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Pragmatics 6:2.19 1 -204. International PragmaticsAssociation INSINUATTNG: THE SEDUCTIONOF UNSAYTNG MarcellaBertuccelli Papi 0. Introduction Insinuation can be one of the most contemptible and despicable forms of verbal communication. It is a spitefully veiledaccusation. According to most dictionaries. to insinuate is to penetratefurtively into the interlocutor's mind, allusively and perfidiously implanting a thought within it - generallywith provocative intent - through beguiling suasion and seduction, ofien laced with a liberal sprinklingof contidential and flattering ways. These definitions (admittedly somewhat over-dramatized) are well suited to givea description of the mostnotable properties of insinuation, and capture particularly vividlythe essential aspects of that which in my view represents the highest fictional embodiment of this communicative mode, namely the 'poisonous insinuation' that Iago pours into the ear of the Moor in Shakespeare's Othello, to which I will turn shortly. In this paper, however,I would like to focus on the analysis of insinuation from a more specific angle, consideringit not so much - or not only - as a rhetorical-literary operation,but rather as a linguisticphenomenonthat properly belongs to what may be termed discourse semantics, a domain that, for reasons I will soondiscuss, is to be viewed as conceptually, logically and concretely linked to thesphere of linguistic pragmatics, within the overarching trameworkof a semiotics of verbal communication that conceives of human actions as signifying functions acting as both the bearersand generators of meaning. In this context, insinuation is of specific interest first and foremoston account of the indirect nature of the statements of which it is composed, and secondly because the unsaid meaning is nevertheless perceived as the final act of an interpretive process that cannotfail to recognize in the verbal productiona "signof something else"that the speakerintendsto convey. The present paper will thereforebe dividedinto three sections. The first will focus synthetically on the problem of the unsaid; the second will be devoted, with equal brevity, to the key conceptof speaker attitude,while the third will deal with an analysis of the Shakespearian dialogue in the above-mentioned play. 1. The said and the unsaid Theproblem of the unsaid is notoriously one of the hot spots of debate on relations between semantics and pragmatics. Frorn the theory of speechacts to studieson discourse implicitness, the dichotomy said/unsaid tendsto be taken as a criterion to discriminate betweenacontextual and truth-conditional semantics on one side.

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Pragmatics 6:2.19 1 -204.

International Pragmatics Association

INSINUATTNG: THE SEDUCTION OF UNSAYTNG

Marcella Bertuccell i Papi

0. Introduction

Insinuation can be one of the most contemptible and despicable forms of verbalcommunication. It is a spitefully veiled accusation. According to most dictionaries.to insinuate is to penetrate furtively into the interlocutor's mind, allusively andperfidiously implanting a thought within it - generally with provocative intent -through beguil ing suasion and seduction, ofien laced with a l iberal sprinkling ofcontidential and flattering ways. These definitions (admittedly somewhatover-dramatized) are well suited to give a description of the most notable propertiesof insinuation, and capture particularly vividly the essential aspects of that which inmy view represents the highest fictional embodiment of this communicative mode,namely the 'poisonous insinuation' that Iago pours into the ear of the Moor inShakespeare's Othello, to which I will turn shortly.

In this paper, however, I would like to focus on the analysis of insinuationfrom a more specific angle, considering it not so much - or not only - as arhetorical-literary operation, but rather as a linguistic phenomenon that properlybelongs to what may be termed discourse semantics, a domain that, for reasons Iwill soon discuss, is to be viewed as conceptually, logically and concretely linked tothe sphere of linguistic pragmatics, within the overarching tramework of a semioticsof verbal communication that conceives of human actions as signifying functionsacting as both the bearers and generators of meaning.

In this context, insinuation is of specific interest first and foremost on accountof the indirect nature of the statements of which it is composed, and secondlybecause the unsaid meaning is nevertheless perceived as the final act of aninterpretive process that cannot fail to recognize in the verbal production a "sign ofsomething else" that the speaker intends to convey.

The present paper will therefore be divided into three sections. The first willfocus synthetically on the problem of the unsaid; the second will be devoted, withequal brevity, to the key concept of speaker attitude, while the third will deal withan analysis of the Shakespearian dialogue in the above-mentioned play.

1. The said and the unsaid

The problem of the unsaid is notoriously one of the hot spots of debate on relationsbetween semantics and pragmatics. Frorn the theory of speech acts to studies ondiscourse implicitness, the dichotomy said/unsaid tends to be taken as a criterionto discriminate between acontextual and truth-conditional semantics on one side.

