pretending to lie (which invokes more sophisticated cases of double and triple bluffing) and pretending to use autotelic humour. The phenomenon of (conversational) humour naturally cuts across the boundary between overt untruthfulness and covert untruthfulness, overlapping both with deception and with irony (and the other Quality-based figures). Instances of humour can, theoretically speaking, represent any of the categories of overt/covert untruthfulness listed above (and pure truthfulness as well). Overt autotelic untruthfulness is the only category reserved for humour. This type of untruthfulness necessarily involves opting out of the first maxim of Quality, and consequently the other maxims as well. At a subordinate level, however, overt autotelic untruthfulness may recruit also other forms of maxim nonfulfilment. This gives rise to autotelic humour, which stands in opposition to speaker-­ meaning-telic humour. Speaker-meaning-telic humour is a broad class of humour that encompasses utterances that elicit humorous reactions and communicate truthful and/or covertly untruthful (i.e. deceptive) speaker meaning (sometimes to distinct hearers) in the form of what is said and/or implicature. Speaker-meaning-telic humour fostering implicatures may originate in flouting the first maxim of Quality, thereby displaying overt untruthfulness associated with Quality-based figures, including irony. Humorous irony is indeed a widely recognised form of humour. However, it tends to be mistaken for other categories of humour that manifest some form of overt untruthfulness or sarcastic (negatively evaluative) potential.

Epilogue 

 453

Humour, whether autotelic or speaker-meaning-telic, may revolve around covert untruthfulness. Some of the previously recognised forms of humour make use of deception for the sake of amusing the target. On the other hand, humorous utterances may be conducive to genuine deception, as a result of which covertly untruthful speaker meaning is communicated to a hearer, whether or not they are also the intended receiver of the humour. Among other things, this includes deception performed in multi-party interactions, as well as the above-mentioned deceptive strategy of covertly pretending to use autotelic humour. This summary describes the main distinctions and points of convergence between the specific categories of the untruthfulness phenomena explored in this book. This venture into the field of irony, deception and humour (all illustrated with natural, creative language data) was meant to offer an eclectic, ­pragmatic-philosophical account of the notions that are rarely brought together and that are usually studied in different disciplines of linguistics and philosophy. Complex and diversified as the mechanisms of irony, deception and humour are, this account cannot be considered exhaustive. I do hope that the proposals and observations made here will inspire future research that will help us to ­understand the fascinating communicative phenomena even better.

References Adler, Jonathan. 1997. Lying, deceiving, or falsely implicating. Journal of Philosophy 94. 435–452. Akmajian, Adrian, Richard Demers, Ann Farmer & Robert M. Harnish. 2001. Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Alba Juez, Laura. 1995. Irony and politeness. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada 10. 9–16. Alba-Juez, Laura. 1998. On the conventionalization of verbal irony in English: A corpus-based study. In I. Vazquez-Orta & I. Guillen Galve (eds.), Perspectivas pragmaticas en linguistica aplicada, 11–18. Zagaroza: Anubar. Alba-Juez, Laura & Salvatore Attardo. 2014. The evaluative palette of verbal irony. In G. Thompson & L. Alba-Juez (eds.), Evaluation in context, 93–116. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Alberts, Jess. 1992. An inferential/strategic explanation for the social organization of teases. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 11. 153–177. Alston, William. 2000. Illocutionary acts and sentence meaning. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Amante, David. 1981. The theory of ironic apeech acts. Poetics Today 2(2). 77–96. Anolli, Luigi, Rita Ciceri & Maria Giaelle Infantino. 2002. From ‘blame by praise’ to ‘praise by blame’: Analysis of vocal patterns in ironic communication. International Journal of Psychology 37. 266–276. Apter, Michael. 1991. A structural-phenomenology of play. In H. Kerr & M. Apter (eds.), Adult play: A reversal theory approach, 13–29. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. Aquinas, Thomas. 1972. Question 110: Lying. In Summa Theologiae, Volume 41: Virtues of justice in the human community. New York: McGraw-Hill. Ardington, Angela. 2006. Playfully negotiated activity in girls’ talk. Journal of Pragmatics 38. 73–95. Attardo, Salvatore. 1990. The violation of Grice’s maxims in jokes. In K. Hall, M. Meacham & R. Shapiro (eds.), Proceedings of the 16th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 355–362. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Attardo, Salvatore. 1993. Violation in conversational maxims and cooperation: The case of jokes. Journal of Pragmatics 19. 532–558. Attardo, Salvatore. 1994. Linguistic theories of humor. New York: Mouton. Attardo, Salvatore. 1997. Locutionary and perlocutionary cooperation: The perlocutionary cooperative principle. Journal of Pragmatics 27. 753–779. Attardo, Salvatore. 2000. Irony as relevant inappropriateness. Journal of Pragmatics 32. 793–826. Attardo, Salvatore. 2001. Humorous texts: A semantic and pragmatic analysis. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Attardo, Salvatore. 2006. Cognitive linguistics and humor. Humor 19. 341–362. Attardo, Salvatore. 2013. Intentionality and irony. In L. Ruiz Gurillo & B. Alvarado, B. (eds.), Irony and humor: From pragmatics to discourse, 39–57. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Attardo, Salvatore, Jodi Eisterhold, Jennifer Hay & Isabella Poggi. 2003. Multimodal markers of irony and sarcasm. Humor 16(2). 243–260. Attardo, Salvatore & Victor Raskin. 1991. Script theory revis(it)ed: Joke similarity and joke representation model. Humor 4. 293–348. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-007

456 

 References

Augustine. 1952. Lying. In R. J. Deferrari (ed.), Treatises on various subjects, 53–120. New York: Catholic University of America. Austin, John L. 1958. Pretending. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary volume, 32, 261–278. London: Harrison and Sons. Austin, John L. 1962. How to do things with words. J.O. Urmson % M. Sbisá. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bach, Kent. 1987. On communicative intentions: A reply to Recanati. Mind & Language 2. 141–154. Bach, Kent. 1999. The myth of conventional implicature. Linguistics and Philosophy 22. 327–366. Bach, Kent 1994. Conversational Impliciture. Mind and Language 9. 124–162. Bach, Kent. 2001. Grice, H. Paul. In R. Wilson & F. Keil (eds.), MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bach, Kent & Robert Harnish. 1979. Linguistic communication and speech acts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ball, Donald. 1965. Sarcasm as sociation: the rhetoric of interaction. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 2. 190–198. Baptista, Luca. 2014. Say what? On Grice on what is said. European Journal of Philosophy 22 (1). 1–19. Barbe, Katherina. 1993. Isn’t it ironic that ...? Explicit irony markers. Journal of Pragmatics 20. 578–590. Barbe, Katherina. 1995. Irony in context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barker, Stephen. 2017. Figurative speech: pointing a poisoned arrow at the heart of semantics. Philosophical Studies 174. 123–130. Barnes, Annette, 1997. Seeing through self-deception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnes, John. 1994. A pack of lies: Towards a sociology of lying. Cambridge/NY: Cambridge University Press. Bateson, Gregory. 1953. The position of humor in human communication. In H. Von Foerster (ed.), Cybernetics: Circular causal and feedback mechanisms in biological and social sciences, 1–47. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. Bateson, Gregory. 1956. The message “This is play”. In B. Schaffne (ed.), Group processes; Transactions of the second conference (held 9–12 October 1955, at Princeton, New Jersey), 145–242. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. Bateson, Gregory. 1987 [1955, 1972]. A theory of play and fantasy. A report on theoretical aspects of the project for study of the role of paradoxes of abstraction in communication. In Steps to an ecology of mind, 183–198. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc. [Bateson, Gregory. 1955. Approaches to the Study of Human Personality. American Psychiatric Association. Psychiatric Research Reports, no. 2. 39–51. Paper delivered to a symposium of the American Psychiatric Association; Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an ecology of mind, 177–193. New York: Ballantine.] Bavelas, Janet, Alex Black, Nicole Chovil & Jennifer Mullett. 1990. Equivocal communication. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, Inc. Beckson, Karl & Arthur Ganz. 1989. Literary terms: A dictionary (3rd edn.). NY: Noonday. Bednarek, Monika. 2010. The language of fictional television: Drama and identity. London: Continuum. Bell, Allan. 1984. Language style as audience design. Language and Society 13. 145–204. Bell, Allan. 1991. The Language of news media. Oxford: Blackwell. Bell, Nancy. 2015. We are not amused. Failed humor in interaction. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

References 

 457

Benton, Michael. 2016. Gricean Quality. Noûs 50. 689–703. Berger, Arthur Asa. 1993. An anatomy of humor. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Bergmann, Gustav. 1964. Logic and reality. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Berlyne, Daniel E. 1972. Humor and its kin. In H. Goldstein & P. McGhee (eds.), The psychology of humor: Theoretical perspectives and empirical issues, 43–60. New York: Academic Press. Bertuccelli Papi, Marcella. 2014. The pragmatics of insinuation. Intercultural Pragmatics 11. 1–29. Bezuidenhout, Anne 2001. Metaphor and what is said: A defense of a direct expression view of metaphor. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 25. 156–186. Bhaya Nair, Rukimi. 1985. Telling lies: Some literary and other violations of Grice’s maxim of Quality. Nottingham Linguistic Circular 14. 53–71. Billig, Michael. 2005. Laughter and ridicule: Toward a social critique of humour. London: Sage. Black, Max. 1983. The prevalence of humbug and other essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Black, Max. 1993. More about metaphor. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd edn.), 19–41. New York: Cambridge University Press. Blair, Hugh. 1842. Lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres. Halifax: William Milner. Bok, Sissela. 1978. Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. NY: Random House. Bok, Sissela. 1983. Secrets: On the ethics of concealment and revelation. New York: Pantheon Books. Booth, Wayne C. 1974. A rhetoric of irony. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press. Bousfield, Derek. 2008. Impoliteness in interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bowers, John, Normand Elliott & Roger Desmond. 1977. Exploiting pragmatic rules: Devious messages. Human Communication Research 3. 235–242. Bowes, Andrea & Albert. Katz. 2011. When sarcasm stings. Discourse Processes 48. 215–236. Boxer, Diana & Florencia Cortés-Conde. 1997. From bonding and biting: Conversational joking and identity display. Journal of Pragmatics 27. 275–295. Bradac, James. 1983. The language of lovers, flovers, and friends: Communicating in social and personal relationships. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 2. 141–162. Brandom, Robert. 1983. Asserting. Noûs 17. 637–50. Brandom, Robert. 1994. Making it explicit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brdar-Szabó, Rita & Mario Brdar. 2010. ‘Mummy, I love you like a thousand ladybirds’: Reflections on the emergence of hyperbolic effects and the truth of hyperboles. In A. Burkhardt & B. Nerlich (eds.), Tropical truth(s). The epistemology of metaphor and other tropes, 383–427. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. Bredin, Hugh. 1997. The semantic structure of verbal irony. Journal of Literary Semantics 16. 1–20. Breheny, Richard. 2008. A new look at the semantics and pragmatics of numerically quantified noun phrases. Journal of Semantics 25. 93–139. Brooke-Rose, Christine. 1958. A grammar of metaphor. London: Secker and Warburg. Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Robert L. 1980. The pragmatics of verbal irony. In R. Shuy & A. Shnukal (eds.), Language use and the uses of language, 111–127. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Brown, Jessica & Herman Cappelen (eds.). 2011. Assertion: New philosophical essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bryant, Greg A. & Jean Fox Tree. 2005. Is there an ironic tone of voice? Language and Speech 48(3). 257–277. Buller, David & Judee Burgoon. 1994. Deception: Strategic and nonstrategic communication. In J. A. Daly & J. M. Wiemann (eds.), Strategic interpersonal communication, 191–223. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

458 

 References

Burgers, Christian, Margot van Mulken & Peter Schellens. 2011. Finding irony: An introduction of the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP). Metaphor and Symbol 26(3). 186–205. Burgers, Christian, Margot van Mulken & Peter Schellens. 2012a. Verbal irony: Differences in usage across written genres. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 31(3). 290–310. Burgers, Christian, Margot van Mulken & Peter Schellens. 2012b. Type of evaluation and marking of irony: The role of perceived complexity and comprehension. Journal of Pragmatics 44. 231–242. Burgers, Christian, Margot van Mulken & Peter Schellens. 2013. The use of co-textual irony markers in written discourse. Humor 26(1). 45–68. Burgoon, Judee, David Buller, Laura Guerrero, Walid Afifi & Clyde Feldman. 1996. Interpersonal deception: XII. Information management dimensions underlying deceptive and truthful messages. Communication Monographs 63(1). 50–69. Camp, Elisabeth. 2006. Contextualism, metaphor and what is said. Mind & Language 21(3). 280–309. Camp, Elisabeth. 2012. Sarcasm, pretense, and the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Noûs 46. 587–634. Camp, Elisabeth & John Hawthorne. 2008. Sarcastic ‘like’: A case study in the interface of syntax and semantics. Noûs 42. 1–21. Campbell, John & Albert Katz. 2012. Are there necessary conditions for inducing a sense of sarcastic irony? Discourse Processes 49. 459–480. Cap, Piotr & Marta Dynel (eds.). 2017. Implicitness: From lexis to discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Carson, Thomas L. 1988. On the definition of lying: A reply to Jones and revisions. Journal of Business Ethics 7. 509–514. Carson, Thomas L. 2006. The definition of lying. Noûs 40 (2). 284–306 Carson, Thomas L. 2010. Lying and deception: Theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carson, Thomas L. 2016. Frankfurt and Cohen on bullshit, bullshiting, deception, lying and concern with the truth of what one says. Pragmatics & Cognition 23(1). 53–67. Carston, Robyn. 2002. Thoughts and utterances: The pragmatics of explicit communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Carston, Robyn & Catherine Wearing. 2015. Hyperbolic language and its relation to metaphor and irony. Journal of Pragmatics 79. 79–92. Carter, Ronald & Michael McCarthy. 1997. Exploring spoken English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Castelfranchi, Cristiano & Isabella Poggi. 1994. Lying as pretending to give information. In H. Parret (ed.), Pretending to communicate, 276–291. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Caucci, Gina & Roger Kreuz. 2012. Social and paralinguistic cues to sarcasm. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 25(1). 1–22. Channon, Shelley, Asa Pellijeff & Andrea Rule. 2005. Social cognition after head injury: Sarcasm and theory of mind. Brain and Language 93. 123–134. Chisholm, Roderick & Thomas Feehan. 1977. The intent to deceive. The Journal of Philosophy 74. 143–159. Chovanec, Jan. 2012. Conversational humour and joint fantisizing in online journalism. In J. Chovanec & I. Ermida (eds.), Language and humour in the media, 131–169. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Chovanec, Jan. 2017. Interactional humour and spontaneity in TV documentaries. Lingua 197. 34–49.

