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 Using Figurative Language
Using Figurative Language presents results from a multidisciplinary
decades-long study of figurative language that addresses the question, “Why
don’t people just say what they mean?” This research empirically investigates
goals speakers or writers have when speaking (writing) figuratively and, con-
comitantly, meaning effects wrought by figurative language usage. These prag-
matic effects arise from many kinds of figurative language, including metaphors
(e.g., “This computer is a dinosaur”), verbal irony (e.g., “Nice place you’ve got
here”), idioms (e.g., “Bite the bullet”), proverbs (e.g., “Don’t put all your eggs
in one basket”), and others. Reviewed studies explore mechanisms – linguistic,
psychological, social, and others – underlying pragmatic effects, some traced to
basic processes embedded in human sensory, perceptual, embodied, cognitive,
social, and schematic functioning. The book should interest readers, research-
ers, and scholars in fields beyond psychology, linguistics, and philosophy who
share interests in figurative language – including language studies, communi-
cation, literary criticism, neuroscience, semiotics, rhetoric, and anthropology.

Herbert L. Colston is Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at

the University of Alberta. Previously, he was a professor of psychology at the
University of Wisconsin–Parkside. Professor Colston has published widely and
has edited several books, including Figurative Language Comprehension: Social
and Cultural Influences and Irony in Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science
Reader. He co-authored Interpreting Figurative Meaning (Cambridge University
Press, 2012) with Raymond Gibbs.
Using Figurative Language

Herbert L. Colston
University of Alberta
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107105652
© Herbert L. Colston 2015
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2015
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Colston, Herbert L.
Using figurative language / Herbert Colston.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-10565-2 (hardback)
1. Figures of speech. 2. Psycholinguistics. 3. Sociolinguistics. I. Title.
P37.5.F53C65 2015
808′.032–dc23   2015023013
ISBN 978-1-107-10565-2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
To Herbert A. Colston
and
Marlene D. Colston
You don’t know anything,
unless you know everything.
You never know everything,
so you always know nothing.
 Contents

Acknowledgments page xiii

Preface xv

1 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean? Wealth and Stealth 1
Brief Overview 4
Introduction of Themes 4
Pragmatic Meaning and Pragmatic Effects 5
Psychology and Pragmatics 6
Figurative Language as a Complex Social Phenomenon 7
Complexity Approaches 7
Caveats 7
Pop Goes the Examples 8
Problems with Problems 9
Figurative Name Calling 9
A Final Theme: Rorschach Figures 10

2 What Is a Pragmatic Effect? Multidisciplinarity and Scope 14

Pragmatic Effects: A Case Study 16
Defining a Pragmatic Effect 22
Speech Act Theory 22
Gricean Theory 24
Relevance Theory 27
Philosophical Accounts 30
Inferences 31
Causal Antecedent and Causal Consequent Inferences 33
Superordinate Goal, Thematic and Additudinal Inferences 36
Emotion Inferences 38

vii
viii Contents

Instantiation of Noun Category and Instrumental Inferences 39

Subordinate Goal/Action Inferences 39
How Are Pragmatic Effects Unlike Implicatures, Positive
Cognitive Effects, Interpretive Hypotheses, or Inferences? 40
Structural Effects 41
Embodied Effects 43
Psychological Effects 47
Sociocultural Effects 48
Social Knowledge about Speakers/Hearers 49
Shared Knowledge among Interlocutors 49
Familiarity in Interlocutors 50
Enablement of Social Information: Social Structure,
Language, and Culture 50
Egocentrism in Speakers 51
Social Information Interacting with Language Processing 51

3 What Are the Pragmatic Effects? Issues in Categorizing

Pragmatic Effects 53
Anomalous Figures 53
Categories and Contents 63
Pragmatic Effects and Decontextualization 65
Delineating Pragmatic Effects 66
General Pragmatic Effects 66
Ingratiation 67
Mastery 67
Persuasion 68
Social Engineering 70
Catalyzation 70
Efficiency 70
Pragmatic Effects Specific to Single Figures or Figure Families 71
Expressing Negativity 71
Enhancing Meaning 73
Highlighting Discrepancies 73
Objectification 74
Identification 75
Humor 75
Emotion Expression/Elicitation 76
Extollation 77
Politeness 77
 Contents ix

Impoliteness 78
Tension Reduction 81
Machiavellianism 81
Anomalous Pragmatic Effects 82
Causes of Pragmatic Effects 85
Linguistic Causes 87
Structural Causes 88
Juxtaposition Causes 89
Metapragmatic Causes 90
Social Causes 90
Psychological Causes 91
Associative Causes 96
Idiosyncratic Causes 97
Stylistic/Register Causes 97
Embodied Causes 97
Time Course of Pragmatic Effects 98
Midpoint Conclusions 98

4 How Is Figurative Language Used? Three

Kinds of Answers 100
Common Ground in Figurative Language Use 101
A Brief Summary of the Debate 103
Figurative Language and Common Ground 105
Metaphor 105
Verbal Irony 108
Hyperbole 111
Contextual Expressions 112
Idioms 113
Indirect Requests 114
Common Ground in Discourse Patterns 115
A New “New Look at Common Ground” 118
Memory 119
Availability 121
Automaticity 121
Individual Differences 123
Style 124
Common Ground and Use 124
Common Ground in Figurative versus Nonfigurative Language 125
Appropriateness 127
x Contents

Aptness 128
Indirectness 131
The Future of Common Ground 131
Packaging Figurative Language 133
Pragmatic Effects for Speakers 141

5 What Is Figurative Language Use? Prevalences, Problems, and

Promise 144
Corpus and Observational Work 147
Figurative Language Prevalence(s) 149
Fixed Forms 150
Metaphor and Pragglejaz 150
Verbal Irony and Hyperbole 151
Pragmatic Effect Prevalence(s) 152
Multimodal Indicators 153
Linguistic Indicators 154
Control Comparisons 155
Formula Derivation 156
Compilation and New Studies 157
Mediators 158
Is Figurative Language Used Up? 160
A Figurative Collage 160
Fads and Fades 164
Fixedness and Decompositionality 165
Profanity 168
Creativity 168
New Figures 172
Figurative Use beyond Language 178
Limits of Pragmatic Effects 180
Time 180
Narrow Time Limits 180
Broader Time Limits 182
Timing 182
Big Time 182
Shallow and Deep Synchronicity 183
Audience Size 184
Multimodal Timing 185
Structure: Hyperbole and Persuasion 185
The Peak Problem 188
 Contents xi

6 Conclusion: Meaning Happens, by Hook or by Crook 191

What Is Entailed by a Search for Meaning? 193
Psychology and Pragmatics 194
Psycholinguistic Meaning 195
Linguistic Pragmatic Meaning 197
Cognitive Psychological Meaning 200
Figurative Language as a Complex Social Phenomenon 204
Social Groups 206
Sociocognitive Mechanisms 208
Neural and Behavioral Evidence 209
Rorschach Figures 217
A Pragmatic Effect Organization 220
Pragmatic Effects and Intentionality 222
Complexity Approaches 224
Modeling 224
Metatheorizing 225
Conclusion 226

Notes 231
References 239
Index 263
 Acknowledgments

Many grateful thanks to Adina Berk and Matthew Bennett at Cambridge

University Press, along with the editorial and production staff, for their
wonderful assistance and support with publication. I am as always indebted
to my friends, colleagues, and collaborators for many invigorating conversa-
tions over the years about the topics treated in this book. Among these, I am
grateful to Raymond W. Gibbs, Greg Bryant, Jennifer O’Brien, Albert Katz,
Penny Pexman, Rachel Giora, Chris Kello, Gerry Steen, Teenie Matlock,
Gary Wood, Greg Mayer, Brigitte Friedl-Colston, Morgan Colston, Sally
Rice, and Juhani Jarvikivi. I also thank Yasmin Tulpar for assistance with
references and indexing, Elizabeth French for administrative support at the
University of Alberta, and the very large cadre of students who contributed
to my research as collaborators, assistants, and participants.

xiii
 Preface

Using Figurative Language was born out of the idea that accounts of lan-
guage production, use, comprehension, structure, underpinning, and
change, for figurative and indirect but additionally all language, need to
align with current understandings of not only human cognitive phenom-
ena but also social, emotional, motivational, physical, and other human
and animal functioning along with established explications of the all the
layers of language and their nature. In kind with the cognitive commit-
ment, the scientific study of language conducted by allied disciplines needs
also to adhere to a social commitment, a developmental commitment, an
embodied commitment, and commitments to emotional, evolutionary,
and other domains of human structure and operation, as well as to their
complex interaction, to fully portray the processes and products stemming
from human linguistic communication. Some of these source data come
from research in the array of subdisciplines in psychology. Other input can
be found in evolutionary theory, biology, the functioning of communica-
tion systems parallel to language, linguistics proper, cognitive linguistics,
literary studies, semiotics, rhetoric, and other disciplines that focus on the
processes and products or both of linguistic communion.
Particular focus was put on the social underpinnings of abstract thought
and, in turn, language cognition given recent developments in sociocogni-
tive neuroscience and embodiment research, which provides evidence that
a major portion of how we do cognition and, accordingly, how we do lan-
guage is wired to align with our level of connection with other people or
groups and our status in social hierarchies – along with concomitant social
motivations produced by such hierarchies. How our cognitive functions are
tuned is related closely to how we operate as part of a human social group.
These social constraints and corrallings, along with parallel embodied ones,

xv
newgenprepdf

xvi Preface

serve to orient human functioning, to make use of what is already present,

and to direct us along paths set down as characteristic of evolved social
species.
Caution was also raised, though, about viewing these recycling and
channeled cognitive and communicative endowments as somehow deter-
ministic for human behavior. The complexity of the chorus of processes
and mechanisms that contribute to human behavior, linguistic and other-
wise, affords a degree of dynamic chaos amid attractors, enabling emergent
possibilities in behavioral and meaning outcomes. Tendencies nonetheless
may be observed and used to construct parsimonious accounts of linguistic
and related functioning. But the system maintains a modicum of volatility
that occasionally can unpredictably alter linguistic behavioral patterns (e.g.,
production, comprehension, use, etc.).
It is hoped that this work will spur continued trajectories of incorpo-
rating linguistic, psychological, embodied, social, life-span developmental,
and other contributing factors in language cognition explanation toward
(1) better inclusion of multimodal, paralinguistic, and metalinguistic fac-
tors, (2) embracement of complex multivariate analysis and modeling tech-
niques, and (3) increased blending of authenticity in content with rigor
in methodology, leading to even greater crosstalk and cross-fertilization
among disciplines working toward a scientifically holistic understanding
of human language.
 1

Why Don’t People Say What They Mean?

Wealth and Stealth

Please consider the following lines spoken by characters in the 1985

American film, The Breakfast Club (Friesen, Meyer & Hughes 1985). The
movie depicts five students in punitive detention on a Saturday at their high
school for infractions they committed separately. The students represent
stereotypical adolescent social genres of 1980s middle America: a socialite
(Claire), an athlete (Andrew), an intellectual (Brian), an introvert (Allison),
and a delinquent (Bender). Using the vernacular of the characters them-
selves, we have a “princess,” “athlete,” “brain,” “basket case,” and “criminal.”
(Also included are Vernon, a school administrator, and Carl, a custodian.)
Rhetorical Question
claire: “Excuse me, sir, why would anybody want to steal a screw?”
andrew: “Where do you want me to go?”
brian: “Who do I think I am?”
Metaphor
vernon: “Don’t mess with the bull young man; you’ll get the horns.”
allison: “You never know when you may have to jam.”
brian: “The girl is an island with herself.”
Idiom
vernon “Any monkey business is ill advised.”
andrew “I got the feeling that he was disappointed that I never cut loose
on anyone”
brian “You’re so, like, full of yourself.”
Metonymy
carl: “I am the eyes and ears of this institution.”
vernon: “Watch your tongue”
brian: “But what we found out is that each of us is a brain”

1
2 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean?

Verbal Irony
andrew: “That’s real intelligent.”
bender: “You richies are so smart.”
bender: “Well . . . I’ll just run right out and join the wrestling team.”
Hyperbole
allison: “You do everything everybody ever tells you to do; that is
a problem!”
andrew: “You’ve never competed in your whole life!”
bender: “Screws fall out all the time; the world’s an imperfect place.”

Understatement
allison: “My home life is . . . unsatisfying.”
andrew: “Yeah . . . he’s kinda . . . he’s kinda skinny, weak.”
vernon: “Alright people, we’re gonna try something a little different
today.”

Colloquial Tautology
vernon: “Here we are.”
brian: “That’s what it is.”
vernon: “Alright, that’s it.”

Mixed Figures
(Note that although some mixing is found in the individual figure
groupings, the “mixed” figures here are relatively stronger, containing
mixtures of at least three types.)
allison: “It’s kind of a double-edged sword, isn’t it?” (rhetorical ques-
tion, understatement, idiom, metaphor).
bender: “Oh and wouldn’t that be a bite, missing a whole wrestling
meet” (irony, metaphor, rhetorical question).
vernon: “I’ve got you for the rest of your natural born life if you don’t
watch your step!” (hyperbole, metaphor, idiom, metonymy).
bender: “Although you’d probably have to ride in the back seat, ‘cause
his nuts would ride shotgun” (metaphor, hyperbole, idiom).
bender: “Well, Brian’s trying to tell me that in addition to the number
of girls in the Niagara Falls area, that presently you and he are
riding the hobby horse!” (irony, metaphor, euphemism).
vernon: “Ah, ah, ah grab some wood there, bub!” (metonymy, unin-
tended double entendre – resulting in situational irony).
bender: “Hey, how come Andrew gets to get up? If he gets up, we’ll all
get up; it’ll be anarchy!” (rhetorical question, hyperbole, irony).
claire: “You don’t say anything all day, and then when you open your
mouth . . . you unload all these tremendous lies all over me”
(hyperbole, metonymy, metaphor).
 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean? 3

bender: “Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?” (rhetorical

question, irony, metonymy).
bender: “Show Dick some respect!” (irony, metaphor, double entendre).
The figurative language in these lines represents several kinds studied
frequently by psychologists, linguists, and other language scholars. Most
of this research has focused on an important and as yet unresolved ques-
tion of how people comprehend language such as this, where speaker
intentions and the language used are distal in various ways.1 Another
somewhat lesser-studied question, perhaps oddly, is frequently posed by
non-academic-language users and happens to be the title of this chapter and
in part motivates this book – why don’t people [just] say what they mean?
People use figurative language all the time. Our conversations and writ-
ings are packed with it. We usually comprehend it on the fly with little dif-
ficulty. Occasionally, though, our ears will miss something, and confusion
will happen. Other times people do comprehend figurative utterances, but
their interpretations are different from or indeed completely opposite of the
ones intended by the speaker or writer, as in misunderstanding the sarcastic
comment, “I couldn’t be better,” spoken by a depressed person as positive.
In still other instances, people comprehend absolutely nothing from figura-
tive language, perhaps as in novel metaphors used in poetry, but they see
it for what it is and uncaringly (or even without noticing) continue on to
other things. Why would we then talk or write this way if confusion, misin-
terpretation, utter lack of comprehension, or outright dismissal can readily
happen, especially when more direct language is available?
The short answer is that figurative language provides a lot of bang for
its buck (idiom). Figurative language expresses meaning beyond its cor-
rect figurative interpretation – correctly understanding “I couldn’t be bet-
ter” as negative when spoken by someone feeling miserable (verbal irony).
This extra meaning includes all kinds of things (hyperbole), such as speaker
attitudes and emotions, contextual enhancements and elaborations, social
revelations and influences, and new meanings arising from interactions
between or among these things. Extra meaning also arises from the struc-
tures of the figures themselves, as in the belittlement expressed by minimal-
ist asyndeton (e.g., “Been there, done that”). But how is this possible? How
can language that demonstrably disconnects with speaker-intended mean-
ing somehow achieve more meaning (rhetorical question)?
Language essentially does this through complex meaning mechanisms
found throughout linguistic use and comprehension. But the mechanisms
are concentrated particularly in figurative forms, whose delineation con-
stitutes the primary content of this book. These mechanisms allow mouths
4 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean?

and hands to share hearts and minds (metonymy) and usually without our
­noticing – as hearers and even speakers. Indeed, one tiny bit (understatement)
of the motivation driving the question “Why don’t people just say what they
mean?” is this lack of apparentness of figurative language in normal every-
day talk and text. People just don’t see it for what it is (colloquial tautology).
They don’t see how drenched (metaphor) normal language is with figures
and indirectness and all that those forms accomplish. People instead focus
on rarer instances where a perhaps novel figurative usage goes awry and
then accordingly question why it is there. By way of illustrating figurative
transparency, each of the figures explicitly labeled in this and the preceding
paragraph are also present in the much shorter paragraph preceding them.

Brief Overview
The book attempts to provide the long answer to the rhetorical question
in this chapter’s title. It considers the wide array of figurative kinds of lan-
guage to delineate different ways in which figurative and other language
accomplishes complex additional meanings for speakers and writers. In
so doing, it first addresses the basic question of what this additional com-
plex meaning is (Chapter 2). It then discusses the myriad of types of these
meanings, including which kinds of figurative language accomplish them
and how (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 then treats factors surrounding how peo-
ple use figurative language to leverage these meanings. Particular focus
is given to how much people attend to what they and their interlocutors
know when using figurative language and how this interacts with different
kinds of figures. Other delivery factors concerning how to present figura-
tive language to maximize its additional meaning output are also consid-
ered. A discussion of the prevalence of figurative language usage and its
leveraged additional meanings, along with limitations and potential expan-
sion of those additional meanings, is provided in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 then
brings together the themes of the preceding chapters and offers several
take-home messages for future research on figurative and indirect (and,
indeed, all language) usage. To prepare the stage for this discussion, sev-
eral of these themes need to be briefly introduced and a couple of caveats
presented to corral the issues detailed in forthcoming chapters.

Introduction of Themes
Five primary ideas will emerge across subsequent chapters. One appears
right away in Chapter 2 concerning the nature of the “additional complex
 Introduction of Themes 5

meaning” termed thus far in the use of figurative language – the notion of
a pragmatic effect. The latter four ideas can help to orient progress through
Chapters 2 through 5 but will become most prominent in Chapter 6. These
involve (1) the role that varieties of psychological phenomena play in lan-
guage processing – predominantly for figurative language but not isolated
to it; (2) figurative language use and comprehension as a social phenom-
enon; and (3) approaches for dealing with the complexity of figurative cog-
nition and the impact of broad discourse content on identification of local
isolated figures. This latter theme is introduced at the end of this chapter
(see the section entitled, “A Final Theme: Rorschach Figures”).

Pragmatic Meaning and Pragmatic Effects

The term pragmatic effect is used henceforth to refer to “additional com-
plex meaning,” as described so far, accomplished by a speaker’s use of
figurative language.2 Fuller delineation of how this term and its scope of
meaning are similar to and different from other accounts of pragmatic
meaning is provided in Chapter 2. For now, just a brief outline of the term
is provided.
An enormous amount of theoretical and empirical work has gone
into investigating definitional and procedural components of semantic
meaning, pragmatic meaning, interfaces between them, and how these
meanings connect with many other related notions and levels of language
(e.g., utterance meaning, said meaning, implied meaning, sentence mean-
ing, speaker meaning, lexical meaning, morphological meaning, etc.).
Nothing definitive is necessarily intended here in the current use of prag-
matic effect to delineate between semantic and pragmatic meaning. Nor is
some major new or different theoretical aspect of these phenomena being
proposed or invented.3 And indeed, some degree of tolerance of vague-
ness in use of the term is sought in this explication, as it pertains to the
goals of this work.
This exploration of pragmatic effects is not aimed at further hashing out
definitional issues involved in figurative meaning, if indeed definitional
issues can ever be completely resolved. Nor is it meant to delineate between
comprehension versus interpretation – another distinction without a uni-
versally agreed-on boundary. Moreover, as will hopefully become appar-
ent, pragmatic effects can arise from either of these general notions and
indeed from mental processes separate from them. Rather, the present
focus is on the richness of human mental and related internal activity that
is meaningful for a speaker and that accompanies a hearer hearing (and
6 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean?

reader reading, speaker speaking, and writer writing), figurative or indirect

language, that might exceed a person’s hearing (reading, speaking, writing,
etc.) �nonfigurative/direct language.
Even these figurative/nonfigurative categories are admittedly �difficult
to delineate precisely (see later). Lesser-figurative language also can occa-
sionally convey more rich meaning than more-figurative language – prag-
matic effects are not exclusive to figurative language. But one reason for
figurative language’s existence is how it leverages such mental/internal
activity in people conversing relative to something usually less figurative –
as the forthcoming chapters will hopefully demonstrate. Thus the term
pragmatic effect is meant loosely as a reference to mental/internal activity
taking place in a person, traceable to his or her encountering figurative
as well as other language, usually when receiving it (e.g., as an addressee,
hearer, overhearer, reader, etc.) but also when he or she produces or even
thinks about it.

Psychology and Pragmatics

Psychological processes span from lower-level physiological and sensory
operations to multiple higher mechanisms in cognitive, emotional, social,
developmental, and even personality and clinical psychology. An argu-
ment will be made in Chapter 6 that far too little attention has been given
to the impact these processes have on purportedly encapsulated language
comprehension and production. A new approach is needed to better incor-
porate psychological processes at large into narrower language cognition
explanations, for figurative language, as argued here, as well as for all lan-
guage processing in general.
To preview, many psychological processes are invoked by triggers in
language processing per se and other things that accompany or precede
it. Many of these processes are automatic to a degree, fast, and powerful
such that they can interact with and even override ongoing language pro-
cessing to influence outcoming language products (e.g., comprehensions
and productions). Continuing research on figurative language thus needs
to attend more fully to the totality of the minds doing this meaning mak-
ing in both production and comprehension and how those minds work
across multiple domains to adequately explain the linguistic phenomena
involved. Processes such as low-level language processing are not fully
encapsulated (Katz 2005; Spotorno & Noveck 2014). They are instead
affected by many aspects of the state of the mind-body system doing the
processing work.
 Caveats 7

Figurative Language as a Complex Social Phenomenon

Related to the call for a greater embrace of psychological and other influ-
ences in explanations of language comprehension and use, the fact that
language takes place between highly social beings with multiple other inter-
action systems connecting them is crucial. Not only do we converse, but we
also emote, empathize, love, hate, dismiss, resist, align, cleave, attract, and
repel among one another using systems that long preceded and currently
parallel linguistic communion.4 These systems interact in complex ways
to affect processes and products of language comprehension and produc-
tion. Moreover, this social aspect of language accords many more concerns
for researchers wishing to explain figurative language use and compre-
hension because talk between people is not just a means of information
exchange between interlocutors. Rather, talk is a full-blown performance,
display, and propaganda system that orients speakers and hearers amid the
complex social structures they inhabit, occasionally elevating a person’s
status in a social hierarchy and also lowering it. Thus, that figurative and
other language operates on these levels and how it does so also need better
explication.

Complexity Approaches
This complex tangle of human interaction systems calls for adoption of
models of representation and, to an extent, prediction that embrace mul-
tiple interacting inputs as well as constraints and affordances on output that
often supersede current relatively simple causal models of communication
functioning. Approaches to figurative language based on constraint satis-
faction (Campbell & Katz 2012; Pexman 2008), dynamical systems (Gibbs &
Colston 2012; Gibbs & van Orden 2012), or other elaborate multivari-
ate accounting hold promise at juggling this complexity because they are
designed to provide probabilistic outcome estimates based on a range of
interacting input parameters.

Caveats
Two brief caveats on the overall treatment given to figurative language and
its pragmatic effects are warranted here given the different disciplines in
which researchers on figurative language reside. Values placed on types
of data in linguistic, psycholinguistic, and psychological research, among
other fields, differ according to one’s home discipline and subarea. Concerns
8 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean?

regarding criticism in cross-disciplinary endeavors are also raised in part

because of varying familiarity with different disciplines’ methods, values,
and backgrounds, as well as simple differences in strengths. A third caveat
concerning how to talk about figurative versus nonfigurative language in
general is also presented.

Pop Goes the Examples

Whether one is a linguist studying sound patterns in sarcasm pronuncia-
tion versus proverbial forms in indigenous languages or a psychologist
studying lexical choices in idiom alteration versus multimodal expressions
of metaphor, one’s unit(s) of analysis and how to measure it differ. People
within and across disciplines simply use and respect different kinds of data.
Given the focus in this book on nuances of figurative language usage and
wide interdisciplinary interest in that topic, it is important for readers to
see findings from a range of scientific approaches in the studies presented.
Readers also need access to rich examples of figures and pragmatic effects
from a variety of sources for deeper and easier conceptualization of the
phenomena treated. A mixture of studies from linguistics, psychology, and
other fields is thus presented without overdue attention to specific method-
ologies and analysis techniques in any one field to enable cross-disciplinary
discussion.
For the examples presented, types and tokens from authentic broad
corpora, single-instance recorded, or observed real instances of both
text and talk provide one source of figurative phenomenon demonstra-
tion. For illustrative purposes, though, many other examples are culled
from popular culture or invented altogether to demonstrate a particular
point. These examples obviously may be caricaturized, staged, over- or
undersimplified, or in many other ways different from more authentic
figurative language usage in real contexts. But their possible caricature
status – enhancement of particular signature characteristics and espe-
cially their familiarity and/or accessibility through the Internet or other
sources – makes them very useful as illustrative examples to demonstrate
figure structure, figurative usage, blending, pragmatic effect accomplish-
ment, and other processes. This book thus presents instances of figurative
and other language usage from popular, predominantly North American
novels, movies, television programs, Internet videos, songs, advertise-
ments, and other sources in both talk and text. These are not offered as
data per se, and their noted possible differences from in-the-moment
spoken figurative language and authentic written communications
 Caveats 9

should be kept in mind. However, their vividness and ready-sharedness

across diverse reader constituencies present advantages that can offset
concerns about genuineness.

Problems with Problems

Related to but separable from differing values on evidence, people in dif-
ferent disciplines and their subareas also vary in their acceptance of critical
analysis of previous work. One subdiscipline may criticize another for not
attending to concerns in its field. Linguists or psychologists using experi-
ments with experimenter-crafted language items, for instance, may criticize
other researchers for not attending to sampling, causal-effect isolation, or
generalizabilty. Conversely, experimentalists may be criticized for lack of
item authenticity, for transparently staged comparisons, or for use of artifi-
cial or narrow language, settings, and tasks.
The point for purposes vis-à-vis this book is that each chapter, after
opening with a brief presentation of the topic involved (i.e., prevalences
of figurative language in broad populations of speakers and writers), fol-
lows with a lengthy treatment of the methodological and other problems
involved in addressing that topic before then reporting and discussing the
status of different findings and some new ideas. These critiques are offered
in the spirit of addressing the problems at hand (i.e., how to quantify the
amount of metaphor in a corpus). But they will likely nonetheless reflect
disciplinary familiarity and experience. Such criticism is not intended to
argue for one disciplinary approach or methodology over another. Indeed,
no approach, method, or measure is infallible. All have limitations. Rather,
it is hoped that the criticism will spur recognition of the need for more
interdisciplinary cross talk and collaboration, including scholars reading,
attending conferences, and holding discussions out of their scholarly com-
fort zones. Attending to criticisms of accepted approaches in their home
disciplines and perhaps, especially, conducting and presenting studies
using mixed approaches and methodologies (i.e., corpus and experimen-
tal analyses published/presented in tandem; see Giora et al. 2013) are thus
implicit advocations.

Figurative Name Calling

The final caveat concerns use of the terms figurative and nonfigurative.
Although a case has been made for the advantages of the term nonfigu-
rative over literal (Gibbs & Colston 2012), and this book will adopt that
10 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean?

practice, along with regular usage of the term figurative, problems remain
with attempted delineation between these as categories. Many presumed
figurative utterances are difficult to categorize into subsets of known figura-
tive types. Many supposed nonfigurative utterances also may be borderline
figurative.
One need only look at the examples at the beginning of this chapter to
see this. The first rhetorical question by Claire contains an extreme-case
formulation that gives it a flavor of hyperbole. The second idiom by Andrew
has hints of both understatement and hyperbole. The second irony example
from Bender could be metonymic and hyperbolic, and its use of diminu-
tivization could be a second source of subtle irony. All three of these deli-
cate suggestions or invocations of figurative mechanisms, plus many others,
also can be found easily in what most people would take as nonfigurative
language.