192 Marcella Berruccelti Papi

and on the other side pragmatics, with its emphasis on contextualization andinf-erence. Several papers by Grice (now in Grice 1989) have provided the mostextensive systematic theoretical account of the relations between the two membersof this opposition. In Grice's framework, four main levels of meaning describe thenotion of "saying that p":

1) t imeless meaning of an utterance type2) applied timeless meaning of an utterance type3) utterance type occasion meaning4) ut tcrcr 's occasion meaning.

Stated slightly ditterently,and simplifying a l itt le, it is hypothesized that what is saidis composed of the sentence meaning integrated by several contextual ingredients,the quantitative and qualitative l imits of which are clearly marked out. In contrast,what is communicated includes what is said and what is implicated, i.e. unsaid,whether conversationallv or conventionally.

WHAT IS COMMUNICATED

SAID

-/sentence meaning contextual

UNSAID (IMPLIE,D)//-\

conversationally conventionallyingredients

Grice's attention focused above all on the relation between what is said and whatis communicated. The entire apparatus of the implicatures was specifically set upto account for this relation while maintaining the respective fields of operation oflogical semantics and inferential pragmatics distinct. Logical semantics is thusentrusted with analysis of the said, i.e. of the propositional content expressed by asentence supplemented with contextual information clarifying deictic reference andeliminating any ambiguity of meaning, while inferential pragmatics, on the otherhand, is presumed to be responsible for defining the principles and procedures foridentification of the meaning that is conveyed above and beyond, and at times inspite of, what is actually said. Formulation of the Cooperative Principle and itssubdivision into the maxims of quality, quantity, manner and relation, which arejointly responsible for generating implicature, are, I believe, sufficiently well knownas to need any specific description here. I would simply underline that Grice admitsthe existence of a contextual component in the determination of the propositionalcontent expressed by a sentence: In other words, he admits the presence of anunsaid part functioning as a component of the said, but l imited to saturating thesentence meaning with what is necessary for the utterance to express a completeproposition, i.e. one that can be evaluated in terms of truth conditions.

1.1. Grice's hypothesis has recently been called into question by l inguists andphilosophers of language who have revised the subdivision of fields whereby the saidwas assigned to semantics and the unsaid to pragmatics, proposing in its place a

Insinuaring 193

"pragmatics of the said" that considerably reduces the operational domain ofsemantics. "What is said" has been claimed by a number of writers, starting withSperber and Wilson 1986, and later Blakemore 1987, Carston 1988, Recanati 1989,Bach 1994, to be largely determined pragmatically because it requires much greaterreference to the context of utterance than was previously assumed by Grice. Deicticreference and disambiguation of possible semantic ambiguities are no longerregarded as the only contributions context can make to the determination ofpropositional content. Sentence meaning underdetermines what is said in otherways,which cannot strictly be reduced to the concept of implicature yet do dependon the context of utterance in ways that are essential for reciprocal understandingby interlocutors.

Some of the clearest exampes are found in cases of ell ipsis such as in:

(1) He picked up the pistol, went into the bedroom and kil led her

where it is obvious that the victim was killed in the bedroom and presumably withthe pistol. although this is not stated in the final proposition. Recovery of elidedmaterial, in such cases, cannot be considered an implicature, since we wouldotherwise have to admit that implicatures hold a relation of entailment orimplication with the ell iptical propositions.(For a more detailed discussion, I referthe reader to Carston 1988).

Equally problematic are cases like

(2) It takes some time to get there(3) They're all going to Paris

where it is clear that "some" stands for "a considerable quantity" and "all" is not theuniversal quantifier of logic.

Certainly, these phenomena can be considered as particular cases of thefixation of referential parameters, but it is undeniable that they extend the spectrumof the pragmatic features incorporated within the unsaid thereby requiring thesaturation of a fair number of empty slots in the propositional form underlying theutterance. (I leave it to the reader - for lack of space to discuss this issue - to solvethe problem we would face in analyzing the brilliant quip produced by Portia tn TheMerchant of Venice, when she saves Antonio trom being deprived of a pound of hisflesh because it li rtot said in the contract that together with the latter Shylock isalso enti led to take the blood that would also be shed: "This bond doth give theehere no jot of blood").

But let us return to the theoretical debate. The problem is complex (see alsoBertuccelli Papi 1996): For once it has been recognized that the variables to befilled in are not merely those pertaining to deixis, and that their instantiation is notalways linguistically controllable, it might seem that Grice's hypothesis couldpreserve a basic validity, though perhaps it would need revising with appropriatemodifications achievable by working cln the concept of context. In actual fact,however, this does not seem to be the case: Its fallaciousness lies precisely inunderestimating the gap between sentence meaning and utterance meaning in other,more fundamental, respects. As a matter of fact, even if one concedes that thepresence, in the propositional form, of a high number of empty boxes awaiting

194 Marcella Benuccetti Papi

saturation need not raise serious problems for logical semantics, the fact stillremains that the implicit component of the said does not concern propositionalcontent alone. The discussion that follows will put forward the hypothesis that thepropositional content of the utterance is not fully identifiable unless anothercategory is taken into account. I am referring to the notion of speaker attitude,which I believe has been underestimated in linguistic research, but which is statedvery incisively in the cognitive sciences and is also extensively utilized, albeit notvery rigorously, in pragmatics.