References 

 459

Claridge, Claudia. 2001. Approaching irony in corpora. In P. Rayson, A. Wilson, T. McEnery, A. Hardie, & S. Khoja (eds.), Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2001 conference. UCREL Technical Papers 13, 134–143. Lancaster: Lancaster University Computer Department. Claridge, Claudia. 2011. Hyperbole in English. A corpus-based study of exaggeration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Herbert. 1996. Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Herbert & Thomas Carlson. 1981. Context for comprehension. In J. Long & A. Baddeley (eds.), Attention and performance IX, 313–330. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Clark, Herbert & Thomas Carlson. 1982. Hearers and speech acts. Language 58. 332–372. Clark Herbert & Richard Gerrig. 1984. On the pretense theory of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113. 121–126. Clark, Herbert & Catherine Marshall. 1981. Definite reference and mutual knowledge. In A. K. Joshi, B. Webber & I. Sag (eds.), Elements of discourse understanding, 10–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Herbert & Edward Schaefer. 1987. Concealing one’s meaning from overhearers. Journal of Memory and Language 26: 209–225. Clark, Herbert & Edward Schaefer. 1992. Dealing with overhearers. In H. Clark arenas of language use, 248–273. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coates, Jennifer. 2007. Talk in a play frame: More on laughter and intimacy. Journal of Pragmatics 39. 29–49. Cohen, Gerald. 2002. Deeper into bullshit. In S. Buss & L. Overton (eds.), Contours of agency: Essays on themes from Harry Frankfurt, 321– 339. London and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Colebrook, Claire. 2004. Irony. London: Routledge. Coleman, Linda & Paul Kay. 1981. Prototype semantics: The English verb lie. Language 57. 26–44. Colston, Herbert. 1997. Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: the pragmatic functions of ironic criticism. Discourse Processes 23. 25–45. Colston, Herbert. 2000. On necessary conditions for verbal irony comprehension. Pragmatics & Cognition 8. 277–324. Colston, Herbert. 2002. Contrast and assimilation in verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics 34. 111–142. Colston, Herbert. 2010. Irony, analogy and truth. In A. Burkhardt & B. Nerlich (eds.), Tropical truth(s): The epistemology of metaphor and other tropes, 339–354. Berlin: De Gruyter. Colston, Herbert, & Raymond Gibbs, Jr. 2007. A brief history of irony. In R. Gibbs & H. Colston (eds.), Irony in language and thought. A cognitive science reader, 3–21. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum. Colston, Herbert & Shauna Keller. 1998. You’ll never believe this. Irony and hyperbole in expressing surprise. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 27. 499–513. Colston, Herbert & Jennifer O’Brien. 2000. Contrast and pragmatics in figurative language: anything understatement can do, irony can do better. Journal of Pragmatics 32. 1557–1583. Coulson, Seana. 2005. Sarcasm and the space structuring model. In S. Coulson & B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (eds.), The literal and the nonliteral in language and thought, 129–144. Berlin: Peter Lang. Coupland, Nikolas. 2004. Stylised deception. In A. Jaworski, N. Coupland & D. Galasiński (eds.), Metalanguage: Social and ideological perspectives, 249–274. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Creusere, Marlena. 1999. Theories of adults’ understanding and use of irony and sarcasm: Applications to and evidence from research with children. Developmental Review. 19(2). 213–262.

460 

 References

Creusere, Marlena. 2000. A developmental test of theoretical perspectives on the understanding of verbal irony: Children’s recognition of allusion and pragmatic insincerity. Metaphor and Symbol 15. 29–45. Cros, Anna. 2001. Teaching by convincing: Strategies of argumentation in lectures. Argumentation 15(2). 191–206. Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics 25. 349–367. Culpeper, Jonathan. 2005. Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The Weakest Link. Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1). 35–72. Culpeper, Jonathan, Derek Bousfield & Anne Wichmann. 2003. Impoliteness revisited: with special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics 35. 1545–1579. Curcó, Carmen. 2000. Irony: negation, echo and metarepresentation. Lingua 110. 257–280. Currie, Gregory. 2006. Why irony is pretence. In S. Nichols (ed.), The architecture of imagination, 111–133. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cutler, Anne. 1974. On saying what you mean without meaning what you say. Chicago Linguistic Society 10. 117–27. Danziger, Eve. 2010. On trying and lying: Cultural configurations of Grice’s Maxim of Quality. Intercultural Pragmatics 7 (2). 199–219. Davidson, Donald. 1978. What metaphors mean. Critical Inquiry 5. 31–47. Davidson, Donald. 1980. Deception and division. In J. Elster (ed.), The multiple self, 79–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, Donald. 1984. Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Davidson, Donald. 1985. Deception and division. In J. Elster (ed.), The multiple self, 79–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, Bethan. 2000. Grice’s Cooperative Principle: Getting the meaning across. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 8. 1–26. Davies, Bethan. 2007. Grice’s Cooperative Principle: Meaning and rationality. Journal of Pragmatics 39. 2308–2331. Davies, Matt. 2013. Oppositions and ideology in news discourse. Bloomsbury, London. Davis, Wayne. 1998. Implicature: Intention, convention, and principle in the failure of Gricean theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Wayne A. 1999. Communicating, telling, and informing. Philosophical Inquiry 21. 21–43. Davis, Wayne A. 2008. Expressing, meaning, showing, and intending to indicate. Intercultural Pragmatics 5. 111–129. de Jongste, Henri. 2013. Negotiating humorous intent. In M. Dynel (ed.), Developments in linguistic humour theory, 179–210. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Demos, Raphael. 1960. Lying to oneself. Journal of Philosophy 57. 588–595. DePaulo, Bella. 2010. Deception: It’s what Dexter does best (well, second best). In B. DePaulo (ed.), The psychology of Dexter, 65–78. Dallas: BenBella Books. DePaulo, Bella M., Deborah A. Kashy, Susan E. Kirkendol, Melissa M. Wyer & Jennifer A. Epstein. 1996. Lying in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70. 979–995. Dews, Shelly, Joan Kaplan, Ellen Winner. 1995. Why not say it directly? The social functions of irony. Discourse Processes 19. 347–367. Dews, Shelly & Ellen Winner. 1995. Muting the meaning: A social function of irony. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity. 10(1). 3–19. Dews, Shelly and Ellen Winner. 1997. Attributing meaning to deliberately false utterances: The case of irony. In Ch. Mandell & A. McCabe (eds.), The Problem of meaning: Behavioral and cognitive perspectives, 377–414. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

References 

 461

Dinges, Alexander. 2015. Innocent implicatures. Journal of Pragmatics 87. 54–63. Douglas, Jack. 1976. Investigative social research: Individual and team field research, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. Drew, Paul. 1987. Po-faced receipts of teases. Linguistics 25. 219–53. Drucker, Ari, Ofer Fein, Dafna Bergerbest & Rachel Giora. 2014. On sarcasm, social awareness, and gender. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 24(4). 551–573. Dynel, Marta. 2008. There is method in the humorous speaker’s madness: Humour and Grice’s model. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4. 159–185. Dynel, Marta. 2009. Humorous garden-paths: A pragmatic-cognitive study. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Dynel, Marta. 2010. On ‘Revolutionary Road’: A proposal for extending the Gricean model of communication to cover multiple hearers. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 6. 283–304. Dynel, Marta. 2011a. A web of deceit: A neo-Gricean view on types of verbal deception. International Review of Pragmatics 3. 137–165. Dynel, M. 2011b. Stranger than fiction. A few methodological notes on linguistic research in film discourse. Brno Studies in English 37. 41–61. Dynel, Marta. 2011c. Revisiting Goffman’s postulates on participant statuses in verbal interaction. Language and Linguistics Compass. Sociolinguistics 5/7. 454–465. Dynel, Marta. 2011d. Turning speaker meaning on its head: Non-verbal communication and intended meanings. Pragmatics and Cognition 19. 422–447. Dynel, M. 2011e. “You talking to me?” The viewer as a ratified listener to film discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 1628–1644. Dynel, M. 2011f. Joker in the pack: Towards determining the status of humorous framing in conversations. In M. Dynel (ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains, 217–241. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dynel, M. 2011g. I’ll be there for you: On participation-based sitcom humour. In M. Dynel (ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains, 311–333. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dynel, M. 2012. Humour on the House: Interactional construction of metaphor in film discourse. In J. Chovanec & I. Ermida (ed.), Language and humour in the media, 83–106. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Dynel, Marta. 2013a. Irony from a neo-Gricean perspective: On untruthfulness and evaluative implicature. Intercultural Pragmatics 10. 403–431. Dynel, Marta. 2013b. When does irony tickle the hearer? Towards capturing the characteristics of humorous irony. In M. Dynel (ed.), Developments in linguistic humour theory, 298–320. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dynel, Marta. 2013c. Impoliteness as disaffiliative humour in film talk. In M. Dynel (ed.), Developments in linguistic humour theory, 105–144. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dynel, M. 2013d. Being cooperatively impolite: Grice’s model in the context of (im)politeness theories. In I. Kecskés & J. Romero-Trillo (eds.), Research trends in intercultural pragmatics, 55–83. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Dynel, Marta. 2014a. Isn’t it ironic? Defining the scope of humorous irony. Humor 27. 619–640. Dynel, Marta. 2014b. On the part of ratified participants: Ratified listeners in multi-party interaction. Brno Studies in English 40. 27–44. Dynel, Marta. 2015. Intention to deceive, bald-faced lies, and deceptive implicature: Insights into Lying at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Intercultural Pragmatics 12. 309–332.

462 

 References

Dynel, Marta. 2016a. On untruthfulness, its adversaries and strange bedfellows. Pragmatics & Cognition 23(1). 1–15. [Revised material reprinted here with kind permission from John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia. www.benjamins.com] Dynel, Marta. 2016b. Comparing and combining covert and overt untruthfulness: On lying, deception, irony and metaphor. Pragmatics & Cognition 23(1). 174–208. [Revised material reprinted here with kind permission from John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia. www.benjamins.com] Dynel, Marta. 2016c. With or without intentions: Accountability and (un)intentional humour in film talk. Journal of Pragmatics 95. 67–98. Dynel, Marta. 2016d. Two layers of overt untruthfulness: When irony meets metaphor, hyperbole or meiosis. Pragmatics & Cognition 23(2). 259–283. [Revised material reprinted here with kind permission from John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/ Philadelphia. www.benjamins.com] Dynel, Marta. 2016e. Conceptualising conversational humour as (im)politeness: The case of film talk. Journal of Politeness Research 12(1). 117–147. Dynel, Marta. 2016f. Pejoration via sarcastic irony and sarcasm. R. Finkenbeiner, J. Meibauer & H. Wiese (eds.), Pejoration, 219–239. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dynel. Marta. 2016g. Killing two birds with one deceit: Deception in multi-party interactions. International Review of Pragmatics 8. 179–218. Dynel, M. 2016h. Trolling is not stupid: Internet trolling as the art of deception serving entertainment. Intercultural Pragmatics 13. 353–381. Dynel, M. 2017a. But seriously: On conversational humour and (un)truthfulness. Lingua 197. 83–102. [Revised material reprinted here with kind permission from Elsevier.] Dynel, Marta. 2017b. The irony of irony: Irony based on truthfulness. Corpus Pragmatics 1. 3–36. Dynel, Marta. 2017c. Academics vs. American scriptwriters vs. academics: A battle over the etic and emic “sarcasm” and “irony” labels. Language & Communication 55. 69–87. [Revised material reprinted here with kind permission from Elsevier.] Dynel, Marta. 2017d. Impoliteness and telecinematic discourse. In M. A. Locher & A. Jucker (eds.), Pragmatics of fiction, 455–487. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Dynel, Marta. 2017e. Is there a tumour in your humour? On misunderstanding and miscommunication in conversational humour. In R. Giora & M. Haugh (eds.), Doing pragmatics interculturally: Cognitive, philosophical and sociopragmatic perspectives, 55–78. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Dynel, Marta. 2018. No child’s play: A philosophical pragmatic view of overt pretence as a vehicle for conversational humour. In V. Tsakona & J. Chovanec (eds.), Creating and negotiating humor in everyday interactions, 205 –228. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dynel, Marta & Jörg Meibauer. 2016. Everything you always wanted to know about the pragmatics of deception but were afraid to test. International Review of Pragmatics 8. 163–178. Eelen, Gino. 2001. A critique of politeness theories. Manchester: St. Jermome Publishing. Eisterhold, Jodi, Salvatore Attardo & Diana Boxer. 2006. Reactions to irony in discourse: Evidence for the least disruption principle. Journal of Pragmatics 38(8). 1239–1256. Ekman, Paul. 1985. Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage. New York: Norton & Company. Emerson, Joan. 1969. Negotiating the serious import of humor. Sociometry 32. 169–181. Everts, Elisa. 2003. Identifying a particular family humor style: a sociolinguistic discourse analysis. Humor 16. 369–412.

