A. English Meaning and Culture

English:
Meaning and Culture
ANNA WIERZBICKA
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
English
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English
Meaning and Culture
Anna Wierzbicka
1
2006
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wierzbicka, Anna.
English : meaning and culture/Anna Wierzbicka.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-19-517474-8; 978-0-19-517475-5 (pbk.)
ISBN 0-19-517474-7; 0-19-517475-5 (pbk.)
1. English languageSemantics. 2. Great BritainCivilization.
3. English-speaking countriesCivilization.
4. English languageForeign countries.
5. Language and languagesPhilosophy. I. Title.
PE1585.W53 2006
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2005047789
Cover Art: Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs Andrews. Courtesy of National Art Gallery, London.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude, and acknowledge my debt, to Cliff Goddard,

who read successive drafts of all the chapters and provided invaluable feedback.
Many semantic analyses presented in the book incorporate his ideas. His help was
indispensable.
The Australian Research Council funded the research assistance without which
I would not have been able to complete this project. I am very grateful both to the
ARC and to several research assistants, who provided (at different times) not only
invaluable practical and technical help, but also extremely helpful ideas, comments,
and suggestions. They were: Anna Brotherson, Laura Daniliuc, Anna Gladkova,
Brigid Maher, Elisabeth Mayer, Donna Toulmin, Jock Wong, and Kyung Joo Yoon.
In the last phase of the work on the project, I also had the benefit of wide-ranging
research support and many discussions with my research associate, Ian Langford. Anna
Gladkova undertook the onerous task of preparing the index.
I had the opportunity to discuss many of the analyses presented in this book at
my Seminar on Semantics at the Australian National University. I want to thank the
participants for their ideas and also for their enthusiasm, which was for me a great
source of encouragement and joy.
Two persons particularly closely involved in the thinking behind this project were
my daughters, Mary Besemeres and Clare Besemeres, who over the years spent hundreds of hours discussing with me, and arguing about, the meaning of quintessentially
English words like right and wrong, reasonable and unreasonable, or fair and unfair
(without equivalents in my native Polish) and of Anglo values and assumptions associated with them. My husband John read the whole manuscript and suggested innumerable rephrasings aimed at making my English prose sound a little more Anglo
(reasonable and dispassionate) than it otherwise might have done.
For helpful discussions on particular topics, I would like to thank James Franklin,
James Grieve, Douglas Porpora, Arie Verhagen, and Zhengdao Ye.
I am particularly indebted to my editor at Oxford University Press, Peter Ohlin,
whose suggestions and advice on this, as on earlier projects, have been invaluable.
vi
Acknowledgments
Two chapters of the book (2 and 6) are partially based on papers published earlier. They are Right and wrong: From philosophy to everyday discourse (Discourse
Studies 4(2): 225252) and English causative constructions in an ethnosyntactic perspective: Focusing on LET (In Nick Enfield, ed., Ethnosyntax. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002, 162203).
Contents
Part I. Meaning, History and Culture

1. English as a Cultural Universe
1.1.
1.2.
1.3.
1.4.
1.5.
1.6.
1.7.
Englishthe most widely used language in the world

English and Englishes
An illustration: Words, scripts, and human lives
Anglo English as a historical formation
The tendency to mistake Anglo English for the human norm
The cultural underpinnings of (Anglo) English
A framework for studying and describing meaning
2. Anglo Cultural Scripts Seen through

Middle Eastern Eyes
2.1. Linguistics and intercultural cCommunication
2.2. The theory of cultural scripts
2.3. The Anglo ideal of accuracy and the practice
of understatement
2.4. To the best of my knowledge . . .
2.5. Anglo respect for facts
2.6. Cool reason: to think vs. to feel
2.7. To compel or not to compel? The value of autonomy
2.8. Conclusion
3
3
5
7
9
11
13
16
20
20
22
25
35
41
46
50
56
Part II. English Words: From Philosophy

to Everyday Discourse
3. The Story of RIGHT and WRONG and Its Cultural Implications
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Right and wrong: A basis for ethics?
61
61
64
viii
Contents
3.3.
3.4.
3.5.
3.6.
3.7.
3.8.
3.9.
3.10.
3.11.
3.12.
The link between right and reason

Thats right
An illustration: English vs. Italian
Right as a neutral ground between good and true
Procedural morality
Right and wrong: Increasingly asymmetrical
The changing frequencies of true, truth, right, and wrong
Right as a response in dialogue
Right and cultural scripts
Retrospect and conclusion: The Puritans, the Enlightenment,
the growth of democracy
4. Being REASONABLE: A Key Anglo Value and

Its Cultural Roots
4.1. Introduction
4.2. The pre-Enlightenment uses of reasonable
4.3. The main themes in the modern meanings
of the word reasonable
4.4. A reasonable man
4.5. It is reasonable to think (say, do) . . .
4.6. Reasonable doubt
4.7. Reasonable force and reasonable care
4.8. A reasonable time, A reasonable amount
4.9. Reasonable as reasonably good
4.10. Reasonable and unreasonable
4.11. An internal reconstruction of the semantic history
of reasonable
4.12. Reasonable and Anglo cultural scripts
4.13. Is the Anglo value of reasonable unique? English vs. French
5. Being FAIR: Another Key Anglo Value and

Its Cultural Underpinnings
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
5.4.
5.5.
5.6.
5.7.
The importance of fairness in modern Anglo culture

The meaning of fair and not fair
Fairness and Anglo political philosophy
Fairness vs. justice
The illusion of universality
Fairness and fair play: A historical perspective
Fairness and procedural morality
70
74
76
78
80
82
85
87
92
95
103
103
104
105
107
112
117
123
125
127
128
133
135
138
141
141
144
152
155
160
163
165
Part III. Anglo Culture Reflected in English Grammar

6. The English Causatives: Causation and Interpersonal Relations
6.1. The cultural elaboration of causation
6.2. The English let-constructions and the cultural ideal
of noninterference
171
171
183
Contents
7. i think: The Rise of Epistemic Phrases in Modern English

7.1. Introduction
7.2. I think
7.3. I suppose
7.4. I guess
7.5. I gather
7.6. I presume
7.7. I believe
7.8. I find
7.9. I expect
7.10. I take It
7.11. I understand
7.12. I imagine
7.13. I bet
7.14. I suspect
7.15. I assume
7.16. Conclusion
8. probably: English Epistemic Adverbs and

Their Cultural Significance
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Developing a format for the semantic analysis
of epistemic adverbs
8.3. Probably and likely: The heart of the category
of epistemic adverbs
8.4. Confident adverbs: Evidently, clearly, obviously
8.5. Nonconfident adverbs: Possibly and conceivably
8.6. Hearsay adverbs: Apparently, supposedly, allegedly,
and reportedly
8.7. The uncertain status of certainly
8.8. Epistemic adverbs vs. discourse particles
8.9. The history of epistemic adverbs in modern english
ix
204
204
208
208
209
210
212
213
220
226
230
233
235
236
237
239
241
247
247
257
261
270
276
278
284
287
291
Part IV. Conclusion

9. The Cultural Baggage of English and Its Significance
in the World at Large
9.1. The legacy of history
9.2. Living with concepts
9.3. Two illustrations: International law and international aviation
9.4. Communication and vibes
9.5. Intercultural communication and cross-cultural education
9.6. English in the world today
299
299
300
301
305
308
310
Notes
References
315
325
Index
341
part i
MEANING, HISTORY,
AND CULTURE
Chapter 1
English as a
Cultural Universe
1.1. Englishthe Most Widely Used Language in the World

Few would now disagree with the view expressed in Quirk et al.s (1985, 2) Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language that English is the worlds most important language. It is certainly the worlds most widely used language. As David Crystal
noted more than a decade ago in his Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages (1992, 121), it is spoken by a large and ever-increasing number of people
800,000,000 by a conservative estimate, 1,500,000,000 by a liberal estimate. . . . It
has official status in over 60 countries. Estimates also suggest that at least 150 million
people use English fluently as a foreign language, and three or four times this number with some degree of competence. . . . English is also the language of international air traffic control, and the chief language of world publishing, science and
technology. Crystals more recent estimates are even higher (Crystal 2001, 2003a,
2003b). In the words of the Indian American linguist Braj Kachru (1997, 69), the
hunger for learning the languagewith whatever degree of competenceis simply
insatiable.
Given the rapidly expanding role of English in the contemporary world, it is
hardly surprising that numerous books concerned with different aspects of English,
both scholarly and pedagogical, are published every year. And yet there is one striking gap in this literature: although many books have been and are being published
that link the Japanese language with Japanese culture or Chinese language with
Chinese culture, hardly any recent books explore the links between the English language and Anglo culture.
There are, no doubt, many reasons for this weakness within the huge literature
dealing with English. I believe one of them is that in recent times considerable opposition has developed in the English-speaking world to the notion of a culture,
that is, culture in the singular, an opposition linked with fears of essentialism and
stereotyping.
4 Meaning, History, and Culture
Although the notion of Japanese culture may be frowned on, it does not usually
evoke a reaction as suspicious, or even hostile, as the notion of Anglo culture. No
doubt this is partly because the Japanese language is spoken mostly in one region,
whereas English is widely spoken in many different parts of the world. The question
to whom does this language belong? posed recently (with respect to German) by
the German Arab writer of Moroccan origin, Abdellatif Belfellah (1996), raises more
problems in the case of English than, for example, in the case of Japanese (or indeed
German), and it reverberates throughout the literature on English and Englishes
(e.g., Hayhow and Parker 1994; Widdowson 1994). The very fact that the use of English is so widespread, and that its role in the modern world is so all-embracing, means
that trying to link it with any particular culture or way of living, thinking, or feeling
seems all the more problematic.
From the point of view of people in the postcolonial world, for whom the local
variety of English is often their native language or the main language used outside
the domestic sphere, discussions of the links between English and Anglo culture may
even seem offensive or at least insensitive. From the point of view of Anglo Celtic
speakers of Englishin Britain, the United States, and elsewherediscussions of
possible links between English and Anglo culture may also seem to be best avoided.
Quirk et al. (1985, 16), for example, emphasize the cultural neutrality of English:
English, which we have referred to as a lingua franca, is pre-eminently the most
international of languages. Though the mention of the language may at once remind us of England, on the one hand, or cause association with the might of the
United States on the other, it carries less implication of political or cultural specificity than any other living tongue.
The authors do not deny the English language any cultural underpinning altogether:
But the cultural neutrality of English must not be pressed too far. The literal or
metaphorical use of such expressions as case law throughout the English-speaking
world reflects a common heritage in our legal system; and allusions to or quotations from Shakespeare, the Authorized Version, Grays Elegy, Mark Twain, a sea
shanty, a Negro spiritual or a Beatles songwittingly or nottestify similarly to a
shared culture. The Continent means continental Europe as readily in America
and even Australia and New Zealand as it does in Britain. At other times, English
equally reflects the independent and distinct culture of one or the other of the
English-speaking communities. (Quirk et al. 1985, 16)
If English, which may remind us of England, nonetheless equally reflects the

culture of numerous other communities, then the notion of a shared culture would
seem to require some further discussion. But the subject is not mentioned again in
that book. Crystals (2003b) influential recent books on the subject do not dwell on
the issue of language and culture either. For example, his Cambridge Encyclopedia
of the English Language (2003a), after noting that English is now the dominant or
official language in over 75 territories (rather than 60, as in Crystal 1992), goes on to
comment: With over 60 political and cultural histories to consider, it is difficult to
find safe generalizations about the range of social functions with which English has
come to be identified. General statements about the structure of the language are
somewhat easier to make (Crystal 2003a, 106).
English as a Cultural Universe
Clearly, if it is difficult to find safe generalizations about the social functions

of English, the same applies to its cultural underpinnings, which are not discussed
in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language any further.
It is understandable that more than sixty cultural histories cant be all discussed
at length in a one-volume encyclopedia. But the question still suggests itself: what
about the shared culture mentioned, for example, by Quirk et al.s A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985)? The founder of modern general linguistics, Wilhelm von Humboldt, affirmed that there resides in every language a
characteristic world-view . . . every language contains the whole conceptual fabric
and mode of presentation of a portion of mankind (1988, 60). Although Humboldts
language may now seem dated, twentieth-century language-and-culture studies have
not undermined this viewquite the contrary. Should we now modify Humboldt to
say every language but English? Because English, unlike other languages, is neutrala purely functional international language free from the baggage of any particular history and tradition? Or perhaps because English is so diversified that while
sixty or more different traditions may be reflected in it there isnt any one tradition
that provides some sort of shared conceptual fabric (in Humboldts sense)?
With the growing importance of English in the contemporary world, there is an
increasing urgency to the question of whether there is an irreconcilable conflict
between, on the one hand, the view that English is shared by people belonging to
many different cultural traditions and, on the other, the notion that English itself
like any other languageis likely to have certain cultural assumptions and values
embedded in it.
The position taken in this book is that while there are many Englishes around
the world (all of them worthy of recognition, appreciation, and study), there is also
an Anglo Englishan English of the inner circle (Kachru 1985, 1992), including the traditional bases of English, where it is the primary language: . . . the USA,
UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Crystal 2003b, 60) and that this
Anglo English is not a cultural tabula rasa.
1.2. English and Englishes

As the provocative title of Tom McArthurs The English Languages (1998) indicates,
the word English (in the singular) and the phrase the English language have for many
commentators become problematic. With the expansion of English worldwide came
its diversification, and so many different varieties of English are now used in the world
that the propriety of the term English itself is increasingly called into question.
For millions of ordinary people, however, especially those who have their hearts
set on learning English or having their children learn English, the news that
according to some language professionals English does not exist any more is unlikely to be of much interest. On the other hand, the notion that there are many
varieties of English and that in some contexts it may be appropriate to use the term
English with a modifier can be relevant outside academic circles. The distinction
between, for example, British English and American English is widely accepted
as useful.1
It is also recognized that some other language varieties are sufficiently close to
British English and American English to be perceived as varieties of English and yet
are more different from British English and American English than these two are from
one anotherfor example, Indian English, Nigerian English, and Singapore English.
Braj Kachrus (1985) proposed distinction between the inner circle and the
outer circle of English has been widely accepted in the literature as pertinent and
helpful. In accordance with this distinction, we can say that, for example, Australian
Englishdifferent as it is in many ways from both British and American English
belongs nonetheless to the inner circle, whereas, for example, Singapore English
belongs to the outer one.
Differences between different varieties of English have often been adduced
in the literature as an argument against linking the concept of English with that of
culture: how can English be an expression of culture (so the argument goes) if it is
used in so many different societies and if there are so many different Englishes? As
I have argued for decades, however, the fact that there are many varieties of English,
linked with different societies and different cultural traditions, supports rather than
undermines the Humboldtian view of language as an expression of culture.
For example, the unique character of Australian English, consistent with the
unique aspects of Australian culture, illustrates the closeness of the links that exist
between the language spoken by a given community and its distinctive way of living
and thinking (i.e., its culture). At the same time, the fact that Australian English shares
a great deal with British Englishmore so than it does, for example, with Singapore
Englishreflects the common cultural heritage of Britain and Australia.
I have been studying Australian English as an expression of Australian culture for
more than two decades (Wierzbicka 1984, 1986a, 1991, 1992, 1997, 2002a, 2003a, 2003b).
I have also studied (on a much more modest scale) Singapore English as an expression
of Singapore culture (Wierzbicka 2003c; Besemeres and Wierzbicka 2003; for a much
more extensive study, see Wong 2004a, 2004b, 2005). In both cases, a contrastive perspective is of paramount importance: it is illuminating to compare Australian English
with British English and to compare Singapore English with Anglo English.
Kachrus concept of the inner circle reflects his interest in distinguishing the
new Englishes (such as Indian English and Singapore English) from the older
varieties. My own interest in identifying aspects of the shared cultural core of the
older varieties makes the term Anglo English more appropriate than the contrastive term English(es) of the inner circle (not to mention cryptonyms like ENL,
from English as a native language, which are problematic for a variety of reasons,
as well as technical and cryptic).
In essence, however, Anglo English studied in this book corresponds to
Kachrus English of the inner circle. Although Anglo English, too, is an abstraction, it is in my view a concept that captures an important historical and cultural
reality. It goes without saying that Anglo English is neither homogeneous nor unchanging, and the fact that, for example, Australian English differs in many ways from
British English makes this abundantly clear. At the same time, to adequately characterize Englishes of the outer circle such as Singapore English and to fully understand them as expressions of local cultures, it is eminently useful to be able to compare
and contrast them with Anglo English.
In a sense, this book is, primarily, about Anglo English, both as an expression
and as a vital aspect of Anglo culture.2 The phrase Anglo culture is even more
controversial these days than the English language (not to mention Anglo English, which is hardly used at all): to speak of Anglo culture is to run the risk of
being accused of essentialism, imperialism, even racism. But the attacks on the notion of culture in general, and Anglo culture in particular, are little more than academic Schngeisterei. As I wrote a decade ago, arguing against anthropologists Wolf
and Wallerstein, while cultures are not immutable essences, with clearly drawn
boundaries, to reduce us all as cultural beings to members of myriad groupscrosscutting, overlapping, and ever evolving, means to overlook the central reality. . . . no
one is more acutely aware of this reality than a bilingual who lives his or her life in
two languages and cultures (Wierzbicka 1997, 18; see also 2005a, 2005b).
The concept of Anglo culture is potentially particularly useful to millions of
immigrants to Anglophone countries like Britain, the United States, and Australia.
To deny the validity of this concept means to deny the immigrants culture training,
which is essential to their social advancement. The same applies to Anglo English,
which is an essential part of Anglo culture.
Western scholars who are more focused on ideology than on the realities of the
immigrant condition have sometimes claimed that immigrants to English-speaking
countries do not need (Anglo) English and are not interested in acquiring it. For
example, Claire Kramsch (1998, 26) asserts that immigrant language learners are
increasingly disinclined to . . . buy into the values and beliefs that underpin native
speaker language use in their respective communities. Kramsch supports her view
on this point with a quote from the French semiotician Julia Kristeva (1988, 10): The
absorption of foreignness proposed by our societies turns out to be inacceptable [sic]
for modern day individuals, who cherish their national and ethnic identity and their
intrinsically subjective, irreducible difference.
As an immigrant myself, I can testify that such high-minded theoretical views
do not match the reality of my own life. Much as I cherish my national and ethnic
identity (not to mention my personal irreducible difference), during my thirty odd
years of living in Australia I have had to absorb a good deal of foreignness (that is,
in my case, Angloness and also Anglo-Australianness) into my ways of speaking,
thinking, and acting. In particular, I have had to learn to use words like fair, reasonable, and presumably (not to mention privacy)and not just words, but the ideas
and the cultural scripts associated with them. Autobiographical testimonies by other
immigrants to English-speaking countries are more consistent with my experience
than with Kristevas theorizing (e.g., Chow 1999; Danquah 2000; Besemeres and
Wierzbicka, to appear).
1.3. An Illustration: Words, Scripts, and Human Lives

I will illustrate both the shared cultural content of Anglo English and its heterogeneity with two examples from Australian English. In a book-length essay entitled Made
in England: Australias British Inheritance, the eminent Australian writer David
Malouf (2003) emphasizes distinct features of Australian English such as boldness
and colour, which arise for the most part from a strong sense of humour and larrikin
sense of play, qualities we might trace back to the cockney and criminal world of the
convicts (p. 49). At the same time, Malouf (who is himself of part-English, partLebanese background) stresses kindred ties and feelings linking Australians with
all those who share the same habits of mind fostered and transmitted by the English
language and often alien to people outside the magic circle of Anglo-Saxon thinking (p. 61). It is a circle characterized by an ethos in which terms like fair play,
sportsmanship, team spirit are meant to be translated out of the narrow world of
schoolboy rivalry and endeavour into the world of action and affairs; not as metaphors but as practical forms of behaviour (p. 60). It is fascinating to see how often
the untranslatable English word fair (see chapter 5) recurs in Maloufs discussions of
Australias British inheritance (as when he talks, for example, about Australias bonds
with people with whom we have a special relationship in which we are trusted to
play fair, and to speak fair too, p. 61).
The concept of fairness, made in England but elaborated in Australia and
given a special role in expressions like fair dinkum and a fair go (see OED 1989; AND
1988), is a good example of both the cultural continuity and cultural change evidenced
by Australian English.
A concept that illustrates innovation rather than continuity in Australian English and culture is that of dobbing. Dob, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (1989) as to betray, to inform against, is described by it as Australian slang,
but as I argued in earlier work, this description is misleading: in Australia, dob in
is not slang . . . , it is simply part of common everyday language, a word which is
(still) in general use and which is clearly one of the key words in Australian English (Wierzbicka 1997, 212).
I have examined the meaning and the cultural significance of the verb dob and
the noun dobber in a number of earlier publications (see Wierzbicka 1984, 1986a,
1991, 1992, 1997). Here, I will restrict myself to pointing out that the salient presence
of these words in Australian English is linked with a powerful cultural script: it is
bad to dob, it is bad to be a dobber (i.e., to dob on ones mates)a script that
probably has its roots, at least partly, in the solidarity of convicts vis--vis the authorities in the early period of Australias history.
The value of the traditional taboo against dobbing is now contested in public
discussion in Australia,3 but the concept remains salient in everyday thinking and
continues to influence peoples behavior, as the following recent quotes illustrate:
A lot of kids who are bullied to say that you just dont dob.
(Queensland Government 2002)
The Australian attitude of dont dob in a mate prevails within the
adolescent subculture thus reducing the possibility that older teens will
disclose those that bully. (Betlem 2001)
Dob in a dumper. (Butler 2003)
The continued relevance of the concept of dobbing in peoples (including immigrants) lives is illustrated by the following testimony of a Chinese immigrant in
Australia:
The other day at the dinner table, I asked my 6 year-old boy, who is attending
kindergarten, what he had learned in school. He happily told me that they learned
how to deal with bullies. My son used his five fingers of his right hand and said:
First, talk friendly, second, talk firmly, third, ignore, fourth, walk away, and . . .
Before he finished, my nephew, who is a 18 year-old Chinese boy, said: Report
to the teacher. My son burst into tears and said: No, not report to the teacher.
I dont like the word report. It doesnt sound nice. From my sons reaction to
the word report I can see that the concept of report is different from my
Chinese nephew to my half-Chinese half-Australian Australian-born son. For a
Chinese the word report is just to tell something to somebody, but report to
an Australian kid in this context is not just to tell somebody something. It is
dobbing in, which is a big offence, not at all encouraged in Australian culture.
This incident reminds me of another situation in China. If you ask a primary
school student the question What do you do if someone in school bullies you
or does a bad thing to you? 90% of the answers will be Go to report to the
teacher. Talk friendly, but firmly, ignore and walk away are not part of the
main attitude in dealing with bullies in China. Dobbing in in China is not as
offensive as in Australia. (Wang 2005)
Neither language nor culture stands still, but in every period there are certain shared
understandings and shared cultural norms that find their expression in a communitys
ways of speaking. Words, with their meanings, provide evidence of the reality of such
shared understandings. Anglo English words like fair and fairness are constitutive of
Anglo culture, and distinctively Australian words like dob and dobber, of Australian
culture. Neither expressions like English, Anglo English, and Australian English nor
those like Anglo culture and Australian culture stand for any unchanging monolithic
realities with sharp boundaries. They stand for certain constructs, but these constructs
are not fictions, and they have an impact on peoples lives.
1.4. Anglo English as a Historical Formation

In the recent second edition of his English as a Global Language (2003b), in which
he notes an increasingly public recognition of the global position of English (p. ix)
and the continued spread of a global lingua franca (p. x), Crystal continues, nonetheless, to use the singular: English, not Englishes (unlike, for example, McArthur
1998, whose book bears the provocative title The English Languages). He also endorses the Humboldtian view of languages: Language is the repository of the history of a people. It is its identity. If all the different varieties of English dont have an
identifiable shared cultural core, this book argues that the historically shaped Anglo
English does have such a core. And arguably, it is this Anglo English that provides a
point of reference for all the other Englishes, one without which the notion of
Englishes would not make sense either.
Despite the apparent reticence on this subject prevailing in many centers of
English studies in Britain and in America, in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, India,
and Africa, far away from the historical moorings of Anglo culture, it is often felt keenly
that the cultural dimensions of the English language do need to be addressed.
10
Meaning, History, and Culture
For example, David Parker, professor of English at the Chinese University of

Hong Kong, in his inaugural lecture (in 2001) unequivocally rejected the view that
English is somehow culturally neutral and warned of the dangers of ethnocentrism
inherent in such a view:
Western modernity has a long history of discursively constructing itself, using vocabularies largely derived from the Enlightenment, as the template for the future
of mankind. This is why it is so important to understand Western modernity not as
a universal destiny but as a particular historical formation, with its own multifiliated
traditions, and not least the vocabularies of disengaged rationality and universalism that are internal to these traditions. These, as we all know, can be precise and
necessary instruments for the sciences, law or administration, but to use them rather
than be used by them requires an understanding of their history, as part of the traditionary content handed down through the English language. (Parker 2001, 10)
In his defense of a cultural approach to the teaching of English, Parker draws on E. D.

Hirschs (1987) concept of cultural literacy and on the support given to this concept
by the eminent African American sociologist and historian, Orlando Patterson:
Patterson says that it is a fatal error to see the demands of cultural literacy in terms of
one dominant sector of society imposing its culture and values on the rest. . . . Those
who achieve only a narrow functional literacy are . . . condemned to the lower-paid
positions . . . the more powerful people, those at the tops of organizations, will increasingly be those who have achieved cultural literacy (Parker 2001, 3).
It is interesting that Patterson passionately embraces two views that many others
tend to see as incompatible: that the English language no longer belongs to any single
group or nation and that cultural literacy in Hirschs sensethat is, the cultural
heritage mediated through the English languageshould be seen as something relevant and potentially valuable to all groups of speakers of English.
Parker characterizes the focus of his lecture as the roots and trunk of English
rather than its branches (2001, 7, a metaphor used earlier in Kachru 1995); and he
elaborates the image by likening English to the banyan tree:
The key feature of this tree for me is the fact that it has aerial roots. They symbolize the fact that historically newer forms of English, taking root in different cultural soil, sooner or later begin to nourish the whole tree. The whole tree is global:
the new roots reach out in all directions. But after a while, most of the roots, old
and new, begin to entangle and fusewhich may be an emblem of the language
in the globalized future.
This book, too, seeks to focus more on the roots and the trunk of English than
its branches, while at the same time seeing the whole tree as a kind of banyan tree. It
gives special attention to those Anglo concepts which are both particularly important and invisible to insiders, in keeping with the insight of the philosopher HansGeorg Gadamer (on whom Parker also draws) that often concepts which we use
automatically contain a wealth of history (Gadamer 1975, 11).
As I will try to show in this book, everyday English words like right and wrong,
facts, evidence, reasonable, fair, exactly, precisely, and really (among many others) are
important instances of words that are used automatically and yet contain a wealth
of history and pass on a great deal of cultural heritage. Words of this kind may be in-
11
visible to native speakers, who simply take them for granted and assume that they must
have their equivalents in other languages. By analyzing such invisible words, their
history, and their current use, including the conversational routines and discourse
patterns associated with them, I will try to show from a linguistic point of view the extent to which (as Parker puts it) cultural knowledge constitutes a shared social space
(Parker 2001, 4), handed down through, and embedded in, the English language itself.
Gadamer writes that if we are not to accept language automatically, but to strive
for a reasoned historical understanding, we must face a whole host of questions of
verbal and conceptual history (1975, 11). This book tries to face such questions of
verbal and conceptual history, seeking to explore English as a vehicle of culture(s)
and, in particular, to explore the links between aspects of English and aspects of Anglo
culture.
Given the spread and the diversity of English in the modern world, it is important to study various local Englishes as vehicles of local culturesfor example,
Singapore English in Singapore or Indian English in India (see chapter 9). It is also
important to study these local Englishes through local literaturesand to recognize
and explore the new cultural impulses brought to English literature worldwide
through the work of cross-cultural writers (such as Maxine Hong Kingston, V. S.
Naipaul, Rohinton Mistry, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chinua Achebe, and Ahdaf Soueif).
But the very notion of a cross-cultural writer implies that there are some cultures to begin with, obviously not discrete, unchanging, and homogeneous but nonetheless real enough to make a person feel biculturalas many contemporary writers
in Britain, America, and elsewhere testify that they do (Besemeres 1998, 2002;
Pavlenko 2001). The testimony of immigrants to English-speaking countries (e.g.,
Chow 1999; Danquah 2000; Besemeres and Wierzbicka, to appear) shows with particular clarity how important it is for them to study English in its cultural context
and not in a cultural vacuum, if cultural misunderstandings are not to mar their linguistic and social progress.
1.5. The Tendency to Mistake Anglo English

for the Human Norm
It has been fashionable in linguistics in the last few decades to speak of universals of
politeness and of universal principles of conversation (e.g., Grice 1975; Leech 1983;
Brown and Levinson 1987; for discussion, see Wierzbicka 2003a; Goddard and
Wierzbicka 2004; Goddard 2004). But these putative universals (usually stated in a
technical English and thus untranslatable into most other languages) are unlikely to
be of much help in cross-cultural encounters, where people of different backgrounds
need to learn, above all, in what ways their cultural worlds differ, not what they have
in common. Immigrants to Britain, America, or Australia need to learn, for example,
to understand the meaning of unfamiliar conversational routines and to grasp the
cultural values and assumptions reflected in them. Similarly, it is useful for Anglo
speakers of Englishespecially in countries with a large influx of immigrantsto
become aware of the cultural underpinnings of their own conversational routines
and of the key concepts that they themselves live by.
12
In fact, many of the putative universals of politeness put forward in the literature have been shown to be simply a reflection of Anglo cultural norms. In particular
(as I argued in Wierzbicka 1985, 1991/2003a; see also Matsumoto 1988), the freedom from imposition, which Brown and Levinson (1978, 66) saw as one of the most
important guiding principles of human interaction, is in fact an Anglo cultural value,
and the avoidance of flat imperative sentences, which Searle (1975, 69) attributed
to the ordinary [human] conversational requirements of politeness, does not reflect universal principles of politeness but, rather, expresses special concerns of
modern Anglo culture (see chapter 2).
In a recent book of popular anthropology, the author suggests that the ancient
Greek injunction know thyself is no longer apposite; what we need to do, rather, is
to learn to know others. But in fact, one cant learn to know others without learning to know oneself at the same time. As Humboldt put it in a famous passage, every
language draws about the people that possess it a circle whence it is possible to exit
only by stepping over at once into the circle of another one (Humboldt 1988, 60).
By stepping over the boundaries of ones first language, one can look at that language
from outside and then become aware of the thick web of assumptions and values embedded in it; conversely, one cannot fully appreciate the assumptions and values embedded in a foreign or second language without having become aware of those
embedded in ones first language. This applies also to Anglo speakers of English.
In the novel The Return of Ansel Gibbs by the American writer Frederick
Buechner (1957, 14), the protagonists daughter, Anne, driving with her father and a
friend through East Harlem, notices the sign (in Spanish) Pronto Viene Jesus Cristo,
which she takes to mean Jesus Christ come quickly, and she is struck by how rude
it sounds. The friend disagrees: Pronto isnt rude in Spanish. . . . It just means quick.
But the girl is not convinced: Come quick, Jesus Christ then, do you like that?
What Anne Gibbs fails to realize is not only that Pronto viene doesnt mean come
quick (but rather, is coming soon) but also that the literal equivalent of come
quick doesnt sound rude in Spanish and, more generally, that come quick is more
likely to sound rude in Anglo English than its literal equivalent would sound in most
other languages (including many new Englishes, such as Singapore English; see
Wong 2004a)presumably because of the Anglo cultural emphasis on personal
autonomy and on not telling others what to do (see chapter 2; see also Wierzbicka
1985, 1991, 2003a, in press a). To learn effectively about Spanish ways of speaking,
people like Anne Gibbs need to become aware of their own unconscious assumptions and values and learn not to take them for granted as simply normal and
human. At the same time, immigrants of non-Anglo background need to learn about
Anglo values and assumptions and about speech practices associated with them.
The literature on language and society often dismisses popular perceptions of
differences in ways of speaking prevailing in different cultures as stereotyping.
Sometimes it even prides itself on its own inability to match these perceptions with
any solid analytical findings. For example, Miller, having set out to study misunderstandings in Japanese-American workplace interaction, finds that contrary to
many folklinguistic theories about the respective languages, the discourse strategies
most commonly used when giving negative assessments in English and Japanese are
quite similar (Miller 2000, 251). The author scoffs at folk theory and popular stereo-
13
types [that] would lead us to blame Clint Eastwood-style Americans who blast their
way through every conversation, or compromising ambiguous Japanese who produce
a trail of uncertainty in their wakes (Miller 2000, 253). She does not deny that misunderstandings occur and that they can be due to a mismatch in cultural assumptions, but rather than seeking to replace folk theory and popular stereotypes with
more precise generalizations about such mismatches, she seems to reject any need
for generalizations in favor of examining the tiny crevices of talkapparently on a
case-by-case basis. It is here, in the finely-tuned traces of everyday talk, that recurring misinterpretations and patterned misunderstandings arise and, eventually, assume the guise of grand characterizations of entire populations and ethnic groups
(Miller 2000, 253).
But surely a failure to come up with firm generalizations is anything but a virtuewhether from a theoretical or from a practical point of view. The generalizations that ordinary speakers come up with in their folk theory and popular
stereotypes based on their cross-cultural experiences are no doubt often simplistic,
but it should be the task of scholars to offer better generalizations, rather than abandoning the search for tenable generalizations altogether. And if our analytical tools
are such that using them does not lead to any tangible results, then perhaps we should
look for better analytical tools rather than dismissing ordinary peoples perceptions
as groundless stereotyping.
The challenge is to find better ways to articulate the truth about different ways
of speaking that ordinary speakers are often intuitively aware of, to separate the wheat
of perception and experience from the chaff of prejudice, and to find ways of formulating generalizations that can be stated in a coherent theoretical framework and
supported by hard linguistic evidence.
To say, for example, that Singapore English is an expression of Singapore culture is an abbreviated and simplified way of speaking, given that both Singapore
English and Singapore culture are abstractions standing for complex and nondiscrete
realities. As argued persuasively by Wong (2005), however, these abstractions are useful
and revealing. The same applies to Anglo English and Anglo culture.
1.6. The Cultural Underpinnings of (Anglo) English

Countless recent publications have titles including expressions like global English,
international English, world English, standard English, and English as a lingua franca. To the best of my knowledge, however, there are no recent publications
devoted to Anglo English, let alone using this expression in their titles. Yet it is precisely this Anglo English, with the Anglo cultural heritage embedded in it, that in
the postcolonial and increasingly global world continues to provide a basis for talking about English in the singular.
Nothing is more revealing of the cultural underpinnings of, say, Singapore
English (see Wong 2005) or Sri Lankan English (see Parakrama 1995; Fernando 1989)
than a comparison of these new Englishes with the older Anglo English and its own
cultural underpinnings. Needless to say, Anglo English does not stand still, and the
ever-increasing penetration of new Englishes into the language of English literature
14
is one obvious factor contributing to its transformation. Nonetheless, Anglo English

has a sufficient measure of stability to be perceived by millions of people, on all continents, as an extremely important reality. In particular, immigrants to countries like
Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia are usually interested in the English language (rather than the English languages), and it is the English language
that most of them feel they need to study if they are not to remain socially disadvantaged for the rest of their lives (see chapter 2).
According to Braj Kachru (1995, 1), the concept of world Englishes demands
. . . a distinction between English as a medium and English as a repertoire of cultural pluralism: one refers to the form of English, and the other to its function, its
content. Kachru elaborates: What we share as members of the international Englishspeaking community is the medium, that is, the vehicle for the transmission of the
English language. The medium per se, however, has no constraints on what messagecultural or socialwe transmit through it. And English is a paradigm example
of medium in this sense (Kachru 1995, 1).
From the point of view of world Englishes, such a distinction between English
as a global mediuma global and cross-cultural code of communicationand
Englishes as vehicles of local cultures may be useful. From the point of view of Anglo
English, however, it is more problematic, for Anglo English is not a culturally neutral or culture-free medium but a cultural world of its own.
According to Kachru, it is its function as a medium that has given English an
unprecedented status as a global and cross-cultural code of communication and has
made it a universal language, a language with no national or regional frontiers
(Kachru 1995, 2). The fact is, however, that in the present-day world it is Anglo English that remains the touchstone and guarantor of English-based global communication. (I do not mean here phonology but above all vocabulary and discourse patterns
associated with it.) The idea advanced, for example, by Quirk (1981) (see also Stein
1979) that international English can take the form of a culturally neutral nuclear
English and thus be divorced from the historically shaped and culture-bound (Anglo)
English is in my view totally unrealistic. To see this, it is enough to consult international trade agreements such as that concluded recently between the ASEAN countries of South East Asia and the Peoples Republic of China (Agreement 2002), where
an exceedingly Anglo English is used to ensure full reciprocal comprehensibility with
legally binding consequences on both sides. (For further discussion, see chapter 9.)
The whole issue of the relationship between English as a global lingua franca
and English as used in what Kachru (1985, 1992) calls the countries of the inner circle
is the subject of a wide-ranging controversy, especially in educational circles concerned with the teaching of English.
One of the key questions is this: should English as a foreign language (EFL)
try to take as its model the native varieties widely used in countries like Britain and
the United States, or should it rather distance itself from them? According to some,
the native speaker is dead (Paikeday 1985), and the whole notion of native speaker
is an outdated myth (Kramsch 1998, 23). Accordingly, instead of a pedagogy oriented toward the native speaker . . . , we may want to devise a pedagogy oriented toward
the intercultural speaker. Othersespecially many of those at the receiving end of
progressive culture-free pedagogydisagree. To quote the Chinese scholar Ming Li
15
from Suzhou University in China: The neglect of cultural factors in foreign language teaching in China in the past years was responsible for the poor performance
of Chinese students in their interaction or contact with foreigners (Li 2004, 231).
The editors of the book in which Ming Lis paper was published, Kwok-kan Tam
and Timothy Weiss (2004), make a more general observation:
Recent trends in postcolonialism and the advocacy for the nativization of English,
which have led to the localization of English language teaching by minimizing its
Western cultural contents, run counter to the Chinese desire . . . of being globalized. In China there is a strong tendency to go against the trend of nativization by
reinstating the cultural component in English language teaching. (Tam and Weiss
2004, vii)
I will return to the question of English teaching in the era of globalization in chapter 9. Here, let me adduce only one more quote on the subject, which is particularly
apposite to the issue of links between language, culture, and history:
If English is learned simply as a lingua francai.e. if the teaching of EFL is not
firmly rooted in the cultural context of native speakersthere is a danger that it
will become unidiomatic, and that EFL speakers may wrongly come to regard unidiomatic echoes of their own mother tongue as the natural (and therefore universally understood) mode of expression in English.
With the evolution of a multiplicity of culturally autonomous Englishes, Standard English maintained as an instrument of cross-cultural communication will
only be effective at the level of communicative competence to the extent that it is
based on shared cultural assumptions. English has evolved as the result of a historical process, and the history of the language is an inescapable factor influencing its use even as a lingua franca. For this reason it seems inevitable that those
shared cultural assumptions, to be reflected in the teaching of pragmatics in EFL,
should derive from the cultural contexts of Standard English in its two most influential varieties. (Preisler 1999, 265266)
In a telling commentary on the Anglo basis of English as an international language, the Sri Lankan linguist Thiru Kandiah (educated in Sri Lanka and Britain)
has written:
Community is created through communication, in a discourse which uses linguistic
patterns and discursive conventions whose nature and manner of use are agreed
on or authorized by those who go to make up the community. Indeed, it is by virtue of such agreement or shared authorization that these people emerge as a community. What induces such agreement or sharing is that it is just these patterns
and conventions that construct for them the model of reality that makes sense to
them, the structures of knowledge and so on that maintain it, the precise kinds of
meaning that they need to convey, and so on. Not to know and control these patterns and conventions is to remain outside of the community they define, to be
characterized as an other who has neither the entitlement nor the ability to participate actively in it. (Kandiah 1995, xxxi)
Full participation in worldwide communication in science, international law, trade,

business, aviation, and many other domains requires access to a shared medium
of communication, and this medium requires not only shared forms but also shared
16
meanings. As things stand now, key Anglo English concepts such as fair, reasonable, evidence, impartial, bias, commitment, compromise, opportunity,
efficiency, presumably, and alleged are among the linguistic tools that create
and define a worldwide Anglophone community of discourse (in Kandiahs sense)
across a wide range of domains.
This book argues that the cultural semantics of such concepts and of the discourse patterns associated with them require careful and systematic study and that a
study of this kind requires a suitable methodology.
1.7. A Framework for Studying and Describing Meaning

The subtitle of this book combines two words, both central to this books approach
to English: meaning and culture. So far, I have focused mainly on culture. Now I
will turn more specifically to meaning, which in fact, as I will try to show throughout
this book, is a key to understanding culture.
There are good reasons to think that even if all the ideological and political
obstacles that stand in the way of exploring English from a cultural perspective were
to be removed, it would still not be possible to explore English in this wayat least
not effectively and in depthwithout a semantic perspective.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the study of English was
dominated by the Chomskyan approach and thus was conducted within a framework that understands linguistics to be a part of psychology, ultimately human biology (Chomsky 1987, 1). In effect, for half a century the dominant (generativist)
approach to the study of English was totally blind to culture. Focused on syntax and
preoccupied with formalisms, it was also inimical to the study of meaning. This book,
which studies English as a historically shaped semantic and cultural universe, radically breaks with that tradition.
There are, of course, books that include both English and meaning in their titles,
and one would expect less opposition on a priori grounds to looking at English from
a semantic perspective than to looking at it from a cultural perspective. But to explore English in depth from a semantic perspective, one needs a well-grounded semantic theory and an effective methodology. In most recent books on English that
in principle are not hostile to semantic considerations, such a theoretical and methodological foundation is lacking. As a result, if they do discuss the meaning of English words, expressions, or constructions, they usually do so on an ad hoc basis. This
can also be valuable, but it is not enough for a systematic and precise investigation of
meanings, changes in meaning, and differences in meaning. Without such a systematic and methodologically informed investigation of meaning, it is not possible to
investigate, in a rigorous way, the cultural underpinnings of English key words,
pragmatized expressions, salient discourse patterns, and so on.
This book is based on the semantic theory (to be described shortly) whose name
comes from the initials of the name of its main tool: the natural semantic metalanguage
(NSM). This theory, whose main ideas were first presented in English in my 1972 book,
Semantic Primitives, has since been developed in collaboration with my colleague Cliff
Goddard and with valuable input from other colleagues (see, in particular, Wierzbicka
17
1996c; Goddard, ed., 1997; Goddard 1998; Goddard and Wierzbicka, eds., 1994, 2002).
It has also been extensively tested in practice, through empirical study of a large number of diverse languages, and is now supported by a large body of semantic descriptions of aspects of many languages, carried out within the NSM framework.
The NSM approach to linguistic description is based on two fundamental assumptions: first, that every language has an irreducible core in terms of which the
speakers can understand all complex thoughts and utterances and, second, that the
irreducible cores of all natural languages match, so that we can speak, in effect, of
the irreducible core of all languages, reflecting in turn the irreducible core of human
thought.
As Leibniz argued eloquently three centuries ago, not everything can be explained. At some point, all explanations must come to an end, for a regressus ad infinitum explains nothing. Some things must be self-explanatory (intuitively clear),
or we could never understand anything. The explanatory power of any explanation
depends, therefore, on the intuitive clarity of the indefinable conceptual primes that
constitute its ultimate foundation.
A natural language is a powerful system in which very complex and diverse
meanings can be formulated and conveyed to other people. The NSM theory of language assumes that the intelligibility of all such meanings depends on the existence
of a basic set of conceptual primes that are intuitively clear (and presumably innate)
and do not require any explanations and that constitute the bedrock of human communication and cognition. Cross-linguistic empirical work undertaken within the
NSM framework suggests that there are some sixty universal conceptual primes. They
are set out in Table 1.1.
The first hypothesis, then, is that all languages have lexical exponents for each
of the sixty or so conceptual primes (words, bound morphemes, or fixed expressions).
The second, concomitant, hypothesis is that in all languages conceptual primes can
enter into the same combinations. Of course, the word order and the morphosyntactic
trappings may differ from language to language, but the hypothesis is that the elements, their combinations, and their meaning will be the same (see Goddard and
Wierzbicka, eds., 2002). This means that just as we can have a rudimentary universal
lexicon of indefinable concepts, we can also have a rudimentary universal grammar of
such concepts. And if we have a minilexicon and a minigrammar, then we can have
a minilanguagea minilanguage carved out of natural languages that can be used
for the description and comparison of languages, in their lexicon and grammar, and
also in their discourse practices: in short, a natural semantic metalanguage (NSM).
Since this metalanguage is carved out of natural language (any natural language),
the semantic explications and scripts constructed in it are intuitively meaningful and
have psychological reality. Consequently, unlike semantic formulae based on various artificial formalisms, NSM formulae are open to verification (they can be tested
against native speakers intuitions). Being based on the shared core of all languages,
the natural semantic metalanguage can serve as a cultural notation for the comparison of cultural values, assumptions, norms, and ways of speaking across the boundaries between societies, communities, subcultures, and epochs.
The authors of a relatively recent article entitled Culture as an Explanatory
Variable, Bond, Zegarac, and Spencer-Oatley (2000, 48), state that when they
18
TABLE
1.1 Table of semantic primesEnglish version
Substantives
Relational substantives
Determiners
Quantifiers
Evaluators
Descriptors
Mental/experiential predicates
Speech
Actions, events, movement
Existence and possession
Life and death
Time
Space
Logical concepts
Augmentor, intensifier
Similarity
I, YOU, SOMEONE/PERSON, SOMETHING/THING,

PEOPLE, BODY
KIND, PART
THIS, THE SAME, OTHER/ELSE
ONE, TWO, SOME, ALL, MUCH/MANY
GOOD, BAD
BIG, SMALL
THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR
SAY, WORDS, TRUE
DO, HAPPEN, MOVE
THERE IS/EXIST, HAVE
LIVE, DIE
WHEN/TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, A LONG TIME,
A SHORT TIME, FOR SOME TIME, MOMENT
WHERE/PLACE, BE (SOMEWHERE), HERE, ABOVE,
BELOW, FAR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE, TOUCHING
NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF
VERY, MORE
LIKE (AS, HOW)
Primes exist as the meanings of lexical units (not at the level of lexemes).
Exponents of primes may be words, bound morphemes, or phrasemes.
They can be formally, i.e., morphologically, complex.
They can have different morphosyntactic properties, including word-class, in different languages.
They can have combinatorial variants (allolexes).
Each prime has well-specified syntactic (combinatorial) properties.
After Goddard and Wierzbicka 2002.
attempted to study differences in communication across cultures they found in the

literature a patchwork quilt of unrelated studies, focusing on a myriad speech forms
and their associated non-verbal behaviours . . . when these studies invoked culture
to explain results, they made opportunistic and speculative forays into the available
literature. The authors concluded that there was no emerging paradigm or paradigms (Kuhn 1962) that could help guide future research in this topic area, so important for our twenty first century (p. 48).
With one proviso, the NSM framework and the theory of cultural scripts based
on it (see chapter 2) are proposed as just such a paradigm. The proviso has to do with
the idea of measuring cultures, which Bond and his colleagues include in their
vision of what is to be done. They ask whether more promising ways to conceptualize and measure cultures, especially when studying speech behaviour, can be found
by bringing together concepts from different disciplines (including social psychology, pragmatics, linguistics, the psychology of culture) (p. 98).
Although statistical evidence is used in this book, among other kinds of evidence,
the theory on which the book relies offers a framework for conceptualizing cultures,
not for measuring cultures. As such, however, it does provide a paradigm that I believe could guide future research into differences in communication across cultures,
including different cultures associated with different varieties of English.
19
In particular, as this book seeks to demonstrate, the new paradigm based on the
natural semantic metalanguage makes it possible to explore in depth the cultural
meanings that are embedded in Anglo English and that in the twenty-first century
continue to inform the use of English in the world at large.
Thus, this book seeks to launch a new, meaning-based approach to the study of
the English language. Its aim is to investigate English as a historically shaped universe of meaning and to reveal Englishs cultural underpinnings and their implications for the modern world.
20
Chapter 2
Anglo Cultural Scripts Seen

through Middle Eastern Eyes
2.1. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

The fate of the Earth depends on cross-cultural communication. Deborah Tannens
(1986, 30) words represent no doubt only a partial truth, but it is an important part.
In our increasingly global world, successful cross-cultural communication is essential for nations, ethnic and social groups, and individuals.
In a book entitled Becoming Intercultural, the Korean American scholar Young
Yun Kim (2001, 1) writes: Millions of people change homes each year, crossing
cultural boundaries. Immigrants and refugees resettle in search of new lives. . . . In
this increasingly integrated world, cross-cultural adaptation is a central and defining
theme. Cross-cultural adaptation is particularly relevant to immigrants and
refugees, but the need for cross-cultural understanding extends further. In modern
multiethnic societies, newcomers need to learn to communicate with those already
there, but those already there need, for their part, to learn to communicate with the
newcomers. In a world that has become a global village, even those living in their
traditional homelands need to develop some cross-cultural understanding to be able
to cope with the larger world confronting them in a variety of ways.
Language has been defined, traditionally, as a tool for communication, and linguistics as the study of language. In practice, the dominant linguistic paradigm of
the second half of the twentieth century had very little to do with human communication and even less, with problems of cross-cultural communication. Fortunately,
in the last quarter of the century, linguistics greened (Harris 1993), and the sterile,
formalistic approaches of generative grammar have been supplemented, if not supplanted, by approaches more concerned with meaning, culture, and people than with
formalisms. Nonetheless, as far as the theory and practice of cross-cultural communication are concerned, the contribution that linguistics has made so far is still limited, and there is certainly room for much more. Arguably, progress in this domain
has been hampered not only by the legacy of Chomskyan linguistics and its various
offshoots but also by certain ideological pressures.
20
Anglo Cultural Scripts Seen through Middle Eastern Eyes
21
The literature on intercultural communication (including what Kim 2001 calls

cross-cultural adaptation, competence, and fitness) often refers to cultural learning, but it seldom tries to spell out, concretely, what it is that must be learned. To
take the example of immigrants starting a new life in English-speaking countries like
the United States, Britain, or Australia, the need for cultural learning and cultural
transformation is often referred to in the literature, but attempts are seldom made
to identify the Anglo cultural patterns of which the immigrants should be made aware.
And if one does dare try to identify some such patterns, one risks being accused of
stereotyping, as well as essentialism and sometimes even racism. The so-called new
ethnicity movement, which started in the United States in the 1970s, was inimical to
the idea of there being any Anglo or Anglo American culture at all. In his book The
Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, published in 1972, one theorist of this movement,
Michael Novak, wrote:
There is no such thing as homo Americanus. There is no single culture here. We
do not, in fact, have a culture at allat least, not a highly developed one, whose
symbols, images, and ideals all of us work out of and constantly mind afresh; such
common culture as even intellectuals have is more an ideal aspired to than a
task accomplished. (Novak 1972, 18, quoted in Kim 2001, 24)
The new ideology of cultural pluralism celebrates the notion of many diverse cultures coexisting in one country (such as the United States) and at the same time plays
down the role of Anglo culture among those diverse cultures; indeed, it often questions the viability of such a notion. The English language tends to be presented as a
purely functional means of communication, not associated with any cultural patterns
or values. Immigrants need to learn English but do not need to learn any Anglo
cultural patterns or Anglo ways of speakingfirst, because there are no such identifiable patterns and, second, because even if there were, teaching them would be
somehow undemocratic and reactionary. The tone of the following passage in Kims
Becoming Intercultural is characteristic in this respect:
In many ethnically diverse societies, the cultural patterns widely regarded as standard are mainly those of the dominant culture. In the United States, for example,
the standard cultural patterns are mainly those of Anglo-Americans. Although acquiring minority cultural patterns is a part of the overall adaptation process of
newcomers, the most forceful pressure to conform generally comes from the dominant group. (Kim 2001, 51)
In this atmosphere, trying to teach immigrants some Anglo cultural patterns could
easily smack of exerting undue pressure on them to conform and of supporting
and trying to perpetuate the hegemony of the dominant group. In fact, even trying to identify any Anglo cultural patterns could be taken as showing that one was
unaware of variation within English and of the diversity of values, ways of thinking,
and discourse patterns reflected in English speech.
In my view, there are at least two important considerations arguing against such a
position. First, it denies the subjective experience of immigrants to English-speaking
countries, who often discover the reality of Anglo ways of speaking the hard way, by at
first painfully clashing with them and then learning increasingly to avoid the clashes
and attendant pain (see Hoffman 1989; Besemeres 1998, 2002). Second, it goes against
22
the vital interests of the immigrants, who need to acquire cultural as well as purely
linguistic competence in English to be able to function successfully in the society and
pursue their life goals as effectively as possible. To deny the validity of the notion of
Anglo cultural patterns or Anglo ways of speaking is to place the values of political
correctness above the interests of socially disadvantaged individuals and groups.
For example, in Australia there are courses of English in academic context
for international students, there are various cultural induction courses run by migrant resource centers, and there are counseling services for both students and migrants. What should those who offer such courses and services tell newcomers about
Anglo culture? To simply deny its existencein the name of diversity, variation, and
changeis certainly an option, but one whose usefulness is limited. Talking about
the value of tolerance might be more useful, because tolerance (with its roots in
the ideal of toleration, advanced three centuries ago by John Locke and other British thinkers) is a key Anglo value. But first, tolerance (and the whole family of values
related to it) needs to be related to concrete speech practices (e.g., how to use and
how not to use the bare imperative), and second, there are other Anglo values, also
reflected in specific speech practices, that are important for successful social interaction and interpersonal communication in English-speaking countries. These speech
practices need to be described and made sense of.
It should be the task of linguistics to provide models both theoretically viable
and practically usefulthat is, models seeking not only to explain in the abstract how
cross-cultural communication and adaptation occur but also to provide practical tools
that could be implemented in cross-cultural education. I believe such a model is
provided by the theory of cultural scripts, whose usefulness has already been demonstrated in many descriptive studies carried out within the NSM framework.1
2.2. The Theory of Cultural Scripts

The way we speak reflects the way we think. Not necessarily at the individual level
a skilled speaker can conceal his or her way of thinking behind carefully chosen words
and phrases. At the social level, however, ways of speaking do reflect ways of thinking, in particular, as Franz Boas (1911) emphasized nearly a century ago, ways of thinking of which the speakers are not fully conscious. They reveal, and provide evidence
for, patterns of thought.
Ways of thinking that are widely shared in a society become enshrined in ways
of speaking. Ways of speaking change as the underlying ways of thinking change.
There can be a lag between the two, but as one can see by studying ways of speaking
at the times of revolutions and other dramatic social transformations, ways of speaking can change very quickly, too, in response to changes in prevailing attitudes. Of
course, cultures are not bounded, coherent, timeless systems of meaning (Strauss
and Quinn 1997, 3). At the same time, however:
Our experiences in our own and other societies keep reminding us that some
understandings are widely shared among members of a social group, surprisingly
23
resistant to change in the thinking of individuals, broadly applicable across different contexts of their lives, powerfully motivating sources of their action, and remarkably stable over succeeding generations. (Strauss and Quinn 1997, 3)
Common expressions and common speech routines involving those expressions are
particularly revealing of social attitudes. The German philosopher Hans-Georg
Gadamer put it well when he said in his Philosophical Hermeneutics:
Common expressions are not simply the dead remains of linguistic usage that have
become figurative. They are, at the same time, the heritage of a common spirit
and if we only understand rightly and penetrate their covert richness of meaning,
they can make this common spirit perceivable again. (Gadamer 1976, 72)
To penetrate this covert richness of meaning, we need an adequate methodology.

