On the Rhetorical Effectiveness of Implicit Meaning—A Pragmatic Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper under review explores the interface between the study of implicit meaning (IM), which traditionally falls under the field of pragmatics, and rhetorical effectiveness. To this end, it discusses some shortcomings of the traditional Aristotelian rhetorical triangle, by essentially suggesting that not all rhetoric effects can be reduced to just one of the three dimensions that Aristotle put forth, before turning to discuss how different types of IM can simultaneously give rise to all three dimensions. Then, after the authors justify how rhetorical effects can be usefully approached in terms of perlocution, they move on to examine the appeal of implicature, presupposition and some types of back door speech acts, alongside their rhetorical impact when looked at from the perspective of the speaker, the audience, the message communicated in the exchange, as well as the dynamics of the conversation at hand.

 

All in all, the account provided by the authors is well-motivated and, to my mind at least, particularly convincing overall. Their discussion is very well grounded and certainly original and potentially impactful – it certainly gave me a lot to think about. Also, the paper is very well written and organised, so I overall have no doubt about recommending publication on this occasion. That being said, I have a couple of comments that I believe could enhance the paper even more if used as a basis for what would admittedly be minor amendments.

 

In section 4.1, the authors point out that “the fact that IM allows packaging more information in one stimulus” makes “cognitive and temporal economy” possible. While I am in complete agreement with this position, the discussion that precedes it in this section does not really motivate it, as it focuses on how IM is actually more costly for the hearer and seeks to justify why this is a preferred option, despite the added processing costs. In view of this, I think that the authors should justify a bit better how they reach this conclusion (I presume in terms of cognitive shortcuts, etc.) or, in the case that there is not enough space left, remove it.

 

In section 5.1, the authors note that implicatures “arise based on the speaker’s ostensive flouting of a maxim (and on the addressee’s recognition thereof)”. While this is correct, it seems to me to be half the story, as implicatures may well arise by observing the maxims and the CP (see, e.g., Huang 2014: Pragmatics OUP, Section 2.1.4, pp. 31-38). Thus, perhaps a bit of rephrasing is needed here.

 

Then, I would like to turn to the last paragraph of section 5.3.1. I am in complete agreement with the line of reasoning that the authors offer here, but I can’t help but feel that the discussion of this point is far too condensed, or at least too condensed to be useful for the reader, unless the reader decides to do a bit of background search on humour themself. I thus believe that the argument here should either be beefed up a bit, or, if there are space restrictions in place, perhaps moved to a footnote.  

 

Finally, I completely agree with the suggestion of the authors that the interface between IM and rhetorical effects is amenable to experimental research, but I think that the way they have phrased this in both the abstract and the introductory section gives rise expectations that are not really met in the end. For me, the promise of “a proposal for the experimental investigation of rhetorical effectiveness of implicit meaning” should amount to a more detailed plan of action about this experimental investigation than what we actually get in the concluding section, where the authors justify why this is needed but do not really provide some clear testable hypotheses to this effect. Still, since this is an important, to my mind, issue, I would recommend simply rephrasing the relevant sentences in the abstract and introductory section, so that they mirror more accurately what is eventually offered.

 

 

Further editorial suggestions:

-       Lines 52-53: “discuss their limitations while reflecting on additional types of rhetorical effects the latter do not seem to cover”  I believe that here “the latter” refers back to the Aristotelian roots, but its use is quite hard to parse. I would recommend rephrasing.

-       Line 236: “construct these”  construct theM.

-       Line 317: “alongside comprehension, which are linked to the latter,”  alongside comprehension, BUT are linked to the latter,

-       Lines 323-326: “While perlocutionary acts have tended to be neglected by classical pragmatic research, and to the extent that their study has been recognised as controversial, to say the least (Gu, 1993; Marcu, 2000), these nonetheless remain effects that are intimately linked to the comprehension of locutionary and illocutionary speech acts”  Here “these” refers back to “perlocutionary acts”. Perhaps the authors can consider changing “acts” into “effects” and “these” to “they”.

-       Line 466: “Incidentally, some empirical support for these claims is now available.”  I am not entirely sure why only the corpus data are singled out as “empirical” here. Wouldn’t the experimental data that precede this paragraph also qualify as empirical? Perhaps rephrasing into “further empirical data” would help address this.

-       Lines 470-471: “when it comes to convey sensitive content that could backfire”  when it comes to conveyING sensitive content that could backfire

-       Lines 496-498: “Metaphor, although its implicit/explicit nature is still debated within pragmatics (see e.g., Carston & Hall, 2012; Davis, 2019; Tendahl, 2009; Wilson, 2011), also has a significant measure of implicitness in the contents it conveys;”  Although its implicit/explicit nature is still debated within pragmatics (see e.g., Carston & Hall, 2012; Davis, 2019; Tendahl, 2009; Wilson, 2011), METAPHOR also has a significant measure of implicitness in the contents it conveys;

-       Line 507: “Many times, as is the case in political debates for instance, debaters rarely aim to”  I think the combination of “many times” and “rarely” here is odd. I’d recommend removing rarely.

-       Line 593: “an inferential path that was not the one the speaker meant”  I think “meant” can be replaced by “intended” here.

-       Line 780: “who will deem that”  I am not entirely convinced this is the only interpretation path. Perhaps replace “will” with “may”, “can” or “could”.

-       Line 811: “notwithstanding Aristotle’s classical of ethos, logos and pathos.”  There’s something missing after “classical”.

-       Table 1: Inconsistent use of tense at times. I’d recommend sticking to the 3^rd person singular (or using gerund or infinitive) throughout.

-       Line 845: “Be that as it may, we hope to show with this table”  “Be that as it may, we hope to HAVE showN with this table”

Author Response

See attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

please see attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

See attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf