Abstract
Treating interpretation from the point of view of an extended pragmatic metaphor, in itself an act of interpretive translation with a hint of intervention or coup de force, involves accounting for it as a kind of exchange of information or of dialogue. The differences — for obvious reasons interpretation is not the same thing as dialogue — will appear only too soon. But the starting-point of the argument is what linguists call the ‘situation of communication’. The classic model for this is to be found in Jakobson’s famous essay, ‘Linguistics and Poetics’.1 It involves six elements, or participants:
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Notes
R. Jakobson, ‘Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics’, in T.A. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1960), pp. 353–8.
A.J. Greimas, Sémantique structurale (Paris, Larousse, 1966), pp. 172 ff.
See B.J. Blake, Case (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994);
L. Hagemann, Introduction to Government and Binding (Oxford, Blackwell, 1991).
M. Pécheux, Analyse automatique du discours (Paris, Dunod, 1969), pp. 18 ff.
R. Dworkin, Law’s Empire (London, Fontana, 1986), pp. 49–58.
On this, see J.P. Vernant, ‘Le sujet tragique: historicité et trans-historicité’, in J.P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, 2, (Paris, La Découverte, 1986), pp. 79–89.
M.J. Reddy, ‘The Conduit Metaphor–a Case of Frame Conflict in Language about Language’, in A. Ortony, ed., Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 284–324; G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980), ch. 3.
P. Grice, ‘Meaning’, in Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 219–23.
J.F. Lyotard, Instructions païennes (Paris, Galilée, 1977), pp. 60 ft.
E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Validity in Interpretation (Yale, Yale University Press, 1967).
D. Newton de Molina, ed., On Literary Intention (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1976), which contains Wimsatt and Beardsleÿ s essay, and three essays by Hirsch.
J.R. Ross, ‘On Declarative Sentences’, in R.A. Jacobs and P.S. Rosenbaum, eds, Readings in English Transformational Grammar (Waltham, Mass., Ginn & Co, 1970), pp. 222–72.
E. Benveniste, ‘La nature des pronoms’, in Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1 (Paris, Gallimard, 1966), pp. 251–7.
On this see D. Banon, La Lecture infinie: les voies de l’interprétation midrachique (Paris, Seuil, 1987), pp. 142–50.
On the Bentley case, see C. Berry Dee and R. Odell, Dad, Help Me Please (London, W.H. Allen, 1991)
M.J. Trow, Let Him Have It, Chris: The Murder of Derek Bentley (London, Grafton, 1992).
E. Lear, Teapots and Quails (London, John Murray, 1953).
R.L. Green, ed., A Century of Humorous Verse (London, Dent & Dutton (Everyman’s Library), 1959), p. 18.
I believe Lear’s sonnet to be an echo of In Memoriam, 11: Calm is the morn without a sound Calm as to suit a calmer grief… see A. Tennyson, In Memoriam (New York, Norton, 1973), p. 10.
J.B. Grize, Logique naturelle et communication (Paris, PUF, 1996).
See J.B. Grize, Logique et langage (Gap, Ophrys, 1990).
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© 1999 Jean-Jacques Lecercle
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Lecercle, JJ. (1999). Let Him Have It, Chris. In: Interpretation as Pragmatics. Language, Discourse, Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373648_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373648_2
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