I believe that such a methodology is available in the natural semantic metalanguage
(NSM) theory of semantics and in the theory of cultural scripts that is its offshoot. As
discussed in chapter 1, the key idea of NSM semantics is that all meanings can be
adequately portrayed in empirically established universal human concepts, with their
universal grammar. The key idea of the theory of cultural scripts is that widely shared
and widely known ways of thinking can be identified in terms of the same empirically established universal human concepts, with their universal grammar. (See in
particular Wierzbicka 1994a, 1994b, 1994c, 1996a, 1996b; Goddard 1997, 2000a;
Goddard and Wierzbicka, eds., 2004, in press.)
In the last few decades, cross-cultural investigations of ways of speaking have often
been conceived in terms of an ethnography of speaking (Hymes 1962). This perspective provided a very healthy and necessary corrective to the one-sided search for
a universal logic of conversation and for universals of politeness (see Wierzbicka
2003a). The theory of cultural scripts, however, proposes that we go still further and
complement the ethnography of speaking with an ethnography of thinking, and it
offers a framework within which such an ethnography of thinking can be meaningfully and methodically pursued.
I do not see the ethnography of thinking as an alternative to the ethnography of
speaking or, more generally, to the ethnography of social practices. On the contrary, I believe that we discover shared ways of thinking by studying ways of doing
things, including ways of speaking, and further that the study of social practices, including linguistic practices, is best seen not as a goal in itself but rather as a path to
understanding a societys attitudes and values. The theory of cultural scripts represents a cognitive approach to culture and society, and it offers a methodology that
allows us to explore thinking, speaking, and doing in a unified framework.2
The theory of cultural scripts combines an interest in the uniqueness and particularity of cultures with a recognition and affirmation of human universals, and it
rejects the widespread perception that, as Sandall (2000, 19) put it, The enemy of
the particular, the local, the idiosyncratic, the cultural is the universal, and the universal is always Bad News.
In the semantic theory of which the theory of cultural scripts is an offshoot,
the universal is good news, and it is the universalin the form of universal human
24
concepts and their universal grammarthat gives us the tools for unlocking the
secrets of the particular. Every human being, and every human group, is a blend
of the universal and the particular. The theory of cultural scripts is based on the
assumption that we need to understand people (both individuals and social groups)
in their particularity, but that we can understand them best in terms of what is
shared, and that one thing that is shared is a set of universal human concepts with
their universal grammar. (See Wierzbicka 1996b; Goddard 1998; Goddard and
Wierzbicka, eds., 2002.)
As discussed in a number of earlier publications, the theory of cultural scripts
differs from other attempts to describe and compare cultures in at least four major
respects.
First, it describes cultural norms and values from within rather than from outside. Thus, the researcher does not bring to the description of a culture external
conceptual categories such as individualism, collectivism, rationalism, high context, and low context, as is usually done in the literature (e.g., Hall 1976; Hofstede
1980; Schwartz 1994). Rather, norms and values are always identified from within
that is, from the point of view of those people who are the bearers of the postulated
norms and values (and in their own language). This means that there is no common
grid, no set list of categories invented by the researcher and then applied to various
human groups. Instead, norms and values are always identified from the perspective
of a given culture and presented in simple (nontechnical) formulae that are unique
to that particular culture. Comparing different norms and values does not mean, in
this approach, assigning different numerical scores to the same norms and values (e.g.,
individualism, collectivism, and so on). Rather, it means identifying norms and
values that are unique to a given human group and tradition. At the same time, these
unique norms and values are presented in a way that makes it possible to compare
them: not through identical labels applied across the board but through identical
building blocks out of which the different formulae are built.
This is the second major difference between the cultural script approach and
all other approaches: the generalizations proposed are formulated in terms of a universal set of concepts, found in a wordlike form in all languages. Thus, although no
set of universal labels is introduced or relied on by the researcher, a set of universal
concepts, which are actually found in all languages, is utilized and capitalized on.
As a result, the proposed formulae are both unique and comparable: each is qualitatively different from all others, and yet each constitutes a configuration of the same
elementsnonarbitrary, universal, and universally understandable.
The third distinctive feature of the cultural script approach is that it is practical: it can be used in language teaching, cross-cultural education, and intercultural communication. For example, when Hofstede (1980) asserts that cultures differ
in their degree of masculinity, degree of collectivism, or degree of uncertainty
avoidance, or when E. T. Hall (1976) compares cultures as high context and low
context, such generalizations can hardly help a language learner or an immigrant.
By contrast, cultural scripts formulated in simple and universal human concepts
are intuitively intelligible and can be immediately practically useful. For example,
an immigrant to the United States, Britain, or Australia can be introduced to the
following cultural script:
25
[people think like this:]

when I want someone to do something
I cant say to this person: you have to do it because I want you to do it
This script can later be refined and expanded, and its implications for acceptable
and unacceptable ways of speaking can be explored in detail, but even in this basic
form it is likely to be useful. The concomitant negative script would also be useful to
the newcomer:
when I dont want someone to do something
I cant say to this person: you cant do it because I dont want you to do it
The fourth distinctive feature of the cultural script approach is that it relies on hard
linguistic evidence. In books where a cultures dominant cultural patterns and
value orientations are described in terms of individualism, conformity, mutability, or low context, descriptions of this kind are usually not required to be
supported by specific linguistic facts. In the cultural script approach, however, all generalizations must be so supported. For example, the two Anglo scripts formulated above
are justified with reference to conversational routines such as could you / would you
do X? (the so-called whimperatives), used instead of a bare imperative (do X!), which
developed late in modern English and were not used, for example, in Shakespeares
language (see Brown and Gilman 1989), or the semantics of speech act verbs like to
suggest (that someone do something), (for detailed discussion from a cross-cultural perspective, see Wierzbicka 1985, 1991/2003a, 1996a, in press a; see also section 2.7).
In this chapter I focus, in particular, on Anglo cultural scripts, approaching them
from the point of view of the subjective experience of immigrants to English-speaking countriesspecifically, Middle Eastern immigrants. Throughout the chapter, I
quote from the testimony of one well-placed witness: Abraham Rihbany, an earlytwentieth-century immigrant from Syria to America and a migrant from Arabic to
English (in the sense of Besemeres 1998, 2002). My analysis of Anglo cultural scripts
is based on linguistic evidence, not on the personal testimony of one particular immigrant, and I analyze Anglo cultural scripts as such, not Middle Eastern perceptions of these scripts. But the phenomenological perspective provided by one persons
cross-cultural experience enriches, I think, an analysis based on objective linguistic
evidence and adds to it a human dimension, which can be lost sight of in what is
often called linguistic science.
2.3. The Anglo Ideal of Accuracy and

the Practice of Understatement
Abraham Rihbany, the author of a 1920 book entitled The Syrian Christ (an attempt
at explaining some aspects of the Gospels by placing them in their cultural context),
emigrated from Syria to the United States as a young man. Having lived for many
years in America, he became acutely aware of many differences between Anglo
American and Syrian (Middle Eastern) ways of speaking and between the cultural
26
values reflected in them. On a visit to his homeland, he realized that over the years
he had become bicultural: he still understood the Syrian cultural scripts, but in his
own speech, he tended to follow the Anglo scripts. (Rihbany uses the term Syrian in
the older sense of the word, modeled on the Arabic Sham, which, as Hopwood (1988,
1) says, is the name for the region in the eastern Mediterranean between Egypt and
Turkey.)3 Thus, Rihbany wrote:
While on a visit to Syria, after having spent several years in the West, I was very strongly
impressed by the decidedly sharp contrast between the Syrian and the Anglo-Saxon
modes of thought. The years had worked many changes in me, and I had become
addicted to the more compact phraseology of the Western social code.
In welcoming me to his house, an old friend of mine spoke with impressive
cheerfulness as follows: You have extremely honoured me by coming into my
abode [menzel]. I am not worthy of it. This house is yours; you can burn it if you
wish. My children are also at your disposal; I would sacrifice them all for your pleasure. What a blessed day this is, now that the light of your countenance has shone
upon us; and so forth, and so on.
I understood my friend fully and most agreeably, although it was not easy for
me to translate his words to my American wife without causing her to be greatly
alarmed at the possibility that the house would be set on fire and the children slain
for our pleasure. What my friend really meant in his effusive welcome was no more
or less than what gracious host means when he says, I am delighted to see you,
please make yourself at home. (Rihbany 1920, 89)
In this passage, trying to analyze his experience, Rihbany links Anglo culture with
the use of compact phraseology and the Syrian culture with effusiveness. The
term effusiveness (and also impetuosity) appears again in the following passage:
The Orientals impetuosity and effusiveness make his imprecatory prayers, especially to the unaccustomed ears of Englishmen, blood-curdling. And I confess
that on my last visit to Syria, my countrymens (and especially my countrywomens)
bursts of pious wrath jarred heavily upon me. In his oral bombardment of his enemy
the Oriental hurls such missiles as, May God burn the bones of your fathers;
May God exterminate you from the earth; May God cut off your supply of bread
(yakta rizkak); May you have nothing but the ground for a bed and the sky for
covering; May your children be orphaned and your wife widowed; and similar
expressions. (Rihbany 1920, 65)
Rihbany explains that to understand such outbursts, it is essential to realize that the
speakers do not mean what they say and that Anglo norms differ from Middle Eastern norms concerning saying what one means: It is unpleasant to an Anglo-Saxon
to note how many things an Oriental says, but does not mean. And it is distressing to
an Oriental to note how many things the Anglo-Saxon means, but does not say
(p. 77). In addition to compactness, conciseness, and brevity as putative Anglo values, Rihbany often speaks of the Anglo value of accuracyfrom a Syrian cultural
point of view, not a positive, but an irritant:
To an unreconstructed Syrian the brevity, yea, even curtness, of an Englishman
or an American, seems to sap life of its pleasures and to place a disproportionate
value on time. For the Oriental, the primary value of time must not be computed
27
in terms of business and money, but in terms of sociability and good fellowship.
Poetry, and not prosaic accuracy, must be the dominant feature of speech. (Rihbany
1920, 77)
Explaining, and defending, the value of inaccuracy in Middle Eastern speech (in
contrast to prosaic, pedantic, pedestrian and dull accuracy), Rihbany writes:
There is much more of intellectual inaccuracy than of moral delinquency in the
Easterners speech. His misstatements are more often the result of indifference
than the deliberate purpose to deceive. . . . He sees no essential difference between nine oclock and half after nine, or whether a conversation took place on
the housetop or in the house. The main thing is to know the substance of what
happened, with as many of the supporting details as may be conveniently remembered. A case may be overstated or understated, not necessarily for the purpose
of deceiving, but to impress the hearer with the significance or the insignificance
of it. If a sleeper who had been expected to rise at sunrise should oversleep and
need to be awakened, say half an hour or an hour later than the appointed time,
he is then aroused with the call, Arise, it is noon alreadyqm sar edh-hir. Of
a strong man it is said, He can split the earthyekkid elaridh. The Syrians suffer
from no misunderstanding in such cases. They discern one anothers meaning.
(Rihbany 1920, 7778)
Although Rihbany says in this passage that a case may be overstated or understated,
in fact in both cases he means an exaggeration: for example, saying all when one
means many or saying none when one means few. In his experience, from an Anglo
point of view, to say all when one means many or to say none when one means few
is a sin, whereas from a Syrian point of view, it is a virtue.
Rihbany himself often speaks in this connection of exaggeration as a feature
of what he calls Oriental speech and as something that Anglo culture, with its
emphasis on accuracy, abhors: Just as the Oriental loves to flavour his food strongly
and to dress in bright colours, so is he fond of metaphor, exaggeration, and positiveness in speech. To him mild accuracy is weakness. Rihbany links Anglo cultures
taste for accuracy and distaste for exaggeration with the value of correctness. For
example, he writes:
Again, let me say that an Oriental expects to be judged chiefly by what he means
and not by what he says. As a rule, the Oriental is not altogether unaware of the
fact that, as regards the letter, his statements are often sadly lacking in correctness.
But I venture to say that when a person who is conversing with me knows that I
know that what he is saying is not exactly true, I may not like his manner of speech,
yet I cannot justly call him a liar. (Rihbany 1920, 88)
It is interesting to note the use of the word sadly in this passage: Oriental statements
are said to be sadly lacking in correctness. The word sadly reflects here, of course,
an Anglo perspective: as Rihbany emphasizes again and again, from a Syrian point
of view, there is nothing sad or inappropriate about such absence of literal correctness and accuracyquite the contrary.
What exactly does the Anglo ideal of accuracy, as intuited in Rihbanys bilingual and bicultural experience, really mean? Drawing on Goddards (2004a) insights
into the semantics of figurative language, I suggest that it means, in essence, a match
28
between what a person wants to say with some words, and what these words actually
say: ideally, the words as such should bear exactly the meaning that the person wants
to convey with these words.
But this is only a first approximation. First of all, if accepted as it is stated, the
script just sketched would rule out metaphorical language: a metaphor implies, as
Goddard puts it, that the words themselves do not mean what the speaker wants to
say with these words. Because the ideal of accuracy is not incompatible with the use
of metaphors, this script should be revised, in the first instance, along the following
lines: the words that a person says should say no more and no less than what this person wants to convey with these words; if they are metaphorical, they can say something else, but if they are not metaphorical, they should say no more and no less
than what the speaker wants to say.
If, however, the cultural ideal in question is aimed, primarily, at avoiding exaggeration, then the primary concern is that the words as such should not say more
than the person wants to say with these words. It is not so much a question of no
more and no less as of no more. If one says all when one means many, this can
be seen as a situation where the words say more than the person wants to say; if one
says none when one means few, this, too, can be interpreted as a situation where
the words say more than what the person wants to say. Given the Anglo practice of
understatement (which I discuss in more detail shortly), the concern is that one
should not exaggerate rather than that one should say strictly no more and no less
than what one wants to say. Rihbany is quite insightful in this regard (as he is in
many others) when he says that it is distressing to an Oriental to note how many
things the Anglo-Saxon means but does not say (Rihbany 1920, 77). This is largely
what understatement as an Anglo speech practice is all about: expressing oneself in such a way that ones words say less than what one wants to say with these
words. What is seen as important is that people should not overstatethat is, should
not exaggeraterather than they should not understate what they really want to
communicate.
Native speakers of English, including linguists, seldom seem to be aware of the
extent to which English is perceived by cultural outsiders as the language of understatement. To quote one characteristic examplea comment on English Anglo
culture by the German commentator H. Btow:
Everything is in the style of understatements [the English word is used here in the
German original, A.W.], of downtoning, which the English conversation has over
many generations brought to mastery. Understatement [again, in English, A.W.]
this is not only the opposite of what we call Angabe [a full statement, A.W.], it
is in England almost a worldview [Weltanschauung]. (Btow 1961, 171)
In a similar vein, the Hungarian British writer, social commentator, and satirist
George Mikes (1946) described understatements as a feature distinguishing native
English speakers from foreigners (Huebler 1983, 2).
Comments of this kind could easily be dismissed as shallow stereotyping, were
they not widely perceived as valid and useful by teachers of English as a nonnative
language. For example, writing from a German perspective, Huebler comments:
29
Anyone progressing beyond the rudiments of learning English, certainly in Germany, soon finds that understatements are said to be typically English. Even someone who has not been exposed to English, if he has studied German literature at
school, will come across the English word understatement as a literary term. The
very fact that it is the English word understatement and not the German word
Untertreibung that is used suggests a special affinity with the English way of life.
Attributing understatements to a predominantly English linguistic pattern of
behaviour is documented in many works dealing with the English way of life.
Amongst such books are those aimed specifically at teaching English as a foreign
language. (Huebler 1983, 1)
Of course, it has often been pointed out that understatement is more characteristic of British English than it is of American English (and in Australia, it is often perceived as a feature of British English distinguishing it from Australian English). No
doubt there is some truth in that, too. Nonetheless, downtoners, diminishers, minimizers, and deintensifiers of many kinds (to be discussed shortly) belong to the linguistic resources available to, and used by, speakers of American and Australian
English, too.
Huebler (1983, 73) offers the following list of expressions commonly used in
modern English as tools for understatement or downtoning (the labels are his; see
also Quirk et al. 1972, 452):
compromisers:
comparatively, enough, kind of, more or less, quite, rather, relatively,
sort of
diminishers:
a little, in many/some respects, in part, mildly, moderately, partially,
partly, pretty, slightly, somewhat
minimizers:
a bit, barely, hardly, scarcely
approximators:
almost, basically, nearly, practically, technically, virtually
From a cross-linguistic perspective, it would be difficult not to admit that this list is
very (or should I say, rather) extensive indeed. Furthermore, this wealth of downtoners
is a relatively recent (roughly, post-seventeenth-century) development in English. For
example, judging by Spevacks (1970) concordance to the works of Shakespeare, many
elements included in the list are missing from Shakespeares language. These missing elements include comparatively, relatively, sort of (as a hedge), moderately, basically, practically, technically, and virtually.
Where does the ideal of accuracy or nonexaggeration reflected in this wealth
of downtoners come from? To quote Rihbany again: A Syrians chief purpose in
a conversation is to convey an impression by whatever suitable means, and not to
deliver his message in scientifically accurate terms. He expects to be judged not by
what he says, but by what he means (1920, 81). The key word here is scientifically:
given the central role of science in modern Anglo culture, it is understandable that
scientific discourse has become in this culture, for many intents and purposes, the
30
model of good speech: rational, dispassionate, factually based, precise, and

accurate.
One proviso, however, is needed: this is how one should speak about things.
When one speaks about people rather than things, other considerations come into
play, and other scripts applyscripts that may be alien to scientific discourse, which
is about things, not people. When one speaks about people, tact may be more important than strict accuracy. When one speaks about things, however, it is good to
speak objectively, without undue emotion, without exaggeration, with care, with due
caution, with precision, distinguishing facts from opinions, stating facts accurately,
qualifying ones statements according to the strength of ones evidence, and so on. I
discuss a number of these values in the subsequent sections of this chapter. Here, let
me try to formulate, on the basis of the discussion so far, the cultural script for accuracy and nonexaggeration. I phrase these scripts in terms of certain prototypes:
the Anglo script for accuracy and nonexaggeration
sometimes people say words like all
when they want to say something like many
sometimes people say words like many
when they want to say something like some
sometimes people say words like none
when they want to say something like not many
it is not good to speak like this [i.e., to say things in this way]
The generalization suggested by these prototypes and alluded to in the phrase speak
like this seems to be that in saying something about anything, it is not good to say
more than what one really meansthat is, than what one really wants to say about
it. What is at issue here is the idea of the so-called literal meaning of ones words.
Although the matter requires further cross-linguistic investigation, arguably, this
literal meaning can be interpreted as what the words say (see Goddard 2004a). If
this line of interpretation proves tenable, we could suggest the following (generalized) Anglo cultural script:
when I want to say something about some things
it will be good if I think about it like this:
I will say some words now
I want to say something with these words
I dont want these words to say more
Surely, it is this culturally inculcated disapproval of exaggeration that is responsible
for the huge expansion of hedges of various kinds in modern English and, in particular, the great career of the word rather.
In older (pre-Shakespearean) English, rather meant earlier and was used in
collocations like rather or later and a little rather. Gradually, alongside this temporal sense of rather a nontemporal sense developed and spread, linked with the idea
of choice (as in this rather than something else or this rather than that), includ-
31
ing the choice of thoughts (as in I rather think) and the choice of words (as in or
rather). Apparently, it is only in eighteenth-century English (see Stoffel 1901, 134)
that rather started to be used, and increasingly so, as an anti-exaggeration device,
as in the following examples from the The Oxford English Dictionary (the spelling
of some older examples has been modernized):
It would be rather inconvenient to you. . . . (1766)
His appearance at the Baronets must have been rather a silly one. (1778)
This new linguistic patternthe use of rather with adjectivessuggests in itself a

new cultural script: roughly speaking, an avoidance of an unnecessary use of the
word very (and other words including very in their meaning, such as extremely, highly,
etc.). This script can be formulated as follows:
sometimes when people want someone to know that something is big
they say words like very big
sometimes when people want someone to know that something is bad
they say words like very bad
it is not good if a person speaks [says things] in this way
I have chosen very big and very bad as the prototypes of exaggerated descriptions
advisedly. First, very small can be regarded as a less clear example of exaggeration
and indeed, in some contexts, as a possible tool for understatement. Second, very
good can serve other Anglo scripts, especially those seen as conducive to harmonious social interactions, whereas in the case of very bad, social pressures are likely
to act in the opposite direction (e.g., very good can be useful for complimenting
other people, whereas very bad, which could be used for criticizing others or for
complaining, might be seen as problematic).
Expressions like rather big or rather nice are clearly not a hallmark of scientific accuracy or precision. Nonetheless, the underlying cultural norm that it is not
good to exaggerate is, I believe, related to the scientific revolution and to the intellectual climate that prevailed in its aftermath in the country of Bacon, Newton, Locke,
and Hume. Interestingly, the words accurate, accuracy, and precision do not appear
in Shakespeares language at all; clearly, these words, and the meanings expressed
by them, entered the English language only at the time of the scientific revolution.
Since it is often assumed that the penetration of scientific ways of thinking and speaking into ordinary language is a Western rather than Anglo phenomenon, and
that it affected English no more than other European languages, it is also worth noting
that to this day there are no words corresponding to accurate and accuracy in German or French (although there are words corresponding to exact or precise).
The earliest example of accurate given by the OED is dated 1621. According to
the OED, until the middle of the eighteenth century or so, accurate meant careful,
executed with care, as in the sentence: An accurate diet is that when man taketh
his meats in a certain measure, order, and number (1650). Gradually, however, a
new meaning developed and spread, described by the OED as Of things . . . in exact
conformity to a standard or to truth, without special reference to the evidence of
32
care. One example: The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely
accurate (1756). The first OED example of accuracy is dated 1662, and out of context, its meaning is not quite clear. The second example, however, dated 1684, is both
clear and highly instructive: Experiments that require a greater accuracy (1684).
Here, accuracy does still imply care, but the link between a care for accuracy and
interest in experimental science illuminates the historical process: in scientific discourse, the accuracy of results came to be seen as more relevant than the care of the
scientist, and over time the meaning of the word shifted accordingly.
The history of the words precise and precision is also illuminating in this respect.
The word precise is recorded in the OED as occurring in English from the early sixteenth century. The earliest example of the meaning defined by the OED as neither
more nor less than comes from the end of the sixteenth century. The OED distinguishes this meaning, however, from a later one, defined as stated with precision or
exactness, and I think rightly so: precise in this more recent sense does not mean merely
neither more nor less but rather neither a little more nor a little less. The earliest
example of this most recent meaning comes from the seventeenth century.
The noun precision (used by the OED in defining the adjective precise) made
its appearance only in the eighteenth century, and its origin in the world of science
is highlighted in the following (OED) quote from Thomas H. Huxley: The precision of statement, which . . . distinguishes science from common information (1877).
The link between the notion of precision (in the modern sense) and the discourse of
scienceempirical and quantitativeis also well illustrated by the following OED
example: The comparison of observations is necessary in order to determine the
relative degrees of precision of different sets of measurements made under different
circumstances (1885).
The current conversational routines including the words precise and precisely
(as in to be precise, or Precisely used to express emphatic agreement) highlight the
links between colloquial English and the values and standards of scientific discourse
links that are also reflected in the history of the English words exact and exactly and
in contemporary conversational routines like to be exact and Exactly!
As documented by the OED, well into the eighteenth century exact meant something like perfect or excellent, as in the following examples: We all acknowledge both thy power and love to be exact, transcendent, and divine (George Herbert,
1633) and A very exact house and gardens (1710).
In the eighteenth century, however, a new meaning of exact spread, closer to
the modern meaning of precise, as in the following example: The exact similarity of
the two halves of the face (1753). It is easy to see how this shift, too, could have taken
place in the context of scientific discourse, as illustrated by the following example:
Having no instruments exact enough (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society of London, 1665).
The rise of the collocations exact science and exact sciences is also illuminating
in this regard, as is the subsequent reduction of exact science to simply science. In
other European languages, science is divided into two kinds, natural (or exact)
and human, but in English, the word science itself has incorporated into its meaning the notion of exact, with the result that the humanities have been excluded
from the realm of science. In German, Wissenschaft (science, knowledge) em-
33
braces Geisteswissenschaften on a par with Naturwissenschaften; in French, la science embraces les sciences humaines and les sciences sociales, as well as les sciences
naturelles and les sciences exactes; but in English, science (without an adjective) refers normally to exact sciences, and if other domains of human knowledge are to
be regarded as science (e.g., political science, social science), they need to be seen
as using the methods and standards of exact sciences.
At this point, we may consider again the relationship between the cultural values of, on the one hand, scientific precision and accuracy and, on the other, understatement, which might seem to be at odds. My argument that they are not can be
supported with some quotes from the OED that illustrate the link between the ideal
of precision and the norm of not saying too much. One characteristic example
comes from Sir W. Hamiltons Logic (18371838): A definition . . . should be precise, that is, contain nothing unessential, nothing superfluous. No mention is made
here of the danger of saying too littlethe whole emphasis is on the importance
of not saying too much, and strikingly, it is the importance of not saying too much
that is identified here with precision. Another example comes from L. Murrays
English Grammar (also from OED): Precision is the third requisite of perspicuity
with respect to words and phrases. It signifies retrenching superfluities, and pruning
the expression, so as to exhibit neither more nor less, than an exact copy of the persons
idea who uses it (1824). Thus, at the level of ideology, the goal is to say neither
more nor less than what one means; in practice, however, what matters is to retrench superfluities and to prune the expression, that is, to make sure that one
says no more than what one needs to say. The implication is that saying less than
what one means is not a problem and that, in fact, it may be an effective way of ensuring that one doesnt say more than what is actually meant.
The link between the ideal of precision and the practice of understatement is
also highlighted by the nineteenth- and twentieth-century conversational strategy
(noted by the OED) of saying not exactly to mean, ironically, not at all or by no
means. For example: I wasnt exactly going to send in my checks this time (1893),
the thought of prison doesnt exactly excite me (1968). The OED includes also the
following quote from Malcolm Muggeridge: She was not exactly pretty even then.
In fact, she was not pretty at allwhich is what the use of the word exactly usually
signifies (1949). This colloquial use of the expression not exactly illustrates both the
Anglo practice of understatement and the saturation of colloquial English with
words and notions deriving from scientific discourse. The person who says not exactly shows that he or she doesnt want to be not exact, and thus is paying respect
to the scientific ideals of precision and accuracy; at the same time, he or she is following the Anglo practice of understatement.
Speaking of the rise of empiricism in seventeenth-century Britain, the Oxford
philosopher and historian of ideas Felipe Fernndez-Armesto remarked: The ascendancy of senses over other means of truth-finding did not last long, even in the
west, but while it endured, it made a vital difference: it gave science unique prestigea place in the prevailing scale of values unmatched in other cultures (1998,
155). Arguably, this unique prestige of science led to the unique prestige of scientific
discourse and, consequently, of ways of speaking that imitate in some respects the
norms of that type of discourse. To quote Bertrand Russell:
34

Modern life is built on science in two respects. On the one hand, we all depend
upon scientific inventions and discoveries for our daily bread and for our comforts
and amusements. On the other hand, certain habits of mind, connected with a
scientific outlook, have spread gradually during the past three centuries from a few
men of genius to large sections of the population. (Russell 1948, 35)
If one thinks that it is essential to be careful not to say all when one means much,
it is easy to start saying much when one actually means all, and this is what seems
to have happened in the English language. The development of new exponents of
negation such as scarcely and hardly is a good illustration of this process. If something
is scarce, then there is very little of it, but there must be at least some. The adverb
scarcely, however, does not imply not much; rather, it implies not at all. The adverb hardly reflects a similar process of negation arising through understatement: if
something is hardly possible, then it is likely to be (from the speakers point of view)
not possible at all. Such uses of understatement are not regarded as inconsistent with
the value of accuracy, because the hearer is expected to be familiar with the conventions in question and to be able to interpret not much (in an appropriate context) as
nothing, and hardly or scarcely as not. The speech practice in question is not
universal, based on some putative universals of inference or politeness (along the lines
of Grice 1975; Leech 1983; Brown and Levinson 1987); rather, it is culture-specific and
rooted in culture-specific historically shaped assumptions and values.
Thus, from a modern Anglo point of view, reflected in this history of English, it
is good to be accurate, but above all, it is good to be cautious in phrasing what one
wants to say: one needs to choose ones words carefully, one needs to weigh ones
wordsand this means, in effect, that one must be careful not to allow ones words
to say more than what one is really prepared to say (and so to take responsibility for)
at any given moment.
It is interesting to note in this context how guarded and cautious Anglo speech
appears from Rihbanys Middle Eastern point of view. This is not, Rihbany tells us,
how people speak in the Middle East. Mere implications which are so common to
reserved and guarded speech leave a void in the Oriental heart (1920, 126). Indeed,
sometimes Rihbany cant refrain from satirizing the nice, cautious language of an
up-to-date [Anglo] thinker (1920, 129), as when, for example, he tells the story of a
preacher who was apparently [so] determined not to make rash statements [that]
in speaking to his people about repentance he said this for his final word: If you do
not repent, as it were, and be converted, in a measure, you will be damned, to a certain extent. Words like cautious, overcautiousness, guarded, removed, and qualified
recur again and again in Rihbanys discussions of modern Anglo speech, as seen from
his native Syrian perspective. Again, comments of this kind could be seen as a case
of idle stereotyping, were they not so richly supported by linguistic evidence of the
kind cited, for example, by Huebler (1983).4
The hedges chosen by Rihbany to illustrate the cautious and guarded ways of
speaking, which, from a Syrian perspective, strike him as exotic, point in particular
to an area of verbal caution that is especially characteristic of modern Anglo culture
and that highlights its close links with science, rationalism, and empiricism: the area
epitomized by modern English expressions like to the best of my knowledge, to which
I turn in the next section.
35
2.4. To the Best of My Knowledge . . .

In his preface to The Syrian Christ, Rihbany follows various cautious and modest
authorial disclaimers with the following comment: However, in Occidental, not in
Oriental, fashion, I will say that to the best of my knowledge the statements contained
in this book are correct (1920, vii).
The cultural imperative of acknowledging the limitations of ones knowledge
has a long history in Anglo culturea history reflected in the English language and
in Anglo discourse patterns. Again, Rihbany highlights the culture-specific character of this imperative by contrasting it with what he calls Oriental speech:
The fourth characteristic of Oriental speech is its unqualified positiveness. Outside the small circles of Europeanized Syrians, such qualifying phrases as in my
opinion, so it seems o me, as I see it, and the like, are almost entirely absent
from Oriental speech. The Oriental is never so cautious in his speech as a certain
Western editor of a religious paper who, in speaking of Cain, described him as
the alleged murderer of Abel! (Rihbany 1920, 127128)
This particular editor may indeed have taken certain Anglo cultural scripts a bit too
far, but no one would deny that expressions like the alleged murderer are extremely
important in modern Anglo discourse. It is interesting to note, therefore, that such
expressions are virtually impossible to render (without long circumlocutions) not only
in Arabic but also in most other European languages. For example, in Russian, the
closest one could say would be, literally, the person about whom some people say
that this person killed [Abel]; I dont say that I know this (but of course, no one would
put it like this in ordinary language).
The need to distinguish, in rational discourse, between what one knows and what
one thinks is one of the leitmotifs of John Locke s An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding. In fact, according to Locke, our knowledge (true knowledge, 1959,
360; clear and certain knowledge, 1959, 188; real knowledge, 1959, 226) is extremely limited (very short and scanty, 1959, 360). In most things that we say, therefore, we rely not on knowledge but on judgment, and judgment involves, necessarily,
many different degrees of assent.
Our knowledge, as has been shown, being very narrow and we not happy enough
to find certain truth in everything that we have an occasion to consider; most of
the propositions we think, reason, discoursenay, act upon, are such as we cannot have undoubted knowledge of their truth. . . . But there being degrees herein,
from the very neighbourhood of certainty and demonstration, quite down to improbability and unlikeliness, even to the confines of impossibility; and also degrees
of assent from full assurance and confidence, quite down to conjecture, doubt and
distrust. (Locke 1959 [1690], 364)
Lockes ideas concerning degrees of probability and degrees of assent and the need
to always distinguish between knowledge and judgmentthat is, between knowing and thinkinghave exercised, I believe, an enormous influence on modern
English discourse and, indeed, on the English language.
36
Since throughout this chapter I will be quoting Locke, noting the resonance
between his ideas and modern Anglo cultural scripts, I will adduce at the outset some
critical assessments of the historical significance of Lockes Essay and its influence
on modern Anglo culture.
To start with, the opening sentence of Kenneth Macleans John Locke and English Literature of the Eighteenth Century: The book that had most influence in the
Eighteenth Century, the Bible excepted, was Lockes Essay Concerning Human
Understanding (1690). As Maclean notes, so immediate was Lockes recognition
that four editions of the Essay were required by 1700 (1962, 45). By 1710, the numbers rose to 11; by 1805, to 21; by 1860, to 32 (Aarsleff 1991). Sections of the Essay were
frequently reproduced in the general journal of opinion The Spectator, and the popularity of Lockes book in society at large was quite unprecedented. According to
Gabriele Jackson,Lockes epistemology in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding influenced the language and the thinking of eighteenth century poets
(Ashcraft 1991, xv). Gabriele Jackson notes, By the second quarter of the century he
was generally considered . . . the light of the English race (Jackson 1991, 243), and
she emphasizes that the broad implications of Lockes epistemology fascinated not
only discursive writers on specialised subjects but also authors of fiction, poetry and
literary criticism, including commentators on literary style (Jackson 1991, 246).
Lockes influence on language is emphasized by many other commentaries. To
quote, for example, Yolton:
One can find, in the tracts and pamphlets of the eighteenth century, frequent usage
of Lockes terminology and concepts, . . . not only in the logic, but in works on
science, in the sermons and books of theologians, in more general publications
such as The Annual Register, The Monthly Review, The Spectator. The absorption
of Lockean Language and Concepts occurred . . . almost as soon as the Essay appeared. (Yolton 1977, 8)
Lockes writings were also enormously influential in America, where he was widely
referred to (inter alia, by leaders of the American revolution) as the great Mr Locke.
As Curti puts it, the great Mr Locke, who was Americas philosopher during the
Revolution period (1991, 305), in a real sense remained Americas philosopher
(1991, 332).
Given the role that Lockes writings in general and his Essay in particular have
played both in Britain and in America, it is hardly surprising that, as Ashcraft puts it,
they exercised a tremendous influence upon . . . the cultural consciousness of individuals several centuries after his death in 1704 (1991, xiii).
The parallels between the Anglo cultural scripts proposed here on the basis of
linguistic evidence and the quotes from Lockes Essay with which this chapter is
strewn provide, I suggest, striking new evidence of this influence.
To return to the topic of this section, I note that none of Lockes ideas was apparently more striking, and at the same time more persuasive, to his contemporaries
than his view of human knowledge as inherently very limited. As Maclean puts it, A
principal object of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding is to make us realise
what a darkness we are involved in, how little it is of Being and the things that are,
that we are capable to know (1962, 160). According to Maclean, despite the contro-
37
versy on many other points, on this main pointthe limitations of human knowledgethere was a universal assent (1962, 160). Thus, the most immediate effect of
Lockes Essay was the smarting consciousness of the inferiority of mans mental
endowments and the deficiencies of his knowledge (Maclean 1962, 170). Arguably,
the absence of unqualified positiveness in modern Anglo discourse, so striking from
Rihbanys cross-cultural point of view, may well be a legacy of the intellectual revolution (Howell 1971, 7, quoted in Jackson 1991, 244), triggered by this main thesis of
Lockes Essay.
Leaving aside the historical question of Lockes influence, from a cross-cultural
perspective it is striking to what extent facts tend to be distinguished from opinions
in modern Englishstriking not only from a Middle Eastern perspective, as discussed
by Rihbany, but also from the perspective of other European languagesfor example,
Lithuanian (Drasdauskiene 1981, 57), Polish (Wierzbicka 1991, 41), and Swedish
(Aijmer 1997). This emphasis on distinguishing what one knows from what one thinks
is manifested, above all, in the spectacularly high frequency of the expression I think
in spoken English. For example, according to the figures given in Aijmer (1997), in
the London-Lund Corpus of English (of circa 500,000 words), there are an average
35 occurrences of I think per 10,000 words, and in conversational English, 51 occurrences per 10,000 words (according to the Cobuild data for UK spoken, it would
be 30 per 10,000 words), whereas in the comparable database of spoken Swedish (of
circa 300,000 words) there are on average 2.6 occurrences of the closest Swedish
counterpart jag tror (or tror jag), I believe. In the Dutch databases, the highest figure for the closest Dutch expression ik denk is 9 per 10,000 words (SimonVandenbergen 1998, 311). Finally, in the Mannheim corpus of spoken German
(gesprochene Sprache), the corresponding figures for the expressions ich glaube
(I believe), ich meine (I think/mean), and ich denke (I think) are, respectively,
5, 3, and 0.6 per 10,000 words. These differencesquite consistent with impressionistic observations expressed in the literatureare quite spectacular.5
Facts of this kindremarkably consistent with the teachings of influential British thinkers like John Lockesuggest the presence of the following cultural script
in modern Anglo culture:
the Anglo I think versus I know script
if I think something about something, I can say I think like this about it
I cant say I know it
it is not good if a person says about something I know it if they dont
know it
An unspoken assumption behind this script is that an unqualified statement such as
the Earth is flat implies, indeed says, that I know it (the meaning I know it
being carried by the declarative mood unaccompanied by any epistemic qualifier)
(for discussion, see Wierzbicka 1998a).
This script is certainly consistent with the remarkably high frequencies of the
expression I think in modern English Anglo discourse. Arguably, this I know versus I think script is closely linked with the accuracy and nonexaggeration scripts
discussed in section 2.3a link based on the belief that to know is more than to
38
think. That belief itself is, of course, culture-specific, and it is no doubt related to the
prestige of science and the cult of knowledgeespecially empirical knowledge
fostered by the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution. Good (rational) thinking was also seen as valuable, but it was valuable mainly because it could lead to
knowledge. By itself, thinking (no matter how good, i.e., how rational) was not enough:
it needed to be combined with observation, with experience, with empirical evidence.
An opinion grounded in rational thinking is (in this cultural tradition) something valuable (most peoples thoughts, Locke tells us, are not grounded in rational
thinking and therefore are not really opinions, not even wrong opinions), and all
people have the right to express their opinions. These opinions, however, should not
be held out to be more than just that: opinions; they should not be presented as
knowledge. Accordingly, when one wants to express an opinion, one should choose
ones words carefully. The words should not be allowed to say more than what is really
meant: they should say that this is what I think, not what I know.
The use of I think in modern Anglo discourse is also remarkable in another respect, in addition to its high frequency. As pointed out by a number of scholars, I
think appears in spoken English in two variants, with and without that (I think that
and I think ), and the conversational force of each variant (as well as its syntax
and prosody) is differentso much so that Aijmer (1997) regards I think , in contrast to I think that, as a discourse marker or a modal particle rather than a clause in
its own right (see also Thompson and Mulac 1991).
Goddard (2003) has suggested that not only the grammatical status but also the
meaning of I think is different from that of I think that. I believe he is right on this
point, and in proposing my explication of I think (given later), I am following his
insight that this expression does have a meaning of its own, distinct from that of I think
that. This meaning of I think, which can be regarded as a downtoner, can be formulated as follows: I say: I think like this, I dont say more. This downtoner has two different interpretations and possibly even two distinct meanings, depending on the context:
one in modally qualified or exclamatory (emotive) sentences, such as I think we should
go or I think this is awful, and another in unqualified declarative sentences, such as
I think he has left or I think Bill wrote it. In the modally qualified or exclamatory
sentences, the component I say I think like this, I dont say more implies that what I
say is my personal opinion, which doesnt have to be shared by others. In the unqualified (plain) declarative sentences, however, I think carries an additional implication: in saying I think rather than I think that, the speaker disclaims knowledgenot
by saying I dont know but by saying I dont say: I know it.
As noted by Thompson and Mulac (1991) and others, in spoken English, I think
has an overwhelmingly higher frequency than I think that. For example, in Thompson and Mulacs data, I think that occurs 122 times (7% of the total I think), whereas
I think occurs 1,644 times (93%). If I am right in suggesting that in plain declarative sentences I think carries the semantic component I dont say: I know it, the
high frequency of this expression is all the more telling.
It is interesting to note in this context the high frequency of the expression I
dont know itself in English discourse and of its reduced variant I dunno
(Scheibman 2000). For example, in Scheibmans database of American English
39
conversation, I dont know (I dunno) is used in most cases as a softener indicating

the speakers uncertainty rather than lack of knowledge. Arguably, when used in such
a softening way, I dont know (I dunno) qualifies the accompanying sentence with
the component I dont say: I know it.
The emergence of I think and I dont know as discourse markers has been
linked in the literature with universal linguistic processes of grammaticization and
subjectification (see, e.g., Thompson and Mulac 1991; Scheibman 2000, 2001).
Without disputing such views, I would propose that the emergence of new discourse
markers in the function of epistemic qualifiers may also have culture-specific historical explanations and that this applies, in particular, to the history of epistemic
qualification in the modern English language and Anglo discourse.
This brings us back to Lockes discussion of the limitations of human knowledge and the value of being cautious and tentative in ones statements. In most cases,
Locke tells us, our judgments have more or less shaky grounds:
It is unavoidable to the greatest part of men, if not all, to have several opinions,
without certain and indubitable proof of their truth. (1959 [1690], 371)
For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he
holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to
the bottom all his own, or other mens opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action
and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others. (1959 [1690], 373)
The idea of not imposing our own opinions on others, expressed in the last sentences
of this quote, is another great theme in Lockes Essay and in modern Anglo culture
as a whole. I will return to this theme later (in section 2.7). For the moment, however, I will focus on Lockes emphasis on the distinction between belief and knowledge and on the wisdom of acknowledging the limitations of ones knowledge and of
refraining from saying I know when all one can say is I think. What I am suggesting is that Lockes Essay may have contributed not only to the birth of the I think
versus I know cultural script but also to a script suggesting that it might be good to
accompany ones judgment with a disclaimer: I dont say that I know it:
when I want to say to other people that I think something about something
it can be good to say something like this at the same time:
I say: I think like this
I dont say: I know it
From Lockes point of view, it seems important not only to distinguish thinking
from knowing but also to say openly, again and again, something like I dont say:
I know it. Furthermore, it is also important to view thinking as a matter of degree.
It is knowledge that is our goal; thinking is our tool, but this tool itself has to be constantly scrutinized and evaluated in the light of our knowledgeand our ignorance.
We want our opinions to be true; we know that they may not be true; accordingly, in
forming and expressing opinions, we need to assess probabilities.
40

Probability is likeliness to be true, the very notation of the word signifying such a
proposition, for which there be arguments or proofs to make it pass, or be received
for true. ( . . . ) this sort of proposition is called belief, assent, or opinion, which is
the admitting or receiving any proposition for true, upon arguments or proofs that
are found to persuade us to receive it as true, without certain knowledge that it is
so. (Locke 1959 [1690], 365)
According to Locke, then, to live rationally means to live largely in a world of probabilitiesnot in the essentially black-and-white world of I knowI dont know,
and not even in the potentially black-and-white world of I thinkI dont think,
but in a gray world of probability.
Probability wanting that intuitive evidence which infallibly determines the understanding and produces certain knowledge, the mind, if it will proceed rationally,
ought to examine all the grounds of probability, and see how they make more or
less for or against any proposition, before it assent to or dissent from it; and upon a
due balancing the whole reject or receive it, with a more or less firm assent, proportionally to the preponderancy of the greater grounds of probability on one hand
or the other. (Locke 1959 [1690], 366)
As the grounds of probability, Locke tells us, are the foundation on which our assent is built, so are they also the measure whereby its several degrees are, or ought to
be regulated (Locke 1959 [1690], 369). Although Locke often speaks of degrees of
assent, in fact he treats the word degree, I believe, as a metaphor. When it comes to
spelling out what he means by those degrees of assent, he does not refer to different measures but to different qualitative postures of the mind, such as belief, conjecture, guess, and so on. For example, he writes:
As the arguments and proofs pro and con, upon due examination, nicely weighing
every particular circumstance, shall to any one appear, upon the whole matter, in
a greater or less degree to preponderance on either side; so they are fitted to produce in the mind such different entertainment, as we call belief, conjecture, guess,
doubt, wavering, distrust, disbelief, etc. (Locke 1959 [1690], 372).
Even in matters of religion and divine revelation, Locke tells us, our assent can
be rationally no higher than the evidence of its being a revelation, and that this is the
meaning of the expression it is delivered in (1959, 383). Thus, our expressions
our wordsmust not say more than what we ourselves can rationally say we think,
and what we can rationally say we think depends on the available evidence (see
Wierzbicka, Forthcoming). We can appreciate Lockes influence on Anglo ways of
thinking if we turn again, for example, to Bertrand Russells Sceptical Essays, and
read Russells definition of rationality in opinion:
I should define it merely as the habit of taking account of all relevant evidence in
arriving at a belief. Where certainty is unattainable, a rational man will give most
weight to the most probable opinion, while retaining others, which have an appreciable probability, in his mind as hypotheses which subsequent evidence may show
to be preferable. (Russell 1948, 4546)
This brings us to another feature of modern English discourse that from a crosscultural perspective is quite striking: the proliferation of various linguistic tools for
41
qualifying ones statements, for hedging ones assertions, and for differentiating the
strength of ones assent to a proposition. This applies in particular to epistemic verbal
phrases like I suppose and epistemic adverbs like probably (see chapters 7 and 8).
Thus, from the point of view of Rihbanys home culture, distinguishing between I know and I think and, in addition, qualifying ones statements in various ways appears to be a highly differentiated and specialized mode of thinking
and speaking. From an Anglo cultural perspective, however, such distinctions are
crucial.
2.5. Anglo Respect for Facts

English expressions like to the best of my knowledge or as far as I can tell, which are
so striking from a Syrian and, more generally, cross-cultural point of view, point to
the cultural emphasis on distinguishing not only what one thinks from what one knows
but also what one knows oneself from what people in general can know. Roughly
speaking, it is a distinction between personal knowledge and public knowledge.
Facts do not always constitute widely shared knowledge, but they are always public in the sense of being accessible in principle to public scrutiny and not subject to
the vagaries of individual ways of thinking. Hence the perception is that they are hard
(hard facts), plain, and stubborn and that they will not go away. They can be
relied on and must be paid attention to. There are few features of modern Anglo
culture as distinctive as its respect for facts. (Cf. Shapiro 2000.)
How old is the notion of facts in Anglo culture? To many speakers of English,
the question may seem strange. Havent facts always been there? Arent they simply a fact of life, a notion as necessary and fundamental as time and place? To these
people the news might come as a shock that there are no facts (in the plural) at all
in Shakespeare. The word fact in the singular does occur in Shakespeares works,
but its meaning is different from that familiar from modern English discourse. The
older meaning of fact, found inter alia in Shakespeare, is defined by the OED as
a thing done or performed and is illustrated with the following example from an
act issued by Henry VIII in 1539: Every such . . . person shall be adjudged a traitor, and his fact high treason. The syntax itself (his fact) shows clearly that the
meaning of fact here must be different from the modern one. In modern discourse,
facts do not belong to anyone; they are public. They must be anchored in peoples
experience and in observation, not just in someones thinking (an inference is not
a fact). They must be knowable, and they must be empirical. In essence, the
definition of this modern sense of the word fact offered by the OED reflects all
these aspects quite well:
fact
4. Something that has really occurred or is actually the case; something
certainly known to be of this character; hence, a particular truth known
by actual observation or authentic testimony, as opposed to what is
merely inferred, or to a conjecture or fiction: a datum of experience, as
distinguished from the conclusions that may be based upon it.
42
The OED says the datum of experience, but presumably what is meant is not purely
subjective experience (for example, a feeling or a sensation) but a datum that can
be verified by other people, a givenpresumably, objectively given. It is interesting to note in this connection how factual the word data has come to sound in
ordinary English. The philosophers sense data can be subjective, but the ordinary
English data sounds as objective and factual as fact itself.
The importance of facts in this new sense in modern Anglo culture can be gleaned
from the following OED examples:
These facts plainly show that. . . . (1745)
Facts are stubborn things. (1749)
The reader, instead of observations or facts, is presented with a long list of names.
(1774)
Facts are more powerful than arguments. (1782)
It is an undoubted fact of human nature that the sense of impossibility quenches
all will. (180910)
One fact destroys this fiction. (1836)
The very great advantage of being fact and not a fiction. (1875)
Thus, facts are stubborn, facts cannot be doubted, facts show things plainly, facts are
more powerful than arguments, and so on. The birth and spread of new expressions
based on fact, such as in fact, a matter of fact, the fact of the matter, as a matter of
fact, in actual fact, and in point of fact (and also their extensions such as a matter-offact tone, a matter-of-fact way), provide striking linguistic evidence for the great cultural importance of this new concept. In particular, the expression matter(s) of fact
started to be used in English in the seventeenth century to delimit a sphere of knowledge that lay beyond dispute (Bauman and Briggs 2003, 51). As Shapin and Schaffer
(1985) have documented in detail, matters of fact, which had a basis in experimental science, started to be sharply distinguished from matters of opinion. They were
the foundations of proper natural philosophical knowledge (p. 40), and they constituted the property of the whole community that accepted them (p. 321). The shift
from the seventeenth-century matter of fact as a key philosophical notion to the
present-day semantically bleached discourse marked as a matter of fact is a vivid
illustration of the absorption of the Enlightenment thinking by everyday English.
(Another interesting family of English expressions, semantically related to fact, has
developed around the word case, as in this is the case, also without counterparts in
other European languages.)
As a first approximation, I think we could explicate the concept of fact as follows:
to say that something is a fact is to say that it really happened and that people can
know it. This is not quite satisfactory, however, because, first, the word really requires
an explanation no less than the word fact itself, and second, a fact doesnt have to be an
event. For example, it is a fact that Paris is the capital of France (and it could be included as such in a brochure entitled, for instance, Basic facts about France), yet
clearly, that Paris is the capital of France is not something that happened (an event).
On the other hand, abstract truths that have nothing to do with times and placesfor
example, that 2 plus 2 equals 4are less likely to be referred to as facts. It would seem,
therefore, that to be regarded as a fact, a piece of knowledge cannot be based on think-
43
ing alone but must be somehow empiricallinked in some way with some peoples
physical experienceprototypically, with seeing (compare evidence). Furthermore,
facts must be open to confirmation by other people; for example, a truth arrived at
through an inner experience or regarded by the experiencer as revealed to them by
God would not be referred to as a fact. Thus, while a short definition of facts could
be simply things that people can know, a fuller definition would need to refer, in
some way, to peoples experience and also to some publicly available verification procedure. This brings us to the following explication of the word facts, based on the
prototype of such secure and verifiable knowledge:
facts
a. people can know that it is like this
b. they can know it as they can know that something is in a place if they see
that place
c. if someone wants to know that it is like this they can do something
d. other people can do the same
This definition shows that the word facts refers to human knowledge that is both
shared (and therefore can be objective) and regarded as rooted in experience. Arguably, the concept encapsulated in this word bears witness to the influence of empiricism and the scientific revolution on European and, in particular, Anglo thinking
in modern times.
The eighteenth-century English writer Tobias George Smollett remarked: Facts
are facts, as the saying goes (Stevenson 1958, 610), and it is interesting to see that at
the time when he wrote, facts are facts was already regarded as a common saying.
There is no such saying in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or Malay; for that
matter, there is no similar saying in other European languages either. Similarly, the
English collocation hard facts does not seem to have an equivalent in other languagesnot even European languages.
For example, the Langenscheidt Standard German Dictionary (1983) glosses the
expression the hard facts as die nackten Tatsachen, literally, the naked facts. The
word nackten implies nothing added (no more, like English bare facts), but it loses
the implication of the power of factsa power that has to be acknowledged and
cannot be resisted. Similarly, the Collins Robert French Dictionary (1990) glosses the
hard facts as la realit brutale ou non-deguise, literally, the brutal, or undisguised,
realitynot a set and colloquial expression conveying respect and acceptance. The
colloquial English expression hard facts is a telling example of British empiricism
crystallized into a drop of everyday language and folk-philosophy.
The English expression to know something for a fact is also telling. For a fact is
here an intensifier, vouchsafing the reliability of the knowledge: the implication is
that if I know something for a fact, I can be certain of itmore so than if I merely
know it. Moreover, if I tell others about something that I know it for a fact then
the information can count as more reliable than if I had merely said that I know it.
Again, there are no analogous expressions in other European languages.
Judging by the evidence from historical dictionaries, the concept of facts spread
in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but nowhere did it seem to
acquire the high status reflected, e.g., in the English saying facts are facts, in the
44
collocation hard facts, or the expression I know it for a fact, not to mention more
recent expressions like fact-finding mission or misrepresent the facts (cf. Shapiro 2000.)
Rihbany reminisces about his Syrian native village as follows:
A neighbour of mine in a Mount Lebanon village makes a trip to Damascus and
comes to my house of an evening to tell me all about it. He would not be a Syrian
if he did not give wings to his fancy and present me with an idealistic painting of
his adventure, instead of handing me a photograph. I listen and laugh and wonder: I know his statements are not wholly correct, and he knows exactly how I feel
about it. We both are aware, however, that the proceedings of the evening are not
those of a business transaction, but of an entertainment. My friend does not maliciously misrepresent the facts; he simply loves to speak in poetic terms and is somewhat inhospitable to cross-examination. (Rihbany 1920, 88)
Rihbany says that his friend does not maliciously misrepresent the facts, and presumably the idea of a fact does not enter his friends mind at all. What Rihbany is
really trying to do in this passage is to explain that the Anglo ideal of faithfully and
accurately representing the facts is culture-specific. As a first approximation, we
can try to portray this ideal in the form of the following two cultural scripts:
if someone says to other people about something: this happened
it is good if these people can know because of this what happened
if someone says to other people about something: it happened like this
it is good if these people can know because of this how this thing
happened
These scripts may sound as if they were directed against lying, but in fact they are
not based on the concepts true and not true. The primary concern reflected in them
is not whether the speaker is telling the truth but rather whether he or she is a reliable source of knowledge about what happened and how it happened. What is at
issue, then, is not truth but knowledge and, more precisely, the representation of
facts.
In the 1981 Paramount film Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the
hero, a professor of archaeology, tells his students: Archaeology is about facts. Not
truth. If its truth youre interested in, Dr. Tyrees philosophy class is down the hall.
In the postmodernist atmosphere of many contemporary classrooms, the hard facts
of yesteryear have also begun to melt, but in colloquial English and the mainstream
culture reflected in it, the concept of facts still appears to be going strongand,
judging by linguistic evidence, so are the cultural scripts based on it.
In Shakespeares works, we find the tautology truth is truth (Measure for Measure) and also the rhetorical question is not the truth truth? (I Henry IV). It appears, however, that gradually the sense of certainty shifted from truth is truth to
facts are facts. For some time, the twotruth and factwere used together as if
they were complementary, as in the statement (cited by the OED) that the said
Commissioners are to report to this Board the Truth of the Fact. Later on, truth
45
and fact could be used side by side as if they were virtually interchangeable, as in the
words of the nineteenth-century English writer Thomas Carlyle: Truth, fact, is the
life of all things (quoted in Stevenson 1958, 610). Gradually, however, the older
respect for truth appears to have been replaced in Anglo culture with respect for facts
(see Wierzbicka 2002d). In contemporary culture, truth is no longer seen as essential, at least not in interpersonal relations, as the expression white lies testifies. This is
not to say that lying is no longer regarded in Anglo culture as something bad, but the
meaning of lying appears to have changedroughly, from saying, intentionally, something untrue to saying, intentionally, something untrue and presenting it as information about some facts. More precisely, the meaning of lie appears to have expanded
to include the component indicated in bold in the formula below:
when X said it X was lying. =
a. X said something like this: I want you to know that Z to someone
b. X knew that Z was not true
c. X wanted this someone to think that Z was true
For example, if I say to the hostess that was delicious, I may be saying, intentionally, something untrue without lying, because my utterance is clearly offered as a
compliment, not as a piece of information. (The conversational purpose of a compliment is to make the addressee feel something good, not know something.)
In her memoir New York (2001), the Australian writer Lily Brett (who was raised
in Australia) writes: Some untruths are essential. For example, compliments that
are not entirely accurate, and other forms of kindness or flattery. Sometimes it doesnt
make sense to tell the truth. Sometimes it would be just plain stupid (p. 82). Brett
contrasts these cultural assumptions, which she accepts, with those of her fathera
Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, of whom she says that he is fond of the truth.
Present at an interview given by his daughter, the father embarrasses her by interrupting and contradicting what she has said. Brett writes: I couldnt believe it. It
didnt happen the way you said it did, my father said. I didnt want to start a family
argument in front of the journalist. I glared at my father. He deflected my glare. The
truth is the truth, he declared (p. 84). This saying corresponds to the Polish expression co prawda to prawda (lit. what truth that truth), which may have been at the
back of her fathers mind; from a contemporary Anglo perspective, however, it seems
too inflexible and too absolute: facts are facts (because facts are plain, simple,
and hard), but truth is no longer simply truth.
It is interesting to note in this context that the expression its a fact that . . . is
used in contemporary English to insist that something is undeniable, whereas its
true that . . . is used as a partial concession and at the same time a likely prelude to
disagreement: it is a fact that . . . precludes further discussion, but its true that . . .
is likely to be followed by but (its true that . . . but . . .)another indication that
facts are perceived as hard, but truth is not.
Jane Austens novel Pride and Prejudice opens with the memorable sentence:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Today this sentence sounds dated because it is no
longer widely assumed (in the world of Anglo discourse) that there are, or ever can
46
be, any truths universally acknowledged. On the other hand, linguistic evidence
suggests that it is still widely assumed that if something is a fact, then it does need
and deserve to be universally acknowledged, and also that disregard for facts is
always reprehensible. Not so in many other cultures.
Rihbany contrasts the Anglo respect for facts with the Middle Eastern lack of
such respect as follows:
The Orientals partial disregard for concrete facts has led his Anglo-Saxon cousin
to consider him as essentially unveracious. . . . I have no doubt that the Oriental
suffers more from the universal affliction of untruthfulness than does the AngloSaxon, and that he sorely needs to restrict his fancy, and to train his intellect to
have more respect for facts. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to say that a clear understanding of some of the Orientals modes of thoughts will quash many of the
indictments against his veracity. (Rihbany 1920, 76)
The vignettes offered by Rihbany suggest that while in Syrian discourse truth is frequently appealed to, this is often done for emphasis, and that there is no expectation
that what is being asserted, or even vouched for as truth, would strictly correspond
to facts:
I remember how those jovial men who came to our house to sitthat is, to make
a call of indefinite durationwould make their wild assertions and back them up
by vows which they never intended to keep. The one would say, What I say to
you is the truth, and if it is not, I will cut off my right armgrasping itat the
shoulder. . . . To such speech we always listened admiringly and respectfully. But
we never had the remotest idea that the speaker would carry out his resolution, or
that his hearers had a right to demand it from him. He simply was in earnest.
(Rihbany 1920, 83)
Such vignettes and such comments throw into relief the salience of facts in Anglo
culture and the importance of a good understanding of cultural scripts concerning
facts for successful cross-cultural communication.
2.6. Cool Reason: To Think vs. to Feel

Commenting on his cross-cultural experience, Rihbany emphasizes again and again
what he perceives as the relative absence of emotion in Anglo discourse. In particular, recalling Syrian ways of speaking, he marvels at what he sees as the ideal of
coolheadedness in Anglo culture. I have already quoted his statement thatin
contrast to an Anglo persona Syrians chief purpose in a conversation is to convey an impression by whatever suitable means, and not to deliver his message in scientifically accurate terms (Rihbany 1920, 81). In Rihbanys view, these different
attitudes to the use of scientifically accurate terms are related to different attitudes
to emotion. The Syrian
does not expect his hearer to listen to him with the quizzical courtesy of a
coolheaded Englishman, and to interrupt the flow of conversation by saying,
with the least possible show of emotion, Do I understand you to say, etc. No;
47
he piles up his metaphors and superlatives, reinforced by a theatrical display of

gestures and facial expressions, in order to make the hearer feel his meaning.
(Rihbany 1920, 83)
It would be easy to exaggerate the antiemotionalism of Anglo culture, and of course,

here as elsewhere, one needs to recognize different strands in this culture, different
registers, different genres, different subcultures, and so on. Nonetheless, linguistic evidence supports the impression of immigrants like Rihbany that there are in Anglo culture
certain scripts cautioning speakers against showingin certain circumstancesunrestrained emotion in their speech. The emergence in modern English of the word
dispassionate is one such piece of evidence. The Concise OED defines this word,
characteristically, as free from emotion, calm, impartial, and the phrasing of this
definition is revealing: not lacking in emotion but free from emotion. The cultural
message carried by the word dispassionate (and also by the OED definition of it) is
that it is a good thing if ones speech isat least under certain circumstancesfree
from emotion. Under what circumstances exactly? Rihbanys use of the word coolheaded
gives us a clue as to his own interpretation of the main Anglo script directed against a
show of emotion. Emotion can be seen as inimical to reason; too much feeling can
be seen as an obstacle to good thinking.6 Speaking of cross-cultural misunderstandings arising in the interpretation of the Bible when it is read through the prism of modern
Anglo culture, Rihbany comments: Through our sacred Scriptures we hear the voices
of those great Oriental prophets who spoke as they saw and felt; as seers, not as logicians (p. 130), and he charges dominant modern approaches to the interpretation of
the Bible with an overstrained intellectualism (p. 131).
As the English word dispassionate suggests, however, it is not thinking as such
that should be (under certain circumstances) free from emotion but thinking expressed in speaking: one doesnt think dispassionately in English, one speaks dispassionately. In particular, linguistic evidence suggests that it is seen as desirable
that heated arguments should be avoided: when people express their opinions, they
can disagree and they can argue, but it is good if they can keep their cool in the
process. A heated argument suggests that the thinking expressed in that argument
may not be good. A person described as getting hot under the collar is perceived as
someone who is unlikely to be capable (at that moment) of rational thought.
Linguistic evidence suggests that there are probably several cultural scripts in
Anglo culture that caution, in one way or another, about emotions. The topic is vast
and cannot be discussed here in detail.7 But I will suggest one particular cultural
script, focused on the expression of opinions. Roughly speaking, this script says that
if one wants to express an opinion about something, it is good to do it in a calm, cool
fashion. More precisely:
when I say something because I want other people to know what I think
about something
it will not be good if these people think that I say it because I feel
something
it will be good if they think that I say it because I have thought about it
for some time
48
This script suggests that when I want to let other people know what my opinion is, it
is good to express this opinion calmlywithout visible emotion (Rihbany says: with
the least possible show of emotion). It also suggests that it is good to present ones
opinion as a considered opinion, that is, as something about which one has thought
for some time.
There is a link between the coolheadedness of an utterance and prior thinking: if I dont speak coolly, then what I say is likely to be rooted in my current feeling rather than in any prior thinking. If the opinion that I express is rooted in prolonged
thinking, then I am likely to have considered it from different points of view and to
have reached it on some rational grounds.
As we have seen, according to Locke (1959, 370371), the majority of people
think they have formed right judgments of several matters . . . only because they
never questioned, never examined their own opinions. Such lack of prior consideration leads people to be both dogmatic in their assertions and hotheaded: And yet
these, of all men, hold their opinions with the greatest stiffness; those being generally the most fierce and firm in their tenets, who have least examined them (1959,
371). Thus, for Locke, fierceness in discourse tends to go hand in hand with stiffness
in opinions, and both are combined with lack of critical thinking (because they never
thought otherwise; that is, because they never judged at all).
As we have seen earlier, Rihbany, in contrasting Anglo and Middle Eastern ways
of speaking, describes the former as cautious (1920, 128, 129), guarded (p. 126), and
intellectual and the latter as impetuous (p. 64) and effusive (p. 64), linking, in an
insightful way, seemingly unrelated cultural scripts. For example, he writes: The
Orientals impetuosity and effusiveness make his imprecatory prayers, especially to the
unaccustomed ears of Englishmen, bloodcurdling (p. 4). More generally, The language of the Oriental is that of sentiment and conviction, and not of highly differentiated and specialized thought (p. 128). As discussed earlier, the highly differentiated
and specialized thought is expressed in a kind of discourse that explicitly distinguishes
I think from I know and links the I think with the grounds on which it is based
and, consequently, with different degrees of probability. To examine the grounds and
to assess the probabilities for ones I think, one indeed needs to be cautious, and if
one takes a critical approach to ones opinions, one is unlikely to be fierce in their
expression. One is also unlikely to be impetuous, because one needs to control the
degree of ones conviction (Locke says assurance) in proportion to the estimated
probabilities. According to Rihbany, this Anglo concern about control over ones words
means also, in practice, control over ones feelings. By contrast, the Oriental is never
afraid to let himself go and to give free course to his feelings (p. 40).
Rihbany links the Anglo coolheaded ways of speaking with the traditions of
scientific discourse, contrasting them in this respect with Middle Eastern ways: the
Oriental mind is that of the prophet and the seer, and not of the scientist and the
philosopher (p. 128). The Anglo emphasis on intellectualism leads to caution
in speaking; the Middle Eastern emphasis on sentiment and conviction encourages intimacy and expression of unrestrained affection:
They [Syrians] talk to one another in terms of unbounded intimacy and unrestrained affection. The expressions, My brother, My eyes, My soul, My
49
heart, and the like, form the life-centres of the conversation. My life, my blood
are for you; take the very sight of my eyes, if you will. (Rihbany 1920, 45)
From an Anglo point of view, Rihbany observes, such effusiveness may seem excessive. To the Oriental, on the other hand, the Anglo-Saxon seems in danger of becoming an unemotional intellectualist (p. 40).
Peter Stearns opens his American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style (1994) with the following sentence: Cool. The concept is distinctly
American, and it permeates almost every aspect of contemporary American culture
(p. 1). Stearns goes on to comment: the positive connotation of cool, along with its
increasing usage, symbolizes our cultures increased striving for restraint. Stearns
argues that this twentieth-century ideal of emotional self-control and aversion to
intensity represents a major break in what have been called feeling rulesthe
recommended norms by which people are supposed to shape their emotional expressions and react to the expressions of others (p. 2).
While accepting Stearnss observations concerning the growing emphasis on
cool is good in twentieth-century American culture, we must also note the links
between this ideal and the older Anglo notion that coolheadedness is good because
coolheadedness is conducive to rational thought. A few examples from the OED:
Upon cooler reflexion, I think I had done better to have left it alone. (17161718)
The energy of the young prince had not then been found a match for the cool
science of the veteran. (1848)
The old, cool headed, general law is as good as any deviation dictated by present
heat. (1777)
What applies to cool and coolheaded applies also to dispassionate: the lack of emotion is seen as conducive (if not downright necessary) to rational thinking.
A critic on the sacred book should be candid and learned, dispassionate and free.
(Cowper, 1780)
They account it to be prime duty of a dispassionate inquirer. (1877)
The anthropologist Catherine Lutz writes this about American culture:

One of the most pervasive cultural assumptions about the emotional is that it is
antithetical to reason or rationality . . . To be emotional is to fail to rationally process information and hence to undermine the possibilities for sensible, or intelligent action. Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame, whose emotionlessness is part and parcel
of his superior Vulcan intelligence, is one of many examples in contemporary popular culture which express the contradiction Americans see between rationality and
emotion. (Lutz 1986, 291)
As the OED quotes adduced above illustrate, the coolheaded Englishman of whom
Rihbany wrote in [1920] belongs to a tradition well entrenched in Anglo culture and
going back at least to the eighteenth century.
It is interesting to note that, according to Thomas Kochman, the Anglo cultural
assumption that reason and emotion work against each other also leads to misunderstandings and mutual distrust in communication between Anglo Americans and African Americans. For example, in his book Black and White Styles in Conflict, he writes:
50

