You're wet/bleeding

[Greg Matheson]

Thanks for the comments on "You're wet/bleeding."

Dena Attar <dena.attar at BTINTERNET.COM> wrote:

> [S]urely a very important point about the two
> particular situations you describe - being soaking wet
> indoors, bleeding noticeably - is their abnormality.
> That means that the speaker who comments on them is
> responding to a choice - ignore the strangeness, which
> would make them feel weird themselves because they
> would be in a false position, or acknowledge it, which
> would restore a sense of a normality and make everyone
> feel comfortable again.

[cut]

> This doesn't apply of course when a person's odd
> appearance is assumed to be a permanent state, in which
> case the rule is not to mention it but act as if things
> are already normal.

I think this captures at least part of the processes
inolved, but as Kate Hickerson noted (and I hadn't),
these noticings could be used when talking about a
person's appearance more generally, not just when there
is a problem.

I also think that the person commenting would decide
not so much on the basis of whether this state is a
temporary state, but on whether they thought the other
person wanted it to be noticed or not. For example, if
my pants had been badly torn, but I was trying to hide
that fact and looking embarrassed, then I doubt the
check-in person would have commented.  On the other
hand, if the torn pants were flapping about my legs and
I seemed not to even care, she might have said, "Your
pants are torn," perhaps. Or perhaps not. Anyway, this
fits in with Thomas Bloor's analysis in terms
of positive/negative politeness.

I didn't ask the airlines person what she meant by
referring to my being wet, but because they (Cathay
Pacific) gave me a towel, I guess they were concerned
about my condition.


Zouhair Maalej <zmaalej at GNET.TN> wrote:

> I think, as far as my understanding of Grice goes,
> this [something which allows communication to take
> place without agreement on rules or maxims] is
> precisely what Grice's theory is not precluding.
> Grice's maxims provide a rational background (without
> meaning that verbal communication is rational)
> against which conversational transactions can be
> measured. The maxims provide us with one way of
> seeing how much of communication can be irrational
> (i.e.  non-conventional), and yet we do manage
> against all odds to communicate.

Is this what Brown and Levinson also saw as the role of
the maxims? I think I see the point, even though not
very clearly. I think it means the maxims are not like
rules which speakers are forced to follow, whether they
like it or not.  They really ARE maxims that we ignore
or use. But their existence allows us to ignore the gap
between what is meant and what is communicated. The
maxims are not saying there is no gap.

> We may violate or exploit maxims for our own
> interests we may be faced with a clash between two
> maxims or we may opt out from conversation for some
> reason. But except for an infinite [small?] number of
> people (e.g. informed pragmalinguists), as laymen we
> are not aware of this maxim business. Greg can rest
> assured that we don't have to agree on rules or
> maxims it is our sharing the interest in the need to
> communicate successfully that does the trick for us.

Perhaps the reason for what is implicated being
different from what is meant is the difficulty of
following the maxims? I have an example of
misunderstanding at the breakfast table later.


Kate Hickerson <khh at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU> wrote:

> ...Harvey Sacks' work on "noticings." I don't have
> the exact reference available right now, but I
> remember that he discusses how every interactent
> brings a number of candidate topics to a
> conversation, and through the conversational device
> of a "noticing" (such as, "You have new shoes!")
> another interactent realizes that topic.

Mmh. So it doesn't just have to be problems that are
noticed. Incidentally, I think I say this to Yoko here,
noticing something I don't think I have seen her wear
before. However, she always seems to me to say that it
is not new.  She says I have a bad memory, or she has
had it for a while but this is the first time she has
worn it. I take this as an attempt to deflect what she
sees as criticism of spending money on clothes, but I
am probably wrong.

Perhaps, saying, "You're wet/bleeding,' is the
presentation of a thesis about which the listener can
provide a counter-thesis if he/she wants to, eg, "No,
I'm just a little wet/it's just a scratch," and which
results in a synthesis in which agreement is reached
about what to do, eg, "I'll soon dry out/Can you take
me to hospital?". This interpretation reduces the gap
between this situation and those where the statements,
eg, "You've finished for the day," are suppositions,
rather than statements of fact.


Thomas Bloor <T.Bloor at ASTON.AC.UK> wrote:

> [Dena Attar's] observation brings the discussion round
> to  politeness factors. Brown & Levinson list as one of
> the strategies of positive politeness the act of
> drawing attention to the Face Threatening Act: 'Notice,
> attend to H(earer), his interests, wants, needs, goods'
> (Brown & Levinson 1987:103). Their examples  primarily
> involve attention to desirable things (new clothes,
> haircut, etc) but can also apply to any 'faux pas' -
> breakdown of bodily function, etc. Walking into a room
> wet or bleeding is hardly on a par with B&L's example
> of public flatulence, but as [she said] it is a breach
> of normality and, unacknowledged, can make for some
> mild embarrassment.

One of Brown and Levinson's examples of noticing is:
"Goodness, you cut your hair!(...) By the way, I came
to borrow some flour." This takes the same form,
a statement of fact that the hearer already knows, as
"You're wet/bleeding."

This is probably off on a tangent, but positive
politeness is for FTA that are on record. There are at
least two FTA involved, the faux pas, and the noticing
of the faux pas. If they're off-record (=ambiguous?),
positive face and negative face, don't count, or do
they?

I want to relate something that happened at the
breakfast table yesterday and that concerns Brown and Levinson's
account of politeness, although I'm not too sure
how it fits in to the discussion of "You're
wet/bleeding."  Yoko had just started to brush her
teeth, and I asked, "No mango? No pineapple?" This was
off-record, I think.  There was no reason for her to
see this as more than a hint. It could have been an
offer, but was probably more of a request on my part,
as there had been a lot of pineapple cut up and in the
refrigerator that she hadn't been eating whenever we
(I) had been eating fruit. Then a little later, she
said, "Kore (=this)," pointing to some leftover
grapefruit on the table. I thought this is off-record,
too. I could take it as an offer, or a request to
finish it off. On the way to school, I asked her and
she said, that it was not an off-record FTA, but an
indication of the reason why she did not want to eat
any pineapple, ie she was full from eating the
grapefruit. This I found hard to believe, because it
seemed to me there was quite a gap between my saying,
"No mango? No pineapple?" and her saying, "Kore." But
that is what she said.

I'm not too sure what the point is. I guess I'm worried
about off-record FTAs' role. Perhaps they are the
windmill I can, like Don Quixote, start attacking, now
I have seen that Grice's maxims are not the enemy.

Is "You're wet/bleeding," on- or off-record? As I said,
I felt warm when I heard it, but that doesn't mean
anything, I think. I guess I want to oppose an analysis
in terms of Brown and Levinson, but this may be even
more difficult.

> I am surprised, though, that in all
> this talk about Grice no one has mentioned Sperber &
> Wilson's strong (=extreme) claims that Relevance is all
> that is needed. Has it dropped from view?

I have read a lot about Grice in the langauge learning
literature, but I've never read the original articles,
and I've never read Sperber and Wilson. Larry LaFond
suggested, "You're wet/bleeding," flouted the maxim of
relevance, but I thought it flouted that of quantity.
It is relevant the fact that I'm wet/bleeding, but
anomalous that I'm told something I already know. Then
again, the maxim of quantity assumes a positive amount
of information is being conveyed, not no information at
all, so perhaps it is an issue of relevance rather than
quantity. Can agreement be reached on what maxims are
being flouted? If not, this would strengthen the hand
of Sperber and Wilson.

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