2. The concept of attitude

It is by now generally accepted in the cognitive sciences that the mind does notconstruct or embrace pure logical forms: Representations are processed and storedin different ways, becoming the object of predicates such as believe, htow, desire,which in philosophical terms are designated as "propositional attitudes". Thelinguistic tradition encompasses a more extensive category of "speaker attitudes" (fora possible reconciliation of the two points of view, see Kiefer 1987).

Athough there is, as far as I know, no univocal detinition of the term"attitude" or a closed list of the predicates and elements that should belong to thiscategory, it is widely believed, both in semantics and pragmatics, that utterancescontain and communicate attitudes concerning the propositions they express. Certainfundamental attitudes are embodied in syntax - for instance, the indicative mode andthe declarative form are thought to correspond to the line of attitudes reflectingdoxastic-epistemic modality, while the imperative mode is usually regarded asexpressing boulomaic-desiderative attitudes. Other attitudes are expressed by lexicalelements and discourse particles, other still by prosody. In addition, in face to facecommunication a broad range of attitudes is certainly conveyed by gesture, mimicryand in general by extra- and paralinguistic behaviour.

In other words, in verbal interaction it is not only content identifiable in oneway or another as propositions and logical forms that is transmitted. Verbalinteraction also conveys - indeed, I would argue that it mainly conveys - implicit andexplicit information concerning the position assumed by the speaker, both withregard to his/her own utterance and to the interlocutor. The passage of thisinformation weaves a dense web of hypotheses, evaluations, anticipations andcorrections that have long been known from neurophysiological studies on thefunctional systems underlying all forms of human behaviour (see Bertuccelli Papiand Perfetti 1987), and hence of language as well, and which have been partlycodified in the theory of speech acts. (For semantics, the most complete treatmentis perhaps M. Doherty 1986).

That the notion of speaker attitude is crucial for identification of theillocutionary force of an utterance, and also contributes to definition of itsperlocutionary aim, has been extensively demonstrated in speech act theory. Icontend, however, that neither the degree of informativeness nor even the truthvalue of an utterance can be established independently of the nature and type ofattitudes expressed. This should be no cause for surprise if one reflects that inverbal interaction the exchange of information unsettles the dynamic equilibrium ofthe entire network of knowledge possessed by an individual, impinging on that"cognitive environment"(Sperber and Wilson 1986) in which representations are

Insinuating 195

entertained according to their greater or lesser degree of probabil ity or l ikelihood.If the impact of a piece of infbrmation on the l istener's mind is measurable in termsof confirmaticln, weakening, erasure or modification of pre-existing knowledge, theni t is c lear that acquis i t ion of new data dur ing the interact ion can tr igger chainreactions, to the point of provoking a cognitive catastrophe in the interlocutor. Myhypothesis is that the whole process of discourse understanding occurs only ttrroughthe medium clf perceived and communicated attitudes, and I hope the analysis ofinsinuat ion wi l l demonstratc i t .

Given this ftamework, it is obvious that the problem of the detjnit ion andrepresentation clf the various types of attitude cannot be disregarded by thedisciplines that elect to analyze meaning within the communicative process, underpain of drift ing the debate towards Neoplatonizing transcendency of dubiousscientif ic usefulness.It cannot be denied. however, that the question is complex, and attempting to dealwrth all i ts theoretical implications in any depth would be beyond the scope of thispaper. I wil l therelbre restrict myself to outl ining some of the points of thetheoretical hypoihesis underpinning my arguments.

1. The minimum unit of utterance meaning, i.e. of what is said - excluding,obviously, the citation meaning of 'say' - is not the minimum logical proposition pthat can be expressed in complete form by the utterance, but rather the indivisibleformula ATT(p), where "indivisible" means that the propositional content p, takenby itsell is a theoretical abstraction that has no independent existence trom thecognitive point of view and has no operational value from the communicative pointof view.

2. The category ATT wil l not be considered here in the reductive sense adopted inlogic, which identif ies its contents in terms of modal predicates that can be projectedinto possible worlds. On the contrary, it focuses inalienably on the speaker, therebyrepresenting the conceptual interface between a l inguistic semantics and apragmatics capable of entering into a constructive relation with the cognitivesciences cln the one hand, and with the social sciences on the other.