A Final Theme: Rorschach Figures

A final theme is worthy of independent mention here because it pertains
particularly to the preceding brief point on distinguishing figurative and
nonfigurative language. Some instances of figurative language may become
apparent only when considered amid the broader discourse contexts from
which they are taken. If considered in isolation as a brief phrase or sentence,
their figurativeness can be shrouded – ambiguities in surface form may
not clearly indicate the figurativeness. However, if the broader discourse
is allowed to project down on the smaller snippet contained within, figu-
rativeness can emerge. These instances are accordingly termed Rorschach
figures.
A further example from The Breakfast Club is illustrative: consider the
target utterance (1.3) by Vernon that follows. This comment can be traced
to an earlier event where Bender (the “criminal”) surreptitiously removed a
screw from a door between Vernon’s office and the detention room so that
the door would not stay open. Vernon discovers this and angrily accuses
Bender of removing the screw. Bender denies the act, so Vernon threatens
to shake the screw out of him and then insults Bender, saying that he’ll be
the next screw to fall out.
A very angry sequence of exchanges between Vernon and Bender then
occurs in which Vernon systematically increases the number of subsequent
detention days in response to increasingly angry and figurative comments
from Bender. These begin with Bender first mumbling, “Eat my shorts,”
and then saying it pointedly to Vernon. They end with Bender saying, “You
 A Final Theme: Rorschach Figures 11

really think I give a shit?” Finally, Bender ceases pushing back and is obvi-
ously furious, and a bit dejected, at Vernon especially but perhaps also at
himself for having gotten stuck with two more months of weekend deten-
tion. Bender then salvos two final figurative comments in rapid sequence,
responding to Vernon’s gloating that he had Bender for two months (“I got-
cha”). The first is delivered in a very snide tone; the second with fury. Vernon
then responds also angrily (Vernon’s response is the target utterance).

bender: “What can I say?” (1.1)

“I’m thrilled!” (1.2)
vernon: “Oh, I’m sure that’s exactly what you want these people to
believe.” (1.3)

Comment (1.1), a colloquial American English rhetorical question, is

normally used as an expression of resignation – a speaker utters the expres-
sion typically to neutrally note the existence of a referent situation and to
show acceptance of its status without protest and/or that nothing can be
done to change things. The comment, however, also can be used ironically
in two ways. In one, the speaker pretends that she is resigned to and feels
neutrally about the referent status but actually is happy about it (e.g., as if
delivered gloatingly or arrogantly with chin held high and a self-satisfied
smile). Bender uses the second way – pretending that he is resigned when
he is actually furious. In both cases, the pretended perspective is carried by
the language (and, interestingly, its standard figurative meaning from a col-
loquialized rhetorical question), but the speaker’s genuine feeling is shown
by emotion, facial expression, and prosody.
Comment (1.2) is a standard sarcastic verbal irony – saying something
positive about something negative. The comment pretends to find the situa-
tion positive but ironically negates that stance to actually express negativity
about it. Here also the pretended portion is in the language, and the honest
feeling is in the emotion/prosody/etc.
Bender is thus ironizing two perspectives in quick succession. The first is
that he is neutrally okay with two more months of detention. The second is
that he is happy about the punishment. All of this is to ironically show that
he is neither resigned nor happy but actually dejected and furious.
Vernon’s response (1.3), interestingly, may not seem ironic on the
surface, especially if viewed in relative isolation – as only a response to
Bender’s previous remarks (1.1 and 1.2). Vernon has just heard Bender state
that he is effectively nonplussed (1.1) and happy (1.2). It is clear that these
things are not true. So Vernon has the perspective that Bender is lying or
attempting to lie and failing. Vernon is also confident that he is correct in
12 Why Don’t People Say What They Mean?

this observation. Thus his statement (1.3) may simply reflect this – he is
confident that Bender is trying to get the others to think that he is at ease
with or happy about the added detention. Vernon does use a few standard
verbal irony markers (e.g., extreme case formulations, emphases added,
“I’m sure . . .,” “that’s exactly . . .”), but they do not seem to readily map onto
irony. One thus could argue that they do not raise the comment to irony
status. “I’m sure . . .” may just express Vernon’s confidence in his observa-
tion, and “that’s exactly . . .” may just note the precision of what Bender is
seeking to convey.
But Vernon’s interpretation of Bender’s comments (1.1 and 1.2) as
attempted lies, along with knowledge about both Vernon’s and Bender’s
personalities, their feelings toward one another, and the deeper history,
indicated and schematic/stereotypical information triggered by the longer
previous discourse, indeed going back to the beginning of the film, may
in fact demonstrate Vernon’s response as subtly ironic. Moreover, Vernon’s
ironizing Bender’s motivation in using comments (1.1) and (1.2) may be a
case of a subtle verbal irony embedded within dramatic irony.
For the verbal irony, Vernon’s expression in comment (1.3) could be
making fun of what he sees as Bender’s weak facade. According to Vernon,
Bender is deeply upset and hurt at his punishment but is trying to convince
the others that he is not. So Bender puts up statements saying that he is
nonplussed and indeed happy about the situation, even if his delivery obvi-
ously reveals his true feelings. Vernon sees this as a lame attempt. Vernon’s
personality, as revealed in the discourses leading up to this scene, bears
on this – Vernon is not a man of great depth, empathy, or insight. Or at
least he doesn’t practice these qualities. He bitterly sees only the surface
form of people, their expressions, and behavior and usually takes a nega-
tive interpretation of them when other understandings are available. All of
this is because Vernon views young people with contempt. Young people
in Vernon’s view are nothing but a rebellious mob challenging his social
power, strength, and desire to maintain discipline.
Thus Vernon’s rebuttal to Bender may instead be his seeing only the sim-
plest, and worst, motivation Bender might have – lying and, in not liking
Bender’s supposed dishonesty, seeking to ironize it. Vernon achieves this
through an ever so slightly feigned agreement that convincing the others
with comments (1.1) and (1.2) is viable and that Bender’s motivation to do so is
commendable. The extreme-case formulations now fit nicely – “I’m sure . . .”
hints that the likelihood that others will be convinced by Bender’s com-
ments is high, and “. . . that’s exactly” commends the quality of what Bender
is seeking to convey. In this pretense, though, Vernon reveals his true belief
 A Final Theme: Rorschach Figures 13

that Bender’s statements have no chance of convincing the others and that
his motivation is instead pathetic.
In an isolated sense, Vernon is right about this. Bender is indeed tele-
graphing the message that he is resigned and happy, and no one is likely to
believe this. But Vernon greatly misses the bigger picture. Bender’s use of
verbal irony isn’t an attempt to masquerade as a person happy with his lot.
It’s instead a complex way of saying that he’s not happy by ironically negat-
ing the idea that he is happy. This is apparent by Bender’s obvious emotional
displays and clear intelligence in using language.
All told, therefore, Vernon’s response is to belittle only the portion of
Bender’s broader expression system that Vernon can see – the resignation/
happiness statements – which Vernon thinks Bender is genuinely trying to
pass as counterfeit. This makes Vernon’s response (1.3) also a case of tragic
irony – Vernon thinks one thing is going on when something contradictory
(and larger) is going on instead, to which Vernon is oblivious. Vernon is
claiming that Bender is being dishonest when, in fact, Bender is expressing
the truth.
Two important points from this example are worth emphasizing. The
first is how the emotion and multimodal cues shown by Bender are carry-
ing half the weight of his irony – he’s clearly furious and despondent but
says (ironically) that he is resigned and happy (1.1 and 1.2). So all the non-
linguistic indications of emotion and stance are very much a part of what
Bender is ultimately saying and interact deeply with the linguistic process-
ing taking place – emotions and nonverbal cues are things we process very
deeply and quickly.
The second point is the broader discourse and contextual impact on
narrower individual turns. To understand even that Vernon is being ironic
in comment (1.3), as well as the invalidity revealed in the narrowness of
that expression and the broader dramatic irony it creates, one must really
look at content in the broader previous discourse and the overall context.
Otherwise, Vernon’s supposed nonfigurative assertion that Bender is sim-
ply faking happiness to the other people when he really feels otherwise
might seem accurate, might seem to reveal Bender’s dishonesty, might
seem aligned with Vernon’s supposed objectively nonfigurative statement,
and might seem the end of the story. When viewed in the broader sense of
Bender’s life, obvious intelligence, sense of inequity, means of expression,
and ultimate honesty, however, along with Vernon’s bitterness, prejudices,
and narrowness of view and the longer and shorter history between these
two people, then the verbal and tragic ironies become apparent.
 2

What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

Multidisciplinarity and Scope

Chapter 1 introduced the concept of a pragmatic effect and discussed how

many related notions have been proposed in past research on figurative
and indirect language. Reviewing this literature on analogues of prag-
matic effects involves difficulties stemming from the multidisciplinarity
of the work as well as the scope of the consideration. One main issue
is that a great deal of empirical research has been conducted and theo-
retical claims proposed that might fall under the umbrella of pragmatic
effects in figurative or indirect language. But they were not necessarily
called that or were not specifically focused on the goals of identifying,
delineating, explaining, or verifying specific pragmatic effects across
a wide range of figurative forms. Rather, they were somewhat parallel
or even incidental measurements and/or discussions of something like
pragmatic effects, along with some other, more central or broader theo-
retical or empirical goals in mind. This work comes from an array of
allied subfields studying language and cognition and extends far back
in time, indeed to the initial philosophical treatments on methods in
rhetoric, for instance, the use of indirect questions or Socratic irony to
catalyze thinking (Vlastos 1991).
Another issue is the proliferation of terms used to discuss pragmatic
effects. Among these are terms used in modern specific empirical stud-
ies of people’s figurative language usage such as social functions (Anolli,
Ciceri & Infantino 2002; Dews & Winner 1995; Harris & Pexman 2003),
discourse goals (Colston & Lee 2004; Hancock 2004; Harris & Mosier
1999; Harris et al. 2006; Kreuz 2000; Roberts & Kreuz 1994), pragmatic
functions or pragmatic effects (Colston 2000a, 2002b; Colston & O’Brien
2000a, b; Pexman & Zvaigzne 2004), and communicative goals (Kreuz,
Long & Church 1991; Long, Kreuz & Church 1989). Still other, more

14
 What Is a Pragmatic Effect? 15

general modern theoretical constructs have not been explicitly labeled

pragmatic effects, but they describe something similar. These include,
again among others, constructs such as generalized or particularized
implicatures (Grice 1975), weak or strong implicatures (Sperber & Wilson
1986), m-intended or authorized inferences (Clark 1977; Grice 1968), elab-
orative inferences (Garnham 1982; O’Brien et al. 1988; Singer & Remillard
2004), conceptual blended spaces (Coulson 2001), contextual effects, cog-
nitive effects, or positive cognitive effects (Sperber & Wilson 1986, 1995;
Wilson & Sperber 2012), and abductively produced interpretative hypoth-
eses (Dascal 2003).
How might one designate between these beyond-the-text/talk or at least
presumed as such, pragmatic, and figurative meanings as opposed to the
treatment presented here of pragmatic effects? This diversity of terms also
raises the thorny issue of just what a pragmatic effect is. Are all the differ-
ent studies and theoretical debates referring to the same or very similar
phenomena but with different terms? Or are the phenomena discussed with
these specific and general ideas themselves different, diverse, and highly
varied?
Still another issue is whether one wants to limit the discussion to studies
specifically and empirically addressing the psychological reality of claimed
pragmatic effects, with perhaps a further limiting to pragmatic effects whose
functioning has been empirically validated. Or should the larger array of
explicitly and implicitly claimed pragmatic effects that might reasonably get
produced by speakers using figurative/indirect language but that have not
undergone specific empirical evaluation be included?
A final issue is whether one is talking about pragmatic effects that might
be produced by the entire array of kinds of language termed figurative or
at least indirect. Or should the discussion be limited to pragmatic effects
produced by only one type (hyperbole) or one family of types (metonymy)
of figurative/indirect language? Related to this is whether a given pragmatic
effect for a figure occurs every time that particular figure/indirectness is
encountered or only under certain circumstances. This last issue stems
from the ultimate question of what causes pragmatic effects in figurative/
indirect language.
The following two chapters attempt to sort through these questions
regarding pragmatic effects in figurative/indirect language use and com-
prehension. The topics are organized roughly around the issues discussed
earlier, including the definition, scope, and account similarity (Chapter 2),
as well as designation, reliability, and cause, of different pragmatic effects
16 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

in figurative/indirect language use (Chapter 3). To begin, first consider an

example empirical study from psychology on pragmatic effects in ­figurative/
indirect language use.

Pragmatic Effects: A Case Study

Despite the difficulty discussed earlier in establishing a starting position
for reviewing pragmatic effects in figurative/indirect language, one point
of departure may nonetheless be Roberts and Kreuz’s (1994) empirical
investigation into why people would use a variety of kinds of figurative/
indirect language. This work was part of an outgrowth of research on
figurative language in the 1990s that began to look with empirical meth-
odologies at an array of specific pragmatic effects in figurative language
use. Prior to this research, the focus had been on, at least in most psy-
cholinguistic empirically based and linguistic and philosophical theoreti-
cally oriented research, (1) how figurative language is comprehended by
hearers or readers given the purported disconnect between what is said by
a speaker/writer and what is communicatively intended and (2) debates
about the general mechanism(s) for computing pragmatic meanings in
comprehension/interpretation.
Roberts and Kreuz instead directly asked the related but separable
empirical question of why would speakers talk (or writers write) using a
variety of different figurative forms. The aforementioned supposed discon-
nect in figurative language between what is said and what is intended sup-
plied the motivation for the question – if figurative language is not a direct
statement of a speaker’s/writer’s meaning, then it arguably poses a greater
risk for misinterpretation. A number of costs are involved in misinterpreta-
tion, as the argument goes, so some benefits ought to exist to offset those
costs. Otherwise, figurative language use has no motivating reasons. It
should be noted that no universal agreement currently holds on this argu-
ment that figurativeness is necessarily more potentially misinterpretable.
The difficult-to-define difference between figurative and so-called literal
language and other issues such as the argued lack of “special” processes for
figurative language comprehension (Gibbs & Colston 2012) complicate the
debate about figurative exceptionalism. But the argument was nonetheless
used to motivate the study.
Roberts and Kreuz provided their study participants with ten examples
each of eight kinds of figurative (or at least indirect) language: hyperbole,
idioms, indirect requests, irony, understatement, metaphor, rhetorical
 Pragmatic Effects: A Case Study 17

questions, and similes. The participants were asked first to read the exam-
ples, then to generate other examples of those figures on their own, and
finally to list reasons why individuals might use the particular forms in a
discourse. The responses to the latter motivation question then were orga-
nized into a taxonomy of discourse goals, and a calculation of the degree of
overlap among these reasons was made.
This work has been cited extensively by researchers conducting subse-
quent specific empirical research addressing why people would use differ-
ent kinds of figurative language. It empirically demarked the wide range of
goals that actual native speakers (of American English) report are accom-
plished by varieties of figurative language. It also measured the varying
extent to which each figure accomplishes each goal. It additionally demon-
strated the ranging degree of overlap in what different figures were reported
to accomplish.
The findings overall revealed a great deal of subtlety and diversity in what
different figures accomplish. Seemingly unrelated figures, for instance, were
often shown to accomplish similar goals. Irony and simile as one example
had a relatively high overlap score of 0.52 (the absolute range of this score
is between 0 for no overlap in accomplished goals and 1 for perfect overlap;
see Graesser [1981] for an explanation of how these scores are calculated).
The figures also were shown to each accomplish a large number of differ-
ent goals. Indeed, of the total number of nineteen unique discourse goals
reported for all the figures (not including miscellaneous goals collectively
labeled “other”), the average number of goals accomplished by the figures
was 14.6 (77 percent of all the possible goals). This diversity also was shared
by the figures rather than being concentrated on only a few highly multi-
purpose ones (the range was twelve to eighteen goals per figure, or 63 to
95 percent of all goals mentioned).
Although this subtlety and diversity of functioning of figures are quite
interesting in their own right, they can nonetheless shroud deeper patterns
in what figures primarily or most strongly accomplish. Thus, for present
purposes, a brief reanalysis of the findings of Roberts and Kreuz (1994)
is provided with a truncation that focuses only on the goals for which a
high degree of agreement existed among the study participants concerning
which figures achieve which goals. The discussion is then limited to figures
for which more than 50 percent of the study participants reported a given
goal was accomplished.
An interesting pattern emerges when figures and discourse goals are
viewed with this truncation. The discourse goals that at least half the
18 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

participants said were performed by at least one kind of figurative language

were as follows:

Goal Figure

To clarify Simile (94%), metaphor (82%),

hyperbole (83%), rhetorical question (72%)
To show negative emotion Irony (94%), understatement (69%),
rhetorical question (56%)
To be humorous Irony, (65%), hyperbole (61%)
To deemphasize Understatement (75%)
To add interest Metaphor (71%)
To emphasize Hyperbole (67%)
To be polite Indirect request (64%)
To guide another’s actions Indirect requests (64%)
To protect self Indirect request (57%)

Organized differently, the figures that at least half the participants said
accomplished a discourse goal(s) are as follows (for present purposes, met-
aphor and simile are combined):

Figure Goal

Metaphor/simile To clarify (94% simile), to clarify (82% metaphor),

to add interest (71% metaphor)
Hyperbole To clarify (83%), to emphasize (67%),
to be humorous (61%)
Indirect requests To guide another’s actions (64%), to be polite (64%),
to protect self (61%)
Irony To show negative emotion (94%), to be humorous (65%)
Understatement To show negative emotion (69%), to deemphasize (75%)
Rhetorical question To show negative emotion (56%), to clarify (72%)

Looking at the first arrangement of the findings, it is apparent that clarifi-

cation, expression of negative emotion, and humor are the most diversely per-
formed discourse goals if one considers that they are performed by multiple
figures. The other discourse goals are more tightly linked to only one figure.
From the second arrangement, it appears the most diverse figures in
terms of multiple goal performance are metaphor/simile, hyperbole, and
indirect requests. Each of these performs three different, although related
(see later), goals. Irony, understatement, and rhetorical questions are more
limited in that they are related with a narrower range – each is reported to
perform two primary goals.
 Pragmatic Effects: A Case Study 19

The broader picture, though, from this reanalysis of the findings of

Roberts and Kreuz is that three emergent metadiscourse goals seem to be
performed by these figures, demonstrated in the spacing of the lines in the
second arrangement of the findings.
Expressing negativity, although nuanced by couplings with other
functions, is shared by irony, understatement, and rhetorical questions.
This degree of shared functioning is also shown by the overlap matrix
provided by Roberts and Kreuz. Overlap scores among pairs of these
three figures range from 0.57 to 0.64 (to illustrate the range of overlap
among all the figures measured, the highest overlap score between any
two figures was 0.71, and the lowest was 0.15, of a possible range of 0 to
1 – note that these overlap scores also were calculated without the present
truncation, so they include all the goals reported as accomplished by the
figures, but they still corroborate the present selections). This grouping is
not surprising given that many taxonomies of ironic figures put irony (as
defined by Roberts and Kreuz), understatement, and rhetorical questions
under the broader umbrella of verbal irony (see Gibbs & Colston 2007a).
But the present findings make this combination through the discourse
goals the figures share rather than by some other theoretical or defini-
tional criterion.
Enrichment or emphasis of meaning, although also nuanced by other
functions, was shared by metaphor/simile and hyperbole. The overlap
scores of these figures also were relatively high (ranging from 0.63 to 0.71).
Again, it should not be surprising to see metaphor and simile included
here given their highly similar structure. That hyperbole is included is
primarily because of the shared function of clarification. Hyperbole and
metaphor/simile, however, might separate somewhat as subfamilies in
that the additional functions they perform diverge into making a point
(hyperbole also emphasizes and is funny) versus enriching meaning
(metaphor also adds interest), which, although obviously related, can be
different. But metaphor/simile and hyperbole share the broader capacity to
enhance or enrich the meaning being expressed.
Finally, effective guidance of action in other people was strongly accom-
plished by indirect requests. Indirect requests combine the goals of affecting
activity in other people (to guide another’s actions) and being nice to other
people (to be polite) without sacrificing one’s own face or needs (to pro-
tect oneself). It is also sensible that these goals cluster given compliance –
addressees are more likely to participate in an action (e.g., when requested
to do something) when they are treated well versus being coerced, as well
as when the requestor is seen favorably.
20 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

The differentiation of these three broad categories is also supported by

comparing the overlap scores of figures within versus between the three
categories. Within the categories (1) expressing negativity and (2) enrich-
ment or emphasis of meaning (only one figure is in the third category – effec-
tive guidance of action in other people), the range of overlap scores between
pairs of figures is 0.57 to 0.67 (the maximum in the range rises to 0.71 if one
includes the metaphor and simile comparison), for an average overlap score
of 0.64. But among the three categories, the overlap scores between pairs of
figures range from 0.15 to 0.64, for an average score of 0.33 – roughly half as
much shared functioning as figures within the three categories.
Of course, other goals are accomplished by multiple figures (e.g., humor
is accomplished by both hyperbole and irony), as was also the case with-
out the truncation and thus with lower levels of agreement by the study
participants (e.g., provoking thought was accomplished by both irony
[29 percent of participants said this] and metaphor [35 percent]). But these
goals by themselves do not fit as readily into individual broader accounts
of interpersonal interaction. For instance, although humor and provoking
thought are certainly valuable discourse goals that can, on occasion, be the
sole sought-after end product of an utterance of figurative language, they
usually are used as a means to a broader psychological end, or they are
highly diverse in contributing to multiple psychological ends. Humor, for
example, can increase intimacy between interlocutors, put an addressee at
ease, and save face by offsetting the deliverance of a criticism. For provok-
ing thought, a broader goal could be getting a person to realize some richer
or subtly intended meaning, perhaps for persuasive purposes, with the use
of a figurative utterance.
The truncation, however, which included only figures whose accom-
plished goals were reported with high consensus among the participants,
has revealed what seem to be goals that nicely fit with broad, widely accepted
psychological, social, linguistic, or philosophical theories concerning inter-
personal interactions. They also cohere with situations within these theo-
ries where indirectness is warranted.
For the three metagoals pulled from these findings, expressing negativity
is potentially face threatening (Brown & Levinson 1987). It thus supplies a
natural arena for figurative language that can indirectly deliver negativity
(rhetorical questions), balance negativity with positive content (irony), or
camouflage negativity for easier delivery (understatement).
Emphasizing or enriching meaning is powerfully accomplished by figu-
rative mechanisms that can bring attention to expectation/reality discrep-
ancies by inflating them (hyperbole; see Colston & Keller 1998) or by a host
 Pragmatic Effects: A Case Study 21

of claimed mechanisms that enrich meaning for a variety of tropes, includ-

ing those involved in cross-domain mixtures (metaphor). Among the latter
mechanisms are, tapping into preexisting conceptual metaphorical map-
pings (Gibbs 2011a, b; Lakoff & Johnson 1980; McGlone 2011; Steen 2011),
affording the construction of blended conceptual spaces (Coulson 2008a,
b; Coulson & Oakley 2005), using richly embodied experiences via simula-
tions (Bergen 2012; Gibbs 2003a, b) and others (see Colston [2010] for a
discussion of embodied, sensory, perceptual, cognitive, linguistic, semiotic,
social, and cultural mechanisms of meaning enhancement in tropes).
Finally, effective guidance of action in other people also has an impact on
face management issues in that shepherding or catalyzing actions on the
part of other people can pose a threat to both interlocutors’ faces. Figurative
language that can effectively manage relevant face issues in these situations
(indirect requests) are thus bound to be used for these purposes. Indirect
requests have been shown to enable requesters to increase compliance and
save face, in that the typical form of the indirect request demonstrates an
effortful consideration on the speaker’s part of the obstacle most likely in
the addressee’s way in granting the request. A requester typically would not
say, for instance, “Would you mind if I borrowed a pencil” if the most likely
reason for a refusal would be the availability of a spare pencil. Rather, the
requester would say, “Would you have a pencil I could borrow?” because
that phrasing better aligns with the obstacle and demonstrates the request-
er’s consideration of the addressee’s situation. This is a form of ingratiation
that lubricates the interaction and increases compliance, leaving both par-
ties maximally satisfied (Gibbs 1981a, b, 1983, 1986b).
This brief treatment of measured narrow and emergent theoretically rele-
vant pragmatic effects from the Roberts and Kreuz (1994) study demonstrates
some of the issues raised at the beginning of this chapter. The study revealed
one way in which particular pragmatic effects thought to be achieved by kinds
of figurative language can be empirically evaluated. The study also addressed
discourse goals that might be accomplished by figurative language as a whole –
“to emphasize,” “to clarify,” and “to show positive emotion,” for example, were
reported as being performed by all the figures measured. Discourse goals per-
formed by only a subset or one specific kind of figurative language also were
revealed – “to deemphasize” was performed by half the figures measured, and
“to compare similarities” was performed only by metaphor and simile. This
treatment also at least raised the issue concerning the definition of and termi-
nology used to discuss pragmatic effects in figurative language.
As revealed by the distillation of the three metadiscourse goals (express-
ing negativity, emphasizing or enriching meaning, and effective guidance
22 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

of action in other people), the Roberts and Kreuz study did not, however,
explicitly discuss how the discourse goals they collected fit into broader
interpersonal, social, or pragmatic theories. Nor did it elaborate on what a
“discourse goal” is, nor how it might be caused (these were not among the
goals of the study). Rather, speakers were merely asked to supply “reasons
[for] why an individual might use [a kind of figurative language].” Whether
these “reasons for use” align with other discussions of the array of phenom-
ena falling under the present term pragmatic effects is not yet clear. For dis-
cussion of this issue, consider first the question of what discourse goals or
pragmatic effects actually are. The question of whether there might be prag-
matic effects outside of existing psychological, linguistic, and philosophical
use/comprehension accounts is then taken up afterward.

Defining a Pragmatic Effect

As discussed earlier, two distinguishable sources are available for seeking
parallel ideas about pragmatic effects. One is the large linguistic, philo-
sophical, and psycholinguistic theoretical literatures on figurative/indirect
(and, indeed, all) language comprehension. The other is the more recent,
primarily psychological and linguistic literatures that directly and often
empirically evaluate pragmatic effects, typically by using similar terms such
as discourse goals. The latter will be treated at length in Chapter 3. For now,
consider some of the kinds of theoretical phenomena linguists, philoso-
phers, psychologists, and other scholars and researchers have investigated
and how they might be construed as different versions of pragmatic effects.
This is also by no means an exhaustive list of these types of accounts.
Rather, a few representative accounts whose component parts seem to align
particularly well with pragmatic effects as considered here were selected
for consideration. These accounts, although generally well known, also will
be described in some detail to later help distinguish how pragmatic effects
might both overlap and differ from mechanisms proposed within these
accounts.

Speech Act Theory

One of the first modern scholarly attempts to grapple not only with what is
here called pragmatic effects in figurative/indirect language but also indeed
with language use and comprehension as a whole is speech act theory (SAT)
(Austin 1961). SAT, among many other things, attempted to separate and
label portions of meaning that arise in the act of making and encountering
 Defining a Pragmatic Effect 23

utterances to enable explanation of the comprehension of those utterances.

These portions included meaning of the language that a speaker says, some-
times elsewhere called literal meaning, referred to in SAT as the locution. The
usually broader meaning the speaker is intending to communicate by making
the utterance is called the illocution or illocutionary force. Finally, and for pre-
sent purposes most important, the effect the utterance has on the addressee
or hearer is the perlocution. For example, if a speaker says to an addressee,
“Do you want to grab a beer?” (2.1)
the locution is a question asking if the addressee has the desire to physically
grasp a container of beer. The illocutionary force is most likely an invitation
on the speaker’s part to go to some other place to drink a beer or some beers
with the speaker. The perlocution would most centrally be a belief on the
addressee’s part that the speaker is offering that invitation to go someplace to
drink a beer or beers with him or her, but it also could contain other beliefs,
for instance, that the speaker is romantically or in some other way interested
in the addressee, that the speaker is thirsty, that the speaker wishes to have
an important conversation with the addressee, or many other potentially
related meanings as warranted by the context. It also could contain other
reactions on the part of the addressee (e.g., feeling welcomed).
Another attempt by SAT was to create taxonomies that divide all utter-
ances into a fixed number of groups, with some of the distinguishing crite-
ria based, at least in part, on what the perlocutions would be for different
kinds of utterances (Searle 1969, 1975). For example, a new state of beliefs
along with attitudes and emotions associated with those beliefs could be
brought about in an addressee by a speaker uttering a declarative such as
“You’re fired!” (2.2)
Here the addressee’s perlocution would not only likely contain a belief that
she is no longer employed, but it also could contain other beliefs such as
that she has done something wrong, that she will not be able to pay next
month’s rent, that she cannot use the speaker for a future job reference, that
the speaker is a jerk, and so on.
Despite this recognition of the importance of perlocutions, including
the range of their extent and their potential differences from illocutionary
forces, SAT still had a number of problems. The first was a general lack of
agreement as to what the sets of categories for utterances should be, includ-
ing that different kinds of sentence forms can belong to different and even
multiple categories of speech acts (Gibbs 1999). This was a problem in part
influenced by the kinds of perlocutions different speech acts could produce.
24 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

More important for our purposes was another problem with SAT con-
cerning its general lack of precision regarding how perlocutions would
actually happen in addressees. Portions of this latter problem also were
either never satisfactorily solved (e.g., how does an addressee know which
of several possible perlocutions to choose from or how does the addressee
know when to stop choosing or embellishing perlocutions; see the section
“Relevance Theory” later), or attempted solutions ended up not garnering
empirical support. For example, in the case of indirect or figurative utter-
ances, one solution had addressees conducting multiple comprehensions
(Searle 1975, 1979). First, an initial comprehension would be made that
derived the so-called pure locution of an utterance independent of lexical,
syntactical, and semantic sources of information. A second comprehension
then would take place on realization that the result of the first was incom-
patible with the context at hand. As will be mentioned at multiple points
in this book, this strict two- or multistage model has repeatedly shown a
lack of empirical support as a universal account of indirect or figurative
language comprehension (Gibbs 1994).1
Despite these problems, SAT was nonetheless a groundbreaking account
that attempted to describe the range of meanings that can or must arise in
the mind of a comprehender when encountering an indirect or figurative
utterance. Its notion of a perlocution was an important benchmark in the
research leading to investigations of pragmatic effects.