References 

 463

Falkenberg, G. 1982. Lügen. Grundzüge einer theorie sprachlicher täuschung. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Fallis, Don. 2009. What is lying? The Journal of Philosophy 106. 29–56. Fallis, Don. 2010. Lying and deception. Philosophers’ Imprint 10.1–22. Fallis, Don. 2012. Lying as a violation of Grice’s first maxim of Quality. dialectica 66. 563–581. Fallis, Don. 2015a. Are bald-faced lies deceptive after all? Ratio 28. 81–96. Fallis, Don. 2015b. Frankfurt wasn’t bullshitting!. Southwest Philosophical Studies 37. 11–20. Fallis, Don. forthcoming 1. Lying and omissions. In J. Meibauer (ed.), Oxford handbook of lying. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fallis, Don. forthcoming 2. Shedding light on keeping people in the dark. Faulkner, Paul. 2007. What is wrong with lying? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75. 524–547. Faulkner, Paul. 2013. Lying and deceit. In H. LaFollette (ed.), International encyclopedia of ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Fogelin, Richard. 1988. Figuratively speaking. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fowler, Henry W. 1965. Fowler’s modern English usage. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frank, Mark G. 2009. Thoughts, feelings, and deception. In B. Harrington (ed.), Deception: from ancient empires to internet dating, 55–73. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Frankfurt, Harry. 1992. The faintest passion. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 66 (3). 5–16. Frankfurt, Harry. 2002. Reply to G. A. Cohen. In S. Buss & L. Overton (eds.), Contours of agency: Essays on themes from Harry Frankfurt, 340–344. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Frankfurt, Harry. 2005. On bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fraser, Bruce. 1983. The domain of pragmatics. In J. C. Richards & R. W. Schmidt (eds.), Language and communication, 29–59. London: Longman. Fraser, Bruce. 1994. No conversation without misrepresentation. In H. Parret (ed.), Pretending to communicate, 143–153. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Fried, Charles. 1978. Right and wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fry, William. 1963. Sweet madness: A study of humor. Palo Alto: Pacific Books. Fuller, Gary. 1976. Other-Deception. The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 7. 21–31. Galasiński, Dariusz. 1996. Deceptiveness of evasion, Text 16(1). 1–22. Galasiński, Dariusz. 2000. The language of deception. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Garfinkel, Arthur. 1977. Truths, half-truths and deception in advertising. Papers in Linguistics 10. 135–149. Garmendia, Joana. 2010. Irony is critical. Pragmatics and Cognition 18. 397–421. Garmendia, Joana. 2011. She’s (not) a fine friend: ‘Saying’ and criticism in irony. Intercultural Pragmatics 8. 41–65. Garmendia, Joana. 2013. Irony: making as if we pretend to echo. In I. Kecskés & J. Romero-Trillo (eds.), Research trends in intercultural pragmatics, 85–104. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton. Garmendia, Joana. 2014. The Clash: Humor and critical attitude in verbal irony. Humor 27. 64–659. Garmendia, Joana. 2015. A (neo)Gricean account of irony: An answer to relevance theory. International Review of Pragmatics 7. 40–79. Garmendia, Joana & Kepa Korta. 2007. The point of irony. In M. Aurnague, K. Korta & J.M. Larrazabal (eds.), Language, representation and reasoning, 189–200. Bilbao: upv-ehu.

464 

 References

Gauker, Christopher. 2001. Situated inference versus conversational implicature. Noûs 35. 163–189. Gauker, Christopher. 2003. Words without meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gerrig, Richard & Yevgeniya Goldvarg. 2000. Additive effects in the perception of sarcasm: Situational disparity and echoic mention. Metaphor and Symbol 15. 197–208. Gert, Bernard. 2005. Morality: Its nature and justification, 6th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geyer, Naomi. 2010. Teasing and ambivalent face in Japanese multi-party discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 42. 2120–2130. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. 1986a. On the psycholinguistics of sarcasm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 105. 3–15. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. 1986b. Comprehension and memory for nonliteral utterances: The problem of sarcastic indirect requests. Acta Psychologica 62. 41–57. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. 1993. Process and products in making sense of tropes. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd edn.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. 1994. The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. 1999. Intentions in the experience of meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. 2000. Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol 15. 5–27. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. 2012. Are ironic acts deliberate? Journal of Pragmatics 44. 104–115. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr., Greg Bryant & Herbert Colston. 2014. Where is the humor in verbal irony? Humor 27. 575–595. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. & Herbert Colston. 2002. The risks and rewards of ironic communication. In L. Anolli, R. Ciceri & G. Riva (eds.), Say not to say: New perspectives on miscommunication, 187–200. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. & Herbert Colston. 2007. The future of irony studies. In R. Gibbs & H. Colston (eds.), Irony in language and thought: A cognitive science reader, 581–595. New York: Erlbaum. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. & Herbert Colston. 2012. Interpreting figurative meaning. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. & Christin Izett. 2005. Irony as persuasive communication. In H. Colston & A. Katz (eds.), Figurative language comprehension: Social and cultural factors. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr. & Jennifer O’Brien. 1991. Psychological aspects of irony understanding. Journal of Pragmatics 16. 523–530. Gibbs, Raymond, Jr., Jennifer O’Brien & Shelley Doolittle. 1995. Inferring meanings that are not intended: speakers’ intentions and irony comprehension. Discourse Processes 20. 187–203. Giora, Rachel. 1995. On irony and negation. Discourse Processes 19. 239–264. Giora, Rachel. 1998. Irony. In Verschueren, J., Östman, J.-O., Blommaert, J. & C. Bulcaen (eds.), Handbook of pragmatics, 1–21. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Giora, Rachel. 2001. Irony and its discontent. In The psychology & sociology of literature. G. Steen & D. Schram (eds.), 165–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Giora, Rachel. 2003. On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative language. New York: Oxford University Press.

References 

 465

Giora, Rachel. 2011. Will anticipating irony facilitate it immediately? In M. Dynel (ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains, 19–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Giora, Rachel, Ari Drucker & Ofer Fein. 2014. Resonating with default nonsalient interpretations: A corpus-based study of negative sarcasm. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 28. 3–18. Giora, Rachel, Ari Drucker, Ofer Fein & Itamar Mendelson. 2015. Default sarcastic interpretations: On the priority of nonsalient interpretations. Discourse Processes, 52(3). 173–200. Glenn, Phillip. 2003. Laughter in interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Glenwright, Melanie & Penny Pexman. 2010. Development of children’s ability to distinguish sarcasm and verbal irony. Journal of Child Language 37. 429–451 Glucksberg, Sam & Boaz Keysar. 1993. How metaphors work. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd edn.), 401–424. New York: Cambridge University Press. Glucksberg, Sam. 1995. Commentary on nonliteral language: Processing and use. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10. 47–57. Goatly, Andrew. 2012. Meaning and humour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame analysis. An essay in the organization of experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of talk. University of Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press. Goldberg, Sanford C. 2015. Assertion. On the philosophical significance of assertoric speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Green, Stuart P. 2001. Lying, misleading, and falsely denying: How moral concepts inform the law of perjury, fraud, and false statements. Hastings Law Journal 53. 157–212. Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989a [1975]. Logic and conversation. In Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 22–40. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & H. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and semantics, Vol.3: Speech acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In D. Davison & G. Harman (eds.), The logic of grammar, 64–75. Dickenson: Encino.] Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989b [1978]. Further notes on logic and conversation. In Studies in the way of words, 41–57. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Grice, Herbert Paul (1978) Further notes on logic and conversation. In P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and semantics, Vol. 9: Pragmatics, 113–127. New York: Academic Press.] Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989c. Retrospective epilogue. In Studies in the way of words, 339–386. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989d [1969]. Utterer’s meaning and intentions. In studies in the way of words, 86–116. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1969. Utterer’s meaning and intentions. The Philosophical Review 78: 147–77.] Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989e [1957]. Meaning. In Studies in the way of words, 213–233. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1989a. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1957. Meaning. Philosophical Review 64: 377–388.] Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989f [1982]. Meaning revisited. In Studies in the way of words, 283–303. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1982. Meaning revisited. In N. Smith (ed.), Mutual knowledge, 223–243. New York: Academic Press.] Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989g [1968]. Utterer’s meaning, sentence meaning, and word-meaning. In Studies in the Way of Words, 117–137. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1968. Utterer’s meaning, sentence meaning, and word-meaning. Foundations of Language 4, 225–42.] Griffiths, Paul. 2004. Lying: An Augustinian theology of duplicity. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.

466 

 References

Grimshaw, Allen (ed.). 1996. Conflict Talk: Sociolinguistic investigations in conversations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grugulis, Irena. 2002. Nothing serious? Candidates’ use of humour in management training. Human Relations 55(4). 387–406. Gupta, Swatu, Kayo Sakamoto & Andrew Ortony. 2013. Telling it like it isn’t: A comprehensive approach to analyzing verbal deception. In F. Paglieri, L. Tummolini, R. Falcone & M. Miceli (eds.), The goals of cognition. Essays in honor of Cristiano Castelfranchi. London: College Publications. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286264813_Telling_it_like_it_ isn’t_a_comprehensive_approach_to_analyzing_verbal_deception (accessed 15 February 2017) Habermas, Jürgen. 1979. Communication and the evolution of society. T. McCarthy (ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. The theory of communicative action I: Reason and the rationalization of society. Thomas McCarthy (transl.). Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 1998 [1976]. On the pragmatics communication. M. Cooke (ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Haddington, Pentti. 2011. Serious or non-serious? Sequential ambiguity and disavowing a prior stance. Functions of Language 18. 149–182. Haiman, John. 1990. Sarcasm as theater. Cognitive Linguistics 1. 181–205. Haiman, John. 1998. Talk is cheap: Sarcasm, alienation and the evolution of language. New York: Oxford University Press. Hamamoto, Hideki. 1998. Irony from a cognitive perspective. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (eds.), Relevance theory: Applications and implications, 257–270. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Han, Chung-Hye. 2002 Interpreting interrogatives as rhetorical questions. Lingua 112 (3): 201–229. Hancock, Jeffrey, Philip Dunham & Kelly Purdy. 2000. Children’s comprehension of critical and complimentary forms of verbal irony. Journal of Cognition and Development 12. 227–240. Hare, Richard. 1952. The language of morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harris, Melanie & Penny Pexman. 2003. Children’s perceptions of the social functions of irony. Discourse Processes 36. 147–165. Hartung, Martin. 1998. Ironie in der Gesprochenen Sprache. Eine Gesprächsanalytische Untersuchung. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Haugh, Michael. 2008a. Intention in pragmatics. Intercultural Pragmatics 5. 99–110. Haugh, Michael. 2008b. The place of intention in the interactional achievement of implicature. In I. Kecskés & J. Mey (eds.), Intention, common ground and the egocentric speaker-hearer, 45–86. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Haugh, Michael. 2010. Jocular mockery, (dis)affiliation, and face. Journal of Pragmatics 42. 2106–2119. Haugh, Michael. 2012. On understandings of intention: A response to Wedgwood. Intercultural Pragmatics 9. 161–194. Haugh, Michael. 2013a. Implicature, inference and cancellability. In A. Capone, F. Lo Piparo & M. Carapezza (eds.), Perspectives on pragmatics and philosophy, 133–151. Cham: Springer. Haugh, Michael. 2013b. Speaker meaning and accountability in interaction. Special Issue on Focus on the Speaker. Journal of Pragmatics 48. 41–56. Haugh, Michael. 2014. Jocular mockery as interactional practice in everyday Anglo-Australian conversation. Australian Journal of Linguistics 34 (1). 76–99.

References 

 467

Haugh, Michael. 2015. Im/Politeness implicatures. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Haugh, Michael. 2016. “Just kidding”: Teasing and claims to non-serious intent. Journal of Pragmatics 95. 120–136. Haugh, Michael & Derek Bousfield. 2012. Mock impoliteness in interactions amongst Australian and British speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics 44. 1099–1114. Haugh, Michael & Kasia Jaszczolt. 2012. Speaker intentions and intentionality. In K. Allan & K. Jaszczolt (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of pragmatics, 87–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haverkate, Henk. 1990. A speech act analysis of irony. Journal of Pragmatics 14. 77–109. Hay, Jennifer. 1994. Jocular abuse patterns in mixed-group interaction. Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics 6. 26–55. Hay, Jennifer. 1995. Gender and humor: Beyond a joke. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington MA thesis. Hay, Jennifer. 2000. Functions of humor in the conversations of men and women. Journal of Pragmatics 32. 709–742. Hay, Jennifer. 2001. The pragmatics of humor support. Humor 14 (1). 55–82 Heal, Jennifer. 1976/1977. Insincerity and commands. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 77. 183–201. Hirsch, Galia. 2011. Redundancy, irony and humor. Language Sciences 33. 316–329. Hockett, Charles F. 1972. Jokes. In M. Estellie Smith (ed.), Studies in linguistics in honor of George L. Trager, 153–178. The Hague: Mouton. Holdcroft, David. 1983. Irony as trope, and irony as discourse. Poetics Today 4. 493–511. Holm, Nicholas & Carolyn Veldstra (eds.). 2015. Comedy and seriousness. Comedy Studies 6. Holmes, Janet. 2000. Politeness, power and provocation: How humor functions in the workplace. Discourse Studies 2 (2). 159–185. Holmes, Janet. 2006. Sharing a laugh: pragmatic aspects of humor and gender in the workplace. Journal of Pragmatics 38. 26–50. Holt, Elizabeth. 2013. ‘There’s many a true word said in jest’: seriousness and nonseriousness in interaction. In P. Glenn & E. Holt (eds.), Studies of laughter in interaction, 69–89. London: Bloomsbury. Holt, Elizabeth. 2016. Laughter at last: Playfulness and laughter in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 100. 89–102. Hopper, Robert & Robert Bell. 1984. Broadening the deception construct. Quarterly Journal of Speech 70. 288–302. Horn, Laurence R. 1972. On the semantic properties of logical operators in english. UCLA dissertation. Distributed by Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1976. Horn, Laurence R. 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. In D. Schiffrin (ed.), Meaning, form and use in context (GURT ‘84), 11–42. Washington: Georgetown University Press. Horn, Laurence R. 1989. The natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Horn, Laurence R. 2004. Implicature. In L. Horn & G. Ward (eds.), Handbook of pragmatics 3–28. Oxford: Blackwell. Horn, Laurence R. 2009. WJ-40: Implicature, truth, and meaning. International Review of Pragmatics 1. 3–34. Horn, Laurence R. 2017a. What lies beyond: Untangling the web. In R. Giora & M. Haugh (eds.), Doing pragmatics interculturally: cognitive, philosophical and sociopragmatic perspectives, 151–174. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

468 

 References

Horn, Laurence R. 2017b. Telling it slant: Toward a taxonomy of deception. In D. Stein & J. Giltrow (eds.), The pragmatic turn in law, 23–55. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Huizinga, Johan. 1949. Homo Ludens: A study of the play-element in culture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hunston, Susan. 2004. Counting the uncountable: problems of identifying evaluation in a text and in a corpus. In A. Partington, J. Morley & L. Haarman (eds.), Corpora and discourse, 157–188. Bern: Peter Lang. Hutcheon, Linda. 1994. Irony’s edge: The theory and politics of irony. Oxon: Routledge. Hymes, Dell. 1972. Models of the interaction of language and social life. In J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication, 35–71. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Hymes, Dell. 1974. Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Isenberg, Arnold. 1964. Deontology and the ethics of lying. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 24. 463–480. Israel, Michael. 2006. Saying less and meaning less. In B. Birner & G. Ward (eds.), Drawing the boundaries of meaning: Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn, 143–162. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Iwata, Seizi. 2015. And mockery: A two-layer account. Language Sciences 50. 30–48. Jary, Mark. 2010. Assertion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jaszczolt, Katarzyna. 1999. Discourse beliefs and intentions. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Jaszczolt, Katarzyna. 2009. Cancelability and the primary/secondary meaning distinction. Intercultural Pragmatics 6. 259–289. Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and other languages. Copenhagen: Høst. Johnson, Arleen. H. 1990. Humour as an innovative method for teaching sensitive topics. Educational Gerontology 16. 547–559. Jones, Judy & William Wilson. 1987. An incomplete education. New York: Ballantine. Jones, Steven. 2002. Antonymy: A corpus-based perspective. London and New York: Routledge. Jorgensen, Julia. 1996. The functions of sarcastic irony in speech. Journal of Pragmatics 26. 613–634. Jorgensen, Julia, George Miller & Dan Sperber. 1984. Test of the mention theory of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113. 112–120. Jucker, Andreas. 2009. Speech act research between armchair, field and laboratory. The case of compliments. Journal of Pragmatics 41. 1611–1635. Kahn, Wiliam. 1989. Toward a sense of organizational humor: Implications for organizational diagnosis and change. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 25 (1). 45–63. Kane, Thomas, Jerry Suls & James Tedeschi. 1977. Humor as a tool of social interaction. In A. Chapman, & H. Foot (eds.), It’s a funny thing, humour, 13–16. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1949. On a supposed right to lie from altruistic motives. In L. White Beck (ed. and transl.), Critique of practical reason and other writings in moral philosophy, 346–350. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1974 [1798]: Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. M. J. Gregor (transl.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Kant, Immanuel. 1996a [1791] On the miscarriage of all philosophical trials in theodicy G. di Giovanni (transl.), In A. W. Wood & G. di Giovanni (eds.), Religion and rational theology, 24–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References 

 469

Kant, Immanuel. 1996b [1797]. The metaphysics of morals. In M.J. Gregor & A. W. Wood (transl. and ed.), Practical philosophy, 353–603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kapogianni, Eleni. 2011. Irony via ‘surrealism’. In M. Dynel (ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains, 51–68. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kapogianni, Eleni. 2013. Irony and the literal versus nonliteral distinction: A typological approach with focus on ironic implicature strength. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Ph.D. thesis. Kapogianni, Eleni. 2014. Differences in use and function of verbal irony between real and fictional discourse: (Mis)interpretation and irony blindness. Humor 27. 597–618. Kapogianni, Eleni 2016a. The ironic operation: Revisiting the components of ironic meaning. Journal of Pragmatics 91. 16–28. Kapogianni, Eleni. 2016b. The ironist’s intentions: Communicative priority and manifestness. Pragmatics & Cognition 23(1). 150–173. Katz, Albert & Penny Pexman. 1997. Interpreting figurative statements: Speaker occupation can change metaphor to irony. Metaphor and Symbol 12(1). 19–41. Kaufer, David. 1981. Understanding ironic communication. Journal of Pragmatics 5. 495–510. Kecskés, István. 2013. Intercultural pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kecskés, István & Jacob Mey (eds.). 2008. Intention, common ground and the egocentric speaker-hearer. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Keiser, Jessica. 2016. Bald-faced lies: how to make a move in a language game without making a move in a conversation. Philosophical Studies 173 (2). 461–477. Keltner, Dacher, Randall Young, Erin Heerey, Carmen Oemig & Natalie Monarch. 1998. Teasing in hierarchical and intimate relations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75. 1231–1247. Kenyon, Tim. 2003. Cynical assertion: Convention, pragmatics, and saying ‘Uncle’. American Philosophical Quarterly 40 (3). 241–248. Kenyon, Tim. 2010. Assertion and capitulation. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91: 352–368. Kimbrough, Scott. 2006. On letting it slide. In G. Hardcastle & G. Reich (eds.), Bullshit and philosophy, 3–18. Chicago: Open Court. Kochman, Thomas. 1983. The boundary between play and nonplay in Black verbal duelling. Language in Society 12. 329–337. Korta, Kepa. 2013. Grice’s requirements on what is said. In C. Penco & F. Domaneschi (eds.), What is said and what is not, 209–224. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Kotthoff, Helga. 1996. Impoliteness and conversational humor. Folia Linguistica 30. 299–327. Kotthoff, Helga. 1999. Coherent keying in conversational humour: Contextualising joint fictionalisation. In W. Bublitz, U. Lenk & E. Ventola (eds.), Coherence in spoken and written discourse, 125–150. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Kotthoff, Helga. 2003. Responding to irony in different contexts: on cognition in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 35. 1387–1411. Kotthoff, Helga. 2006. Pragmatics of performance and the analysis of conversational humor. Humor 19. 271–304. Kotthoff, Helga. 2007. Oral genres of humor. On the dialectic of genre knowledge and creative authoring. Pragmatics 12. 263–296. Kreuz, Roger J. & Sam Glucksberg. 1989. How to be sarcastic: the echoic reminder theory of verbal irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 118. 374–386. Kreuz, Roger J., & Kristen Link. 2002. Asymmetries in the use of verbal irony. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 21. 127–143.

470 

 References

Kreuz, Roger J., Debra Long & Mary Church. 1991. On being ironic: Pragmatic and mnemonic implications. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 6. 149–162. Kreuz, Roger J. & Richard Roberts. 1993. On satire and parody: The importance of being ironic. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 8. 97–109. Kreuz, Roger J. & Richard Roberts. 1995. Two cues for verbal irony: Hyperbole and the ironic tone of voice. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10. 21–31. Kreuz, Roger J., Max Kassler, Lori Coppenrath & Bonnie McLain Allen. 1999. Tag questions and common ground effects in the perception of verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics 31. 1685–1700. Kumon-Nakamura, Sachi, Sam Glucksberg & Mary Brown. 1995. How about another piece of pie: The allusional pretense theory of discourse irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 124. 3–21. Kunneman, Florian, Christine Liebrecht, Margot van Mulken & Antal van den Bosch. 2015. Signaling sarcasm: From hyperbole to hashtag. Information Processing & Management 51. 500–509. Kupfer, Joseph. 1982. The moral presumption against lying. Review of Metaphysics 36. 103–26. La Fave, Lawrence, Roger Mannell & Ann Marie Guilmette. 1977. An irony of irony: The left-handed insult in intragroup humour. In Anthony Chapman & Hugh Foot (eds.), It’s a funny thing humour, 283–86. NY: Pergamon. Lackey, Jennifer. 2013. Lies and deception: An unhappy divorce. Analysis 73. 236–248. Lampert, Martin & Susan Ervin-Tripp. 2006. Risky laughter: Teasing and self-directed joking among male and female friends. Journal of Pragmatics 38. 51–72. Lausberg, Heinrich, David Orton & Dean Anderson. 1998. Handbook of literary rhetoric. A foundation for literary study. Leiden: Brill. Lee, Christopher & Albert Katz. 1998. The differential role of ridicule in sarcasm and irony. Metaphor and Symbol 13. 1–15. Lee, Mark. 2010. Counterfactuals and metaphor. In A. Burkhardt & B. Nerlich (eds.), Tropical truth(s): The epistemology of metaphor and other tropes, 123–135. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman. Leech, Geoffrey. 2014. The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. Leggitt, John & Raymond Gibbs, Jr. 2000. Emotional reactions to verbal irony. Discourse Processes 29. 1–24. Leland, Patrick. 2015. Rational responsibility and the assertoric character of bald-faced lies. Analysis 75 (4): 550–554. Leonard, Henry S. 1959. Interrogatives, imperatives, truth, falsity and lies. Philosophy of Science 26. 172–186. Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, Stephen. 1988. Putting linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in Goffman’s participation framework. In P. Drew & A. Wootton (eds.), Erving Goffman: Exploring the interaction order, 161–227. Oxford: Polity Press. Levinson, Stephen. 2000. Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Lewis, David. 1975. Languages and language. In K. Gunderson (ed.), Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science, Volume VII, 3–35. University of Minnesota Press. Lindley, T. Foster. 1971. Lying and falsity. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 49. 152–157. Linsky, Leonard. 1963. Deception. Inquiry 6. 157–169.

References 

 471

Littman, David, Mey, Jacob. 1991. The nature of irony: toward a computational model of irony. Journal of Pragmatics 15. 131–151. Livnat, Zohar. 2004. On verbal irony, meta-linguistic knowledge and echoic interpretation. Pragmatics & Cognition 12. 57–70. Livnat, Zohar. 2011. Quantity, truthfulness and ironic effect. Language Sciences 33(2). 305–315. Lockyer, Sharon & Michael Pickering. 2005. Beyond a joke: The limits of humour. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lockyer, Sharon & Michael Pickering. 2008. You must be joking: the sociological critique of humour and comic media. Sociology Compass 2 (3). 808–820. Long, Debra & Arthur Graesser. 1988. Wit and humor in discourse processing. Discourse Processes 11. 35–60. Lucariello Joan. 1994. Situational irony: A concept of events gone awry. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 123 (2).129–145. Lutz, William. 1987. Doublespeak: From “revenue enhancement” to “terminal living”: How government, business, advertisers, and others use language to deceive you. New York: Harper & Row. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1995. Truthfulness, lies, and moral philosophers: What can we learn from Mill and Kant? In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 16. 307–361. MacFarlane, John. 2005. Making sense of relative truth. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105. 321–339. MacFarlane, John. 2011. What is assertion? In J. Brown & H. Cappelen (eds.), Assertion, 79–98. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mahon, James E. 2003. Kant on lies, candour and reticence. Kantian Review 7. 101–133. Mahon, James E. 2006. Kant and Maria von Herbert: Reticence vs. deception. Philosophy 81. 417–444. Mahon, James E. 2007. A definition of deceiving. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 21. 181–194. Mahon, James E. 2008a. The definition of lying and deception. In E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), URL = . Mahon, James E. 2008b. Two definitions of lying. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 22. 211–230. Mahon, James E. 2009. Kant on keeping a secret. Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture 44. 21–36. Mahon, James E. 2015. The definition of lying and deception, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), E. N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . Malle, Bertram & Joshua Knobe. 1997. The folk concept of intentionality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33. 101–121. Mannison, Don. 1969. Lying and lies. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 47. 132–144. Marsili, Neri. 2014. Lying as a scalar phenomenon: insincerity along the certainty-uncertainty continuum. In S. Cantarini, W. Abraham & E. Leiss (eds.), Certainty-uncertainty – and the attitudinal space in between, 153–173. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Marsili, Neri. 2016. Lying by promising. A study on insincere illocutionary acts. International Review of Pragmatics 8 (2). 271–313.

472 

 References

Marsili, Neri. forth. Lying and certainty. In J. Meibauer (ed.), The Oxford handbook of lying. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, Robert. 1992. Irony and the universe of belief. Lingua 87. 77–90. Martin, Rod. 2007. The psychology of humour. An integrative approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Martin, James & Peter White. 2005. The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. London/ New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Matthews, Jacqueline, Jeffrey Hancock & Philip Dunham. 2006. The roles of politeness and humor in the asymmetry of affect in verbal irony. Discourse Processes 41(1). 3–24. McCarthy, Thomas. 1979. Translator’s introduction. In J. Habermas, Communication and the evolution of society, vii–xxiv. Boston: Beacon Press. McCarthy, Michael & Ronald Carter. 2004. “There’s millions of them”: hyperbole in everyday conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 36. 149–184. McCornack, Steve. 1992. Information Manipulation Theory. Communication Monographs 59. 1–16. McDonald, Skye. 1999. Exploring the process of inference generation in sarcasm: A review of normal and clinical studies. Brain and Language 68. 486–506. Meibauer, Jörg. 2005. Lying and falsely implicating. Journal of Pragmatics 37. 1373–1399. Meibauer, Jörg. 2006. Implicature. In K. Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. 2nd edn. Vol. 5. 568–581. Oxford: Elsevier. Meibauer, Jörg. 2011. On lying: intentionality, implicature, and imprecision. Intercultural Pragmatics 8. 277–292. Meibauer, Jörg. 2014a. Lying and the semantics-pragmatics interface. Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Meibauer, Jörg. 2014b. Bald-faced lies as acts of verbal aggression. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 2 (1): 127–150. Meibauer, Jörg. 2016a. Topics in the linguistics of lying: A reply to Marta Dynel. Intercultural Pragmatics 13 (1). 107–123. Meibauer, Jörg. 2016b. Aspects of a theory of bullshit. Pragmatics and Cognition 23(1). 68–91. Meibauer, Jörg. 2016c. Understanding bald-faced lies: An experimental approach. International Review of Pragmatics 8. 247–270. Mettinger, Arthur. 1994. Aspects of semantic opposition in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Metts, Sandra. 1989. An exploratory investigation of deception in close relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 6. 159–179. Miller, George. 1993. Images and models, similes and metaphors. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd edn.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Miller, Gerald R. & James B. Stiff. 1993. Deceptive communication. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Montaigne, Michael de. 1842. In W. Hazlitt (transl. and ed.), The complete works of Michael de Montaigne. London: John Tempelman. Mooney, Annabelle. 2004. Co-operation, violation and making sense. Journal of Pragmatics 36. 899–920. Moore, Joseph. 2000. Did Clinton lie? Analysis 60. 250–254. Moran, Richard. 2005a. Problems with sincerity. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105. 325–345. Moran, Richard. 2005b. Getting told and being believed. Philosophers’ Imprint 5(5). 1–29.

References 

 473

Morley, John. 2004. The sting in the tail: persuasion in English editorial discourse. In A. Partington, J. Morley & L. Haarman (eds.), Corpora and Discourse, 239–255. Bern: Peter Lang. Morreall, John. 1983. Taking laughter seriously. Albany: State University of New York Press. Morreall, John. 2009. Comic relief: A comprehensive philosophy of humor. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Morris, John. 1976. Can computers ever lie? Philosophy Forum 14. 389–401. Muecke, Douglas. 1969. The compass of irony. London: Methuen. Muecke, Douglas. 1973. The communication of verbal irony. Journal of Literary Semantics 2. 35–42. Muecke, Douglas. 1978. Irony markers. Poetics 7. 363–375. Mulkay, Michael. 1988. On humour: Its nature and its place in modern society. Oxford: Blackwell. Murphy, M. Lynne. 2003. Semantic relations and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Myers Roy, Alice. 1977. Towards a definition of irony. In R. Fasold & R. Shuy (eds.), Studies in language variation, 171–183. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Myers Roy, Alice. 1978. Irony in conversation. Ann Arbor, Ml: University Microfilms International. Nash, Walter. 1985. The language of humour. London: Longman. Neale, Stephen. 1992. Paul Grice and the philosophy of language. Linguistics and Philosophy 15. 509–559. Nemesi, Attila. 2010. Data-gathering methods in research on hyperbole production and interpretation. In E. T. Nemeth & K. Bibok (eds.), The role of data at the semantic-pragmatic interface, 381–417. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton. Nemesi, Attila. 2015. Levels and types of breaking the maxims: A neo-Gricean account of humor. Intercultural Pragmatics 12(2). 249–276. Németh T., Enikő. 2008. Verbal information transmission without communicative intention. Intercultural Pragmatics 5. 153–176. Neuhaus, Laura. 2016. On the relation of irony, understatement, and litotes. Pragmatics & Cognition 23. 117–149. Newey, Glen. 1997. Political lying: A defense. Public Affairs Quarterly 11. 93–116. Norrick, Neal. 1993. Conversational joking: Humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Norrick, Neal. 2003. Issues in conversational joking. Journal of Pragmatics 35. 1333–1359. Norrick, Neal. 2004. Hyperbole, extreme case formulations. Journal of Pragmatics 36. 1727–1739. Norrick Neal & Claudia Bubel. 2009. Direct address as a resource for humor. In N. Norrick & D. Chiaro (eds.), Humor in interaction, 29–48. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Norrick, Neal & Delia Chiaro. 2009. Humor and interaction. In Neal Norrick & Delia Chiaro (eds.), Humor in interaction, ix–xvii. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Nunberg, Geoffrey. 2001. The way we talk now. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Nyberg, David. 1993. The varnished truth. Truth telling and deceiving in ordinary life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Oring, Elliott. 2003. Engaging humor. Urbana: University of Illinois. Ozar, Anne. 2008. The moral significance of sincerity. Fordham University PhD thesis. Pagin, Peter. 2015. Assertion. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/assertion/.

474 

 References

Partington, Alan. 2006. The linguistics of laughter. A corpus-assisted study of laughter-talk. Oxon: Routledge. Partington, Alan. 2007. Irony and the reversal of evaluation. Journal of Pragmatics 39: 1547–1569. Partington, Alan. 2008a. From Wodehouse to the White House: A corpus-assisted study of play, fantasy and dramatic incongruity in comic writing and laughter-talk. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4. 189–213. Partington. Alan. 2008b. Teasing and the White House: A corpus-assisted study of face work and performing and responding to teases. Text & Talk 28. 771–792. Partridge, Eric. 1957. Usage and abusage: A guide to good English. London: H. Hamilton. Pawluk, Cheryl. 1989. Social construction of teasing. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 19. 145–167. Peirce, Charles. 1934. Belief and judgment. In C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss (eds.), Collected papers, vol. 5, 376–387. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. Pelsmaekers, Katja & Fred Van Besien. 2002. Subtitling irony: Blackadder in Dutch. The Translator 8. 241–266. Pexman, Penny, Todd Ferretti & Albert Katz. 2000. Discourse factors that influence on-line reading of metaphor and irony. Discourse Processes 29. 201–222. Pexman, Penny & Kara Olineck. 2002. Understanding irony: How do stereotypes cue speaker intent? Journal of Language and Social Psychology 21. 245–274. Pfister, Jonas. 2010. Is there a need for a maxim of politeness? Journal of Pragmatics 42 (5). 1266–1282. Piazza, Roberta. 2006. The representation of conflict in the discourse of Italian melodrama. Journal of Pragmatics 38. 2087–2104. Pomerantz, Anita. 1986. Extreme case formulations: a way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies 9. 219–229. Popa, Mihaela. 2009. Figuring the code: Pragmatic routes to the non-literal. University of Geneva PhD dissertation. Popa, Mihaela. 2010. Ironic metaphor interpretation. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 33 http://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/view/ Preminger, Alex (ed.). 1974. Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Priego-Valverde, Beatrice. 2009. Failed humor in conversation : A double voicing analysis. In N. Norrick & D. Chiaro (eds.), Humor in interaction, 165–186. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/ Philadelphia. Primoratz, Igor. 1984. Lying and the “Methods of Ethics”. International Studies in Philosophy 1. 35–57. Quintilian. 1920–1922. Institutio Oratoria. H. E. Butler (transl.). London and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred. 1940. On joking relationships. Africa 13. 195–210. Raskin, Victor. 1985. Semantic mechanisms of humor. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company. Raskin, Victor. 1998. The sense of humor and the truth. In W. Ruch (ed.), The sense of humor: Explorations of a personality characteristics, 95–108. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Raskin, Victor & Salvatore Attardo. 1994. Non-literalness and non-bona-fide in language: An approach to formal and computational treatments of humor. Pragmatics & Cognition 2. 31–69.

References 

 475

Reboul, Anne. 1994. The description of lies in speech act theory. In H. Parret (ed.), Pretending to communicate, 292–298. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Recanati, François. 1986. On defining communicative intentions. Mind & Language 1. 213–242. Recanati, François. 2003. What is said and the semantics/pragmatics distinction. In C. Bianchi & C. Penco (eds.), The semantics/pragmatics distinction: Proceedings from WOC 2002. CSLI. Recanati, François. 2004. Literal maning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Recanati, François. 2007. Indexicality, context and pretence: A speech-act theoretic account. In N. Burton-Roberts (ed.), Advances in pragmatics, 213–229. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Reimer, Marga. 2013. Grice on irony and metaphor: discredited by the experimental evidence? International Review of Pragmatics 5. 1–33. Reyes, Antonio, Paolo Rosso & Davide Buscaldi. 2012. From humor recognition to irony detection: The figurative language of social media. Data & Knowledge Engineering 74. 1–12. Reyes, Antonio, Paolo Rosso & Tony Veale. 2013. A multidimensional approach for detecting irony in twitter. Language Resources and Evaluation 47 (1). 239–268. Ritchie, Graeme. 1999. Developing incongruity-resolution theory. In Proceedings of the AISB 99 Symposium on Creative Language, 78–85. Ritchie, Graeme. 2004. The linguistic analysis of jokes. London: Routledge. Roberts, Richard & Roger Kreuz. 1994. Why do people use figurative language? Psychological Science 5. 159–163. Rockwell, Patricia. 2006. Sarcasm and other mixed messages: The ambiguous ways people use language. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press. Roguska, Magdalena. 2007. Echo and mention in the Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilsons’s theory of irony. Linguistische Berichte 211. 309–330. Rothbart, Mary & Diana Pien. 1977. Elephants and marshmallows: A theoretical synthesis of incongruity-resolution and arousal theories. In A. Chapman & H. Foot (eds.), It’s a funny thing, humor, 37–40. New York: Pergamon. Rudanko, Juhani 2006. Aggravated impoliteness and two types of speaker intention in an episode in Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. Journal of Pragmatics 38. 829–841. Saarni, Carolyn & Michael Lewis. 1993. Deceit and illusion in human affairs. In M. Lewis & C. Saarni (eds.), Lying and deception in everyday life, 1–29. New York, London: Guilford Press. Sacks, Harvey. 1972. An initial investigation of the usability of conversational materials for doing sociology. In D.N. Sudnow (ed.), Studies in social interaction, 31–74. New York: Free Press. Sanders, Robert. 2013. The duality of speaker meaning: What makes self-repair, insincerity, and sarcasm possible. Journal of Pragmatics 48. 112–122. Santayana, George. 1987 [1896]. The sense of beauty. In J. Morreall (ed.), The philosophy of laughter and humor, 92–93. Albany: State University of New York Press. Saul, Jennifer. 1999. Substitution, simple sentences, and sex scandals. Analysis 59. 106–112. Saul, Jennifer. 2000. Did Clinton say something false? Analysis 60. 255–257. Saul, Jennifer. 2002. What is said and psychological reality: Grice’s project and Relevance Theorists’ criticisms. Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 347–372. Saul, Jennifer. 2012. Lying, misleading, and the role of what is said. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schauer, Frederick & Richard Zeckhauser. 2009. Paltering. In B. Harrington (ed.), Deception: from ancient empires to internet dating, 38–54. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Schegloff, Emanuel. 2001. Getting serious: joke → serious ‘no’. Journal of Pragmatics 33. 1947–1955.