3. In the specific acceptation of the term adopted here, ATT is a categorial complexthat encompasses within it expressions not only of the epistemic position, but alsoof the speaker's emotive and evaluative attitudes (the latter inspired by ethical,aesthetic, social and in general behavioural criteria) towards both his own utteranceand the interlocutor. It tollows that each utterance minimally contains:

an att of the speaker towards p: Att (rp, p)an att of the speaker towards the l istener: Att (sp, l ist)an att of the speaker towards the relation between p and listener: Att ( sp (p, l ist))

The catecory ATT therefore does not contain attitudes that are all of one singletype: On the contrary, it may be distinguished into alethic epistemic, deontic orboulamaic modality, and it may be extended to cover aesthetic, ethical or emotiveevaluations that cluster around the two poles of positive and negative, which wil l bespecified as good/bad. or beautiful/ugly, censurable/admirable ecc., as the case may

196 Marcella Berruccetli Papi

be. But the greater part of research in this direction is yet to be done.In this perspcctive, the concept of speaker attitude presented here is perhaps

closer to Bally's modality than to lo_eical modality or the notion of attitude uti l i l izedby Bach and Harnish (1979). Furthermore, if i t is true, as claimed by Bally, that "lamodalit6 c'est I 'dme de la phrase", then it would not be out of place for a l inguisticsemantics to shoulder the burden of exploring its explanatory power. If studies inthis area were undertzrken, then it would in my view be possible to say that to theextent to which such attitudes are not always explicit, there may well be aconsiderable amount of pragmatics in what is said, but there is certainly an equallylarge amount of semantics in the unsaid. This is equivalent to saying that thedivision ot'the tlelds into semantics and pragmatics cannot be carried out on thebasis of the dichotomy between the said and unsaid. The reason for this, as pointedout by Verschueren (1995), who advocates a return to l inguistically explorablemeaning in its full human complexity and not merely intentional, is that in no caseis it possible for a language to sav everything that the speaker wishes to say. In alinguistic semantics, said and unsaid are thus not two absctlute values, but rather theextreme poles of a continuum that stretches over a range of meaning of which theproposition constitutes the lclwer l imit. and attitudes, defined as above, the upperlimit. Within this range, the semiotic gradient of the relation between explicit andimplicit determines the width of oscil lation of the degree of responsibil i ty of theinterpretation from spezrker to l istener. It is in this range that insinuation is to betound, together with other forms of "saying and not saying", such as hinting,suggest ing, a l luding.

3. The nature o f ins inuat ion

In a recent paper entit ied "lndirections, manipulation and seduction in discourse".H. Parret proposes a definit ion of "insinuating" in relation to hinting and suggesting(Parret 1993).

For Parret. hinting is "to overtly display one's intention to let speaker B knowthat the proposition expressed cclntains information that wil l allow B to tlnd ananswer to the pnlblem he is tzrcing, :rssuming that B has access to additionalinformation"(Parret 1993: 232).' l 'hus when a speaker A hints, he or she gives anindication concerning the relevance clf a given piece of information for the solutionof a particular prclblem. Here no intcntion is concealed or camouflaged, and theintbrmation gap between A and B is only temporary, for the expectation is that Bwill succeed in achieving a complete picture of what A intended to say. Theditference between hinting and suggesting, Parret claims, is subtle but important:Someone who mzrkes a hint is unconditionally bound to the TRUTH of his/herLltterance. whereas a person who makes a suggestion is bound only to thePROBABLE TRUTH. In the former case there is a good chance that B mayrecognize the final pnrposition. whereas in the case of a suggestion, what issuggested stands purely in a relation of probabil ity to what is said, and it is notunreasonable to think that the inference may not lead to the expected results.

Insinuation, on the other hand, is in Parret's framework closely akin tornanipulzrtion. Like manipulation, it cannot be explicit or declared. A alreadypointed out by Austin in lecture VIII of How to Do Tlings with Words, a speaker A

Insinuating 197

cannot reveal his intentions by adding, for instance, "l hereby insinuate". On thecontrary. by insinuating, the speaker's attcmpt to make the interlocutor grasl)something is del iberately concealed, or vei led.

The uct of insitttating - trccording to the definition proposed - occurs wlrcn Awonts B to krtotu p bttt does rtot wttttt B to jttdge that A wanted to tell him p.

I a-[ree with Parret concerning the nature of insinuation as a form ofmanipulation of the interlocutor, and it is also true that not every form ofmanipulation can be considered as an insinuation. There erre other types ofmanipulation which dift-er from insinuation in that they introduce a cluster of furthersub-intentions thnt are not explicit ly declared. Howevcr it seems to me that theproposed definit ion accounts for only part of the semantics and pragmatics ofinsinuating. As an alternative, ur rather, perhaps, as an extension, I wil l theretbresketch a definit ion in l ine rvith the theoretical premises outl ined above:

" lns inuat ion, in micro or macrotextual form, is a l inguist ic opcrat lon that a ims tocommunicate a propt'rsition by discngaging it from the opcrator ATT that is presumed tobe associatcd with it in the interlocutor's mind. This aim is pursucd try the insinuatorthrough introduction of onc or more propositions that act as thc premises of a logicalprocess of infcrential reasoning, during which the deduction of p is left entirely up to theinterlocutor. This is bccausc the speakcr A knows (and the listencr knows that the speakerknclws or presumes (cf. Austin 1962, lecture VI )) that the listencr's ATT rcgarding p iscmotively or cvaluatively negativc: Consequently, the spcakcr wants B to know p but doesnot \\ 'ant thc $'ocation of thc representation ATT(p) to be attributed to himrher, onaccount of the socia l conscquences that would ensuc ( for the contcnt of thc ins inuat ioncould be offcnsive or lacc threatening)."

In other words, the crucial point about insinuation is not the nature of p butrather the attitude the speaker assumes the l istener to associate with p, either outof support tor some social conviction or else out of personal conviction. T'he entirecommunicative mode revolves around this circumstance, and it is no coincidencethat insinuation is overwhelmingly found with propositional content having the valueof doubt, suspicion, or accusilt ion. against which the interlocutor endeavours toshape a defense with retorts of the type "What are you trying to insinuate?"

Parret seems to reject this analvsis when he savs that it is wrong to assumethat the content of an insinuaticln is always reprehensible and that it is precisely thereprehensible nature of the insinuated proposition that causes the impossibil i ty ofa performative preflr. A doctor, Parret claims, can try to insinuate into a patient'smind that it would be advisable for him,her to go on a diet without this necessarilybeing construable as a reprehensible event. Personally, I believe that this objectioncan be overcome once it is realized that in this case. what is being insinuated is notthe advice itself, but on the contrary the indirect charge of being too fat. which isgenerally accompanied by a negative ATT.

Moreover. the success of insinuation is l inked to the recovery of knorvledgewhich, taken in conjunction with the speaker's l i teral proposition, enables thelistener to deduce the proposition that the speaker intended to communicateindirectly. It is this knowledge that leads to p being identified as a negative ATT,but it also stands in opposition to a complementary set which does not necessarilylead to a p with negative ATT. Thus the insinuation tails if the interlocutor activatesthe complementary set within his own cognitive environment. For instance an

(4)

198 Marcella Banuccelli Papi

ut terance such as:

Your wi te has been out wi th Bob qu i te o f ten recent lv

functions as an insinuation that the wife in question has betrayed thehusband-listene r with a certain Bob only if the husband activates knowledge of acertain type within his mind. But if, instead, the husband actives knowledge relatingto the fact that this Bob is a friend who frequently suffers from crises of depression,then the contextual eff-ect of the utterance wil l be different. In this case, the l isteneris l ikely to interpret the utterance as a simple allusion (see Bertuccell i Papi in print),for instance with the meaning that "Therefore Bob is going through a bad patchagain". This wil l act retroactively on the speaker who intended to insinuate adultery,obliging him/her to introduce additional material that points more compellingly inthat direction.

An even finer analysis of insinuation wil l also have to keep in mind that 1)the l istener's ATT towards the speaker is an important factor in detection ofinsinuation. As Austin conjectured in lecture VI of How to Do Things with Words,there are some things that can act as insinuations if said by some particular personbut not if said by another person; 2) the speaker's attitude towards the attitude heldby the l istener towards p is also a parameter that can help to distinguish betweendittbrent types of insinuation. In this connection, it is well to note that there arevarying degrees of nastiness embodied in insinuations. Unpleasant insinuations arethose which involve the speaker's malicious pleasure over the negative eff'ect p willhave on the interlocutor, whereas insinuations aiming simply to relieve the speakerof the responsibil i ty for this negative effect are less nasty.

An example of this second kind can be found in the first act of. Waiting forGodot. The insinuation by Estragon, which extends over several repartees, aims tocast doubt on Vladimir's certainty that the place where they are waiting is the rightplace (face threatening insinuation):

E. Let's goV. We cantE. Why not?V. We are wai t ing for GodotE. Ah... You're sure it was here'JV. What' lE,. That we were to waitV. He said by the tree... Do you see any othrs?E. What is it?V. I don't knorv - a wil lowE. Where are the leaves'/V. I t must be deadE. No more wcepingV. Or perhaps it 's not the seasonE,. Looks to me more l ike a bushV. A shrubE. A bushV. A - What are you insinuating? That we've come to the wrong place?