The modes of behavior that blacks and whites consider appropriate for engaging
in public debate on an issue differ in their stance and level of spiritual intensity.
The black modethat of black community peopleis high-keyed: animated, interpersonal, and confrontational. The white modethat of the middle classis
relatively low-keyed: dispassionate, impersonal, and non-challenging. The first is
characteristic of involvement; it is heated, loud, and generates affect. The second
is characteristic of detachment and is cool, quiet, and without affect. . . . Whites
. . . regard the black argumentative mode as dysfunctional because of their view
that reason and emotion work against each other; the presence of the latter militates against the operation of the former. This explains why discussion, the white
mode for testing and validating ideas, is devoid of affect, and why its presence, to
whites, automatically renders any presentation less persuasive to the extent that
affect is also present. (Kochman 1981, 1819)
No doubt the black cultural scripts described by Kochman (see also Wierzbicka
1994b) are different from the Middle Eastern ones discussed by Rihbany, but the
perception of the mainstream Anglo scripts is similar. In both cases, this perception
is based on lived cross-cultural experience; and it is consistent with the writings of
Anglo thinkers and writers from John Locke to Bertrand Russell. It is also consistent
with the existence of a tradition within Anglo academic psychology that tends to be
hostile to emotionsa tradition psychologists Fehr and Russell have illustrated with
the following characteristic sentences from an English-language introductory psychology textbook:
A state of emotion is recognized by its holder as a departure from his or her normal
state of composure; at the same time there are physical changes that can be detected objectively.
When sufficiently intense, emotion can seriously impair the processes that
control organized behavior. (Fehr and Russell 1984, 473)
Sentences of this kind, seemingly objective and scientific, reflect in fact an assumption that a persons normal state is a state of composure and that an emotion constitutes a departure from that normal (and presumably more desirable) state.
The script cautioning against heat in the expression of opinions is linked, logically, with a number of other scripts concerning opinions: that they should be rational, that they should have been arrived at by thinking and considering various
possibilities, that one should be open-minded about them, and that one should not
under any circumstances try to impose them on other people. This last point brings
us to the last large theme to be considered in this chapter, the theme of compelling, or not compelling, other people to do something or think something.
2.7. To Compel or Not to Compel? The Value of Autonomy

One of the most central values of Anglo culture is, by all accounts, the value of personal autonomy. What exactly does this value mean, and how can it best be explained
to speakers of languages with no words for either personal or autonomy? Trying to
answer this question, let us start with Rihbanys reflections on Anglo and Syrian
hospitality:
51
To extend hospitality in genuine Syrian fashion is no small undertaking. Brevity

on such occasions is the soul of stinginess. Oriental effusiveness and intensity of
speech are never more strenuously exercised than at such times. The brief form of
the English invitation, I should be pleased if you would dine with us one night,
however sincere, would seem to an Oriental like an excuse to escape the obligation of hospitality. Again, the ready acceptance of an invitation in the West would
seem to the son of the East utterly undignified. Although the would-be guest could
accept, he must be as insistent in saying, No, I cant as the would-be host in saying Yes, you must. (Rihbany 1920, 146)
What is remarkable from a broad cross-cultural perspective is not the Syrian you
must, which has parallels in many other parts of the world (for parallels from Polish
culture, see Wierzbicka 1985, 1991/2003; from Chinese, see Wierzbicka 1996a). Rather,
what is remarkable is the Anglo avoidance of you must, especially you must as a
response to I cant. As noted by Robin Lakoff (1973), it is not impossible for an Anglo
American host to offer a guest some homemade delicacy with the words you must
try this, but should the guest clearly and firmly decline, a repeated you must would
go against Anglo cultural scripts (and even the first time one could hardly say you
must eat this using a verb of action like eat rather than a minimizer like try). Generally speaking, then, if a person says, I dont want to do this, other people cant say
to this person, You have to do it because I want you to do it. A physical attempt to
force another person to do something would normally be regarded as even more
unacceptable than a verbal one, but both kinds would go against some very central
Anglo cultural scripts. Not so in Syrian culture.
Approaching his hoped-for guest, a Syrian engages him in something like the following dialogue, characterized by a glow of feeling which the translation can only
faintly reveal:
Ennoble us [sherrifna] by your presence.
I would be ennobled [nitsheeref], but I cannot accept.
That cannot be.
Yea, yea, it must be.
No, I swear against you [aksim aleik] by our friendship and by the life of
God. I love just to acquaint you with our bread and salt.
I swear also that I find it impossible [gheir mimkin] to accept. Your bread
and salt are known to all.
Yea, do it just for our own good. By coming to us you come to your own
home. Let us repay your bounty to us [fadhlek].
Astaghfero Allah [by the mercy of God] I have not bestowed any bounty upon
you worth mentioning.
Here the host seizes his guest by the arm and with an emphatic I will not let
you go, pulls at him and would drag him bodily into his house. Then the guest,
happy in being vanquished with honour, consents to the invitation. (Rihbany
1920, 146147)
As described by Rihbany, similar tactics apply in delaying the departing guest. What
matters in the present context, however, is not Middle Eastern conventions of hospitality but the Anglo value of autonomy, overriding virtually everything else. The point
is not that a person can do anything this person wants to do, or that no one has to do
52
something he or she doesnt want to do, but rather that (roughly speaking) no one
can impose her or his will on another person. More precisely, the scripts in question
can be represented as follows:
no one can say to another person:
I want you to do this
you have to do it because of this
no one can say to another person:
I dont want you to do this
you cant do it because of this
These scripts dont say that people can do anything they want to do or that there can
be no rules legitimately preventing people from doing what they want to do. Rather,
they say that it cannot be another persons expression of will that prevents me from
doing what I want to do or forces me to do what I dont want to do.
Linguistic evidence, however, suggests that modern Anglo scripts of personal
autonomy go further than these two rudimentary formulae indicate. To say to another person you have to do it because I want you to do it is like giving orders. This
is, generally speaking, unacceptable. But it is also unacceptable to put pressure on
other people to do something that one wants them to do, and the modern English
expressions to put pressure on and to act under pressure are highly revealing in this
respect: these expressions did not occur in Shakespeares language (in fact, the word
pressure does not occur in the Shakespeare concordance at all), and there are no
corresponding (colloquial) expressions in other European languages. (For discussion, see Wierzbicka, in press a). Thus, the unfavorable attention to pressure from
other people is a distinctive feature of Anglo culture. (Working under pressure is
not necessarily seen as bad, but acting under pressure is, because the latter implies
pressure from other people.)
To put pressure on people does not mean to say to them that they have to do
something but, rather, to say (or show) for some time that one wants them to do it
and that one expects them to do it because of this. Clearly, this, too, is seen as inconsistent with the value of personal autonomy: from the point of view of Anglo
autonomy scripts, it is good if, when I do something, I do it freely, that is, because I want to do it, not because someone else wants me to do it.
when I do something it is good if I do it because I want to do it,
not because someone else wants me to do it
This script would explain, among many other things, why not only ordering people
about but also begging (imploring) is usually seen as culturally inappropriate in
normal social interaction. Rihbany, trying to explain the norms of Oriental speech
to speakers of English, gives a prominent place to the habit of imploring in reason and out of reason when asking a favour. To try to exert undue influence, virtually to beg in most persuasive tones, is an Oriental habit which to an Englishman
53
must seem unendurable (Rihbany 1920, 124). Clearly, imploring or begging does
not imply you have to, yet it may well be seen as an unendurable assault on
another persons autonomy: if I decide to do you a favor, I want to think that Im
doing it because I want to do it, not because you have tried to put undue pressure on me by begging. (The English word undue is well chosen by Rihbany in
this context, as its most common use is precisely in combination with the words
pressure and influence.)
This brings us back to the English whimperatives and the English speech act
verbs that were mentioned in section 2.2. English verbs like to offer, to invite, and to
suggest, used in frames like she offered to do X, she invited him to do X, and
she suggested that he could do X, all convey the message if you want to and in so
doing show the speakers special care not to impose on the addressee. It is interesting to note that the range of use of these verbs is wider than that of their counterparts
in other European languages. In particular, the colloquial English use of the words
suggest and suggestion (as in I would suggest that you do X or it is only a suggestion) has no parallels in colloquial French, German, or Italian.
The whimperatives (can you / could you / would you do X? instead of do X!
or please do X) perform a similar function, insofar as they indicate (in contrast to
the imperative) that the speaker doesnt know what the outcome of the request will
be (see Wierzbicka 1991/2003a; Goddard and Karlsson 2004):
do X! =
I say: I want you to do X
I think that you will do it
can you / could you / would you do X? =
I say: I want you to do X
I think that maybe you will do it
I dont know
This conventionalized expression of our uncertainty in making requests serves to
acknowledge, explicitly, the addressees autonomy: whether or not the request will
be complied with depends on the choice of the addressee.
There is, of course, a close link between the use of whimperatives in interpersonal interaction and the existence and use of speech acts verbs like to suggest, to
offer, and to invite. Interrogative utterances such as would you like to . . . ? how
about . . . ? and why dont you . . . ?which can be interpreted as suggestions,
offers, or invitations rather than requestsenable speakers to acknowledge the
addressees personal autonomy, while at the same time expressing their own desires
and thoughts. (For discussion, see Wierzbicka 1991/2003a.) Among many other conversational routines that could be mentioned here in support of the proposed scripts,
none is perhaps more telling than the common expression its up to youagain, an
expression with no exact equivalents in other European languages. In most languages,
the closest counterpart that could be proposed would have to take the form of rather
long-winded locutions like if you want to do it, you can do it; if you dont want to do
it, you dont have to do it. Not only are such locutions long and cumbersome but
also they still lack a crucial semantic component of the English expression: roughly,
54
that its your choice and no one can tell you otherwise. The emergence in English of such an expression (absent in Shakespeares concordance and cited by the
OED with the first date of 1908 and qualified as American) witnesses to the growing salience of the anti-compelling scripts in modern Anglo culture.8
What is particularly striking from a cross-cultural point of view is that verbal
routines of this kind that acknowledge everyones personal autonomy are used even
in the family circle. To quote Rihbany:
From early childhood Westerners are as a rule taught to observe, even within
the family circle, the niceties of Please, Thank you, Pardon me, I beg your
pardon, May I trouble you, and so forth. To a son of the East such a behaviour
is altogether proper among strangers, but not among those who really love one
another. Between husband and wife, parent and child, brothers and sisters, and
true friends, such formalities appear to Easterners not only superficial, but utterly ridiculous. For such persons the most essential thing is that they should
love one another. As lovers they have a right to demand favours from one another. (Rihbany 1920, 224)
From a cultural outsiders point of view, it may seem that what is involved here is a
matter of superficial etiquette (such formalities), but attention paid in many Anglo
families to such daily verbal routines suggests that it is, in fact, a question of deeply
held cultural values. From a Syrian point of view (on Rihbanys account), it is important to show that one treats family members differently from strangers; from an
Anglo point of view, on the other hand, it is important to habitually acknowledge
that one sees them, too, as autonomous individuals. Rihbanys phrase may I trouble
you sounds somewhat satirical in this context, but please, thank you, sorry, and can
you / could you / would you are indeed important currency in the give-and-take of
daily Anglo interaction between family members and friendsand they confirm the
reality of the cultural scripts concerned with personal autonomy. A thank you exchanged between family members in the kitchen or at the table signals that even the
smallest services are not taken for granted but are seen as given freely by one autonomous individual to another and therefore as something that the benefactee is grateful for (see Apte 1974).
Finally, it is important to recognize the links between the scripts of autonomy
and nonimposing in the sphere of action and in the sphere of thought (see
Wierzbicka 1994b; Goddard 2003). Just as it is unacceptable to try to force another
person to do something we want them to do so too is it unacceptable to try to force
another person to hold an opinion that we want them to hold. However attached
we may be to our own opinions, and however convinced of their validity, we must
not seek to impose those opinions on other people, and in speaking to others we
must show that we respect their autonomy and their right to hold opinions different from our own.
We have already seen Rihbanys comments that English expressions like in my
opinion, so it seems to me, or as I see it are almost entirely absent from Oriental
speech (Rihbany, 1920, 128). The wealth and frequent use of such expressions in
English discourse reflect the cultural emphasis on epistemological accuracy and
precision. In the Anglo cultural tradition, this emphasis on epistemological accu-
55
racy and precision is linked with an emphasis on respecting other peoples autonomy
in thinkingon their right, that is, to think what they want to think and not what we
might like them to think.
A key word in this tradition is imposing: we must not impose our will on other
people, and we must not impose our opinions. Rihbany depicts these Anglo scripts
in reverse, by presenting the contrasting way of speaking of the Oriental: what strikes
Rihbany about Anglo discourse is that in English (as he knows it), when one is expressing ones personal opinion, one is expected to make it perfectly clear that one is
doing just that.
It is interesting to trace the origins of the autonomy cultural script in the writings of British philosophers and to see how Locke in particular linked rational thinking with tolerance for the diversity of opinions and the need to not impose our
opinions on others:
Since . . . it is unavoidable to the greatest part of men, if not all, to have several
opinions, without certain and indubitable proof of their truth . . . , it would,
methinks, become all men to maintain peace . . . in the diversity of opinions; since
we cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit
his own opinion, and embrace ours, with a blind resignation to an authority which
the understanding of the man acknowledges not. (Locke 1959 [1690], 372)
Locke uses the word impose in this connection again and again. For example:
Those who have not thoroughly examined to the bottom of their own tenets, must
confess they are unfit to prescribe to others; and are unreasonable in imposing that
as truth on other mens belief, which they themselves have not searched into, nor
weighed the arguments of probability, on which they should receive or reject it. . . .
and there is reason to think, that, if men were better instructed themselves, they
would be less imposing on others. (Locke 1959 [1690], 374, emphasis added)
In addition to warning against imposing ones opinions on others, Locke speaks

in a similar vein of forcing our opinions on others and of constraining others
(p. 373). These warnings are consistent with the following cultural scripts:
no one can say to another person about anything:
you have to think like this about it because I want you to think like this
about it
no one can say to another person about anything:
you cant think like this about it because I dont want you to think like
this about it
Three hundred years after the first appearance of Lockes Essay, the norms articulated in these scripts are so well entrenched in Anglo culture as to seem self-evident
so much so that it may seem unnecessary to spell them out at all. Nonetheless, it is
useful to formulate them as a possible starting point of a chain of scripts including
also the following two (for discussion, see Wierzbicka 1991/2003a, 2002c; Goddard,
in press):
56

no one can say to another person something like this about anything:
I think like this about it, you have to think the same about it
when I want other people to know what I think about something
it is good to say something like this:
I think like this, I know that other people dont have to think like this
Presumably, it is this last script (the script of tolerance) that is reflected in expressions like in my opinion, so it seems to me, as I see it, and so on, cited by Rihbany as
distinctly Anglo. In this connection, it is worth again quoting Bertrand Russell (1948,
165), who was clearly following in Lockes footsteps when he linked the weighing of
evidence in expressing an opinion with tolerance (or toleration): If there is to be
toleration in the world, one of the things taught in schools must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not giving full assent to propositions which there is
no reason to believe true.
The ideal of toleranceanother key Anglo concept that can be traced in some
measure to Locke s writings (see in particular his A Letter on Toleration of 1689)
is related to the modern Anglo concept of negative freedom (Isaiah Berlin 1969),
that is, freedom from as distinct from freedom to and of individual rights. One
expects to be free from other people telling one what one has to do or what one
ought to think, and one assumes this freedom to be everyones right. One expects
this right for oneself, and one acknowledges that everyone else has this right, too.
Everyday conversational routines such as the use of whimperatives and epistemological qualifiers allow and encourage the speakers of English to acknowledge this
right on a daily basis.
It may even occur to some Anglo readers to ask: why dont other cultures have
anticompelling scripts, tooor why are those scripts not equally salient in other
cultures? Rihbanys Syrian vignettes are useful here in highlighting at least some
of the costs involved (emotional costs). For example, a person who compels wouldbe guests to visit or departing guests to delay their departure can show in this way a
great warmth toward these people and a great desire to do something good for them.
Similarly, if one seeks to change the addressees ways of thinking, one can show in
this way that one cares what the addressee thinksand that one cares for the addressee.
Thus, compelling may be seen as a sign of love, and pointed noncompelling as
a sign of indifference (see Kochman 1981).9 From an Anglo point of view, the values
of personal autonomy, freedom from pressure, and tolerance may be seen as worth
paying almost any price for. It is good to recognize, however, that both compelling
and noncompelling involve some costs, and it is good to see clearly what both the
gains and the costs associated with each cultural choice are.
2.8. Conclusion
To deny the existence of Anglo cultural scripts means, in effect, to take these scripts
as setting the standard of normal human thinking. But there are millions of people
57
today who live through English and who nonetheless do not live and perhaps do not
want to live by the cultural scripts described here. The testimony of bilingual writers
who write predominantly in English but draw on the cultural traditions associated
with their other language is particularly telling in this regard (see, e.g., Hoffman 1989;
for discussion, see Besemeres 1998, 2002). As noted earlier, the German Arab writer
Abdellatif Belfellah (1996) asks pointedly in the title of a recent article: Wem gehrt
die deutsche Sprache? (To whom belongs the German language?). A similar
question is more and more often raised by immigrant writers writing in English.
Monocultural people who live exclusively or mainly by Anglo cultural scripts do
not own the English language. But their expectations embedded in those scripts
do much to determine the social context in which newcomers must live. It is important, therefore, to acknowledge that the scripts described here are realthat
they do exist. It is particularly important that these scripts should be recognized
and well understood in those parts of the world where English meets other languagesand where native speakers of languages other than English come into
contact with the English language. Given the present spread and role of English
in the world, this increasingly means everywhere.
Margaret Archer (2000, 92), in her otherwise impressively argued book Being
Human, speaks dismissively of the contentious proposition that, as she puts it,
partially quoting Harr (1998), our tribal narrative conventions are like the rules
of grammar of our native tongue. As grounds for this dismissal, she offers the observation that globalization has weakened tribalism and also that we of the West
are far too cosmopolitan to be bound to the conventions of our mother tongue, if
such there be.
But if one doubts that English (our mother tongue) may have any cultural
conventions of its own and if one assumes that we of the English language are far
too cosmopolitan for that, the result is that being human starts to look perilously
close to being Anglo.
For example, Spencer-Oatley writes with reference to Brown and Levinsons
(1987) putative universals of politeness:
Orders and Requests can easily threaten rapport, because they can affect our autonomy, freedom of choice, and freedom from imposition, and this threatens our
sense of equity rights (our entitlement to considerate treatment). They need to be
worded, therefore, in such a way that we feel our rights to fair treatment have been
adequately addressed, otherwise they may make us feel irritated or annoyed.
(Spencer-Oatley 2000, 17)
Statements of this kind speak about us, meaning, apparently, us human beings.
In fact, however, the whole thinking on which these statements are based is framed
in terms, concepts, and assumptions that are language-specific. The key words and
expressions used hereautonomy, freedom of choice, freedom from imposition, equity
rights, entitlement, fair treatmentare quintessentially English, and they reflect
Anglo cultural scripts of the kind investigated in this chapter. The idea that, for
example, Middle Eastern speakers would also think about orders and requests in
such terms is profoundly ethnocentric. (See Wierzbicka 1985, 1991/2003a.)
Consider also the following statement about us (us, human beings):
58

We have a fundamental belief that we are entitled to personal consideration from
others, so that we are treated fairly; that we are not unduly imposed upon, that we
are not unfairly ordered about, and that we are not taken advantage of or exploited.
There seems to be two components to this equity entitlement: the notion of costbenefit . . . and the related issue of autonomy-imposition. (Spencer-Oatley 2000, 14)
Again, the key words used in this passageentitled, consideration, fairly, equity,
autonomy, impositionbelong to the key words of the modern English language,
words that epitomize, in various ways, Anglo cultural scripts. In the increasingly global world, these scripts need to be understood by all speakers of Englishincluding
monolingual Anglos who take them for granted and immigrants to English-speaking
countries to whom they may be unfamiliar and alien. The use of simple and universal human concepts, shared by all speakers and learners of English, makes it possible
to make these scripts understandable to anyone.
part ii
ENGLISH WORDS
From Philosophy to Everyday Discourse
Chapter 3
The Story of right and

wrong and Its Cultural
Implications
3.1. Introduction
One of the most interesting phenomena in the history of the English language is the
remarkable rise of the word right, in its many interrelated senses and uses. It is not
the purpose of this chapter to document this rise in detail but rather to draw attention to it, to raise questions about its cultural underpinnings, and to formulate some
hypotheses for future investigations.
I begin with two fragments from informal interviews tape-recorded by the sociologist Douglas Porpora, with the occurrences of right numbered:
1. I ask Peter why he feels he should treat people as he does. You said you were
raised to treat people like this?
Right. (1)
Okay, that sort of explains why you have those values. . . .
But why were they taught to me?
No. Not why they were taught to you, but do you think those are values . . .
I mean different people are taught different values, right? (2)
Right. (3)
Somebody else might be taught a different set of values. . . .
Mm-hm.
Than what you were taught. . . . So, do you think your values are right (4)
rather than. . . . Do you think those are the right (5) values to have?
I dont know if its really a matter of right (6) or wrong. (Porpora 2001: 79)
2. Go ahead, says Eli. You tell me what you believe so maybe youll give me a
hint. Ill give you an answer from my . . .
....
I believe in . . . Jesus. I believe that . . . uh . . . God is good, that theres a
God who made the universe.
Thats right (7), replies Guzia. One God is for everybody. (Porpora 2001,
111112)
61
62
Anglo Culture Reflected in English Words
It would be very difficult to translate these fragments into other European languages
because there would be no words in these languages to match rightin any of the
senses illustrated here. All the bilingual native speakers of German, French, and Italian Ive asked found themselves embarrassed and unexpectedly confounded by the
task and proposed either renderings like yes and true (ja, oui, s; wahr, vrais, vero) or
various ad hoc solutions, for example, for German, stimmt (1), oder?, ja (3), rechten
(4 and 5), richtigen (6), and genau so (7). Yet in English all these uses are very common, and all these senses function as basic tools for thinking, talking, and interacting with other people.
How many different senses of right are there? Leaving aside right as a countable
noun (as in human rights), right as an adverb (e.g., right then, right there), and right
as opposed to left, we can distinguish three major senses of right, all illustrated in the
two previous fragments. For the sake of convenience, I will call these senses moral,
intellectual, and conversational.
The moral sense of right is linked, in particular, with the phrase right or wrong
and related phrases like a sense of right and wrong, how to tell right from wrong,
and so on. It is also manifested in sentences like the following one, which opens a
book on ethics (based on a series of public lectures given at Columbia University in
1954): In all the world and in all of life there is nothing more important to determine than what is right (Lewis 1955, 3).
It has often been said, and justly so, that right in this sense refers to what a person
does. To quote another philosopher, Ross (1955, 7), right and wrong refer entirely
to the thing done. The thing in question can be mental rather than physical, as in
the case of a right choice or right decision, but the mental acts involved can also be
interpreted as a person doing something. To be called right or wrong, however, the
doing has to involve some thinking. To quote Lewis (1955) again, No manner of behavior wholly untouched by thinking could be right or wrong (p. 79), and whatever
is decidable or can be determined by deliberation is right or wrong (p. 20).
The entry for right in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995, 75) reads:
right, the. What is right to do, as distinct from what is good to do. One of the traditional problems of moral philosophy is that of relating the right and the good.
What this entry doesnt say is that the problem of relating the right and the good is
a problem restricted to Anglo moral philosophy: in other philosophical traditions,
the problem does not present itself (at least not in this form) because there is no word
corresponding to right. This is a good example of philosophical problems that originate in the philosophers native language.
Similarly, the entry on right action in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
reads: No subject is more central to moral philosophy or ethics than that of right
and wrong action (1995, 775). Expressing a certain impatience with the linguistic philosophy of the second half of the twentieth century, the author of the article goes on to comment:
During the hey-day of Anglo-American meta-ethics, philosophers were often on
principle more interested in defining ethical notions than in offering a substantive view of what actions are right and what actions are wrong. . . . But over the
The Story of Right and Wrong
63
longer history of philosophy and certainly nowadays as well, a greater interest has
been taken in giving a substantive account of rightness.
The assumption behind these statements is that it is possible in principle to give a

substantive account of rightness without paying any attention to the word rightness itselfas if rightness were a phenomenon out there, independent of the English language, and one that could be discussed in any other language.
Philosopher Jonathan Harrison, in his book Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong,
writes:
The fact with which second-order moral philosophy starts is that we have in the
English language, together with equivalents in other languages, words such as right
and wrong, good and bad, duty, ought, and so on, which words have, roughly,
the function of appraising people and things and the status of affairs and of directing behaviour. It is, of course, just a matter of fact that languages possess words
which have this function. (Harrison 1971, 18)
Harrison is mistaken: it is actually a matter of fact that many languages dont have
words like the English right and wrong (or, for that matter, duty and ought). They all
have, however, equivalents of good and bad, and they also have equivalents of true
(though not of false). I discuss these differences and similarities between different
languages further in the next section.
The intellectual sense of right comes into play, above all, in the phrase thats
right. Because this phrase is normally used in dialogue, as a response to somebody
elses words, it may seem difficult to distinguish it from the use labeled here as conversational. But Thats right (unlike the purely conversational response Right.)
endorses a belief. For example, when Guzia says, Thats right. One God is for everybody, she is saying, in effect, that the belief expressed by her interlocutor is right.
By contrast, the conversational response Right. may not indicate that the speaker
regards the belief expressed by another person as right but only that he or she understands what the other person is saying. This potentially noncommittal character of Right. is particularly clear in the following fragment:
Okay, Frederick continues. The Old Testament. . . . but the book of Revelations only mentions twelve thousand from each tribe. Or a hundred and forty-four
thousand.
Right. I am familiar with the belief among Seventh Day Adventists and some
other fundamentalist groups that when Jesus comes again, there will be exactly
one hundred and forty thousand Jews who will be saved by their conversion to
Christ. (Porpora 2001, 143144)
It is clear from the context that the interviewer does not share the interviewees belief, and so cannot regard it as right. What appears to be right in this third sense
is neither an action nor a belief, but rather an understanding of what ones interlocutor is saying. As I discuss later, the conversational Right. can also be seen as voicing the speakers satisfaction with what has just been said, perhaps because it is clear.
In this chapter, I argue that the moral, intellectual, and conversational uses
of right are related and that the emergence and expansion of the second (intellectual) and the third (conversational) are linked with the rise of the first (moral).
More generally, I argue that salient conversational routines are related to deeply
64
entrenched ways of thinking and that changes in conversational routines follow

changes in attitudes, values, and worldview.
The rise of the conversational right in English is a language-specific and culture-specific phenomenon that could not possibly be explained in terms of supposedly universal rules of politeness, conversational logic, or maxims of interaction, in
the spirit of Grice (1975), Brown and Levinson (1987), or Leech (1983). Of course,
quasiparallels to the conversational right can be found in many languages, and without rigorous semantic analysis, such parallels may seem close enough for some pragmatic explanations to appear applicable to them all. But when one does engage in
close semantic analysis, one discovers that the differences between the supposed
parallels are as real as the similarities and that these differences can offer us valuable
clues in our search for valid explanations.
When one looks from a broader European perspective at the rise of the distinction between right and wrong and the emergence of right as a discourse marker, both
phenomena must be seen as innovations that set English apart from other European
languages. Generally speaking, those other languages tend to rely, in moral discourse,
on the universal concepts good and bad and, in conversational contexts, on the universal concept true.
3.2. Right and Wrong: A Basis for Ethics?

The distinction between right and wrong occupies a central place in the English moral
lexicon and indeed in Anglo moral discourse generallyso much so that many
Anglophone scholars, including even anthropologists, regard it as fundamental to
human nature.
The very first example of the use of right offered by the Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary (dated from 1737) reads: You must acknowledge a Distinction betwixt
Right and Wrong, founded in Nature. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the
distinction between right and wrong continues to be invoked frequently in theoretical discussions and used as a frame of reference for talking about moral development
and moral norms across cultures and societiesas if this distinction were indeed
founded in nature itself. For example, philosopher Oliver Johnson, the author of
a book entitled Rightness and Goodness (1959, 1), writes of ethical intuitionism as
the theory which holds that rightnesswith its opposite, wrongnessis a fundamental, irreducible, and immediately apprehended ethical concept. Contrasting this
theory with axiological theories, which, he says, make goodnesswith its opposite, badnessthe single fundamental ethical concept and rightness subordinate to,
and derivative from it (p. 1), Johnson affirms that both conceptsrightness and
goodnessare of fundamental importance to the moral life of man (p. 2).
Psychologists, too, often take the notions of right and wrong for granted and regard
them as human universals. For example, according to Kohlbergs (1981) cognitive
developmental theory:
The development of the idea of a moral obligation is related to the development
of general skills of rational reasoning. . . . Movement through the stages is related
65
to the cognitive ability to construct, and to transcend to, a detached, impartial

vantage point from which one evaluates right and wrong objectively. (Shweder,
Mahapatra, and Miller 1990, 131)
The point overlooked in such discussions is that right and wrong are not universal human concepts but English words without equivalents in other European languages, let alone in languages of more remote cultures and societies. To use these
English words as ones basic tools for describing and comparing different cultures
or for talking about childrens moral development (not English-speaking children
but human children in general)means to introduce into the discussion an unjustified Anglocentric bias.
I hasten to emphasize that in saying this I am not taking the position of a cultural, moral, or linguistic relativist. On the contrary: colleagues and I have tried to
document in many publications the existence of linguistic universals, and we have
argued, on the basis of empirical cross-linguistic research, that these universals include the concepts good and bad. We have also argued that while good and bad
can be used across a wide range of domains and are by no means restricted to moral
discourse, they can occur in all languages in combinations like I (you, someone,
this person) did something bad/good or it is good/bad if someone does something
like this (see Wierzbicka 2001, 161169).
Moreover, we have argued that the concept true is a linguistic universal and
that in all languages people can say the exact semantic equivalent of this is true
and this is not true. Thus, the English words good, bad, and true can be seen as
English exponents of the universal human concepts good, bad, and true, with exact
semantic equivalents in other languages. Table 3.1 shows some examples (see Goddard
and Wierzbicka, eds., 1994, 2002).
But what applies to good, bad, and true does not apply to right and wrong,1 and
given the central role of right and wrong in Anglo moral discourse, the questions must
be asked what precisely these two English words mean and how and why the languagespecific concepts encoded in them have become so salient in modern Anglo culture.
Both right and wrong are modern Anglo concepts, conceptual constructs of
Anglo culture and the English language. The words right and wrong are often used
in English translations of classic Greek and Roman writers, but the words they are
used to translate are usually the semantic equivalents of good and bad (or better and
worse). One example (from Stevenson 1958, 1727):
I see the right, and I approve it too,
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.
3.1 good, bad, and true in Spanish,

Malay, and Mandarin Chinese
TABLE
Spanish
Malay
Mandarin Chinese
Good
Bad
True
bueno
baik
ho
malo
buruk
hui
verdad
benar
zh<n
66

(Video meliora probaque, deteriora sequor.)
Ovid, Metamorphoses. Bk. vii, l.20. Translated by Samuel Garth)
The tendency to take the concepts right and wrong for granted, as if they were universal and not dependent on language and culture, can also be illustrated with standard definitions of concepts like conscience. For example (Oxford Companion to
Philosophy 1995, 152):
Conscience. By conscience is meant the sense of right and wrong in an individual;
described variously by philosophers as a reflection of the voice of God, as a human
faculty, as the voice of reason, or as a special moral sense.
The author of this entry refers here to St. Thomas Aquinass discussion of conscience. But for Aquinas, conscience was not the sense of right and wrong but
rather the sense of bonum and malum, that is, good and bad (Summa Theologiae,
1a, 2ae, Q, 19, arts. 5 and 6). For speakers of most modern European languages, too,
conscience is usually linked with the notions good and bad, rather than right
and wrong. Pope John Paul IIs encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993, 89) speaks about
the conscience as follows (quoting the document of the Second Vatican Council
entitled Gaudium et Spes):
In the depths of his conscience man detects a law which he does not impose on
himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good
and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to his heart more
specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God. To
obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged (cf. Rom 2:146).
The English translation of the Latin original uses here the words good and evil (rather
than good and bad), evil being a more specialized concept referring to wanting to
do bad things rather than simply doing them. But again, in most other translations,
the original simple equivalents of the Latin bonum and malum (i.e., good and bad)
have been used (in German, das Gute and das Bse; in French, le bien and le mal;
in Italian, il bene and il male; in Spanish, el bien and el mal, and so on) because, as
noted earlier, good and badin contrast to right and wrongare universal human
concepts, with semantically equivalent exponents in all languages.
To speakers of English, however, right and wrong often appear to be fundamental, rooted in nature itself. According to some scholars, even animals have a sense
of right and wrong. For example, Frans de Waal (1996, 2), the author of Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals, states: A
society lacking notions of right and wrong is about the worst thing we can imagine
if we can imagine it at all. Well, sometimes our imagination needs to be stretched
on the basis of cross-linguistic evidence; in this case, cross-linguistic evidence shows
us that most societies dont have the notions of right and wrong and that in fact
these notions are peculiar to, roughly speaking, Anglo culture. What may indeed be
universal is the sense that people can do bad things and people can do good things
(see Wierzbicka 2001, 165).
For example, from a Russian cultural point of view, the key choice is definitely
that between xoroo (good) and ploxo (bad), as set out in Mayakovskys childrens
poem, What Is Good and What Is Bad (Marshall 1955, 8083):
67
Tiny toddler told his Dad:

I am puzzled so!
What is good and what is bad?
Answer if you know!
The dad in the poem has some very definite answers to the question, with the desired result:
Tiny toddler understood.
Tiny told his Dad:
I will always do whats good,
Never what is bad.
A Russian dad could not talk similarly to his child about right and wrong, because
there are no such words in Russian.
Thus, I would not dispute de Waals claim that Morality is as firmly grounded
in neurobiology as anything else we do or are (1996, 217). But to make such claims
plausible, one must be careful to find the right (!) way of expressing them. For example, when de Waal says, Once thought of as purely spiritual matters, honesty,
guilt, and the weighing of ethical dilemmas are traceable to specific areas of the brain
(1996, 217), he doesnt take into account the fact that honesty and guilt, too, are
culture-specific conceptual constructs, without exact equivalents in languages other
than English. Right and wrong are, in this respect, like honesty and guilt. The question of whether they may be traceable to specific areas of the brain can be raised
only by scholars whose native language includes the words right and wrong. A better
(less language-dependent) question to ask would be whether the notion that people
can do bad [or good] things can be traced to specific areas of the brain, or whether
it has animal parallels.
Moral discourse based on the notions of good and bad is, of course, not absent from Anglo culture either. To take some examples from Stevenson (1958):
The Bad among the Good are here mixt ever:
The Good without the Bad are here placd never.
(Robert Herrick, Good and Bad, seventeenth century)
There is no Good, there is no Bad; these be the whim of moral will.
(Sir Richard Burton, nineteenth century)
There are two kinds of people on earth to-day
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the good and the bad, for tis well understood
That the good are half bad and the bad are half good. . . .
(Ella Wheeler Wilcox, nineteenthtwentieth centuries)
For good ye are and bad, and like to coins,
Some true, some light.
(Tennyson, nineteenth century)
The greater part of what my neighbours call good
I believe in my soul to be bad.
(H. D. Thoreau, Walden, nineteenth century)
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It is interesting to note how often the contrasting use of the words good and bad in
modern English (in a moral context) is linked with a desire to distance oneself from
the use of these words as moral absolutes. By contrast, the words right and wrong are
often contrasted in modern (at least pre-twentieth-century) Anglo discourse sharply
and confidently, as the following quotes (also from Stevenson 1958) illustrate:
My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has
the disposal of them. (Thomas Jefferson, eighteenthnineteenth centuries)
They say that if you do this you will be standing with the Abolitionists. I say stand
with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him
when he goes wrong. (Abraham Lincoln, nineteenth century)
The passionate love of Right, the burning hate of Wrong. (Lewis Morris, nineteenth
century)
It is particularly interesting to recall here the following passage from the classic document of American culture, the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (long regarded
at home and abroad as the quintessential American, Bellah et al. 1985, 32), which
was written in 1784:
It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral
perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into.
As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might
not always do the one and avoid the other. (Franklin 1964, 148)
Admittedly, these quotes, which express their authors confidence in their ability
to distinguish the right from the wrong, sound dated today: in the postmodern
world, many people would hesitate to speak in similar tones. But if one looks at
the use of right and wrong in English in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, one is struck both by the ascendancy of right and wrong over good
and bad and by the confident tone in which the former pair is often referred to, in
contrast to the latter. Where did this confidence in the human ability to distinguish
right from wrong come from in modern Anglo culture? And where did the interest
come from for distinguishing right from wrong rather than simply good from bad?
We will consider these questions more closely in the next section. First, however, let us note that collocations linking right with wrong in English appear to have
spread in English in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For
Shakespeare, wrong was primarily a verb, or a noun derived from the verb, as in the
following examples:
He hath done me wrong.
(Shakespeare, I Henry VI, Act IV, sc. i, l. 85)
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.
(Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III, sc. iv, l. 67)
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
(Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III, sc. iv, l. 75)
At that stage, then, wrong was not seen, primarily, as an opposite of right, and human
conduct was not seen as, predominantly, a series of binary choiceschoices between
69
wrong and right. Furthermore, the idea of doing wrong (to someone) was not
linked, inherently, with the idea of conscious choice; it was only linked with the
ability to know that one was doing something bad (to someone else). However, when
the two wordsright and wrongwere juxtaposed, an additional semantic element
appears to have come into play: the element of thinking, of discernment. Presumably, the image behind the two words conceived of as a pair of opposites was that of
a persons two hands and two sides, right and left, lending itself so readily to an interpretation in terms of a thoughtful binary choice: which of the two hands? which of
two sides? which of the two ways (good or bad)? To quote Bunyans The Pilgrims
Progress:
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
than wrong, tho easy, when the end is woe. (Bunyan 1965, 74)
Here, it is not a question of wronging other people but of choosing, consciously, one
of two (clearly distinguishable) ways to act.
A few early examples of the contrastive use of right and wrong (no longer linked
with the idea of wronging someone) can already be found in Shakespeare, to wit:
Force should be right, or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides.
(Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act I, sc. iii, ll. 116117)
Later on in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such a contrastive use of right
and wrong appears to have increased.
Gradually, the image of two hands (or sides) and two ways (right and left, right
and wrong) appears to have replaced in English an earlier image of a right line in
the sense of a straight line and of possible deviations from that straight line. For
example:
Of lines there be two principal kinds, . . . a right or straight line, and . . . a crooked
line. (1551, OED)
Thus, the right way was originally conceived of not as opposed to the symmetrical
wrong way (one of the two possibilities) but as a kind of ideal that one should seek to
approximate and that one may approximate to different degrees. Certainly, the use
of the superlative (rightest) and comparative (righter) seems very common in English
up to the seventeenth century.
This is the rightest way and fittest order to serve God. (1561, OED)
. . . then with a few to walk the rightest way. (1590, OED)
That negative and contradictory humour, of thinking they are the rightest when
they are unlikest the Papacy. (1599, OED)
I would ask you whether in all these great points the Papists are righter than the
Reformed Churches? (1665, OED)
He observes that Hollenshede is righter than Parker. (1716, OED)
But as the pair of opposites right and wrong spread, the use of righter and rightest
appears to have decreased, the idea of a binary choice gradually replacing that of
70
trying to approximate an ideal. When the poet Cowper says at the end of the eighteenth century,
Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong,
Take it and perish. (1781)
he seems to be using right in the new sense, in which it is no longer gradable (as
right and left are not gradable). How could lifes choices appear to the seventeenthand eighteenth-century speakers of English in the form of such clear-cut alternatives?
The answer seems to be that lifes problems came to be viewed increasingly as decidable by reason, like scientific problems, on the basis of clear, objective criteria.
3.3. The Link between Right and Reason

To pursue these questions further, we need to engage in a certain amount of careful
semantic analysis. We cant ask what the words good and bad mean because these
are (as colleagues and I have shown; see, e.g., Wierzbicka 1996c; Goddard 1998)
unanalyzable conceptual primes. We can, however, ask about the meaning of the
words right and wrong (as in the previous quotes), and here it can help to consider
two expressions that do have equivalents in many other European languages: you
(we, they, etc.) are (were) right and you (we, they, etc.) are (were) wrong, that is,
expressions that link the adjectives right and wrong used as predicates with human
subjects. Interestingly, in several European languages, the literal equivalents of these
expressions include a word that can also mean reason. For example:
tu as raison (French)
you have reason
youre right
[tu] hai ragione (Italian)
[you] have reason
youre right
What does it mean to say to someone youre right (tu as raison, hai ragione)?
Roughly speaking, it means, I think, to express ones approval of this persons thinking, with reference to some potential interpersonal knowledge (or evidence). Thus:
Youre right. =
a. you say: I think (now) that it is like this
b. when you think like this you think well
c. it is like this
d. if someone thinks that it is not like this, this someone doesnt think well
e. people can know that it is like this
Component (a) acknowledges the interlocutors current opinion, component (b)
approves of the interlocutors thinking, component (c) confirms that this thinking
corresponds to the way things are, component (d) contrasts this way of thinking
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with a different (wrong) one, and component (e) shows that this evaluation can be
supported with reference to some interpersonally valid criteria (or reasons).
For a person to be right does not mean to think what most people think, because one can readily say in English: I believe that she is right, although most people
disagree with her. At the same time, the sentence she is right implies that what
she thinks is objectively valid and that in principle other people can know this. If
this is right, then what does it mean to say about something that this is right (an
expression that, in contrast to you/they/we etc. are right, does not have equivalents
in other European languages)? Presumably, it means something analogous to you
(they, we, etc.) are right:
This is right. =
a. if someone thinks that it is like this, this person thinks well
b. if someone thinks that it is not like this, this person doesnt think well
c. it is like this
d. people can know that it is like this
I believe that this analysis can also be extended to English collocations like the
right decision or the right choice or the right solution: the decision, the choice, or
the solution is the outcome of someones thinking, and in the speakers view, this
way of thinking about the matter at hand, in contrast to other ways of thinking about
it, is goodan evaluation that, the speaker thinks, could be somehow objectively
validated.
But if this is what the right decision, the right choice, or the right solution means,
the right thing to do would seem to mean something very similaror perhaps even
the same. Jeffersons principle to do whatever is right seems to reflect a belief that
in any given situation there is one good way of acting that can be reached by rational
thought (i.e., by good thinking).
The importance of the idea of good thinking (i.e., of thinking well) in Anglo
folk philosophy is reflected in the colloquial conversational response Good thinking! that is without parallels in other European languages. For example (examples
from a novel by Kathrine Kerr, taken from the Cobuild corpus of UK Books):
Enj considered for a moment. Since they hunt by sight, we should make a run for
the base of the cliff now. Good thinking, Rhodry said.
We can send other men when I see the army approaching, for the final warning, like, but this way the banadar will know our situation. Good thinking, Dar
said.
You know, I was thinking. Wed best tether the mule close, in here if thats
possible. I dont want it being chased away in the night and having Otho insist on
chasing after. Good thinking. Well do that.
It is particularly interesting to note cases where the phrase good thinking is combined
overtly with the word right and used, as it were, as its partial folk explication, as in
the following example:
She know [sic] how you got the money? Oh, yeah. That was the whole idea. So
the money couldnt be traced back to me. Right, Kevin said approvingly. Good
thinking.
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In this last example, right is used in a conversational sense, and the actions approved
of by the speaker are not exactly moral in the usual sense of the word; yet the combination of approval for someones actions and for the thinking behind the actions is
very clear, and it illuminates other uses of the word right as well.
Another English conversational formula that expresses the speakers approval for
somebody elses thinking is Good idea!, which also readily combines with Right.
as in the following examples from UK Spoken:
Right. . . . I think its a very good idea.
Right. And a year was also a good idea.
Right. You use telekinesis to extend its range. Good idea.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the distinction between right and wrong, so
entrenched in the English language, is that these concepts appear to span moral and
intellectual domains. Thus, one can do the right thing, one can do something
wrong, but one can also give the right (or wrong) answer or use the right (or wrong)
method. The common denominator appears to be something like problem solving: something to do with thinking, with procedures, with rules. It is interesting to
recall in this context Benjamin Franklins discussion of the Science of Virtue, in
which he likened a Man of Sense, that is, a virtuous man (contrasted with a
vicious man), to an arithmetician:
There seems no necessity that to be a Man of Sense, he should never make a Slip
in the Path of Virtue, or in Point of Morality; provided he is sensible of his Failing
and diligently applys himself to rectify what is done amiss, and to prevent the like
for the future. The best Arithmetician may err in casting up a long Account; but
having found that Error, he knows how to mend it, and immediately does so; and
is, notwithstanding that Error, an Arithmetician; But he who always blunders, and
cannot correct his Faults in Accounting, is no Arithmetician; nor is the habituallyvicious Man a Man of Sense. (quoted in Levin 1963, 32)
Thus, the ascendancy of right and wrong over good and bad seems to reflect a
more rational, more procedural, more reason-based approach to human life and a
retreat from a pure distinction between good and bad unsupported by any appeal
to reason, procedures, methods, or intersubjectively available evidence. An ethics
of right and wrong is an ethics in which the choice between good and bad is seen
as something that can be decided by reason, by good thinking, and something that
can be interpersonally validatedlike science. It is a rational ethics, an ethics that
doesnt need to be grounded in metaphysics (in particular, in God) but can be
grounded in reason.
Emphasizing the influence of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries British
empiricism on the general intellectual climate of the time, Fernndez-Armesto, the
author of Truth: A History and Guide for the Perplexed, writes:
Newtons work was both genuinely pioneering and embedded in a broader context of English and Scottish thought of the time: empiricismthe doctrine that
reality is observable and verifiable by sense-perception. The success of science surely
made possible this distrust of metaphysics. (Fernndez-Armesto 1998, 153)
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As I discussed elsewhere (Wierzbicka 2002d), this distrust of metaphysics may have

contributed to the decline of British peoples interest in truth and may have made
them feel less comfortable with saying thats true than their contemporaries on the
Continent did (and continue to do). Here, I would like to suggest that the same distrust of metaphysics may also have led to an avoidance of moral judgments unsupported by references to justification. The use of right may have been felt to be
preferable to both the use of true and the use of good, for in contrast to both true and
good, right appealed, implicitly, to some rational grounds for the expressed judgment.
(I return to this convergence between good and true in right in section 3.6.)
Fernndez-Armesto writes further: The ascendancy of the senses over other
means of truth-finding did not last long, even in the west, but while it endured it
made a vital difference: it gave science unique prestigea place in the prevailing
scale of values unmatched in other cultures (1998, 155). In my view, the ascendancy
of the senses is better described in terms of knowledge finding than truth finding: in
the climate of empiricism, people became increasingly inclined to replace the search
for truth (the title of one of Descartess works) with a search for knowledge (based
on the evidence of the senses, as well as reason). The spread of thats right as a
conversational response in modern English may be a reflection of this more general
trend. (Another reflection of this trend is the rise of really and evidence; see Wierzbicka
2002d.) Note in this connection that in Britain, empiricism was not opposed to rationalism, as it often was elsewhere, but rather tended to be identified with it.
Although the use of reason is as old as the history of mankind, its spells of preponderance succeed those of the truth you feel and the truth you are told. Reason
provides a means of escaping from the constraints of belief-systems backed by authority and from the resentment which clever people feel at the power of their own
passions. Because reasonin admittedly varying degreesis available to everybody,
it has a potential advantage over the truth you feel and the truth you are told. . . .
Reason means different things to different people. To some peoplea lot of
them, a hundred years agoit has meant thought purged of metaphysics and dogma.
In the powerful tradition known as pure rationalism it means thought opposed to
other kinds of experience. In that known as empiricism, it means the opposite: thought
disciplined by the evidence of sense. (Fernndez-Armesto 1998, 8586)
The peculiar character of the British rationalism (rationalism cum empiricism),

combining thinking with knowing, is reflected in the key English word mind. The
meaning of this word is revealingly different from the French esprit or the German
Geist, neither of which includes a similar combination. Only the English mind contrasts the body (matched by the French corps and the German Krper) with an organ
of thinking and knowing. (For further discussion, see Wierzbicka 1992, chapter 1.)
The combination of empiricism with an emphasis on reason in British thought
is stressed in Charles Taylors classic Sources of the Self, with special reference to
John Locke, of whom he wrote:
What probably made Locke the great teacher of the Enlightenment was his combination of these two factors: that he offered a plausible account of the new science as valid knowledge, intertwined with a theory of rational control of the self;
and that he brought the two together under the ideal of rational self-responsibility.
74

Many things have been declared authoritatively true, both in science and in practice, which have no real title to the name. The rational, self-responsible subject
can break with them, suspend his adhesion to them, and by submitting them to
the test of their validity, remake or replace them.
Holding the package together is an ideal of freedom or independence, backed
by a conception of disengagement and procedural reason. This has given Lockes
outlook its tremendous influence, not only in the eighteenth century, but right
through to today. (Taylor 1989, 174)
Significantly, Lockes book on religion bears the title The Reasonableness of Christianity (1999 [1696]). For Locke, the empiricist, both ethics and religion had to be
grounded in reason (as was science)not speculative but procedural reason. They
both had to be reasonable.
The two key words of modern Anglo culture, evidence (in the modern sense)
and reasonable, have spread in parallel in the intellectual climate created by the British
philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Evidence (in the modern
sense of the word) has no semantic counterpart in other European languages at all
(as discussed in Wierzbicka 2002d, forthcoming) and does not appear, for example,
in Shakespeares work. Reasonable and reasonably dont have exact counterparts in
French, and in German, Italian, or other European languages, neither reasonable
nor reasonably has any semantic equivalent at all (see chapter 4).
It is also interesting to note how pragmatic the words reasonable and reasonably sound in modern English. Fernndez-Armesto (1998, 86) writes: Be reasonable, we say when we want someone to sacrifice an opinion in the interests of
consensus. This may not be a very accurate analysis of what reasonable means,
but in essence, the observation is surely apt, pointing to a kind of convergence
between folk rationalism and folk pragmatism in modern Anglo culture: to be reasonable, one needs to know not only how to think well but also how to interact,
pragmatically, with other people. As we will see when we look more closely at the
conversational routines based on the word right, these routines point to a similar
convergence.
3.4. Thats Right

When a child does mathematical sums or answers questions about dates or capitals
of far-away countries, the teacher can respond with the phrases thats right and thats
not right. An Italian or French teacher could not make a similar response, because
there are no similar phrases in these languages. What an Italian or a French teacher
could say in such a situation would be bene! and bien! or well (and, if the response
is wrong, no and non no). Of course, an English-speaking teacher could also praise
a student by saying good!, but a procedural, factual-sounding response thats
right is also available. The availability, and wide use, of this response is a peculiarity
of modern English, related, I would argue, to the intellectual climate influenced by
empirical and antimetaphysical thinkers like John Locke and David Hume.
But before contemplating any further the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of the rise of the thats right routine, let us first examine the semantics of this
75
expression. If one asks native speakers what thats right means, they are likely to reply
either that it means thats true or that it means I agree (i.e., in universal concepts, I think the same). But while such ad hoc glosses may seem to fit some contexts, they would not fit others, and so they cannot represent the semantic invariant
of this expression. For example, neither thats true nor I think the same could be
substituted for thats right in the following exchange from the Australian writer Alex
Buzos play The Front Room Boys:
THOMO:
Oh, you must be the new typist.
SUNDRA :
Thats right. [? I agree; ? thats true] (p. 28)
Neither would the glosses I agree or thats true fit the following exchange from
the English playwright Simon Grays play Quartermaines Terms:
LOOMIS :
Yes, yes, of course, youre right, my dear, thank you, thank you. And a
little restand Ill try to make Thomas have one, too
MELANIE :
Thats right [? thats true], Eddie, you both need it. (Gray 1986, 244)
Is thats right analogous to youre right? Yes and no. Of the two, thats right
sounds more factual and also more conversational. Typically, the word that refers in
this phrase to the interlocutors words immediately preceding the response and only
indirectly to the thinking behind it:
Thats right. =
a. you say: I think that it is like this
b. when you think like this you think well
c. it is like this
d. people can know that it is like this
Component (a) shows that when used as a conversational response, thats right refers to the interlocutors words. Component (b) refers to the thinking behind the words
and expresses approval of this thinking, component (c) confirms that this way of thinking corresponds to the way things are, and component (d) shows that this approval is
based on some generally valid standard. A symmetrical component if someone thinks
something else about this, this someone doesnt think well has not been included
in this explication, because the conversational response signal thats right does not
have a negative counterpart (thats wrong). The absence of such a component
contributes to the less intellectual and more conversational character of thats
right as compared with either you are right or this is right.
The spread of conversational routines based on right goes hand in hand in English with the ascendancy of really over truly. Arguably, both really and right have
occupied in English some of the ground still covered in other European languages
(and earlier, in English) by truth. In saying thats right rather than thats true, the
speaker implies that there is some evidence, some procedure, or some commonly
recognized standard to appeal to. It is not a matter of some metaphysical truth but
rather a matter of facts that the speaker has access to. It is not surprising, therefore,
that thats right is often used in response to questions concerning the speaker himself or herself (as in Sundras response to Thomo). In particular, this phrase is often
76
used to confirm other peoples suppositions concerning what we think or what we are
trying to say. Some examples from Porporas interviews:
I try to bring the conversation back to Gods collective purpose for us. Why, do
you think that God . . . You think that God created human beings?
Thats right, says Frederick. (Porpora 2001, 143)
Like others, Martha has once again reduced the question of our collective human
purpose to Gods individual purpose for her. I try to make certain of her position.
Now, and when you say that were all here for a purpose, you mean we each individually have a different purpose?
Thats right says Martha. I think . . .
Yeah, Frederick echoes. We each have a purpose to be here. (Porpora 2001, 143)
Do you remember when you first had that . . . belief?
Yes, since I came here. Im telling you.
What . . . Can you describe, though, the incident? Im pressing my luck.
The incident? Yes, when my kid was born.
That was the first time you started to believe in something?
Thats right. Thats right. It was a miracle. I start building . . . what we lost in the
old country. I start building a new generation. (Porpora 2001, 109)
As noted earlier, the conversational response thats right, which, roughly speaking,
endorses another persons belief, has no opposite; the expression thats wrong is
not similarly used in English as a standard conversational routine. This asymmetry
between thats right and thats wrong matches the increasingly asymmetrical use
of right and wrong in a moral sense (a question to which I return later). With the
growth of individualism and decline of conviction (see Bellah et al. 1985; FernndezArmesto 1998), calling somebody elses thoughts wrong has increasingly come to
be seen as inappropriate (even totalitarian; see Crossan 1980)as inappropriate as
calling somebody elses actions wrong. To say to another person thats wrong could
be offensive; saying thats right is not similarly offensive, because it supports the
other person. Moreover, it does not sound patronizing because it implicitly appeals
to some evidence.
3.5. An Illustration: English vs. Italian

Consider the use of the word vero (true) in the following exchange from Giovanni
Arpinos novel La Suora Giovane:
Non peccato, vero? No, riuscii a spiccicare. (Arpino 1973, 45)
It is not a sin, true? No, I managed to utter.
Although literally vero would be translated as true, normally true (or is it true?)
would not be used in English in such a context. Instead, a reverse word order, opposite polarity tag question would probably be used: It is not a sin, is it? A tag
question of this kind would be checking the opinion of the interlocutor, not the truth
of the sentence. Yet in Italian, the use of vero? in such nonfactual sentences is very
common. A few more examples (from the same novel):
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Sei mesi fa mia madre venuta a trovarmi. . . . Pativo e mi vergagnavo con lei.
brutto questo, vero? (p. 54)
Six months ago my mother came to visit me. . . . I suffered and was ashamed of
her. This is pretty bad, isnt it? (Lit. true?)
Antonino, insegnami, ti prego. Vero che mi insegnerai? (p. 61)
Antonio, teach me, I beg you. You will teach me, wont you?
(Lit. True that youll teach me?)
Per mesi ho sperato di vederti con loro. stupido, vero? (p. 64)
For months I hoped to see you with them. Stupid, isnt it?
(Lit. It is stupid, true?)
As I have discussed in my Cross-Cultural Pragmatics (Wierzbicka 1991/2003a, 37),

the extensive use of tag questions is a characteristic feature of modern English, with
important cultural implications. But the semantic content of the typical (reverse
word order, opposite polarity) English tag questions is as revealing as their frequency. In most other European languages (including Italian, Spanish, German,
Polish, Russian, and Finnish), tag questions typically involve the word for true, as
in Italian, and by using them, the speaker is asking the addressee to confirm that
the sentence is true. In English, on the other hand, the speaker does not refer to
the sentences truth but rather asks the addressee to confirm (or disconfirm) the
speakers expectation that the addressee would say it is like this or it is not like
this. For example:
Stupid, isnt it? =
a. when I think about it I think that it is like this
b. I think that you will say: it is like this
c. I know that you can say: it is not like this
The tag question right? (which is less common in English and which is described
by the OED as originally US) sounds more forceful, sometimes even hectoring, because it refers, obliquely, to evidence: right? indicates that the addressee
will have no choice but to confirm the speakers expectation. I will propose two different (though symmetrical) explications for right? linked with different contexts.
A. with declaratives
Example
I mean different people are taught different values, right? (from
Porpora 2001, 79)
Explication
(I mean different people are taught different values, right?) =
a. when I think about it I think that it is like this [different people have
different values]
b. I think that you will say something like this now:
c. when you think like this you think well
d. it is like this
e. people can know that it is like this
f. I want you to say it
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B. with instructions
Example
robbo: Now, cross-check the registration column in that index and see if
it matches up with the number of dates of reports received up until this date
here, right? (from p. 26)
Explication
(Now, cross-check . . . and see . . . , right?)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
I think that you can know what I want to say

I think that you can know what I want you to do
I think that you will say something like this now:
when you think like this you think well
it is like this
I know what you want to say
I know what you want me to do
Because the word right implies the availability of rational justification when it is used
as a tag question, it does not combine with an expression of purely subjective opinion (see Wierzbicka 1991/2003a, 42), for example:
She is nice, isnt she?
She is nice, right?
As we have seen, the interrogative right? can be added to declarative sentences, too,
but only with reference to statements or instructions that imply a clear factual basis,
as in the following examples (from the OED):
He was just doing his job, right? (1969)
I was living alone on the West Side, in a one-room apartment . . . , right? (1977)
You been here before, right? (1981)
Right? implies here that what the speaker says is verifiable, factual, preciseit can
be known rather than merely thought, as in the case of she is nice. Thus, the use of
right as a tag presupposes a distinction between facts and opinions, a distinction that
is not similarly made in languages that use an equivalent of true for both opinions
and facts. I suggest that what applies to right? as a tag question applies also to right in
other contexts: it is a word that implies a possibility of interpersonal agreement based
on some objective basis, for example, on an explicit procedure for verification or
validation of what is being said.2
3.6. Right as a Neutral Ground between Good and True

In any language, assessments framed in terms of true appear to be quite different
from those framed in terms of good: there seems to be a clear-cut line between the
two. But phrases like the right decision, the right answer, or the right solution somehow cross that line: they seem to combine the element of approval (good) with an
79
element of intellectual judgment. At the same time, they seem to avoid both the
subjectivity of (unsupported) moral evaluation and the arrogance of truth-judgments (as opposed to statements of opinion).
Consider, for example, the slogan do the right thing, put it in the bin. Clearly, the
slogan does not present the action of putting some rubbish in the bin as a good deed.
Rather, the action of putting rubbish in the bin is presented here as something rational: it is a good thing to put rubbish in the bin but not because of any intangible moral
imperative; rather, it is a good thing to do soand a bad thing not tobecause of certain
rules that apply to everyone and that can be rationally explained and justified.
In this sense, it is comparable to arriving at the right answer to a problem in
arithmetic: it is not a question of anybodys moral judgment but of certain objectively valid procedures, methods, and criteria. A person could reject metaphysics and
religion and still say that putting rubbish in the bin is the right thing to do. From this
perspective, reflected in modern English, human conduct can be seen and assessed
objectively, rationally, and in accordance with evidence. There are rules, there
are procedures, and there are objective criteria that people can refer to. As the
nineteenth-century English philosopher Herbert Spencer put it,
Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can
no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight line.
(Social Statics 1892, chap. 32, sc. 4)
Many similar statements have come from the pens of English and American writers,
with the word right both reflecting and presumably encouraging this culture-specific
way of thinking: that deciding what to door what to saycan be a matter of following certain straightforward, public, rationally justifiable procedures; that ethics
can be analogous to geometry (Emerson 1932, 52: The axioms of geometry translate
the laws of ethics). Consider, for example, the following sentence (from spoken
English): I cant go [to tap dancing] because I dont have the right shoes. Right
could be replaced here with appropriate, suitable, or fitting, but it is not a separate
meaning of the word right. Rather, it is the same meaning as in the case of a right
decision, right answer, or right solution: a meaning (unavailable in Italian, French,
or German) that allows the speaker to stay on a philosophically neutral ground,
without laying any claims to knowing what is true or what is (inherently, intrinsically, unaccountably) good. To identify a pair of shoes as the right shoes, one needs
to assess the fit between a kind of shoes and a kind of situation, between the features
of the shoes and the requirements of the situation. Thus, the evaluation of the shoes
has to involve some objective, interpersonally valid criteria.
These are the right shoes (for tap dancing). =
a. if someone says: I think that these shoes are good (for tap dancing)
this someone thinks well
b. it is like this
c. people can know that it is like this
d. people can say why it is like this
A particular kind of shoes is good for tap dancing because the properties of the shoes
fit the purpose (tap dancing): these shoes are a good means from the point of view of
80
the purpose, and people can say why they are a good means (because they can say
how the properties of the shoes fit the purpose of tap dancing). The shoes are not
intrinsically good, but they are instrumentally good; and the claim that they are good
(for tap dancing) is not a matter of faith or taste but a matter that can be rationally
justified. Evaluation and rational justification go hand in hand here. And so, it seems,
is generally the case with right, as compared to good. The right answer and the
right solution, too, are good because they can be rationally justified; and so is
the right choice, the right decision, and also the right action. Truth doesnt
come into it, not even in the case of the right answer: what matters is the justification. To do the right thing means to do something that is not simply good but
something that can be rationally justified.
3.7. Procedural Morality

The ascendancy of right and wrong in the English language can be linked with the
rise of procedural morality in Anglo culture. According to Porpora (2001, 72), to
say that modern morality is mainly procedural is to say that it focuses on the means
we adopt to pursue our ends. For many of Porporas respondents, ethics means not
lying, cheating, or hurting other people, in accordance with the principle Do your
own thing as long as you dont hurt anyone. As long as they dont hurt other people,
they think that everyone should be free to do their own thing. Porpora (2001, 72)
comments:
That is fine, but what should our own thing be? A morality reduced solely to
procedural constraints totally removes our own thing from moral discourse. For
such a morality, whatever our own thing is, it will by definition lack moral purpose. Instead, whatever ends we choose to pursue within the procedural constraints
will have the appearance of morally neutral preferences.
In his discussion of this problem, Porpora (2001, 9) draws on the work of Charles
Taylor, who argues that with regard to morality modern culture emphasizes what is
right or wrong to do as opposed to what it is good or bad for us to be. Taylor links
proceduralist ethics with a procedural conception of the right, whereby what we
ought to do can be generated by some canonical procedure (Taylor 1989, 503).
Drawing on Taylor and speaking specifically about contemporary American culture,
Porpora comments on the separation of morality from its religious rootseven among
the religious (2001, 106). He links this separation with a pervasive loss of purpose and
larger, moral vision and, among the Christians, who are some 85% of the population, the routinization of Jesus charismatic ethics (p.166).
As I see it, the emergence of this procedural ethics is related to the linguistic
phenomenon of the emergence and spread of the concepts of right and wrong.
The rise of procedural ethics is linked with the rise of rational ethics, and the
separation of morality from its religious roots is linked with the idea that all beliefs
require rational justification. A right decision is like a right solution to a problem (mathematical, logical, ethical, or practical): it can be justified with reference
to a set of procedures, rules, or criteria. As Porpora argues, ones purpose in life
81
can hardly be thought of in terms of right or wrongor in terms of procedures,

rules, and ethical standards.
To speak of the ultimate good is to speak of that good that concerns us ultimately,
the good that constitutes the ultimate purpose of our lives. The problem in the
modern or postmodern world is a pervasive loss of emotionally moving contact with
a good that is ultimate, a contact that was once provided by the sacred. . . . As a
consequence, the whole of our lives is without any overarching moral purpose. . . .
This hardly means that we are all immoral. It does mean that our sense of morality
has become largely procedural. (Porpora 2001, 7172)
How exactly is the emergence and spread of procedural morality related to changes
in the English language? Needless to say, I am not suggesting that the rise of right
and wrong has somehow narrowed down English speakers conceptual options or
determined their ways of thinking. Rather, I am suggesting that the rise of new ways
of thinking has led to the emergence of new linguistic and conceptual tools: right
and wrong (not instead of, but in addition to, good and bad), fair and unfair (not instead
of, but in addition to, just and unjust), and so on.
As discussed by Porpora, the Gospel ethics is not procedural ethics, and it is not
an ethics of right and wrong. For example, the injunctions to turn the other cheek,
to love ones enemies and to do good to those who hate us were not put forward as
the right things to do. Rather, they meant, it will be good if you turn the other cheek;
it will be good if you love your enemies; it will be good if you do good to those
who hate you (Luke 6:2729); not right but good, and the only reason offered for
these injunctions is that this is what God wants and does (be merciful, just as your
Father also is merciful, Luke 6:36). There is no rational justification. (For discussion, see Wierzbicka 2004)
The idea of a rational ethics, an ethics based on the notions of right and
wrong, was linked with the broader ideas of a rational religion, favored by the Enlightenment and perhaps congenial to the spirit of capitalism (as suggested originally by Weber 1968 [1930] and discussed recently by Charles Taylor 1989). Locke
argued in his Second Treatise (quoted by Taylor 1989, 238), that God . . . hath . . .
given them [mankind] reason to make use of it to the best advantage of Life, and
convenience. According to Taylor (p. 239), Locke is in fact a crucial hinge figure
in the evolution of the ethic of ordinary life . . . , which has both facilitated and been
entrenched by the rise of capitalism. Locke did not reject God but, as discussed by
Taylor, he linked religion and ethics with living rationally.
Rising from passion, blind prejudice, and unthinking custom to reason confers the
two related transformations: it gives our own productive life order and dignity, and
it releases us from egoism and destructiveness to benefit others. Disengaged procedural reason raises us from destruction to beneficence because it breaks the
shackles of illusion, blind custom, and superstition. . . . This high view of the morally transformatory power of reason . . . will be developed into one of the major
organizing ideas of the Enlightenment. . . . Instrumental rationality, properly conducted, is of the essence of our service of God. . . . The rationality in question is
now procedural: in practical affairs, instrumental, in theoretical, involving the
careful, disengaged scrutiny of our ideas and their assembly according to the canons of mathematical deduction, and empirical probability. (Taylor 1989, 242243).
82
Drawing on Weber, Taylor examines in considerable detail the links between the
Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of capitalism, and changes in
everyday ways of thinking. Weber saw in the Calvinist doctrine of predestination the
dogmatic background of the Puritan morality in the sense of methodically rationalized ethical conduct (1989, 125), and he emphasized as the most important result
of ascetic Protestantism . . . a systematic, rational ordering of the moral life as a whole
(p. 126). Lutheranism, according to Weber, lacked a psychological sanction of systematic conduct to compel the methodical rationalization of life (p. 128). Invoking
Webers notion of a disenchanted world, Taylor writes:
The cosmos is no longer seen as the embodiment of meaningful order which can
define the good for us. . . . We demystify the cosmos as a setter of ends by grasping
it mechanistically and functionally as a domain of possible means. Gaining insight
into the world as mechanism is inseparable from seeing it as a domain of potential
instrumental control. (Taylor 1989, 148)
Porpora (2001, 199, 200) summarizes Taylors thesis as affirming that ours is a disenchanted age that affirms ordinary life over transcendental meaning, an age in which
everyday life is valorized, not some higher plane of transcendent purpose. Taylors
thesis that modern (Anglo) culture emphasizes what is right or wrong to do as opposed to what it is good or bad to value or be closely accords with linguistic facts and,
in particular, with the career of the words right and wrong in the English language.
Especially, right.
3.8. Right and Wrong: Increasingly Asymmetrical

As we have seen, for a long time the concepts right and wrong were perceived by
speakers of English as symmetrical, and the two words were often juxtaposed, analogously to right and left. During the twentieth century, however (if not earlier), the
use of wrong appears to have declined, in comparison with right, and many speakers
of English appear to have become increasingly uncomfortable with the word wrong.
One might venture to suggest that the decline of wrong (in relation to right) paralleled (and perhaps was related to) the spread of the pejorative word judgmental: it is
bad to be judgmental, and to call anyone or anything wrong seems to have increasingly been felt to be smacking of judgmentalism. Consider, for example, the following fragment from one of Porporas interviews:
. . . Lets say we were just talking about whether or not there is a supreme being.
Okay.
Do you think that there is . . . I have my opinion, you have your opinion. Do you
think that one of us could be right and the other could be wrong?
Sure.
Both of us could be wrong?
We could both be right.
Oh, I agree, and we could both be right.
Well, exactly. I mean, you know, but that . . . thats what this world is made up of:
Different people with differences of opinions.
83
And how do we arrive at the truth?

