Quotation and Truth-Conditional Pragmatics

Xiaofei Wang

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138090026
• eBook ISBN: 9781351611176
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistic Semantics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In the past decades, quotation theories have developed roughly along three lines—quotation types, meaning effects, and theoretical orientations toward the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Currently, whether the quoted expression is truth-conditionally relevant to the quotational sentence, and if there is a truth-conditional impact, whether it is generated via semantic or pragmatic processes, have become the central concerns of quotation studies.

In this book, quotation is clearly defined for the first time as a constituent embedded within yet distinctive from the quotational sentence. Also, as the first monograph to address the semantics/pragmatics boundary dispute over quotation, it argues that the semantic content of quotation amounts to its contribution to the intuitive truth-conditional content of the quotational utterance via two modes of presentation, which are incarnated in the functioning of quotation marks and manifested as use and mention. The use/mention-based analysis in this book can shed light on the semantic theorizing of other metalinguistic phenomena, while the semantics/pragmatics perspective will provide methodological implications for other relevant studies.

The new conception of quotation and thought-provoking analysis on use/mention, truth-conditional pragmatics, and the semantics/pragmatics boundary in this book will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy of language and linguistics. It will also serve as a clear guide to the current state of quotation studies and how to formulate a semantic theory of quotation.

1 Quotation and use/mention

Chapter 1 introduces the research background of how the author explores the meaning of quotation in this book. Since it is not easy for people to find their feet with this issue, the author sets out to address two questions by clarifying two sets of concepts. (1) What is quotation? Quotation, defined here as a linguistic representation saliently signified with quotation marks, is a combination of quotation marks and what is embedded within. It is a constituent embedded within yet distinctive from the quotational sentence. (2) What does it mean to say the “meaning” of quotation? As quotation theories usually interpret the meaning of quotation in terms of use and/or mention, the author introduces some preliminary aspects of these two concepts to prepare readers for the journey back to the philosophical tradition in quotation study.

1.1 Introduction

Quotation is for most people a device of reporting someone’s speech or thought. It is also typically viewed as a device of “turning language to itself” (Cappelen & Lepore, 2007. p. 1) in which what is quoted is simply mentioned. For this reason, most people think we can make sense of a quotational sentence perfectly well without understanding exactly what is quoted. In this monograph, I will argue that, on the contrary, we cannot understand a quotational sentence without understanding what is quoted and how it contributes to the semantic content of the whole sentence.

In daily communication, what is quoted is nothing but an ordinary expression marked in one way or another for quotational use. As the contribution of what is quoted cannot be made without taking into consideration (quotation) marks that make an expression quoted, their combination is worth independent scrutiny. In this book, this combination has a name—quotation. In other words, quotation is defined here as a linguistic representation saliently signified with quotation marks, which refers to the complex of quotation marks and what is embedded within.

This idea of treating quotation as distinctive from the quotational sentence has not been conspicuously acknowledged by academia, yet it can be found implicitly in many philosophical discussions of quotation. For example, when asking questions like “what is the reference of a quotation?” (Recanati, 2001b, p. 637), we use quotation to denote the embedded complex structure in a quotational sentence rather than the quotational sentence itself. When we characterize the metalinguistic nature of quotation by saying “quotations are used to talk about a very particular part of the world, namely, language itself” (Cappelen & Lepore, 2007, p. 5), what is at issue is not the quotational sentence either. More straightforwardly, Cappelen and Lepore (2007) discussed how the quotation expression “gone” (p. 67), as a combination of quotation marks and the expression embedded within, can quote different things in different contexts.

What is controversial is whether quotation marks are necessary for a linguistic expression to be called “quotation.” This is no trivial matter. On one hand, it is closely related to the question of to what extent the use of quotation marks affects the grammaticality of a sentence or merely the orthographic or academic norms (Brendel, Meibauer, & Steinbach, 2011, p. 14). On the other hand, as quotation marks are the most, if not the only, salient indicators of quotation, it is critical for any theory that tries to explore the meaning of quotation to understand what effects they have.

Despite the dispute over the necessity of quotation marks, a consensus has been reached that quotation marks, if they are present, have some influence over the contribution of what is quoted to the interpretation of the quotational sentence. What remains contested, though, is whether this influence is semantic or pragmatic, and whether what is quoted makes a truth-conditional contribution by use or mention. While the former reflects the debate about the semantics/pragmatics (henceforth S/P)¹ divide in general theories of meaning, the latter exhibits a progressive development of the research horizons on quotation. Both issues have become the central concerns of quotation theories in recent decades. As these questions are fundamental in any theory that attempts to set a clear divide between semantics and pragmatics, their resolution will contribute to the study not only of quotation in particular, but also the theory of meaning in general.