Gricean Theory
A second theoretical framework that also dealt with pragmatic effects
somewhat directly was the work of philosopher Paul Grice’s on recognized
intentions. Grice attempted to explain a speaker’s making of an indirect
or figurative utterance by arguing that the speaker would do so with an
“m-intention.” M-intentions are intentions that speakers have and want
their addressees to recognize such that the recognition brings about cer-
tain effects in the addressees. For example, imagine a situation in which a
family pet dog named Musket is sitting next to and facing an exterior door.
One family member, Maria, is sitting across the room, and another person,
Simone, enters from a side interior door and passes by the pet. Maria says,
“Musket, do you want to go outside?” (2.3)
In making this utterance, Maria has an m-intention to get Simone to open
the door and let the dog out. It is not just an intention, as in being what
Maria wants to have happen. It is additionally an m-intention because
 Defining a Pragmatic Effect 25

Maria also wants Simone to recognize that this is what she wants to have
happen as a means of making it happen.
M-intentions thus in some ways add the qualities of perlocutions to
illocutionary forces. They are effects in addressees (or, technically, in this
example, overhearers) intended on the part of speakers in making their
utterances. These effects require deriving the illocutionary force behind
the locution, but they also go beyond that illocutionary force. Thus, in this
example, not only must Simone derive some meaning out of Maria’s utter-
ance that is broader than the locution (realizing an offer to go outside from
an inquiry on whether the dog has a desire to go outside), but that meaning
also involves a desired effect in Simone. In this case, this involves an action
on his part (to let the dog out).
In somewhat blending perlocutions and illocutionary forces, a further
construct was needed to fill the gap between an addressee deriving the
intended meaning of an utterance and then exhibiting the intended per-
locutionary effects brought from the speaker’s use of that utterance. In this
example, for instance, something is needed to account for how Simone real-
izes that Maria’s utterance is really directing him to open the door. For this,
Grice developed the idea of an implicature. An implicature is an inference
on the part of the addressee, authorized by the speaker, to derive the speak-
er’s m-intention and its consequences to arrive at a final comprehension.
One might first ask why a notion of implicature is necessary when the
idea of an illocutionary force – again, that which the speaker intended to
communicate – is already available. The main problem again is that an illo-
cutionary force, even if expanded to include all that a speaker is authorizing
the addressee to infer, does not supply a mechanism for how the addressee
derives all that meaning. Also, SAT greatly underestimates the interactive
nature of emergent meaning that plays a big role in meaning derivation. As
discussed later, Grice’s framework turns out to also fail at fully fixing these
problems, but it goes much further than SAT did.
For our main purpose here of delineating pragmatic effects, the notion
of an implicature buys a lot of ground. According to Grice’s view, then,
a pragmatic effect could be some meaning, belief, or knowledge that an
addressee (or other kind of comprehender) infers based on a comprehen-
sion of an utterance and a context. To illustrate this with a classic example,
consider the following three characters: Seth is a man who is romantically
attracted to a woman named Aretha, whom he has only seen from afar.
Aretha has a close friend, Min jun, who works with Seth, so Min jun and
Seth are acquainted. One day Seth decides to begin pursuing Aretha, so he
begins by asking Min jun if Aretha is married. Min jun replies,
26 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

“Aretha has three children.” (2.4)

What would Seth comprehend from this? According to Grice’s view, Seth
would first derive the “literal” meaning from the utterance. But then Seth
would infer, ideally in accordance with what Min jun intended him to infer,
a number of things not explicitly stated in the utterance. One of these could
be that Aretha is a parent of the three children. Another is that Aretha is
married. That Aretha is the parent of the children and is married are not
explicitly stated in the utterance, but they are reasonably inferred from the
utterance.
Elaborations on Grice’s basic notion of implicatures delineate this exam-
ple further. One may first distinguish between strong and weak implicatures.
Respectively, these involve inferences the speaker authorized or intended the
addressee to make versus those that the addressee makes anyway. In this
example, for instance, the inferences that Aretha is the parent of the three
children and is married could be authorized. But an additional inference
that Min jun is urging Seth to avoid Aretha also may be inferred by Seth but
not intended by Min jun. Min jun actually could think that Aretha would be
better off with Seth than with her present husband but still wish to alert Seth
that Aretha is nonetheless married to alert him of the situation he is facing.
Of course, it is also possible that Min jun does not intend the inference that
Aretha is married. Min jun could instead simply want to let Seth know that
Aretha has children and therefore might be a different type of romantic pur-
suit than he is imagining (e.g., that Aretha may have limited time to devote
to developing a new intimate relationship given the children).
Another elaboration on implicatures concerns whether they are depen-
dent on the local context or not. Particularized implicatures are those that
depend on some aspect of the local context to happen. For example, imag-
ine that two friends are looking forward to watching an important baseball
game on television. Kara rushes to Liz’s house, and when she opens the
front door, Liz says,

“It’s raining.” (2.5)

Here no explicit statement about where it is raining is uttered. But the infer-
ence that it is raining in the city where the baseball game is being played is
made possible by the context at hand.
Generalized implicatures, however, are those that can get made inde-
pendent of local contexts. As just one example, consider scalar implicatures
(Bott & Noveck 2004; Carston 1998; De Neys & Schaeken 2007; Levinson
2000; Noveck 2001; Noveck & Posada 2003; Papafragou & Musolino 2003;
 Defining a Pragmatic Effect 27

Sperber & Wilson 1986, 1995). These implicatures involve inferences made
on the use of certain quantity terms. For example, if a speaker says,

“Some of the packages have arrived.” (2.6)

it is likely that hearers would infer that some of the packages also have not
arrived. Note, though, that such an inference is not logically derived from
what is explicitly stated in the utterance – ”some,” in reference to the pack-
ages that have arrived, does not automatically mean that the remainder of
the packages have not arrived.
Even with these and other elaborations on the idea of implicatures,
however, there remains problems with Grice’s view. The biggest of these
concerns the remaining issue of an implicit claim that multiple sequential
interpretations would be needed for all figurative language comprehension.
This problem is really a leftover from SAT. Indeed, most of the empirical
studies that revealed this problem referred to a blend of Searle’s and Grice’s
accounts with the term standard pragmatic model (Gibbs 1994, 2002; Grice
1975; Searle 1979).
A second problem, though, concerns how one might limit the impli-
catures that a comprehender would make. Grice’s view does not supply a
ready mechanism that would impose such a limit. A speaker interpreting
example (2.5), for instance, might infer appropriately that it is raining in the
city where the game is being played. But there is nothing to stop further
inferences, such as therefore the game is canceled, therefore the visit invita-
tion is rescinded, therefore I am no longer welcome, therefore I must leave
now, and so on. There is no mechanism that allows for selection of which of
these possible inferences the speaker intended the interpreter to draw, nor
for a stop to drawing inferences. Clearly, except when people are suffering
from paranoia, they do not generate inferences into infinity. They also seem
readily able under normal circumstances to arrive at a set of inferences that,
if not exactly what the speaker intended, seems to nonetheless approximate
those intentions, allowing the conversation to proceed successfully. The
next account attempted solutions to both these problems.

Relevance Theory
The third theoretical approach that deals explicitly with pragmatic effects
is relevance theory (Goatly 1997; Hanna 2011; Kovecses 2011; Schourup
2011; Sperber & Wilson 1986, 1995; White 2011; Wilson 2011; Wilson &
Sperber 2012). According to the basic tenets of relevance theory, language
28 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

production and comprehension operate around a principle of optimal

relevance, derivable loosely from Grice’s relevance maxim. Optimal rel-
evance means in the simplest sense that speakers normally will produce
utterances that fit with or are relevant to the currently shared background
knowledge of the interlocutors. This background knowledge is made
up of specific bits of shared information called contextual assumptions.
Comprehenders then will use those contextual assumptions, along with
the utterances, to compute positive cognitive effects (PCgE in the following
examples).2 Positive cognitive effects involve such things as confirmations
or disconfirmations of contextual assumptions, as well as computations of
additional meaning.
For example, imagine that two interlocutors are both fans of a particular
sports team and that the team is known mutually by both people to have
lost an important game the previous evening. One of the people, Edwardo,
saw the game as it happened. The other person, Ryan, although aware of the
outcome, had missed seeing the game because of another commitment. If
Ryan then asks Edwardo about the game, a few contextual assumptions are
likely in place at that point (presented in brackets):
[A description is expected] + [a negative description is expected] (2.7)
Based on the shared common knowledge that inquiries demand responses,
the first contextual assumption is that a response that describes the game is
expected from Edwardo. Based on the knowledge that the team favored by
the interlocutors lost, the second assumption is that the description of the
game will be negative. If Edwardo then makes the comment
“Terrible!” (2.8)
Ryan can readily compute the positive cognitive effects that confirm the
contextual assumptions at hand:
PCgE – confirmation of expectation of description

and

PCgE – confirmation of expectation of negative description. (2.9)

which constitute the comprehension of the utterance. Putting all the pre-
ceding together, we have
[A description is expected] + [a negative description is expected] +
[“Terrible!”] = PCgE – confirmation of expectation of description and
PCgE – confirmation of expectation of negative description. (2.10)
 Defining a Pragmatic Effect 29

Where relevance theory and the principle of optimal relevance really pay
off, though, is when utterances do not seem to apply directly to the current
set of contextual assumptions. In such cases, comprehenders are warranted
to compute positive cognitive effects that bring in additional meaning.
Consider the same situation with the new response utterance, “A root
canal,” in the following3:
[A description is expected] + [a negative description is expected] + [“A
root canal”] = PCgE – getting a root canal is a particularly bad experience;
PCgE – the experience of watching the game was similar to the experi-
ence of getting a root canal; PCgE – watching the game was a particularly
bad experience; PCgE – confirmation of expectation of description; and
PCgE – confirmation of expectation of negative description. (2.11)
In these situations, the kinds of positive cognitive effects that bring in addi-
tional meaning are very similar to conversational implicatures in Grice’s
view. But what relevance theory additionally supplies is contained in the
more complex sense of optimal relevance that allows selection among pos-
sible positive cognitive effects, as well as a means of limiting them. Optimal
relevance here essentially means that (1) there is additional meaning that
the speaker wants the comprehender to infer, (2) computing this additional
meaning is worth the comprehender’s effort (i.e., it is not just superfluous),
(3) this meaning fits with what the comprehender can and would prefer
to infer, and (4) once there is enough additional meaning inferred to jus-
tify the effort to infer it, the comprehender can stop inferring additional
information.
Relevance theory thus does a better job with the problems described ear-
lier concerning Grice’s view. Relevance theory, through optimal relevance,
allows for selection of appropriate positive cognitive effects (one type of
pragmatic effects in present terms). Relevance theory, or at least some inter-
pretations of it, also diminishes the implicit claim that figurative or indirect
language requires multiple stages of comprehension relative to direct lan-
guage that requires only one. In relevance-theoretic terms, all utterances (or
at least most), direct and indirect, require computation of positive cognitive
effects. Some utterances might license the computation of a greater quantity
or greater complexity of positive cognitive effects, but nearly all utterances
will require at least some such computations.
Relevance theory, building on the accounts leading up to it, has emerged
as the “juggernaut” of pragmatic explanations of meaning derivation (Gibbs
2005). The enormous attention it has received demonstrates the power of
some of its ideas, as well as the passionate criticism the ideas have invoked,
30 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

leading to its ongoing revision. For instance, its application to the compre-
hension of metaphors and the tradeoff that arises between cognitive effort
and the computation of positive cognitive effects, as well as how those might
be predicted and measured, are current topics of much discussion (Carston &
Wearing 2011; Gibbs & Tendahl 2006, 2011; Gil 2011; Kovecses 2011; Ryder &
Leinonen 2011, 2014; Schourup 2011; Sequeiros 2011; Tendahl & Gibbs 2008;
Walaszewska 2011; White 2011; Wilson 2011). As will also be shown later,
how relevance theory might handle different depths of pragmatic effects –
ranging from those inherent in the structure of a trope, through those that
might be embodied, up to those that might involve social and cultural in
addition to cognitive processes – is also unclear. However, as one of the lat-
est and very widely studied, debated, and considered attempts to corral the
notion of pragmatic effects and how they might be addressed with relatively
parsimonious principles, relevance theory has made a major impact.

Philosophical Accounts
Other important linguistic/philosophic accounts also provide in-depth
bases for discussing different pragmatic effect accomplishments (e.g.,
Recanati 2004, 2007). Consider as just one example Dascal’s (2003) des-
ignation between “comprehended” and “grasped” meaning. According to
this view, all kinds of speaker comprehension involve the use of pragmatics
either to confirm that an explicitly stated meaning is intended by the speaker
or to invoke an inferential abductive process to create interpretive hypoth-
eses that reveal implicit meanings of the speaker. These hypotheses in the
latter case could entail beliefs very similar to implicatures in the Gricean
account. In either case, though, such comprehension can take place while
still leaving out deeper meaningful aspects of the conversation intended by
the speaker or inherent in the conversation based on the speaker’s talk or
behavior. To achieve these deeper meanings, the hearer must additionally
“grasp” the speaker’s meaning beyond mere “comprehension.”
As an illustration, imagine that a medical patient and his physician are
talking about the high cost of Alzheimer’s medications, perhaps stemming
casually from their noting that they had both viewed a recent television
advertisement for a memory-enhancement drug. The conversation might
be drastically different, though, if the doctor knew that her patient’s mother
was suffering from the disease relative to the doctor not knowing this. The
potentially deeper meaning of the patient’s seemingly idle input into the dis-
cussion of the drug, when his mother is in fact ill with Alzheimer’s, and the
doctor’s grasping of this depth could involve more profound and important
 Defining a Pragmatic Effect 31

kinds of hypotheses generated on the doctor’s part. These could affect the
train, comprehension, and appropriateness of the rest of the conversation.
As will be discussed at various points later, this comprehension/grasp-
ing distinction, along with other rich psychological phenomena that occur
in human interactions, could underlie the performance of a number of
pragmatic effects (e.g., ingratiation, mastery display, and admiration; see
Chapter 3). These effects might not currently fall within the explanatory
shadow of current accounts. That the doctor might derive these additional
effects in the case where the patient’s mother is known to be ill, for instance,
is not just triggered by that propositional knowledge. It also arises from a
deeply emotional and empathetic response, very much under the umbrella
of broader psychological influences on language comprehension, that may
not reside exclusively within that comprehension yet still affect it.