476 

 References

Schiffer, Stephen. 1972. Meaning. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schmidt-Radefeldt, Jürgen. 1977. On so-called ‘rhetorical’ questions. Journal of Pragmatics 1. 375–392. Schmitt, Frederick. 1988. Epistemic dimensions of self-deception. In B. McLaughlin & A. O. Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on self-deception, 183–204. Berkeley: University of California Press. Schnurr, Stephanie. 2009. Constructing leader identities through teasing at work. Journal of Pragmatics 41. 1125–1138. Schnurr, Stephanie & Angela Chan. 2011. When laughter is not enough. Responding to teasing and self-denigrating humour at work. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 20–35. Schober, Michael & Herbert Clark. 1989. Understanding by addressees and overhearers. Cognitive Psychology 21. 211–232. Schwoebel, John, Shelly Dews, Ellen Winner & Kavitha Srinivas. 2000. Obligatory processing of the literal meaning of ironic utterances: further evidence. Metaphor and Symbol 15. 47–61. Scott, Gini Graham. 2006. The truth about lying. Lincoln, NE: ASJA Press. Searle, John. 1969. Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John. 1975. The logical status of fictional discourse. New Literary History, Vol. VI, No. 2. Searle, John. 1979. Expression and meaning. Studies in the theory of speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John. 1993. Metaphor. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd edn.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John & Daniel Vanderveken. 1985. Foundations of illocutionary logic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seckman, Mary & Cari Couch. 1989. Jocularity, sarcasm, and relationships. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 18. 327–344. Seto, Ken-ichi. 1998. On non-echoic irony. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (eds.), Relevance theory: Applications and implications, 240–255. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Shamay-Tsoory, S.G., R. Tomer & J. Aharon-Peretz. 2005. The neuroanatomical basis of understanding sarcasm and its relationship to social cognition. Neuropsychology 19. 288–300. Shelley, Cameron. 2001. The bicoherence theory of situational irony. Cognitive Science 25. 775–818. Sherzer, Joel. 2002. Speech play and verbal art. Austin: University of Texas Press. Shibles, Warren. 1985. Lying: A critical analysis. Whitewater, WI: The Language Press. Shiffrin, Seana. 2014. Speech matters: On lying, morality and the law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Siegler, Frederick. 1966. Lying. American Philosophical Quarterly 3. 128–136. Simpson, David. 1992. Lying, liars and language. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52. 623–639. Simpson, Paul. 2003. On the discourse of satire: Towards a stylistic model of satirical humor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Simpson, Paul. 2011. “That’s not ironic, that’s just stupid”: Towards an eclectic account of the discourse of irony. In M. Dynel (ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains, 33–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sinkeviciute, Valeria. 2013. Decoding encoded (im)politeness: Cause on my teasing you can depend. In M. Dynel (ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains, 263–288. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

References 

 477

Sinkeviciute, Valeria. 2014. “When a joke’s a joke and when it’s too much”: Mateship as a key to interpreting jocular FTAs in Australian English. Journal of Pragmatics 60. 121–139. Skalicky, Stephen, Cynthia M. Berger & Nancy D. Bell. 2015. The functions of “just kidding” in American English. Journal of Pragmatics 85. 18–31. Smith, John. 1969 [1657]. Mystery of rhetoric unveiled. Facsimile reprint. Menston: Scholar Press. Smith, David L., 2004. Why we lie: The evolutionary roots of deception and the unconscious mind. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Soames, Scott. 2008. Drawing the line between meaning and implicature—and relating both to assertion. Noûs 42. 440–4655. Sorensen, Roy. 2007. Bald-faced lies! Lying without the intent to deceive. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88/2. 251–264. Sorensen, Roy. 2010. Knowledge-lies. Analysis 70. 608–615. Sperber, Dan. 1984. Verbal irony: Pretense or echoic mention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113(1). 130–36. Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1981. Irony and the use-mention distinction. In P. Cole (ed.), Radical pragmatics, 295–318. New York: Academic. Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1998. Irony and relevance: A reply to Seto, Hamamoto and Yamanashi. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (eds.), Relevance theory: Applications and implications, 283–293. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Spitz, Alice. 2005. Unpublished PhD Thesis. http://scidok.sulb.uni-saarland.de/volltexte/ 2006/595/pdf/dissFINALE.pdf Spitzbardt, Harry. 1965. English adverbs of degree and their semantic fields. Philologica Pragensia 8. 349–359. Stallone, Leticia & Michael Haugh. 2017. Joint fantasising as relational practice in Brazilian Portuguese interactions. Language & Communication 55. 10–23. Staffel, Julia. 2011. Reply to Sorensen, ‘Knowledge-Lies’. Analysis 71 (2). 300–302. Stalnaker, Robert. 1984. Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Stalnaker, Robert. 2002. Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy 25. 701–721. Stempel, Wolf-Dieter. 1976. Ironie als sprechhandlung. In W. Preisendanz & R. Warning, R. (eds.), Das Komische, 205–237. Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Stern, Josef. 2000. Metaphor in context. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Stokke, Andreas. 2013a. Lying and asserting. Journal of Philosophy 110. 33–60. Stokke, Andreas. 2013b. Lying, deceiving, and misleading. Philosophy Compass 8. 348–359. Stokke, Andreas. 2014. Insincerity. Noûs 48. 496–520. Stokke, Andreas. 2016a. Truthfulness and Gricean cooperation. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 93(3). 489–510. Stokke, Andreas. 2016b. Lying and misleading in discourse. Philosophical Review 125(1). 83–134. Stokke, Andreas. forth. Lying, sincerity, and Quality. In J. Meibauer (ed.) The Oxford handbook of lying. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stokke, Andreas & Don Fallis. 2017. Bullshitting, lying, and indifference toward Truth. Ergo 4. 277–309. Stokoe, Elizabeth. 2008. Dispreferred actions and other interactional breaches as devices for occasioning audience laughter in television sitcoms. Social Semiotics 18. 289–307. Straehle, Carolyn. 1993. ‘Samuel?’ ‘Yes dear?’ Teasing and conversational rapport. In D. Tannen (ed.), Framing in discourse, 210–229. New York: Open University Press.

478 

 References

Strawson, Peter. 1964. Intention and convention in speech acts. Philosophical Review 73: 439–460. Sullivan, Arthur. 2017. Evaluating the cancellability test. Journal of Pragmatics 121. 162–174. Sweetser, Eve. 1987. The definition of lie. In D. Holland & N. Quinn (eds.), Cultural models in language and thought, 3–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, Charlotte. 2015a. Mock politeness in English and Italian: A corpus-assisted study of the metalanguage of sarcasm and irony. Lancaster University unpublished PhD dissertation. Taylor, Charlotte. 2015b. Beyond sarcasm: The metalanguage and structures of mock politeness. Journal of Pragmatics 87. 127–141. Taylor, Charlotte. 2016. Mock politeness in English and Italian. A corpus-assisted metalanguage analysis. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Thomas, Jenny. 1986. The dynamics of discourse: A pragmatic analysis of confrontational interaction. Lancaster University unpublished PhD thesis. Thomas, Jenny. 1995. Meaning in interaction. An introduction to pragmatics. London: Pearson. Thompson, Geoff & Susan Hunston. 2000. Evaluation: An introduction: In S. Hunston & G. Thompson (eds.), Evaluation in text, 1–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tiersma, Peter. 2005. The language of perjury (focusing on the Clinton impeachment). Available as download, http://www.languageandlaw.org/PERJURY.HTM. Toplak, Mary & Albert Katz. 2000. On the uses of sarcastic irony. Journal of Pragmatics 32. 1467–1488. Turner, Ronny, Charles Edgley & Glen Olmstead. 1975. Information control in conversations: Honesty is not always the best policy. Kansas Journal of Sociology 11(1). 69–89. Turri, Angelo & John Turri. 2015. The truth about lying. Cognition 138. 161–168. Turri, Angelo & John Turri. 2016. Lying, uptake, assertion, and intent. International Review of Pragmatics 8(2). 314–333. Utsumi, Akira. 2000. Verbal irony as implicit display of ironic environment: Distinguishing ironic utterances from nonirony. Journal of Pragmatics 32. 1777–1806. Van Horne, Winston. 1981. Prolegomena to a theory of deception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42. 171–182. Veale, Tony. 2013. Strategies and tactics for ironic subversion. In M. Dynel (ed.), Developments in linguistic humour theory, 321–339. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Veale, Tony & Yanfen Hao. 2009. Support structures for linguistic creativity: A computational analysis of creative irony in similes. In Proceedings of CogSci 2009, the 31st annual meeting of the cognitive science society, 1376–1381. Verschueren, Jef. 1985. What people say they do with words: Prolegomena to an empiricalconceptual approach to linguistic action. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Verschueren, Jef. 1999. Understanding pragmatics. London: Hodder Arnold. Viebahn, Emanuel. 2017. Non-literal lies. Erkenntnis. 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670017-9880-8 Vincent Marrelli, Jocelyne. 1994. On non-serious talk: some cross-cultural remarks on the (un)importance of (not) being earnest. In H. Parret (ed.), Pretending to communicate, 253–275. Berlin.New York: De Gruyter. Vincent Marrelli, Jocelyne. 2003. Truthfulness. In J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman, J. Blommaert & C. Bulcaen (eds.), Handbook of pragmatics, 1–48. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Vincent Marrelli, Jocelyne. 2004. Words in the way of truth. Truthfulness, deception, lying across cultures and disciplines. Napoli: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane.

References 

 479

Vincent Marrelli, Jocelyne. 2006. Truthfulness. Truthfulness. In J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman, J. Blommaert & C. Bulcaen (eds.), Handbook of pragmatics, 1–72. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Vincent, Jocelyne & Cristiano Castelfranchi. 1981. On the art of lying: how to lie while saying the truth. In H. Parret, M. Sbisa & J. Verschueren (eds.), Possibilities and limitations of pragmatics. Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8–14, 1979, 749–777. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Vrij, Aldert. 2008. Detecting lies and deceit. Pitfalls and opportunities. 2nd edn. Chichester: John Wiley. Walle, Alf. 1976. Getting picked up without being put down: Jokes and the bar rush. Journal of the Folklore Institute 13. 201–217. Walton, Kendall. 1990. Mimesis as make-believe: On the foundations of the representational arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walton, Kendall. 2017. Meiosis, hyperbole, irony. Philosophical Studies 174.105–120. Weissman, Benjamin & MarinaTerkourafi. forth. Are false implicatures lies? An empirical investigation. Mind & Language. Weizman, Elda. 2001. Addresser, addressee and target: Negotiating roles through ironic criticism. In E. Weigand & M. Dascal (eds.), Negotiation and power in dialogic interaction, 125–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weizman, Elda. 2008. Positioning in media dialogue: Negotiating roles in the news interview. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Juanita M. Whalen, Penny M. Pexman, Alastair J. Gill & Scott Nowson. 2013. Verbal irony use in personal blogs. Behaviour & Information Technology 32. 560–569. Wharton, Tim. 2002. Paul Grice, Saying and Meaning. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 14. 207–48. Wharton, Tim. 2009. Pragmatics and non-verbal communication. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wiegmann, Alex, Jana Samland & Michael R. Waldmann. 2016. Lying despite telling the truth. Cognition 150. 37–42. Williams, Bernard. 2002. Truth and truthfulness: An essay in genealogy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wilson, Deirdre 1995. Is there a maxim of truthfulness? UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 7. 197–212. Wilson, Deirdre. 2006. The pragmatics of verbal irony: Echo or pretence? Lingua 116. 1722–1743. Wilson, Deirdre. forth. Irony, hyberbole, jokes and banter. In J. Blochowiak, C. Grisot, S. Durrleman-Tame & C. Laenzlinger (eds.), Formal models in the study of language. Springer. Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 1992. On verbal irony. Lingua 87. 53–76. Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 1993. Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua 90. 1–25. Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 2000 [2002, 2012]. Truthfulness and relevance. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 215–254. [Reprinted as Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 2002. Truthfulness and relevance. Mind 111. 583–632; Truthfulness and relevance. In Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. Meaning and relevance, 47–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 2012. Explaining irony. In D. Wilson & D. Sperber. Meaning and relevance, 123–145. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winner, Ellen. 1988. The point of words. Children’s understanding of metaphor and irony. London: Harvard University Press. Wreen, Michael. 2013. A P.S. on B.S.: Some remarks on humbug and bullshit. Metaphilosophy 44. 105–115.

480 

 References

Yamaguchi, Harukiro. 1988. How to pull strings with words: Deceptive violations in the garden-path joke. Journal of Pragmatics 12. 323–337. Yamanashi, Masa-aki. 1998. Some issues in the treatment of irony and related tropes. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (eds.), Relevance theory: Applications and implications, 271–281. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Young, Stacy & Amy Bippus. 2001. Does it make a difference if they hurt you in a funny way? Humorously and non-humorously phrased hurtful messages in personal relationships. Communication Quarterly 49. 35–52.  Yus Ramos, Francisco. 2000. On reaching the intended ironic interpretation. International Journal of Communication 10 (1-2): 27–78. Yus, Francisco. 2016. Humour and Relevance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zajdman, Anat. 1995. Humorous face-threatening acts: Humor as strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 23. 325–339.

