How to Understand Barbarian Speech in the Eight Directions: The New Pragmatics Irrelevance Theory

Abstract

How to Understand Barbarian Speech in the Eight Directions:The New Pragmatics Irrelevance Theory Jocelyn Chey (bio) INTRODUCTION Irrelevance Theory, introduced to the international scholarly community for the first time in this paper, provides a pragmatic explanation of those forms of communication that are produced without due thought or premeditation, with no desire to secure agreement, or lacking understanding or consent, so that results, if any, are only achieved by accident. This theory [End Page 527] was first developed by Chinese scholars, as can be attested by the centuries-old expression Hu shou ba dao [胡說八道], which itself can be traced back to the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Irrelevance Theory is particularly useful for analysis of classical and contemporary expressions in the Chinese language. Some relevant examples are provided, but the Theory's usefulness is not restricted to Han culture, and other examples of its wider application are drawn from the author's personal experience or quoted from press reports. Communication scholars should not be tempted to identify Irrelevance with methodologies such as wit or wordplay, or with psychological styles such as affiliating, self-enhancing, aggressive, or self-defeating communication. The Irrelevance Theory stands on its own merits. If it does not make sense, this is because it has neither sense nor sensibility. This paper relies on literary and verbal data that were professionally recorded and transcribed, and on verified communication events, to substantiate the author's hypothesis, which is that a new theory, provisionally termed Irrelevance Theory, is required to explain types and modes of communication that do not easily conform to existing theories of pragmatics. In referencing Chinese proverbs in particular, attention will be drawn to the need for implicit knowledge of their meaning in culture. It is commonly admitted that the lexicalization of common phrases can create irrelevances that differ from the original. In support of these largely literary communication acts, some instances of actual "irrelevant" situational verbal exchanges are quoted from the author's personal experience, and other evidence has been garnered from contemporary political and business communication across various cultures. 1. IRRELEVANCE THEORY Irrelevance Theory deals with all forms of communication, both explicit and implicit. It accepts that they are responses to stimuli prompted by utterances, whether verbal or nonverbal, but may not be received or understood by the audience for various reasons that will be set out below. Even if not received or understood, they are still valid communicative acts in their own right. Irrelevance Theory is one form of pragmatic theory and strictly speaking belongs in the group of post-Grice theories. It differs from the more generally familiar theoretical constructs, however, in that it does not require cooperation between speaker and hearer, nor does it require speech events to be received, understood, or internalized, or to provoke a verbal or physical response. In this respect, and more importantly, it totally supersedes Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson's concept of ostensive-inferential communication because it does not require either the speaker or the auditor to infer any meaning or intention from the speech event.1 Irrelevance Theory is particularly applicable to communication in the Chinese linguistic context for discrete historical and cultural reasons. Sociological developments of the Eastern Jin [End Page 528] Dynasty (317–420 CE) dramatically reshaped Chinese cultural psychology. This dynasty is usually dated from the year when Western Jin moved from Luoyang to a new capital at Jiankang (modern Nanjing) on the Yangzi River because of increasing threats from northern tribes that were collectively known as the wu hu [五胡] (five barbarians). These tribes included the Xiongnu [匈奴], whose ethnic and linguistic identity is strongly debated but agreed to have no connection with Sinitic languages. The Chinese word hu is a generic term for non-Han nomadic people of the western steppes and plains beyond the Great Wall and China's borders during the Eastern Jin period when they were greatly feared by the Han people. The eighty thousand-strong Eastern Jin army suffered a terrible defeat in 383 CE at Feishui in present-day Anhui Province at the hands of a force of eight hundred thousand commanded by Fu Jian of the former Qin Dynasty. Fu Jian's army was comprised of conscripted...