Inferences
In addition to the theoretical linguistic and philosophical work that has
progressively refined concepts similar to pragmatic effects, another source
of ideas about pragmatic effects is the more quantitative empirical and
experimental work predominantly in psycholinguistics on inferences.4
This is a rather large body of work extending over several decades that has
attempted to empirically identify what kinds of meanings readers/hearers
get more or less directly out of texts versus deriving or inferring from those
texts during the process of online language processing. Major goals of this
work have been to identify (1) what kinds of inferences are drawn, (2) when
are they drawn (e.g., immediately on reading/hearing some text/talk con-
struction or at some point later), (3) which inferences are necessary versus
more optionally elaborative, and (4) what kinds of orienting tasks might
affect whether different kinds of inferences are drawn and when?
A full review of this literature is far beyond the scope of this chapter,
particularly the immense methodological issues and concerns in this work.5
Indeed, these methodological concerns leave definitive answers to the pre-
ceding questions as yet unavailable and arguably impossible given current
technologies despite recent developments in eye-tracking and virtual-world
paradigms. Nevertheless, several of these kinds of inferences might be simi-
lar to the pragmatic effects discussed here for figurative or indirect lan-
guage. Among these are the general categories of coherence and elaborative
inferences – respectively, the concern inferences that are argued as nec-
essary for a given construction to provide a coherent comprehension and
inferences that are not as strictly necessary but which may nonetheless be
32 What Is a Pragmatic Effect?

drawn under certain circumstances. The primary overlap with pragmatic

effects and implicatures or contextual effects, however, is with the latter
kind of inference.
First, though, briefly consider coherence inferences involving such
things as pronominal references. These certainly appear in many kinds of
figurative language both as simple syntactic support for neighboring figures
as in the metaphor,
“You have to clean this room, it’s an armpit.” (2.12)

and as part of the figures themselves as in proverbs or verbal irony such as,

“The bread never falls but on its buttered side.” (2.13)

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” (2.14)
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” (2.15)
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” (2.16)
“Ask my parents? Oh, sure, they’re relationship experts.” (2.17)

A great deal of debate has taken place between some linguistic and phil-
osophical accounts concerning the role of contextual information in index-
ical and later processing. These debates apply here to coherence inferences
in figurative language. For example, is it the case that the referential assign-
ment of “it” to “room” must happen for the metaphor comprehension to
succeed in (2.12)? Some accounts would argue for such a necessity, at least
for novel metaphors. Others might hold that the contextual momentum of
(2.12) being used in an actual setting of a filthy room may diminish refer-
ential assignment necessity for full metaphoric comprehension. Indeed, a
hearer could potentially miss hearing the “it’s an” part altogether and still
telegraphically make the assignment and comprehend the metaphor.
Other accounts grapple with the level of fixedness apparent in compa-
rable utterances and how that affects indexical processing. Consider the ref-
erential assignment of “its” in (2.13) versus (2.14). Example (2.14), in being
a much more familiar and widely used proverb, might benefit from its con-
current greater fixedness. The referential assignment may be less of a neces-
sity accordingly. Whether a pronominal referent is context independent or
dependent is also important at both “said” and “conveyed” levels of mean-
ing (Recanati 2004). Compare the referential assignments of (2.15) and
(2.16) at each of these meaning levels. In (2.16), the referential assignment is
neatly contained in the proverb – “they” refers to “things. In (2.15), however,
the referential assignment is external in both uses of “they.” Finally, con-
sider the complexities of referential assignments across different figures in
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arches. The windows, however, are the lighter and more graceful
creations of the Decorated Period, though the glass is mostly
modern. Among the tombs is that of Prince Edward, son of Henry
VI., who was cruelly slain in the battle of Tewkesbury, so fatal to the
Lancastrian cause. Here, too, lies the “false, fleeting, perjured
Clarence,” of Shakespeare; and Somerset, executed by his captors
after the battle. The abbey was marked for destruction by Henry
VIII., who was deterred from his purpose by a public subscription.
Tewkesbury is rather decadent, and has many houses in brick and
timber as yet quite unspoiled by modern improvement. It is
pleasantly situated on the banks of the classic Avon near its junction
with the Severn, and the many-arched stone bridge over the former
river is unusually picturesque. Half a mile farther a second bridge
crosses the Severn, which lies in broad, still reaches dotted with
small craft of every description.
Over these bridges we hastened away toward Hereford, following a
level though sinuous road. The old-world quaintness of Ledbury
attracted our attention. Its rectangular timber market cross,
supported on a colonnade of wooden pillars, is unusual indeed. And
nowhere else did we find finer specimens of Elizabethan half-
timbered houses, though some of them were rather tawdry in recent
applications of black and white paint. Such houses have become
quite the rage and some owners have gone so far as to paint black
stripes on common brick to represent the timbers. However, no such
travesty as this is necessary in Ledbury—the town is overflowing
with the genuine article—genuine though disfigured in some cases
by the bad taste of the man with the paint pot. Church Lane, leading
from the main street up a gentle slope to the church, is bordered
with splendid examples of Elizabethan houses, quite unaltered since
they left the builders’ hands. At the end of the lane one sees a
graceful spire standing apart from the church, which is quite unique
in design. It has four sharply pitched roofs running parallel, with odd
little minarets between them. The interior has the newness of recent
restoration and shows traces of different styles, from Norman to
Perpendicular. Ledbury has an institute which commemorates its
association with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who passed her girlhood
near the town.
At Hereford we sought the cathedral, having missed the interior
during a former visit. A small, bare-headed boy in a red sweater saw
us pause before the close and marked us as his legitimate prey. “I’ll
take you into the Bishop’s Palace,” he said in such a matter-of-fact
way that it disarmed our suspicions and we followed the youngster
meekly enough, for with all our doing of cathedrals we had caught
only glimpses of bishops’ palaces, usually embowered in gardens
and apparently quite inaccessible. We had no opportunity to
question our small guide as he rapidly led us through the palace
grounds, but when he unhesitatingly rang at the door, we insisted on
an explanation and learned that the bishop and his family were in
London. During their absence the palace was thrown open to the
public and our small friend was doubtless improving the opportunity
to put cathedral visitors under obligations to himself.
We were admitted and wandered about at will. It is a rambling old
house and indicates that a bishop occupies about the same plane in
his domestic appointments as a prosperous member of the nobility,
among whom, in fact, he takes a high rank. The house was
sumptuously furnished and had several great rooms with high
decorated ceilings and windows that looked out on the pleasant
grounds, bright with flowers and shrubbery. The study pleased us
most, with its high bookshelves about the walls and tall mullioned
bow windows which open almost directly on the Wye. It was easy to
see why the English bishops nearly all complain that their salaries,
though apparently large, are hardly adequate to the state they are
expected to maintain; and why, as in the case of an American
ambassador, a private fortune is often necessary to enable the
recipient of such an honor to pay the legitimate expenses. Our
picture will show, perhaps better than any description, the beauty of
the river front of the palace, with the fine trees and cathedral tower
in the background. We had only a moment to look about the
cathedral, since the closing hour was nearly at hand. However, we
missed little, for Hereford Cathedral has few historic associations and
recent restoration gives it an almost new appearance. It is built of
red sandstone, which gives the interior a rather warm tone,
accentuated by highly-colored modern windows.
 BISHOP’S PALACE, HEREFORD.
A pause for the night at Ludlow, where we arrived after a run of an
hour or two through the rich pasture lands along the Welsh Border,
gave us an opportunity of renewing our pleasant associations with
that fine old town. But as we were to visit Ludlow thrice before the
close of our pilgrimage, I shall leave our impressions and discoveries
for later consideration.
The road from Ludlow to Bridgnorth is—or rather was—not a first-
class one. Road conditions in Britain change so rapidly since the
advent of the motor that one can scarcely speak of them in the
present tense. As we found it, poorly surfaced, narrow and winding,
it was not to be compared with the highway along the border.
Bridgnorth is an ancient market town, famous for its cattle fair,
which has been held yearly since 1226. The service at the Crown
Inn, where we stopped for luncheon, was excellent, and the
moderate charge proved Bridgnorth off the beaten tourist track, a
special rate not yet being established for the infrequent motorists. It
was market day and the town was crowded with country people. The
ample market square was filled with booths, and goods of every
description were offered for sale. A socialist orator—a common
nuisance in England—was haranguing the people, who crowded the
streets so closely that we could get through only with difficulty. That
motors are not so common in Bridgnorth was apparent, and a crowd
collected about the car in the hotel stableyard. The general
expression was hostile, and many instances were related where “one
of the things” had worked disaster with skittish horses.
We made our escape without entering into the discussion and
dropped down the almost precipitous hill to the Severn bridge. The
road is a charming one, with wooded hills rising sharply on one hand
and the broad Severn lying far beneath on the other. At Shifnal a
policeman, in response to our inquiry, directed us to the byway
leading to the village of Tong, some three miles distant. Here,
according to one well qualified to judge, is the “most interesting
example of early Perpendicular architecture in Shropshire—a section
famous for interesting churches.” But it is better known through its
association with Little Nell in “Old Curiosity Shop,” and Dickens’
description shows that the appearance of the church before its
restoration was quite different from today:
“The church was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls and
round the porch. It was a very quiet place, as such a place should
be, save for the cawing of the rooks, who had built their nests
among the branches of some tall trees. It was a very aged, ghostly
place. The church had been built many hundreds of years ago and
once had a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins,
remains of oriel windows, and fragments of blackened walls were yet
standing.” It is still old and gray, but no longer ghostly and ruinous.
It was far from lonely, for a crowd of trippers was being shown
about by the caretaker when we arrived.
The tombs of Tong Church, with their effigies and brasses, are
remarkably perfect, and one of them must be very ancient, for it
bears the figure of a crusader in chain mail. The images escaped
destruction, it is said, because of the friendship of Cromwell for the
Stanleys, who were adherents of the Parliament. In the church are
buried several of the Vernons, whom the madcap Dorothy gave to
eternal fame, for they had little else to rescue them from the
oblivion that overwhelmed such a host of unremembered squires
and knights. Dorothy’s sister, Margaret, is buried with her husband,
Sir Edward Stanley, who came into possession of Tong Castle
through his wife. The church also has a remarkable library of black-
letter books, some of them almost as old as the church itself, and a
stupendous bell, weighing two tons, hangs in its tower.

TONG VILLAGE, SHROPSHIRE.

The village well accords with the church—a quiet place half hidden
by trees and shrubbery, while the ivy and blooming vines give a
touch of color to the gray walls. The tiny gardens are brilliant with
old-fashioned flowers and the air is laden with their sweetness.
Amidst such surroundings are scattered the pleasant old timbered
cottages, with thatched roofs and diamond-paned lattice windows.
The original castle has disappeared and has been replaced by a
large Georgian house—a Moorish-looking mansion with domed roofs
and pinnacles, yet rather picturesque, despite the fact that it
outrages good architectural taste. It is in ill accord with the
unspoiled little village; for altogether, Tong, with its church and
associations, is one of the most delightful nooks and thoroughly
typical of rural England at its best.
There are other associations in the neighborhood of Tong that may
attract anyone especially interested in curious bits of English history,
for near at hand is Boscobel House and its Royal Oak. In my youthful
days, I read in one of the old-fashioned Sunday school books—many
of which were then imported from England and were written by
orthodox royalists—the story of the miraculous escape of His
Gracious Majesty Charles II. from the wicked rebels who sought to
lay violent hands on the “Lord’s Anointed.” I looked on the honest
country people of Boscobel as direct instruments of Providence in
preserving the sacred life of the king, and fairly held my breath with
fear and excitement when I read that the Puritan troopers rode
beneath the very tree in which the monarch was concealed. Even
when sadly disenchanted by the knowledge that if ever rascal
escaped his due it was when Charles Stuart dodged his pursuers, the
romance of the old story lingered and I always had a desire to see
Boscobel House and the Royal Oak.
 BOSCOBEL HOUSE, SHROPSHIRE.
After leaving Tong we were only a few minutes in the shady lanes
until we drew up in front of the ancient manor and found it a shrine
for the English tripper, though the name of no American had been
registered in its visitors’ book. The house is quite unaltered and of
itself would be worth a visit as an unusually good specimen of early
English domestic architecture, for it dates from 1540. The walls are
stuccoed between heavy oaken posts at the corners and beams at
the line of the floors. The huge chimney, mullioned windows and
other touches indicate that it was a gentleman’s residence. Inside
there are several fine rooms, with much oak carving and paneling,
though in the dining-room, rather the best of all, the oak has been
painted. There are a good many portraits and relics of the king,
more or less authentic, which are shown with a proper degree of
reverence. In the attic floor is the entrance to a small secret
chamber reputed as one of the hiding-places of the king, though no
doubt originally planned for a “priest hole,” as the Puritans called
such places of concealment.
The farm-wife who cared for the house, and who was glad to see
visitors, had come to reverence the king as the saint that the old
chronicles picture him and had a full stock of the traditions of the
place. She pointed out the identical tree which sheltered his Sacred
Majesty, though the prosaic and unimpressionable Baedeker declares
that it vanished long ago—which we ventured to hint, only to be met
with proper scorn. To impress us with the goodness and generosity
of the king, she related that the pension he settled on his preservers
and their heirs forever is still paid to the descendants of the
Penderels by an assessment on the parish—characteristic indeed of
Charles, who always rewarded services if he could do so at the
expense of some one else. We purchased a quaint book at the house
—a facsimile reprint of an account of the events at Boscobel,
published after the Restoration and dedicated to the king. As a
curious example of the depraved lickspittle attitude of his flatterers
toward the person of the monarch—a spirit not altogether extinct
today, for that matter—I give a few sentences from the author’s
dedication:
“I humbly beg your Majesties pardon, being conscious to myself of
my utter incapacity to express, either your unparallel’d valour in the
day of contending, or (which is a vertue far less usual for Kings)
your strong and even mind in the time of your sufferings. From
which sublime endowments of Your Most Heroick Majesty I derive
these comforts to my self, That whoever undertakes to reach at your
perfections, must fall short as well as I, though not so much. And
now, on my bended knees, let me joyfully congratulate his restored
Majesty, and humbly offer him this short and hearty wish, O KING,
LIVE FOR EVER.”
Bidding Boscobel Manor farewell, we pause for a hasty glance at the
scant ruin of White Ladies, an old-time nunnery standing quite apart
in a field near by; then we retrace our way to the main road leading
through Tong to Newmarket and Market Drayton. The latter town
should be of considerable interest to an Englishman, since here was
the home of Robert Clive, who, according to a well-known historian,
“will ever be remembered as the man who laid deeply the
foundations of our Indian Empire and who at a time of national
despondency restored the tarnished honor of British arms.” Aside
from this, there is little to interest the wayfarer save several fine
Elizabethan houses and a mighty church that quite overshadows the
town and country.
We are soon away for Shrewsbury, the ever charming county town
of Shropshire, fleeting over as fine a road as ever tempted the
winged wheels of a motor car. It is nearly deserted, straight, broad
and level, and it is quite too late to fear the minions of the law—but
this is not a record of miles per hour. Suffice it to say that very
shortly we stop at the sign of the Raven in Old Salop.
One could never grow weary of the old town, and we saw another
phase in its life and activity on a Saturday evening. The whole
population seemed to have turned loose, and the brilliantly lighted
main street was quite metropolitan. The quaint old fronts had a
rather odd and out-of-place look in the glare of the electric light; the
narrow, dimly lit side streets were more in accord with the spirit of
the place. The shops were crowded and on the whole seemed
surprisingly up to date and well stocked for a town of thirty
thousand.
The Sunday following was as quiet as the evening before had been
animated, and was as perfect as an English June day can be. In the
afternoon we were off for a run, with scarcely any definite point in
view, though a jaunt of an hour or two brought us in front of
Lichfield Cathedral just as the afternoon service was beginning. We
joined the rather diminutive body of worshippers who occupied but a
small part of the great church. We were perhaps quite as intent on
the interior—a very epic in warm red sandstone—as upon the dreary
chant of the litany. A thorough restoration has been made recently
and an air of newness prevails, but no one interested in cathedral
architecture will miss Lichfield—in some respects the most
harmonious and best proportioned of them all. We have seen the
town before, but not the large square house before which we pause,
for a moment, and which bears a bronze tablet to the memory of its
one-time occupant, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin.
Our route to Shrewsbury was over one of the Roman Watling
streets, straight as an arrow’s flight much of the way and often
bordered by giant trees. Never did the English countryside appear
more charming in all our wanderings through it. There was a
continual succession of green fields, vast parks, clear streams and
wooded hills, with an occasional retired village—for on our return we
avoided Wolverhampton with its rough streets and trams—to lend
variety to the rural beauty through which we passed until we again
skirted the Severn and re-entered the town.
 VII
A WEEK IN SOUTH WALES
We leave Shrewsbury by the Welsh bridge for a week among the
rugged hills and valleys of Southern Wales, a country rich in relics of
antiquity and romantic associations. We sweep along the fine
highway to Welshpool and from thence, a little farther, to
Montgomery, a decayed, out-of-the-way town in the hills. A fragment
of its castle is perched high on the precipitous hill commanding the
town and looking far over the vale of the serpentine Severn. The
Severn, like the Wye, is the most sinuous of rivers, and there are
few more inspiring prospects than its long shining folds winding
through the verdant valley as seen from the castle walls.
Montgomery, quiet and unheroic as it is today, has a stirring past. It
took its name from Roger de Montgomerie, “Second in command in
the army of his kinsman, William of Normandy,” though the grim,
almost inaccessible castle antedated his possession of the town.
Fierce indeed was the strife between the Normans and the wild
Welsh tribes, and the fair vale of the Severn was the scene of many
a bloody conflict. The castle, though with varying owners and
fortunes, continued a stronghold to the day of its surrender to the
soldiers of the Commonwealth; after which nothing remained but
blackened walls—another added to the long list of feudal fortresses
“destroyed by Cromwell.”
The road southward from Newtown leads through as wild a tract of
country as we saw in Britain. Not the Scotch Highlands or the hills at
the headwaters of the Welsh Wye equal it in loneliness and seeming
remoteness. But it is more picturesque than the localities just
named, for the hills are mostly wooded, and the shallow, sparkling
river which we followed—though usually far above it—runs through a
narrow valley diversified in spots with trees and bits of meadow
land. For eight miles out of Newtown we encountered a continually
rising grade, which brought us to a narrow upland road running
along the hillsides, which drop in almost precipitous slopes to the
river far below. The road twists along the edge of the hills, at times
in almost circular curves, and too close to the sharp declivity at its
side for one’s ease of mind. At Llandrindod Wells we had passed the
wildest part of the road and we noted with surprise the handsome
houses and palatial hotels of a town we had scarcely heard of
before, but which has recently become the queen of Welsh inland
resorts. The declining sun shot his rays along the purple hilltops that
encircle the place and the shadows were already long in the pine-
clad valleys. It was growing late, but after a hurried consultation we
decided against the pretentious hotels of Llandrindod Wells.
We dashed across the arched stone bridge over the Wye at Builth
Wells and brought sharply up in front of the Lion Hotel, which,
standing squarely across the way, seemed to bar farther progress,
and we had little choice but to stop for the night. The Lion’s
accommodations are not elaborate by any means, but it was quite
too late to go farther. Though Builth has mineral wells and a “pump
house,” a mile from the town, there is nothing of the resort hotel
about the Lion; on the contrary, it is the plainest of old-country inns,
apparently a haven for fishermen rather than health seekers. Its
walls were covered with the antique hand-colored prints so
characteristic of English inns; its mantels were loaded with queer
pieces of bric-a-brac; tallow candles lighted the bedrooms. The
electric push-button had not superseded the tasseled rope by the
bedside, with which one jangles a bell hung on a coiled spring in the
hallway. But it is spacious and has an air of old-world comfort about
it—little modern except its motor garage.
After all, we were fortunate in our pause at Builth, for we beheld the
most glorious of sunsets on the long reaches of the Wye as it enters
the town from the west. The river dances down the valley in a series
of broad, shallow rapids, resting itself here and there in a quiet
lakelike pool. The sunset hues were subdued rather than brilliant;
pink and salmon tints were reflected in the stream as we stood on
the bridge and looked up the quiet valley, and these faded into hazy
amethyst as the twilight advanced. It was a scene of quiet, pastoral
beauty amidst surroundings that do not lack for legend and
antiquity, and altogether left a pleasing recollection of an
unattractive Welsh town which in itself has little of the picturesque.
We were away early in the morning following the Wye Valley road,
with its vistas of hill and river, as far as Llyswen, where we crossed
the hills to Brecon. Our stop here was short, as our route was to
bring us again to this interesting old town in a few days. We did not
often find a more delightful road than that down the Usk Valley to
Crickhowell, Abergavenny and Caerleon. Its excellent surface and
long sweeping grades might be a temptation to speed, but it is quite
neutralized by the constant beauty of the scenery and interest of the
country. On either hand are the low Welsh mountains, wooded to
the very crest, and at times far below we caught the gleam of the
river—though so shrunken as to scarcely deserve the name—leaping
and flashing over its stone-strewn bed. Here and there a quiet
village nestled unobtrusively by the roadside; at Crickhowell we
found a larger but somnolent town whose huge church is crowded
with memorials of the old Welsh warriors. Even larger and more
impressive is the great Priory Church at Abergavenny, whose square
battlemented tower one might think had been built to withstand the
sieges of the devil, even as the Welsh castles were made almost
impregnable against the attack of man. No quainter town did we
pass than Usk; it must have been much the same when the
Conqueror sent his legions to overawe the Welsh tribes, save that its
castle, then no doubt a lordly fortress, is now a decayed ivy-mantled
ruin. Its greater importance in years gone by is attested by its
mighty priory church, ill in keeping with the hamlet that clusters
about it today. According to tradition, two kings of England were
born in Usk—Richard III. and Edward IV.—and Roman remains
indicate an important station on the spot almost at the dawn of the
Christian Era.
But what shall one say of Caerleon, farther down the valley, now
practically a suburb of Newport, where dim legends still linger to the
effect that it was once King Arthur’s capital and that here was the
castle

“From whose high towers they say

Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset,
And white sails flying o’er a yellow sea.”

A prosaic historian, however, declares that in all likelihood the King

Arthur legend sprang from Roman ruins which some hundreds of
years ago existed in Caerleon in great magnificence. At any rate,
modern Caerleon has no trace of the regal capital of the early king—
a bald, unattractive town close upon the Usk, now broadened into a
considerable stream, dull with the taint from the manufactories on
its banks.
At Newport we are entering a different order of things, brought
about by the great industrial development in South Wales due to the
coal and iron mines and large shipping interests. In the last century
the population of the town has grown from one to seventy thousand.
The old order is indeed dead here. There is no effort to attract the
tourist, and the castle, almost the sole relic of antiquity, is crumbling
into unhindered ruin as it sits far above the drear expanse of mud
left by the receding tide. We hasten through the town—we may see
a hundred such at home—and seek from a friendly policeman the
road to Caerphilly, a village off in the hills which we know has no
new-world counterpart.
For ten miles from Newport we wend our way over a dusty, ill-kept
byroad with sharp turns and steep grades, and before we come to
the village we see from some distance the broken towers and
battlements of Caerphilly Castle. We pass through the gateway in
the straggling walls and the scene of desolation and massive ruin
that lies before us is hardly paralleled in impressiveness among
British castles, unless it be by Corfe in Dorset. A great round tower,
perhaps fifty feet in diameter, with walls ten feet thick, split as by a
thunder stroke, greets our eyes. Half of it is still standing, though
leaning many feet from the vertical, and the other half lies in mighty
fragments of masonry at its base. There had been four such towers,
but only one is comparatively entire. The walls, though much
shattered in places, still serve to give an idea of the vast extent of
the ancient castle. The huge banqueting hall has been roofed and
recalls in a rather pathetic way the rude magnificence of its feudal
state.

CAERPHILLY CASTLE, SOUTH WALES.

But words quite fail to describe Caerphilly—such a maze of grim
walls and towers, such a network of ruinous apartments, piled deep
with debris, overawe and confuse one. Only the antiquarian may
painfully decipher the plan of the castle and in imagination
reconstruct it as it was when it stood a bulwark between warring
nations. But to the ordinary beholder it will remain a mystery set in
the midst of the barren hills, and he will hardly care to resolve the
impressive pile into its original parts. It will seem an entity to him—it
is hard to think it otherwise than it appears today. Its romance is
deepened by the obscurity of its history—for the story of Caerphilly
has many blanks and breaks. There is no record of when it was first
begun and there is doubt as to when it was finally destroyed. Some
say the ruin is the work of Cromwell, and it surely seems worthy of
that master of the art of wrecking castles; others declare that it was
abandoned at the time of the Commonwealth, having been
destroyed by Shakespeare’s “Wild irregular Glendower,” in his
endless conflicts with the English.
But after all, does it not savor even more of romance that mystery
enshrouds the past of the stupendous structure whose scanty
remnants encircle us? Why call upon prosaic history to dispel the
charm that emanates from the gray ruin, half hidden by its mantle of
ivy and dashed here and there with the purple valerian and yellow
wall-flower? Such would be folly indeed as we sit on the soft green
turf of the court and contemplate the fantastic outlines in the glow
of the sunset; when all is silence save for the angry brawls of the
rooks, which have entered into full possession—reincarnations,
perhaps, of the erstwhile contentious owners.
But the spell of Caerphilly dissolves and a different world surrounds
us as we enter the broad modern streets of Cardiff and pause before
the American-looking Park Hotel. Cardiff as a village antedates the
Conquest, but as a metropolis of two hundred thousand, it is quite
recent. One hundred years ago it had a population of a thousand; in
1837, of ten thousand; and it is easy to see that the traces of
antiquity in such a city must be few. Its future was assured when the
first Marquis of Bute hazarded his entire fortune in the construction
of the extensive docks from which shipments of coal and iron are
now made. It was a lucky throw of the die for the nobleman, for
today his grandson owns the greater part of Cardiff and is one of the
wealthiest men in the Kingdom.
Cardiff Castle—forever associated with the dark fate of Prince Robert
—has been replaced by a Moorish palace—or rather, an incongruous
mixture in which the Moorish predominates. It is easy to gain
admittance to this imposing palace, where art has been entirely
unhampered by cost, and if garishness and incongruity sometimes
prevail, interest is nevertheless continual. There is a fragment of the
keep of the old castle in the grounds and Duke Robert’s dungeon is
incorporated into the new structure—a dark, vaultlike cavity in the
walls where for thirty years the unfortunate prince, the direct heir to
the throne of the Conqueror, was kept a close prisoner by his brother
Henry. Legend has it that his eyes were put out because of an
attempt to escape and that he died in the dungeon at the age of
eighty years.