Index Abraham, example 283, 316, 322, absurd(ity) 10, 27, 81, 83, 87, 96, 99, 112, 114, 135, 151, 155, 162, 166, 171–173, 175–177, 214, 222, 228, 298, 353, 356, 389, 404, 406, 409–410, 414–415, 420–424, 430 accountability, of the speaker 43, 153, 292, 359, 363, 367, 374, 378, 380–383, 399–400, 402, 420 additive implicature 75, 200, 295, 298, 405 antecedent, negatively evaluated 120–121, 123–126, 128–130 antonym(y) 102, 104, 113, 159, 165, 167–170 Aquinas 1–2, 9, 247, 249, 299, 389 as if implicature 71, 77, 95, 104, 116, 175–178, 180–181, 185, 188–195, 199, 201, 215, 217, 221, 222, 293, 415, 450 assertion/assert(ing) 4–5, 7, 10, 14–17, 48–49, 52–55, 63, 71, 75–76 – and humour 389, 397–398, 401, 406, 410–411, 431, 433, 438, 443 – and irony 162–164, 178, 180, 183, 185, 192, 195, 201–206, 208 – and deception 4, 7, 10, 14, 15, 231, 235, 241, 243–244, 246–247, 249–250, 252, 254–264, 266–270, 273–275, 277–278, 284–289, 293–299, 305, 308, 310–314, 322, 328–329, 331, 333–334, 336, 339, 341, 345, 347, 349–351, 354, 356–364, 368–375, 378–380, 383, 385, 450 – pretended 16, 161–162, 164, 178, 182, 206, 296, 336, 347, 356, 359, 398, 411 assertive, act 3, 5, 13, 55, 131, 158, 163 Athanasius, example 283, 316, 325 Augustine 1–2, 9, 247, 250, 259–261, 274, 305, 316, 432, 456, 465 autotelic humour 78, 83–84, 140, 145, 256, 388, 391, 396, 405, 407–411, 419–420, 429–430, 437, 442, 447–449, 452–453 see also overt autotelic untruthfulness, deceptive autotelic humour bald-faced lie/lying 18, 65, 75, 224, 232, 251, 256–257, 271–272, 285, 305, 327, 349–351, 353–362, 372, 432, 449 https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507922-008

bald-faced bullshit 328, 333 bare-faced lie 350–352 see also blatant lie belief ix–x, 2–8, 11, 14–15, 24–25, 27, 29, 40–41, 45–49, 52, 55–56, 59–60, 64, 66, 82, 87, 92–93, 96–101, 104, 116, 120–121, 124–128, 130, 141, 146, 152, 171, 178–179, 185–186, 188, 194–197, 200, 204, 225–230, 234, 240, 246–252, 254–257, 259–261, 266–267, 271, 274, 280, 292, 299–311, 319–326, 329, 331–332, 335–336, 340, 342, 345–351, 353, 357–358, 360, 362–364, 366–367, 369–377, 379–386, 390, 397, 401, 404, 412–413, 419, 423, 433–436, 438, 440–443, 447, 452 – false 2, 16, 46, 52, 64, 225–230, 232, 237–238, 240, 243, 246, 248, 250, 252, 262, 266, 284, 289, 292, 299–311, 319–325, 336, 340, 342, 345–346, 353, 369–372, 374–375, 377, 379–386, 404, 413, 433–435, 438, 442, 447, 452 blatant lie 252, 255–256, 285, 339, 350, 439 see also bare-faced lie bullshit vii, 224, 232, 306, 321, 325–339, 451 cancellability/cancellable 64, 84, 132, 149, 296–298, 359, 436–437 central implicature 37, 74, 77, 104, 106, 109, 337 – evaluative (in irony) 72, 109, 111–112, 114–118, 126–130, 149, 157, 159, 165, 177, 179, 181, 185, 187–189, 191, 201, 203–204, 213, 216, 222, 288, 291 Clinton, example 24, 316–318, 322, 344 commitment 5, 14–15, 43, 52, 54, 58, 75, 252, 263, 273, 295, 320, 332, 336, 390, 392, 394, 398 – to truth 60, 76, 79, 80–82, 331, 357 communicative intention 3, 7, 41, 48, 98, 228–229, 360, 365–367, 402, 442 concealment 232–233, 299, 303–305, 312, 316, 326, 350, 363–365, 376, contrariety 91, 102, 217

482 

 Index

contribution vii, 15, 19, 45–46, 49, 59, 61–62, 67–69, 308, 328, 332, 335, 339 conversational humour vii–viii, x, 9, 25–26, 80, 86–87, 136, 389, 392–393, 395–398, 408, 411, 415, 420, 441, 449 conversational implicature vii, 5, 36, 38–39, 50, 53, 64–65, 68–69, 73–75, 84, 91, 95, 106, 117, 149, 186, 202, 279–280, 283, 295, 312–314, 354–355, 378 Cooperative Principle 2, 17, 33–34, 38–40, 47, 53, 58–61, 73–74, 78–81, 83–84, 181–182, 273, 283, 339, 354, 391, 398 covert ambiguity 224, 331, 339, 343–345, 348, 435, 436–437, 451 covert explicit untruthfulness 62–63, 224, 235, 273, 339, 450–451 covert implicit untruthfulness 62–63, 224, 235, 280, 297, 309, 339, 345, 450–451 covert irony 344–345, 347–348, 426, 452 covert irrelevance 224, 339–340, 451 covert metaphor 344–345, 347, 451–452 covert pretending to lie 261–262, 451–452 covert pretending to make as if to say 294, 451–452 covert pretending to say 345, 451–452 covert pretending to use autotelic humour 451–453 see also deceptive autotelic humour covert untruthfulness vii–viii, 1, 8–11, 20, 27, 33, 56, 58, 62–64, 78, 85, 163, 224–228, 232, 235, 247, 249, 252, 264, 274, 276–277, 280, 285, 290–291, 299, 313, 317, 337, 354, 360, 381, 386–388, 396, 404–405, 408, 413, 420, 433, 435, 440, 442, 446, 448–453 see also covert explicit untruthfulness; covert implicit untruthfulness covertly untruthful implicature 19, 63, 87, 279–282, 284, 286, 288, 290–291, 293, 296–297, 299, 309–310, 314, 355, 451–452 see also deceptive implicature cue, verbal or non-verbal 15, 22, 26, 32, 90, 92–93, 98, 153–154, 158, 202, 207, 236, 282, 366, 391, 403

deceptive autotelic humour/ untruthfulness 442, 447 see also covert pretending to use autotelic humour deceptive implicature vii, 12, 61, 63, 224, 232, 242, 267, 277–280, 282–287, 290, 292–298, 306, 310, 330, 339–341, 349, 355, 451, 452, 461 see also covertly untruthful implicature deceptively withholding information vii, 69, 224, 248, 254, 273, 283, 299–325, 322, 333, 340, 342, 344, 346, 365, 376, 445, 451 see also withholding information disaffiliative humour 139, 422–423, 425, 431, 444, 446 double bluff 260–262, 292–293, 299, 452 echo 90, 92, 101, 120–121, 124–125, 127, 197–200, 200, 206, 362 evaluation 3–4, 14, 23, 55, 66, 70, 72–74, 89, 93, 106–115, 118, 120, 122, 127–130, 133, 145, 147, 153, 155, 159, 163–164, 168, 176, 179, 185, 188–191, 193–194, 197, 204, 208, 210–211, 213–216, 218, 222, 392, 414, 426, 428–430, 450 – explicit 23, 107–110, 115, 160, 193, 204 – implicated 72, 118, 129, 175, 424 see also evaluative implicature – implicit 23, 107–108, 110, 115, 126, 179, 183, 204 – negative 72, 88, 100, 105, 107, 114, 118– 122, 124–130, 132–133, 135, 144–145, 149–151, 157, 159, 167, 172, 186, 192, 194, 196, 201–204, 216, 229, 287, 355, 429, 450 – positive 118–121, 124, 126–130, 144, 149–150, 188, 190–194, 196, 199, 204, 426 see also positively evaluative irony evaluative expression 23, 72, 107–115, 117–120, 125, 127–130, 147–148, 159–160, 170, 174–175, 178, 191–193, 212, 214–215, 422, 450 evaluative implicature 71–72, 88, 94, 106–108, 112, 114–117, 121, 127–130, 147–149, 157, 159, 165–168, 172, 177, 179–181, 185, 188–190, 193–198,

Index 

 483

200–201, 203, 205, 212, 214, 219, 222, 288, 291, 422, 427, 429 – positively 119, 123, 125, 127–128, 130 – negatively 106–107, 114, 116, 127–130, 146, 175, 194, 198–200, 203, 290, 421 see also central implicature evasion, deceptive 232, 305–307, 334, 340 evasive bullshit 326, 332–334 exploitation, maxim 35–37, 46, 74, 84, 187, 235, 283, 317, 323, 457 see also flouting

frame, (non)humorous 82, 388, 390–393, 395, 397–399, 405, 411, 413, 420, 427, 431, 434–436, 439, 441 fulfilment, maxim 19, 34, 56, 80, 82, 272, 337, 342, 404 see also nonfulfilment, observance

falsehood/falsity 2–4, 10–11, 13, 35, 46, 49, 66, 69, 73, 95–96, 103, 225, 227, 247–248, 250–251, 271, 280, 299, 328, 329, 351, 357, 374, 397 first maxim of Quality/first Quality maxim vii, 2, 5, 13–14, 16–20, 33, 45–49, 52–53, 55–72, 74–79, 83–84, 86–88, 94–96, 104, 106, 115, 117, 119, 129, 144, 146, 157, 163–165, 168–169, 171, 180–181, 183–185, 188, 190, 192, 194, 196–197, 199, 201, 209–212, 214, 216, 224, 233–236, 261, 264, 270–273, 276–280, 282, 284–287, 290–291, 293–294, 297, 307–310, 312–317, 322, 336–337, 339, 345, 348–349, 354–357, 361, 370, 388, 402, 404–405, 407–408, 410–411, 413–415, 420–421, 426, 428–429, 437, 441–442, 449–452 see also truthfulness maxim first maxim of Quantity/first Quantity maxim 37, 48, 66–68, 74, 196, 198, 200–201, 210, 212, 233, 276, 283, 308–315, 317–318, 322, 324, 340, 437, 451 flout(ing), maxim vii, 11, 13, 17–20, 33, 35–37, 39, 44, 46–47, 50–56, 61–81, 83–88, 94–95, 104, 106, 117, 119, 129, 140, 144, 146, 157, 164–165, 168–169, 171, 180–190, 192, 194, 196–197, 199, 201, 209–212, 214, 216, 222, 233–236, 271–272, 277–278, 280–287, 290, 293–295, 297–298, 306–312, 314, 316, 339–340, 342, 345, 348–349, 354–357, 361, 388, 402, 404–405, 407–408, 413–416, 420–421, 426, 428–429, 438, 442, 446–452

hearer-inferred what is said 63–64, 224, 235, 261, 309–313, 322, 336–337, 339, 345–346, 349, 437 humorous deception 86, 387, 433–435, 441–442, 447 humorous irony 22, 136, 145, 150–151, 171, 421–422, 424, 427, 430–431, 448, 452 humorousness 26–27, 140 hyperbole vii, 9, 13, 19, 22, 65–69, 72, 74–75, 83, 88, 129, 143, 146, 180–181, 183, 189–192, 206–210, 213–215, 223, 232, 276–277, 291, 294, 297, 312, 314–315, 337, 340, 355, 359, 382, 408, 413, 415, 420, 427, 450–451 hyperbolic irony 178, 207, 213–215, 450

garden-path humour 85, 87, 344, 435–437, 446–447 generalised conversational implicature 68, 283, 312–314

implicature, vs what is said 17, 19, 35, 40, 45–46, 50–51, 56, 59, 61, 63, 66, 71, 73–77, 84, 86–87 see also additive implicature; as if implicature; central (evaluative) implicature; conversational implicature; covertly untruthful implicature; deceptive implicature; evaluative implicature; generalised conversational implicature; intermediate implicature; making as if to implicate; negatively evaluative implicature; particularised conversational; implicature; scalar implicature; substitutional implicature see also flouting implicitness 21, 23, 109, 127, 131, 139, 141, 144, 146, 198, 231 impoliteness 97, 130, 133, 142 (im)politeness 119, 142, 439

484 

 Index

incongruity 14, 27, 93, 409, 415, 420–421, 433 insincerity 5–8, 11, 13, 15, 163–164, 247, 327, 354, 396–397 (in)sincerity 5, 7 see also sincerity intermediate implicature 72, 116, 118, 126, 128–129, 175, 177, 291, 293 intention – intention, and belief x, 3–8, 24, 27, 29, 243, 266, 331–332, 335, 390, 442 – intention recognition 40, 43 – intention, and deception 8, 24, 40–42, 62, 227–230, 238, 243, 247, 249–252, 254–255, 259, 261–263, 301–302, 326– 328, 349–350, 353, 355, 362, 369–370, 372–373, 375, 385, 432 see also communicative intention; reflexive intention(ality) intentionality 34, 40, 57, 228, 257, 272, 401 jocularity 143, 290, 357, 388, 391–394, 395, 400, 419–420, 423, 427, 436, 439, 443 joking viii, 15, 79, 82–83, 140, 230, 264, 388–390, 392, 397–398, 400–401, 405, 408, 410, 421, 432–434, 439–440, 442 see also kidding Kant 2, 6, 8, 34–35, 46, 57, 267, 273, 299 kidding 82, 357, 389, 390, 392, 401–402, 433–434, 438–439, 442 see also joking laughter 22, 26, 238 lexical meaning reversal 109, 157–158, 165, 168–170, 206, 274, 450 see also local lexical meaning reversal irony lie/lying viii, xi, 3–4, 6–10, 12–20, 33, 42, 47–48, 56–60, 62–63, 65, 76, 79, 85, 138, 217, 221, 224, 226–228, 231–235, 241–252, 254–275, 277–280, 283–287, 289, 291–292, 294–295, 297, 299–300, 304–307, 310–314, 316, 318, 320, 325, 326, 328, 330, 334, 337–340, 343–344, 346–347, 349–356, 359–362, 368–381, 383–387, 389, 403, 412, 422, 432–434, 438, 440, 445, 450–452

litotes 13, 66, 158, 207, 208 local lexical meaning reversal irony 159, 169–170, 450 making as if to implicate 95, 117, 189–199, 217, 222 making as if to say 17, 19, 39, 54–55, 58, 65–66, 70–71, 74–77, 79, 95, 101–102, 104, 112, 117, 128–129, 157–159, 161–162, 164–166, 172–174, 176, 178, 180–181, 183, 186, 189, 204, 217, 229, 235, 272, 277–279, 285–287, 291–297, 336–337, 345–346, 348–349, 355–356, 359, 411, 413–415, 420, 449–450, 452 make-believe 45, 162, 390, 410 Manner, category 34, 60 Manner, maxims 79, 140, 196–197, 200, 233–234, 282, 317, 322, 339–340, 342–343, 345, 348–349, 437, 438, 445–446, 451–452 meaning negation, see negation meaning opposition, see opposition meaning reversal, see reversal meaning substitution 72, 206, 278 see also substitutional implicature meiosis vii, 9, 13, 22, 65–69, 72, 74–75, 77, 83, 88, 129, 158, 180, 183, 190, 206–211, 213–215, 223, 232, 276–278, 294, 297, 312, 314–315, 355, 359, 413, 415, 420, 450–451 meiotic irony 66, 157, 210–212, 214–215, 278, 450 metaphor vii, 9–13, 19, 61, 65, 69, 71, 73–75, 78–79, 83, 88, 95, 129, 145–146, 180, 183, 199, 206–207, 215–223, 279, 285, 287, 291–298, 330, 344–345, 347, 349, 355, 357, 359, 389, 413, 415–416, 420, 450–452 metaphorical irony 116–117, 178, 214, 217, 219–221, 450 metapragmatic label 26, 108, 137–138, 149, 224, 288 miscommunication 43, 98, 229, 363 misleading 35, 57, 62, 86, 89, 225, 229–231, 233, 248, 255–256, 283, 294–295, 301, 303, 310–311, 316, 318, 334, 341, 374, 384–385, 433