Insinuatinc I99

4. Jago's insinuation

An example of a rather nastier type of insinuation is to be found in the greatdialogue between Iago and Othello, in Act III of Shakespeare's tragedy.

Iago has just caught sight of Cassius talking to Desdemona, and he seizes theopportunity to set in motion his grandiose plzin. "... while this honest tool / pliesDesdemona to repair his tortunes, / And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor",Iago tells the public, "l ' l l pour this pesti lence into his earl That she repeals hirn forher body's lust; / ...So rvil l I turn her virtuc into pitch. / And out of her owngoodness make the net / That shal l enmesh them al l .

Iago's rhetoric and his discourse tactics have been analyzed in depth withgreat sensitivity and keen literarv awareness by esteemed literary scholars andlinguists (among the latter, see CoultharrJ 7971; Widdowson 1982). My analysis ofthe above cited dialogue wil l not endeavour to offer aesthetic judgments but wil lfocus instead on obtaining information concerning possible modes of introducticlnand accomplishment of insinuation within the theclreticzrl perspective sketchedabove.

This does not. however, mezrn that the Shakespearian text can be treated asif it were simply a frasment of real conversation. Even if one admits that dramacannot truly be considered l iterature. there can be no clispute concerning thesemiotic conditions imposed by the setting up and treatment of an expressivecategory within the terms of dramatic fiction. Nor can one ignore theideological-cultural presuppositions that fclrm the background and framework of theuse of rhetoric in the Elizabethan drama. and in Shakespearian drama in particular.For if i t is brlrne in mind that fr<lm the point of view of rhetorical analysis,insinuat ion makes use of the metalogist ic instruments of suppression, such as l i totes,suspension. reticence to the point of silence, then it cannot be ignored that therhetoric of silence and of the firrms of indirect modes of speech played a highlysignificant role in the 16th. and 17th. century. Between 1500 and 1600 theimperatives of silence assumed the value of signs denoting the quality of agentleman. and were the response to a model of social and polit ical behzrviourgoverned by prudence. In the 17th. century this model was embodied by theCourtesan, in whose hands it became a tactical instrument for astute calculationsdesigned to take possession of others, dominate them and exert domination overthem. The silence of dissimulation, the smug silence of adulation. scornful silence,and the many other tbrms of deceitful behaviour later theorized by Abb6 Dinouartwere already present ers essential mechanisms of the Art of the C<lurtesan, an artfounded on discretion, circumspection, medietas. Truth was never completelyrevealed, but neither wils it ever completely concealed.

Within this framework, Iago's verbal technique and abil ity are a perfectmirror of his era: Iago is tully in control of himself-, unlike Othello. who more thanonce admits his naivet6 where rhetorical conduct is concerned: "Rude am I in myspeech, / And litt le hless'd with the sotl phrase of peace"; "Haply, for I am black,/ And have not those soft parts of conversation / that chamberers have.....". Iagothus pursues his own ends in a methodical and pre-ordained manner, systematicallyisolating all the attitudes characterizing Othello's init ial condition and destroyingthem one by clne.

200 Marcella Bemtccelli Papi

This init ial condition is rcpresented by the following coordinates.Three textual themes are evoked:

l. Othello's relationship with Desdemona2. Othello's relationship with Cassius3. Othello's relationship with Iago

Each of these is associated with a complex of epistemic attitudes which themselvescall forth positive emotional values:1. Othello believes, indeed is ferventlv convinced that 1) Desdemona loves him andis faithful to him; 2) Cassius is honest; 3) Iago is sincere and disinterested.These relations are in turn the object of epistemic and evaluative attitudes on thepart of Iago himself. Iago knows that 1) Desdemona loves the Moor; 2) Cassiusloves Desdemona; 3) Othello has a high regard for Cassius and trusts Desdemona.In addition, the audience knows - either because they have seen it with their owneyes or else because Iago has stated as much - that what Othello knows is onlypartly true. In particular, the audience knows that Iago is far from being sincere anddisinterested.

Now, presumably to avenge the wrong infl icted on him by Othello, who hadrejected him as his l ieutenant in favour of Cassius, or perhaps because Othello hadslipped into his conjugal bed - but Bradley rightly has doubts about the realmotivation tor Iago's wickedness - Iago wants to transform Othello's init ial conditioninto its opposite as far as relations with Cassius and Desdemona are concerned.Otherwise stated, Othello must be made to believe that Desdemona does not lovehim and is betraying him with Cassius. But to achieve this result, it is necessary thathe should continue to believe that Iago is sincere and disinterested. Iago pursuesthis latter aim by activating a "ritual of honour", as Emmanuele Tesauro was todescribe it a few vears later in his Carmocchiale Aistotelico, a ritual bearing all theexternal hallmarks of high regard and encompassing a wide range of constitutiveacts, whose semiotic fezrtures make up the pattern of "the etiquette of situationcontrol" .