I have no idea. I think if we knew that, wed be the supreme being. (Porpora
2001, 90)
Characteristically, the interviewee (not comfortable with the notion of truth) does
not feel any qualms about describing some opinions as possibly right; he does, however, seem reluctant to call somebody elses opinions wrong: for him, two people
who hold contrary opinions could both be right, but they could not both be wrong.
The same reluctance to describe anything (and, in particular, any opinion) as wrong
is reflected in the following interview:
I do, Peter says, consider the two very similar: values and preferences. Just because some values arent mine, that doesnt mean theyre wrong or mine are more
right than others.
So, I press him, You wouldnt say that somebody who, who is a neo-Nazi
. . . neo-Nazi values . . . You wouldnt say those values are wrong?
Well . . .
Any more than you wouldnt, you wouldnt say that Im wrong if I didnt like
vanilla ice cream, actually . . .
Exactly . . . Im going through the definition of how I see wrong in relation
to my values. Believing in my values, neo-Nazis are wrong, but, I mean, whos to
say? Its kind of difficult. I would say yes and no on that. neo-Nazis are not wrong,
but in my value system theyre wrong. (Porpora 2001, 8081)
Fernndez-Armesto notes the growing reluctance of many people in Western culture to call any opinion wrong and links it with what he calls the retreat from truth:
In a society of concessions to rival viewpoints, in which citizens hesitate to demand
what is true and denounce what is false, it becomes impossible to defend the traditional moral distinction between right and wrong, which are relativized in turn.
. . . Unless it is true, what status is left for a statement like X is wrong where X is,
say, adultery, infanticide, euthanasia, drug-dealing, Nazism, paedophilia, sadism
or any other wickedness due, in todays climate, for relativization into the ranks of
the acceptable? It becomes, like everything else in western society today, a matter
of opinion. (Fernndez-Armesto 1998, 165166)
The point is debatable: instead of saying, The statement infanticide is wrong is true,
one might prefer to say, It is bad to kill babies. But the observation that in Anglo
societies many English-speaking people are increasingly reluctant to call any personal
opinion wrong is indisputable (though politically correct injunctions and prohibitions may have come to form an exception to this). Above all, this applies, of course,
to the opinions of ones interlocutors.
From a strictly logical point of view, it would seem that right and wrong
should befor anyoneequally acceptable or equally unacceptable. In fact, however, wrong appears to be, for many speakers, less acceptable than rightpresumably, because wrong is more likely to give offense than right. What is involved, then,
is not only the degree of confidence in ones ability to make moral judgments but
also the cultural norms requiring the speakers to avoid unnecessary confrontation
and offense and encouraging them to seek good relations with their interlocutors.
From a modern Anglo point of view, there is a big difference between saying to ones
84
interlocutor youre right and saying to them youre wrong. Whatever one thinks
of the merits of ones interlocutors argument, youre right is culturally more appropriate than youre wrong. The reason for this asymmetry lies not in any universal logic of conversation or principles of politeness but in culture-specific Anglo
norms of social interaction. Again, Benjamin Franklins Autobiography is highly illuminating on this point:
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others. . . .
When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly and of showing immediately some absurdity in
his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but that in the present case there appeared
or seemed to me some difference, etc. (quoted in Levin 1963, 20)
According to Franklin, this avoidance of a direct you are wrong approach proved,
pragmatically, most effective in his interaction with other people:
I soon found the advantage of this change in my manners: The conversations I
engaged in went on more pleasantly; the modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction . . . And to this habit
. . . I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow
citizens when I proposed new institutions or alterations in the old, and so much
influence in public councils when I became a member. For I was but a bad speaker,
never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly ever correct in language, and yet I generally carried my point. (quoted in Levin 1963, 20)
Presumably, large numbers of Franklins compatriots must have shared his experience to some extent, for with time the avoidance of you are wrong and the like
became a salient cultural script. To quote Eva Hoffman (1989), who as a teenager
emigrated with her family from Poland to America and who had to learn the unspoken cultural scripts of her new country:
I learn also that certain kinds of truth are impolite. One shouldnt criticize the
person one is with, at least not directly. You shouldnt say, You are wrong about
thatthough you may say, On the other hand, there is that to consider. You
shouldnt say, This doesnt look good on you, though you may say, I like you
better in that other outfit. I learn to tone down my sharpness, to do a more careful
conversational minuet. (Hoffman 1989, 146)
It is interesting to compare Hoffmans perception of avoidance of you are wrong

in Anglo-American culture with Blum-Kulkas (1982) comment on the use of ata toe
(youre wrong) in Israeli culture:
Generally speaking, Israeli society seems to allow for even more directness in social interaction than the American one. . . . It is not uncommon to hear people
around a conference table in Israel disagreeing with each other bluntly (saying
things like ata toe Youre wrong, or lo naxon! Not true!). Such directness in a
similar setting in American society would probably be considered rude. (BlumKulka 1982, 3031)
Both Hoffman and Blum-Kulka are talking here about saying you are wrong, rather
than he or she is wrong, and in contemporary Anglo (American) culture the pres-
85
sure to avoid you are wrong is no doubt stronger than that to avoid saying he or
she is wrong or it (e.g., infanticide) is wrong. It seems, however, that wrong in
general tends to be increasingly avoided, as presumptuous and, as it were, undemocratic. Right fares better: although there are some cultural scripts operating against
both right and wrong, there are other scripts operating in favor of rightespecially
in conversational routines where right is addressed to the addressee, as in thats right,
but also in conversational responses like right, right you are, too right, and so on. I
discuss these conversational routines in more detail in section 10. First, however, I
will present the reader with some statistics.
3.9. The Changing Frequencies of True, Truth, Right, and Wrong

Let us first compare in Table 3.2 the frequencies of the words true, truth, right (adjective), and wrong (adjective) in the concordances to the works of two English playwrights, separated by three centuries, Shakespeare (Spevack 1970) and Bernard Shaw
(Bevan 1971) (figures per 1 million words).
What these figures suggest is that the use of both true and truth declined significantly, whereas the use of right and wrong (as adjectives) increased. They also suggest that wrong, which Shakespeare used primarily as a noun or a verb, over the
centuries greatly expanded its use as an adjectivenot on a scale comparable with
the use of right as an adjective but nonetheless coming far closer to it than it was in
Shakespeares use. These figures are consistent with the hypothesis that the discourse
of truth declined in English over the centuries, that the use of right and wrong as
parallel concepts (and opposites) increased, and that the use of right as an adjective
increased enormously in relation to the use of true.
If we now extend our comparison and include in Table 3.3 figures for spoken
English (UK Spoken) from the contemporary Cobuild Bank of English, we will
see, first of all, that in comparison with Shaw (let alone Shakespeare) the figures for
true and truth are extremely low. Furthermore, the figure for right is higher than in
Shaw, and the figure for wrong, lower.
The very high frequency of right in contemporary spoken English differs markedly from its frequency in the contemporary corpus of written English (Cobuilds
UK Books), as shown in Table 3.4.
Presumably, this explosion of right in spoken English is linked with the rise of
conversational responses such as thats right, right you are, too right, and simply right. Of course, we do not have at our disposal a corpus of spoken English for
3.2 Frequencies of true, truth, right, and wrong in

Shakespeare and Shaw
TABLE
Shakespeare
Shaw
True
Truth
Adj.
Right
(Total
Right)
Adj.
Wrong
(Total
Wrong)
959
324
391
215
180
448
(420)
(890)
17
148
(288)
(206)
86

3.3 Frequencies of true, truth, right, and wrong
in Shakespeare, Shaw, and Cobuilds corpus of
Spoken UK English
TABLE
Shakespeare
Shaw
Cobuild: UK Spoken
True
Truth
Adj.
Right
Adj.
Wrong
959
324
40
391
215
7
180
448
629
17
148
56
the times of Shakespeare, or even the times of Bernard Shaw, and dialogue in plays
couldnt possibly be regarded as a functional equivalent of such a corpus. We cannot, therefore, prove an increase in the use of right in spoken English on a statistical
basis. What we can show, however, is the emergence of new conversational routines
in nineteenth- and twentieth-century spoken discourse.
These routines include, for one thing, the expression all right (used, according
to the OED, to express acquiescence or assent), the first example of which cited by
the OED comes from Dickenss Pickwick Papers (1837). Another important relatively
recent conversational routine involves the expression thats right (used to express
affirmation or agreement, OED), the first example of which cited by the OED is
dated as 1905:
The Presidents address was frequently interrupted with applause and cries of
Thats right.
Relatively recent conversational routines include also such expressions as right you
are! (described by the OED as recent slang use), too right (labeled by the OED
as Australian and New Zealand colloquial), shell be right (also described as
Australian and New Zealand colloquial), and the interrogative. . . . right? (inviting agreement or approval), described by the OED as originally U.S. and illustrated with only twentieth-century examples. In Australia, a particularly common
conversational routine is the interactive-reassuring use of the phrase youre right,
indicating that the speaker doesnt mind what the addressee is doing. I would argue
that these recent conversational routines involving right include also several distinct
uses of Right as a response in dialogue, to which I will now turn.
TABLE 3.4 Frequencies of true, truth, right, and

wrong in spoken and written UK English (from
Cobuild)
UK Books
UK Spoken
True
Truth
60
40
37
7
Adj. Right
96
629
Adj. Wrong
50
56
87
3.10. Right. as a Response in Dialogue

The use of Right. as a response signal in dialogue goes back to sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the entry on right in the OED illustrates.
Chiron: O tis a verse in Horace, I know it well . . .
Aaron: Ay just, a verse in Horace; right, you have it.
(Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act IV, sc. ii, ll. 22, 24)
Dalyell: Shes . . . A princess of the blood, and I a subject
Huntly: Right, but a noble subject. (Ford 1968 [1634], 22)
The OED defines this use of Right! as You are right; you say well. I think this
definition is, essentially, quite apt: the first speaker expresses an opinion, and the
second approves of what the first speaker says and endorses it as true. Formulaically:
A says to B: it is like this
B says to A: you say something good (you speak well)
it is true
Seemingly, in contemporary English, the response Right! can still be used in a
similar way (often with exclamatory intonation), as in the following example from
the Donahue show (Carbaugh 1988, 28):
am: When we get to be senior citizens I think we should have the right to do
what we want.
donahue: Yeah.
a woman senior guest: Right!
am: And Im for these people.
audience: (Applause).
Yet when we look at the whole spectrum of contemporary uses of right, it transpires
that there are some important differences between the Shakespearean Right! of
approval and the present-day one: whereas in Shakespeares usage, Right! implies
you speak well, what you say is true, in present-day usage the approval refers to the
previous speakers thinking and to the way things are: you think well, it is like this.
What the OED doesnt make clear is that Right. as a dialogical response has
other uses and other meanings as well and that some of these uses are quite recent.
The OED itself includes at least one (twentieth-century) example that appears to be
different in meaning from the previous examples from Shakespeare and Ford.
Roughly speaking, those earlier examples illustrate agreement with a statement (regarded as true), whereas the twentieth-century example illustrates confirmation of
a supposition:
Have you ever thought of working for the Foreign Office?
The British one?
Right. (Gadney 1970)
Here, Right. conveys something like I confirm your guess. In the early examples,
both speakers say what they think, not what they know; in the confirmation example,
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however, the person who says Right. knows something that the other person doesnt
know, and he or she confirms the other persons supposition or guess. Schematically:
A. I want to know what you wanted to say
I think that you wanted to say this [the British one]
B. when you think like this you think well
it is like this
you know what I wanted to say
How far back does this use of Right. as a confirmation go in the history of English?
The matter requires investigation. It seems likely, however, that the earlier routine
of factual confirmation of guesses or suppositions has led to routines of conversational (metatextual) confirmation, as illustrated in the following exchange from
Porporas (2001, 79) interviews:
a. You said you were raised to treat people like this?
b. Right.
Here, the interviewer (A) seems to be checking his understanding of what the interviewee (B) has said, in the spirit of conversational cooperation, and the interviewee
confirms the supposition in the same spirit:
A. I want to know what you wanted to say
I think that you wanted to say this [ . . . ]
B. you say I want to know what you wanted to say
I think that you wanted to say this [ . . . ]
it is like this
you know what I wanted to say
This use of the response Right. in the spirit of conversational cooperation brings
us to a number of other apparently recent uses of this response, not documented in
the OED at all, which can all be characterized, roughly, in terms of cooperation.
Consider, for example, the following four exchanges from a play by the contemporary English playwright Simon Gray (1986):
1. melanie (exiting): Off we go, St. John.
quartermaine: Right. (p. 274)
2. melanie (exiting): Jolly goodgive her my love.
meadle: Right, Melanie, right. (p. 265)
3. windscape (off): Actually, Ive just finished [a game], Im afraidperhaps next
week.
quartermaine (off): Right, Ill hold you to that. Night. (p. 239)
4. sackling: St. John, Id be grateful if youd stop referring to him as little Tom
. . . it makes him sound like something out of the workhouse.
quartermaine: O rightright. (p. 256)
89
What happens in such exchanges can be schematically summarized as follows:

a says to b: I want something to happen
I want you to do something because of this
b says to a: you say: I want something to happen
I want you to do something because of this
I think that you can know what I want you to do
I know what you want to say
I know what you want to happen
I know what you want me to do
It could be argued that here, too, the addressee approves of what the speaker has said,
and of the thinking behind the words. But this characterization, lumping together
the Shakespearean and the modern usage, would fail to show the specific features of
this new usage. I would argue that it would also prevent us from gleaning the cultural underpinnings of the new conversational routine. The term cooperation is more
useful here, because it points to new types of social relations in a democratic society:
the use of Right in response to a request, suggestion, direction, or instruction signals a willingness to comply with another persons will while remaining on an equal
footing. The assumption is that if I will do what you say you want me to do, I will do
it because I know why you say it: I know that you are not trying to give me an order,
to arbitrarily impose your will on me, but rather because you think it will be good if
what you want to happen happens. I see your request is rationalnot necessarily
because I agree that it will be good if this thing happens but because I can know
what you want me to do and why. I do not have to express any satisfaction at your
request, but I do want to show that I know what you want to say and why. I accept
your request as reasonable. (And so I will probably comply with it, though this is not
as clear in the case of Right. as it would be if I said All right.
Here is a characteristic Australian examplean employee (Robbo) speaking
on the phone to his boss, Barry Anderson:
robbo: Hello? Oh, gday. Yes. Can do. Will do. Right. Beauty. For sure. Right
you are. See you. [Hangs up.] That was Barry Anderson. He wants report number 10777443101837392 taken to Alan White immediately. (Buzo 1973, 57)
Robbo is almost caricaturally eager to comply with his bosss wishes, and although
he would never say to the boss anything like Yes, sir, the expression Right. serves
him well. The use of Right. indicates that both the boss and the subordinates link
compliance with a spirit of equality and cooperation, rather than any submissiveness or subservience. The following exchange between another employee and their
boss highlights the egalitarian character of the relationship:
gibbos phone rings.
gibbo: Hello? Oh, gday. Yes. Yes. Can do. Will do. Right. Beauty. For sure.
Right you are. See you [Hangs up] That was Barry Anderson. Said hed be down
at the pub tonight for a few quiet beers. (Buzo 1973: 57)
90
Conversational routines expressing something like cooperation are useful in a society where people have to take directions and instructions from others without treating those others as their masters. By saying Right. in response to somebody elses
expression of will, the responder shows how he or she interprets that will: not as an
order or a command but an understandable, rational thought that something is desirable. By saying Right. in response, I acknowledge the first speakers words as reasonable and as focused on a desirable state of affairs, rather than on any desire to
impose their will on me.
There are several other conversational routines involving the response Right.
that can be seen as variations on the same theme. For example, the first speaker may
want to do something himself or herself, and the second speaker may be simply expressing a willingness to help, as in the following exchange in the play Who? by the
Australian playwright Jack Hibberd:
paddy: Think Id better lie down for a while.
alex: Right.
[alex helps paddy to his bed] (Hibberd 1973 [1970], 147)
Virtually the same formula applies here; the only difference lies in who is going to
do what.
In addition to expressing a willingness to cooperate, Right. can also be used to
acknowledge cooperation that has already taken place and to express satisfaction at
the completion of a task. For example, in Alex Buzos play The Front Room Boys,
Pammy is collecting money from her colleagues in the office for various causes
(somebodys birthday, somebody elses new baby, and so on):
pammy: Come on now . . . dig deep . . . pay up . . . Craig Hiscocks birthday. . . .
pammy: Thats all. . . .
all: Thank you . . .
pammY: Right, thats the lot. Thats it for today. (Buzo 1973, 87)
Here, Pammy is acknowledging, with satisfaction, her colleagues compliance with her
expressed wish, and she interprets this compliance as based on the assumption that her
wish was reasonable and made sense to them. At the same time, she is expressing satisfaction with her own thought processes: everything has gone according to plan.
Right, thats the lot.
a. I wanted something to happen
b. I wanted you to do something because of this
c. I thought that you could know what I wanted you to do
d. when I thought like this I thought well
e. it has happened now
f. this is good
The last two components in this explication seem significant: the speakers satisfaction (this is good) is linked with the realization that what she wanted to happen
has happened. And another analogous example from the same play:
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thomo: . . . Here, put those flowers round the wreath. . . . [they finish the wreath,
gibbo hands it to thomo.]
gibbo: Here you are, Thomo.
thomo: Thanks, Gibbo. Right, now get your coats on and look smart. (Buzo
1973, 93)
This brings us back to the examples adduced at the outset of this chapter: Right. as
a conversational response expressing ones satisfaction with what ones interlocutor
has just said in response to ones question. Here, too, cooperation is acknowledged,
with a certain satisfaction, but this cooperation is purely verbal (at the level of saying
rather than doing). As quoted earlier, in an interview with Porpora (2001, 143144),
one of the interviewees, Frederick, expresses his belief that 144,000 Jews will be saved,
and the interviewer responds Right. commenting for the readers benefit that he is
familiar with the belief in question. Here, Frederick has complied with the
interviewers wish to find out what he [the interviewee] thinks. If we replace do in
the previous explication with say, we can see that a similar explication applies there,
too:
Right. I am familiar with the belief . . .
a. I wanted you to say something
b. because I wanted to know what you wanted to say
c. I thought that you could know what I wanted you to do
d. when I thought like this I thought well
e. you said this now
f. now I know what you wanted to say
g. this is good
Thus, the interviewer acknowledges that the interviewee has done what the interviewer wanted him to do and that he has done it in the spirit of cooperation, on the
assumption that the interviewers wish made sense to him. In this case, the speakers
satisfaction (this is good) is linked with the realization that his wish has been satisfied: he now knows that what he wanted to happen has happened; that is, he now
knows what he wanted to know (i.e., what the interviewee wanted to say).
And two more examples (from a British novel)seemingly dissimilar but in fact
amenable to the same interpretation:
Im not actually from India, you know, said Samad . . .
Poppy Burt-Jones looked surprised and disappointed. Youre not?
No. Im from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh.
Previously Pakistan. Previous to that, Bengal.
Oh, right. . . . (Zadie Smith 2000, 133)
Here, too, Right. (often, Oh, right) impli es now I know [what you wanted to
say], this is good. It also implies that Poppys interlocutor (Samad) has interpreted
her query as a reasonable and understandable quest for information and has responded
to it in the spirit of cooperation. Essentially, the same applies to the following exchange from the same novel:
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. . . I was saying to my brother Abdul
Which Abdul? . . .
Abdul-Colin.
Right. (Zadie Smith 2000, 186)
Here, right (which could be expanded to Oh, right) conveys something like now
I know what you wanted to say. The utterance implies that there was something
incomplete about the previous sentence (because there are several men named Abdul
in the family) but that now the proper clarification has been supplied, and the interlocutor can be satisfied:
now I know what you wanted to say
this is good
Although the first part of the gloss offered for Right in the OED (you are right)
does not apply here at all, the second part (you say well) does apply, to some extent
at least, but it seems contrastive: what you say now (in contrast to what you said before)
is good (satisfactory). For convenience, we could call this kind of use the Right of
conversational satisfaction.
I wanted you to say something (more)
because I wanted to know what you wanted to say (what you meant)
you said this now
now I know what you wanted to say
this is good
3.11. Right and Cultural Scripts

As discussed in chapter 2, different cultures have different cultural scriptsdifferent unwritten rules about how to behave, how to speak, and also how to think and
how to feel. Often, these cultural scripts include guidelines concerning appropriate
ways to respond to what other people say. In other cases, there are no specific scripts
for how to respond to other people, but there are implicit norms that follow from
certain more general scripts.
For example, the Russian language offers ample evidence for the existence, and
salience, of the following cultural script:
people say two kinds of things to other people
things of one kind are true
it is good if a person wants to say things of this kind to other people
things of the other kind are not true
it is bad if a person wants to say things of this kind to other people
The existence and common colloquial use of the word nepravda (untruth), alongside pravda (truth), and the symmetrical use of phrases like govorit pravdu (to
speak truth) and govorit nepravdu (to speak untruth), is perhaps the clearest piece
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of evidence supporting this script; but there are others. (See V. Apresjan 2000;
Wierzbicka 2002c.)
In Japanese culture, there is evidence for scripts that, roughly speaking, discourage expression of disagreement and encourage expression of agreement (see, e.g.,
Asano 2003):
when a person says to me about something: I think about it like this
it is not good to say something like this to this person:
I dont think the same
when I say to another person about something: I think about it like this
it is good to say something like this to this person at the same time:
I think that you will say: I think the same
By contrast, Jewish culture (as described in Schiffrin 1984; see also Blum-Kulka 1982)
places a special value on expressing disagreementbecause it is good to say to another person what one really thinks, and also because it is interesting and enjoyable
to talk with people who disagree with you.
when someone says something to me about something
if I think that this something is not true
it is good to say it to this person
it is good if this person knows what I think
when someone says to me about something: I think about it like this
if I think that this person doesnt think well
it is good to say it to this person
it is good if this person knows what I think
when someone says something to me about something
it can be good if I say something like this to this person:
I dont think the same
In modern Anglo culture, the most salient cultural scripts are different again. One
important script enshrines the belief in freedom of expression:
if I think something about something I can say: I think about it like this
everyone can do this
As noted by Carbaugh (1988), this script and its various offshoots are repeatedly rehearsed on popular American TV shows like Donahue. For example, Donahue asked
a woman audience member to react to a group of feminist guests: How do you feel
about these women? Her response was: Each woman has her own opinion, and if
thats what they believe in, fine. The tone of her utterance indicated an implicit
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disagreement, but she stated explicitly the cultural premise: Everyone has the right
to say and do what they want (Carbaugh 1988, 29).
when someone says to me about something: I think about it like this
if I dont think the same
I can say to this person: I dont think the same
But although disagreement can be voiced openly, there is also a script that says that
it is good to soften it with a partial agreement, along the following lines:
when I want to say to another person about something:
I dont think the same [as you]
it is good to say something like this at the same time:
I think the same [as you] about some of these things
I dont think the same [as you] about all these things
But while one can voice disagreement (though preferably, only partial disagreement),
one cannot do it, to use Carbaughs term, impositionally:
when I say to another person about something: I think about it like this
I cant say something like this at the same time:
you have to think the same / I want you to think the same
Furthermore, the marked asymmetry between the use of right and wrong in English
conversational routines suggests the following script:
when a person says to me about something: I think about it like this
I cant say something like this to this person:
it is bad if a person thinks like this
What this means, in effect, is that although one can openly disagree with another
persons opinion, one cant criticize it or condemn it: to do so would mean to set oneself above the other person and to refuse them the right to have their own opinion.
As noted earlier, one might think that the same would apply to expressing approval of another persons opinion: whether I disapprove or approve of another
persons opinion, I can be seen as setting myself above this other person. In fact,
however, it doesnt work like that (in modern Anglo culture): there is no taboo on
expressing approval of another persons opinionas long as this approval refers implicitly to some objective criteria. And this is what the expression thats right does: it
conveys approval of what the other person has just said and approval of the thinking
behind this persons words; at the same time, however, it appeals to some criteria,
some evidence, to which other people could have access.
The component you think well conveys, indirectly, a goodwill toward the
addressee and a friendly attitude, and the components it is like this and people
can know that it is like this suggest some objective factual basis for my endorsement
of your words and way of thinking, as well as the availability of a rational justifica-
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tion. Thus, although my approval of your way of thinking suggests my personal goodwill toward you, it doesnt really place me above you, because it appeals to something rational and demonstrable. Implicitly, the speaker is appealing to a shared
ground: a respect for rational thinking and for evidence. There is no pressure in
modern Anglo culture to praise or endorse ones interlocutors words regardless of
what one thinks about them; presumably, a requirement of this kind would be felt as
a restriction on ones freedom to say what one thinks. At the same time, however, it
is seen as desirable that one should try to validate the interlocutors words if one
canin the interest of conversational cooperation and good rapport. In expressing
this validation, however, one must be careful not to appear to be patting the interlocutor on the head, hence the need to appeal to some general criteria of good thinking
and accountability.
3.12. Retrospect and conclusion: The Puritans,

the Enlightenment, the Growth of Democracy
Let us try to sketch a short history of right (and to a lesser degree, wrong), in a very
broad outline.
To begin with, right meant straight, as in a right line (straight line). Figuratively, perhaps, this right in the sense of straight was also used in an evaluative sense:
good, with an additional component building on the geometrical image: clearly
good, demonstrably good, one-could-say-why good. For example, spoken of
somebody elses words, right was linked (implicitly or explicitly) with true, as in these
three examples from Shakespeare:
Thoust spoken right. Tis true. (King Lear, Act V, sc. iii, l. 164)
Most true, tis right, you were so, Alisander. (Loves Labour Lost, Act V, sc. ii,
l. 566)
Right, you say true. (Richard the Second, Act II, sc. i, l. 146)
Right appears to mean here, essentially, good or well, you speak well, you say
wellan evaluation supported with a reference to truth: because what you say is
true.
But in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, right appears to
have begun to be used more and more with reference to thinking rather than speaking.
The spread of the grammatical pattern linking right (and wrong) as a predicate with
persons as subjects is a reflection of this new emphasis on right thinking. A sentence
like you are right (or he is right, etc.) combines an approval of what someone says
with an approval of their thinking (you speak well, you think well). As noted earlier,
the Shakespearean tis right or thoust spoken right was (implicitly or explicitly)
truth-oriented and did not similarly refer to thinking. For a person, being right can
be opposed to being wrong. Although the earliest example of you are right included
in the OED is dated 1597, the earliest examples that are cited in the OED of wrong
referring to persons go back no further than the end of the seventeenth century.
Generally speaking, the association of right with thinking seems to have spread in
parallel with a contrastive use of right and wronga trend apparently encouraged
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by the influence of the Reformation, especially within its Calvinist wing. The substitution of the Bible and the individual conscience for the church was a key feature of
the Protestant Reformation, especially Calvinism. In founding ethics on the Bible
rather than on the leadership of the Catholic Church, Calvin opened the way to a
decrease in the authority of human rulers and an increase in the authority of intellectual judgments (Snell 1988, 24). This emphasis on individual conscience and
judgment was very much part of the Puritans stand in England and then America.
The Puritan could rely only on his own reading of Scripture and his own conscience
for light (Slotkin 1973, 52, quoted in Barnstone, Manson, and Singley 1997, xv). As
vividly depicted in Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress, the key problem of every persons
life is the great either-or of salvation versus damnation. This either-or, which is
a matter of supreme importance, depends on distinguishing the right and the
wrong: Look before thee; dost thou see this narrow way? That is the way thou must
go. . . . There are many ways but down upon this; and they are crooked and wide;
but thus thou mayst distinguish the right from the wrong that only being straight and
narrow (Bunyan 1965, 59, emphasis added).
As Bunyans key image of the two ways illustrates, the Puritans had a highly
polarized view of human life, which they saw as a choice between, on the one hand,
a progress toward the Celestial City, linked with the right way to go, and on the
other, the path toward damnation, that is, the wrong [way], tho easy, when the end
is woe (1965, 74). Not surprisingly, therefore, the Puritanslike the just man in
Miltons vision in Paradise Lostspoke much of right and wrong:
Of middle age one rising, eminent
In wise deport, spake much of right and wrong,
Of justice, of religion, truth, and peace,
And Judgment from above. (Milton 1989, Book XI)
And in the words of the eighteenth-century English poet, Cowper:

Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong,
Take it and perish. (1781, quoted in Stevenson 1958)
For Milton, as for other Puritans, religion was linked with the notions of right and
wrong; reason, which was the basis for distinguishing between right and wrong, was
sacred. (In Paradise Lost, Bk. VII, l.507, the first man, Adam, is described as a creature . . . endowed with sanctity of reason.) As Edmund Morgan writes in his book
The Puritan Dilemma (1958, 81), the Puritans were extraordinarily reasonable men.
The zeal with which they studied the Bible sprang from supreme confidence in the
ability of reason to find the truth there. . . . Therefore they listened with respect to
every man who could give reasons for his opinions, and if they thought his reason
faulty, they used every possible argument to persuade him.
It is widely held that the impact of the Puritans on English culture went far beyond their purely religious influence. As Roger Sharrock (1965, 13) says in his introduction to The Pilgrims Progress, through their Calvinistic preaching and
commenting on the English Bible they had effected a cultural revolution and created a new type of Englishman, endowed with an earnestness and a sense of mission
not present in his medieval ancestors. The Puritans polarized view of life, seen as
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a choice between the right way and the wrong way, may well have contributed
to the emergence of right and wrong as key opposites in the English language
and the world of thought associated with it. In this respect, as in others, their influence may have meshed well with the influence of the Enlightenments emphasis on
reason (see Weber 1968, 198). In the age of Enlightenment, ethics came increasingly to be seen in terms of reason, and reason was linked with the notions of right
and wrong. In the words of the seventeentheighteenth century poet, Congreve:
. . . Reason, the power to guess at right and wrong. (quoted in Stevenson 1958)
The close (perceived) link between the notions of right, wrong, and reason is also
seen clearly in the following quote from the eighteenthnineteenth century poet
Robert Southey:
To prove by reason, in reasons despite,
That right is wrong, and wrong is right,
And white is black, and black is white. (Robert Southey, 1728, quoted in Stevenson
1958)
In eighteenth-century America, Benjamin Franklin, whose Autobiography has been

described as the secular version of John Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress (Bellah et
al. 1985, 32), preached the reasonable Science of Virtue, likening the Science of
Virtue to other sciences (Levin 1963, 3233); in nineteenth-century England, the
poet and essayist Matthew Arnold , in his work St. Paul and Protestantism (in which
he argues against the Puritans and for Anglicanism) ascribes sweet reasonableness
to Christ, using the phrase no fewer than eleven times in a short essay.3
Thus, for a long time reason became, for many speakers of English, a linchpin
holding together religion, morality, and a modern scientific outlook. The following late-nineteenth-century citation included in the OED is characteristic in this
respect:
Clear and consecutive wrong-thinking is the next best thing to right-thinking.
(Thomas Huxley 1877)
For Huxley, the quintessential agnostic scientist, right and wrong are primarily properties of thinkingand in a way, so they were for the Puritans and for Locke. The
Puritans wanted to think rightly (rationally) about God, Locke about both God
and nature, and Huxley wanted to think rightly (rationally) about nature, and nature alone.
It appears, however, that as democracy became more and more entrenched, first
in America and then in England, many speakers of English became less and less
interested in denouncing other peoples opinions as wrong, and freedom of thought
and expression began to be felt to be more important than the identification of any
wrong opinions. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the English historian
Thomas Macauley wrote in his Essays: Southeys Colloquies: Men are never so likely
to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely (quoted in Stevenson 1958).
Thus Macauley linked right thinking with freedom of discussion. In the early twentieth century, the American lawyer Harry Weinberger (1917; also quoted in Stevenson
1958) went further when he wrote: The greatest right in the world is the right to be
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wrong. This statement expresses the logical next step in the history of right and wrong:
under the conditions of liberal democracy, it may be important to be right, but it is
more important to be free to say what one thinks and to be able to hold on to ones
opinions, whether others regard them as right or wrong.
There is an easy transition from thinking that everyone has the inalienable right
to be wrong to thinking that no one can, or should, tell another person that he or
she is wrong. As one of Porporas interviewees puts it (2001, 90), thats what this world
is made up of: different people with differences of opinions.4
Thus, over the last two centuries or so, the discourse of right and wrong
appears to have found a competitor in a discourse of cooperation and mutual concessions. Judging by both the frequency and range of its use, the word right flourished in this atmosphere, whereas wrong was increasingly left behind.
Speaking of the contemporary death of conviction and of the consequences
of classroom programmes, worthy in themselves, designed to equip students with
. . . social virtues such as tolerance and mutual respect, Fernndez-Armesto writes:
In a society of concessions to rival viewpoints, in which citizens hesitate to demand
what is true and denounce what is false, it becomes impossible to defend the traditional moral distinctions between right and wrong, which are relativized in turn
(1998, 165). These remarks are consistent with the linguistic history of right and wrong.
The great career that right has made in spoken English does not mean that people
are necessarily more confident about what they regard, and want to defend, as right.
Rather, we are witnessing an explosion of a purely conversational righta conversational routine serving a pragmatic goal of conversational harmony and cooperation unrelated to any deeper consensus or conviction.
Everybody can say what they think, and therefore, whatever they say can be responded to with the cooperative conversational Right. It is not a question of truth
and not even, primarily, a question of agreement. Rather, it is a question of getting
along together. Two centuries ago, in his monumental study Democracy in America,
de Tocqueville wrote:
The political institutions of the United States put citizens of all classes in constant
contact and compel them to carry out great undertakings together. People busy in
this way have hardly time to think about the details of etiquette, and they also have
too great an interest in living harmony to stop for that. (de Tocqueville 1966, 543)
The birth and triumphant spread (first in America and then elsewhere) of the various conversational routines based on the word okay (yet to be studied from a semantic point of view) clearly supports de Tocquevilles brilliant insight, but in a way, so
does the expansion of the conversational right in the United States, Australia, and
New Zealand (recorded by the OED). As we have seen, right can be used to acknowledge ones interlocutors words as good and valid, not because they are true, and
not even because one agrees with them, but because they express, quite legitimately,
the other persons point of view. It can also be used to acknowledge and accept what
another person wants us to do, on an equal footing and in the spirit of voluntary
cooperation.
Donal Carbaugh rightly links the common Anglo American assumption that
individuals have rights with common American conversational routines, when he
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says that not only do individuals, or Americans, have rights, but also Americans, as
individuals, preserve and protect their rights through their routine verbal performances (1988, 25). The common conversational routine of responding to another
persons expressed view with Right. is, I suggest, one of those routine verbal performances. It is a response that reaffirms the value of the practice of expressing ones
opinions and of listening, willingly, to other peoples opinions. If I cant say that I
think that you think well, I can at least say that you have expressed yourself well
because I now know what you think (or: want to say)and this is good, too.
The transition from (A) the Shakespearean response Right. described by the
OED as you are right; you speak well, to (B) the present-day Right. of noncommittal acknowledgment can be schematically represented as follows:
A. you say: I think like this
you speak well
[because what you say is true]
B. you say: I think like this / want to say this
I now know what you think / want-to-say
this is good
In Shakespeares usage, the approval of someone elses words, expressed with Right.
refers, explicitly or implicitly, to truth; in present-day English, the approval of
someones else words expressed with Right. refers to a successful act of communication. The implications are:
A. Right it is true (this is good)
B. Right I know what you think / want-to-say (this is good)
While noting these changes in the conversational routines involving the word right,
we should at the same time note that the distinction between right and wrong as
opposites continues to be taken for granted in the world of thought associated with
the English languageboth on the level of theory and scholarship (in philosophy,
education, and so on) and in everyday life. To understand this peculiar feature of
English and Anglo discourse, we need, inter alia, to take up some of Max Webers
searching questions and attempt to penetrate into the peculiar characteristics of and
the differences between those great worlds of religious thought which have existed
historically in the various branches of Christianity (Weber 1995, 45). To understand
the continuing salience of the concepts right and wrong in English/Anglo discourse,
we need to try to enter not only the world of John Locke, David Hume, and other
British thinkers who influenced the intellectual climate in Britain in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries (and, indirectly, in North America) but also the world of
thought of the English and American Puritans (see Wierzbicka 2004).
In his well-known book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre (1981) writes that the
Enlightenment project of basing morality on reason has failed. Indeed, MacIntyre
takes this failure for granted, as shown by chapter titles like Why the Enlightenment
Project of Justifying Morality Had to Fail (chapter 5) and Some Consequences of
the Failure of the Enlightenment Project (chapter 6). It should be recognized,
however, that the continued use, in colloquial English, of the words right and wrong
as a basic yardstick with which to evaluate human conduct continues, in a sense,
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the Enlightenment project. For speakers of English, the opposites right and wrong
are still important conceptual tools, available for use, and indeed widely used, in
everyday life (not to mention Anglophone philosophy, education, developmental
psychology, and so on). There is also the word evil, but this tends to be reserved for
situations thought of as extreme. In daily life, human conduct still tends to be evaluated, by speakers of English, in terms of right and wrong. My point is that this way
of speaking and thinking about human life is profoundly culture-specific. Three centuries after the Enlightenment, everyday moral discourse in French, German, and
other European languages is still based on the notions good and bad, not on any
putative equivalents of the English right and wrong. For this, there must be reasons;
and these reasons appear to include the religious roots of modern Anglo culture and
the influence of the Puritans. Both the distrust of metaphysics and the belief in
reason as the basis for a good life continue to live on in everyday Anglo discourse
in the form of the key cultural concepts right and wrong.5
The continued presence, and salience, of the words right and wrong in English/
Anglo discourse suggests the continued presence of some cultural scripts linking
evaluation of human action with critical thinking and the need for justification. The
scripts appear to include these two:
when a person wants to do something
it is good if this person thinks about it like this:
I want to know if it will be good if I do it
if I think about it I can know it
I cant say about someone: I think that this someone did something bad
if I cant say why I think like this
The reliance on right and wrong and the apparent avoidance of absolute moral
judgments unsupported by rational justifications highlight the absence from modern Anglo culture of the cultural script reflected in Mayakovskys childrens poem
quoted earlier, and arguably very salient in Russian culture as a whole:6
The Russian good versus bad script
people do things of two kinds
things of one kind are good
it is good if people want to do things of this kind
things of the other kind are bad
it is bad if people want to do things of this other kind
In its polarized dichotomy, this script parallels the Russian script opposing truth to
untruth. (For discussion of polarized dichotomic models of thought in Russian culture, see Uspenskij 1996; for discussion of the penchant for absolute moral judgments
reflected in the Russian language, see Wierzbicka 1992, 435440, and 2002c.)
The English languagein contrast to Russiandoes not encourage this type of
extreme and absolute moral evaluation, and it does not provide its speakers with
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convenient colloquial tools for evaluating human conduct in this way. To illustrate,
let me quote the following sentence from a Russian novel (Solzhenitsyns Cancer
Ward) and its English translation:
I udivilsja by on [Efrem] esli b drugoj muzik stal emu serezno dokazyvat, to on
ploxo postupaet s babami. (Solzhenitsyn n.d., 116)
And hed been amazed if some other fellow had seriously tried to tell him he treated
women badly. (Solzhenitsyn 1969, 104)
The Russian sentence refers, in simple colloquial words, to a mans (Efrems) moral
conduct and condemns it, unequivocally, as bad. The judgment is as clear and as
simple as the judgment that he did something bad, but it is extended to the mans
conduct as a whole (in relation to women). There is no way to convey the same absolute judgment in colloquial English. Perhaps the following would be the closest:
his moral conduct in relation to women was bad. But this is, of course, not colloquial, and a simple uneducated man like Solzhenitsyns Efrem could neither speak
nor think in such terms. The word for women used in the Russian sentence is crude
and slangy. The focus of the Russian sentence is not on how Efrem treats women (as
in the English translation he treated women badly) but on the fact that what he is
doing is wrongexcept that in Russian, it is not wrong but bad. The Russian
verb postupat is not transitive, like the English treat, but intransitive, like behave.
One could therefore try to convey the sense of the Russian sentence by saying of Efrem
that he behaved badly (in relation to women) or that his behavior in relation to
women was bad. This, however, would not convey the moral force of the Russian
sentence. Behavior, unlike conduct, is a word that can be used about animals (animal behavior vs. *animal conduct). One could also say of a little boy that he behaved badly but not that his conduct was bad. Postupat is, in this respect, like
conduct, not like behavior. Thus, postupat ploxo conveys a negative moral evaluation that simply cannot be conveyed in colloquial English. It would not help to say
he treats women like dirt because this, too, would refer to how he treats others, not
to his own moral conduct as such.
A folk ethics based on the notions of right and wrong does not encourage categorizing people, as well as actions, into two diametrically opposed categories: one
cannot speak in English of right people and wrong people, one can speak only
of good people and bad peoplea categorization lying outside an ethics of right
and wrong. By contrast, Russian cultural scripts are fully compatible with such a
categorization. To illustrate again from the Cancer Ward:
e+to byl daleko ne samyj ploxoj elovek, iz vstreavixsja Olegu v zizni.
(Solzhenitsyn n.d., 31)
he was far from the worst man hed met in his life. (Solzhenitsyn 1969, 209)
Significantly, modern Englishunlike Russiandoesnt have words evaluating

people as very bad people (or, indeed, very good people), that is, semantic equivalents of descriptive Russian words like podlec, negodjaj, merzavec, although it does,
of course, have, as does Russian, swearwords like bastard, animal metaphors like swine,
and the like. (Note also the archaic status of words like rascal, scoundrel, or villain;
cf. Wierzbicka 1992: 436.)
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Nor does English have a verb like the Russian osuzdat, which combines in its
meaning semantic components of several English verbs (to judge, to try, to condemn,
and to convict), and which can refer to both everyday talk (as in she judges / condemns / convicts him) and to court activities (as in Joe Bloggs was tried, convicted,
and sentenced).
I have mentioned earlier, with reference to Porpora, that an ethics based on the
concepts right and wrong is different from the ethics presented in the Gospels. It
hardly needs to be added that an ethics of judging and condemning (osuzdat) other
people is also different from the ethics of the Gospels and that dividing people into
two categories, good people and bad people, is in fact incompatible with it. (For
detailed discussion, see Wierzbicka 2001.) From a semantic point of view, however,
we need to note that the expressions good people and bad people seem possible in all
natural languages and, from a cultural point of view, that the English words right
and wrong and the Russian word osuzdat, podlec, merzavec, and negodjaj point to
different cultural traditions.
The extreme moral absolutes of Russian folk ethics go no doubt beyond the
cultural scripts found in many other European languages, but English differs from
those other languages, too, in basing its folk ethics on right and wrong rather than
good and bad. The result is that to speak, for example, of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol
Pot, English speakers have to go beyond their basic concepts of right and wrong
and reach for the more extreme word evil. The implication seems to be that (for
English speakers) truly terrible actions and regimes are beyond the ordinary human
world, where right and wrong can be used as basic guideposts.
In her essay Losing Your Concepts, philosopher Cora Diamond explores the
idea of living with concepts and speaks of a human good of our having a range of
concepts through which the characterizing facets of human life enter our sense of
who we are and what we experience (1998, 269, quoted in Besemeres 2002, 25). For
speakers of English, living means, inter alia, living with the concepts right and
wrong.7 It also means living with cultural scripts related to these key concepts. Culture-specific key concepts and cultural scripts are usually interrelated, and often the
links between the two are most clearly visible in everyday conversational routines: in
greetings, in swearing, in forms of address, in the give-and-take of everyday verbal
exchanges. The use of right in English conversational routines is related to the use
of right and wrong in English folk philosophy. Conversational routineslike key cultural conceptsreflect historically shaped values, attitudes, and ways of thinking.
Chapter 4
Being reasonable
A Key Anglo Value
and Its Cultural Roots
The definition of reasonable is almost impossible to define. (sic; Cobuild

corpus)
Reasonableness, as a concept employed in modern legal systems, is both elusive
and multifaceted. (Saltman 1991, 107)
4.1. Introduction
Every society has certain evaluative words that provide a frame of orientation in daily
life and guide peoples judgment and behavior. Sometimes speakers are very conscious of some of these guiding words and regard them as a badge of belonging. Some
members of other societies, too, may become aware of that societys guiding words
and borrow them as tools for describing modes of behavior or thought.
Sometimes, however, a guiding word is so ingrained in the thinking of a speech
community that it is not perceived as distinctive but, rather, taken for granted like
the air that people breathe. Presumably, words of this kind, which the speakers themselves are not conscious of as distinctive, are also less likely to be perceived as such
by outsiders.
One striking example of a ubiquitous yet oddly invisible guiding word is the
English reasonable. The fact that this word has seldom been the focus of special attention and reflection may have contributed to its enduring power. Well-known
badges of cultural distinctivenessfor example, the English concept of gentlemancan be more or less consciously rejected, even scorned, together with the
ideals and values they represent. But values and attitudes associated with words that
are constantly used but never noticed or recognized as culturally distinctive are less
likely to be consciously rejected. The words themselvesunsuspected, ordinary,
everyday wordspass these ideals on and ensure their continued influence on
peoples lives.
At the turn of the twenty-first century, many English speakers would dissociate
themselves from the ethos of the gentleman. But how many would doubt the value
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104
of being reasonable and the undesirability of having ones conduct judged as unreasonable? How many would wince at phrases like a reasonable person, within reasonable limits, a reasonable price, a reasonable time, a reasonable assumption, or a
reasonable offer?
The words reasonable and unreasonable carry with them a framework of
evaluation that plays an important part in Anglo/ English discourseand therefore,
presumably, in the lives of its practitioners. This framework of evaluation is languageand culture-specific and historically shaped. Broadly, it is a post-Enlightenment
framework. But because we do not find the same framework operating in other
European languages (with the apparent, but only apparent, exception of French, to
which I return later), its roots must be sought in the British Enlightenment rather
than in the Enlightenment as a whole.
Before turning to the historical roots of this framework, however, we need to try
to understand the framework itself. The key to such an understanding lies in the
meaning or meanings of the key word reasonable and its relatives reasonably and
unreasonable.
4.2. The Pre-Enlightenment Uses of Reasonable

The distinct post-Enlightenment character of the word reasonable as it is now used
emerges clearly from a comparison with its earlier use. Shakespeares usage gives us
a good sense of how it has changed.
First of all, in Shakespeares corpus, reasonable was still very closely associated
with reason. For example:
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be deliverd of these woes
And teaches me to kill or hang myself (King John act III, scene iv)
The reasonable part seems to stand for the power or ability to think. There is no
whiff here of the modern Anglo connotation of moderation, which would prevent
extreme actions like killing or hanging oneself from being associated with the word
reasonable. Another example:
It is a quarrel fair and reasonable,
To be revenged on him who slew my husband. (King Richard III, act I, scene ii)
In this scene, Lady Anne expresses her thirst for revenge, and she spits at Gloucester,
wishing that her spit were mortal poison and that her eyes were basilisks (to strike
thee dead), and in doing this she describes her attitude as reasonablenot the
word that would come to mind in such a context now.
Again, in The Merry Wives of Windsor (act IV, scene ii) one of the characters,
Ford, describes his jealousy as reasonable (my jealousy is reasonable), clearly
not implying that it is not excessive but rather that, great as it is, it is fully justified.
In another play, the words great and reasonable are in fact linked in one phrase:
The perdition of th adversary hath been very great, very reasonable great. (King
Henry V, act III, scene vi)
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Some Shakespearean uses of reasonable seem consistent with modern usage but in
fact do not mean what the modern reader might think they do. For example:
Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so,
I shall do that that is reason. (The Merry Wives of Windsor, act I, scene i)
As we have seen, doing that that is reason (that is, what is reasonable in
Shakespeares sense) could include suicide or murder. If this is to any extent a change
in social norm, it is also a change in languagein this case, in the usage of the word
reasonable.
Similarly, when (in the same play, act IV, scene iv) a reference is made to a clown
who wants but something to be a reasonable man, the phrase a reasonable man
may seem to be consistent with the present-day usage; in fact, however, it occurs in
Shakespeares language side by side with a reasonable creature (Much Ado About
Nothing, act I, scene i), in other words, a creature endowed with reason (with a capacity to think). In contemporary English, the collocation a reasonable creature is
no longer possible, because, as I discuss later, to be seen as reasonable in contemporary usage requires more than being simply endowed with reason (as any member of the species Homo sapiens would be). This shows that a reasonable man did
not mean for Shakespeare what it does today.
Clearly, between Shakespeares time and our own, a change has occurred in
Anglo ways of thinking, and this change has found its reflection in the semantics of
the English language. And it is not just a change in the prevailing conception of what
is and what is not reasonable. Rather, it is a change in the basic kit of conceptual
tools used for making judgments and evaluating actions and events. The word reasonable with its modern family of interrelated senses is a new tool in the kit.
4.3. The Main Themes in the Modern Meanings

of the Word Reasonable
As it is used in contemporary English, the word reasonable appears to have several
different meanings. Used in at least one of these meanings, reasonable has an opposite, unreasonable, whereas in some others, it has no such opposite. For example, a
request can be described as either reasonable or unreasonable; similarly, one can
speak of reasonable and unreasonable prices or charges, reasonable and unreasonable expectations, and so on. On the other hand, there is a reasonable guess but
not an *unreasonable guess. Similarly, the phrase beyond reasonable doubt has no
negative counterpart (*beyond unreasonable doubt), and observations, explanations,
or hypotheses can be readily described as reasonable but not unreasonable. How
can we generalize from these examples to a limited number of identifiable distinct
meanings?
Reflecting on the use of the word unreasonable may provide us with a useful
starting point: if someone is said to be unreasonable, this seems to imply, first, that
this person is not thinking well and, second, that he or she wants too much. If we
now look, in the light of this observation, at phrases like reasonable expectations,
reasonable prices, and reasonable requests, we note that they all appear to imply (in
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addition to something like an absence of good thinking) the opposite of wanting

too much: to be reasonable (as opposed to being unreasonable) appears to imply
not wanting too much. Furthermore, we can note that being reasonable is not a
solitary virtue but one that has something to do with other people. The following
examples from Cobuild are quite characteristic in this regard:
Lets make a deal. Lets be reasonable. You wanted Eva. Well, you got her. Okay.
Take off and lets call it quits. Be reasonable, George, and settle for half a loaf now.
Look at Hitler or Stalin. . . . Boy, if they could have been reasonable, they would
have divided this whole earth up between them.
One can be rational or irrational on ones own, but one is usually being reasonable or unreasonable when one is interacting with other people.
Before we try to identify the different meanings of reasonable more precisely, let
us consider some further examples, putting some of them in groups in a preliminary
way. One distinct group or type can be illustrated with the following phrases (from
Cobuild):
reasonable results
a reasonable service
reasonable conditions
reasonable prospects of success
a reasonable location
to keep a person in reasonable health
a reasonable command of language
a reasonable support
a reasonable standard of living
meetings with reasonable attendance
Roughly speaking, reasonable could be replaced in all these phrases with reasonably
good, and it certainly could not be replaced with reasonably bad: consider reasonably good location versus *reasonably bad location and reasonably good results versus *reasonably bad results. (It is interesting to note that in some collocations where
reasonable cannot be replaced with the phrase reasonably good it still means, roughly,
something like that. For example, the phrase reasonable comfort cannot be replaced
with reasonably good comfort, but this is because the semantic component good is
included in the meaning of the word comfort itself [compare ?reasonable discomfort].)
Used in this way, then, reasonable suggests limited praise: in the speakers view,
the results and so on can perhaps be described as good, but not as very good, and
the living conditions can perhaps be described as comfortable but not very comfortable; furthermore, they can be described as good only if one does not want
too muchif one limits ones expectations in a reasonable way. It would seem,
then, that it is reasonable not to expect too muchif one can think well, one can
perhaps accept some things as good even if they are not very good. It is good to be
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pragmatic, to accept that one cannot have everything that one might want to have,
that things can be seen as good even if they are not very good, and, especially, that
such moderation may be needed in our relations with other people.
Consider, for example, the following two sentences (from Cobuild):
Im paid a reasonable (if not extravagant) salary.
So Ill be reasonable, well compromise.
On the one hand, the meaning of reasonable in the two sentences is clearly different, as can be seen from the fact that in the second sentence, reasonable is opposed
to unreasonable (I wont be unreasonable), whereas in the first one it is not (?Im paid
an unreasonable salary). On the other hand, however, some themes are clearly shared:
the references to something good, to ones ability to think well, to moderation (in
the sense of not wanting too much), and to an interest in what other people would
say, think, want. At least some of these themesan ability to think well, moderate
praise, and other peoples opinionsappear to be also involved in phrases like a reasonable guess or a reasonable comment. It is particularly noticeable how often the
use of the word reasonable is linked with a normative spatial metaphor of how far
one can go, as in the phrases within (the) reasonable limits, within reasonable bounds,
beyond reasonable doubt, (gone) beyond what is reasonable, (you can certainly go) so
far as is reasonable (examples from Cobuild), and so on.
Can these various themes be clearly and precisely articulated in the form of
semantic componentsor do they have to be seen, rather, as some vague, impossible-to-pinpoint family resemblances?
To answer this question, we need to construct some explications and validate them
through testing. But to develop plausible explications, it will be helpful first to take a
brief look at the broader history of ideas and try to get some insight into the cultural
background of the contemporary usage of the word reasonable and its derivatives. A
reasonable place to start may be the culturally laden phrase a reasonable man.
4.4. A Reasonable Man