Index 

misunderstanding 11, 43, 80–81, 92, 98, 119, 131–132, 229–230, 345, 360 multi-party interaction 8, 42, 44, 86, 133–134, 139, 152, 155, 223–224, 346–347, 362, 366–368, 371, 373, 375, 377, 386, 407, 423, 425, 431, 438, 443, 444, 447, 453 natural, language data ix–x, 1, 24–25, 27–28, 30–31, 40, 45, 62, 64, 96, 123, 250, 280, 430, 450, 453 natural, meaning 20–21, 238, 240 negation, meaning 70, 91, 95, 102, 104, 113, 119–120, 149, 158–160, 165, 168, 212–213, 274 see also opposition; reversal negative evaluation, see evaluation negatively evaluative implicature, see evaluative implicature nonfulfilment, maxim 17–18, 20, 35–36, 58, 63–64, 83–87, 94, 186–188, 224, 233, 236, 271–272, 283, 309, 322, 361, 407, 420, 452 see also non-observance, fulfilment, observance non-ironic humour vii, 123, 424, 431 non-observance, maxim 20, 35, 62 see also nonfulfilment non-participant 107, 134, 144, 151–155, 364, 376–377, 424, 427 non-prototypical lying 235, 261, 279, 287, 294, 297 non-seriousness 15, 387–397, 400–401, 420, 405, 415 see also seriousness nonsense 123, 298, 325, 327, 331, 333–334, 338–339 non-verbal deception 41, 225, 231, 236, 240, 242, 292 non-verbal lying 267, 284 non-verbal saying 267 observance, maxim 35, 37, 47, 51–53, 57–58, 61–62, 64, 74, 78–79, 86, 187, 404–405, 447 see also fulfilment omission 75, 224, 227, 232–233, 304–306, 309, 313

 485

opposition, meaning 18, 69, 88, 90–92, 102, 104, 106, 119, 143, 168, 206, 209, 212, 218, 221, 312, 450 see also negation; reversal opting out 35, 59, 78–79, 83–85, 271, 328, 354, 404–405, 408, 410, 413, 416, 420, 426, 428–429, 442, 448–449, 452 overstatement 66, 208–209, 234–235, 276–277, 314, 390, 427 overt autotelic untruthfulness 3, 84, 86, 387–388, 397–398, 402, 404–405, 410–413, 420, 427–428, 433, 442, 447, 452 see also autotelic humour overt explicit untruthfulness 71–72, 77, 95, 113, 146, 184, 203, 213, 217, 235, 449 overt implicit untruthfulness 71, 77, 95, 199, 217, 450 overt pretence/pretending 72, 95, 145, 195, 204, 256, 397, 409–411, 413, 426 overt untruthfulness vii–viii, 1, 8–12, 20, 27, 65–66, 70–71, 77–79, 82, 86–88, 94–102, 104, 106, 109–113, 116–118, 121–123, 126, 129, 135, 139, 141, 144–146, 149, 157, 160, 164, 170–171, 173–174, 177–178, 181, 185, 192, 195, 202, 207, 212, 214, 216–217, 219, 223, 227, 229, 277, 282, 285, 291–293, 310, 330, 337, 354–357, 359–360, 370, 378, 382, 387–389, 398, 400–406, 408–410, 413, 415, 419–421, 426–431, 433, 442–443, 448–452 overtly untruthful implicature 77, 104, 111–112, 175–176, 178, 185, 188–189, 192–193, 199, 222, 359, 404 see also as if implicature participant 4, 44–45, 60, 110, 134, 150, 152–156, 245, 305, 354, 362–365, 367–369, 371, 376–377, 379, 386, 389, 396, 419, 423, 427, 441 participation framework 44, 362, 375, 423 particularised conversational implicature 36, 65, 283 play(fulness) 27, 83, 126, 130, 139, 145, 151, 163, 201, 293, 388, 390–392, 395–399, 411–412, 416, 419, 427–428, 434–435, 439

486 

 Index

politeness 98, 119, 130–133, 136, 142, 149, 159, 165, 201, 276, 365, 426, 439 positive evaluation, see evaluation positively evaluative irony 118–123, 128, 193, 425 positively evaluative implicature, see evaluative implicature pragmatic meaning reversal (irony) 71, 105, 113, 146, 162, 164–165, 167, 172, 175, 202, 206, 290–291, 429–430, 450 pretended assertion, see assertion primary meaning 185, 280, 297, 451 propositional meaning reversal (irony)  157–159, 161–165, 168–170, 175, 177, 184, 196, 199, 203, 205–206, 219–220, 288, 290, 450 put-on, humour 86, 392, 433–434, 436, 438–439, 447 Quality, category 2, 11, 18, 33–34, 47, 55–56, 58, 59, 76, 276, 312 Quality, maxims 46, 48, 49, 53, 58, 60–62, 76, 312, 328 see also first maxim of Quality; second maxim of Quality, supermaxim of Quality Quality-based figure vii, viii, 9, 14, 48, 65, 71–73, 87–88, 95, 113, 180, 184, 206–207, 223, 235, 279, 286–287, 293–294, 296–298, 330, 335–336, 346, 355, 359–360, 389, 405, 413, 415, 419, 429, 450–452 Quantity, category 13, 34, 67, 234, 312, 318 Quantity, maxims 16, 60, 67, 233–234, 308–309, 315 see also first maxim of Quantity; second maxim of Quantity, supermaxim of Quantity ratified hearer/hearer 42, 44, 144, 153–154, 156, 349, 363–365, 367–368, 371–375, 377–379, 381, 384, 386, 423–424 referent, of evaluation/irony 23, 50, 72, 88, 93, 107–108, 114–115, 118, 121, 124–130, 133–135, 144, 164, 167, 173, 179, 185–186, 188, 190–194, 196, 204, 210, 419, 426, 428–429

reflexive, intention(ality)/meaning 41–43, 363, 365, 369, 373–375, 392, 402 Relation, category 34, 60 Relation, maxim 37, 68, 71, 140, 182–183, 186–192, 200, 222, 233–234, 281, 284–286, 306, 333, 339–342, 354, 414, 451 relevance theory 9, 65, 70–71, 75, 90, 101, 116, 120, 124, 182, 198, 200, 206, 366 reversal, meaning 66, 70–73, 88–89, 91–92, 101–102, 104–106, 109–110, 112–114, 117–118, 125, 128–130, 139–140, 146–147, 157–172, 174–180, 183–186, 188–191, 194, 196, 199, 202–203, 205–206, 209, 211–215, 217, 219–223, 274, 288, 290–291, 422, 426, 429–431, 437, 450 see also negation; opposition rhetorical question 13, 90, 143, 166–167, 173, 190–191, 348, 427 sarcasm vii, 13, 15–18, 21, 89, 95, 101, 129, 131–133, 136–150, 158–159, 164–165, 169, 183, 194–195, 201, 223, 355, 390, 423, 425–428, 431 sarcastic irony 89, 134, 136, 144, 150–151, 154, 422–424, 427, 458 SAT, see Speech Act Theory saying, see what is said scalar implicature 67, 313–315 second maxim of Quality/Quality maxim 37, 46–48, 58, 76, 329, 334–335, 337, 340, 451 second maxim of Quantity/Quantity maxim 68, 196, 339–341, 437, 451 seriousness 15–16, 163, 289, 387–390, 392–393, 395–399, 404, 416 see also non-seriousness sign 31, 44, 236, 238, 240, 268 signal 15, 26, 31, 70, 151, 236, 238, 240, 261–262, 267–270, 292, 390 silence 83–84, 269, 305, 307–309, 319–320 sincerity 1, 4–8, 11, 48, 60, 88, 163, 165, 196, 266, 374, 397, 413 see also insincerity speaker meaning ix, 15, 17, 19, 33–35, 39–43, 46–47, 50–52, 54, 61–63, 65–66,

Index 

74–77, 80, 83–84, 86–88, 95, 153, 161, 165, 169, 174–179, 185, 188–189, 192, 209, 229, 236, 240, 263, 268, 270, 273, 286–287, 293, 298, 309, 312, 337, 345, 363, 367, 369, 373, 387–389, 396, 402, 404–405, 407–410, 413, 416, 419–421, 425–429, 431, 435–436, 441, 443, 447, 449, 452–453 speaker-meaning-telic humour 78, 84–85, 388, 396, 404–405, 411, 413, 420–421, 433, 441, 444, 447–448, 452–453 speech act 5, 7–8, 11, 13–14, 54–55, 60, 79, Speech Act Theory 3–4, 11, 55, 131, 162–165, 244, 266, 295–296, 357, 368 substitutional implicature 75, 95, 295, 298, 449 superiority 29, 289, 422, 443–444, 447 supermaxim of Quality 18–19, 45–49, 59, 62, 271, 336 surrealistic irony 87, 95, 113, 116, 151, 157, 166, 171–178, 222, 409, 421–422, 424, 450 target – of deception 8, 225, 227, 238, 240, 244–245, 250, 255, 257, 259, 319, 368, 372, 434–435, 441–442, 444–445, 447 – of humour 142, 397, 422–423, 425, 434, 443–444 – of irony 89, 92–93, 107–108, 111, 126–128, 130, 132, 134, 136, 144–145, 150–156, 183, 185, 188, 190, 192, 422–423, 427, 431 – of sarcasm 132, 136, 139, 144–145, 147, 149–151, 169, 183, 422–423, 425–427 teasing viii, 27, 82, 122, 126, 201, 237, 256, 330, 378, 389–390, 395, 397, 403, 408, 411, 427–429, 432–433, 438–440 total signification 34, 49, 295, 298 transparency, of (un)truthfulness 12–13, 94, 98–100, 143, 195, 357, 402, 410, 420 truth ix–x, 1–11, 14, 33, 35, 45–49, 50–53, 55–56, 59–60, 63, 67, 75, 79–82, 96–97, 103, 107, 146, 167, 184, 188, 197–198, 206, 210, 224, 227–228, 231, 234, 243, 247, 249, 253–256, 261, 263, 265, 273–274, 276, 280, 287, 304–305, 307, 311–313, 315–318, 322, 326–334, 336, 339, 352–355, 357, 359, 364, 369, 397, 438

 487

truthful meaning 2, 9, 11, 66, 82, 104, 118, 139, 164, 174, 179, 184–186, 188–189, 191–192, 204, 215, 227, 292, 324, 342–343, 345, 349, 361, 388, 397–401, 403, 408–411, 413, 415, 417, 420–421, 439, 441–442, 444, 446 truthfulness viii–ix, 1–9, 27–28, 33, 45, 47–49, 52, 55–66, 69, 73, 75, 78–79, 82–83, 86–87, 104, 121, 126, 146, 163–164, 168, 170–171, 176, 178–179, 183, 185, 188, 190–191, 194, 196, 199, 203, 207, 210, 227, 235, 264, 271, 273–274, 276, 288–289, 298, 318, 329, 336–338, 357, 361, 387–388, 395–398, 401–402, 404–405, 407, 420, 430, 433, 438, 442–443, 448–452 truthfulness maxim/maxim of truthfulness  47–48, 56–57, 62–65, 73, 75, 82–83, 164, 210, 235, 273, 336–337, 361, 407, 448–451 understatement 66–67, 69, 79, 83, 143, 196, 207–211, 234–235, 276–277, 294, 313–315, 340, 390, 427 see also meiosis unratified hearer/listener 44–45, 153, 360, 363–364, 371, 379, 383–384, 424 verisimilar irony 16, 71–72, 78, 93, 95, 104, 109, 113, 116–117, 119, 129, 132, 163, 177–186, 188–206, 210, 215, 219, 222, 293, 296, 355, 425, 450 verisimilitude 26, 28–30, 119, 430 violation, maxim vii, 1, 13, 17–18, 33, 35–37, 47, 56–64, 66–67, 78, 80–81, 83–87, 94, 120, 163, 183, 187, 210, 224, 233–236, 270–273, 276–278, 282–284, 286, 290–294, 297, 306, 308–314, 317–318, 322, 329, 334–336, 339–343, 345, 348–349, 354, 361, 404–405, 407–408, 435, 437–438, 440–441, 445–447, 449–451 what is said, def. 19, 34–35, 40, 46–47, 49–56 see also hearer-inferred what is said, implicature vs what is said withholding information, non-deceptive 66, 232, 299–302 see also deceptively withholding information