The primary objective, on the other hand, is pursued through the mediumof insinuation, which procedes to dismantle Othello's attitudes of certainty byoperating on two main semantic oppositions: Seeming/being and true/false, Iagomust make what is true seem to be mere appearance, and appearances must bemadc to look as if they were the truth. To this end, Iago subtly plays on the relationbetween explicit and implicit: He explicit ly casts doubt on the truth, reducing it tomere appearance, and implicit ly asserts a falsehood, clothing it in substance.

The insinuation proceeds from what Othello knows about Cassius, and setsitself the goal of underminrng the logical ecluation between what is known (Kp) andwhat is true (p), replacing it - as the first step in a semantic weakening - by therelativizing equation between what is known and what seems to be true. But lago'scunningness, and indeed the characteristic propcrty of insinuation, consists, as wehave seen, in inducing Othello himself to perform the operation. This is achieved,in the tirst part of the dialogue, through two main instruments: A fictit ious questionand several echo statements.

Thus the question trom which the operation starts out, "My nclble lord....DidMichaelCassio, when you woo'd my lady, / Know of your love?", is a false question,

Insinuating 201

very close to a rhetorical question, and has the function of introducing the f irsttextual theme, namely the relat ion between Othel lo and Cassius and the set ofatt i tudes associated with them. If the intuit ion is correct, then this means that oneof the condit ions for a successful question is not satisf ied. In this part icular case, i tis the sincerity condit ion, which assumes that the answer is not yet known to thespeaker. Notice that in the l in_euist ic theory of speech acts, the sincerity condit ionis the locus of speaker att i tudes. and Othel lcl perceives that something is about tohappen on this plane. I t is for this reason that he repl ies by enquir ing about the realmotivation for the question. Intentional ly, Iago responds to Othel lo's query withret icent behaviour: Thc transformation has now been set in motion and Othel lo wil lno longer be able to elude the seduction of the unsaid.

The echo answers ("Honest, my lord? Think, my lord!) can but reinforceOthel lo's creeping suspicion that what he knows is threatened by something elseIago is givin_q him to understand that he, Iago.is aware of. For the echo utteranceindicates that the speaker is focusing attention not sc' l much on the content of the( in ter locutor 's ) u t terance as c ln i ts representat ion in the in ter locut r ) r 's mind, i .e . onp and i ts categorial complex of associated att i tudes. I t thus acts as a signalsuggesting that one of the reasons whv the speaker is focusing on that utterance isthe verv fact that i t has been produced and expressed by the interlocutor, and thisin i ts turn suggests an att towards the representation i tself . The quanti ty and typesof att i tudes that a speaker can evoke through an echo utterance is potential lyl imit less - from approval to reverence, from surprise to increduli ty to irony, andreveals an equally vast range of discordant evaluations of the content cl f therepresentation i tself - inappropriacy, falseness, absurdity (Sperher and Wilson 1993).. . Al l these are inevitably projected onto the interlocutor, shattering his/her valuesvstem. Iago's echoic cluips st ing C)thel lo to the heart because they put their f ingerright on his convict ions, i .e. they str ikc direct ly zrt the fact that he, the great general,bel ieves in what he bel ieves. and at the presupposit ions on which these bel ief.s rest.

This f irst step is fundamental for the subsequent unfolding of the dialogue.fu-ter evoking Othel lo's att towards Cassius, Iago pro_{ressively broadens thesemant ic scope of the ins inuat ion. bnnging in to sharp focus the ent i re ex is tent ia lworld of Othel lo. his credibi l i ty, his claim to authority, his intel l igence. Othelkr isnow left alone to face himself, or rather his own att i tudes (what he thinks, bel ieves,knows). but with the awareness that there exists anothcr possible world. thecomplementary set cl f att i tr .rdes of opposite polari ty which Iago is skrwly inst i l l ingin to h is mind (note the asser t ion " l d id not th ink he had been ucquain ted wi th her"and the restr ict ion "tbr aught I knclw").

