On The Theory Of GCI From A Philosophy Of Logic Perspective

The subject of my dissertation is the theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature (henceforth GCI theory). The GCI is a presumptive meaning, which is supported by the logic structure of linguistic expressions. And this meaning is independent of the particular context. Extracting the traditional dichotomy between semantics and pragmatics, the GCI theory reexamines the research of meaning theory of language philosophy, and focuses on utterance-type-meaning. Such researches, on one hand, can start a new approach for deepening its related topics; on the other hand, its can provides abundant theoretical supports to the researches about the utterance-type-meaning in the perspective of essential issues testing meaning theories.Macro-pragmatics and micro-pragmatics effect the GCI theory, and make a complex context for understanding the theory, including the Grician conversational implicature theory, Sperber&Wilson’s Relation Theory, Russell’s description theory, Fodor’s idea of compositionality principles, Wittgenstein’s language game theory, etc.. To formulate the predominance of the principles of GCI theory, we collate the philosophical groundwork of GCI, analyze the thought and effects of the Grician GCI ideas of how to fix an expression’s GCI, and lay out the improvement of the GCI theory.The semantics explains mainly semantics domain of concepts from a perspective of traditional references, truth conditions, etc. Besides, it claims that we should understand or express an expression’s meaning by means of the conceptual contents of a language. The pragmatics discusses in full practical characteristic and normalization of human communicative activity. It inquiries the conceptual meaning of expressions, and presupposes that concepts own certain normative pragmatic significance that can’t be eliminated. The GCI theory gives a middle way in explaining GCI, but the theory presupposes that semantics should conform to pragmatics, and pragmatics plays the role of replenishing semantics. Neo-Grician Pragmatics cares about the GCI theory, because it encounters difficulties in explaining GCI. To answer the semantic questions traditional theory confronted in meaning interpreting, the GCI theory shows the attributes of both implicature meaning and conventional meaning. This dual character makes the possibility of forming a semantics-pragmatics continuum, and gives future of understanding the GCI theory from the perspective of semantics-pragmatics. Especially, we can find that the GCI theory shows some predominance in answering Grician Hermeneutic circle through explaining the matter of referential ambiguity, indexical reference and reference identification.Besides the GCI theory, Meaning theories are enriched and pushed by the Relation Theory, semantics and pragmatics. Compositionality principles of meaning theories, merger representation, the division of primary meaning and second meaning, all these works can not only serve and justify the function of the GCI theory in explaining anaphora and metaphor phenomenon in discourse, but also solve other epistemic problems that the GCI theory encounters; according to the GCI theory’s possible interpretation of the mechanism used in valuing knowledge and its liability, the theory gives a middle way in knowledge justification on basis of reviewing usual meaning theories. Seen from its reply to traditional linguistic problems, the GCI theory explores anaphora phenomenon in discourse from the view of pragmatics foremost, and provides a better theoretical basis for us in explaining anaphora dynamically. GCI plays a special role in interpreting metaphor meaning, which shows a better interpretation of metaphor which beyond traditional interactive theories’efforts. Thus, the GCI theory shows the deficiency of explaining metaphor meaning by means of semantic attributes. The GCI theory advocates a semantic-pragmatics perspective in view of the perspectival theory, and takes the metaphor meaning as a kind of meaning which results from disagreement of views. From all of the presents above, we might believe that those subjects and issues are not only independent, but also integral sections of the GCI theory. They, along with semantics and pragmatics, give an alternative interpretation of the language-world relationship and show a brand-new image of meaning theories.The views of the GCI theory differ greatly from many of the explanatory, theoretical, and strategical commitments that have motivated and shaped traditional meaning theories. Dramatically, the GCI theory makes a contribution to integrating those trends:language logic, analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology. Meanwhile, the theory also surpasses traditional semantics theories, and reconstitutes a new way of knowledge justification. Of course, the GCI theory is not an overall perfect theory. By investigating on the essential debates in forming the GCI theory, we try to back up that the various issues of the GCI theory consist in its hidden commitments, and these efforts will show the significance and value of furthering studies of the GCI theory.