In view of the theoretical landscape of quotation studies and the S/P dispute related to the issues mentioned above, this book aims to formulate an account of the meaning of quotation, which is informed not just by the philosophical debate over the S/P boundary, but also by developments in theories of quotation. Before I set out to explore the meaning of quotation, it is necessary to address two issues right at the beginning:

i What is quotation?

ii What does it mean to say the “meaning” of quotation?

I will clarify the concept of “quotation” in this chapter and leave the second question to be answered in Chapter 2 after reviewing the literature on quotation.

1.2 Quotation

1.2.1 Quotation in various co-texts

In the literature on quotation, the linguistic phenomena presented below have been addressed or alluded to. They showcase the diversity of what is quoted and the linguistic environment it is embedded in.

1

a “Brussels” rhymes with “muscles.”

b Then she said, “Will you write a letter?” and I said, “Sure.”

c Alice said that life “is difficult to understand.”

d She took me to the “in” Hollywood restaurants and pointed out the important producers and agents.

e “ ” has no characters.

f Alice said that life is difficult to understand.

The first example (1a) is commonly called pure quotation or metalinguistic citation, yet also characterized as a type of closed quotation by Recanati (2001b), or mention by Noh (2000).

The follow-up (1b) is commonly called direct quotation or direct reported speech. It is a frequent subject in literary studies with reference to free direct speech (namely, direct speech without quotation marks) or in contrast with indirect reported speech such as (1f), both of which appear not conspicuously as quotational use because no quotation marks are present.

The third example (1c) is widely recognized as mixed quotation à la Davidson (1979). It is a mix of direct and indirect quotation, or hybrid quotation, according to Recanati (2001b, pp. 139, 658). A similar range of phenomena have been studied by other scholars under labels such as incorporated (Clark & Gerrig, 1990), double-duty (García-Carpintero, 2003), impure (Gómez-Torrente, 2003), and sub-clausal (Potts, 2007) quotation. Despite its syntactical proximity with (1c), (1d) is treated separately as a scare quote, which has been largely regarded as a pragmatic phenomenon by Cappelen and Lepore (2007). The case of (1e) involves the quoting of an empty expression noted by Sorensen (2008), which can direct readers to similar cases where the quote items are not linguistically meaningful on their own.

Instances that have aroused philosophers’ attention in the first place are pure quotations. The second tier in chronological order is mixed quotation and its similar yet distinctive twin-like scare quote. It has assumed a dominant position in quotation study, as is shown above by the variety of names mixed quotation is known by in the literature. Meanwhile, a broad range of cases, which would not be regarded as quotation in a traditional sense, have also come into the scope of philosophical discussion, such as empty quote (1e) (Gómez-Torrente, 2011; Sorensen, 2008).

1.2.2 Quotation and quotational sentences

In conformity with the philosophical tradition, this book is primarily concerned with cases of (1a) to (1e), leaving indirect quotation (1f) as the backdrop onto which the semantic content of quotational sentences can be projected due to the mutually transformational relationship between direct and indirect speech reports. Moreover, this tradition further warrants the definition of quotation adopted in this book.

This conception of quotation induces a treatment of quotation (simpliciter/per se/proper) and quotational sentence as two distinctive constructs, however dependent they are on each other. Because of the use of quotation marks, quotation manifests itself as self-contained in the sense that it is, relatively speaking, syntactically independent, semantically complete, and perceptually holistic. Similar ideas can be found in Tarski’s (1956) Proper Name Theory, in which quotations, called quotation-mark names, are treated like single words of a language. Apart from being a name, quotation may also be treated like a semantic category such as description by Geach (1957) or demonstrative by Davidson (1979). This is further developed and summarized by Recanati (2001b, p. 649), who posits that quotations are like singular terms.

On the flip side, quotation cannot be quotation unless it is part of a quotational sentence. The examples above have shown that different types of quotation assume their names as they are situated in different linguistic contexts. One unexpected result, though, is that quotation and quotational sentences are so intertwined that scholars don’t explicitly distinguish them. In almost all usages of the term “quotation,” whether it refers to the whole sentence or not is not clear. What is more shocking is that scholars generally don’t find it necessary to make it clear. After all, one cannot talk about quotation without considering what is embedded and where it is embedded.

In this monograph, my split treatment of quotation from quotational sentences will promise more analytic rigor than clustering them together. It captures what is common beneath the various approaches to the meaning of quotation. For example, the whole discussion of what refers, what is referred, and how it is referred in quotation is mainly about quotation, with quotational sentences only in a very marginal place. Moreover, the claim that mixed quotation can be used is also based on dealing with the relationship between quotation and quotational sentences; namely, how what is quoted is merged into the quotational sentence as it is without quotation marks. We will carry on this practice, albeit in a more pronounced way.

1.2.3 Quotation marks and what is quoted

Quotation marks are normally apostrophes: single in Britain, double in the United States and China, double angles in parts of Europe, or hook brackets in Japan. In some written discourses, quotation marks can be substituted by other typographical means, such as italicization, bold face, indentation, and line indentation (Quine, 1940; Geach, 1957; Leech & Short, 1981). In spoken discourse, quotation marks are replaced by emphatic intonations, oral promptings (quote-unquote), or finger-dance quote. In both types of discourse, quotation marks and their alternatives can often be omitted without jeopardizing the intelligibility or well-formedness of the utterance (Washington, 1992, p. 588). This is often alluded to in charges against theories of quotation that are profoundly gravitated toward quotation marks.

From this we can see that quotational devices of verbal, gestural, and other semiotic natures abound in daily use. Nevertheless, quotation marks remain the canonical indicator of quotation in comparison with other devices. For example, direct speech is often marked prosodically or paralinguistically, yet “it would be an overstatement to claim that prosodic marking is used systematically as a sign of reported speech in talk the way quotation marks are in texts” (De Brabanter, 2010, p. 114). Moreover, as is mentioned in section 1.1, what effects quotation marks have over the quotational sentence has been the center of debate (also see Benbaji, 2004; Gutzmann & Stei, 2011; Reimer, 1996). Therefore, an account of cases with quotation marks not only helps resolve this debate, but also anticipates how cases with alternative marks work.

Compared with the orthographical rigidity of quotation marks, what is quoted may vary in length and content. It may not make any sense on its own, such as a meaningless string, an ungrammatical juxtaposition of letters, an exotic expression, a special phonetic transcription, an empty name, or even some non-linguistic materials. This diversity of what is quotable urges scholars to adopt neutral terms such as quoted material or quoted item to refer to what is embedded in quotation marks (Cappelen & Lepore, 2007; Washington, 1992). In this book, I will adopt a broad sense of quoted expression and take it as a generic term to subsume what might fall in between quotation marks in disregard of the semantic connotation of the word expression and meaningfulness or meaninglessness of the embedded item per se.

The inclusiveness of quoted expression serves two purposes. For one, it manifests a conception of quotation in terms of composite object rather than linguistic function. For another, it points to an aspect of the semantic inertia of what is quoted; i.e., what is quoted being meaningless does not render the whole sentence meaningless (Recanati, 2001b, p. 651). It follows that a semantic theory of quotation can remain mute about the nature of the semantic values of what is quoted, which is recognized and elucidated by Cappelen and Lepore (2007, p. 147). However, this sense of semantic inertia does not entail that what is quoted makes no semantic contribution to the quotational utterance, and that what is quoted has no semantic significance of its own. More details can be found in Chapter 7.

In this section, I have made an anatomic analysis of the object of study in this book—quotation. For the first time, quotation is clearly defined as a constituent embedded within, yet distinctive from, the quotational sentence. This working definition respects the analytical tradition of quotation study. It also draws people’s attention to the issue of what level of representation (such as the sub-sentential level) a theory of quotation should be concerned about. As I will show in Chapter 3, this construal of quotation paves the way for understanding the meaning of quotation in terms of its semantic contribution to the quotational sentence. This is also a tentative answer to question (ii).

However, quotation theorists do not think of the meaning of quotation in this way. A review of the history of quotation study in Chapter 2 will show that the meaning of quotation has largely been interpreted in terms of use and/or mention. To prepare readers for that historic journey, let me introduce the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Quotation and use/mention
• 2 Classic theories of quotation
• 3 Quotation and the semantics/pragmatics boundary dispute
• 4 Truth-conditional pragmatics
• 5 A TCP-informed semantic theory of quotation
• 6 A trichotomous construal of the mention-dimension of quotation
• 7 A trichotomous conception of the use-dimension of quotation
• 8 Toward integration of the two trichotomies for a semantic theory of quotation
• 9 Conclusion
• References
• Index