CARDIFF CASTLE.
Cardiff’s municipal buildings are a delight; white stone palaces
standing in ample grounds with wide pleasant approaches—
altogether models of what civic structures ought to be. Immense
and busy as it is, there is little in Cardiff to detain one on such a
pilgrimage as ours, and we were away before noon on the Swansea
road.
Llandaff is but three miles from Cardiff, and we reached it by a short
detour. Its cathedral, recently restored, is probably the most
interesting of Welsh churches excepting St. David’s. The site has
been occupied by a church ever since the year 600, though the
present structure dates from early Norman times. It fell into
complete ruin after the time of the Commonwealth. One chronicler
declares that “Cromwell’s men turned the nave into an ale house,
penned calves in the choir and fed pigs at the font,” though they
must have been rather unorthodox Puritans to countenance the ale
house. No attempt was made to preserve the fine church from decay
until about two hundred years later, and so deplorable was its
condition that the task of restoration seemed a well-nigh impossible
one. Still, after much difficulty, the work was happily carried out, and
the twin towers—one a slender spire and its companion square-
topped with Gothic finials—present a very unusual though not
unpleasant effect. Inside there is a mixture of Norman and early
English styles, and some beautiful Decorated work. There are three
paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that arrest attention at once—
done in that artist’s best style long ere he was known to fame. The
windows, though modern, are of unusual excellence, having been
designed by Burne-Jones and other notable artists. Near by are the
ruins of the bishop’s palace, whose fortresslike walls tell of a time
when the churchman and the warrior went hand in hand. Its
destruction some six hundred years ago is attributed to Owen
Glendwr, whose record for castle-smashing in Wales is second only
to that of Cromwell. The village of Llandaff is still rural and pretty; it
is quite clear of the skirts of Cardiff, being separated from the city by
the River Taff. The old stone cross still stands in front of the palace
and there is now little to remind one of the big modern city near at
hand, which may one day absorb its ancient but diminutive neighbor.
The Swansea road looks well enough on the map, but our
recollections of it are far from pleasing. Dusty and rough, and
crowded with traffic and tram lines in many places, it wends through
a cheerless and often uninteresting country. It passes frequent
mining towns straggling along for considerable distances and there
were many drunken men reeling on the streets. It was market day at
Cowbridge and the village was filled with countrymen, many of
whom treated our right to the road with supreme indifference. One
fellow in a broad-brimmed slouch hat that made him look like an
American cowboy, and who was carrying a black bottle that might
hold a gallon, saluted us with owl-like gravity and brought the car to
a sharp stop by standing directly in our way.
While getting rid of our would-be acquaintance, we cast about to
find a place for luncheon and soon lighted on the sign of the Bear,
the sole inn, according to Baedeker. It was some distance to the
next town and we decided to patronize the Bear, though its outer
appearance filled us with misgivings. But if its outward aspect
inspired doubt, words fail in speaking of the inside. The handbook of
the Royal Automobile Club in setting forth the delights of a tour in
America pays its compliments to our rural Bonifaces in this wise:
“The hotel accommodation in country districts is often very poor and
dirty,” all of which may be painfully true. But in competition for
distinction in these particulars, the Bear would certainly not be
distanced by any American rival. Perhaps the confusion and disarray
was partly due to the market-day rush, but the grime and dirt that
prevailed everywhere seemed as ancient as the ramshackle old
house itself. The dining-room was a large apartment with many long
tables of boards laid on trestles—an arrangement, no doubt, to
accommodate the patronage of market day—and the remnants of
the dinner were still heaped upon them in dire confusion. A glance
at the meal placed before us and at the dirty hands of the waiting-
girl was enough—we left the provender untouched and summarily
departed from the table. With difficulty we got the attention of the
barmaid, who also acted as cashier, settled our score, and sallied
forth dinnerless upon the King’s highway.
Threading our way carefully through the streets of Neath, several
miles farther on, with little thought save to get away from the bad
road and unpleasant surroundings, we caught a glimpse, down a
side street, of an ivy-clad ruin of great extent. We followed the
rough rubbish-covered lane that leads directly to the entrance gate
of Neath Abbey, as it proved to be. There was no caretaker in
charge, but two or three workmen were engaged in cleaning away
the debris, which was several feet deep in many of the roofless
apartments. Everything indicated that once the abbey had stood in
the pleasantest of valleys on the bank of a clear, placid little river;
but the coaling industry, which flings its pall over everything in
Southern Wales, had played sad havoc with the sylvan retreat of the
old Cistercian monks. Heaps of rubbish dotted the uncared-for green
about the place. Coal trains rattled on the railroad near at hand. The
spot where the abbey now stands so forlornly is the heart of the
suburban slums of Neath, and so isolated and forgotten is it that few
pilgrims come to view its melancholy beauty. For it is beautiful—does
not our picture tell the story?—the mouldering walls hung with
masses of ivy, the fine doorways, the great groups of mullioned
windows and the high chimneys, green to the very tops, all combine
to charm the beholder despite the unlovely surroundings. The
workmen told us that the abbey belonged to Lord Somebody—we
have quite forgotten—and that he was going to clean up the
premises and make necessary repairs. The craze now so prevalent in
Britain for preserving every ancient ruin had extended even to Neath
Abbey and perchance its titled owner will beautify the surroundings
and the fine ruin may yet become a shrine for pilgrims—that the
motor-car will bring.
 NEATH ABBEY, SOUTH WALES.
Swansea—Swansy, they call it—had always brought to my mind, I
hardly know why, the idea of a seaside resort town; but never was
preconceived notion more erroneous. If there is a blacker, uglier,
more odoriferous town of the size in the Kingdom, I do not recollect
where it is. Here are the greatest copper smelting works in the world
and from these come the pungent, stifling odors that so
unpleasantly pervade the city. Here, too, is the great steel plant of
the Siemens Company and many allied industries. And yet there was
a time when Swansea had at least the promise of a resort town
before it, when the poet Landor declared that “Italy has a fine
climate but that of Swansea is better; that it is the only spot in
Britain where one may have warmth without wet.” Then it had six
hundred people, but now its population exceeds one hundred
thousand. We had no desire to linger and rapidly climbed the long
steep hill that leads to the highland road to Carmarthen. We soon
left behind us the smoke and grime of the collieries and smelting-
works, and the road over which we rapidly coursed took us through
a rather pretty rural section, though the hills are numerous and
steep.
It was late when we came into Carmarthen, a bare, drab-colored
town, but withal rather more prosperous-looking than the average
small town of South Wales. The thirty-two miles to Haverfordwest
swept by too rapidly to permit us to see the country other than as a
fleeting panorama. Just as the twilight faded into dark we came
sharply into Haverfordwest and with grave misgivings halted at the
Castle Hotel. Here we must stop, willy nilly, for there was nothing
that promised better in many miles. But to apply the cautious
Yorkshireman’s expression to the Castle Hotel, “It might be worse,”
and we were willing to let the uncomfortable feather-beds and the
dingy candle-lit rooms overlooking the stable yard, be atoned for by
the excellent dinner that our landlady prepared at so late an hour.
We did not linger at Haverfordwest on the following morning, though
perhaps the castle and the priory church might well have detained
us. The castle, which crowns the terribly steep hill to which the town
seems to cling somewhat precariously, has been reduced to a county
jail—or gaol, as the English have it—and thus robbed of much of its
romance. Still, it is an impressive old fortress, dominating the town
with its huge bulk, and it has figured much in the annals of
Pembrokeshire.
Haverfordwest has a history antedating the Conquest. It was
undoubtedly a stopping-place for the troops of pilgrims who in early
days journeyed to the sacred shrine of St. David’s, the Ultima Thule
of Southern Wales, sixteen miles to the west, following a tortuous
road over many steep and barren hills. The railroad ends at
Haverfordwest and no doubt the facilities for reaching St. David’s a
thousand years ago were quite as good as today, the daily mail cart
and coach twice a week in season being the only regular means of
transportation. No wonder in days when strenuous journeys to
distant shrines were believed to be especially meritorious, two trips
to St. David’s were allowed to confer the spiritual benefit of a single
pilgrimage to Rome itself.
And we ourselves are pilgrims to St. David’s shrine—not by the slow
horseback cavalcade of old days, or the more modern coach, but by
motor car. Our forty-horse engine makes quick work of the
precipitous hill out of Haverfordwest and carries us without lagging
over the dozen long steep hills on the road to the ancient town.
Shortly before reaching St. David’s the road drops down to the
ocean side, but the sea is hidden by a long ridge of stones and
pebbles piled high by the inrushing waters. The tide was far out and
we saw no finer beach on the Welsh coast than the one that lay
before us as we stood on the stony drift. A great expanse of yellow
—almost literally golden—sand ran down to a pale green sea, which
lapped it in silvery sunlit ripples, so quiet and peaceful was the day.
But one could not but think of the scope afforded for the wild play of
the ocean on stormy days—how the scene must be beyond all
description

“When the great winds shoreward blow,

And the salt tides seaward flow;
Where the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.”

We left the car near the ancient stone cross in the deserted market
place of St. David’s and sought the cathedral, which is strangely
situated in a deep dell, the top of the Norman tower being only a
little above the level of the market place. The cathedral has been
recently restored, more perhaps on account of its historic past than
any present need for it, but the bishop’s palace, once one of the
most elaborate and extensive in the Kingdom, stands in picturesque
decay, beyond any hope of rehabilitation. As to the old-time
importance of St. David’s as contrasted with its present isolation, the
words of an enthusiastic English writer may perhaps serve better
than my own:
“Centuries ago St. David’s bishop had seven palaces for his pleasure;
now he does not dwell in his own city. Of old the offerings at St.
David’s shrine were divided every Saturday among the priests by the
dishful, to save time in counting the coins; now a few pounds weekly
is accounted a good collection total. Ancient kings came hither in
state to confess their sins; in this travelling age only the enterprising
tourist comes to the city at all. Eight or nine roads converged upon
the little place on its headland of about three miles square, but the
majority are now no better than humble weather-worn lanes. The
Atlantic winds sweep across the depression by the Alan brook in
which St. David’s Cathedral, the extensive ruins of the bishop’s
palace, and the many other fragments of St. David’s glorious prime
nestle among trees, with the humble cottages of the city itself
surrounding them as if they loved them. Even the dilapidation here
is so graceful that one would hardly wish it altered into the trim and
rather smug completeness of many an English cathedral with its
close.”
The cathedral is extremely interesting and made doubly so by an
intelligent verger whom we located with considerable difficulty.
Pilgrims to St. David’s were apparently too infrequent to justify the
good man’s remaining constantly on duty as in larger places, and a
placard forbidding fees, may have dampened his zeal in looking for
visitors. But we found him at last in his garden, and he did his part
well; nothing curious or important in the history of the cathedral was
forgotten by him. The leaning Norman pillars, the open roof of Irish
oak, the gorgeous ceiling with its blood-red and gold decorations,
and many relics discovered during the restoration, were pointed out
and properly descanted upon. But one might write volumes of a
shrine which kings once underwent many hardships to visit, among
them Harold the Saxon and his conqueror, William of Normandy.
Nothing but a visit can do it justice, and with the advent of the
motor car, old St. David’s will again be the shrine of an increasing
number of pilgrims, though their mission and personel be widely
different from the wayfarers of early days.
 ST. DAVID’S CATHEDRAL.
There is only one road out of the lonely little town besides that
which brought us thither and we were soon upon the stony and
uncomfortable highway to Cardigan. Here we found roadmaking in
primitive stages; the broken stone had been loosely scattered along
the way waiting for the heavy-wheeled carts of the farmers to serve
the purpose of the steam roller. The country is pitifully barren and
the little hovels—always gleaming with whitewash—were later called
to mind by those in Ireland. There are no great parks with fine
mansions to relieve the monotony of the scene. Only fugitive
glimpses of the ocean from the upland road occasionally lend a
touch of variety. At Fishguard, a mean little town with a future
before it—for it is now the Welsh terminus of the Great Western
Railway’s route to Ireland—we paused in the crowded market square
and a courteous policeman approached us, divining that we needed
directions.
“The road to Cardigan? Straight ahead down the hill.”
“It looks pretty steep,” we suggested.
“Yes, but nothing to the one you must go up out of the town. Just
like the roofs of those houses there, and the road rough and
crooked. Yes, this is all there is of Fishguard; pretty quiet place
except on market days.”
We thanked the officer and cautiously descended the hill before us.
We then climbed much the steepest and most dangerous hill we
found in all the twelve thousand or more miles covered by our
wanderings. To our dismay, a grocer’s cart across the narrow road
compelled us to stop midway on the precipitous ascent, but the
motor proved equal to the task and we soon looked back down the
frightful declivity with a sigh of relief. We were told later of a
traveling showman who had been over all the main roads of the
Island with a traction engine and who declared this the worst hill he
knew of.
Newport—quite different from the Eastern Welsh Newport—and
Cardigan are quaint, old-world villages, though now decayed and
shrunken. I will not write of them, though the history of each is lost
in the mists of antiquity and the former possesses an imposing
though ruinous castle. The road between them is hilly, but the hills
are well wooded and the prospects often magnificent and far-
reaching. We found it much the same after leaving Cardigan, though
the country is distinctly better and more pleasing than the extreme
south. The farm houses appear more prosperous, and well-cared-for
gardens surround them. Nowhere did we find the people kinder or
more courteous. An instance occurred at Carmarthen, where we
stopped to consult our maps. The owner of a near-by jewelry shop
came out and accosted us. Did we want information about the
roads? He had lived in Carmarthen many years and was familiar with
all the roads about the town. To Llandovery? We had come too far;
the road north of the river is the best and one of the prettiest in
Wales. It would be worth our while to go back a mile and take this
road.
Thanking him, we retraced our way through the long main street of
the town and were soon away over one of the most perfect and
beautiful of Welsh highways. It runs in straight broad stretches
between rows of fine trees, past comfortable-looking farm houses,
and through cozy little hamlets nestling amid trees and shrubbery,
and seems constantly to increase in charm until it takes one into
Llandovery, twenty-five miles from Carmarthen and the center of one
of the most picturesque sections of Wales.
Lying among wooded hills in a valley where two clear little rivers join
their waters, Llandovery—the church among the waters—is a village
of surpassing loveliness. The touch of antiquity so necessary to
complete the charm is in the merest fragment of its castle, a
mouldering bit of wall on a mound overlooking the rivers—
dismantled “by Cromwell’s orders.” Delightful as the town is, its
surroundings are even more romantic. The highest peaks of South
Wales, the Beacon and the Black Mountains, overlook it and in the
recesses of these rugged hills are many resorts for the fisherman
and summer excursionist. From the summits are vast panoramas of
wooded hills and verdant valleys. The view is so far-reaching that on
a clear day one may see the ocean to the south; or, far distant in the
opposite direction, the snow-crowned mountains of Northern Wales.
The road from Llandovery to Brecon is as fine as that to Carmarthen,
though it is more sinuous and hilly. But it is perfectly surfaced and
climbs the hills in such long sweeping curves and easy uniform
grades that the steepest scarcely checks the flight of our car as it
hastens at a thirty-five mile gait to Brecon. It is growing late—we
might well wish for more time to admire the views from the hillside
road. The valleys are shrouded in the purple haze of twilight and the
sky is rich with sunset coloring. It has been a strenuous day for us—
one of our longest runs over much bad road. We note with
satisfaction the promise of a first-class hotel at Brecon, though we
find it crowded almost to our exclusion. But we are so weary that we
vigorously protest and a little shifting—with some complaint from the
shifted parties—makes room for us. We are told in awe-stricken
whispers that the congestion is partly due to the fact that Her Grace
the Duchess of B—— (wife of one of the richest peers in England)
has arrived at the hotel with her retinue, traveling in two motor cars.
She was pointed out to us in the morning as she walked along the
promenade in very short skirts, accompanied by her poodle. We
heard of this duke often in our journeyings, one old caretaker in a
place owned by the nobleman assuring us that his income was no
less than a guinea a minute! The duke owns many blocks of
buildings in some of the busiest sections of London. The land
occupied by them came into possession of the family through the
marriage of the great-grandfather of the present holder of the title
with the daughter of a dairy farmer who owned much of the quarter
where London real estate is now of fabulous value—thus showing
that some of the English aristocracy rose to wealth by means quite
as plebeian as some of those across the water. Nowadays the
penniless duke would have crossed the Atlantic to recoup his
fortune, instead of turning to a rich dairyman’s daughter in his own
country.
But in indulging in this more or less interesting gossip, I am
forgetting Brecon and the Castle Hotel, rightly named in this
instance, for the hotel owns the old castle; it stands in the private
grounds which lie between the hotel and the river and are beautified
with flowers and shrubbery. Brecon boasts of great antiquity and it
was here that Sir John Price made overtures to Henry VIII. which
resulted in the union of England and Wales. The priory church is one
of the largest and most important in Wales and is interesting in
architecture as well as historical association. We saw the plain old
house where the ever-charming Mrs. Siddons was born—a distinction
of which Brecon is justly proud. And Brecon is not without its legend
of Charles the Wanderer, who passed a day or two at the priory
during one of his hurried marches in Wales, and the letter he wrote
here is the first record we have of his despair of the success of the
royal cause.
My chapter is already too long—but what else might be expected of
an effort to crowd into a few pages the record of sights and
impressions that might well fill a volume?
 VIII
SOME NOOKS AND CORNERS
Early next day we were in Hereford, for it is but forty miles from
Brecon by the Wye Valley road. It had been just one week since we
had passed through the town preparatory to our tour of South Wales
—a rather wearisome journey of well upon a thousand miles over
some of the worst of Welsh roads. It was not strange, then, that we
gladly seized the opportunity for a short rest in Hereford. There is
something fascinating about the fine old cathedral town. It appeals
to one as a place of repose and quiet, though this may be apparent
rather than real, for we found the Green Dragon filled to the point of
turning away would-be guests. The town stands sedately in the
midst of the broad, level meadows which surround it on every side,
and through its very center meanders the Wye, the queenliest of
British rivers, as though loath to leave the confines of such a
pleasant place. It is a modern city, despite its ancient history, for its
old-time landmarks have largely disappeared and its crowded lanes
have been superseded by broad streets. Even the cathedral has a
distressingly new appearance, due to the recent restoration, and a
public park occupies the site of the vanished castle. But for all that,
one likes Hereford. Its newness is not the cheap veneer so
frequently evident in the resort towns; it is solid and genuine
throughout and there are enough antique corners to redeem it from
monotony. To sum up our impressions, Hereford is a place one
would gladly visit again—and again.
Jotted down on our map adjacent to the Tewkesbury road were blue
crosses, indicating several seldom-visited nooks and corners we had
learned of in our reading and which we determined to explore. No
recollection of our wanderings comes back to us rosier with romance
or more freighted with the spirit of rural England than that of our
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