Litotes (understatement) as a result of Gricean categories of Quality & Relevance violation.

Irena V. Matveeva И.В. Матвеева

All-Russian Distance Всероссийский заочный

Institute of Finance финансово-экономический

and Economics институт

Key-words: Gricean maxims violation, politeness, litotes, irony.

Ключевые слова: нарушение Грайсовских максим, вежливость, литота, ирония.

Analysis of litotes results in unexpected outcome. More often it is explained within the limits of stylistic functioning of negation and is set against hyperbole imparting stressed temperance, but not emphasis to the utterance.

G.P. Grice describes litotes being a result of the 1^st Maxim of Category of Quality violation – «Do not say what you believe to be false» (Grice 1975: 46, 53).

But can it be justified to call litotes deliberate dethroning, unmasking of one dialogue participant idea by another one? We mean only those cases, when such a dethroning has nothing to do with lying. That is we are not talking about irony. E. g.:

Lemkus being offended would say:

- You can’t understand what religion is for me…

- I can, - Tarasevich interrupted him by gesture. - It’s a source of earnings.

(Dovlatov, V. 3, p. 108)*.

The way Tarasevich finishes the utterance started by Lemkus evidently understates its termination be it made by Lemkus himself. But in this particular situation it is not impartially false which deprives us of the possibility to regard it as an irony. We would rather assume such cases to be litotes illustrating the 3^rd Gricean Category of Relation («Be relevant») violation. Usually such a violation results in communicational discomfort that is not peculiar to stylistic effect, produced by litotes.

Thus, the same trope, being a result of different Gricean maxims violation can realize different, even opposite, communicational intentions. With litotes it can be either escaping communicational discomfort or deliberate making of it.

Interesting, that litotes showing up frequently intensifies the negative component of meaning, makes it possible to compare incomparable things, creates «white lie» effect, but is not lying actually. The last mentioned function of litotes draws this phenomenon together with irony, at least from the point of view of stylistic effect produced by the latter and purpose of using. Compare:

Marianna had a desolate face without defects and somehow imperfect figure.

(Dovlatov, V. 1, p. 339).

Of course, my father liked a drink. May be not heavier than others, but somehow more obviously.

(Dovlatov, V. 2, p. 200).

The book was published with only one misprint. On the cover it was traced out in large letters: «FEICHTWAGNER».

(Dovlatov, V. 3, p. 11).

It is a good car: It goes forward and backward.

(Shibles, Ch. «Contradicting Humor»).

All stated above is not anyhow coordinated with traditional relation to litotes being a contribution to the English national tradition, reflected in speech etiquette of the last. Litotes being limited in that way is not able to make communicational discomfort deliberately. And even constructions containing litotes expressing a thought by denying its contradictory can not be associated with this or that national tradition. Phrases like «не слишком старался», «it is not likely», or «nicht allzu klug» can be met in equal measure in many languages. Use of such phrases is indicative of belonging to common polite people or those forced to be polite for some reason or other. In his ’Humor Reference Guide: Comprehensive Classification and Analysis’ W. Shibles writes: «It would turn society upside down if everyone always told the complete truth in every way. In the courtroom, one is not allowed to tell everything, but only to answer the questions asked. And not all evidence, or truth, is even allowed to be considered. If one always tells the truth it may be impolite. We select things to say».

Of course, not all cases of litotes can be explained by their reference to their role in enhancing politeness. To elucidate the motivation for litotes, G. Leech calls upon yet another principle: one that has been acknowledged by psychologists under the title of the ‘Pollyanna Hypothesis’. This states that people will prefer to look on the bright side rather than on the gloomy side of life, thus resembling the optimistic heroine of H. Porter’s novel Pollyanna (1913).

About negative constructions containing litotes see also G. Leech 1983: 146-149 and R. Blutner 2001.

*All illustrations from Sergey Dovlatov’ prose are translated by the author.

References:

1. Blutner R. Optimality Theory and Natural Language Interpretation. Invited talk, 13th Amsterdam Colloquium AC2001, December 2001 (available from http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/asg/blutner)

2. Grice H. P. Logic and conversation. // Syntax and semantics. – Vol. 3: Speech acts. – N. Y.: Academic Press, 1975. – P. 41 – 58.

3. Leech G. Principles of pragmatics. London - N.Y.: Longman, 1983. - P. 145 – 151.

4. Shibles W. Humor Reference Guide: Comprehensive Classification and Analysis. (available from http://facstaff.uww.edu/shiblesw/humorbook/index.html)

5. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык. - М.: Изд-ва «Флинта», «Наука», 2002. – 383 с.

6. Довлатов С.Д. Собрание сочинений в 3-х томах. С.-Петербург: Изд–во «Лимбус-Пресс», 1993. – Т. 1 – 415 с; Т. 2 – 383 с; Т. 3 – 374 с.