The concept of a reasonable man is one of the most important concepts in British
and British-derived common law. Roughly speaking, a reasonable man is, as a British judge famously put it, the man on the Clapham omnibusthat is, an ordinary
man, a humble commuter, who epitomizes an ordinary persons putatively sound
judgment. A reasonable man is not an intellectual, not a theoretician, and yet he is
seen as someone whose judgment can be trustedperhaps more so than that of a
theoretician, a philosopher, a professional thinker or scholar.
There is of course a linknot only etymological but also semanticbetween
reasonable and reason. But the reason attributed to a reasonable man is not an abstract reason, linked with systematic thought, with sustained logical reasoning, with
an ivory-tower search for knowledge or with hair-splitting speculations. The reason
of a reasonable man is akin to common sense; and the reasonable man himself is
a common man, not a member of any elite.
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The concept of a reasonable man is democratic, as well as pragmatic: it is linked

with the belief that most ordinary people are reasonable people and that their thinking is essentially good and trustworthynot because these ordinary people will always know the truth in some absolute sense, but because in most situations they will
be able to think well enough for practical purposes.
Although the concept of a reasonable man is a vital legal concept, it is not a
purely technical one. If ordinary people like jurors could not understand this concept (via ordinary language), it could not play the role in law that it does. It is a concept that is expected, inter alia, to guide communication between the legal profession
and ordinary people. To make sense to ordinary people, the phrase a reasonable
man (as it is used in law) must be intelligible to an ordinary man.
With these points in mind, let us consider some definitions and explanations
from a standard law textbook, from a section entitled The Reasonable Person:
The standard of care to be expected of a person subject to a duty of care depends
on what a reasonable person would have done about a foreseeable risk of injury. . . .
We need to consider more closely the nature of the prudent and reasonable man
to whom Alderson B referred . . . In English jurisprudence this person has traditionally been described as the man on the Clapham omnibus (the origin of the
phrase attributed to Lord Bowen, 1903). (Luntz, Hambly, and Hayes eds. 1985, 154
155, emphasis added)
Thus, a reasonable man (or person) sets the standard of behavior by which anyones
behavior canand shouldbe judged: this standard is not based on any empirical
studies of most peoples actual behavior, and neither is it based on any opinion polls.
It is a hypothetical standard: the standard of the reasonable person tends to be an
idealized, ethical standard, rather than the behavior of the actual man in the street
(Luntz, Hambly, and Hayes, 1985). The judgment of a reasonable man is fallible,
and reasonable men may disagree with one another. For example:
The law reports in recent times have been filled with accounts of road accident
cases. These illustrate that often the same facts are viewed differently by different
judges concerned to determine culpability. It may seem remarkable that reasonable men should differ so often, and so markedly, as to what would in given circumstances be expected of a reasonable man. But this merely demonstrates that
reasonable prudence is an indefinite criterion of conduct. From this appeals multiply: lawyers flourish. . . . (J. Windeyer in Edwards v. Noble 1971, 125 CLR, in Luntz,
Hambly, and Hayes 1985, 156, emphasis added)
Thus, any knowledge based on the hypothetical judgment of a reasonable man can
only be seen as probabilistic, limited, fallible. It is always open to debate and open to
question. It is never definitive or absolute, and it depends on the circumstances. For
example:
Take a case like Richards v State of Victoria [1969] VR 136 (FC). A schoolboy was
very severely injured when struck a blow in the classroom by a classmate, who was
18 years old, six foot (180 cm) in height and weighed 12 stone (76 kg). One major
issue was whether the teacher should have prevented it. What would the reasonable person have done in the circumstances? It is accepted that in this context the
man on the Clapham omnibus is irrelevant and the question becomes what the
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reasonable schoolteacher would have done. In this case the teacher was male; would
it have made a difference if the teacher had been a woman? The teacher was 25 and
no match physically for either of the boys; can the court take into account the
physique of the particular teacher or is the reasonable teacher assumed to be at least
as big as the pupils? (Luntz, Hambly, and Hayes eds. 1985, 156157, emphasis added)
To say that the concept of a reasonable man (as illustrated in these quotes) plays a
key role in British and British-derived law does not mean that it belongs only to the
language of law and is not used or relied on in ordinary language. On the contrary,
as the corpora such as Cobuild demonstrate, it is also used widely in ordinary Englishand, it appears, essentially in the same sense. For example (from Cobuild):
To have been anything but satisfied would have been highly unreasonable, and
Alistair, for a professor, was a rather reasonable man.
Have no more fear of sleeping with your mother: How many men, in dreams, have
lain with their mothers! No reasonable man is troubled by such things.
. . . the stepfather seemed to take over the role of being the good and reasonable
person in the house.
The history of the collocation reasonable man in English highlights the distance that
separates the modern Anglo concept of reasonable man as a pragmatic standard for
human life and judgment (a paradigmatic modern juror) from the older concept of
reasonable man as a species endowed with reason (an equivalent of the Latin animal rationale). To quote some earlier examples (from OED):
Man is a reasonable two footed beast. (Chaucer, 1374)
Man, a reasonable creature, whose dignity doth come so near the Angels. (1588)
Let your employment be such as may become a reasonable person. (1650)
For man is by nature reasonable. (1791)
The emergence of the modern concept of a reasonable man is causally linked with
the British Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was seen, and saw itself,
as the Age of Reason; reason was clearly a key word and a key ideal of the period.
Isaac Watts proclaimed in the early eighteenth century, Reason is the glory of human nature (quoted in Porter 2000, 48), and this statement was typical of his times.
But the reason cherished by the most influential figures of the British Enlightenment
was not pure reason, the reason of syllogisms, the reason of metaphysics and
aprioristic logic, the reason of Descartess homo rationalis. It was a reason focused
on empirical reality, on facts, on common sense, and on probabilistic thinking,
not expecting absolute certainty in anything.
As in many other areas of modern Anglo culture, a key role must be attributed
here to John Locke. As the British historian Roy Porter put it in his magisterial Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World, Locke was far and away
the key philosopher in this modern mould (2000, 60); his philosophy proved a great
watershed, and he became the presiding spirit of the English Enlightenment
(p. 66). The fact that the word reasonableness appeared in the title of one of Locke s
major works (The Reasonableness of Christianity) is symptomatic in this respect. In
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Lockes book, the word reasonable was not yet used in any of the senses it has now in
either legal or ordinary language; and yet his view of reasonablenesswhich linked
it with mutual toleration (1999, 120) and with diversity (since we cannot reasonably expect that anyone should readily and obsequiously quit his own understanding and embrace ours, Essay, 1959, 372)has left a noticeable imprint on the
subsequent history of the word reasonable. To quote Porter:
In stark contrast to Descartes, Hobbes and the other rationalists, Lockes truth claims
were models of modesty. To the Galileo-idolising Hobbes, reason could range
omnipotent; for Locke, any straying from the empirical straight and narrow led
into mental minefields. While Hobbes proposed proofs modo geometrico, Locke
saw no scope for Euclidian certainty. Man was a limited being, and reason just
sufficient for human purposes. (Porter 2000, 60)
Many passages in Lockes writings show the new, post-Enlightenment meanings of

the word reasonable in statu nascendi:
Locke shared Bacons impatience with scholastic syllogisms which chopped logic
without making any addition to it. Empirical knowledge, by contrast, traded in
honest matters of fact and though limited, could be cumulative and progressive.
(Porter 2000, 63)
Empirical, demonstrable knowledge was only probable knowledge, but it was nonetheless practically useful:
While inevitably lacking the certitude of revelation or intuition, this formed the
main stock of truth available to mortals. Locke agreed with Sydenhaus, Boyle, Newton, and their peers in stressing the limits of mans powers, but that was no insuperable problem: our business here is not to know all things, but those which
concern our conduct. (Porter 2000, 63)
Though demonstrable knowledge, the harvest of experience, could never be more
than probable, it was nevertheless useful and progressive. (p. 65)
Given that the quotes from Locke adduced by Porter read like sketches for a semantic history of the word reasonable, it is not surprising that Porters conclusion about
Lockes impact is framed in precisely such terms:
Alongside his defences of toleration and political liberty Locke thus set the enlightened agenda with his endorsement of the minds progressive capacities. In dismissing Platonic and Cartesian apriorism, in asserting that knowledge was the art of
the probable and in holding that the way forward lay in empirical inquiry, he replaced rationalism with reasonableness in a manner which became programmatic
for the Enlightenment in Britain. (Porter 2000, 66, emphasis added)
The British philosophical tradition that lies behind the folk value of reasonableness
reflected in modern English is, of course, not restricted to Locke alone. It embraces
several different (and often mutually critical) strands, including the seventeenthcentury constructive skepticism of John Wilkins (the founder of the Royal Society), Humes naturalism (which made room for beliefs that are not rationally
justifiable but that nevertheless leave no room for doubt), and the Scottish common sense philosophy of Thomas Reid. (See, e.g., Ferreira 1986; Shapiro 1983, 1991;
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van Leeuwen 1963; Livingston and King, eds., 1976.) But Lockes impact on the general intellectual climate in both Britain and America was by far the greatest.
A key role in the evolution of the word reasonable was undoubtedly played by
the emergence in the eighteenth century of the legal doctrine of beyond reasonable
doubt, which I discuss more fully in section 4.6. In that same section, I comment
on the link between the phrases reasonable doubt and reasonable man as they were
used in Britain and America in the eighteenth century, discuss the meaning of a
reasonable man in eighteenth-century English, and attempt to show that it represented
an intermediate stage between Shakespeares use and twentieth-century use. For the
moment, however, let me try to explicate its contemporary meaning.
a reasonable man (X)
a. sometimes when things happen to a person this person has to think like
this:
b. I want to know what is a good thing to do now
c. when something like this happens to X, X thinks about it like this:
d. I know some things about things like this
e. when I think about these things well I can think like this about something:
f. it will be good if I do this
g. I can say why I think like this
h. if someone else knows the same things about it when they think about
these things well they can think the same about it
i. it is good if someone is like this
j. I dont want to say more
k. I dont want to say: not many people are like this
Components (d) and (e), focused on good thinking grounded in knowledge, relate the
concept reasonable (as used in the collocation a reasonable man) to reason, in the
procedural sense: a reasonable man can think well. But the first two components (a)
and (b) suggest, contrary to appearances, certain limitations on this ability: Xs ability
to think well is not absolute but relative to the subject matter, contingent. Although he
is not a narrow specialist and can think well about many (different) things, X cannot
necessarily think well about everything. He is not a thinker tout court or a person of
outstanding general intelligence; he is simply someone who can think well in a concrete situation, when he needs to know what to do. Hypothetical collocations like a
reasonable teacher, quoted earlier, are not used in modern English in the same sense
as a reasonable man. A reasonable teacher would have to mean a reasonably good teacher.
A phrase like a reasonable boss (or employer) can have also another sense: roughly, a
boss (or employer) who doesnt require too much from his or her subordinates (employees). But the phrase a reasonable man (or person) is differentbecause it links Xs
ability to think well with his experience: his is not necessarily an ability to think well
about abstract problems, or about logic, but an ability to think well in concrete situations, when something happens to him (component c).
Components (b) to (g) link Xs ability to think well with an ability to know what
to do in a given situation (now). The standard set by the reasonable man has to
do with human conduct, not with thinking about the universe or about formal logic.
It also has to do with an ability to think about a particular set of circumstances: X can
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know what to do in a particular situation because X is good at thinking about particular situations.
Component (j) (I dont want to say more) introduces an element of limitation:
the speaker does not want to present X as an intellectual giant, standing head and shoulders above other people. On the contrary, the speaker is keen to portray X as an ordinary person or, rather, to avoid creating an impression that X is necessarily someone
outstanding. Hence component (k): I dont want to say: not many people are like this.
In fact, it is important for the speaker to validate Xs judgment with reference to
other people. Because the speaker does not say that X always thinks well (about all
matters) and because he or she explicitly denies that X is someone outstanding, where
else could the speakers trust in Xs judgment come from? Component (h) suggests
that it comes precisely from the speakers trust in ordinary peoples capacity to arrive
at a sound judgment. But of course there is no guarantee that, having considered the
matter, other people will think the same as X does (about what is a good thing to do
in that particular situation), though they certainly can come to the same conclusion:
(h) if someone else knows the same things, when they think about these things well,
they can think the same.
The overall evaluation (component i) is optimistic: it is good if someone is like
this. The grounds for optimism are limited, for the speaker does not say that X actually knows what is a good thing to do or that other people will necessarily agree. Yet
limited as human knowledge isempirical, probabilistic, prone to errorin most
situations, for most practical purposes, a reasonable man can make a reasonable
judgment, and, from the cultural point of view reflected in the phrase a reasonable
man, this is good.
As a whole, this explication reflects the British empirical tradition with its emphasis on the link between good thinking and experience and on practice rather than
theory; and it also reflects faith in democracy and in the trustworthy (if not infallible)
judgment of ordinary people.1
Let me close this section with a characteristic and telling quote from a pamphlet
entitled The Law and the Reasonable Man published by the British judge Lord
Reid (and originally delivered as a lecture at the British Academy):
We are a democracy and I would say that a large majority of the voters are, as individuals, reasonable men and women. . . . The law departs at its peril from the views
of the reasonable man. He could not give a definition of what he means by justice
and neither can I. But that does not prevent him from saying that particular things
are clearly unjust. We as lawyers and legislators can go far but we cannot afford to
go so far that we offend his sense of justice. We may try to educate our masters, but
we shall do incalculable harm if we try to override the views of the average reasonable man. (Reid 1968, 204205)
4.5. It is Reasonable to Think (Say, Do) . . .

Let us now explore, from a semantic point of view, the common syntactic frame it
is reasonable to, with its modally (and epistemically) qualified variants (examples
from Cobuild):
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it would be reasonable to suppose

it seemed reasonable to assume
it is reasonable to suppose
it was quite reasonable to be worried
it seems reasonable to say
it is reasonable to speculate
it seems reasonable to think
it is reasonable to consider
it is reasonable to ask
it is reasonable to wonder
In legal literature, it appears to be assumed that this sense of reasonable corresponds
closely to that in the phrase a reasonable man (person). Phrases like reasonable
doubt, reasonable fears, and reasonable expectations (as well as reasonable care)
are used in that literature alongside the phrase a reasonable man as if exactly the
same concept were involved in all these cases. In fact, though, this is not so. To
clarify the relations between the different senses, however, we need to consider each
type separately.
Thus, the type linked with the frame it is reasonable to takes verbs that are
predominantly verbs of thinking. Furthermore, it is, characteristically, tentative
thinkingthinking associated with the limitations of a persons knowledge (it is
reasonable to suppose / assume / speculate). The prevalence of the copula seem is
consistent with this uncertainty: it seems good to think like this, but since one doesnt
really know, one prefers to be cautious and tentative. For the same reason, no doubt,
the copula tends to be hedged: not just it is reasonable or even it seems reasonable but often it would be reasonable or it would seem reasonable. The tentativeness characteristic of the prevalent use of the frame it is reasonable to . . . is
also characteristic of the use of reasonable with the corresponding abstract nouns:
a reasonable hypothesis, a reasonable guess, a reasonable judgment.
In addition to verbs of thinking (especially tentative ones), some verbs of speaking or feeling can also occur as complements of the clause it is reasonable to . . .
but only if they can be understood as implying thinkingeither inherently (as in to
worry) or in the given context. For example, one can readily say it is reasonable to
ask why . . . implying that the speaker has thought about the possible reasons or
causes. But a purely factual question does not easily lend itself to such use (e.g., ?it
is reasonable to ask what time it is). Similarly, speech act verbs referring to social
routines such as apologize, greet, or thank are normally not used in the frame in
question (there are no examples like it is reasonable to apologize in the Cobuild
corpus). On the other hand, it would be okay to say it is reasonable to expect an
apology in the circumstances, because expect implies a thinking process.
Sometimes, the frame it is reasonable to . . . can even be combined with a
verb of doingbut again, only on the condition that this doing can be understood
as implying thinking. For example (from Cobuild):
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Such arguments, convincing as they may be, may dictate that its reasonable to
remove life-support systemsin spite of the fact that to do so would be active Euthanasia.
Whilst it is reasonable to take an occasional tablet to relieve them, there is increasing evidence that popping too many aspirin or paracetamol can actually increase
the frequency of headaches to the extent that they occur every day.
What is being described here as reasonable is a physical action but an action that implies thinking (should we continue with this life-support system, or should we remove
it? and should I take a tablet or is it better not to?). Hence, in these sentences, too,
the judgment it is reasonable can be taken to apply to someones thinking.
What does it mean, then, to say that it is reasonable to think like this? Clearly,
it is, first of all, a judgment concerning the compatibility of a given thought with
someones ability to think well: in the speakers opinion, a person who can think well
can think like this. Does this mean that the speaker agrees with the view assessed as
reasonable? Not necessarily. The speaker acknowledges that the view in question
is consistent with an ability to think welland stops there, denying any desire to go
further in supporting that view: I dont want to say more; that is, I dont want to
say: its good to think like this.
And yet the epistemic reserve of the frame it is reasonable to . . . does not
commit the speaker to a position of complete uncertainty and profound lack of confidence. On the contrary, the phrase it is reasonable to think . . . (even when modally
qualified) implies a degree of confidence.
This sense of confidence comes from two sources. First, the speaker (I) has
grounds for the expressed judgmentgrounds that could be made explicit (I can
say why I think like this). Second, my judgment, fallible as it is, but also justifiable
as it is, can, I think, be shared by other peopleif these people consider the matter
carefully (as it is implied I have done).
In Gilbert and Sullivans operetta Trial by Jury, the judge says to the lawyer for
the plaintiff that what the defendant proposes (Ill marry this lady today, and Ill marry
the other tomorrow) seems to be a reasonable proposition with which I think your
client may agree. While the humor turns on the fact that the suggestion is wholly
unreasonable, the reference to expected agreement is as characteristic here as the
verbal caution (seems to be).
These considerations bring us to the following explication:
a reasonable hypothesis (it is reasonable to think that)=
a. I know some things about it
b. when I think about these things well I think that it can be like this
c. I can say why I think like this
d. if someone else knows the same things about it when they think about
e. I dont want to say more
f. I dont want to say: it is like this
If we now compare the explications of the two senses of reasonablethat in a reasonable man (person) and that in it is reasonable to . . .we will see a number of
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differences, as well as a number of links. As for links, they both share references to an
ability to think well and to a possible consensus, and they both express a certain reserve on the part of the speaker (the speaker does not want to go overboard in making a positive assessment). But there are also clear differences.
First of all, the phrase it is reasonable to think does not refer in any way to an
ordinary person: the image of the man on the Clapham omnibus is not there. Although a consensus is still expected, there is no longer an implication that the person who thinks what is being described as reasonable is someone like many other
people.
Second, the phrase it is reasonable to . . . does not seem to be limited to the world
of common human experience: it is not linked necessarily with specific situations
where something happens to someone and could also apply to abstract, theoretical
thinking, as in the following examples from the OED:
It is reasonable to attribute these changes to the high dose of radiation delivered to
the host-animal . . . (1956)
It is reasonable to expect the biochemical variability of the parasite to be statistically correlated with other features. (1988)
It is reasonable to fix the real change from pre-human to human social life by reference to the beginning of language. (1958)
Thirdand this is obviously a related pointthe phrase it is reasonable to . . . does

not imply, specifically, an ability to know what to do. Examples like it is reasonable
to remove the life-support system are, of course, consistent with such an implication, but a sentence like it is reasonable to assume/think can also be used in theoretical discussions; it does not seem related, specifically, to the practical world and
to a specific set of circumstances in the way a reasonable man (or person) is.
Fourth (and this is also a related point), the phrase it is reasonable to . . . appears
to be linked semantically with reasons: if I say that it is reasonable to think like this,
I seem to be implying that I could state the reasons for thinking like this (I can say
why). On the other hand, the reasonable man on the Clapham omnibus is not
necessarily expected to be able to state the reasons for his judgment. Thus, the component I can say why, assigned to it is reasonable to . . . , has not been assigned to
a reasonable man (person).
It is particularly interesting to note that this use of reasonable as an epistemic
hedge (diminisher, downtoner) appears to be a relatively recent development in
English and that 100 or 150 years ago a phrase like reasonable assumption did not
imply the reserved noncommitment that it does now. Examples like the following
one (from the OED) can be misleading in this regard:
. . . the reasonable assumption would be that this bullet would range a greater distance if projected at the same velocity. (1877)
If reasonable as used here included the component I dont want to say more then
it could hardly be used in the following sentence (also from the OED):
The conviction would be reasonable, for it would be based upon universal experience. (1877)
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In contemporary English, convictions can hardly be described as reasonable

presumably because they are not compatible with the component I dont want to
say more, which in the course of the last century and a half became incorporated in
the words very meaning. (I return to this point in section 4.6.)
All in all, the phrase it is reasonable to . . . appears to belong to the world of
epistemic modifiers characteristic of modern Anglo discourse. As I have argued, this
world, too, has its roots in the intellectual climate that can be traced, inter alia, to
John Lockes Essay on Human Understanding.
Both rational and reasonable have their starting point in the concept of reason, but two centuries ago (if not earlier), their paths parted, and reasonable went
its own way. One of the sentences cited in the Cobuild corpus reads: Are these assumptions reasonable, rational? In this context, the two adjectives are brought together (without and) as if they were near-synonyms. In fact, however, their meanings
are substantially different, as highlighted by another example from Cobuild:
The retreat from reality, like neurosis, met a real psychic need, Dwight wrote. . . .
Irrational modes of thought were increasing. . . .
Modes of thinking can be described as rational or irrational but not as reasonable

or unreasonable, because, first, the assessment reasonable applies always to a particular thought, not to some mode of thinking in general, and, second, because reasonable refers inherently to a potential discussion or debate with other people and
implies an expectation that if they considered the matter, they could think the same.
By contrast, rational has nothing to do with other people and refers precisely to
a way of thinking rather than to a particular (and not recurring) thought. Thus, we
can have irrational fears (implying an irrational way of thinking) but not ?an irrational assumption or ?an irrational guess; we can also say it is reasonable to suppose but
not ?it is rational to suppose: a single act of thinking (supposing, guessing) is not a
sufficient basis for identifying and judging a way of thinking.
Without attempting full explications, I would propose the following as a starting point (the arrow indicates a partial explication):
irrational fears =>
when someone thinks like this, this someone is not thinking well
when someone is thinking well, this someone cannot think like this
As we have seen, the explication of reasonable (in the meaning under discussion)
includes quite different additional components suggestive of intellectual restraint (I
dont want to say more), a perceived need for evidence (I can say why I think like
this), and an interest in other peoples judgment (I think that other people can think
the same).
The distinction between the concepts rational and reasonable has often been
discussed in philosophical literature. A good example is of such discussion is Sibleys
(1953) article The Rational versus the Reasonable, which, as Rawls (2001, 7) puts
it, connects the distinction closely with the idea of cooperation among equals and
is of central importance in understanding the structure of justice as fairness. I believe that such philosophical discussions would benefit from careful semantic analy-
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sis of the word reasonable in all its different though interrelated meanings. We will
come back to this point in section 4.10.
4.6. Reasonable Doubt

The momentous phrase beyond reasonable doubt entered the English language some
time in the seventeenth century (see van Leeuwen 1963, Shapiro 1983)2 and became
well established in the eighteenth century. As noted by Morano in his important paper
A Reexamination of the Reasonable Doubt Rule (1975), it was used in the Boston
Massacre trials of 1770, where the prosecution appealed to the jurys Cool and Candid
Reason, telling them that if the Evidence is not sufficient to Convince beyond
reasonable Doubt, the accused must be acquitted. At the same trials, a judge instructed the jury in the following words: If upon the whole ye are in any reasonable
doubt of their guilt, ye must then, agreeable to the rule of the law, declare them innocent (Shapiro 1991, 22).
The phrase any rational doubt was also used in other late-eighteenth-century
trials, for example, in the so-called Irish trials of 1795, as was also the phrase rational
men. But eventually, the language of reasonable doubt replaced that of rational doubt,
and it was often linked with the phrase reasonable men.
Thus, in the Trial of Weldon (1795), the judge indicated that if the jury had any
rational doubt in their minds, they must acquit. Another judge said that if the jury
felt such a doubt as reasonable men entertain, they had to acquit. In another trial
of the same year (Trial of Leary), the judge told the jury that they must acquit . . . if
you should have any doubt, such as reasonable men may entertain; and in the Trial
of Glenman (1796), the judge used jointly the following formulations: if you have a
reasonable doubt and you are rational men (Shapiro 1991, 23).
Thus, both rational and reasonable were used at the time, in similar contexts,
and two centuries later, the two words are still used interchangeably in some scholarly commentaries on the history of the notion of reasonable doubt in Britain and
America. In fact, however, the two words did not mean the same, and, as Porter (2000)
notes in his book on the British Enlightenment, the victory of reasonable over rational was highly significant. I would add that no less significant were the changes in
the meaning of the word reasonable itself, and I will argue that the phrase beyond
reasonable doubt has also changed in meaning, and that due to its continuous use
over more than two centuries, this fact has largely gone unnoticed.
What was the difference in meaning between the two phrases rational men
and reasonable men, as used, for example, in late-eighteenth-century instructions
to jurors? Roughly speaking, it appears that the phrase reasonable men limited
the expected good thinking to the domain of a persons experience and at the
same time implied confidence in that experience as a possible source of practical
wisdom (or prudence). To quote Morano, the concept of the reasonable man
whose conduct was the standard against which allegedly negligent actions would
be judgeddeveloped during the eighteenth century . . . the concept of the
reasonable man of ordinary prudence was first mentioned in a 1738 English case
(1975, 514).
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Thus, when the model of a reasonable man was set before the eighteenth-century jurors, I would hypothesize that it was understood along the lines of the following formula:
a reasonable man (eighteenth century) =
a. when this person wants to know what is good to think about something
this person thinks about it like this:
b. I know some things about it
c. I want to think about these things well
d. I want to know what I can think because of these things
e. because this person thinks like this this person can know many things
f. it is good if someone is like this
g. not everyone can be like this
As this explication shows, the eighteenth-century model of a reasonable man was
closely related to reason, and it was not restricted to concrete situations, personal
experience, and the need to know what to do. Rather, it was concerned with knowing what to think and how to arrive at new knowledge on the basis of thinking well
about what one already knows. Furthermore, that model of a reasonable man did
not yet necessarily include the assumption that a reasonable man was an ordinary
person (the average commuter on the Clapham omnibus). Accordingly, instead of
the last two components of the explication given in section 4.4 (I dont want to say
more, I dont want to say: not many people are like this) this explication includes
an elitist component, not everyone can be like this.
In the new jury system that developed during the eighteenth century, jurors sit
as fact evaluators who assess both the direct testimony of eyewitnesses and indirect
circumstantial evidence. The beyond reasonable doubt doctrine evolved as judges
came to inform jurors that they must evaluate the testimony of witnesses (Shapiro
1991, 244). To evaluate the testimony of witnesses and the circumstantial evidence
means to think well about what one hears and what one sees, and to draw from this
appropriate conclusions.
From their evaluations, jurors were expected to draw inferences. Because they
were no longer (as in earlier centuries) important local men who presumably would
possess the requisite local knowledge (p. 244) but rather evaluators of evidence, jurors by that time could make little claim to independent knowledge, that is, to knowledge brought to, rather than gained in, the courtroom (p. 244). The knowledge gained
by the jurors in the courtroom was limited; and it had to rely, to a large extent on
their judgment.
In the older jury system, jurors had to rely, above all, on their conscience and
personal beliefs. For example, Shapiro (1991, 260) notes: in the Trial of Sir Thomas
More (1535) jurors were told that the decision about witness credibility rested on the
conscience and discretion of the jury. . . . More was informed by the judge that the
jury had found him Guilty in their Conscience.3 In the new system, which developed in the eighteenth century, jurors were no longer seen as good men and true
(as Shakespeare puts it in Much Ado about Nothing), that is, as people who could
rely on their own knowledge and conscience. Instead, they were people who had to
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rely on the careful, critical, and conscientious consideration of evidence. To quote

Shapiro again:
The language of satisfied conscience conceivably might have been useful even
when jurors thought of themselves as self-informing, but the beyond reasonable
doubt language suggests a standard to be attained after a rational consideration of
evidence. . . . Armed with the formula beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral
certainty and a circumstantial evidence doctrine to replace the self-knowledge
that had itself replaced Gods knowledge, the criminal trial jury thus could maintain its role as the central actor and legitimator of the Anglo-American justice system. (Shapiro 1991, 245)
It is widely accepted that the legal principle of beyond reasonable doubt is closely
linked with the philosophical ideas that developed in England at the end of the seventeenth century (in particular, but of course not only, Lockes ideas). Morano puts
it as follows:
The philosophical origins of the reasonable doubt rule can be traced to late seventeenth century England. During that period, a group of English philosophers
including John Wilkins, Robert Boyle, Joseph Glanville and John Lockerejected
the prevailing doctrine that equated moral certainty with absolute certainty. This
group argued that one could not be absolutely certain of anything and that the
concept of moral certainty could not demand such a high degree of proof. Instead,
moral certainty required only that one have no reasonable doubts about ones
beliefs. (Morano 1975, 513)
As Shapiro (1991) documents, from Sir Geoffrey Gilberts authoritative Law of Evidence (1770) onward, the development of the beyond reasonable doubt principle was
linked in particular with Lockean empirical philosophy and with Lockes conception of degrees of probability. Justified in these terms, this principle provided a secular moral standard on which, it was felt, law could be based in the Age of Reason. It
was also a concept that by the late eighteenth century had reached the educated
public, first in Britain and later in America, and become part and parcel of public
discourseand of the modern English language.
Given how entrenched the concept has become in Englishnot only in the legal
system and in philosophical discussions but also in popular thinkingit is important to recognize that the meaning of the phrase beyond reasonable doubt has changed
by imperceptible stages in the course of the last two centuries.
At the time when the phrase beyond reasonable doubt entered the English language, the word reasonable did not mean exactly the same as it does today. As noted
earlier, today reasonable readily combines with verbs and nouns implying an absence
of conviction (e.g., it is reasonable to suppose / assume / wonder / fear / speculate /
hypothesize, etc.), and older collocations like reasonable conviction sound odd today
precisely because they are not compatible with an absence of conviction, a noncommittal implied today by the word reasonable. But when at the end of the seventeenth
century John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, argued: The laws of God are reasonable, that is, suitable to our nature and advantageous to our interest (quoted in
120
Porter 2000, 3), he was clearly indicating conviction, not a lack of convictionand
the sentence sounds odd today.
At the end of the eighteenth century, when the phrase reasonable doubt took
root in the English language, and the doctrine of beyond reasonable doubt, in Anglo/
American law, phrases like reasonable conviction or reasonable belief were still common, as was indeed the phrase reasonable certaintynot in the modern sense of Im
reasonably certain, that is, not quite certain, but on the contrary, in the sense of
quite certain. To quote a legal document from as late as the mid-nineteenth century (quoted in Shapiro 1991, 24): the evidence must establish to a reasonable and
moral certainty; a certainty that convinces and directs the understanding and satisfies the reason and judgment. . . . This we take to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
As pointed out by Morano (1975), the beyond reasonable doubt test was originally introduced by the prosecution, and it was actually designed to provide less protection to the accused than the earlier any doubt test, which did not require that
doubts be reasonable.
The reasonable doubt rule had the effect of reducing the prosecutors burden of
proof in criminal trials. . . . It informed the jurors that they needed to be persuaded
only beyond reasonable doubtnot beyond any doubt. . . . the rule helped reduce
the potential for irrational acquittals and to that extent operated to the prosecutions
advantage. (Morano 1975, 515)
In the first half of the eighteenth century, that is, before the reasonable doubt rule
was adopted, the jurors personal belief and satisfaction (as well as conscience)
were seen as the decisive factors. A guilty verdict was appropriate if the jurors believed, an acquittal if they were not satisfied (Shapiro 1991, 20). In the second half
of the century, judges still made appeals to the jurors belief (most cases . . . still
exhibited the familiar formulas emphasizing belief p. 20). Although the words mind,
understanding, and judgment started to be used more frequently than belief and conscience, the new language of understanding and judgment did not imply that
rational arguments were to replace personal belief. As one judge put it, the understandings of the jury must be absolutely coerced to believe(Shapiro 1991, 20).
Thus, the shift from any doubt to any reasonable doubt did not mean that
the requirement of subjective personal conviction was to be replaced with objective
rational arguments (reasons) but rather that it was to be supplemented in this way.
Reasonable doubt implied reasonable belief and not merely a tenable line of argument, as it might today.
Moranos reexamination of the reasonable doubt rule is consistent with the semantic observations made here. In present-day English, the phrase beyond reasonable doubt suggests a doubt that can be weak and hypothetical, and it implies that
even a weak and hypothetical doubt should be able to be rejected (before the verdict
guilty can be reached); it provides more protection for the accused, not less. By contrast, at a time when a reasonable doubt could be taken to refer to strong personally
held doubt, the proviso could have indeed worked against the interests of the accused:
it implied that even a strong personally held doubt (with respect to the prosecutions
case) was not sufficient, that reasons were needed as well.
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Reasonable doubt was initially expected to be serious and substantial, as well

as real (that is, actually held). As a judge put it to the jurors in the 1798 American
trial of Matthew Lyon, you must be satisfied beyond all reasonable substantial doubt
that the hypothesis of innocence is unsustainable (Shapiro 1991, 24). Half a century
later, in the Commonwealth v. Harman trial in Pennsylvania, the court defined reasonable doubt as serious and substantialnot the mere possibility of a doubt
(Morano 1975, 522). But in twentieth-century usage, reasonable doubt is no longer
understood as necessarily serious and substantial.
For example, in the legal thriller entitled Beyond Reasonable Doubt, the author,
a practicing attorney, has his lawyer for the defense address the jurors as follows:
When its over, you take the prosecutions claim, and you take the evidence, and
you ask yourself, Do I have any doubt that this happened exactly the way the prosecutor said it did? And if you have any doubt, then you have to acquit Jennifer
Ryan. Not a big doubt. Just a reasonable doubt.
The judge is going to tell you about that, too. Hell tell you a reasonable doubt
is any doubt you can assign a reason to. That doesnt mean a detailed reason like
a specific theory of how the crime happened or who did it. It means any reason
you might have, to doubt any part of what the prosecution is telling you. To doubt
the elements that make up his case, or to doubt the conclusion he wants you to
reach. Any reasonable doubt at all. (Friedman 1990, 481)
It is striking how close Friedmans reasonable doubt comes to any doubtat least
any doubt for which some logically defensible reason can be offered:
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not proof beyond any doubt or proof beyond
the shadow of a doubt. A doubt is reasonable if it is a doubt for which a reason can
be given, a doubt which a reasonable person would have, acting in a matter of this
importance. (Friedman 1990, 506)
The claim that a reasonable doubt is a doubt which a reasonable person would have
comes, I believe, from the earlier legal tradition, but the assertion that a doubt is
reasonable if it is a doubt for which a reason can be given does capture a real component in the present-day meaning of the phrase a reasonable doubt. In fact, it is one
of the components that would distinguish the meaning of this phrase from that of
the phrase a reasonable man: as mentioned earlier, a reasonable man does not need
to be able to say why he thinks what he does; an intuitive sound judgment (as to what
ought to be done in a given situation) may be sufficient for a reasonable man.4 But
an intuitive doubt would not be sufficient to qualify as reasonable doubt: it must indeed
be a doubt for which a reason can be given.
In eighteenth-century usage, the principle of beyond reasonable doubt was also
linked with statable reasons but was not limited to them; rather, it was still linked
with the notions of conscience and moral certainty. For example, in the 1796 (Irish)
Trial of Glennan, the judge told the jury that they should acquit if you have a reasonable doubt, not such as the idle or fanciful may take upon remote probabilities,
but such as cannot satisfy your judgment upon your oath. . . . You are rational men
and will determine according to your consciences, whether you believe these men
guilty or not. As Shapiro, who quotes this passage, comments, here the languages
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of belief, the satisfied conscience, and beyond reasonable doubt are all linked together (1991, 23).
It is worth pointing out in this context that in eighteenth-century trials the phrase
reasonable doubt was often linked syntactically with someones (a jurors) personal
belief: the question was not whether there is a reasonable doubt but whether you
have a reasonable doubt (or if you are in any reasonable doubt). Today, the phrase
if you have a reasonable doubt sounds a little odd.
As noted by Shapiro, by the late eighteenth century the concepts of moral certainty and reasonable doubt were tightly linked in philosophical literature, in legal
treatises, and in legal discussions designed to reach the educated public (1991, 29).
Indeed, Shapiro suggests that moral certainty and beyond reasonable doubt were
originally viewed as synonymous (p. 274). In twentieth-century usage, however, reasonable doubt is not intimately linked to the jurors personal convictions, the question is whether a reasonable case can be made, not whether the jurors have any
subjective moral certainty as to the truth of the matter. The change in the grammatical frame, from a personal to an impersonal one, reflects this change in the
understanding of reasonable doubt. Roughly, this change can be portrayed as follows:
(I have) a reasonable doubt (eighteenth century)
b. when I think about these things well I think that maybe it is not like this
c. I think that it is good to think like this
d. I can say why I think like this
e. if someone else knows the same things about it when they think about
(there is) a reasonable doubt . . . (twentiethtwenty-first centuries)
b. when I think about these things well I think that maybe it is not like this
c. __________
d. I can say why I think like this
e. if someone else knows the same things about it when they think about
f. I dont want to say more
g. I dont want to say: I know that it is not like this
Thus, I am suggesting that in present-day usage reasonable doubt is understood along
the same lines as a reasonable assumption or a reasonable hypothesisthat is, as
something for which tenable reasons can be offered, not something that one feels
necessarily committed to.
Fernndez-Armestos (1998, 165) phrase the death of conviction, used as a
characterization of our times, may be somewhat hyperbolic, but the fact that the words
conviction and reasonable have ceased to be combinable is noteworthy. They were
certainly combinable when John Locke was writing his Reasonableness of Christianity
and when the phrase reasonable doubt became established in the English language.
For Locke, reasonableness was consistent with both tolerance (toleration) and
conviction: tolerance for other peoples opinions, belief in ones own.
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To recapitulate, the meaning of the word reasonable has changed. As a result,

the meaning of the phrase beyond reasonable doubt has also changed, roughly speaking, from a belief consistent with reason and sincerely held, to a supposition consistent with reason and put forward as a logical possibility, but because this phrase
was continually used for over two centuries and became entrenched in Anglo/American law as well as in ordinary language, and because the older meaning of reasonable is no longer known to most speakers, the change has, generally speaking, gone
unnoticed.
4.7. Reasonable Force and Reasonable Care

Reasonable force seems to be related to the notions of a reasonable assessment or a
reasonable estimate. If a person is said to have used reasonable force, this appears to
mean that it is reasonable to think that under the circumstances that person had to
use that much force. Some examples from Cobuild:
By my understanding, it is okay to use reasonable force to protect life and property
though no one is exactly sure what is meant by reasonable force.
When I asked a police officer to define reasonable force he said it depended on
circumstance.
The main thing to remember is to use only reasonable force.
At present, the law allows for a person to use reasonable force in defence of himself or his property.
The Law Society said: People are entitled to use reasonable force. But their actions must be proportionate to the threat against them.
Mr Grant was detained while officers considered if he had used reasonable force
for a valid citizens arrest.
The law also recognizes that people cannot make decisions about what is reasonable force when they are being attacked.
British parents can use reasonable force to discipline their children.
Who decides whether the force applied in a given situation was reasonable? If we
accept that the verdict should take into account the defendants perspective as well
as that of other people, we can propose an explication along the following lines:
(when X did it) X used reasonable force. =
a. when X did it, X knew some things about it
b. when X thought about these things well, X could have thought like this:
c. this person is doing something now
d. something very bad can happen because of this
e. it will not happen if I do something to this persons body
f. I know that if I do it something bad can happen to this person
g. because of this I cant not do it
h. I have to do it
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i. I dont want to do more

j. I can say why X could have thought like this
k. if someone else knew the same things about it
when they thought about these things well
they could have thought the same about it
[because of this they could have done the same]
For example, if some parents are using reasonable force in disciplining their child,
their actions must be consistent with the following mental scenarios: (c.) This child
is doing something now, (d.) this can be dangerous (something very bad can
happen because of this), (e.) this very bad thing will not happen if I restrain the
child, (f.) if I restrain the child something bad can happen to the childs body,
(g.) I cant not do it because of this, (h.) I have to do it, (i.) I dont want to do
more. Thus, these parents actions are seen as consistent with careful consideration
of the matter and a desire to be moderate and to avoid excessive force.
The prominence of the body in this explication is of course due, partly, to the
word force. The phrase reasonable force, which plays an important role in Anglo/
American law, has a meaning of its own that cannot be fully derived from the meanings of its parts, but is clearly related to them and built on them.
The same applies to another important legal concept, that of reasonable care,
which is also focused prominently on the human body.
First some examples from Cobuild:
todays juries are broadening in a dramatic way the legal notion of reasonable care
as it relates to health and safety precautionary practices.
these training steps must be in place to legally demonstrate [that] reasonable care
has been taken in providing for patrons health and safety.
judged by proper professional standards in the light of the objective facts about
the individual patients the dental treatments criticised as unnecessary [were] treatments that no dentist of reasonable skill exercising reasonable care would carry
out
Again, if we assume that the judgment as to whether the person involved did or did
not take reasonable care should take two perspectives into account (a subjective as
well as an objective one), we can propose the following explication:
X took reasonable care (in doing it) =
a. X knew some things about it
b. when X thought about these things well X could have thought like this:
c. I have to so some good things for this person for some time
d. during this time I dont want something bad to happen to this persons
body
e. something is happening to this person now
f. I know that if I dont do something now
something very bad can happen to this persons body
g. because of this I have to do it
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h. I dont have to do more

i. I can say why X could have thought like this
j. if someone else knew the same things about it
when they thought about these things well
they could have thought the same about it
[because of this they could have done the same]
The phrase reasonable care is also sometimes used in relation to physical objects (other
than peoples bodies), as in the following example from Cobuild:
Under the Supply of Goods and Services Act, the dry cleaners had a duty to take
reasonable care of your trousers while they were in their possession.
With minimal changes, the explication previously proposed would apply to such uses
of reasonable care, too (except, of course, for the references to a persons body).
4.8. A Reasonable Time, A Reasonable Amount

In the Cobuild corpus, by far the most common collocation linking the word reasonable with a noun (apart from reasonable prices, which I discuss in section 4.10) is
a reasonable time, and the next one, a reasonable amount. To understand the meaning of these collocations, we need to consider them in context. Here are some characteristic examples (also with period):
And we expected wed all be home within a reasonable time.
In addition the Act stated that all contracts for the supply of a service should be
carried out in a reasonable time to a reasonable standard and at a reasonable price
if one had not been previously agreed.
Any skin problem that does not go away within a reasonable period of time or recurs requires an experts evaluation and diagnosis.
Testosterone is a naturally occurring hormone in men and women and an explanation is required for why this ratio was high and Diane Modahl must be given
reasonable time to do this.
Such a dismissal must be for some specific reason, e.g. theft, damage to machinery or persistent absenteeism, and the employee must receive a reasonable period
of notice before the dismissal occurs.
Since Autumn was supposed to be a stranger in town, she had to avoid Ella and
her family until she had lived there a reasonable length of time.
Clearly, in all these examples the expression a reasonable time refers to duration
(rather than to a particular point in time). Is this duration relatively long or relatively
short? Paradoxically, in some cases, it seems to mean reasonably short and in others, reasonably long. Thus, if something is to be done in or within a reasonable
time, this means reasonably short, whereas if it is to be done for a reasonable time,
this is more likely to be understood as reasonably long (with verbs like to give and to
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receive being usually also interpreted as implying fairly long). But whether a reasonable time is interpreted as a reasonably long time or a reasonably short time, the
duration in question is evaluated as satisfactory: if possible, the speaker is willing to
be satisfied (I want to say: this is good). This brings us to the following explication:
(for, in, within) a reasonable time =
b. when I think about these things well I think about it like this:
it was a good time
d. if someone else knows the same things about it when they think about
f. I dont want to say: very good
The cultural concerns reflected in this explication are very striking. First, the speaker
is weighing his or her words very carefully: this is a guarded, reflective, cautious way
of speaking (I think I can say this, I dont want to say that). Second, the speaker
wants to avoid exaggeration: special store is set by not saying more than what is justified (I dont want to say more) and, consequently, by avoiding the word very, or
not using it lightly (I dont want to say: very). Third, there is an aspiration to good
thinking (if someone can think well . . .). Fourth, there is a willingness to say that
one is satisfied, even if to do so one has to compromise (it was a good [amount of]
time).
We will see the same cultural concerns in another (clearly related) use of reasonable, in which it means, essentially, reasonably good. Before turning to that
use, however, we need to consider briefly the implications of another related
usage, as in the phrase a reasonable amount. Comparing this phrase with a reasonable time, we note that while the latter is open to two interpretations (reasonably long or reasonably short), a reasonable amount seems to have only one
interpretation:
a reasonable amount =
it is a good amount
d. if someone else knows the same things about it
when they think about these things well they can think the same about it
The collocation a reasonable amount would tend to be interpreted not only as a
desirable amount but also as a rather large amount. Given an appropriate context,
reasonable can also refer to desirably small amounts, but without context, the normal interpretation would be a reasonably large amount. Presumably, this effect is
due to the component I dont want to say more, which can be interpreted as restricting the amount as such, rather than indicating that it is less than ideal.
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4.9. Reasonable as Reasonably Good

Lets consider the following sentences from Cobuild:
I am a reasonable left-handed player, with a good short game.
The pacey wing, who also enjoyed a reasonable afternoon as goalkicker, rattled up
19 points with flanker Markus Van Greunen the other tryscorer.
1986 was a reasonable year and the picturesque Erden village had produced a stylish wine from late harvested grapes.
Clearly, a reasonable left-handed player does not mean a reasonable person: reasonable means here, roughly, reasonably good. A judgment is involved in all these
examples, but it is the speakers judgment, and it is a judgment concerning positive
evaluation.
If we compare the meaning of a reasonable year with collocations like reasonable force, reasonable amount, reasonable doubt, or a reasonable goal (diverse as the
latter are), it will be clear that it differs from them all. The word reasonable always
seems to carry with it some reference to a positive evaluation, but this evaluation does
not always fit in the same way in the semantic structure of different phrases. For
example, reasonable force is not exactly a good force or a reasonable doubt, a good
doubt. A reasonable year, on the other hand, is (all things considered) a good year.
I would propose the following explication for reasonable in this sense:
reasonable year / location / attendance / health etc =
b. when I think about these things well I think about it like this: it is good
d. if someone else can knows the same things about it
when they think about these things well they can think the same about it
In most respects, this explication is parallel to those of a reasonable time and a reasonable amount. Here, too, the speakers attitude is guarded, cautious, deliberately restrained. Here, too, the speaker is weighing the words carefully and avoiding what could
be seen as exaggeration (very). Here, too, the speaker uses the model of a hypothetical person who can think well, and here, too, the tone is somewhat worldly wise: not
only the words but also the expectations and requirements are consciously limited.
And yet there does seem to be one respect in which the semantic structure of
reasonably good diverges from that of a reasonable time or a reasonable amount. In
the latter two, the speaker is willing to see the situation in a positive light (I want to
say: this is good). In the case of phrases that amount to reasonably good, this is
also the case. At the same time, however, there seems to be an implication that the
speaker is consciously choosing to be satisfied with something that is less than very
good and, moreover, that the attitude displayed in this way is part of the meaning
of the expression reasonably good itself, as well as of all the other collocations with
reasonable where reasonable can be understood as standing for reasonably good.
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Arguably, the idea that it is good, and wise, not to want or expect too much was
linked with the philosophy of reasonableness from its inception. When Locke asserted that the limited certainty that can be derived from empirical knowledge is
sufficient for ordinary purposes, he was effectively advocating this very attitude.
I have already quoted Porters (2000, 60) observation that Lockes truth claims
were models of modesty. . . . Man was a limited being, and reason just sufficient for
human purposes. But although it was only just sufficient, it was nonetheless sufficient.
In fact, for Locke the awareness that human knowledge was only probable knowledge
and that human access to truth was limited was not necessarily a bad thing, for it provided a protection against dogmatic thinking and intolerance. Thus, his ideal of reasonableness went hand in hand with his ideal of toleration (those who have not
thoroughly examined to the bottom of their own tenets . . . are unreasonable in imposing that as truth on other mens belief which they themselves had not searched into;
Locke 1959, 374). It was reasonable not to want and expect too much in ones quest
for truth and knowledge, and it was reasonable to be satisfied with that which can be
reached. The aura of wise and contented self-limitation became associated, in one way
or another, with most, perhaps all, the uses of the word reasonable. To recall a characteristic example from the Cobuild corpus, quoted earlier:
To have been anything but satisfied would have been highly unreasonable, and
Alistair, for a professor, was a rather reasonable man.
In the collocations reasonably good and reasonably well and also in reasonable used
as a substitute for reasonably good, this philosophy of a wise and contented limitation of expectations and desires appears to have become explicitly encoded in the
semantic structure, hence the last component (e) of the explication: I dont want to
think that if I dont want to say very good I cant say good.
Finally, it should be pointed out that reasonable in the sense of reasonably good
can be used when the speaker thinks that something is very goodas a tool of culturally valued understatement. (The sentence I am a reasonable left-handed player
may be a case in point.) The lists of English diminishers and downtoners given in
Quirk et al.s (1972, 452) A Grammar of Contemporary English or in Hueblers (1983,
73) Understatements and Hedges in English do not include reasonable and reasonably, but these two words are both widely used in that function alongside rather, fairly,
enough, pretty, quite, basically, and so on. In fact, given their etymological and semantic links with reason and their connotations of careful, sustained, dispassionate thinking, they can be seen as particularly effective as devices used for the purposes
of understatement. At the same time, their use for understatement is related to their
use for other endsincluding those to be discussed in the next section.
4.10. Reasonable and Unreasonable

Some of the most common collocations with the word reasonable include words like
fees, charges, rates, interest, rent, and, above all, price(s), that is, collocations pointing
to moderation in demands for payment. For example, a reasonable price suggests
that, roughly speaking, the sellers do not want too much money for their merchandise.
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The idea of not wanting too much (from another person) applies also to many
other collocations, including, for example, reasonable request. (To quote Phyllis from
Gilbert and Sullivans Iolanthe, No. Youre quite rightits asking too much. One
must be reasonable.) More generally, it also applies to reasonable used by itself when
it is used as a predicate and when it refers to people. In particular, being reasonablewith the implication of not wanting too muchtends to occur in the imperative and in exhortations:
Be reasonable!
Lets be reasonable!
Characteristically, this sense of reasonable is linked with the presence of an opposite, unreasonable. There are reasonable prices (fees) and there are also unreasonable prices (fees), and a person can be described as either reasonable or
unreasonable:
You are being unreasonable.
Dont be unreasonable.
Sentences appealing to the addressee to be reasonable (of which there are very many
examples in the Cobuild corpus) point to a particularly interesting feature of this
sense of the word: its inherent reference to wanting someone else to do something.
The relation between a seller and a buyer, or between a provider of a service
and a client, gives us a good clue to the meaning of reasonable that we are now discussing. If ones price is not reasonable, one is not simply being greedy but may
also be acting against reasonand thus against ones own interest. This element
of enlightened self-interest, often linked with the use of reasonable, is clearly visible
in the following dialogue between Sherlock Holmes and a criminal count:
Thats the hand I play from, said Holmes. I put it all upon the table. But one
card is missing. Its the king of diamonds. I dont know where the stone is.
You never shall.
No? Now, be reasonable, Count. Consider the situation. You are going to
be locked up for twenty years. So is Sam Merton. What good are you going to get
out of your diamond? None in the world. But if you hand it overwell, Ill compound a felony. We dont want you or Sam. We want the stone. Give that up, and
so far as I am concerned you can go free so long as you behave yourself in the future. (www.online-literature.com)
Collocations like reasonable price have been around for a long time, but their meaning has, I would suggest, subtly changed. To take an example from Benjamin
Franklins Autobiography (OED):
All forage is to be taken for the use of the army and a reasonable price to be paid
for the same. (1755)
Reasonable does not have here the implications that it would in a similar context
today: it does not include the point of view of the other party. The same applies to
the following example (also from OED) from a later period:
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They were determined to prosecute . . . unless a reasonable sum were forthcoming, and . . . by a reasonable sum was meant seven thousand pounds. (1849)
From todays perspective, the rigidity of the requirement (seven thousand pounds)
sounds somewhat incongruous in combination with the word reasonable, which has
come to imply something like a willingness to take some account of the other partys
wants and interests.
The difference between a reasonable request (or reasonable price) and, say, a
reasonable location (or reasonable results) may seem to be contextual rather than
semantic, as they both appear to be consistent with the idea of not wanting too much.
For example, a reasonable location may not be a very good location, but it could
be unreasonable to want more (i.e., an even better one).
Yet although the two meanings are closely related, they cannot be reduced to
one semantic formula without a loss: a reasonable location (or attendance) is a reasonably good location (or attendance), whereas a reasonable fee, a reasonable charge,
or a reasonable rent could not be described as reasonably good. Nor could a reasonable request be regarded as in any sense a good request. Furthermore, as pointed
out earlier, one can hardly speak of an unreasonable location or unreasonable attendance, whereas one can certainly speak of an unreasonable request.
I conclude, then, that reasonable as in a reasonable request/ price/ fee, and so on
is a distinct meaning of the word, linked in a special way with human interaction
and also that it is the same meaning we find in the predicative use of the word in
sentences about people (as in be reasonable!).
an unreasonable request =
[X wants Y to do Z]
c. it is not bad if X wants Y to do some things
d. it is bad if X wants Y to do more
e. X wants Y to do more
f. this is bad
g. I can say why I think like this
h. if someone else knows the same things about it
when they think about these things well
they can think the same about it
Reasonable can be explicated in exactly the same way, except that (e) will be negated
and in (f) bad will be replaced withgood.
A reasonable request has to be persuasive to the addressee: the addressee has
to come to think that it would be good to follow it and to be willing to do so. From
the point of view of the ethos reflected in this meaning of reasonable, if one stays
within these limits, it is not bad to want other people to do some things; it is bad,
however, to go beyond these limitsto want other people to do more than what they
can be persuaded to do. What these limits are, in a given situation, is something that
all people who can think well can be expected to agree on.
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The ethos that opposes reasonable interpersonal behavior to what is unreasonable can be stated in terms of an Anglo cultural scripta script that stigmatizes unreasonable demands on, and expectations of, other people:
A cultural script associated with unreasonable demands and expectations
it is not bad if a person wants another person to do something
if this other person can think about it like this:
I know why this person wants me to do it
it will be good if I do it
I want to do it because of this
it is bad if a person wants another person to do more
If the explications proposed here (together with the associated cultural script) are
right, they would explain why reasonable tends to co-occur with fair, as in the following examples (from Cobuild):
The second requirement is that the judge should be seen to be even-handed, fair
and reasonable.
There are others with fair and reasonable claims to the job.
Yesterday UCL said the decision to increase rent was fair and reasonable.
We believe we are being fair and reasonable to all parties.
They would also explain why reasonable in the relevant sense tends to co-occur with
words like deal, settlement, compromise, negotiate, agreement, cooperation, and terms.
For example:
When the delegates had met at Philadelphia, instead of settling a reasonable plan
of accomodation with the parent country, they employed themselves in censuring
acts of the British parliament.
Rather than coming on tough and aggressive, you appear reasonable, willing to
compromise. . . .
Be reasonable, George, and settle for half a loaf now.
So Ill be reasonable, well compromise.
I think we made a reasonable compromise.
I found a certain amount of resistance to what I would have thought . . . was reasonable cooperation.
We tried to negotiate a more reasonable fee, but they werent prepared to budge.
The idea that a lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit (George Herbert, Jacula
Prudentum, quoted in Stevenson 1958) had been for centuries an important theme
in Anglo culture. During the Enlightenment, it became closely associated with reason, increasingly the subject of aphorism, and a well-established cultural script, as
the following two eighteenth-century quotes (also from Stevenson 1958) illustrate:
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Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions. (Samuel Johnson,
Letter to Boswell, 1766)
All governmentindeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and
every prudent actis founded on compromise and barter. (Edmund Burke, Speech
on Conciliation with America, 1775)
By the twentieth century, the ideology linking a willingness to compromise with reason and an enlightened self-interest had become so entrenched in Anglo culture as
to be encoded in a distinct sense of the word reasonable, a sense manifested (inter
alia) in its collocations with words like deal, settle, negotiate, and, of course, compromise itself.
Thus, the sense of reasonable illustrated by the quotes adduced in this section
implies a whole ideology of social interaction. First of all, it implies that in telling
other people what we want them to do we should appeal to their thinking and not
only to their will: we should allow them to do what we want them to do voluntarily
because they have themselves come to think that it is a good thing to do, and not
only because we want them to do it. Second, it implies that it is good to limit our
claims on other peoples goodwill and not to request too much, and third, it implies
that in expressing our wishes it is good to take into account the other persons point
of view (and consequently, to cooperate, to compromise, to reach a deal or an agreement, to settle). It is good to act in this way not only on moral grounds but also
because this is what reason dictates. Or rather, reason and morality are seen as converging in the ideal of cooperation with other people: after all, this is what is good for
everyone, as anyone can see if they can think well. To be unreasonable, like being
unfair, is a transgression against good relations with other people and also against
reason (including enlightened self-interest)a transgression against rational ethics
and against rational rules of conduct in a democratic society.
I quoted earlier Rawlss (2001) comments on the importance of the distinction
between the rational and the reasonable to philosophy in general and the philosophy of justice in particular. We can now see that the sense of the word reasonable that Rawls primarily has in mind is that which has its opposite in unreasonable.
It is precisely this sense that is linked with the idea of cooperation between equals
and with the notion of fairness. We will return to these links in chapter 5, in the
context of a discussion of fairness.
Finally, it is worth noting that some words that by themselves do not imply
human interactionfor example goal, target, or riskcan also be used in combination with reasonable in the sense under discussion, if in a given context they can
have such an implication. For example, in the Cobuild corpus we find the following sentences:
. . . dozens of these artificial languages were created for good reasons seeking a very
reasonable goal.
. . . if we were to go down the route of trying to increase retail sales what would be
a reasonable target percentage-wise?
What may seem to be too risky to the managerial mind may appear to be a reasonable risk to the specialist mind.
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Words like goal, target, or risk can refer to solitary activities, but then they would be
unlikely to be combined with reasonable (or unreasonable). A goal or target that
someone proposes to others can be described as unreasonable, but a goal or target
that one sets for oneself would be more likely to be described as unrealistic, and if
someone is said to be taking an unreasonable risk, this tends to suggest that somebody elses life may be affected (for example, a doctor may take unreasonable risks in
regard to a patients life).
It also seems that while the phrases a reasonable request and an unreasonable
request are equally acceptable in English, the phrase unreasonable demands is more
felicitous than ?reasonable demands: as an opposite to unreasonable demands, many
speakers would prefer justifiable demands (as if demands were too categorical to qualify
as reasonable). For similar reasons, a reasonable request sounds better than a *reasonable order. On the other hand, although a reasonable compromise sounds perfect,
?an unreasonable compromise sounds rather odd. Through asymmetries of this kind,
phraseology reflects the ethos of the speech community, shaped by its history and
culture.5
In sixteenth-century English, a creature or a beast could be reasonable;
today, a dog can be clever but not reasonable. To call it reasonable would be
like calling it a gentleman: reasonable has become saturated with Anglo culture.
4.11. An Internal Reconstruction of the Semantic

History of Reasonable
Leaving aside the collocation reasonable man, which has already been discussed in
some detail, let us try to identify the main turns in the history of the word reasonable
and suggest how changing ways of thinking and speaking could have crystallized into
new meanings. I will represent this hypothetical history in stages, while noting that
in actual usage the meanings assigned to different stages can co-occur and also that
the meanings assigned to stages I and II are no longer in use but those assigned to
stages III, IV, V, and VI are all richly represented in present-day English. Thus, the
hypothetical sequence outlined here is meant to be, above all, logical rather than
demonstrably chronological; certain meanings are hypothesized to have developed
out of certain other meanings.
Stage I
The word reasonable is used in the sense of, roughly, endowed with reason, as in
the phrase a reasonable creature.
Stage II
The word reasonable starts to be linked not only with the ability to think but also
more specifically with the ability to think well. For example, the sentence cited by
the OED (and dated 1636), Reasonable and judicious readers will not dislike the
same digression, appears to refer to readers who can think well. Locutions like it
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is reasonable to conclude (as used by Locke 1690) also link the word reasonable with
the ability to think well and, in particular, to think well about what happens to one
and to draw inferences from this. At that time (seventeentheighteenth century),
reasonable can be linked not only with thoughts that are hypothetical (assumptions,
suppositions, and the like) but also with belief, conviction, certainty, and substantial
doubt. Christianity is defended as reasonable by those who wholeheartedly embrace it. At the same time, reasonable is seen as compatible with reason rather than
required by reason. The claim is that someone who thinks well can think like this,
not that they have to think like this. Thus, the ideal of reason is felt to be consistent
with both conviction and toleration (tolerance for other peoples convictions) and
inconsistent with dogmatism, absolutism, and intolerance (this is the era of the British Enlightenment).
Stage III
The word reasonable continues to imply the ability to think well, but it becomes
increasingly associated with an emphasis on the limitations of ones knowledge and
on the lack of certainty. Conviction is no longer described as reasonable, and a reasonable doubt (with the emphasis on reasonable) becomes reinterpreted as any reasonable doubt (with the emphasis on any). The semantic component I dont want
to say more becomes part of the semantic invariant: the ability to think well becomes
associated with the concern about not saying more than one has evidence or justification for.
Stage IV
The self-limitation inherent in collocations like it is reasonable to suppose (where
reasonable is no longer compatible with conviction) leads to the rise of reasonable as
a more general tool of moderation, as a device for avoiding an excessive (unjustified) use of words like much (a lot) and very. As a result, we witness the spread of
collocations like a reasonable time and a reasonable amountclearly distinct in
meaning from a reasonable assumption or a reasonable hypothesis.
Stage V
Reasonable as an anti-much, and anti-very, device becomes linked, in a particular way, with avoiding excessive praise: it becomes increasingly used as a device for
not saying very good. At the same time, however, it becomes associated with a
willingness to say a qualified good even when one cannot say very good, that is,
to be satisfied with less, to be realistic and pragmatic.
Stage VI
The willingness to accept things as reasonably good even if they are not very good
becomes linked in a special way with interpersonal relations and, more specifically,
with what one wants from other people. Collocations like a reasonable request and a
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135
reasonable deal spread, collocations like reasonable demands decline, and sentences
like Be reasonable! start to be interpreted as a call for a reasonable compromise.
Looking back at the semantic history of the word reasonable in the English language and at the ascent of the value of reasonableness in Anglo culture, it is
important to bear in mind that as Porter (2000, 99) emphasizes, in Britain Enlightenment . . . took place within, rather than against, Protestantism and that as the
seventeenth century drew to its close, one call was heard ever louder: religion and
reason were one and must pull together. Reason did not mean at that time skepticism or rejection of religion but rather antidogmatism and toleration.
Enlightenment minds ceased to equate religion with a body of commandments,
graven in stone, dispensed through Scripture, accepted on faith and policed by
the Church. Belief was a matter of private judgment, for individual reason to
adjudicate within the multi-religionism sanctioned by statutory toleration. (Porter 2000, 99)
It is in this atmosphere that the Anglo value of reasonableness developed and took
root: the value of reasonable beliefs, reasonable doubts, reasonable expectations,
reasonable attitudes, and finally reasonable compromises.
4.12. Reasonable and Anglo Cultural Scripts

The word reasonable (as it is used in modern English) is crucially involved in a number of cultural scripts. To begin with, it is linked with the central strategies for interpersonal interaction in modern Anglo society. In any society, one of the key problems
is getting other people to do what one wants them to. In many societies, this problem tends to be solved on the basis of power differentiation. Hierarchical structures
and accepted patterns of inequality often make it clear who can give orders to whom.
From the point of view of the powerless, the answer may often lie in begging, imploring, and the like, that is, in putting pressure on the powerful by appealing to their
feelings. It may also lie in a system of asymmetrical relationships of patronagea
pattern of care and responsibility for others (ones dependents) that is associated
with a higher status.
In democratic societies like Britain or America, other patterns have come to the
fore, patterns based on assumptions and values of equality, individual autonomy,
voluntary cooperation, mutual concessions, and so on. In this cultural climate, the
scope for orders and commands is limited, and at the same time there is less room
for patronage, begging, imploring, pleading, and appealing to mercy. The idea of
sweet dependency (comparable to Japanese amae; see, e.g., Doi 1981; Wierzbicka
1997) is also culturally alien; on the contrary, value is placed on independence and
self-reliance. But if one can neither give orders and commands nor beg, implore,
plead, or appeal for mercy, help, or patronage, how does one get others to do what
one wants them to do?
The modern use of the word reasonable and of the phrases based on it suggests
that Anglo strategies in this regard include limiting ones claims on others and at the
same time appealing to reason. These two strategies can be implemented jointly by
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means of the word reasonable. A sentence like Be reasonable appeals both to the ideal
of limiting ones claims on other people and to the ideal of acting according to reason.
To reject such an appeal is to reject some of Anglo cultures central cultural scripts.
In Anglo culture, the word reasonable is also a powerful ethical toola lever, a
principle, and a court of appeal. To take a literary example, in Galsworthys The Forsyte
Saga, Soames Forsyte asks his daughter Fleur to be reasonable and to accede to
his request to give up her first love:
Listen! he said. Youre putting the feelings of two monthstwo monthsagainst
the feelings of thirty-five years! What chance do you think you have? Two months
your very first love affair, a matter of half a dozen meetings, a few walks and talks,
a few kissesagainst, against what you cant imagine, what no one could who hasnt
been through it. Come, be reasonable, Fleur! Its midsummer madness!
Fleur tore the honeysuckle into little, slow bits. (www.online-literature.com)
The many such examples in modern English literature suggest that people may take,
or expect others to take, crucial decisions in their lives on the basis of the standard of
reasonableness. The importance attached to this notion is also very clear in the
following passage from Virginia Woolfs novel Voyage Out:
She became absorbed in the book. Helen meanwhile stitched at her embroidery
and thought over the things they had said. Her conclusion was that she would very
much like to show her niece, if it were possible, how to live, or as she put it, how
to be a reasonable person. (www.online-literature.com)
Here the heroine, Helen, explicitly equates ethics (knowing how to live) with knowing how to be a reasonable person.
The examples from Galsworthy and Virginia Woolf are of course quite old and
reflect ways of thinking that in many respects would now be seen as obsolete. Being
reasonable, however, seems to be as important at the turn of the twenty-first century
as it was a century before. Judging by the material in the Cobuild corpus, the use of
reasonable in contemporary English not only is very extensive but also often relates to
questions of crucial importance, including, quite literally, matters of life and death (as
when someone says, for example, that its reasonable to remove life-support systems).
One could even venture the suggestion that in interpersonal relations, the ethics
of reasonable and unreasonable may have replaced, to some extent, the earlier form
of rational ethics, that is, the ethics of right and wrong. Although the ethics of right
and wrong based on reason could be seen for a long time as a rational alternative to
the absolutist ethics of good and bad based on religion, with time, an ethics of right
and wrong appears to have come increasingly to be itself perceived as absolutist. An
ethics based on the more limited, more pragmatic, more negotiable notions of reasonable and unreasonable appears to have an increasingly growing appeal in modern Anglo society. In a secular society, where many traditional virtues (for example,
goodness, fidelity, mercy, valor, selflessness, self-denial, innocence, humility, and modesty) and sins (for example, infidelity, pride, vanity, shamelessness, lust, self-indulgence,
gluttony, and intemperance) have increasingly come to be seen as obsolete, sometimes
even ridiculous, what is there to appeal to as a basis for ethics? One of the most important notions to appeal to appears to be that of reasonableness.
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For example, in a recent best-selling novel by the British writer Nick Hornby,
the hero is trying to save his marriage by offering to meet his estranged wifes wishes
if they are reasonable:
What am I allowed to ask for?
Anything you want. And if I dont think its reasonable, well talk about it. (Hornby
2001, 208)
In the same novel, in the conflict between the parents, a child, Molly, takes her fathers
side because, the mother complains:
Molly has never been able to see her father as anything less than a perfect and
perfectly reasonable man. . . . (p. 74)
The combination of two attributes, perfect and perfectly reasonable, is very telling, and it is reminiscent of the example from Cobuild quoted earlier: the stepfather seemed to take over the role of being the good and reasonable person in the
house. Good and reasonable, even perfect and perfectly reasonableapart from
a vague reference to an unspecified goodness or perfection, the one and only
essential value that readily comes to mind appears to be reasonableness.
Another aspect of English discourse where the use of the word reasonable reflects some important cultural scripts is that of the tone of voice. The collocation a
reasonable tone of voice is well established in modern English, as are its variants like
a reasonable-sounding voice, a reasonable voice, or a reasonable intonation. Clearly,
speakers of English recognizeand valuea certain tone of voice as reasonable.
They often appear to use it deliberately, to project a desirable image at important
times and for important conversational purposes. For example (from Cobuild):
Chuck, you are not ready to give up on this marriage[?], asked the counsellor. Petra
looked away. We see things differently, said Chuck in a reasonable voice. I always
put you and the children first. I always did what I promised, I was there for the
childrens birthdays and your book launch parties, for Gods sake.
If they arose to restore balance, Olly said in her most reasonable voice, then
they must have made some changes.
Id like you to think about it. To think hard about it. That choice. There was a
long pause. Somehow, . . . His father stopped. Then started again. He had made
his voice gentle and reasonable. Youre the oldest one home now, Mack. The
way you handle things sets an example for the rest. Id like you to be asking a bit
more of yourself.
And yes, maybe she had gone out with Leo once or twice in college. But dont
you think that was something you should have told me? Gretchen had demanded,
though in what she hoped was a reasonable tone of voice.
Often, a reasonable voice is linked explicitly with emotional self-control, as in the

following example:
He said: The suns all right for you, isnt it? She raised her head, set her chin on
two small fists. Go away, she said. He did not move. Listen, she said, in a slow
reasonable voice, where anger was kept in check, though with difficulty. . . .
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Clearly, both the perception that there is a special, reasonable tone of voice and
the value attached to this kind of voice are related to the antiemotional cultural
scripts discussed in chapter 2. We may note in this connection that although the word
reasonable appears sometimes in English translations of Russian novels (as a translation of the word razumnyj) there is no collocation in Russian corresponding to the
English reasonable voice. The reason for this is not only that razumnyj does not mean
the same as reasonable but also that there is no corresponding cultural script linking
good thinking with emotional self-control (or indeed, a script encouraging emotional
self-control in the first place). Although as I mentioned at the outset French may
seem closer to English than Russian as far as the appeal of reasonableness is concerned, in fact, the collocation une voix raisonnable (a reasonable voice) is not used
in French either.
In her book Lets Be Reasonable: A Guide to Resolving Disputes, the Australian
lawyer and community legal educator Margaret White recommends being reasonable as the most effective answer to the problems of living and working together(1997, vii). Being reasonable includes, according to this guide, stating your
case moderately, trying to see the problems from their [the other sides] point of
view, and using a lubricant demeanor in the manner of your approach, the tone
of your voice (p. 5). The back cover describes Lets Be Reasonable as an invaluable
guide and reference for every household and business . . . a laypersons guide to resolving disputes of all sorts as quickly, efficiently and effectively as possible. Without disputing the publishers description of the book, one might add that it is also an
invaluable (if inadvertent) guide to some key Anglo cultural scripts.
4.13. Is the Anglo Value of Reasonable Unique?

English vs. French
I have said that other European languages do not have words corresponding in meaning to the English word reasonable. I have also noted one seeming exception to this
generalization: French. If we consult bilingual dictionaries, we will find that they
match the English reasonable with the French word raisonnable. But do the two words
really mean the same thing?
A closer inspection of the two words use shows that they do not: first, because
the range of use of the French word is much narrower and, second, because even in
those combinations in which both words are possible, the range of contexts available
to them is different.
For example, raisonnable cannot possibly be used in the French counterparts
of English phrases like a reasonable time, reasonable limits, a reasonable chance, or
reasonable results, not to mention reasonable doubt, reasonable force, or reasonable
care.
As for English phrases that do appear to have exact French counterparts, the
impression of equivalence is generally misleading. For example, while the Collins
Robert French Dictionary (1990) glosses a reasonable person as une personne
raisonnable and vice versa, in fact some of the examples cited offer evidence to the
contrary. For example:
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Elle devrait tre plus raisonnable son age.

She should know better (or she should have more sense) at her age.
One cannot say in English she should be more reasonable at her age, because reasonableness has nothing to do with age. Clearly, both the French and the English
words refer to an ability to think well, but the pragmatic components of the phrase
reasonable person, discussed in this chapter, are missing from the French word.
Similarly, the fact that Collins Robert glosses reasonable used in combination
with price and offer as raisonnable does not prove that a reasonable price means the
same as un prix raisonnable. According to the French-English part of the dictionary,
French does have collocations linking the words prix (price), demande (request),
salaire (salary), and quantit (quantity, amount) with the word raisonnable, which
is glossed in these contexts as reasonable, fair. I would argue, however, that despite
appearances, un prix raisonnable does not mean the same as a reasonable price. A
closer English gloss would be here justifiable: un prix raisonnable can be justified.
The phrase is linked with an ability to think well (if someone can think well . . . )
and with an ability to state ones reasons (I can say why I think like this), but there
is no reference here to moderation, to the value of a willingness to say: I dont want
more or I dont want to say more. As evidence for this claim, I would point out
that although a request (une demande) can indeed be described in French as
raisonnable, a compromise, an agreement, or a deal cannot:
?un compromis raisonnable
?un accord raisonnable
?un march raisonnable
It is also significant that unlike reasonable, raisonnable has no opposite in French.
An unreasonable price would be translated into French as excessif, dmesur, exorbitant, or exaggr. As these glosses indicate, the excessiveness implied by the English word unreasonable has to be stated in French by a separate word. The reason,
I suggest, is that raisonnable itself does not imply any absence of excessiveness. Should
the phrase an unreasonable price be translated into French as un prix qui nest pas
raisonnable (a price that is not raisonnable), this could, of course, be interpreted
as implying that the price was excessive, but this implication would be due to inference, not the meaning of the word raisonnable as such.6
Furthermore, the French sentence Soyez raisonnable (Be raisonnable) could
no doubt be translated in some contexts as be reasonable, but in fact the two sentences do not mean the same, and the Collins Robert dictionary is quite helpful to
the English user in suggesting here the gloss sensible, sane rather than reasonable.
The English sentence Be reasonable refers, indirectly, to other people (and appeals
to the ideals of moderation, cooperation, willingness to reach compromises or make
concessions, and so on). The English sentence Be sensible does not, and neither
does the French sentence Soyez raisonnable.7 When one pleads with a person,
Soyez raisonnable, one is appealing to a different ideal than when one pleads with
another person, Be reasonable. Differences of this kind are not only differences in
the meaning of words (mere semantics). They are also differences in cultural ideals, traditions, and attitudes.8
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The Anglo value, or complex of values, reflected in the word reasonable, with
its large family of interrelated meanings, is indeed unique, and it tells us a great deal
about Anglo culture.
Let me close with an extended quote from a book entitled Basic Concepts of
Legal Thought by the legal scholar George Fletcher:
One of the striking features of legal argument in English is our pervasive reliance
on the term reasonable. We routinely refer to reasonable time, reasonable delay, reasonable reliance, and reasonable care. In criminal law, we talk ubiquitously
of reasonable provocation, reasonable mistake, reasonable force, and reasonable
risk. Within these idioms pulse the sensibilities of the reasonable person. Without
this hypothetical figure at the center of legal debate, we would be hard pressed to
mount an argument about responsibility or liability.
As Anglophone lawyers negotiate in the language of reasonableness, French,
German, and Russian lawyers argue in a different idiom. Their languages do deploy a concept of reason, and their terms for reasonraison, Vernunft, and
razumnostreadily yield corresponding adjectives. Yet these parallels to our term
reasonable do not figure prominently in legal speech on the Continent. The
French civil code uses the term raisonnable precisely once; the German and Soviet codes do not use the term at all. The criminal codesthe natural habitat of
the reasonable personare barren of these derivatives of reason. . . . The adjectives describing a faultless mistake in Continental languages do not translate as
reasonable but as invincible, unavoidable, and non-negligent. All these
emanations of the reasonable person find diverse translations in Continental legal
discourse, a distinct word for every context. (Fletcher 1996, 64)
What Fletcher says about Anglo/American law applies also to virtually every other
aspect of Anglo life. But it is not only the pervasive use of the word reasonable that is
a unique and salient aspect of Anglo discourse: it is also its very meaning or, more
precisely, its family of meanings. For example, raisonnable is not only far less common that reasonable but also a word with a different meaning and different cultural
implications.
Chapter 5
Being fair
Another Key Anglo Value and
Its Cultural Underpinnings
5.1. The Importance of Fairness in Modern Anglo Culture

Fairness is one of the most important values in modern Anglo culture. The exclamations Thats not fair! and Its not fair! are often heard in daily life, not only from
adults but also from young children, and they can appear in childrens books. Here
are two characteristic examples from a recent childrens book, Snot fair! (Montano
2003):
Its just snot fair when I have to go stay at my Nonno and Nonnas place, cause my
mum and dad think Im too young to stay home alone and babysit me and Bianca.
I think that its snot fair when your birthday is at the end of the year and everyone
gives you a Christmas and birthday present combined. I want two presents, not
one, right? Hey, I deserve two presents. Everyone else gets two presents. Bianca my
sister gets a present for her birthday, and then another present for Christmas, so
why cause my birthdays the day before Christmas do I get tricked?
Remarkably, the phrase thats not fair! can often be heard on television programs for
preschool children, such as the British program Angelina Ballerina or the Canadian
program Babar.
The ubiquity of the words fair and unfair in modern English discourse, across a
wide range of registers, is all the more remarkable given that these words have no
equivalents in other European languages (let alone non-European ones) and are
thoroughly untranslatable. To quote the legal scholar George Fletcher:
Remarkably, our concept of fairness does not readily translate into other languages.
While the concept of justice appears, it seems, in all cultures, it is virtually impossible to find a suitable translation for fairness in European or Semitic languages.
As a result, the term is transplanted directly in some languages such as German
and Hebrew, and absent in others, such as French that are resistant to adopting
loan words that carry unique meanings. Why has Anglo-American culture cultivated this distinct concept of fairness? (Fletcher 1996, 81)
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142
In fact, the concept of justice does not appear in all culturesa point to which I
return later. He is right, however, about fairness: it is indeed a uniquely Anglo concept, without an equivalent in any other language, and the question of why Anglo
culture has created this concept is an important one.
The frequency of the word fair in modern English is extremely high. For example, in the Cobuild UK Spoken corpus (excerpted on November 1, 2004), there
were 101 occurrences of fair per million words, whereas the corresponding figures
for just, reliable, truthful, thoughtful, and considerate were, respectively, 33, 9, 3, 1,
and 1.
The high frequency and colloquial character of the expressions thats not fair!
and its not fair are reflected in the existence of the reduced version snot fair!
used by children, as in the book title previously quoted. At the same time, fair and its
derivatives are used widely in other registers of English, including the language of
scholarly works, government publications, public administration, business, trade, and
law. For example, in the bookstore on my university campus, the following titles are
listed as currently available:
Fair
Australias Choices: Options for a Fair and Prosperous Society
Its Not Fair
Not Fair Wont Share
Constitutional Right to a Speedy and Fair Criminal Trial
Fair Division & Collective Welfare
Fair Cop: Learning the Art of Policing
Snot Fair
Fair Game
Wheres the Fair Go: The Decline of Equity in Australia
Whats Fair
Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look
at the Right
You Know the Fair Rule
Fair Enough: Egalitarianism in Australia
Playing Fair Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 1
Good Sports: The Myth of the Fair Go in Australian Sport
Its Just Not Fair
Fair Trade: No Nonsense Guide
Elections: Full Free & Fair
Fair Trial Rights
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143
Unfair
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Unfair Dismissal in New South Wales
Law of Unfair Dismissal
Trademark and Unfair Competition Law
Law of Unfair Contracts in NSW
Fairness
Justice as Fairness: A Restatement
Justice & Fairness in International Negotiation
Capitalism & Justice: Envisioning Social & Economic Fairness
Managing Fairness in Organisations
The various pages in the Australian Law Online Web site yield a similarly rich harvest. To give some examples: NSW Department of Fair Trading, Fair Go documents, Fair Dismissal Laws for Small Business, Fair and Open Elections and
Referendums, Unfair Dismissal Legislation, Complaints of Unfair Government
Competition with the Private Sector, and Unfair Market Practices.
The centrality of the pair fair and not fair (or unfair) in modern Anglo discourse
can be compared with that of right and wrong (or not right) and reasonable and unreasonable (or not reasonable). In fact, fair often co-occurs with right and with reasonable and is seen by the speakers as closely related to those two other English key
words.
Both the centrality of fair to the modern Anglo system of values and its status as
a close relative of right are reflected in the following passage from Paul John Eakins
(1999, 160) book How Our Lives Become Stories, in which the author reflects on the
ethics of life writing: What is right and fair for me to write about someone else?
What is right and fair for someone else to write about me?
The close link between the value of fairness and that of reasonableness can
be illustrated with numerous examples from John Rawlss book Justice as Fairness,
to which I return later. Here, let me just give one example of the close company that
the words fair and reasonable (and their derivatives) keep in Rawlss discussion. According to Rawls, the fundamental idea of a society as a fair system of social cooperation means that:
reasonable persons are ready to propose, or to acknowledge when proposed by
others, the principles needed to specify what can be seen by all as fair terms of
cooperation. . . . It is unreasonable not to be ready to propose such principles, or
not to honor fair terms of cooperation that others may reasonably be expected to
accept. (2001, 7)
Given the frequent co-occurrence of reasonable and fair in Rawlss book, it is not
surprising to see the two words repeatedly used together in the editors Foreword,
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which summarizes the books ideas. For example: According to justice as fairness,
the most reasonable principles of justice are those that would be the object of mutual agreement by persons under fair conditions (Kelly 2001, xi). Rawls presents
justice as fairness as the most reasonable form of political liberalism (p. xii).
The collocation fair and reasonable is also well attested in the Cobuild corpus.
For example:
People should have rights to directly negotiate (individual contract) terms subject
to fair and reasonable minimum standards.
His view of the Chamberlain case was not only accurate but also fair and reasonable.
. . . legislation enabling leaseholders who are owner-occupiers to purchase the freehold of their homes at a fair and reasonable cost.
Industrial democracyone of Lewiss favorite phraseswas the CIOs chief goal,
posed as a fair and reasonable solution to the economic crisis.
The words in our brochures speak for our attitude: our aims include a fair and
reasonable policy on fees.
The second requirement is that the judge should be seen to be even handed, fair
and reasonable.
There are others with fair and reasonable claims to the job.
We stand by our decisions and we believe we are being fair and reasonable to all
parties.
Thus, along with right and reasonable, fair is one of the most important guiding
words in modern English, and in speakers minds, it is closely related to the other
two. The fact that the abstract noun fairness (in contrast to rightness and reasonableness) is also widely used in modern English suggests that the value of fairness is particularly salient in modern Anglo consciousness. Perhaps more than any other value,
fairness is taken for granteda fact reflected, for example, in the English tautological expression fairs fair, referring to a supposedly indisputable truism (compare
whats done is done; business is business; war is war; for discussion, see
Wierzbicka 1991/2003a; Davis 1998). If we want to understand Anglo culture, we have
to try to understand the concept of fairness. The best starting point is provided, I
think, by the phrase thats (its) not fair, which appears to be more common in everyday language than its counterpart without negation (thats fair). The word fair has or
has had at least three clearly distinct meanings in English, as in fair maiden (archaic),
fair hair (restricted), and fair trial (very common). Here, I focus on the last of these
three, that is, on that meaning of fair that has its opposite in unfair and that underlies the abstract noun fairness (as it is currently used).
5.2. The Meaning of Fair and Not Fair

A sentence like Thats not fair implies that someone was not fair to someone else.
Fair differs in this respect from both good and right: one can be good or do something good or right on ones own (so to speak), whereas fair, like kind, is inher-
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ently relational: one can be fair only in relation to someone else. It is, of course,
possible to say simply that someone (e.g., a head of department) is very fair (in
general), but this usually means that in making decisions he or she is always careful
not to be unfair to anyone.
The relational character of fairness does not mean that one is, necessarily, doing
something to another person; it can also mean that what one is doing affects another
person in British and Australian English (though not in U.S. English): one can do
something that is unfair on another person, as well as unfair to another person. Generally speaking, to do something that is not fair implies (although, of course, cannot be reduced to) doing something that is bad for another person.
Admittedly, the words fair and unfair are also used with respect to things that
simply happen to us, without anybody doing anything, as in the common complaint that life is unfair. This, however, is an extension of the primary meaning of
fair, based on a personification of life: the speaker thinks of life as being like a person
who treats some people unfairly.
This, then, is one semantic component of fair and not fair: doing (or not doing)
something that is bad for another person. Another component that we can isolate at
the outset involves doing something with another person or other people. The importance of this component becomes clearer when we try to compare fair with just.
For example, a king or a ruler (in a traditional society) could be described as just
but not as fair. On the other hand, a teacher (in modern society) can be described
as fair but not just. The reasonor at least one reasonis, I suggest, that a king is
not thought of as doing things with his subjects, whereas a teacher can be thought
of as doing things (together) with his or her students (roughly, cooperating with them).
Doing things with has to be understood in a very broad sense, which includes
any kind of interaction or dealings with another person, not necessarily on an equal
basis. For example, a fair teacher interacts with his or her students without having
the same role, or position, in the interaction as the students have.
This is not to say that the idea of equality or sameness is not relevant to fairness at all, but it is not necessarily an equality of role or position. Rather, what is
the same about all the interactants who can be described as fair or not fair is
that they are all bound by certain generally recognized rulesregardless of their role
or position. For example, students can be unfair to the teachers by criticizing them
unfairly, and vice versa.
It is also interesting to note that rules can be described as either fair or not fair
but cannot be described as just or not just, whereas with laws, it is the other way
around. Roughly speaking, rules are for people who want to do things together. For
example, the rules of the game are for people who want to play a game together. In
a sense, people who want to play (or do other things) together accept a set of rules as
binding for them all. This is not the case, however, with laws: whether the laws are
just or unjust, they bind people subject to them as if they were imposed on them
from above. The rule of law (which has no plural: *the rules of law) is comparable
to a ruler (just or unjust) rather than to a set of rules (fair or unfair).
The concept of rule is relevant to that of fairness in more than one way. In a
sense, fairness implies that there are certain rules known to and recognized as good
by all those who are willing to do things with one another. The link between fairness
146
and rules highlights the fact that fairness implies a certain consensus. I suggest that
this can be captured in the following pair of semantic components:
when people want to do some things with some other people
they know that they can do some kinds of things
at the same time they know that they cant do some other kinds of things
because if they do things like this it will be bad for these other people
The interactiondoing things togetheris voluntary (when people want to . . .),
but within the framework of voluntarily undertaken interaction certain rules are
obligatory, binding (they have to or they cant). A game is a good model of
such a collective undertaking: people enter the game voluntarily, but within a given
game, the rules are bindingotherwise, there would be no game. This is an essential aspect of fair play: acting according to the rules, above boardwithout seeking for oneself an advantage that would be against the rules.
The positive component when people want to do some things with some other
people, they know that they can do things of some kinds is important, because it
accounts for the conceptual links between fair and notions like fair play and (Australian) fair go. From the point of view of the person who uses such expressions, the
emphasis is not only on what one cannot do but also on what one can do (within the
limits of the rules): fair is not inimical to enterprise, initiative, games, sports, business, and so on.
At the same time, however, it is crucial (from the speakers point of view) that all
such activities should be conducted within the rules of the game, that is, that the
players should think about some other things like this: people cant do things like
this. The rationale for such restrictions is clear: those other things are bad for some
of the players, and those players could legitimately protest against them (they could
say: you cant do things like this).
What a person in a given community can and cant do is, so to speak, the content of the rule. But the rules of the game linked with the idea of fairness are not
arbitrary; rather, they wear on their sleeve their own justification: a person cant do
some things because if they did it would be bad for someone else (within the circle
of interactants).
These are, then, the background assumptions of the judgment thats not fair.
What the speaker who makes such a judgment is asserting can be spelled out as follows (where like this refers to the kinds of things that interactants cant do):
people can know that when this person (X) did it (W),
X did something bad
because when X did it, X did something like this
It is often assumed that fairness needs to be understood in terms of equality, equity,
or nondiscrimination, but that is not so. It is true that common collocations like unfair
competition, unfair comparison, unfair advantage, or your fair share imply that everyone (in a given group) should be treated in the same way, but this is not always the
case. Consider, for example, the collocation fair prices. Here, the focus is not on prices
being the same for everyone but rather on prices being such that they could be judged,
by the general consensus, as justifiable (in terms of what is reasonable for both sell-
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ers and buyers). It is unlikely that the collocations fair prices or unfair prices would
be used with respect to a vendor in a Moroccan or Indonesian market, who can quote
different prices to different buyers and who can always arbitrarily change his or her
prices. Vendors who are acting in this way are not being unfair to their customers
because the background assumptions of fairness do not apply in this case, and it
would be ridiculous to complain that their prices were not fair.
The phrase fair prices implies that (as the speaker sees it) both the seller and the
buyer belong to a community of people who want to cooperate and who accept that
they have to cooperate according to statable, constant, and recognizable rulesrules
that are assumed by all concerned to be good and that are voluntarily accepted.
Statements like thats not fair are commonly followed by an explanation or by
a why? from the interlocutor, to which the first speaker is expected to have a ready
answer. The explanation will have to refer to a clear rule that, in the speakers view,
has been violated. If one child is given more sweets than the others, the protest thats
not fair probably refers to the rule that if a parent or teacher does something good
for one child, they should do the same for the other children. But the notion of an
unfair price does not refer to an equal distribution of goods to all people. Rather, it
expresses the speakers judgment that the sellers are doing things that would be bad
for the buyers and that could not be justified in terms of some generally accepted
standards. Similarly, expressions like a fair comment or a fair criticism do not refer to
an equal distribution of goods but rather to the possibility of saying things that are
harmful to some people in the speakers community and that are not justifiable with
reference to some generally accepted standard.
Trying to generalize from the examples so far, we could say that the concept of
fairness refers to a potential tension between what one person wants to do and what
can be bad for another. One assumption is that it is good if a person can do what
they want to dobut a second, concomitant assumption is that attention must be
paid to whether the intended action is not bad for someone else (in the group of people
with whom one interacts).
This does not mean that it is necessarily deemed unfair for people to pursue
their own interests if it can be disadvantageous for someone else. Rather, it means
that when I want to do something that may be bad for someone else, there are limits
to what I can legitimately do. Certain rules apply that limit my freedom of action
when it may come into conflict with other peoples interests.
Consider, for example, a father described by his only child as strict but fair. If
there were other children in the family, it could be expected that they would all be
treated by the father in the same way, but this cannot be the intended interpretation
of fair as applied to the father of an only child. Can fair imply, in this case, that
the same rules apply to the father and to the child? Yes and no. If one of the rules is
no television before homework, then clearly this rule applies to the child, not to
the father. At the same time, if the father is fair, this rule binds the father, too: the
child who has done the homework then has the right to watch the television, and
the father cant (justifiably) say no.
Consider next the case of someone saying that Joe Bloggs is rather lazy (or doesnt
pull his weight) and someone else describing it as a fair comment. What does it
take for a comment to be fair? Presumably, the comment needs to be true, but this
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cannot be the only condition. I say that Joe Bloggs is lazy (doesnt pull his weight)
because I want to do so, and it is bad for Joe Bloggs that I say so, even if it is true.
Under what conditions would it be a fair comment to make? Presumably, there
must be some reason for my saying so, a reason that can be stated in general terms
and that would be recognizable by other people as valid, over and above the statement being true. For example, if I am acting as a referee in relation to Joe Bloggss
application for a promotion, it is my obligation to give a fair assessment. In this
context, saying that Joe Bloggs doesnt pull his weight could be regarded as a fair
comment. Presumably, in this case, the rulerecognizable as general and valid
would be that when one undertakes to write a reference for an applicant for a promotion, it is good to say (in some form) all that is relevant, even if it is bad for the
applicant. (It is fair to the employer and not unfair to the applicant.)
Consider, further, the following passage from a story by David Malouf (about
an Australian comfort girl for American troops):
They were just boys, she knew that, but they made her mad. She often quarrelled
with them and said things that were mocking and cruel, but only in her head. Laying
the responsibility for their feelings on her, making her responsible for their weakness, was unfair. They did not play fair. (Malouf 2000, 78)
It is clear that the girl who is thinking these thoughts is not thinking about equity or
equal distribution of goods. Rather, she is thinking about the way these men are
dealing with her, and she thinks that in their relation to her they are breaking certain
general rules for dealing with other people: one should not lay the responsibility for
ones failings and weakness on other people.
And another passage from the same book: They struggled, the man cursing,
and at last he wrenched it [a magazine] away. The boy yowled, saying over and over
with a deep sense of grievance: Its not fair, its not fair, Kenny, Im the one that found
it. Its mine. (Malouf 2000, 110).
Again, this boys grievance has nothing to do with equal distribution of goods.
Rather, he is appealing to a rule of human interaction that he regards as generally
accepted: if I have found something, its mine; nobody else can take it away from
me. The word grievance used in this passage is particularly illuminating, as it implies all at once several components postulated here: you did something bad, this
is bad for me, and you cant do things like this.
To say that someone or something is not fair is not to make an absolute moral
judgment but rather to express a protest, an objection, a grievance. What is at issue
is not simply that someone did something bad but rather that they did something
bad because what they did is bad for me and that I have the right to say to this person: you cant do things like this. If the unfair action is not directed at me personally, by saying thats not fair I protest, as it were, on behalf of the person at whom
it is directed: in my judgment, the unfair doer is doing something that is bad for
that other person, and this other person can legitimately say you cant do things like
thissuch is my (the speakers) judgment, which I can justify with reference to some
generally accepted rule, and I am confident that other people would agree with me.
The content of a given rule seen by the speaker as generally accepted is not specified by the word fair. It would be a mistake to try to reduce the meaning of fair to a
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simple rule that it is bad if someone wants to do something that is bad for someone
else. For example, in a lawsuit a lawyer who represents the interests of one party
against those of another can want to do something that is bad for that other party.
This is not necessarily unfair; it would be unfair only if in pursuing the interests
of one party, the lawyer were to break some generally recognized rules. What these
rules are is not specified by the meaning of the word fair as such.
Let us consider a few more examples from the Cobuild corpus.
It is deemed fair to suspend the person on full pay while the investigation goes on.
Presumably, according to the speaker, it would not be fair to suspend a person on

less than full pay while the investigation goes on. Here, the assumption is that in a
democratic society based on cooperation, people have to (cant not) treat the person
under investigation as innocent (until proven guilty); to do otherwise would be generally regarded as doing something that is bad for that person and against which this
person could rightfully protest. Again, it is not a question of equal distribution of
goods but rather of human rights: everyone has the right to be regarded as innocent
unless and until proven guilty. The same applies to the following example:
I think its fair on the day hes about to leave the company that we recognize him
and give praise where praise is due.
The first assumption that is clear in this example is that the departing member of the
company is one of us: we have been doing things together, and we have to act toward this person accordingly. Second, in this circle of interactants (the company),
we have to give praise where praise is due: we cant do some things (e.g., fail to
give due praise) to one of us. If we failed to give due praise to this person, we would
be doing something that is bad for this person. Third, the rule is general, constant,
and recognizable: if someone deserves praise, this praise should be given. Fourth, if
we didnt, this person could rightfully protest. Another example:
. . . my nans constantly undermining my authority. And its not fair on [X] as well
as not being fair on me.
Here the assumption is that in the family, a parent has the right to have a position of
authority. If someone undermines a parents authority, it is not simply bad but not
fair. Thus, when the (male) speaker implies that his nan is doing something bad, he
is referring, implicitly, to a norm that he assumes to be generally held. The person
unfairly treated is not simply complaining but protesting, or at least implying that
he has the right to protest.
A reference to human rights is also clear in the following sentence:
What Im asking really I think is for parent governors who are out there listening
or any governors at all is to keep a good track on whats happening in your school.
Be informed about it and make sure that any extra money thats spent on setting
up the tests extra help in supply teachers is logged and that we send off to the
Department of Education and Science after this sort of farce has been gone through
this time and we really make them see that it is impossibleits an unfair strain on
teachers. Its unfair on the children and its an absolute waste of time all round. Id
really ask school governors not to sort of put it under the carpet.
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In this case, someone (the Department of Education and Science) is doing something bad to the teachers and is not taking them into account in its decisions. There
is a general rule involved here: an employer shouldnt make decisions without taking into account the fact that these decisions may be bad for some of the employees;
if an employer does make decisions in this way, one can say: I think it is bad and I
expect that other people will think the same. Above all, the employees themselves
can say to the employer: you are doing something bad, you cant do it, because
their rights are being violated. And one last example:
I really would love to give a home to some of these children because I feel myself
I could you know give them an awful lot but it would be unfair to my husband
because he needs the quiet, he needs the peace of mind and [laughter] no way
could he tolerate young children.
Here, the speaker feels that she cant do what she would like to do because this would
be bad for her husband and because her husband would have every right to say: you
cant do it. The assumption is that if the speaker and her husband want to do things
together (live in a partnership, as it were), they have to agree on some things. One of
these things is that one spouse cannot unilaterally make decisions that would be bad
for the other spouse. In the speakers judgment, if she were to do what she wants to
dogive a foster home to some young childrenit would be bad; she can say why
she thinks like this, and she expects that other people would think the same.
All these considerations allow us to attempt a definition of the word fair (to begin
with, in the negative frame thats not fair). This definition will have three parts.
The first part, in the frame I say, expresses the speakers judgment. The second,
indented part displays the background assumptions behind the concept fair. The third
part justifies the speakers judgment with reference to those background assumptions.
Thats not fair.
a. I say: people can know that when this person (X) did it (W),
X did something bad
b. if other people know about it they will say the same
because they all think about some things in the same way
c. they think like this:
d. when people want to do some things with some other people
e. at the same time they know
that they cant do some other kinds of things
f. because if they do things like this,
it will be bad for these other people
g. they know that people can think that no one will do things like this
h. people can know that when this person (X) did it (W),
X did something like this
i. because of this, other people can say to X:
you cant do things like this
The positive phrase thats fair can be explicated as, essentially, not not fair. Accordingly, the background assumptions (components c.g.) are the same, and the only
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difference is the presence of negation in the components at the beginning and the
end (the first, fifth, and sixth components).
Thats fair.
a. I say: people can know that when this person (X) did it (W),
X did NOT do anything bad
b. if other people know about it they will say the same
because they all think about some things in the same way
c. they think like this:
d. when people want to do some things with some other people
e. at the same time they know
that they cant do some other kinds of things
f. because if they do things like this,
it will be bad for these other people
g. they know that people can think that no one will do things like this
h. people can know that when this person (X) did it (W),
X did NOT do anything like this
i. because of this, other people can NOT say to X:
you cant do things like this
These explications do not seek to specify what kinds of things would be regarded as
not fair, which would be an impossible task. As we have seen, the range of situations about which such judgments can be made is very broad and cannot be reduced
to some simple formula like the same for all (for fair) and not the same for all
(for not fair). Instead, the proposed explication articulates the assumptions on the
basis of which such judgments are made, and the judgment itself is explicated in
only very general terms.
In contemporary Anglo societies, values like equity and equal distribution
of goods have become so important for many people that they have come to see
them as the essence of fairness, and when they try to define fairness, many people
do so along the lines of equity. As we have seen, however, the words fair and
unfair continue to be used in ways that do not fit the model of equity at all. To
define fairness as, essentially, equity is like defining good in terms of love, happiness, sex, food, or whatever else may be seen as the main good in human life. In
fact, as argued by, for example, Prichard (1935), the question of the meaning of
good must, of course, be distinguished from peoples ideas of what the supreme
good in life is.
Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to fairness. The two cases are not parallel in all respects, because good is an unanalyzable conceptual prime, occurring as
a word in all languages, whereas fair is a complex concept, which has emerged in
Anglo culture and found its expression in an English word with no equivalents in
other languages. Nonetheless, the two cases are parallel in one important respect:
the meaning of good does not tell us which things are good and which are not, and
neither does the meaning of fair tell us which things are fair and which are not. If
something like equity is the most salient example of what most speakers of English regard as fair, this does not mean that the word fairness means the same, or
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very nearly the same, as equity. On a conscious level, many speakers of English
may indeed believe that fairness boils down to equity; on an unconscious level,
however, they continue to interpret fairness far more broadly and to use the words
fair and unfair in ways which have little or nothing to do with equity. This shows
us once more that (as Franz Boas [1911] argued a century ago) language as it is
actually used is often a better guide to peoples ways of thinking than their consciously held views and opinions.
The unconscious cultural assumptions underlying the concept of fairness could
be informally stated as follows: human interaction, which is based largely on what people
as individuals want to do, needs to be regulated, in everyones interest, by certain rules.
These rules cannot be all stated in advancepresumably, because life is too complex
and varied for that. In most situations, however, it is possible to appeal to a general rule
that would be seen by most people as generally applicable and also as reasonable.
The regulation of life effected by stated and unstated rules of interaction is not
seen as imposed on the society from outside but rather as something that all its members would bind themselves by voluntarily. The rules are seen as general, the same
for everyone (democratic), and voluntary. The approach is pragmatic and flexible
(the rules are not necessarily all stated in advance). It allows for free pursuit of ones
wants (it is liberal), but within limits. It also allows for a conflict of interest: an
individual is not necessarily precluded from doing things that are bad for other people,
but again, within limits. These limits cannot always be set in advance, but they can
be expected to be agreed on in concrete situations by an appeal to what is reasonablejustifiable on grounds that can be recognized by everyone (that is, by theperson-in-the-street) as valid.
5.3. Fairness and Anglo Political Philosophy

Where does the concept of fairness, which occupies such an important place in
the everyday philosophy of the speakers of English, come from? When we compare
the folk philosophy embedded in the word fair with the political philosophy of fairness developed in works such as Rawlss classic, which was mentioned earlier, the
consonance between the two is very striking. One way of looking at this consonance
is to say that the everyday word fair has crystallized in its meaning political and philosophical ideas that were developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth century by the
thinkers of the British Enlightenment and that have become entrenched in modern
Anglo consciousness. Another way of looking at it is to say that theoretical reflection
on fairness such as Rawlss (which is building on those earlier political and philosophical ideas) is in fact guided by the meaning of the word fair.
Rawlss formula justice as fairness is not entirely felicitous because, strictly
speaking, fairness is not justice but rather a new concept that has developed in
the last three centuries or so and that has come to play a central role in modern Anglo
consciousnessto some extent, alongside justice and to some extent, in place of
justice. I take a quick look at the concept of justice in the next section. Here, I
briefly present Rawlss ideas about fairness and show how these ideas correspond
to the everyday concept as discussed in the preceding section.
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The key ideas in Rawlss discussion are that fairness is linked with a democratic conception of society, that it has its origins in the idea of social contract, that
it is linked with the idea of cooperation and mutual agreement, and that it presupposes publicly recognized and generally accepted rules. Rawls himself summarizes
his conception of justice as fairness as follows:
(a) Social cooperation is distinct from merely socially coordinate activityfor example, activity coordinated by orders issued by an absolute central authority. Rather,
social cooperation is guided by publicly recognized rules and procedures which
those cooperating accept as appropriate to regulate their conduct.
(b) The idea of cooperation includes the idea of fair terms of cooperation: these
are terms each participant may reasonably accept, and sometimes should accept,
provided that everyone else likewise accepts them. Fair terms of cooperation specify
an idea of reciprocity, or mutuality: all who do their part as the recognized rules
require are to benefit as specified by a public and agreed upon standard.
(c) The idea of cooperation also includes the idea of each participants rational
advantage, or good. The idea of rational advantage specifies what it is that those
engaged in cooperation are seeking to advance from the standpoint of their own
good. (Rawls 2001, 6)
Rawlss idea of social cooperation corresponds to the component when people

want to do some things with other people. His publicly recognized rules and procedures correspond to when people want to do some things with some other people,
they know that they can do things of some kinds and at the same time they know
that they cant do things of some other kinds. The idea of the public and agreed
upon standard finds also its echo in the component if other people know about it
they will say the same: the speakers confidence that other people will share his or
her evaluation of an act described as fair or not fair is based on the existence of
such a public and agreed upon standard (people can know that).
The component when people want to do some things with other people, they
know that they can think that no one will do things like this (i.e., things of these
other kinds) corresponds to Rawlss reference to trust and confidence (not mentioned in the preceding summary but stipulated elsewhere [p. 196]).
I have not included in the explication a reference to the idea of each participants advantage, or good, because I think that this idea may belong to the
philosophy of social contract rather that to the concept of fairness as such. I have,
however, included a reference to the disadvantage of some of the participants as a
rationale for the constraints on the actions of others (because if they do it it will
be bad for these other people). This is consistent with Rawlss observation that in
a society conceived of as a fair system of cooperation, the fair terms of cooperation are not specified by reference to a moral order of values or to Gods law
but rather to the participants agreement based on their perceived reciprocal advantage, or good (pp. 1415).
. . . The fair terms of social cooperation are to be given by an agreement entered
into by those engaged in it. One reason it does this is that, given the assumption of
reasonable pluralism, citizens cannot agree on any moral authority, say a sacred
text or a religious institution or tradition. Nor can they agree about a moral order
of values or the dictates of what some view as natural law. So what better alterna-
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tive is there than an agreement between citizens themselves reached under conditions that are fair for all? (Rawls 2001, 15)
As this passage makes clear, the emergence of fairness as a modern Anglo ideal
can be seen as related to the post-Enlightenment move away from metaphysics and
to the shift from an ethics based on religion to a procedural morality and to an
ethics based on reason, social cooperation, and each participants rational advantage (see chapters 3 and 4).
I have not tried to formulate the explication of fair in such a way as to make it
maximally close to Rawlss discussion of a fair system of cooperation, because the
purpose of Rawlss discussion is different from mine. Nonetheless, there is a striking
correspondence between the explication of fair proposed here, which was arrived at
by analysis of linguistic usage, and Rawlss analysis rooted in political philosophy and
history of ideas. The historical phenomenon of the emergence of what Rawls calls
justice as fairness has found its expression in an unprecedented semantic phenomenon: the emergence of the concept of fair in everyday English.
In developing his theory of justice as fairness Rawls (1999, xviii) sought, as he
put it, to generalize and carry to a higher order of abstraction the traditional theory
of the social contract as represented by Locke, Rousseau and Kant. But judging by
linguistic evidence, this concept of justice as fairness, based on the theory of social
contract, is akin to the conception embedded in ordinary language in the English
word fair and its derivatives. Since fairness has no colloquial equivalents in either
French or German, once again we can surmise that Lockes ideas to which Rawls
refers (in particular those developed in his Second Treatise of Government [1960])
have had a greater impact on the English language than Rousseaus or Kants ideas
of social contract have had on either French or German.
In any case, there is, according to Rawls (2001, 2) a divide between the tradition
derived from Locke, which stresses . . . freedom of thought and liberty of conscience,
certain basic rights of the person and of property, and the rule of law and the tradition derived from Rousseau, which stresses . . . the equal political liberties and the
values of public life.
Speaking of a well-ordered, civil society, Locke (1960 [1690]) tends to use
the word just rather than the word fair. Yet it is easy to discern behind his statements
the key elements of the modern Anglo concept of fairness: common consent
(p. 396), standard of right and wrong (p. 396), standing rules (p. 404), agreeing
with other men to join and unite into a community (p. 379), equal and free, and
trust (p. 476). Two quotes:
On freedom, equality, and social contract
Men being, as has been said, by Nature, all free, equal and independent, no one
can be . . . subjected to the Political Power of another, without his own Consent.
The only way whereby any one divests himself of his Natural Liberty, and puts on
the bonds of Civil Society is by agreeing with other Men to joyn and unite into a
Community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another.
(Locke 1960 [1690], 374375)
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On a common standard of right and wrong

The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting onto Commonwealths, and
putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property. To
which in the state of Nature there are many things wanting. First, There wants an
establishd, settled, known Law, received and allowed by common consent to be
the Standard of Right and Wrong, and the common measure to decide all Controversies between them. (Locke 1960 [1690], 395396)
As Bauman and Briggs (2003, 56) note in their Voices of Modernity, The second of
his [Lockes] Two Treatises of Government (1960 [1690]) is credited with constructing the notions of civil society, individual rights, and government that have shaped
modern societies up to the present. Although the matter requires further investigation, I would conjecture that Locke contributed to not only the shift from rationalism to reasonableness in Anglo consciousness and culture (as suggested by Porter
2000, 66) but also a shift from justice to fairness.
Locke himself appears to have often used the word fair in a sense closer to general commendation (roughly, good) than to the full-fledged modern meaning as
explicated here. For example, men of fair minds (read in context) appears to mean
for him, roughly, men of good minds, and to live upon fair terms with someone (read
in context) appears to mean, roughly, to live on good terms. In his Two Treatises of
Government, however, the word starts to be used in collocations like a fair and equal
representative (of a community) and fair and impartial execution of the laws, where
a semantic shift seems to start taking placefrom, roughly, good in general to fair
in the modern sense.
No doubt the salient modern Anglo concept of fairness has other sources, in
addition to seventeenth-century political philosophy (including, most probably, Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism, in the sense of Max Weber 1968 [1930]).
But when political philosophy reaches a wide audience of educated readers (as Lockes
writings did), it may help, as Rawls puts it, to orient the public in the (conceptual) space, say, of all possible ends, individual and associational, political and social (Rawls 2001, 3). Political philosophy, as work of reason, does this by specifying
principles to identify reasonable and rational ends of those various kinds, and by
showing how those ends can cohere within a well-articulated conception of a just
and reasonable society (p. 3). Arguably, fairness is one of the aspects of the conception to which Rawls is here referring.
5.4. Fairness vs. Justice

A comparative and historical study of the concept of justice is a topic for future research. There is, of course, already an extensive literature on the subject of justice,
but, generally speaking, this literature is based on the assumption that the concept of
justice is either entirely language-independent or at least is shared with all European languages and that it can be discussed from a philosophical point of view without any special attention to the semantics of individual languages in which this and
156
related concepts are encoded. For example, when Mautners Dictionary of Philosophy (1996, 218) discusses different conceptions of justice from Plato to the modern
era, this is done as if there were a concept of justice independent of the Greek word
dikaiosyne, the English word justice, the German word Gerechtigkeit, and so on.
Similarly, when The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Audi 1999, 456) defines justice as each getting what he or she is due, it does not specify whether this
is intended as a definition of the English word justice, of some language-independent Platonic idea, or both. In fact, since the discussion in the entry opened with this
definition embraces Plato and Marx, it can hardly be expected to reflect, specifically,
the concept of justice encoded in ordinary English and operative in the culture reflected in that language, so presumably it is meant to refer to some language-independent, universal human idea.
It is an illusion, however, to think that the concept of justice is universal and
can be discussed, fruitfully, in a linguistic vacuum. It is also an illusion to think that
it is a concept shared by all the European languages. It is true that unlike fairness,
which is distinctively Anglo, justice belongs to a common European heritage with
its source in Greek philosophy and in the Bible, and that for centuries there was a
common European discourse about a complex of ideas that in English was linked
with the word justice. It is also true that the English word justice has relatively close
parallels in many other European languages. Nonetheless, these parallels do not
amount to full semantic identity. For example, while (as noted earlier), in contemporary English a teacher or parent cannot be described as just (or unjust), in contemporary Polish they could well be described as sprawiedliwy (or niesprawiedliwy).
In the brief remarks on justice that can be made within the confines of this chapter,
I will start with the word justice as it was used in English in the pasta usage that is
still familiar to contemporary speakers of English, and especially to readers of English literature, whether or not they have it in their active repertoire themselves. Here
are three examples from Shakespeare.
I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give: Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must
not live. (Romeo and Juliet)
F. Peter [to Isabella]: Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.
Isabella: Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard upon a wrongd Id fain have said,
a maid! O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye By throwing it on any other object, Till you have heard me in my true complaint, And given me justice, justice,
justice! (Measure for Measure)
Antipholous of Ephesus: Justice, most gracious duke, oh, grant me justice! . . .
Justice, sweet prince, against that woman there she whom thou gavest to me to
be my wife That hath abused and dishonourd me Even in the strength and height
of injury! Beyond imagination is the wrong that she this day hath shameless
thrown on me.
Duke: Discover how, and thou shalt find me just. (Comedy of Errors)
As these examples suggest, justice refers to a society where some people have power
over other people and can make decisions that influence other peoples lives for the
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good or for the bad. In the following explication, this is represented in terms of a
place where many people live and where some people are above other people.
(The vertical metaphor expressing a vertical view of a society can be rendered in
explications in this way because it appears to be available in all languages; see Lynch
2000). Thus, we could start our explication of the English word justice with the following components:
when many people live in a place it can be like this:
some of these people are not like other people,
they are above other people
if these people say some things,
good things can happen to other people in this place
if these people say some other things,
bad things can happen to other people in this place
The concept of justice implies that the people whose decisions can influence other
peoples lives (judges, rulers, etc.) should be motivated in their pronouncements by
a desire to do what is good for all people, not by anything else (e.g., not by a desire
for personal gain, fame, or popularity; not by partiality to some and indifference to
others; not by arbitrary whims). Thus:
it is good if these people say things like this because they want to do good
things for all people,
not because they want something else
More specifically, the desire of the just rulers and other privileged decision makers to do what is good should be associated with a desire to ensure that, as The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Audi 1999) puts it, each gets what he or she is
dueabove all, in the sense of consequences of bad deeds: if someone did something very bad to other people, something very bad should happen to them because
of that (for example, if Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo should be killed himself). Thus:
it is good if these people think like this:
I want people to know that if someone in this place does something very
bad to some other people
something very bad will happen to this person because I say something
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophys (Audi 1999) definition, each gets what
he or she is due, implies also a symmetrical notion of reward:
I want people to know that if someone in this place does very good
things
something good will happen to them because I say something
In fact, however, justice does not imply such a notion. Rather, as the example from
the Measure for Measure illustrates, justice implies that wrongs will be redressed, that
is, that if someone has been wronged, the just ruler or judge will ensure that something good will happen to the wronged person because of that:
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it is good if these people think like this:

I want people to know that if something very bad happens to someone in
the place because someone else did something very bad
something good will happen to this person because I say something
In practice, the punishment of the guilty and the compensation for the wronged can
often go hand in hand, as in the example from the Comedy of Errors.
Furthermore, justice implies that if the privileged and powerful decision makers do not think in those terms, this can have very negative consequences for the people
dependent on their pronouncements:
if these people dont think like this it is very bad
many very bad things can happen to many people in this place because
of this
This brings us to the following overall explication:4
justice (as in a just king)
a. [people think like this:]
b. when many people live in a place, it can be like this:
c.
some people in this place are above other people in this place
d.
if these people say some things,
good things can happen to people in this place because of this
e.
if these people say some other things,
bad things can happen to people in this place because of this
f. if it is like this in a place, it is good if these people say such things
because they want to do good things for all people,
not because of something else
g. it is good if these people think like this:
h. it is not good if in this place some people do very bad things
to some other people
i. because of this, I want people to know
that if someone in this place does something very bad
to some other people
something very bad will happen to this person
because I say something
j. at the same time, I want people to know
that if something very bad happens to some people in this place
because someone did something very bad
something good will happen to these people
because I say something
k. if these people dont think like this, it is very bad
l. people cant live well in this place if these people dont think like this
m. many very bad things can happen to many people in this place
because of this
If we compare this explication of justice with that of fairness proposed earlier, several differences stand out. One is the nonegalitarian character of justice: the notion
implies that there are some people in the society who are in a position of power and
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privilege (above other people) and whose judgments and pronouncements can have
an impact on many other peoples lives. When the words justice, just, and unjust are
used with reference to the past, they are often applied to individuals, especially rulers. When they are used with reference to modern democratic societies, they are used
most often with reference to abstractions such as the system or the society. Two
examples from Cobuild:
I just went on doing it because it was something to do, a way of kicking back at the
injustice of the system.
. . . how Americans perceived the sources of justice and injustice in their society
and acted upon those views.
In the Cobuild corpus, the vast majority of all the sentences with justice refer to the
law. For example:
I think that the best way of handling this would be to have an independent unit an
independent body that examines allegations of miscarriage of justice.
He says the pilots must face justice.
But of course, with capital punishment, justice delayed is always justice denied.
Although the explication of justice proposed here in relation to just rulers or judges
may require certain adjustments to fit the use of this word in relation to law (the
system of justice), in principle it is applicable here, too: the representatives of the
law such as judges and magistrates can still fit the description of people whose decisions can cause good or bad things for many other people in the place that is under
the law (although in a modern democratic society, it is not judges and magistrates as
individuals who are seen as being above other people but the law they represent).
Apart from the law, the society, and the system, various other extensions
of the old concept of justice can be encountered in modern usage, but they are often accompanied by a reference to fairness, as if a conceptual shift was in progress.
For example:
They make conditions unfair and unjust.
. . . the Hayden-Cartwright Act agreed that using motor vehicle taxes for something
other than building or maintaining highways was unfair and unjust.
. . . if right now there were within you inner feelings of unfairness, injustice, imbalance . . . then not all at once but over perhaps some eight- nine- at the outside
ten-month period many if not all of those inner feelings are going to be blown away.
The shift from justice to justice and fairness (and to fairness tout court) is no doubt
related to the fact that justice as applied to individuals has a ring of an absolute moral
judgment: the idea that a just person (e.g., a just king) makes some decisions because he (or, more rarely, she) wants to do good things sounds uncongenial to many
present-day Anglo speakers, who (as noted by Charles Taylor 1989 and others) tend to
value procedural rather than absolute morality and who are more concerned about
mutually advantageous cooperation between individuals than about absolute ideas like
goodness and truth (a point to which I return in section 5.7). It is significant that the
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notion of fairness, in contrast to that of justice, is related to the notion of rights.

Justice can be contrasted not only with injustice but also with mercy. For example:
And earthly power doth then show likest God
When mercy seasons justice (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)
Justice could be seasoned with mercy, but it would be impossible to say the same
about fairness. Mercy implies inequality: the giver of mercy is in some sense above
the recipient, who depends on the givers benevolence. The phrase earthly power
rightly links both justice and mercy with power. Fairness, on the other hand, implies
equal standing of all the partiesat least in the sense that they are all bound by the
same rules.
Given the relatively small overlap between justice and fairness as explicated
in this chapter, it is all the more striking that in the literature fairness is often presented as a variety of justice or a specific conception of justice. In fact, the perceived closeness of the two concepts should be explained in structural rather than
substantive terms: in modern Anglo society, the ideal of fairness has supplanted, to
some extent, the ideal of justice, largely restricting the domain of justice to a public sphere and linking it with personified abstractionsespecially the lawrather
than with individual human beings.
5.5. The Illusion of Universality

As mentioned earlier, fairness is a uniquely Anglo concept, without equivalents in
other languages, except, as for example in German, as a loan from English (das is
nicht fair, thats not fair). At the same time, in Anglo culture this concept is so central
that many speakers of English imagine that it must be universal, perhaps even innate. For example, in a recent article in the British newspaper The Guardian, Polly
Toynbee (2002) argues for the innateness of some basic moral code by using as her
prime example the supposedly innate principle of fairness (morality is plainly inborn in every child as soon as it cries unfair).
Similarly, Steven Pinker, in his 2002 book The Blank Slate, includes fairness on
his list of putative human universals. Pinkers list is derived mostly from Donald Browns
1991 book Human Universals and from Browns entry in The MIT Encyclopedia of the
Cognitive Sciences (1999). Donald Browns List of Human Universals includes many
items that, as the empirical investigations carried out within the NSM framework have
established, are indeed universally attested (see Table 1.1). Among them are, for example, one and two, same (i.e., the same), good, and bad. The list includes
also some spurious universals, such as white and black, which were posited as such
in Berlin and Kays 1969 classic, and which are now known not to be universal (for
discussion e.g., Wierzbicka 1996, in press b,c) but which are nonetheless not uncommon
in the languages of the world. But the presence of fairness on the list is remarkable,
given that fairness is a unique conceptual invention of modern English. Remarkable,
that is, from the point of view of native speakers of languages other than English. For
native speakers of English, however (including many scholars), it is simply unimaginable that fairness should not be a universal human concern. This is a good example
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of how peoples native language can shape their ways of thinking and their assumptions about what is natural and universal. It is also a good illustration of the dangers of
a monolingual perspective in discussions of human nature and the human mind.
Many scholars working in English simply refuse to believe that fairness is not
a universal human concern. Some appeal in this context to Aristotle and to Piaget.
For example, James Wilson, the author of The Moral Sense (1994, 10) (apparently,
the source of fairness on Donald Browns List of Human Universals) writes: Perhaps the first moral judgment uttered by the child is, Thats not fair! (Note: not
an English-speaking child but simply, the child.) Wilson elaborates: By the time
that they are in elementary school, the idea of fairness has acquired a fairly definite
meaning: people should have equal shares (p. 11). According to Wilson, this corresponds to Aristotles concept of distributive justice:
A vast body of research on adult behaviour provides compelling evidence for the
importance of fairness as a guide to how we behave. In these studies (and here as
well), fairness is defined much as Aristotle defined distributive justice: What is
just . . . is what is proportionate (Nichomachean Ethics 1131b17)that is, things
should be divided among people in proportion to their worth or merit. (Wilson
1994, 12)
The vast body of research on adult behaviour [which] provides compelling evidence
for the importance of fairness as a guide to how we behave is no doubt rightif by
we one means we Anglos, rather than we human beings. But fairness can
hardly guide the behavior of people who have no such concept, that is, speakers of
most, if not all, languages other than English, for example, Polish, German, or French,
not to mention Australian Aboriginal languages, to which I will return shortly.
What applies to Aristotle (as a thinker who was supposedly keenly interested in
fairness) applies also to Piaget. When Piagets classic work, The Moral Judgment of
the Child, was translated into English (by Marjorie Gabain; Piaget 1950), Piagets
French word juste was in most contexts rendered in English as fair. It is an illusion,
however, to think that when Piaget was studying the emergence of the concepts of
juste and justice (French words) in French, he was studying the emergence of the
concept of fairness, as the reader of the English translation, unaware of the semantic differences between the French word juste and the English fair, may
unsuspectingly assume. For example, when Piaget asked (French-speaking) children
to give examples of what is not juste (pas juste) (1969, 250), they cited lying, stealing,
breaking things, and so forth, as well as cheating in games or giving a big piece of
cake to one person and a small piece to another (p. 250). Clearly, this is a concept
different from that encoded in the English word fair (although Piagets English translator did render pas juste in this context as not fair).
In fact, the French word juste could be compared not only with the English
fair but also with the English word right, for example, its not right (or it is wrong)
to lie or steal. It is an altogether different concept, which doesnt necessarily imply
reciprocity or cooperation any more than the English words just and right do.
For example, while in English one can describe office bearers in democratic institutions as fair (e.g., she is very fair, she was a very fair chairperson/head of
department), one could not use the French word juste in such a context: *elle
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est trs juste, *Madame la Prsidente est trs juste. The English fair and the French
juste overlap in meaning, but they do not match.
The projection of the modern Anglo value of fairness onto other epochs and
other cultures is well illustrated by a passage from the Bible story of the Prodigal Son,
as retold in English for young children in the series Usborne Bible Tales: The Prodigal Son. (As the cover puts it, Usborne Bible Tales have been specially written, staying close to the original stories, for young children who are just beginning to read.)
In the New King James version of the story, the words of the contrite prodigal son are
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to
be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. In the Usborne version, on the other hand, we read: Forgive me, father. It isnt fair for me to be your
son anymore. Please let me be one of your servants. Although the value of forgiveness is indeed central to the story and to New Testament ethics in general, the value
of fairness is, of course, totally alien to that ethics.
A particularly spectacular example of mistaking the historically shaped Anglo
concept of fairness for a human universal is provided by a recent book entitled
Natural Justice (Binmore 2005). The author of this book acknowledges that fairness norms can differ in different times and places (p.17), but insists that the concept of fairness as such is biologically determined (p.18), and is one of those few
characteristics of our species that separates us from other animals (p.18). Indeed,
fairness is evolutions solution to the equilibrium selection problem for our ancestral game of life (p. 14). The book completely misses the point that the very phrase
fairness norms imposes an Anglocentric perspective on what he calls our [human]
ancestral game of life.
Both the nonuniversality of the Anglo concept of fairness and its links with, as
Rawls (2001, p. 6) put it, social cooperation guided by publicly recognized rules
are clearly visible in the following vignette from Australia (where Ann is an Australian Aboriginal woman and Janet, an Anglo Australian):
It was Saturday afternoon and the shop was closed. Jimmys mother Ann needed
some food. She went to see her friend Janet who was the storekeepers wife.
Ann went to Janets house. After sitting for a while she asked her, Janet, can
you open up the shop for me? My little girls been sick and I need to buy some
food now.
Janet answered, Im sorry, Ann, but I cant do that. You know we tell everybody they cant buy food on Saturday afternoon. They have to buy their food on
Saturday morning. If I open up the store for you, lots of other people will want to
buy things too.
Janet gave Ann some of her own bread, but Ann was not happy. Janet was a
sister to Ann, and they visited each other a lot. Ann thought Janet was not being
a good sister to her. (Hargrave 1991, 19)
As this vignette illustrates, fairness (invoked here implicitly) is essentially about rules
(social contract) that are the same for everyone, publicly recognized, and generally accepted. Clearly, there is no such concept in Anns culture, just as there is no
concept of kinship-based obligations in Janets culture. As I have argued elsewhere
(Wierzbicka 2001), there are indeed some universal moral norms and values, but to
think that fairness is among them is an Anglocentric illusion.
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The culture-specific character of the Anglo concept of fairness and of the values attached to it is highlighted by the experience of many immigrants to
Anglophone countries. Drawing on my own experience as a Polish immigrant in
Australia, I can testify that this concept was often a source of tension in our crosscultural and bilingual family. Thus, in the past, my daughters, growing up in Australia, used to say to me (in Polish), to nie fair (thats not fair!), and I used to
reply, in exasperation, that I didnt think in such terms. These bilingual children,
who were speaking both English and Polish every day and who were thinking in
terms of the English word fair (a key concept of their dominant Anglo Australian
culture), knew that there was no Polish word for fair, so they used the English word
fair in their Polish sentence. And I, as a bilingual but culturally predominantly
Polish person, knew that I found the concept of fair both alien and (in a family
situation) offensive and hurtful. One of my daughters used to say, with some resentment, You hate the word fair. (This is a good example of how cultures clash
in cross-cultural and bilingual families.)
It should be pointed out here that judging by linguistic and other evidence, in
Australia fairness is even more important than in other traditionally English-speaking countries (see for example the Australian National Dictionary for the evidence
of its linguistic elaboration). The Australian writer David Malouf has recently commented on this as follows:
The one word that sums up what Australians demand of society, and of one another, is fairness, a good plain word that grounds its meaning in the contingencies
of daily living. It is our version of liberty, equality, fraternity and includes everything that is intended by those grand abstractions and something more: the idea of
natural justice, for instance. Its about as far as most Australians would want to go
in the enunciation of a principle. (Malouf 2004)
5.6. Fairness and Fair Play: A Historical Perspective

When exactly did the concept of fairness enter the English language (and collective
Anglo thinking)? The question is not easy to answer, because the words fair and unfair
(in other meanings) are attested in English from the nineth century and because their
earlier meanings and the changes in their meanings have not yet been investigated.
According to OED, the word unfair in the relevant sense entered the English
language in the eighteenth century. The OED defines this sense as follows: not fair
or equitable; unjust; of actions, conduct etc, specifically of (business competition),
and the earliest examples cited to illustrate this sense are the following four:
This shifting, unfair method of yours (Berkeley, 1713)
If indeed it were so abridged as to alter the sense, that would be unfair. (Wesley,
1746)
This conclusion appeared so unfair . . . that she burst into tears. (S & Ht. Lee,
1798)
There was a very unfair review in the Athenaeum. (E. Fitzgerald 1859)
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It is very likely, however, that the word unfair was not used in these sentences exactly
in the same sense in which it was used in late nineteenth- and twentieth- century
examples with the phrase unfair competition, cited by the OED under the same definition, because its range of use was in the eighteenth century much wider. One example (from a judges speech to the jury):
I find it difficult to suppress my feelings. As, however, to say anything of the distinguished talents and virtues of that excellent man, might tend to excite improper
emotions in the minds of the jury, [I] would withhold these feelings which pressed
for utterance from my heart, and leave you, gentlemen, to form your judgement
upon the evidence which has been adduced in support of the case, undressed by
any unfair indignation which you might feel against his murderer.
Unfair indignation is seen here as an improper emotion in the minds of the jury
an understandable but not longer possible use of the word unfair. Thus, it would
appear that the familiar twentieth-century sense of unfair (as, for example, in unfair
competition) emerged and spread widely only in the nineteenth century.
As for fair in the relevant modern sense, the OED goes even further back and,
indeed, opens its entry devoted to this sense with an example dated 1340! In fact,
however, the examples predating the eighteenth century are open to many different interpretations. It is clear that before the eighteenth century, fair was used widely
as a fairly general word of commendation and that the interpretation imposed on
some earlier examples by the OED projects on them the modern meaning rather
than identifying what they meant at the time. In fact, even eighteenth-century examples such as words which have the fairest Right to each Class indicate that
fair in the relevant sensewhich was then gradablewas different from the modern sense.
The range of collocations of fair was also different from what it is now. Modernsounding collocations like a fair question are deceptive in this regard, because in the
eighteenth century (in contrast to the present usage), not only a question but also an
answer could have been described as fair. Other collocations common then but
impossible now include a fair proof, a fair disclosure, and a fair confession. To illustrate from The Proceedings of the Old Bailey:
That is a very fair answer, and just such an one as I expected you to give; you have
told us very fairly that you are uncertain. (1785)
There was a fair proof against the prisoner, who but denied the fact, and the
jury found him guilty to the value of 10 d. (1716)
I ask you, whether the confession she made was a free and fair confession; or
whether it was extorted from her by any hope or promise, or any thing of that sort?
(1782)
He has given a fair evidence. (1784)
The earliest examples that sound modern in their use of fair are those with
the phrase fair play, attested from the end of the sixteenth century onward. In fact,
however, even the phrase fair play is misleading as putative evidence for a preeighteenth-century emergence of the modern concept of fairness: fair play had its
opposite in foul play, not in unfair play, whereas fair competition has its opposite in
unfair competition. There is undoubtedly a historical link between fair play and fair
Being Fair
165
competition, but as the different opposites of fair in these two collocations indicate,
the two senses of fair (as in fair play and fair competition) are by no means identical.
In fact, one can speculate that the notion of fair play as a whole played a significant role in the emergence of the new concept of fair: in fair play, the notion of,
roughly speaking, rules was part of the meaning of the word play, whereas in fair
competition (and other comparable modern collocations), it became part of the
meaning of fair itself. To put it differently, the notion of fair play appears to have
become absorbed, as it were, in the meaning of fair itself: the meaning of fair, as
applied to all types of human interaction, appears to have been built on the model of
fair play. Indeed, the OED cites several sentencesfrom the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuriesin which the phrase fair play is used in what the
OED calls a transferred meaning, for example:
Fear of the future shut his eyes to all sense of justice and fair play. (1882)
(Recall, for comparison, the example from Malouf cited earlier: Laying the responsibility for their feelings on her . . . was unfair. They did not play fair.)
5.7. Fairness and Procedural Morality

Fair play as a model of human interaction highlights the procedural character
of the ethics of fairness. Arguably, the emergence of the concept of fairness reflects
a shift away from absolute morality to procedural (and contractual) morality, and
the gradual shift from just to fair can be seen as parallel to the shifts from good to
right and also from wise (and also true) to reasonable: in all cases, there is a shift from
an absolute, substantive approach to a procedural one.
Speaking of the conceptions of justice central to Western law, the legal scholar
George Fletcher quoted earlier contrasts the categories of distributive and corrective justice, bequeathed to us (as he puts it) by Aristotle, and the closely related
categories of retributive and commutative justice, which were (as he puts it) added
later, with the modern Anglo procedural conception reflected in the word fairness.
All four of these [classical] forms of justicedistributive, corrective, retributive,
and commutativeare substantive as opposed to procedural. They all speak to the
result rather than the process by which the result is achieved. A distinct form of
justice addresses itself to the question of how this result is realized. The central
term in the discussion of procedural justice is fairness. (Fletcher 1996, 81)
Fletchers definitions of fairness and fair procedures are circular, but they are nonetheless instructive:
Our notions of fairness and fair play draw heavily on the analogies from competitive sports and gaming that pervade idiomatic English. Fair procedures are those
in which both sides had an equal opportunity of winning. Fairness consists in playing by the rules that are fair to both sides. Neither side hits below the belt. No one
hides the ball. Idioms like these inform the way Americans think about procedural
justice. (Fletcher 1996, 81)
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The phrasing the way Americans think about procedural justice is, in my view,
somewhat unfortunate, because neither Americans nor other ordinary Anglos think
in terms like procedural justice. But they undoubtedly think about fairness and
often do so in terms of sporting metaphors.
Jeremy Paxman, the author of The English: A Portrait of a People (1999), states
that while the French Revolution invented the Citizen, the English creation is the
Game (p. 194) and certainly, sport came to occupy a central role in English culture (p. 196). He also quotes a characteristic comment by the writer Vita SackvilleWest (1947)2 that links the English preoccupation with games and sport with the
concept of fairness:
The English man is seen at his best the moment that another man starts throwing
a ball at him. He is then seen to be neither spiteful, nor vindictive, nor mean, nor
querulous, nor desirous of taking unfair advantage; he is seen to be law-abiding,
and to respect the regulations which he himself generally has made; he takes it for
granted that his adversary will respect them likewise; he would be profoundly
shocked by any attempt to cheat; his scorn would be as much aroused by any exultation displayed by the victor as by any ill-temper displayed by the loser . . . It is all
quite simple. One catches, kicks, or hits the ball, or else one misses it; and the
same holds for the other chap. It is all taken in good part. (Paxman 1999, 196)
Paxman comments: What she is talking about is something whose importance cannot be exaggerated. It is the significance to the English of the idea of the Game. The
thing is loved for its own sake (1999, 196).
In a way, sportespecially team sportprovides a perfect model for fair interaction because the emphasis is on rules and procedures, which are blind to the
individual players interests and which everyone voluntarily accepts. To quote Fletcher
again:
In its pure form, a fair procedure is all that is needed to generate a just result. Systems of perfect procedural justice are illustrated by flipping a coin to resolve a
dispute or the venerable method for fairly dividing a piece of cake, namely, letting
one person cut and the other choose his preferred slice. These are procedures that
do not admit of mistakes; no one can complain about the outcome as unjust.
(Fletcher 1996, 81)
Here, the fairness of the procedure is that all the participants who want to do something together (share a cake) know in advance what they can do (either cut the cake
or choose a slice) and what they cant do (both cut the cake and choose a slice), and
they know that if someone both cut the cake and chose a slice, this could be bad for
the other participant(s), and the other participant(s) could protest.
The cultural assumptions of fairness as outlined here reflect a specific, historically shaped, political and social philosophy. Once this is recognized, it should
no longer be surprising that most languages of the world do not have words corresponding to the English words fair, fairness, and unfair (in the relevant, modern sense).
The concept of fairness is an artifact of modern Anglo culture and one of the key
concepts that speakers of Anglo English live with and see as the best basis for social
life and interpersonal interaction.
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In his much-discussed book Trust, Francis Fukuyama (1995, 34) defines culture
as inherited ethical habit. Distinguishing ideologies, which are conscious, from
cultural habit and unwritten moral rules, Fukuyama writes:
The most important habits that make up cultures have little to do with how one
eats ones food or combs ones hair but with the ethical codes by which societies
regulate behaviourwhat the philosopher Nietzsche called a peoples language
of good and evil. Ethical systems create moral communities because their shared
languages of good and evil give their members a common moral life. (pp. 3536)
Ethical codes binding large groups of people into moral communities are conveyed
across generations through particular wordsof course, not exclusively through
words, but largely through words. The shared use of words like fair and unfair both
reflects and transmits the habit of thinking in such terms.
Fukuyama links aspects of Anglo-American culture such as practices and principles of voluntary association, cooperativeness, combining for business purposes
(p. 273), generalized social trust (p. 281), the primacy of rights, and adherence to democratic political institutions with the development of certain ethical habits entrenched in a shared ethical language. I would add that the English words that best
epitomize the ethical code in question are the distinctively English and untranslatable words fair and unfair.2
part iii
ANGLO CULTURE REFLECTED

IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR
Chapter 6
The English Causatives

Causation and Interpersonal Relations
6.1. The Cultural Elaboration of Causation

6.1.1. Ethnosyntax: Links between culture and grammar
While obviously words are carriers of meaning, it is less obvious that grammatical
categories of a language also encode meaning. But in fact this is what grammar is all
about: certain meanings are so important to communities of speakers that they become not just lexicalized (linked with individual words) but grammaticalized, that
is, embodied in the languages structural patterns.
Languages differ widely not only, as Sapir (1949 [1924], 27) put it, in the nature
of their vocabularies but also in the nature of their grammar. Sapirs dictum Distinctions which seem inevitable to us may be utterly ignored in languages which reflect
an entirely different type of culture, while these in turn insist on distinctions which
are all but unintelligible to us (p. 27) applies equally to vocabulary and to grammar.
Clearly, the reason why a notion like an alternating generation is encoded in
the grammar of some Australian languagesbut not, for example, in the grammar
of English or Russianis that this notion plays a role in the Australian Aboriginal
societies in question (where, for example, the generations of ones grandparents or
grandchildren are expected to be treated differently from those of ones parents, greatgrandparents, or great-grandchildren). Similarly, it is clearly not an accident that,
for example, the Hanuno language of the Philippines has dozens of words for different kinds of rice (see Conklin 1957), and to anyone who knows anything about
Russian culture, it is clearly not an accident that Russian has an extremely rich and
elaborate system of expressive derivation applicable to proper names (names of persons), whereas in languages like English the corresponding system of expressive derivation is extremely limited (compare, e.g., John and Johnny in English, vs. Ivan and
Vanja, Vaneka, Vanjua, Vanjuka, Vanjueka, and so on in Russian; for discussion, see Wierzbicka 1992, chapter 7; also Friedrich 1966). In this chapter, I focus on
one area of cultural elaboration in grammar, namely, on the elaboration of causal
relations in modern English.
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172
Anglo Culture Reflected in English Grammar
If one looks at English in a comparative perspective, one is struck by its extremely

rich repertoire of causative constructions. This wealth is concealed, to some extent,
by the use of the same key words, such as make, have, or let, in many different constructions, all of which may appear to be examples of a single make-construction,
have-construction, or let-construction. In fact, there are reasons to distinguish,
on both semantic and structural grounds, more than a dozen different make-constructions in English (for evidence and argumentation, see Wierzbicka 1998c) and
probably more than a dozen different have-constructions (see Wierzbicka 1988). As
this chapter seeks to demonstrate, English has also a wide range of different letconstructions. To give just a few preliminary examples of the wealth of causative
constructions found in English, let me mention the following eleven (for further discussion, see Chappell 1978; Wierzbicka 1988):
X made Y do something intentionally (e.g., X made Y wash the dishes)
X made Y do something unintentionally (e.g., X made Y cry)
X made Y adjective (e.g., X made Y furious)
X had Y do something (e.g., X had Y wash the dishes)
X had something done to Xs Z (e.g., X had her boots mended)
X had Y doing something (e.g., X had Y staying with her)
X got Y to do something (e.g., X got Y to wash the dishes)
X got Y adjective (e.g., X got Y furious)
X got herself participle (e.g., X got herself kicked out)
X verbed Y into doing Z (e.g., X talked/tricked Y into resigning)
X verbed Y doing something (e.g., X kept Y waiting)
As mentioned earlier, grammatical elaboration of conceptual domains often goes
hand in hand with lexical elaboration. Kinship in Australian languages is one case
in point (see, e.g., Hale 1966; Dench 1982, 1987; Heath, Merlan, and Rumsey 1982).
Causal interaction in English is, I think, another. For example, if one compares
English and Russian speech acts, one will discover that the English lexicon pays more
attention to different strategies of human causationjust as English grammar pays
more attention to this area than Russian grammar. Other semantic areas are more
elaborated in Russian than in English (see, e.g., Wierzbicka 1992, chapter 12; 1997,
chapter 2).
In trying to understand the extraordinary wealth of causative constructions found
in modern English (not only in comparison with other European languages but also
in a universal perspective), we should ask, I think, for its cultural roots. Why is it that
so much attention is focused in English on the precise nature of causal relations
between various actions and various events? I would like to put forward two interpretive hypotheses in this regard.
First, as democracy developed in modern societyinitially, in America (see de
Tocqueville 1966 [1848])a new style of human relations evolved, which had to ac-
173
commodate an increased scale of interpersonal interactions and put those interactions

on a new footing (see Stearns and Stearns 1986). The new managerial type of society,
too, needed an increased scale of interpersonal causations: for the new society to function smoothly and efficiently, lots of people had to be told what to do. This had to
happen, however, in the context of a democracy, where people might be willing to
take directions or to follow instructions but not to obey orders or commands.
But to talk of a shift from orders to directions and instructions is an oversimplification. In fact, a whole range of new concepts has developed and become
socially salient, concepts to do with different kinds of interpersonal causation. For
example, there are significant differences between telling someone to type up some
letters, ordering someone to do so, directing them to do so, and having some
letters typed up. In modern Anglo society, the idea of having things done has
become increasingly important; it suggests a setup that doesnt involve one person
bending to the will of another and where many people are willingin various spheres
of life, such as office work or interaction at a service stationto do things that someone else wants them to do, while at the same time preserving their personal autonomy
and full control over other areas of their personal lives.
The cultural emphasis on personal autonomy, characteristic of modern Anglo
society and reflected in many ways in modern English (see, e.g., Wierzbicka 1991/
2003a, 1996a), is no doubt closely related to the expansion of causative constructions
in modern English, as is also the marked emphasis on the need for voluntary cooperation among equals (see Fukuyama 1995). In a large-scale society, where service
encounters have come to occupy a vital role in everyday life and where people are
acutely aware of their right to, and need for, personal autonomy, the nuances of
causation assume an extraordinary importance.
For example, if I am working in a service profession (say, waiting tables or driving a taxi), my livelihood depends on my willingness to do what other people want
me to do (and to do it because they say they want me to do it), but the relationship
with my customers has to be negotiated in such a way that I dont abrogate my personal autonomy in the process. I am willing to serve my customers, but I am not
willing to treat them as my superiors. If I am working in an institution such as a
university or in public administration, I may well have bosses, superiors, or heads
of department, whose will I may have to bow to on an everyday basis. But if I am a
modern Anglo person, I will not want to abrogate my personal autonomy because of
this, and I will follow my bosses will only in a context that ensures the recognition of
both my autonomy and my essential equality with them. Even in the realm of family interaction, it has become crucial in the modern Anglo world that parental authority has to be exercised, and indeed conceived of, in ways that are consistent with
the childrens right to, and need for, personal autonomy.
All these modern ideas and expectations needed new ways of speaking and, I
suggest, found their expression in the plethora of causative constructions so characteristic of nineteenth- and twentieth-century English. It is, of course, true that
democracy reaches wide outside the Anglo world, and that so does the ethos of
equality, of the rights of the individual, and of personal autonomy. It is not true,
however, that the cultural emphasis on personal autonomy in the Anglosphere
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(cf. Bennett 2004) is equally characteristic of the German-speaking, Spanish-speaking, or Russian-speaking world (see, e.g., Wierzbicka 1998b).
There are considerable and partly grammaticalized differences in ways of speaking separating English from most other European languages, above all, differences
in the use of the imperative. The extraordinary growth of various whimperatives in
modern English (see chapter 2), linked with the growing avoidance of the straight
imperative, is an unparalleled phenomenon, with obvious cultural significance. In
fact, the growth of conventional expressions such as would you do X, will you do
X, could you do X, and would you mind doing Xall aimed at avoiding the
impression that one is trying to impose ones will on somebody elseseems to have
proceeded in parallel with the growth of causative constructions and the emergence
of new varieties of make-constructions, have-constructions, get-constructions,
and especially let-constructions in modern English. (For further discussion, see
Wierzbicka 1998c.) Before discussing these constructions in detail, we need to consider some methodological issues.
6.1.2. The meaning of causatives
in a cross-linguistic perspective
The literature on the syntax of causative constructions in different languages is huge;
the literature on their semantics is relatively modest. But the use of such constructions is largely determined by their meaning. Since little is known about their meaning, a language learner looking for some guidelines to the actual use of such
constructions can seldom find any statements anywhere that are clear, precise, and
reliable. But it is not just the language learner who would be disappointed by the
literature on causatives. The area of causation is of enormous inherent interest for
the philosophy of grammar and social psychology; after all, a languages causative
constructions show how its speakers draw distinctions between different kinds of causal
relations and how they perceive and interpret causal links between events and human actions. And yet our understanding of ethnocausology is far behind that of,
for example, ethnozoology or ethnogeology.
Folk interpretations of causal links are less accessible to direct observation than
those of more concrete phenomena, but they can be empirically investigated. The
syntax of a language provides a wealth of evidence in this regardif we can find ways
of analyzing it in an illuminating and systematic way.
I believe that here as elsewhere the key to such analysis lies in the choice of a
suitable semantic metalanguage. In the existing literature on causatives, the semantics of different constructions is usually discussed in terms of ready-made labels such
as direct versus indirect causation, contactive versus distant causation, strong
coercion versus weak coercion, authority versus absence of authority, factitive
versus permissive causation, or manipulative versus directive causation. But labels of this kind can often be misleading and dont have much explanatory or predictive power, because the meaning of the constructions to which they are applied differs
from language to language.
The use of ready-made labels such as direct versus indirect causation or
contactive versus distant causation is based on the mistaken (in my view) assump-
175
tion that there are certain types of causation that can first be described a priori and
then identified in individual languages. But detailed semantic analysis shows that
the actual causative constructions are often unique in the meaning they encapsulate. What is called direct causation or strongly coercive causation in one language usually differs from what bears the same label in another. This is not to say
that there are no recurring motifs, no cross-linguistic similarities in the area of causation. Rather, the point is that causative constructions usually encapsulate a unique
combination of components. Individual componentssuch as, for example, Y
wanted it or Y didnt want itfrequently recur in the worlds languages. But the
configurations of such components tend to be unique and cannot be adequately
captured in global labels such as indirect, manipulative, and distant.
As I see it, establishing the configuration of universal concepts encoded in a given
causative construction is not a final touch that can be added to the results once the
main analysis has already been completed. Rather, it is the essence of the analysis.
Assigning to a construction a label such as coercion, authority, or contact does
not really bring us any closer to understanding its meaning.
What applies to the cross-linguistic comparison of causative constructions applies also to the comparison of different causative constructions within one language.
For example, in English, interpersonal causation can be described by means of
several different causative constructions:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Mary had John return the money.

Mary made John return the money.
Mary got John to return the money.
Mary forced John to return the money.
Mary talked John into returning the money.
Each of these sentences means something different, and no labels such as direct,
indirect, strong, weak, coercive, manipulative, or contactive can clarify
the nature of these differences (any more than they could clarify the differences between these constructions and the German lassen-construction or the Japanese oand ni-constructions).
In what follows, I first briefly discuss constructions (a), (c), and (e), and then
more extensively construction (b). Finally, I compare the meaning of the make-causative illustrated in (b) with that of the force-causative illustrated in (d).
6.1.3. Three English causatives: Have, get, and into
6.1.3.1. having someone do something
The following sentence from a novel nicely illustrates the contrast between make
and have causatives:
She had the girls clean his bicycle and made Anand pump the tyres every morning. (Naipaul 1969, 481)
In the novel, the wife, Shama, is trying to please and appease her husband in various
ways and, in particular, by getting the children to do things for him. The girls are
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expected to be compliant and willing to do what their mother wants them to do,
whereas the boy, Anand, has to be made to pump the tires every morning. The
meaning of the have-construction can be portrayed as follows:
Person X had person Y do Z. =
a. X wanted something to happen (to W)
b. because of this X wanted Y to do Z (to W)
c. because of this, X said something to someone
d. because of this Y did Z
e. X could think about it like this:
when I say something like this (about something like this)
Y cant say: I dont want to do this
The have-construction does not imply that the causee didnt want to perform the
action. Nor does it imply that the causee had to do it. It does imply, however, something like a hierarchical relationship, within which the causer can say that he or she
wants the causee to do something, and the causee cant say in response, I dont want
to do it.
This doesnt mean that the causer has complete power over the causee and that
the causee has to do whatever the causer wants. The compliance may well be limited
to some particular sphere (such as the professional duties of a secretary to whom her
boss can give directions). Within this sphere, however, the causer doesnt have to exert
any special pressure to achieve the desired effect: simply saying what he or she wants is
enough. In fact, the causers will does not even have to be expressed directly to the
causee; it can be conveyed via another person. Because the causee doesnt really have
to do what the causer wants, it might seem that it would be better to phrase component
(e) as Y wouldnt say: I dont want to do it. This alternative formulation, however,
could apply also to situations when the causer is counting on the causees good heart
(when I ask her to do something she will not say no), and it is therefore inappropriate
in the case of the have-construction. In a hierarchical relationship, a person can think
that someone in a subordinate position cant refuse to take directions.
Thus, in the have-causative, the causer assumes the causees readiness to take
directions; the causee is treated here as a cooperative performer of the causers will,
as someone to whom the causers will can be communicated (either directly or by
an intermediary) and who will be both able to understand it and willing to perform
it. This explains why, as pointed out by Talmy (1976, 107), the causee of the havecausative normally has to be human:
*I had the squirrel leave its tree.
The trainer made/?had the lion dance.
One could say, vaguely, that both the make-causative and the have-causative imply
some sort of power relation between the causer and the causee. But clearly, the
nature of this relation is in each case perceived differently. The make-causative implies that the causee is acting under pressure (what exactly this means is discussed
later). The have-causative doesnt imply that; here, the causee is expected to comply
with the causers will, and there is no assumption, or expectation, of unwillingness
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on his or her part. Nonetheless, the expected compliance of the causee is not seen as
due entirely to good will: there is also an assumption of dependence reflected in the
component Y cant say: I dont want to do this.
Finally, the have-construction does not imply that the causer is seeking to control the causees actions, and it is not compatible with a situation where someone is
seeking to impose her or his will on another person just to enjoy arbitrary power.
Rather, the have-construction implies a goal that transcends the causees actions; from
the causers point of view, the causee is like an instrument in achieving some objective (as signaled in the component X wanted something to happen) rather than as
the target of the causees will. Presumably, this is the reason why the have causatives
normally occur with transitive rather than intransitive verbs:
X made Y wait (sit still).
?X had Y wait (sit still).
Furthermore, the transitive verbs in the have-construction usually take definite rather
than indefinite objects:
a. X made Y eat fish.
b. ?X had Y eat fish.
c. X had Y return the fish to the shop.
The have-construction implies that the causer wants something to happen to some
object (in this case, the fish) rather than to the causee as such. The make-construction, however, is quite compatible with exercises in arbitrary power, deliberate cruelty, malice, punishment, and so on:
[She] used to make us kneel on graters for a thing like that. (Naipaul 1969,
236)
?She used to have us kneel on graters for a thing like that.
It is also interesting to note that in (partial)1 contrast to the make-construction, the
have-construction does not allow the passive (with the causee being put in the subject position):
a. He was made to pump the tyres every morning.
b. *He was had to pump the tyres every morning.
The causee of a make-construction can be topicalized in this way because the causee
is the target of the causers action and so is potentially worthy of interest, but the causee
of the have-construction is not the target of the causers action but a mere instrument.
6.1.3.2. getting someone to do something
The interpersonal causative construction based on the auxiliary verb get can be illustrated with the following sentence:
. . . Anand got Shama [his mother] to bring a coloured print of the goddess Lakshmi
from Hanuman House. (Naipaul 1969, 383)
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The boy Anand has no authority over his mother, and he cant have or make her
do anything. Nevertheless, he can get her to do something for him.
The get-construction illustrated in this sentence is not the only get-causative
available in English. Causative get-sentences with an inanimate causee are also possible (for example, she got the sauce to thicken), but the semantic conditions on
such sentences are different from those on the interpersonal sentences with a human causee and a verb of action, that is, of the type someone (X) got some0ne else
(Y) to so something, with which we are concerned here.
The get-causative of the type discussed here implies that the causees do something not because they want to do it but because somebody else wants them to do it.
At the same time, the action is not imposed on the causee by virtue of the causers
power or authority. The causer realizes that the causee may not want to comply, and,
unlike the case of the have-causative, the causer has no power or authority over the
addressee to overcome his or her possible reluctance or unwillingness to do what the
causer wants. Because of this, the causer does (typically, says) something to the causee
in the expectation that this might influence the causees will and that as a result the
causee will do the desired action willingly. And indeed, this happens: the causee does
what is wanted by the causer and does it willingly. The causer gets something out
of it: often because what the causee does can be seen as good for the causer, and
always because the causer can think that what he or she wanted to happen has happened (see component g in the explication below).
How does one get another person to do something that one wants them to do?
Usually, by saying something, as in the case of the have-construction, but not necessarily so. For example, one can get a dog to swallow a pill by putting it in a piece
of meat or by smearing it with jam. The get-construction can also be used with reference to machines that appear to have a will of their own, for example:
How did you get the washing machine to go? I couldnt.
The have-construction, which relies on a speech act, and on conscious acceptance
of somebody elses authority, cannot be used like that.
?She had the dog swallow the pill.
?She had the washing machine go.
Thus, the overall semantic conditions on the get-constructions (with a human or
humanlike causee) can be summarized as follows:
Person X got person Y to do Z. =
a. X wanted Y to do Z
b. X knew that if Y didnt want to do it Y would not do it
c. X thought about it like this: if Y wants to do it Y will do it
d. because of this X did (said) something to Y
e. because of this after this Y wanted to do Z
f. because of this Y did Z
g. because of this X could think like this:
I wanted something to happen
it happened
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Although the action is done willingly (component e), the strategy used by the causer
smacks a little of manipulation, for the causees action is brought about by the
causers, rather than the causees, will. Nonetheless, getting someone to do something cannot be seen as real manipulation, for the causer does not conceal his or
her goal, and the causee is not acting against his or her will (there is no assumption that the causee doesnt want to do what the causer wants, and it is assumed
that a causee who didnt want to do it would not do it). In both these respects, getting people to do something differs from the truly manipulative scenario discussed in the next section and linked with yet anothersemantically more
complexcausative construction.
6.1.3.3. manipulating someone
into doing something
The construction discussed in this section is identified not in terms of a causative
verb (such as make, have, or get) but rather in terms of a preposition: into. But the set
of main verbs that can be used in this construction is quite limited and gives a clear
clue to this constructions meaning. Thus, one can not only talk someone into
doing something but also trick them, maneuver them, or push them. On the
other hand, one cannot encourage or induce someone into doing anything.
Roughly speaking, the generalization seems to be as follows: the into-construction
takes verbs that either imply or at least are compatible with the idea of manipulation
(tricking, maneuvering, and the like). More precisely, the meaning of the into-construction can be portrayed as follows:
Person X verb-ed person Y into doing Z. =
b. Y didnt want to do Z
c. X didnt say to Y: I want you to do Z
d. X thought about it like this: if I say this, Y will not do Z
e. because of this X did something else
f. because of this after this Y did Z
g. Y didnt do it because Y wanted to do it
h. Y did it because X wanted Y to do it
There are some clear similarities, as well as some clear differences, between the intoconstruction and the get-construction. The main differences are: first, in the case of
the into-construction, the causee originally didnt want to do what he or she did,
whereas in the case of the get-construction there is no such assumption; second, in
the into-construction the causees action is triggered by the causers will, not by
the causees own will, whereas in the get-construction the causee is acting in accordance with his or her own will, as well as the causers will; and third, in the intoconstruction, the causee is unaware of what is happening (namely, that his or her
action is triggered by the causers will), whereas in the get-construction, there is no
such assumption.
Given these differences, it is not surprising that one can use the get causative,
but not the into causative, as a request, for example:
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Ill get you to sign this.

*Ill talk you into signing this.
The speaker of a get-sentence does not seek to conceal his or her wish for the causee
to do something, although he or she does not regard the mere expression of the wish
as a sufficient trigger for the causees action. For this reason, an Ill get you request may even be used in the service of politeness, for it sounds less presumptuous
than a bare expression of the causers will: I want you to sign this. By using a sentence like Ill get you to sign this rather than simply I want you to sign this, speakers
signal that they dont regard their want as a sufficient reason for the causee to act,
and also that they expect the causee to act willingly (in accordance with the speakers
wishes, but freely).
6.1.4. Making something happen
or someone do something
English has many different make-constructions. The meaning of each of these constructions constitutes a unique configuration of components; it appears, however,
that some components may be shared. Roughly, the overall semantic theme of makeconstructions can be represented as follows:
A happened
because of this B happened
B wouldnt have happened if A had not happened
The precise meaning of a make-construction depends on the following factors: Is the
causer different from the causee? Is the causer a person? a thing? an event? Is the
causee a person? a thing? an event? Does the causer do something? Does the causee
do something? If the causee does something, is this something that can be done only
intentionally (e.g., write, read) or is it something that doesnt have to be done intentionally (e.g., cry, laugh)? Does something happen to the causee? Does the causee
think something?
Leaving aside sentences in which either the causer or the causee is not human,
we can say that there are six subtypes of the make-construction of the interpersonal
kind, that is, of the kind where both the causer and the causee are human and where
they are different persons. These six subtypes can be illustrated with the following
sentences:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Person X made person Y fall.

Person X made person Y feel guilty.
Person X made person Y think about Z.
Person X made person Y want something.
Person X made person Y cry (laugh).
Person X made person Y apologize.
In type (a), something happens to the causee, and the causee doesnt have to feel
anything or do anything. In type (b), nothing happens to the causee (apart from
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what the causer does or says), and the causee doesnt do anything, but he or she
feels something. In type (c), nothing happens to the causee, and the causee neither does nor feels anything, but he or she has to think something. In type (d),
nothing happens to the causee, and the causee doesnt have to do, feel, or think
anything, but he or she has to want something. In type (e), the causee feels something and because of this does something, but something that he or she does not
want to do, that is to say, something that can be done involuntarily (and that, presumably, is triggered by something happening in the persons body). Finally, in
type (f), the causee does something that can be done only intentionally (even if it
is done unwillinglya distinction that will be discussed in some detail later). Here,
I examine only type (f). Let us start by considering a few examples (again from
Naipaul):
1. When we were small Mai used to make us kneel on graters for a thing
like that. (Naipaul 1969, 236).
2. He . . . made her learn the quotations hanging on the walls, and made
her sit still while he unsuccessfully tried to sketch her. She was dispirited
and submissive. (Naipaul 1969, 222)
3. Granny is making me eat fish. I hate it. (Naipaul 1969, 186)
As these examples suggest, being made to do something implies doing something
unwillingly under pressure from somebody else. Formulaically, this can be spelled
out as follows:
Person X made person Y do Z. =
b. because of this X did (said) something to Y
c. because of this, Y thought like this: I have to do it
d. because of this Y did Z
e. Y didnt do it because of anything else
The action that the causee is made to perform does not have to be inherently unpleasant (as in the case of kneeling on graters), and the causer can in fact be solicitous and concerned about the causees welfare, as in the case of the grandmother
making a child eat fish, but even then, the construction itself implies that the action
was not performed willingly. Consider, for example, the following passage (from the
same novel):
He was tired; she made him rest. He was hungry; she gave him food. He had nowhere to go: she welcomed him. (Naipaul 1969, 484)
In this case, rather atypically, the causee appreciates the causers pressure. Yet here,
too, given the situation described in the book, it is quite plausible that he wouldnt
have rested, had his mother not urged him do so, and that he gave in to his mothers
solicitous pressure in recognition that, given her attitude, he had to let her take
care of him. Thus, he did it because he thought: I have to, not because of anything else.
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How does one make another person do something that this person is apparently unwilling to do? Presumably, by doing something to this person (usually,
verbally): by threatening them, pressuring them, nagging them, or perhaps cajoling
them. Typically, the causers words are directed at the causee, and typically they refer
to some possible consequences of the causees action (or inaction). What does it mean,
however, that the action is not performed willingly? Does it mean that the causee
doesnt want to do what he or she is doing?
At first sight, a component along these lines (Y didnt want to do it) seems
apt, but when one examines a wide range of make sentences (with an intentionalverb complement), it emerges that not all of them are entirely consistent with such
a component. Sometimes the implication seems to be that the causee was passive
and submissive, rather than (outright) unwilling, as in the following sentence:
My wife made me go to the doctor. I was planning to go anyway, but I
kept putting it off, so she rang and made an appointment for me.
The component Y didnt want to do Z would be too strong to account for such
sentences.
The solution I would propose is this: We cannot say that the causee didnt want
to do what he (she) did, but we can say that the causee thought, at some point: I
have to do it, and did it because of thisand only because of this. If we put it in that
way, we will be showing that the action was not due to the causees own volition,
without going so far as to say that he or she didnt want to do it.
It is interesting at this point to compare the make of coercion with the lexical verb force. What is the difference, for example, between making someone eat
fish and forcing them to do it? I believe that comparing make and force is particularly useful in that it throws light on the nature of the unwillingness implied
by make. For clearly, forcing does imply that the causee didnt want to do whatever
he or she ultimately did, and because force is, intuitively, more coercive than
make, comparing the two helps us see that it would not be wise to attribute the
same component (Y didnt want to do it) to the make of coercion construction
as well. Both the differences and the similarities between force and make of coercion can be accounted for if we propose the following explication for force:
Person X forced person Y to do Z (e.g., they forced me to eat fish) =
b. X knew that Y didnt want to do this
c. because of this X did something to Y
d. because of this Y had to do Z
e. because of this Y did Z
f. when Y was doing Z Y thought like this: I dont want to do this
If we compare this explication with that of the make-construction (as in the sentence
Granny made me eat fish), we will see two main differences. First, make implies, as
it were, subjective necessity: the causee thinks I have to do it, whereas force implies objective necessity: the causee had to do it. Second, force implies that the
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causee thinks I dont want to do it, whereas in the case of make, there is no such
implication; rather, the causee thinks I have to do it.
6.1.5. Interim conclusion
As we have seen, English has a broad spectrum of causative constructions available
for talking about one person wanting another person to do something. These constructions distinguish between various conceptual scenarios that have not been
similarly differentiated in other languages. The cultural elaboration of the area of
interpersonal causation manifests itself both in the English lexicon and in English
grammar. I examined the lexical elaboration of interpersonal causation in detail in
my 1987 English Speech Act Verbs: A Semantic Dictionary. In this chapter, I have
looked at only the lexical verb to force, which does have semantic equivalents in many
other languages. In contrast to force, the verbs get, have, and make act as auxiliary
verbs in English grammar. For example, although they appear to take a direct object
(the causee), they do not passivize, at least not straightforwardly, as the following
contrasts show:
a. John forced Mary to do it.
b. Mary was forced by John to do it.
a. John got Mary to do it.
b. *Mary was got by John to do it.
a. John had Mary do it.
b. *Mary was had by John to do it.
a. John made Mary do it.
b. *Mary was made by John do it.
(Compare: Mary was made by John to do it.)2
All these auxiliaries focus on the precise relationship between the person who wants
someone else to do something and the person who is doing it, and on the pressure
applied by one person on the other. The cultural elaboration of this theme in the
area of causative constructions parallels its elaboration in the area of directives,
that is, various conventional substitutes for the straight imperative (see chapter 2).
The great cultural importance of this theme also finds its expression in the area of
causative constructions and expressions based on another auxiliary verb, letthe most
important one of all, to which we now turn.
6.2. The English Let-Constructions and the Cultural Ideal

of Noninterference
6.2.1. Introduction
The verb let plays an extremely important role in the field of English causatives. A
whole family of different constructions (or, if one prefers, subconstructions) are based
on it. All these subconstructions appear to share a common theme that could be
articulated as follows:
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X let Y do Z. =
a. X knew that if X didnt do (say) something to Y
Y would do Z
b. at the same time X knew that if X did (said) something to Y
Y would not do Z
c. X didnt do (say) anything to Y
d. Y did Z
Given the existence of this common theme, it may seem unnecessary to list any
subconstructions or subtypes of the let-construction at all, beyond noting that there
are two variants of this construction, one with do and one with happen (X let Y do
Z or X let Z happen to Y), and also that the causee Y can be either a person (or
an animal) or a thing. But a description of this kind would not have full predictive
power and thus would be inferior to one that recognizes the whole family of letsubconstructions, which have a common semantic theme but many differences, too
differences that are not fully predictable from the context or from the lexical meaning
of the verb.
For mnemonic purposes, we can distinguish the different types of the let-construction by means of labels such as permission, noninterruption, indifference,
nonprevention, nonintervention, negligence, and tolerance, but these are
not expected to have much predictive power or explanatory value by themselves. To
see what the differences really are, we need not labels but explications.
In this part of chapter 6, I examine in some detail a range of English causative
constructions and expressions based on the verb let. (For a more comprehensive
discussion, see Wierzbicka 2002b.) To get a better perspective on let, however, I will
first examine a parallel from German, based on the causative auxiliary lassen.
6.2.2. The German lassen-constructions
German has a number of causative constructions based on the auxiliary verb lassen.
In this section, I consider only the use of lassen in combination with a human causee
and a verb of intentional action, according to the schematic formula:
Someone (X) lie someone else (Y) do something.
In different contexts, the lassen-construction is best translated into English with different constructions, based on the verbs make, have, get, cause, or let, but as this very
fact shows, it cannot be semantically equated with any one of these constructions.
For example:
Ich habe mir
Bleistift und neues
I
have to-me pencil and new
(Speer 1975, 19)
I have asked for a pencil and new paper.
Papier geben lassen.

paper to give let/have
The verb lassen does not mean ask for, but how else can one render in English the
meaning of the phrase geben lassen when it refers (as in this case) to a request from
a prisoner to the prison authorities? Clearly, the prisoner can neither make the
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guards give him new writing paper nor have them give it to him. He could perhaps
get them to do it, but by translating lassen as get we would significantly distort the
meaning of the original sentence, for getting someone to do something implies
something like overcoming some actual or potential unwillingness on the part of the
causee, and there is no trace of this in the German sentence.
In this example, then, and also in the following one, the best translation might
be one relying on speech act verbs such as ask for or request rather than on any general causatives:
Vom Doktor
eine
Schlaftablette geben lassen. (Speer 1975, 44)
from doctor
one
sleeping.tablet to give let/have/make/get
[to ask] the doctor for a sleeping tablet (and get one). [A note in a diary]
But a translation based on the verb ask for or request is not accurate either, for it doesnt
convey the idea that the request was effective.
Consider also the following sentence:
Im Anschlu an seinen Monolog drckte Hitler auf den Klingelknopf und
lie Bormann kommen. (Speer 1975, 101)
Having completed his monologue Hitler pressed the bell and [thus]
summoned Bormann.
In this case, the speech act verbs ask for and request are inappropriate, and summon
is much more suitable; but clearly, summon brings with it presuppositions that are
absent from the earlier two examples.
In the following example, in which the causee is the causers personal assistant,
the English have-construction seems to fit the context best:
Im Jahre 1938 hatte er [Streicher] ihm durch seinen persnlichen
Adjutanten zum Geburtstag demonstrativ einen groen Distelstrau
berreichen lassen. (Speer 1975, 173)
In 1938, Streicher [Gauleiter of Nuremberg] had his personal assistant
deliver to him [Leibel, mayor of Nuremberg] on his birthday, demonstratively, a large bunch of thistles.
As we have seen then, the range of the lassen-causative is so broad that it can accommodate requests from a prisoner to the prison authorities, instructions from a district
chief to his assistant, and orders from a dictator to his underlings. There is no causative verb or construction in English that would fit a range of relations as broad as
that.
Ich lie die Studenten eher nach Hause gehen, weil ich krank war.
a. I let the students go home earlier because I was sick.
b. I had the students go home earlier because I was sick
(i.e., I sent the students home earlier because I was sick).
As these glosses indicate, from an English speakers point of view, the German sentence has two distinct interpretations, which can be roughly identified by means of
the causatives let and have. On the (a) interpretation (let), it is assumed that the students wanted to go home earlier and that the teacher yielded to the students wishes.
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On the (b) interpretation, however, it is assumed that the teacher wanted the students to go home earlier and that she simply acted on her own want (without considering the students wishes at all).
If we interpreted the German sentence through the prism of the English language, we would say that it is ambiguous, and we would have to assign to it two alternative interpretations. From a German point of view, however, the sentence is not
ambiguous, and the question whether the students wanted to go home or not simply
doesnt arise. What matters is that the students earlier departure would have happened because of something that the teacher did and also that the teacher was aware
of this causal link between her own action and the students action. More precisely,
this can be represented as follows:
a. X (the teacher) did (said) something (W)
b. because X did (said) this, Y (the students) did Z (went home early)
c. X knew that if X did (said) this, Y would do Z
We must conclude, then, that the semantic invariant of the lassen-construction (with
a human causee and a verb of action) includes only the three components postulated here(a) X did (said) something (W), (b) because of this Y did something (Z),
(c) X knew that if X did W, Y would do Zand does not include any references to
either the causees or the causers wanting.
6.2.3. The English let-constructions
6.2.3.1. introduction
The common theme of English let-constructions articulated in section 6.2.1 is different from the common theme behind the German lassen-constructions. As we have
seen in the preceding section, the German lassen-construction implies that the causer
did something, whereas let-constructions imply, generally speaking, that the causer
did not do anything. In some situations, a persons behavior can be interpreted as
either a case of doing something or as a case of not doing something, and in such
situations both let and lassen can be used, for example:
a. Mary let the children watch television.
b. Mary lie die Kinder fernsehen.
Sentence (a) implies that Mary didnt stop the children from watching the television, whereas (b) implies that she allowed, or even instructed, them to do so. When
the difference between letting (not stopping) and allowing (giving a nod) is only
a matter of interpretation, both let and allow can be used in English, and lassen can
be used in German. When, however, the situation can be construed only in terms of
doing something rather than not doing something, let cannot be used at all,
whereas lassen can. For example, in the sentence in which Hitler summoned
Bormann by pressing a bell, lassen can be used but let could not.
Generally speaking, then, the common theme of English let-constructions involves the idea of refraining from doing something and, in the case of human
causees on which this chapter focuses, the notion of refraining from doing some-
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thing to other peoplea notion that I suggest has a great deal of cultural significance. By grammaticalizing this notion in a variety of let-constructions. English grammar suggests, so to speak, that it may be important at times to refrain from doing
anything to other peoplea suggestion highly consonant with the modern Anglo
ethos of noninterference, nonimposition, and negative freedom (see I. Berlin
1969; Wierzbicka 1997, chapter 3). Often, letting someone do what they want to do
involves saying something that amounts to giving them permission to do so, but although I have called the construction in question the let of permission, the letconstruction differs in this respect from speech act verbs like permit: to permit someone
to do something, one has to say something, whereas to let them do what they want to
do, one doesnt have to do anything.
In some situations, letting someone do something may seem to imply doing
something physically rather than not doing anything, but if so, then the implication
is deduced from the context rather than from the meaning of let. For example, if person X is holding person Y tightly by the wrists and thus preventing Y from going somewhere, Y may beg X: Let me go! and expect that X will do something (take her hands
off Ys wrists). The sentence doesnt mean, however, that X should take her hands off
Ys wrists but rather that she shouldnt prevent Y from going: taking her hands off Ys
wrists is a situational requirement, independent of the meaning of the sentence as such.
The sentence Let me go! is different in this respect from the expression Let go!, which
does encode in its meaning the idea of doing something (physically, not by speech):
taking ones hands (or some other body parts) off someone or something.
I will not discuss here let-constructions with an inanimate causee, such as, for
example, He let the vegetables rot; note, however, that although these dont share
the full theme of refraining from doing something to other people, they, too, reflect an interest in the significance of people not doing something (rather than doing
something). I return to this point in the last section of the chapter.
Anticipating the discussion in the final sections of this chapter (6.2.3.46.2.3.8),
I will also mention another important theme emerging from the examination of different let-constructions: the theme of cooperation, visible in constructions such as
lets do Z, let me know/see/have a look, or let me propose/suggest/conclude.
The two themes (roughly, noninterference and cooperation) are related because,
as we will see later, the main concern of the cooperative let-constructions is how
to cooperate while acknowledging the rights of the addressee as an autonomous
and free individual, on an equal footing with the speaker.
6.2.3.2. let of permission
Example:
She let him go to the party (once). (Compare She allowed him to go to
the party).
In this subconstruction, one person (X) lets another person (Y) do something of
the kind that can be done only intentionally. Verbs of happening (such as fall or
trip) are not included, and neither are verbs of involuntary action (such as moan
or giggle).
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The semantic conditions on the let of permission are as follows: (a) the causer
knows that the causee wants to do something and will do it if he or she only can; (b)
the causer knows that he or she can prevent the causee from doing it (e.g., by saying
I dont want you to do this or something to that effect) and that the causee knows
it; (c) the causer refrains from doing so; (d) the causers nonaction is intentional; (e)
because of the causers intentional nonaction, the causee can do what he or she wants
to do; (f) and after this the causee does it. Unlike the case of the verb permit (X permitted Y to do Z), the causer doesnt have to say anything; what matters is that the causer
intentionally refrains from saying No and that because of this the causee can (and
does) proceed.
Person X let person Y do Z (once). =
a. X knew that Y wanted to do Z
b. X knew that if X didnt say anything about this to Y, Y would do it
c. at the same time X knew that if X said to Y: I dont want you to do this
Y could not do it
d. X didnt say anything like this to Y
e. because X didnt say anything like this to Y, Y could do Z
f. Y did Z
What this explication shows is that, from the speakers point of view, person X enabled person Y to do what Y wanted to do by refraining from interfering with Ys
actions.
Let us now compare, in the light of this discussion, two superficially similar sentences, one English and one German:
(a) Mary let John come (go).
(b) Mary lie John kommen (gehen).
On the face of it, we have here two analogous constructions, and given that dictionaries treat let and lassen as translation equivalents, the meaning of A and B could
be expected to be the same. But the use of NSM explications allows us to show precisely in what way the meaning is not the same: in A, we know that it was John who
wanted to come (or go), and Mary didnt do anything to prevent him, whereas in B
we dont know what John wanted, but we do know that Mary did (said) something,
knowing that if she did, John would come (or go), and that John came (or went)
because Mary had done it.
Thus, the English construction (in contrast to the German one) encodes the idea
of refraining from doing something to another personand thus enabling this person
to do what she or he wants to do, highlighting in this a major Anglo cultural theme.
To see that the general theme of refraining from doing something to other
people is a modern development in English, consider the following examples of
let-sentences from earlier epochs (from the OED):
(a) He let make a proclamation throughout all his Empire. (c. 1440)
(b) On my arrival at her house I was not let to wait long. (1781)
In (a), the king clearly does something, rather than refraining from doing anything,
so that the proclamation is made through all his empire. In contemporary English,
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let could not be used in this way. In some (but by no means all) comparable contexts, a have causative could be used instead.
In sentence (b), let is also used to imply action rather than inaction, and so the
sentence could not be used in present-day English. The closest present-day counterpart would be I was not made to wait long, but this would introduce the idea that
I had to wait, absent from the older use of let.
The OED lists these examples under the heading To cause, which it treats as
a separate meaning, alongside a supposed meaning described as Not to prevent; to
suffer, permit, allow. This latter (supposed) meaning is illustrated with examples
such as the following ones:
c. Ye Kyng gave him fair words, and let him depart home. (1548)
d. Your son Thomas will not let us work at all. (1602)
However, there are no compelling reasons to posit polysemy here: all the examples
given, including (a), (b), (c), and (d) cited here, lend themselves to a unitary interpretation in terms of the causer doing something, which in fact is rather similar to
the use of the causative lassen in German discussed earlier. (On the use of let in
Middle English and in earlier Modern English, see, e.g., Fischer 1992; Visser 1973).
6.2.3.3. let of tolerance
Examples:
Let her be!
Live and let live!
Let me finish!
Let her do as she pleases.
The let of tolerance is normally (or at least typically) used in the imperative: it would
be unusual to say, for example,
?He let her be.
??She let him live.
Let be and let live could be regarded as frozen expressions, and verbs other than be
and live can be used in a wider range of forms (not necessarily in the imperative) to
produce the let of tolerance effect, but normally they, too, require some modals or
at least some speech act verbs implying want or can (cannot), for example:
Youve got to let her make her own mistakes.
He vowed to let her make her own mistakes.
?He let her make her own mistakes.
?Yesterday he let her make her own mistakes.
What the let of tolerance pattern does is acknowledge a certain ideology, roughly
speaking, the ideology of tolerance, and so it is normally not used for purely factual
statements. For example, the sentence Let me finish! implies not only a desire not
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to be interrupted but also a hint of disagreement: you may not like or agree with
what I am saying, but nonetheless youve got to let me finish.
Similarly, the sentence Let her be! hints at a possible disapproval of whatever
the person referred to is or is not doing. Nonetheless, disapproval or not, this person,
too, deserves some tolerance. The phrase Let her (him, etc.) be! is different in this
respect from the apparently similar-in-meaning phrase Leave her (him, etc.) alone!
Both convey, roughly speaking, the message Dont do this to her any more; she
doesnt want this, but in addition, the first, in contrast to the second, implies that
the addressee should desist even if there are some possible grounds for disapproval.
For example, if X is tormenting Y out of sheer cruelty and malice, one would say to
X Leave her alone! rather than Let her be! On the other hand, if Y is doing something
that the speaker slightly disapproves of but doesnt want to oppose (acknowledging
Ys right to decide for herself whether she wants to do it), then Let her be! can be
seen as more appropriate. (In the following formula and in the subsequent ones, I
have used prime marks to draw attention to the added semantic components, and
lines, to the subtracted ones.)
Let her be! (Let her make her own mistakes!) =
a. you know that Y wants to do Z
a'. maybe you think that if Y does Z it will be bad
b. you think that if you dont do anything to Y, Y will do Z
c. at the same time you think that if you do (say) something to Y, Y will
not do Z
d. I say: it will not be good if you do (say) something to Y
d'. it will be good if you dont do (say) anything to Y
d". you know that when a person wants to do something
it is not good if other people say to this person you cant do it
e. ____________
f. ____________
One thing that clearly distinguishes this formula from the others is the component
labeled here a' (maybe you think that if this person (Y) does this (Z) it will be bad),
which can be regarded as a hallmark of tolerance: the ideal embedded in the word
tolerance requires that we will not try to stop other people from doing what they want
to do, even if we think that is not good (as long as it is not bad for other people).
Another distinguishing feature of the present type, also related to the ideal of
tolerance, is a hint of disapproval from the speaker for the addressee, reflected in the
component it will not be good if you do something to Y (because you think these
things), and also the admonition related to it: you know that when a person wants
to do something it is not good if other people say to this person you cant do it.
All in all, it can be said that the let of tolerance incorporates in its very meaning an important Anglo cultural script and thus provides further evidence for the
validity of this script in contemporary Anglo culture. In a sense, the whole family of
modern let-constructions discussed here provides evidence for Anglo cultural scripts
(of autonomy, noninterference, and so on), but the let of tolerance construction does so in an especially striking way, because it not only serves a particular cultural norm but also in fact articulates its very meaning.
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6.2.3.4. let of shared information

In some cases, a let-construction can also refer to an intended result of the causers
action. One case in point is the expression let (someone) know, similar in meaning to
inform but sharing some components with the other let types discussed here. Typically, let know is used in the imperative, interrogative, or hypothetical, rather than
the indicative mood:
Let me know (what happened).
Did you let her know?
It would be good to let them know.
The let know expression, although superficially similar in meaning to inform, can
perhaps be seen as reflecting the cultural assumption enshrined in modern Anglo
culture that it is natural for people to want to know all sorts of things and that in
principle people have the right to have their questions answered (except for so-called
personal questions, which shouldnt be asked in the first place; see Eades 1982). By
the same token, telling people something that they want to know can be seen as simply not preventing them from knowing it (i.e., not withholding information).
Looked at from this perspective, the let know expression, although implying
action, can be seen as a natural extension of the let-construction of inaction. According to the The Oxford English Dictionary (1989), let in the sense of cause is
archaic in English and has survived only in the expression let someone know. It is
certainly true that in Middle English let could be used in the sense of positive causation, as lassen can be used in contemporary German (see section 2). But this doesnt
prove that the expression let me know, as used in contemporary English, is an archaism rather than an innovation.
In Shakespeares English, let could indeed be combined with know, but not in
the sense in which these words are combined in the modern expression let me know,
as the following example (from OED) illustrates:
If your name is Horatio, as I am let to know it is. (1602)
Here, to let to know means something close to to tell or, as the OED puts it, to
inform. In some nineteenth-century examples quoted by the OED as examples of
the same sense of let, let know means in fact something closer to to give to understand, for example:
There was always some body of Churchmen which disliked them, and took every
opportunity of letting them know it. (1883)
But the present-day expression let me know (and its variants, such as could you let
me know) has a distinct meaning implying cooperation among autonomous individuals, a meaning incompatible with contexts like that in the 1883 example. In fact,
even sentences with the imperative let me know such as the following one from
Shakespeare:
What is the end of study, let me know.
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sound odd to present-day speakers of English, because they do not conform to the
present-day meaning of the let me know construction. In this sentence, let me know
implies something like tell me, but in contemporary English let me know doesnt
mean tell me, and in particular, it cannot apply to something that the addressee
knows now (as in let me know what your name is). Let me know implies that when
you know something in the future, I want you to share this knowledge with me (and
not withhold it from me) and that I assume you will do it, not because you will have
to do it but because you will be willing to do it, in the spirit of cooperation between
autonomous persons.
let me know (compare tell me) =
a. I want to know something (Z)
a'. I think that you will know it some time after this time (i.e., later)
b. I think that you know that if you dont say it to me I will not know it
c. at the same time you know that if you say it to me I will know it
d. I think that you will not say I dont want to do it
d'. I know that you dont have to do it
d". I think that you will do it because you will want to do it
e. after this I will know it
In further support of this analysis, I would note that it is not true that let know is the
only causative let-expression in contemporary English, as the OED implies. There
are other expressions, especially imperative ones, that can be seen as expressing
causation by action, and these may throw some light on the meaning and cultural
role of the expression let know, as it is used in modern English. Consider, for example, the following sentences:
Let me have a look.
Let me see it.
Let me have a copy.
What sentences of this kind do is convey a directive without apparently imposing.
They sound as if the speaker were only asking the addressee for permission to do
something, whereas in fact the addressee is also required to do something. A straight
imperative or an overt I want-sentence could seem, in a similar situation, an act of
forceful self-assertion and imposition:
I want to have a look.
I want to see it.
Show it to me.
Give me a copy.
The let-constructionrather like a whimperative (see Wierzbicka 1991/2003)
allows the speaker to avoid giving such an impression.
It could be said that the let-construction under consideration is the only one in
which the causer is actually required to do something. In fact, however, the emphasis is not on doing but on knowing: the way the speaker presents the request sug-
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gests that its goal is the sharing of information. This is why it would be unusual to
use the let-construction when asking for food or other material things unrelated to
knowledge:
?Let me have a pencil/an apple/ten dollars.
In the Cobuild corpus there are (at the time of writing) 38 imperative sentences
of the form let me have [a Noun], and of these not a single one requests a physical
object other than a written document (a catalogue, a leaflet, or some other potential
source of information). Although there are a few apparent exceptions, they are more
apparent than real. In particular, sentences with the word my in the object phrase
suggest that the speaker is demanding access to an object (often, his or her own property) rather than asking for it. One example:
She sobbed, a cry of more than physical pain. Please, let me have my needle.
Not until you tell me what you did with my baby.
The expression let me have a copy (of your article) is sayable (as a request) because
it can be construed as a request for information (I want to read the article). The assumption is that the addressee can be expected to be willing to give the speaker access to some information.
Let me have a copy =
a. I want to have something (Z) because I want to know some things (W)
a'. I know that you can know these things
b. I know that if you dont do something I will not have Z
c. at the same time I know that if you do something I can have it
d. I think that you will not say: I dont want to do it
d'. I know that you dont have to do it
d". I think that you will do it because you will want to do it
e. after this I will have Z
f. because of this I will know W
As this explication suggests, the speaker is not saying (even implicitly), I want you to
do itI think that you will do it because of this, which could sound hectoring and
imposing. Rather, he or she is saying (implicitly), I want to have something because
I want to know something, I know that if you do something I will have it, plus I
think that you will not say: I dont want to do it, thus indicating that he or she is counting on the addressees cooperation, while politely acknowledging the addressees right
to prevent the speaker from getting access to the desired information.
6.2.3.5. let me do z for you (offering to
perform a service)
Example:
Herelet me open the door for you. (Malouf 1985, 19)
English has a common conversational routine in which the speaker proposes to
perform some small service for the addressee and in doing so verbally goes through
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the motions of asking for the addressees permission. The speaker is not really
asking for permission and is not anticipating any opposition, yet symbolically at
least he or she is giving the addressee a chance to decline the offer and in this way
is acknowledging the addressees autonomy and right to do things for herself or
himself.
A sentence like let me open the door for you sounds more polite in English
than its counterpart that simply declares the speakers intention (I will open the
door for you or I want to open the door for you). The let me do X for you
routine does not apply to future situations and future actions but only to present
ones, and it is normally restricted to doing something that otherwise the addressee
would need to do and would have trouble doing. For example, sentences
such as:
Let me carry it for you.
Let me write it down for you.
can refer only to the immediate situation, as the infelicity of the following sentences
shows:
?Let me carry it for you tomorrow.
?Let me write it down for you when I find it.
But just sparing the addressee the trouble of doing something by doing it oneself is
not enough for the let-routine under discussion to be felicitous. For example, it is
appropriate for the host to say (a) but not (b) to a guest who is about to leave:
(a) Let me open the door for you.
(b) ?Let me close the door for you.
If the host doesnt do anything, the guest will have to first open the door and then
close it (from the other side), so it would seem that the host has two ways of sparing
the guest a bit of trouble: either by opening the door before the guest leaves or by
closing it afterward. But the let me do X for you routine is appropriate only in the
former case.
One reason seems to be that the speaker wants to do something that will be good
for the addressee, and it is good for the addressee to have the door opened, so that
he or she can leave. On the other hand, having the door closed is something that is
good for the host, not for the guestand so the let me do X for you routine is not
appropriate.
This is still not the whole story, however, and the missing aspect is highlighted
by the common phrase Let me help you. As this phrase suggests, what the speaker is
trying to be seen as doing is cooperating with the addressee rather than doing the
addressee a favor: the assumption is that the addressee has a goal and that the speaker
wants to be given the green light to assist the addressee in achieving that goal. For
example, if the addressee is leaving, I can assist him or her by opening the door, but
not by closing the door, for having the door closed is not instrumental in the
addressees overall goal of leaving, whereas having the door open is instrumental.
This leads us to the following explication:
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Let me do Z for you. =

a. I say: I want to do something good (Z) for you now
a'. I know that you want to do something now
a". because I know this I think that it will be good for you if I do Z now
b. I want you to know that if you dont say I dont want you to do it
I will do it
c. at the same time I know that if you say it I cant do it
d. I think that you will not say it
e. because you will not say it I will know that I can do it
f. I will do it now
6.2.3.6. lets do z!
Examples:
Lets go. Lets do it. Yes, lets.
The expression lets (contracted from let us) differs in meaning, as well as in register,
from the somewhat archaic or elevated let us (e.g., Let us remember! Let us pray).
Roughly speaking, let us assumes authority and expects compliance; by contrast, lets
envisages a joint action that is based on consensus and cannot proceed if any of the
prospective participants voices any objections to it, and so it implies an egalitarian
rather than authoritarian attitude.
The archaic Let us do Z! construction implies that the speaker, who is a member of a group, wants the group to do something and assumes that if he or she voices
this, the group as a whole will comply. More precisely:
Let us pray! (Let us remember!) [archaic: guidance] =
a' I think that it will be good if we do Z
a I say: I want us to do it
f ' I think that because I say this it will happen
Presumably, the construction seems dated partly because its meaning is inconsistent
with the modern Anglo democratic ethos: normally, it is no longer expected that
groups will follow the leader and do some things simply because of what the leader
thinks and wants.
On the other hand, the common modern Lets do Z! construction reflects a different ethos: an ethos valuing voluntary cooperation of free and equal individuals.
The construction Lets do Z! shares with the Let us do Z!-construction two components: I want us to do Z and I think it will be good if we do Z. It adds to it, however, two further addressee-oriented components: I think that you will say I want
the same and I know that if you say: I dont want the same we cant do it. It also
expresses the speakers confidence in the addressees cooperation: I think that you
will not say this. Thus:3
Lets do Z! [suggestion] =
a'. I think that it will be good if we do Z now
a. I say: I want us to do it
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a". I think that you will say I want the same

b. I know that if you say it it will happen
c. at the same time I know that if you say I dont want it to happen it
cant happen
e. _____________
f. _____________
6.2.3.7. let of cooperative dialogue
Examples:
Let me conclude by saying. . . .
Let me explain/suggest/assure you. . . .
Let me start by saying this. . . .
Let me propose a toast for. . . .
Let me ask you. . . .
*Let me order you. . . . (Compare I order you. . . . )
?Let me beg you. . . . (Compare I beg you. . . . )
The formula Let me Verb normally includes a verb of speech (Vsay) or a verb that
can at least be interpreted as such, as a verb of sequence (e.g., Let me start with . . ;
let me now turn to . . .).
Clearly, the most obvious semantic component of the let me Vsay construction is I want to say something. At the same time, however, the speaker signals his
or her wish to involve the addressee in the speech act and to acknowledge the
addressees (real or imaginary) presence and rights as a participant in the communication process. More precisely, the semantic structure linked with this formula can
be spelled out as follows:
Let me conclude. =
a. I say: I want to say something (Z) now
b. I want you to know that if you dont say: I dont want it to happen
I will say this thing
c. I know that if you say it I cant do it
e. because I think that you will not say it I think that I can do it
f. I will do it now
Again, Shakespearean sentences like
Let me ask my sister pardon.
Let me entreat you.
sound odd to a modern ear, because they do not conform to the cultural logic underlying the present-day array of let-constructions: let me ask you would be accept-
197
able because it would comply with the principles of nonimposition and cooperation
between the speaker and the addressee, but let me ask my sister pardon does not have
the same justification and sounds odd.
The sentence let me entreat you does involve interaction between the speaker
and the addressee, but it also sounds odd, and not only because entreat is now an
archaic word. Let me beg you would also sound odd, although I beg you is still quite
acceptable, as is also let me suggest or let me explain. Here, the reason for the incongruity lies in the inequality between the speaker and the addressee, implied by the
verb beg, and the implication of equal rights of the interlocutors, implied by the
let me Vsay construction. (Compare also let me ask you vs. *let me order you).
Both from a formal and a semantic point of view, there is a similarity between
sentences like Let me explain and those like Let me finish discussed earlier. But in
the case of Let me finish, there is a real danger that the addressee may try to prevent
the speaker from having his or her say. In the case of Let me explain, however, there
is no such danger, and there is no implicit appeal to peoples right to do what they
want to do and say what they want to say.
Of course the expression let me Verb is only a formula, one might even say an
empty formulaa conventional speech routine. But formulae of this kind are seldom really empty. Even if the speaker doesnt mean what the formula conveys,
this fact cannot detract from the significance of the ritual reenacted each time a formula of this kind is used (see Ameka 1987, 1994, 1999).
The fact that one doesnt say in English let me go now or let me have a cup of tea
to announce ones intention of doing something, whereas one does say let me explain or let me propose requires an explanation. My explanation is that in the case of
speech acts the speakers action affects the addressee, and so the formula let me Vsay
implicitly acknowledges the addressees rights in the speech situation. This explanation is consistent with the explanation I have proposed for a wide range of other
phenomena, such as, above all, the wealth of whimperatives in contemporary English (see chapter 2). It is also consistent with the fact that one can say let me suggest
or let me ask but not *let me order you or *let me beg you: the addressees rights are
acknowledged if the addressee is seen as an equal, not as someone below or above
the speaker.
6.2.3.8. let of cooperative interaction
Consider the following three sentences:
Let me talk to him.
Let me get back to you on this.
*Let me apologize to her.
Why is it that the first two sentences are fully acceptable, whereas the third one sounds
odd? The reason seems clear: the first two can be construed as referring to cooperative interaction between the speaker and the addressee, whereas the third one cannot be so construed because it concerns the relationship between the speaker and a
third party and has nothing to do with the addressee. In the first sentence, the addressee
198
is not mentioned either, but it is easy to construe the talking to a third party as involving some matter of joint concern to the speaker and the addressee. Thus, what is
relevant in the present construction is, first, that the speaker and the addressee have
a shared goal (they both want the same thing to happen); second, that the speaker
offers to do something to bring this goal about; third, that the speaker is going to
proceed only if the addressee does not object; and, fourth, that the speaker assumes
that the addressee will not object.
Let me get back to you on this =
a'. I know that you want something to happen
a". I know that I want the same thing to happen
a. because I know this I think that it will be good if I do something
a'''. I say: I want to do something (Z)
b. I want you to know that if you dont say: I dont want you to do it
I will do it
c. at the same time I know that if you say it I cant do it
e. __________________
f. __________________
6.2.3.9. let of cooperative thinking
The let of cooperative thinking, which could also be called let of deliberation, can
be illustrated with the following examples:
Let me see . . . (*Let you see . . . )
Let me think . . .
Since thinking is, above all, an individual rather than social activity, it may seem
odd that verbs of thinking occur in the frame let me V at all: if I want to think,
nobody could stop me, and my thinking doesnt require other peoples cooperation.
When, however, sentences like Let me see . . . or Let me think . . . are seen against
the background of the let of cooperative interaction and, especially, the let of
cooperative dialogue, their function becomes clear: they imply, so to speak, a request for an interruption in our ongoing interaction (so that the speaker can think
for a while), and because such an interruption would affect not only the speaker but
also the addressee, it does make sense for the speaker to ask for the addressees cooperation. As in the case of the let of cooperative dialogue, such a request can be
regarded as a pseudorequest, simply enacting a certain conventional conversational
routine. But, as noted earlier, conventional conversational routines reflect culturally important attitudes and assumptions about social interaction.
Let me see . . . =
a. I say: I want to think about it for some time now
b. I want you to know that if you dont say: I dont want you to do it
I will do it
c. I know that if you say it I cant do it
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e. because I think that you will not say it I can do it

f. Im doing it now
6.2.4. A comparative glance at Russian
The extraordinary wealth of sentence types based on let in modern English points to
one of the cultural preoccupations of modern Anglo culture. As Matsumoto (1988, 404)
observed, Anglo culture assigns a key role to the want of every competent adult member that his actions be unimpeded by others (Matsumoto is quoting here Brown and
Levinson 1987, 67) and his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded (Brown and Levinson 1987, 134). Matsumoto argues, convincingly, that Anglo
theorists in general, and Brown and Levinson in particular, have mistakenly attributed
to these concerns a universal significance. The story of let is linked, I believe, with the
story of such cultural preoccupations, reflected in Anglo conversational norms (see
Wierzbicka 1985, 1991/2003a) and with the role of concepts like freedom, tolerance,
and noninterference in English discourse (see Wierzbicka 1997, chapter 3).
For example, it is surely not an accident that most of the let-constructions identified here for English have no counterparts in either German or Russian and that in
fact many of the let-sentences adduced in this chapter cannot be translated idiomatically into either German (see section 6.2.2) or Russian.
Thus, the closest Russian counterpart of the English let-family is the family of
causatives based on the verb dat, literally, to give (for a detailed study of dat-constructions in modern Russian, see Podleskaya 2004). But the range of the dat-family
in Russian is much more restricted than that of the let-family in English. Only a few
of the types identified here for English could be translated into Russian by means of
a dat causative, and those that couldlike for example the let of noninterruption
would by and large be limited (except for contrastive uses) to modally qualified predicates, and especially to negative or imperative uses. For example:
Ona
ne dala emu
spat.
she.nom neg gave him.dat sleep.inf
She didnt let him sleep.
Daj
emu spat.
give.imp him sleep.inf
Let him sleep.
?Ona dala
emu
spat.
she.nom give.3sg.past him.dat sleep.inf
She let him sleep.
Furthermore, one could hardly use a dat-construction to translate a sentence of the
let of nonprevention type:
She let him fall.
?Ona dala emu upast.
although, again, a negative sentence would sound better:
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Ona ne dala emu upast.