As a detensive move, Othel lo then appeals to the second thernatic relat ion:The relat ionship with lago. " l f thou dost love ff ie, I Show me thy thought", andindeed Iago proclaims his affect ion for Othel lo, but as the object of a super-orderedepistemic att i tude which has the effect of maintaining the empathetic orientat ion ofthe discourse that is prospectively directed towards Othel lo: "My lord, you KNOWI love you". Othel lo must also shoulder the responsibi l i ty for his own judgement ofIago - which is exactlv what Iaqo wanted in order to be able to continue in thecourse of ac t ion he has set h imsel f . The equat ion between knowing and be ing ispresented to Othel lo arraved in al l i ts enigmatic dimension. The next step is ful lyin l ine with this progression: A semantic shit l from being to seeming takes place.whereby Iago vigonrusly asserts that Cassius is honest "For Michael Cassio, / I dare

202 Marcella Bartuccelti Papi

be sworn I think that he is honest." But this is a courtesan's tribute which contlrmsto Othello that knowing and being coincide as regards Iago. The road is now openfor the latter to launch a new and definit ive attack on Othello's atts towards Cassius:"Men should be what they seem: I Or those that be not, would they might seemnone!". "Certain, men should be what they seem." replies Othello, expressing anagreement that reverently mirrors Iago's thought. From the latter there now comesa reiterated declaration of confidence in Cassius' honesty, though fractionallyweakened semantiutl ly as a result of the predicate clf propositional attitude: Thuswhere one might expect an oath to swear his belief, one merely finds "Why then, Ithink Cassio's an honest man".

Othello, now engulfed in the coils of the poisonous insinuation, cannot tailto perceive the treacherous thrust of lago's allusive j ibe. Faced with a reneweddemand for explanation, Iago resorts to a crafty strategy of exploiting thepresupposition to make an implicit admission that he does have secret thoughts. Bydint of this ruse, he shrinks even further away trom his communicative responsibil i ty.He then takes shelter behind a parenthetical l i tosis which aims to reintbrce Othello'satt towards himself, by stating that he, Iago, does not wish to confess these thoughtsbecause they could be the fruit of deceit. With two rhetorical questions, he thenoutlines to Othello what the negative effects deriving from the revelation might be.The culminating point of this sequence has now been reached, and we are now atthe climax: Significantly, we are at the heart of the dialogue, and, iconically, we feelthat we are in Othello's heart. Slowly, cautiously, through gnomic sentences andgeneric comments, the third theme is brought in , the most delicate and dangerousone for Iago: The theme of the relation between Othello and Desdemona. Iago layssiege to this last stronghold of Othello's heart with an admclnishment "O! beware,my lord, of jealousy; I It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock / The meat itfeeds on;", and brings up such subjects as doubts, suspicions...Defeated, Othellobursts out into a howl of anxiety, but then he immediately takes control of himselfagain and, with a burst of pride, sets about defending himself with all the force ofhis rationality: "Why, why is this'/ / Think'st thou I 'd make a l ife of jealousy, / Totollow sti l l the changes of the moon / With fresh suspicions? ........ No, Iago; / I ' l l seebefclre I doubt: when I doubt, prove; / And, on the proot, there is no more but this,I Away at once with love or jeakrusy!"."

But lagcl seizes hold of tune other than lis OTHELLO'S ratiotnlily to bringhis plan to completion and destroy that certainty as well. He launches forth againwith a negation that is paraleipsis. "l speak not yet of proof', only to contradict thisstatement by proceeding to give a demonstration that piles up its evidence in thewake of an ominous warning: "Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio".This artit lce explicit ly focuses on the underlying theme of insinuation, and implicit lyintroduces the actual proposition that lago intends to insinuate. And indeed it isnone other than Desdemona who becomes the central point concerning and againstwhom lago sharpens his weapons, unti l he shapes for Othello's mind the loathsomesyllogism: "She that .... ccluld give out such a seeming / To seel her father's eyes upclose as oak..." Suspension. Othello is distraught, yet he wil l not give up, and heverbally repeats his own conviction that Desdemona is honest. Iago's exclamationhas a sardonic ring to it: "Long live she so! and long live you to think so!" ButOthello unforgivably falters at one crucial point, "And, yet, how nature erring fromitself - "and Iagcl cannot foreso the final stab: "Much wil l be seen in that"...."

Insinuating 203

Through the very tbrce of the logical argument i tself , the possible becomesnecessary! and appearance bcomes real i tv.

5. Conclusion

Insinuation plays havoc with Othel lo's values, destroying, one after another, thealethic, epistemic, deontic and emotive values of the operator which, in myhypothesis, ini t ial ly characterizes Othel lo's thought. However, since the proposit ionalcontents thus laid bare cannot remain shorn of values, the latter wi l l be substi tutedby dif ferent ones - those intended by Iago, who has seduced Othel lo's intel lect anddrawn him ontcl his side . Othel lo thus now stands before him as a desubjectivizedsubject,for whom nothing is left but to acknclwledge his bewilderment: " l think mywife be honest and think she is not; / I think that thou art just and think thou artnot. / I ' l l have some proof.. ."

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