Implicature and power: Separating explicit from inexplicit meaning

Learning about the use of language is learning about political power, scholars concerned with political discourse analysis argue. For Chilton (2004), political activity simply does not exist without the use of language because any political process involves persuasion and bargaining. Therein lies the need to explain how “the use of language can produce the effects of authority, legitimacy, consensus, and so forth that are recognised as being intrinsic to politics” (p.4). Similarly, Fairclough and Fairclough (2012, p.18) observe that in politics, the purpose of speech is “to convince an audience that certain course of action is right or a certain point of view is true”. They regard this ‘intended perlocutionary effect’ as intrinsically related to the act of argumentation. Van Dijk (1997, p.40) argues that by exploring the characteristics of a given discourse the main features of the broader political context can be revealed. Elements such as

the nature of prevailing norms, attitudes and knowledge among politicians or the public can be seen in how language is used. For Van Dijk, social and political constraints may discourage political speakers from expressing their intentions so that a “subtle and critical analysis should be able to make them explicit, and thus conversely contribute to our insight into the political context” (p.40).

As language and politics are related at such a fundamental level, the analysis of political discourse has been located as part of the broader literature of Critical Discourse Analysis. Van Dijk (1997, p.21) proposed that a discourse can be defined as ‘political’ only when it is directly or indirectly functional within a political process. This definition, Van Dijk argues, calls for broadening the limits of the understanding of politics beyond the official administration. It is also necessary to include primarily communicative political activities such as “propaganda, campaigning, canvassing, media interviews and influencing or being influenced by citizens or public opinion” (p.22). For him the analysis of such activities should be primarily concerned with the reproduction of “political power, power abuse or domination through political discourse, including the various forms of resistance or counter-power against such forms of discursive dominance” (p.11). Van Dijk (1997, p.30) pays attention to what he calls ‘discourse structures’ used by political actors for the accomplishment of political actions. Politicians choose from certain topics to speak about, using certain semantics to emphasise positive meanings about themselves and negative meanings about others. Their strategies are materialised in lexical choices and syntactic styles that relate to text, but also by rhetorical forms, including text organisation. Van Dijk mentions the ‘expression structures’ to refer to elements such as voice volume, pitch and intonation (1997, p.36). However he attributes them a mere ‘indirect function’ in emphasising or de-emphasising meanings. For him, such ‘expression structures’ are subordinated to ‘discourse structures’ and are described in no more than one paragraph. The Faircloughs not only agree with the main definitions provided by Teun Van Dijk, but also take them as foundations of their own approach, although with a focus on arguments. They claim that political discourse analysis should be conducted from a “critical perspective, a perspective which focuses on the reproduction and contestation of political power through discourse” (p.17). However, they supplement it with a special interest in the practical reasoning of political discourse. They say that any ‘reasonable’ decision can only emerge from a ‘systematic critical testing of reasons, claims and arguments for action’. Practical reasoning is regarded as the interface between agency and structure: “in reasoning practically, agents draw on discourses which reflect structural, institutional and moral orders, and these orders or structures provide them with reasons for action” (p.244). Approaching a political discourse critically has to do, primarily, with the arguments deployed strategically by politicians to justify their actions. This

focus is especially evident in their analysis of the budget reports presented by the chancellors of the exchequer in 2008 and 2010 before the Parliament of the United Kingdom. They conducted a detailed examination of the arguments presented to justify public spending cuts despite the abundance of expert evidence against them. However, each government managed to legitimise their strategy “in terms of shared and publicly justifiable values” by presenting their decision as having emerged from “a process of deliberation, of considering and weighing appropriate goals for actions and the values that should inform them” (p. 174).

A different approach has been proposed by Paul Chilton, whose analysis of politicians’ discourse is more concerned with the use of language either for political struggle or cooperation. Chilton sets a distinction of language as the human capacity for language, particular languages (such as English, German), and the use of language, “which we shall often refer to as discourse” (2004, p.16). Differing from approaches that give primacy to text, Chilton makes a case for a pragmatic perspective for understanding politicians’ discourse. Although he concedes that politics is a struggle among competing intentions, he also regards politics as cooperation. It is expected that individuals “will truthfully intend to communicate representations of the environment, with the back-up that everyone also has the ability to check for consistency and cheating”, he argues (p.32). This approach borrows from the Cooperative Principle in conversation, as coined by Paul Grice (1975, p.44). The basic idea is to make a conversation contribution “such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”. Grice argues that this principle is fulfilled as long as the participants in the conversation respect the maxims of quantity and quality of their contributions as well as to make relevant interventions in an appropriate manner. Paul Grice elaborates on this cooperative principle but at the same time recognises that one of the participants may violate the maxims and the conversation can still go on. If this is the case, we are in the presence of an ‘implicature’, defined as:

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 his job, and B replies, oh quite well, I think; he likes his colleagues, and he hasn’t been to prison yet. At this point, A might well inquire what B was implying, what he was suggesting, or even what he meant by saying that C had no yet been to prison. I think it is clear that whatever B implied, suggested, meant, etc., in this example is distinct from what B said, which was simply that C had not been to prison yet (Grice, 1975, p.44).

Especially relevant for the main argument of this chapter is the separation made by Grice between literal meaning and implicit meaning. It is not the literal meaning of B’s answer which keeps the conversation going on, but the assumption made by A that B’s assertion is relevant. It

is Paul Chilton’s approach that gives political significance to the concept of implicature. For him, utterances that linguistically point towards something they do not literally entail enable political actors “to convey more than they say in so many words” (p.37). Chilton argues that only if the hearer adopts a particular ideology, attitudes or values can they make the necessary inferences to save the maxims of the Cooperative Principle. The separation of literal and “inexplicit meaning” (p.61) does not imply denying reference, says Chilton, but recognising that in politics “non- existent entities can be accepted as having meaning and the way in which alternate ways of referring to the same entity can have different meaning”. If meaning does not reside in words only, “in addition to referring, it is sense or representation in mind and in language-in-use that is crucial” (Chilton, 2004, p.49).

This chapter takes the concept of implicature and locates it at the centre of its analysis. Implicatures, as defined by Grice, help to understand the separation between explicit (literal) and inexplicit (conveyed) meaning in utterances made by the speaker. It also suggests that the reconciliation of both types of meaning requires an active engagement from the hearer. In this sense, the participants’ approach seems to be closer to Paul Chilton’s political discourse analysis than to Van Dijk or Fairclough. Chilton uses elements of pragmatics to give political weight to the inexplicit meaning in his analysis, while the latter have a more semantic focus on the literal meaning. Participants do not consider the explicit meaning in politicians’ utterances, rather they aim for the inexplicit meaning because they assume that politicians do not speak in a literal way. However, Polònia’s staff do not say that politicians tell lies. Real intentions underpinning their discourse can be understood by using clues provided by the politicians themselves. Data included in this chapter is based on interviews with Polònia’s staff, observation of rehearsals, and recording and analysis of scripts.