She didnt let him fall.
By and large, the same applies to the let of tolerance type. The exact meaning of a
sentence like Let her be! cannot be expressed in Russian at all, the closest approximation being Ostav ee leave her (alone). As mentioned earlier, however, Leave
her alone! doesnt mean the same as Let her be! and doesnt appeal to a general ideology of tolerance.
Similarly untranslatable is the general slogan Live and let live! although a negative declarative sentence meant as a complaint or criticism is possible:
Ona mne zit
ne daet.
she me.dat live.inf neg gives.3sg.pres
She doesnt let me live.
The let of intentional interpersonal causation does have a counterpart in Russian
but one restricted to agentive verbs like posmotret (to look) or posluat (to listen) and excluding nonagentive verbs like znat (to know) or videt (to see):
Daj
mne posmotret/posluat.
give.imp me.dat look.inf/listen.inf
Let me have a look/listen.
On the other hand, sentences like Let me know, Let me see, or Let me have a copy
cannot be exactly translated into Russian at all (although the sentence daj mne znat
does have a restricted use as an idiomatic expression, not equivalent to let me know).
The closest one could do is to use an imperative: skazi, tell (me) or pokazi, show
(me), or daj, give (me). Of course, a straight imperative doesnt have the same
tactful and nonimposing connotations as expressions like let me know or let me
see do:
*Daj
mne
videt.
give.imp.pl me.dat.pl see.inf
Nor could one use a dat-construction to offer to perform a service, as in the English
sentence let me open the door for you.
?Daj
mne otkryt tebe
dver.
give.imp me.dat open.inf you.dat door.acc
The closest one could do would be to use the verb razreit (or pozvolit), to allow
(with a polite plural form), thus substituting lexical for grammatical means:
Razreite
mne otkryt vam
dver.
allow.imp.pl me.dat open.inf you.dat.pl door.acc
Allow me to open the door for you.
Nor could one render in Russian the exact sense and tone of English sentences
like let me explain . . . , let me assure you . . . , or let me propose a toast
to . . . In Russian, in corresponding situations one would simply say ja xou . . .
(I want . . .).
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One generalization that suggests itself very strongly on the basis of a comparison
of the English let-constructions and the Russian dat-constructions is that the English constructions reflect the general theme of negative freedom (that is, roughly,
noninterference), so characteristic of modern Anglo culture (see I. Berlin 1969;
Wierzbicka 1997, chapter 3), whereas the Russian dat-constructions do not reflect
any such theme. The let family implies, roughly speaking, not doing something,
whereas the dat family (in accordance with the basic lexical meaning of dat) implies doing something. Consider, for example, the following sentences:
Maa
dala Petru
poitat svoj
dnevnik.
Mary.nom gave Peter.dat read.inf own-acc diary.acc
This sentence could be translated, roughly, into English as Mary let Peter read her
diary, but it could also be translated as Mary gave Peter her diary to read. The
English sentence Mary let Peter read her diary suggests that Mary didnt stop Peter
from reading her diary rather than that she actively encouraged him to do so. But
the Russian sentence suggests that Mary did something, and in this it is similar to the
English sentence Mary gave Peter her diary to read rather than to Mary let Peter
read her diary.
Similarly, the Russian sentence:
Maa
dala Petru
est.
Mary.nom gave Peter.dat eat.inf
is virtually impossible to translate into English, because it implies not only that Mary
set some food in front of Peter but also that as a result of her action Peter ate it. Mary
didnt simply let Peter eat; rather, she caused him to eat, she ensured that he ate,
she almost made him eat (although in Russian the implication is that Peter was
willing rather than unwilling to do so).
To undertake a survey of the different causative uses of the Russian verb dat (in
an NSM framework) would require a separate study, but the preliminary discussion
given here should be sufficient to throw into reliefby way of contrastthe focus
on negative freedom, on noninterference, so characteristic of the English letcausatives.
Of course, the preoccupation of modern Anglo culture with noninterference
and personal autonomy can only explain the wealth of let-constructions involving
both a human causer and a human causee. One can speculate, however, that once the
idea of the consequences of inaction becomes salient in a languages semantic system,
it can easily spread from the interpersonal realm to the realm of inanimate causees. If
the speakers attention is focused on the question of letting (or not letting) other
people do things, it may also come to be focused on the question of letting (or not
letting) things happen (to things). There may be other explanations as well, including
some addressing, more generally, the extraordinary elaboration of the theme of cause
and effect in modern Anglo culture (see Wierzbicka 1992, chapter 2). I cannot, however, pursue this theme any further in the confines of this chapter.
Nor can I undertake here a truly comprehensive discussion of the German lassencausatives, which also deserve a full-scale study based on the same common measure (the empirically established set of lexicogrammatical universals). All I can do
202
here is remind the reader of the wide range of the German lassen-causatives, glossing over any distinctions based on the wants of the addressee (see section 6.2.2), and
also mention that German has no equivalents of English let causatives and
quasicausatives such as let me know, let me have a look, let me open the door
for you, or let me explain (suggest, assure you, etc.). Instead, one would say, idiomatically, Sag mir bescheid (lit., tell me with certainty), Kann ich mal sehen? (lit.,
could I have a look?), Warten Sieich ffne Ihnen die Tr (lit., wait [polite form]
I open the door for you), Ich mchte erklren, da . . . (lit., I would like to explain
that . . .), or Ich wrde vorschlagen . . . (lit., I would propose . . . ). The general
point I want to make here is that to undertake such comparisons between English
and other languages, we must first disentangle the complex network of various
English constructions and expressions in which let is involved and elucidate their
meaning. For this, a rigorous and universally applicable semantic framework is indispensable.
The semantic history of let-constructions in English is a vast and fascinating topic
that requires a separate study. But the general trend is fairly clear: it is, on the whole,
a shift from positive causation, in a very broad sense (often spanning, effectively,
action and inaction) toward negative causation, that is, to enabling by not
preventing.
As Fischer (1992, 29) puts it, let was the central causative verb in Middle English, and it had a distinct sense of cause, allow, that is, a sense apparently spanning (like the German lassen still does) positive and negative causation, but in
fact interpretable in all cases in terms of doing something. This is clearly not the
case in contemporary English, in which let refers, by and large, to abstention from
action rather than to action. Apparent exceptions such as let me know or let me
have a look confirm, in their own way, the cultural logic behind this general trend,
because they imply something like cooperation among autonomous individuals and
focus on shared knowledge rather than on the action required from the addressee.
6.2.5. Summing up
English causative constructions, whose cultural elaboration is a distinctive typological feature of the English language, focus, as we have seen, on the freedom and autonomy of the person who is performing the action. It might be suggested that, leaving
aside the lexical verb to force, the causative auxiliaries could be arranged on a scale
from let to make, with get and have closer to make. As I have shown, however, the
differences are qualitative rather than quantitative, and to portray them adequately,
we need to present each construction as a unique bundle of semantic components.
Arguably, the central question behind all these constructions is whether the
person who is doing something is doing it out of his or her own volition. Thus, in the
case of the main let-construction (as in X let Y do Z), person Y is doing something
because he or she wants to do it, while another person, X, doesnt prevent Y from
doing it. In the case of get-constructions, person Y is doing, voluntarily, something
that another person, X, wants her or him to do. In the case of have-constructions,
person Y is also doing something that another person, X, wants her or him to do, and
in this case the relations between X and Y are such that Y cannot say (about some-
203
thing of this kind) I dont want to do it; here, too, Y is doing it voluntarily in the
sense that Y doesnt think I have to do it. In the case of make-constructions, Y is
doing something that someone else, X, wants Y to do, and in this case Y does think:
I have to do it.
If we look at English in a comparative perspective, two things stand out most:
the large number of causative auxiliaries (and an even larger number of grammatical constructions associated with them) and the presence of an auxiliary verb, let,
specialized in, roughly speaking, noninterference. These features of English are
culturally revealing, as they both reflect a concern with personal autonomy. In addition, this concern is reflected in the plethora of more specialized constructions and
expressions based on let that encode cultural meanings such as tolerance, sharing information, offering to perform a service, suggesting a joint action, cooperative dialogue, cooperative interaction, and cooperative thinking.
Arguably, let, which as mentioned earlier has been described as the central
causative verb of Middle English, is also the central causative verb of modern English. But the meaning of this central causative verb has changedroughly speaking, from causing someone to do something to not causing someone not to do
something. This shift is symptomatic, as it suggests the same concern that (as discussed in Wierzbicka 1997) is reflected in the changes in the meaning of the word
freedom itselfroughly, from freedom to to freedom from.
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Chapter 7
i think
The Rise of Epistemic Phrases
in Modern English
7.1. Introduction
As discussed in chapter 2, one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of
the English language is the rise of what can be called epistemic phrases, that is, phrases
clarifying the speakers stance in relation to what is being said. A major question
addressed through such phrases is whether or to what extent the speaker is claiming
knowledge (I know).
A declarative sentence without any epistemic qualification can be interpreted
as implying knowledge. For example, factual sentences like Bill is in Sydney now
imply an unqualified claim to knowledge: I know. By contrast, sentences with
epistemic phrases like I think, I guess, or I suppose (I think Bill is in Sydney now,
I guess Bill is in Sydney now, I suppose Bill is in Sydney now) do not imply any
such claim.
When one looks at English in a comparative perspective, one is struck by the
abundance of phrases like I think, I guess, and I suppose. Phrases of this kind can be
used parenthetically and can appear in different positions in the sentence: at the
beginning, the end, or somewhere in between.
In the philosophical literature, verbs like think, guess, or suppose are often referred
to (following Urmson 1956) as parenthetical verbs. Strictly speaking, however, it
is not verbs as such that can be used parenthetically, but phrasesfirst-personsingular, present-tense phrases, such as I think, I guess, and I suppose. Phrases of
this kind can be likened to so-called performative ones (see Austin 1962) like I
suggest, I confirm, and I object in that they identify the intended status of what the
speaker is saying; for example I suggest identifies the accompanying sentences as a
suggestion. But the term performative is usually restricted to phrases with verbs
of speaking, whereas epistemic phrases discussed here are in most cases based on
verbs of thinking.
Speaking of verbs such as know, believe, guess, suppose, suspect, estimate, and in
a metaphorical use, feel, Urmson (1956) comments:
204
I Think
205
This . . . group . . . is used to indicate the evidential situation in which the statement is made (though not to describe that situation), and hence to signal what
degree of reliability is claimed for, and should be accorded to, the statement to
which they are conjoined. (p. 199)
When these verbs are used in the first person of the present tense . . . they . . . function with regard to a statement made rather as READ WITH CARE functions in relation to a subjoined notice. (p. 211)
Although linguists must appreciate the subtlety and originality of Urmsons observations, from the point of view of contemporary linguistic semantics, one is struck by the
absence of any cross-linguistic perspective in the consideration of the English data.
When Urmson says that parenthetical verbs are important (p. 212) and that they are
frequently misconstrued by philosophers (p. 192), he means that they are philosophically important. He does not ask whether such philosophically important verbs occur
also (on a similar scale) in other languages and, if not, why not. He thinks of them, as
philosophers writing in English often do, as an important part of language, not an
important part of the English language. He does not ask when and in what historical
context they emerged in English and what cultural needs led to their emergence. Nor
does he ask what exactly each of these verbs means and how their meanings may be
related to the historical and cultural context in which they appeared in English.
In the half century since the publication of Urmsons classic paper, linguistic
literature has not addressed these questions either. But they are important and fascinating, and I want to address them in this chapter. First of all, however, it should
again be stressed that what is at issue here is not a particular class of verbs, but a
particular class of first-person, present-tense verbal phrases. I argue that the meaning
of phrases like I suppose cannot be deduced from the meanings of the pronoun I and
the verb suppose and that to explicate the meaning of a phrase like I suppose, we
have to treat it as a whole. One linguist who has reflected deeply on the unique status of such first-person epistemic phrases is Emile Benveniste:
In a general way, when I use the present of a verb with three persons, it seems that
the difference in person does not lead to any change of meaning in the conjugated
verb form. I eat, you eat, and he eats have in common and as a constant that the
verb form presents a description of an action, attributed respectively and in an
identical fashion to I, you, and he. . . .
Now a number of verbs do not have this permanence of meaning in the changing of persons, such as those verbs with which we denote dispositions or mental
operations. In saying I suffer, I describe my present condition. . . . But what happens if . . . I say I believe (that the weather is going to change)? . . . Can I consider
I believe to be description of myself . . . ? Am I describing myself believing when I
say I believe (that . . . )? Surely not. The operation of thought is not at all the object of the utterance; I believe (that . . . ) is equivalent to a mitigated assertion. By
saying I believe (that . . . ), I convert into a subjective utterance the fact asserted
impersonally, namely, the weather is going to change, which is the true proposition. (Benveniste 1971, 228)
As Benveniste notes, this asymmetry between different persons of the verb does not
apply to all mental verbs. For example, I reflect is no more different from he reflects
206
than I eat is from he eats. But, for example, I suppose and I presume are not like I
reflect in this respect:
I do not represent myself as being in the process of supposing and presuming when
I say I suppose and I presume. . . . In I suppose and I presume, there is an indication
of attitude, not a description of an operation. By including I suppose and I presume in my discourse, I imply that I am taking a certain attitude with regard to the
utterance that follows. . . . [T]hat personal form is, one might say, the indicator of
subjectivity. It gives the assertion that follows the subjective contextdoubt, presumption, inferencesuited to characterize the attitude of the speaker with respect to the statement he is making. This manifestation of subjectivity does not
stand out except in the first person. (Benveniste 1971, 228)
Benvenistes notion of subjectivity has been fruitfully applied in a number of recent works on grammar and discourse (see, e.g., Traugott 1989, 1995; Verhagen 1995;
Scheibman 2001). My own focus, however, is on the meaning of the relevant expressions, which I will try to elucidate by decomposing each into a number of semantic
components, formulated in the natural semantic metalanguage and including no
technical terms (like, for example, subjectivity). The resulting explications can be
regarded as hypotheses about the meanings in the speakers minds. I will call the
expressions under discussion epistemic verbal phrases. In keeping with Benvenistes
discussion, I will explicate each phrase as a whole, in order to show that, for example,
I believe and he believes differ in more than just being in the first or third person, and
that I believe (in the relevant sense) has a meaning of its own.1
The large class of epistemic verbal phrases we find in contemporary English is
a peculiarity of modern English. A list like the following one, which is by no means
complete, is probably without parallel in other languages of the world: I expect, I
believe, I suppose, I assume, I imagine, I gather, I presume, I guess, I suspect, I take it,
I understand, I trust, I wonder, I feel. Moreover, these simple verbal expressions can
be further expanded in various ways, as, for example, I should think, I shouldve
thought, Im inclined to think, I tend to think, I dont think, I dont suppose, I would
guess, my guess is, my understanding is, I would argue, and I would suggest.
In most other European languages, there are only a few verbal expressions comparable with those on this list. For example, in colloquial German one can say ich
glaube, ich meine, ich denke, ich nehme an, ich schtze, and ich finde; in colloquial
French, je crois, je pense, je suppose, and je trouve; and in colloquial Italian, credo,
penso, suppongo. In all these languages, it would be difficult to extend these lists significantly. Furthermore, in none of these languages could one use, colloquially, verbal
expressions comparable to I should think, I wouldve thought, or Im inclined to think.2
It is true that many other languages, for example, German, Russian, and Japanese,
have numerous interactional particlesa linguistic resource not similarly rich in English (see Wierzbicka 1976, 1986b; see also chapter 8). But English appears to be unique
in its wealth of verbs analyzing in great detail the speakers own attitude to the proposition, in particular, of first-person epistemic verbal expressions such as those previously listed. In addition, some of these expressions (above all, I think, but also I dont
think, I suppose, and, in American English, I guess) also have remarkably high frequencies (see, e.g., Thompson and Mulac 1991; Aijmer 1997; Scheibman 2001).
I Think
207
It seems that epistemic phrases of the kind discussed here started to be used in
English on a large scale in the first half of the eighteenth century, that is, some time
after the publication of Lockes Essay Concerning Human Understanding. My hypothesis is that this dramatic increase in their use was due to some extent to the influence of Lockes work.
I do not mean to imply that these epistemic phrases all sprang into being within
a short time after the publication of Lockes Essay. Although the matter requires a
detailed historical investigation, it seems more likely that the impact of the Essay
started a trend and led to the emergence of certain cultural scripts, which in turn
led, over the next two or three centuries, to the cultural elaboration of this area of
English lexicon and grammar. I do, however, want to suggest that the publication,
and the impact, of Lockes Essay constituted an important turning point.
As discussed in chapter 2, the popularity of Lockes Essay in both Britain and
America was unprecedented. It was so widely read that by 1710, as many as eleven
editions had been produced (Jackson 1991, 268) and by 1805, twenty-one (Aarsleff
1991, 280), and sections of it were frequently published in The Spectator. It is widely
recognized that Lockes writings in general and the Essay in particular exercised a
tremendous influence upon . . . the cultural consciousness of individuals several
centuries after his death in 1704 (Ashcraft 1991, xiii). The influence of Lockes emphasis on the need for epistemic caution is a good case in point.
The need to specify, in rational discourse, the epistemic status of our utterances
is one of the leitmotifs of Lockes Essay. According to Locke, our knowledge is extremely limited (very short and scanty, Locke 1959, 360). In most things that we
say, therefore, we rely not on knowledge but on judgment, and judgment involves,
in his view, many different degrees of assent.
Our knowledge, as has been shown, being very narrow and we not happy enough
to find certain truth in everything that we have an occasion to consider; most of
the propositions we think, reason, discoursenay, act upon, are such as we cannot have undoubted knowledge of their truth. . . . But there being degrees herein,
from the very neighbourhood of certainty and demonstration, quite down to improbability and unlikeliness, even to the confines of impossibility; and also degrees
of assent from full assurance and confidence, quite down to conjecture, doubt and
distrust. (Locke 1959, 364)
Lockes ideas concerning degrees of probability and degrees of assent, and the need
to always distinguish between knowledge and judgment, that is, between knowing and thinking, have exercised an enormous influence on modern English discourse
and indeed on the English language. I have discussed some aspects of this influence
in chapters 2, 3, and 4. Here, I want to undertake a detailed discussion of the meaning and cultural underpinnings of a number of selected epistemic phrases: I believe,
I suppose, I gather, I presume, I find, I expect, I guess, I take it, I understand, I imagine, I bet, I suspect, and I assume.
In what follows, I analyze the meaning of these phrases in the natural semantic
metalanguage. The key primes in terms of which most, if not all, epistemic phrases
can be explicated are think, know, and say. The key semantic molecules in this area
are i think, i know, i say, i dont think, i dont know, and i dont say, as well
as i can (or cant) think, i can (or cant) know, and i can (or cant) say.3
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7.2. I Think
The most important epistemic phrase in English is I think, without a following that:
not I think that but I think. The extraordinarily high frequency of this phrase in
contemporary English has been discussed in chapter 2, where I have also discussed
its meaning. The present discussion of I think is therefore very brief.
Compare the following two sentences:
a. It is raining.
b. I think it is raining.
The first sentence implies: I know. The second sentence does not imply that, and
in fact, it emphatically denies such an implication: I dont say I know. But the difference between sentences like (a) and (b) is not simply that between two different
stances on the part of the speaker (I know versus I dont say I know). As Benveniste
(1971, 10) put it, by preceding a sentence like it is raining with a personal frame like
I think, I convert into a subjective utterance the fact asserted impersonally . . . which
is the true proposition. In my terms, this key difference between an impersonal
sentence like (a) and a subjective one like (b) can be represented as follows:
a. I say: it is raining
b. I say: I think like this: it is raining
This brings us to the following overall explications:
It is raining =
a. I say: it is raining
b. I know
I think it is raining =
a. I say: I think like this: it is raining
b. I dont say I know
As I try to show throughout this chapter, the components I say I think and either I
dont know or I dont say I know constitute the semantic core of the class of verbal
epistemic phrases that is so prominent in modern English.
7.3. I Suppose
The epistemic phrase I suppose is often combined with tag questions (examples from
Cobuild):4
I suppose times change dont they?
I suppose its up to the public isnt it.
I suppose thats what youll have to do isnt it.
It also often combines with the phrase I dont know:
I Think
209
I dont know I mean being ambidextrous I suppose I do use my right hand

for I suppose when I think about it. . . .
Furthermore, I suppose tends to co-occur with various hesitation markers, such as
well, really, mm, or what is transcribed in Cobuild as er or erm:
Mm. I suppose.
Well it doesnt really, I suppose.
Er well its all right I suppose.
Erm I suppose. Yeah. Yeah.
Well I suppose Ive known him all my life really.
The speakers hesitation and lack of certainty is also reflected in the frequent use of
various approximative expressions such as about, around, or thereabouts:
I dont remember how long it must have been about a year ago I suppose.
However I did get involved I suppose around nineteen-fifty-four thereabouts.
What all these facts suggest is that I suppose includes not only the component I dont
know but also a component reflecting the thinking process: Im thinking about it
now. The content of what one supposes can be seen as the provisional result of that
thinking process: I think like this now. This brings us to the following overall
explication:
I suppose it is up to the public =
a. I say: I think like this now: its up to the public
b. I dont know
c. Im thinking about it now
Consider, for example, the following sentence:
Well I suppose you know you could just show your face couldnt you.
The discourse marker well, the tag question, the use of the phrase you know to appeal for the addressees conversational cooperation, and the use of the modal could
all highlight the speakers hesitation, lack of knowledge, a current thinking process,
and a tentative provisional conclusion. All these features are highly consistent with
the components proposed here: I think like this now, I dont know, Im thinking about it now.
7.4. I Guess
The epistemic force of the phrase I guess appears to be very close to that of I suppose, and many dictionaries treat it as a regional (American) version of I suppose.
For example, the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (2005) glosses I guess as informal, especially N.Am.E) to suppose that something is true or likely; The Collins
Cobuild English Language Dictionary (1987) says that I guess is an important ex-
210
pression used especially in American English to indicate that you suppose, think, or
suspect that something is true or likely; and the Longman Dictionary of the English
Language (1984) states: chiefly N. Am. Informal to believe, suppose. Certainly, the
frequency of I guess in conversational American English is extremely high (Thompson and Mulac 1991; Scheibman 2001).
Arguably, what I guess shares with I suppose are the following two components:
I think like this now
I dont know
I guess is very much an ex promptu thought, conceived on the spur of the moment,
and the component I think like this now accounts for this. At the same time, I
guess sounds brusquer, more decisive than I supposenot because the speakers
feel they have more evidence but because they feel prepared to take a risk, to hazard an opinion, even though there is not a sufficient basis for it. What this feel of
I guess suggests is that this phrase does not include the reflective component Im
thinking about it now, which I have posited for I suppose. Arguably, instead of
such a reflective component, I guess includes a component linking it with the lexical verb to guess and implying an act of hazarding an opinion for which one knows
one doesnt have a sufficient basis. This component can be phrased as follows: if
I have to say something about it now I want to say this. This brings us to the following overall explication:
I guess Ill go. =
a. I say: I think like this now: Ill go
b. I dont know
c. if I have to say something about it now I want to say this
For example, if someone asks me if I will do something (say, go to a party) and I
reply, I guess so, I would be implying that I dont really know, but that at the moment I think I will go, and moreover, that if I have to say something about it right
now, then I choose to say this (I will go). Clearly, I guess does not indicate a considered opinion or an intention to which one is committed. One is not certain, but
one is not going to reflect on the matter long before replying.
The willingness to say something for which one doesnt have evidence may
seem to go against the grain of the caution and scrupulousness characteristic of
the set of English epistemic phrases as a whole. In fact, however, the epistemic
phrase I guess is also cautious and scrupulous, in its own way. Although the speaker
is willing to say something without a basis in knowledge, this act is not really rash
or overconfident because the phrase I guess includes in its very meaning the admission I dont know.
7.5. I Gather
The meaning of the epistemic phrase I gather can be said to come close to the
meaning of gather described by the OED as follows: to collect (knowledge) by
I Think
211
observation and reasoning; to infer, deduce, conclude. The examples cited by the
OED in support of this definition are by no means restricted to the first person.
For example:
Pliny supposed amber to be a resin, which he gathered from its smell. (1744)
Sentences of this kind diverge, both in their syntax and their meaning, from those in
the present-day usage, as in the following examples from Cobuild:
Which I gather is what it really means.
I gather that there was considerable upheaval about this.
I gather hes taking sort of everybody out for meals and things.
. . . and that mattered I gather quite crucially for [name]. Yeah. It does.
The restriction of gather to the phrase I gather; its parenthetical character (in Urmsons
sense); its position alternating freely between the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence; and its frequent use in dialogue, in combination with responses like yeah, sure,
and it does, all suggest a shift in meaning as well as in grammatical status. Above all,
the epistemic phrase I gather appears to suggest a subjective uncertainty or caution,
I dont say I know, which is absent from older sentences with gather, like the one
about Pliny quoted earlier.
Like the lexical verb to gather, the epistemic phrase combines with the syntactic
frame from (I gather from), broadly consistent with the OED definition to collect (knowledge) by observation and reasoning. But given the uncertainty and caution implied by the phrase I gather (I dont say: I know) what is collected by
observation and reasoning should probably be interpreted as hypothetical knowledge
rather than genuine (reliable) knowledge. Reliable knowledge is the source of what
one gathers rather than its outcome; from knowing some other things, one collects
bits of hypothetical new knowledge. These considerations lead us to the following
explication:
I gather there is going to be a further inquiry. =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: people can know that there is going
to be a further inquiry
c. I think like this because I know some other things now
As the first component of this explication indicates, the speakers attitude appears
to be neither one of I think nor one of I know but an intermediate and at the
same time more objective one of I think now that it is like this: people can know.5
The last component of I gather refers to some knowledge (evidential basis) that
appears to be current: I know some other things now. Typically, this current evidential basis consists in what one sees or hears: from what I see/hear, I gather
that. . . .
All in all, the epistemic phrase I gather illustrates the post-Lockean emphasis on
the limitations of ones knowledge, on the scrupulous acknowledgment of those limitations, and on the importance of evidence for whatever claims to knowledge one
may be making.
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7.6. I Presume
The epistemic phrase I presume is often used for making statements about the addressee, as in the following examples from Cobuild:
I presume you work for the council.
Youre not referring to Funnel I presume.
You coming from your background you werent a scholarship boy at school
I presume.
Not surprisingly, statements of this kind tend to seek confirmation from the addressee
and are often accompanied by tag questions and followed by a confirmatory response
such as yes, yeah, or thats right. For example:
Your going home time will be related to when the counter closes I presume
is it?Yes, thats right.
I presume this was the preliminary notes you got back from SCPR.Yes.
At first sight, this common conversational pattern seems to suggest the following
combination of components:
I think now that it is like this
I dont know
I know that you (or: someone else) can know
However, if we consider a wider range of examples, we will find some that are not
compatible with this hypothesis. For example:
I presume that any left-handed people like myself who knit just adapt you
know.
There were in the early eighteenth century so I presume also in the seventeenth century ladies whose profession was known as posture girls.
Nobody can know for sure that any left-handed people who knit adapt. In this case,
then, the speakers recognition that his or her own knowledge is inadequate cannot be
linked with a recognition that somebody elses knowledge is superior. What is it, then,
that makes the speakers statementin her or his own estimationa presumption?
I would like to propose the following interpretation. The person who says I
presume assumes a more confident stand than someone who merely says I think.
They seem to be saying not only I think (that it is like this) but also, more strongly,
I think I can know it. Since at the same time the speaker is acknowledging his or
her lack of knowledge (I dont say I know), the component I think I can know it
can indeed make the utterance sound, as it were, presumptuous, especially given
that no reference is being made to some evidence (I know some other things), as
in the case of I gather. This brings us to the following explication:
I presume you work for the council. =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: you work for the council
I Think
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c. I think about it like this: I can know it
Let us consider, for example, the following sentence from a recent article by the
anthropologist Naomi Quinn (2002):
What is relevant to my argument is a previously unrecognised pattern of
child rearing . . . a pattern that I presume to be universal.
To say I think that this pattern is universal would not be presumptuous in any
way because a person can think what they want, but to say I think I can know it
could be regarded as presumptuous because obviously the author doesnt have the
evidence from all the languages and cultures. At the same time, the component I
dont say I know it acknowledges the lack of an adequate basis, and this protects the
speaker from being regarded as presumptuous (as claiming more than one has
evidence for).
As one final example, let us consider the celebrated sentence Dr. Livingstone,
I presume, addressed to the great African explorer, lost in central Africa, by Sir
H. M. Stanley, the head of a special search expedition sent to Africa to discover
whether Livingstone was still alive. Stanley found Livingstone in the village of Ujiji
on the eastern shores of the lake Tanganyika under circumstances that left no doubt
as to his identity; he could have been absolutely certain that the white man in front
of him was indeed Livingstoneso much so that a mere I think would have been
blatantly inappropriate. Yet the scrupulous Briton does not permit himself an act of
open recognition: Dr. Livingstone!, which would have implied I know (I know
that you are Dr. Livingstone). Instead, he chooses the formula I presumemore
confident than I think but less so than I know. With this carefully chosen formula, Stanley is saying: I think now that it is like this: you are Dr. Livingstone and
I think about it like this: I can know it, while scrupulously acknowledging at the
same time: I dont say I know it. It is this scrupulous care in acknowledging the
limitations of ones knowledge that makes the sentence amusing, in its perceived
quintessential Britishnessarguably, Britishness shaped, to a large extent, by the
intellectual climate created in Britain by the British Enlightenment.
7.7. I Believe
7.7.1. I believe versus to believe (that, something,
someone, it)
In what follows I am going to argue that the epistemic phrase I believe (without the
word that) has to be distinguished from the phrase I believe that, which does not
differ semantically (except in person or tense) from he believes that or from I believed
that. In other words, to believe that has a full paradigm (as does also to believe in),
whereas the phrase I believe, which can be used parenthetically, has a meaning of its
own, restricted to the first-person present tense.
Let us start by considering some examples of the epistemic phrase I believe (without a following that: I believe rather than I believe that) from Cobuild:
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I believe you can get low fat custard these days by Ambrosia in a tin so thats
even better for you.
The number of people killed on the roads. Five thousand a year in this
country.
Six thousand it is I believe.
Six thousand is it, yeah, you may well be right.
He does have, I believe, the clubs interests at heart.
And then one of the professors, Professor MX I believe, he lived in there
afterwards.
As these examples illustrate, the epistemic phrase I believe suggests something like a
considered but cautiously expressed opinion. If we compare it with I suppose, I believe
sounds more confident. If we compare it with I think, I believe also sounds more confident, although the difference is not as sharp as in the case of I suppose. For example,
if the library recalls a book that I have borrowed, and if I am fairly confident that I have
already returned it, I could say to the librarian with calm and self-assurance, I believe
I have already returned it. If, on the other hand, I am not sure at all, I would be more
likely to say, I think I have already returned it. Furthermore (as pointed out to me by
Brigid Maher, personal communication), if one is really unsure, one can stress this
further by emphasizing the word think, and pronouncing it with an intonation that
indicates hesitation (often with a frown); one cant do this with I believe.
In addition to sounding more confident than I think, I believe sounds more
thoughtful, considered, and cautiousperhaps more intellectual, more controlled,
less spontaneous, as well as more formal. It can also sound a little standoffish: although it doesnt claim knowledge, it doesnt give the impression that the speaker
might like to engage the addressee in a discussion, let alone an argument.
Both I believe (without that) and I think (without that) imply I dont say I know.
But I believe implies also some grounds, some evidence for thinking what one does.
This suggests the component I can say why I think like this, which is absent from
I think. At the same time, the speaker does not expect that his or her own reasons for
thinking this would be sufficient to convince others: I know that someone else can
think not like this.
It is also worth noting that phrases like Im not sure or I may be wrong are more
compatible with I think than I believe:
Im not sure but I think you can get it in a tin.
I may be wrong but I think I have already returned it.
I dont know for sure, but I think you can get it in a tin.
?Im not sure but I believe you can get it in a tin.
?I may be wrong but I believe I have already returned it.
?I dont know for sure, but I believe you can get it in a tin.
This incompatibility of I believe with phrases like Im not sure can be linked with
the reference to some objective evidence, or at least some specifiable grounds: I
I Think
215
can say why I think like this. (See Aijmers [1997, 17] comment: I believe does
not only express a subjective attitude. It also conveys that the speaker has some evidence for what he says.) The phrase I think lays no such claims to specifiable
grounds, and so it is more felicitous in combination with expressions of subjective
uncertainty such as Im not sure.
Up till now I have been talking only about the expression I believe, without an
accompanying that, on the assumption that I believe and I believe that differ in
meaning. This assumption may seem arbitrary to the reader. In fact, however, there
are good reasons to think that there is a semantic difference between the two. For
example, a sentence like the following one:
I believe that having been given a vote it should be compulsory to use it.
states a view that the speaker is committed to, and it could be expanded by phrases
like thats what I believe or my belief is. . . . By contrast, a sentence like I believe you
can get it in a tin cannot be expanded by such phrases; it does not present the speakers
beliefa belief that the speaker is committed tobut merely something that the
speaker personally thinks, a kind of personal opinion. I will return to I believe that
shortly. For the moment, let me propose a full explication for I believe (without that)
an explication that would account for all the intuitions discussed so far:
I believe (e.g., I believe you can get it in a tin) =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: you can get it in a tin
d. I know that someone else can think not like this
The component I think that is clearly there. For example, I believe you can get lowfat custard in a tin clearly implies that I think that you can get low-fat custard in a
tin. The component I dont say I know explains why I believe sounds more confident than I suppose: I suppose implies I dont know, whereas I believe implies only
I dont say I know. The component I know that someone else can think not like
this accounts for the tone of I believe. The speaker does not want to sound dogmatic and wishes to acknowledge the possibility of other opinions and other statements. At the same time, by presenting the thought in question as a personal opinion,
I believe acts as a distancing device and discourages argument: if one presents what
one thinks as a purely personal opinion (that doesnt have to be shared by others),
one signals that one is not going to engage in an argument.
The components I can say why I think like this and I know that someone else
can think not like this posited here for I believe can derive additional support from
the fact that normally one wouldnt use I believe in sentences referring to the speakers
own inner states (feelings, intentions, and so on). For example:
a. I think Ill go to bed now.
b. ?I believe Ill go to bed now.
Sentence (b) sounds odd because it implies that the speaker is looking at himself or
herself from an external perspective, as if having no privileged access to the subjectmatter. The phrase I think makes no reference to any grounds or to other peoples
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possible thoughts on the same matter, and so it is compatible with a much wider
range of propositions, including those to whose content the speaker has privileged
access.
If one reads pages upon pages of sentences with the epistemic phrase I believe (from
Cobuild), one is struck by the relative absence of tag questions and also of confirming
or disconfirming responses from the addressee (Yeah, Yes, Thats right, No, etc.). This
is consistent with the monological and somewhat standoffish tone of I believe. It is not
like I reckon, which tends to combine with a question addressed to the addressee (What
do you reckon?), and it is not like I suppose, which is often combined with a tag question and with an interest in the addressees point of view. Thus, the speaker is expressing a thought, while acknowledging that other people can have different thoughts on
the subject and not wishing to engage the addressee or anyone else.
7.7.2. I believe that
Let us now consider the meaning of the verb to believe used in combination with the
word that and, in particular, the relation between the phrases I believe and I believe
that. I will start again with some more examples from Cobuild:
I believe that we dont need to go to full integration to obtain the majority.
I believe that it is not inaccurate to say that the sum of human misery created by homelessness and housing problems in our country is probably
greater even than that created by unemployment.
I believe that they shouldnt have the votes, expats I mean.
I believe that as little as a hundred and hundred and fifty votes might have
swung some marginal seats.
I believe that ultimately were going to have to get ourselves into a position
where we. . . .
I believe that there is a real need. . . .
I believe that we could give encouragement to it.
I believe that that is the key factor to being successful in this particular H.E.O.
role.
I believe that its extremely important that you catch the vision.
As these examples illustrate, typically, I believe that conveys a conviction, and it tends
to introduce evaluative personal judgments: I believe that this is good/bad . . , I
believe that they should . . , and the like, rather than purely factual statements. Thus,
it would be a little odd to use I believe that in the sentence about custard:
I believe you can get custard in a tin.
?I believe that you can get custard in a tin.
Because I believe that implies something like a conviction or commitment, like taking a stand on some matter of importance, it is inappropriate in a factual-sounding
sentence, especially on a trivial matter.
I Think
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The commitment implied by I believe that is reflected in the ability of this

phrase to collocate with adverbs like strongly, as in the following examples:
I believe strongly that education does counter disadvantage. . . .
I believe quite strongly that officers should produce supposed solutions. . . .
The phrase I believe without that doesnt combine with adverbs like strongly (?six
thousand, I strongly believe). This fact in itself provides strong evidence for the semantic difference between I believe and I believe that.
As mentioned earlier, I believe is a quasi-performative phrase (in Austins sense,
Austin 1962), restrictedin the meaning under discussionto the first person (present
tense). By contrast, I believe that is no different semantically from he believes that or
they believe that (except for the obvious difference in the pronoun). A phrase like he
believes can also be used without a following that, but even when used like that it
does not carry all the semantic components postulated here for I believe (I dont say
I know, I can say why I think like this, I know that other people can think not like
this). Thus, a sentence like:
He believes its okay to smack children.
sounds natural, whereas a sentence like:
?He believes one can get custard in a tin.
sounds a little odd. The reason, I believe, is that in the first of these sentences he
believes is a variant of he believes that, with that conversationally deleted, and so it is
perfectly suitable for describing somebodys conviction. The second sentence, however, is purely factual, and so it doesnt easily lend itself to such an interpretation
and as a result sounds odd. On the other hand, I believe one can get custard in a tin
sounds natural, because it is not a variant of I believe that one can get custard in a tin
but an instance of a distinct, quasi-performative epistemic phrase, which does not
imply commitment or conviction.
The distinct, quasi-performative status of the phrase I believe is reflected in its
parenthetical syntax, that is, in its ability to occur midclause, or clause-finally. Such
syntax is not possible with second or third person, as the following contrasts show:
He does have, I believe, the clubs interests at heart.
He does have the clubs interests at heart, I believe.
?He does have, she believes, the clubs interests at heart.
?He does have the clubs interests at heart, she believes.
The parenthetical syntax of I believe reflects iconically some aspects of its meaning:
intuitively speaking, it is weaker than I believe that. Speaking more precisely, this
weakness can be linked with the presence of an additional semantic component:
I dont say I know. At the same time, it can be linked with the absence of the element of conviction, inherent in believe that.
To account for the element of conviction implied by believe that, we can propose the following explication:
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I believe that there is a real need . . . =

a. when I think about it, I think that there is a real need
b. I know that someone else can think not like this
c. I can say why I think I like this
d. I think that it is good if someone thinks like this
Being essentially nonfactual, believe that does not include the component I dont
say I know, which has been assigned to I believe. At the same time, it conveys the
speakers commitment and conviction, accounted for in the component I can say
why it is good if someone thinks like this.
In contrast to I believe without that, the version with that is not restricted to first
person (present tense), and a parallel explication can apply to second- and third-person sentences. For example:
She believes that there is a real need. . . . =
a. when she thinks about it, she thinks that there is a real need
b. she thinks like this:
c. I know that someone else can think not like this
d. I can say why I think I like this
e. I think that it is good if someone thinks like this
7.7.3. To believe what someone says
To believe someone means, essentially, to think that what this person says is true
even though one cannot know that it is true. In addition, the frame to believe someone links a persons thinking about the subject matter with his or her thinking about
the person who says it. For example, in the following sentence from Cobuild, the
speaker thinks that what the psychiatrist says is true not only because of the content
of what is said but also because the psychiatrist is a doctor (and thus a competent
and trustworthy person):
. . . and a psychiatrist takes out a stethoscope and takes out his blood
pressure equipment puts it on and tells me Im all right . . . Im not in the
middle of a heart attack. I believe him because hes a doctor.
This can be explicated as follows:
I believe him. =
a. [he says something]
b. I say: when he says it I think that it is true
c. I know that I cant know at this time
The new element here is the reference to the truth of some statement, absent
both from the epistemic phrase I believe and from the verb believe used in the frame
to believe that. In addition, there is the assumption that the person who believes something cannot know that this something is true.
Since I believe him, in contrast to I believe, is not a quasi-performative epistemic
phrase, the meaning of believe exhibited in sentences like I believe him is not restricted
I Think
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to first person (present tense), and a similar explication should also be applicable to
second- and third-person sentences. This can be tested as follows:
She believes him. =
a. [he says something]
b. I say: when he says it she thinks that it is true
c. I know that she cant know at this time
When the complement of believe represents another persons words, the sentence
can be explicated along similar lines:
I believe it. =
a. I say: when someone says it I think that it is true
b. I know that I cant know at this time
Again there is no difference here between first person and second or third person:
She believes it. =
a. I say: when someone says it she thinks that it is true
b. I know that she cant know
7.7.4. To believe in someone or something
Turning now to the syntactic frame to believe in, we will note that it can be used in
three different ways, with three different semantic interpretations. Roughly speaking, if one believes in something that people say, one thinks that what people say is
true. If one believes in an idealfor example, in freedom or democracyone thinks
that, roughly speaking, living according to this ideal is good. Finally, if one believes
in a person (I believe in you), one thinks that this person can and will do good
things.
The first sense (to believe in something that people say) can be explicated along
the following lines:
He believes in life after death (in Santa Claus). =
a. [some people say: there is life after death (a Santa Claus)]
b. I say: when he thinks about it he thinks that it is true
c. I know that he cant know it at this time
The second sense (to believe in an ideal) implies, in addition, an evaluation: the
believer thinks that it is good to do what the complement clause specifies. Let us
consider some further examples from Cobuild.
I believe in treating people that are ill as often and as best as possible.
I believe in freedom and democracy and wish to join the Conservatives. . . .
If I believe in elections I believe in democracy and I believe in giving people
the right to vote.
I believe quite strongly in cutting down car usage.
I believe in negotiation in life.
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I believe in the power of positive thought.

I believe in herbal things you know like for colds. . . .
In sentences of this kind, which are not factual, good appears to take the place of
true. For example, the sentence I believe in talking things through implies that the
speaker thinks that it is good to talk things through. I believe in the power of positive
thought implies that I think that it is good to think positively. If I believe in freedom
and democracy, then I am in favor of social and political actions leading to freedom
and democracy (the Cobuild example just cited is in fact very telling in this regard:
I believe in freedom and democracy and wish to join the Conservatives). We can
propose, therefore, the following explication:
I believe in talking things through. =
a. I say: I think like this: it is good if people talk things through
c. I think like this
d. I think that it is good to think like this
Finally, sentences like I believe in you (or she believes in him) can be explicated as
follows:
I believe in you. =
a. I say: I think like this: you can do good things, you will do good things
c. I think like this
d. I think that it is good to think like this
I have looked briefly at the different meanings and different syntactic frames of the
verb to believe with the purpose of isolating, and then seeing in context, the first-person
verbal phrase I believe. We have seen that the phrase has a unique configuration of
semantic components and that it is in some ways closer to the other epistemic phrases
than to the other meanings of the verb believe, but we have also seen that it shares
some components with those other meanings as well. In the last section of this chapter, we will take a quick look at the semantic history of the verb believe and at the
emergence of the phrase I believe in the context of that history. Here, I conclude by
noting that I believe represents a uniquely English/Anglo concept and conversational
tool, with no parallels in other European languages, let alone in languages of other
cultural areas. Expressions like je crois in French or ich glaube in German may seem
to be identical in meaning to I believe, but in fact they are not. The topic cannot be
pursued here in any detail, so I will simply note that, according to native speakers,
neither je crois nor ich glaube could always be used in sentences like those with I
believe quoted in this chapter.
7.8. I Find
Although the OED does not assign a distinct meaning to the epistemic phrase I find,
it posits two meanings for find that are obviously related semantically to that phrase:
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to discover or perceive on inspection or consideration (with the comment sometimes approximating to the sense of the French trouver) and to discover, come to
the knowledge of (a fact or state of affairs) by experience or trial. The first of these
meanings is illustrated, inter alia, with the following sentence:
Nor did the world find anything ludicrous in the pomp which . . .
surrounded him. (1848)
and the second, with the following one:
Deer forests have been found to pay better than sheep grazing. (1886)
When one examines the examples of the phrase I find in the Cobuild corpus, one
finds a great many parallels (both syntactic and semantic) to finding something
ludicrous. As evidence for the semantic nature of this category, here are a large
number of examples.
I find it ridiculous.
I just find the practice of singing so tedious. . . .
I find that incredible actually.
I find it quite frustrating.
I find it absolutely amazing that John Major is going . . . to privatise British
Rail very shortly.
I find it really difficult to meet people who I really resonate with.
I find it very hard to accept.
I find Stilton too strong.
I find them [Good Morning programs] an intrusion really.
I find that very hard to believe.
Im just trying to decide whether I find it offensive or not.
I find it depressing too.
Theyre ideas which on the whole I find rather stimulating.
The syntactic structure of this category of examples can be represented as I find it/
that ADJ (a so-called subject-raised construction). Do these examples fit, to some
extent, the first OED definition, to discover or perceive on inspection or consideration? Or do they come closer to the second definition, to discover, come to the
knowledge of, by experience or trial? As usual, these definitions are not sufficiently
precise to test against the examples, but the elements of thinking (consideration),
knowing (coming to the knowledge of), and experience (knowing something because of what happened to me) are clearly discernible in all these examples.
At the same time, all these examples convey an element of purely personal opinion (I know that other people can think not like this), which is not hinted at in
either of the OED definitions. It is true that an opinion based on ones own experience is likely to be purely personal, but it doesnt have to be presented as such by the
speaker. In fact, neither of the OED examples cited earlier (Nor did the world find
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anything ludicrous in the pomp which . . . surrounded him, and Deer forests have
been found to pay better than sheep grazing) implies such a guarded, restrained,
purely individual perspective. By contrast, sentences like I find Stilton too strong
or I find it ridiculous clearly restrict the validity of the claim to the speakers personal opinion; in fact, in all the examples cited here, I find can be readily combined
with the delimiter personally: Personally, I find Stilton too strong, Personally, I
find it ridiculous, and so forth.
In sentences of this kind, it would not be justified to present the speakers thought
in the form of a that-clause, such as I find that Stilton is too strong. The implication
is that it is too strong for me (to my taste) rather than, generally speaking, too strong.
Personally, I think about Stilton cheese like this: it is too strong; I do not say that I
think that it is (objectively) too strong.
These considerations bring us to the following explication:
I find Stilton too strong =
a. I say: I think about it (Stilton cheese) like this: it is too strong
b. I know that other people can think not like this
c. I think like this because I know what happens to me (what I feel) [when
I eat it]
d. I cant say I know what happens to other people (what they feel) [when
they eat it]
In sentences like I find Stilton too strong, the element of personal experience (eating
this kind of cheese) is unmistakable, but does the same apply to all the sentences
with I find cited earlier? Does it necessarily apply to, for example, I find it ridiculous (amazing, depressing, etc.)? I would argue that sentences of this kind, which
may appear to simply express a personal opinion not necessarily rooted in personal
experience, do in fact imply such an experience. If we compare, for example, the
sentence I find it depressing with I think its depressing, we will note that the latter
can combine with the modal must, whereas the former cannot:
I think it must be depressing.
?I find it must be depressing.
The modal must indicates an inference, and this is compatible with I think but not
with I find. The sentence I find it depressing refers to the speakers own experience of
feeling depressed, and so it cannot be based on inference.
Turning now to sentences in which I find is used parenthetically (typically,
sentence-finally), we will find that the element of personal experience is also present.
For example, the sentence (about peanut butter):
It is too dry on bread, I find.
clearly implies that the speaker has come to this particular judgment (it is too dry
on bread) by eating bread with peanut butter. This is not to say that the sentence
with a parenthetical I find phrase always refers overtly to the speakers experience, as
in the case of the texture of peanut butter on bread. But even when this is not the
I Think
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case and when the sentence describes, say, other peoples actions, the very presence
of the parenthetical phrase I find indicates that the speaker has encountered such
people, or such cases, in his or her own personal experience. For example:
A lot of young people are choosing German as the main language to
learn rather than French nowadays, I find.
The finding expressed in this sentence cannot be based on newspaper reports but
must be anchored in the speakers personal experience (probably as a teacher). Generally speaking, sentences with a parenthetical I find are very close semantically to
sentences like I find it too strong, but they are not identical. As their form suggests,
the speaker is making a statement (qualified by the parenthetical phrase) rather than
expressing a running thought, and thus they can sound more factual and objectively valid. Schematically (partial explication):
I find it (Stilton cheese) too strong. =
I say: I think about it like this: it is too strong
A lot of young people are choosing German . . . , I find. =
I say: a lot of young people are choosing German
I say this because I think like this
To some extent, this distinction corresponds to that drawn by the OED between
consideration and knowledge (of a fact or a state of affairs), but it is not the case
that only one of the two refers to knowledge based on personal experiencethey both
do. Here is a full explication of sentences with a parenthetical I find:
A lot of young people are choosing German . . . , I find. =
a. I say: a lot of young people are choosing German
b. I say this because I think like this
c. I know that other people can think not like this
d. I think like this because I know what happens to me
e. I cant say I know what happens to other people
In this case, though, there is no reference to what the speaker feels, only to what has
happened to him or her.
Let us consider in turn sentences with I find introducing a that-clause, as in the
following examples from Cobuild:
I find that there is a kind of merging between memories of the past and a
dream.
I find constantly that kids need reinforcing on what is an economic issue
what is a social issue.
I find that theyre much more open with me now asking me things than what
they were when I first started teaching.
I find that its the younger element thats really struggling.
I find that it bothers people. . . .
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All these sentences clearly imply that the speaker has experienced something himself or herselfin the first case, the merging of memories and dreams, and in the
other four, encounters with certain categories of people.
Thus, the element of personal experience links all the three types of I findsentences, and so does the element of personal opinion derived from that personal
experience. In one respect, however, I find that . . .-sentences do differ semantically from the I find it ADJ ones and from those with a parenthetical I find-phrase,
and in fact they can be said to occupy an intermediate position between the two. As
the surface structure suggests, I find that . . .-sentences express the speakers opinion (possibly, on a general topic): I think that . . . Schematically (again, partial explications only):
1. I find it too strong. =
I say: I think about it like this: it is too strong
2. A lot of young people are choosing German, I find. =
I say: a lot of young people are choosing German
I say this because I think like this
3. I find that it bothers people. . . . =
I say: (when I think about it) I think that it bothers people. . . .
In addition, all three types carry almost identical further components:
I know that other people can think not like this
I think like this because I know what happens to me (what I feel)
Thus, by saying I find, the speaker is, on the one hand, claiming that some knowledge can be derived from personal experience, and on the other, acknowledging that
knowledge obtained through personal experience is limited; it is reliable as far as it
goes but it doesnt go all that far: I know what happens to me, but I cant say I
know what happens to other people.
The development and expansion of the epistemic modality expressed by the
phrase I find is another characteristic feature of modern Anglo culture, with its emphasis on empiricism, personal opinion, and antidogmaticism. In most other European
languages, not to mention languages further afield, there are usually no phrases corresponding in both meaning and scope to the English I find (for example, there are
no corresponding phrases in Russian, Polish, Italian, or Spanish). Although in French
and German there are phrases comparable to I find (je trouve and ich finde), in both
cases, their scope is more limited.
Thus, in German the verb finden is used typically in questions inquiring about
the addressees subjective judgment, and in answers to such questions, for example:
Wie findest du das Buch (mein neues Kleid)?
lit., How do you find the book (my new dress)?
Did you like this book / Did you find it good?
Ich finde das Buch berhaupt nicht gut.
lit., I find the book not good at all
I dont like the book at all / I dont find it good.
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Unlike the English I find, ich finde cannot be used in factual sentences based on the
speakers experience, such as the one from Cobuild:
learn rather than French, nowadays, I find (*ich finde).
Similarly, in French, the verb trouver, to find, can be used in subjective-evaluative
sentences, but not in factual ones. For example, The Collins Robert French Dictionary (1990) cites the following sentences:
comment avez-vous trouv le bifteck? how did you find the steak?
vous la trouvez sympathique? do you find her a nice person?
je trouve cela trop sucr/lourd I find it too sweet/heavy
tu ne trouves pas que jai raison? dont you think (find) Im right?
trouvez-vous cela normal? do you think (find) thats normal?
At the same time, the Collins Robert suggests that in some contexts to find should be
rendered in French as sapercevoir, voir, or constater rather than trouver, and consultations with native speakers confirm this:
You will find that I am right. =
Vous verrez or vous constaterez or vous vous apercevrez que jai raison.
youll see/discover/ realize that Im right
I find that I have plenty of time. =
Je maperois or je constate que jai tout le temps quil faut
I notice/discover that I have plenty of time
In fact, the French verb constater, which has no equivalent in English, can be seen
as a French cultural counterpart of the broadly used English verb to find. Unlike to
find, constater implies objective knowledge, based on analytical thinking as well as
evidence, and not limited to one persons subjective experience. The verb trouver
can be used in contexts referring to a persons subjective evaluation of an experience,
situation, or opinion but not to objective knowledge derived from personal experience, as in the case of to find. (It is worth recalling in this connection the OED comment on the French trouver quoted earlier, linking trouver with only the more
subjective of the two meanings of find distinguished by the OED.) Objective knowledge implied by constater is based partly on analytical thinking, and as such it is presented as intersubjectively valid. It is only the English find that combines a claim to
empirical knowledge about the world based on personal experience with a recognition of the limitations of that empirical knowledge and with a reference to personal
opinion that doesnt have to be shared by other people. Again, the English sentence:
learn rather than French nowadays, I find.
cannot be translated into French with the verb trouver, because trouver sounds subjective and is not compatible with the factual character of the sentence. It can be
translated with constater, but such a translation would not have the personal,
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empirical, and limited character of I find, which implies, all at once, in my opinion, in my experience and to my knowledgea quintessentially Anglo cultural construct. The expression in my experience doesnt have colloquial equivalents
in either German or French. The ways of speaking enshrined in this and other
related expressions reflect the same cultural tradition that has found its expression
in the epistemic phrase I find itselfespecially I find as a frame for factual sentences (such as a lot of young people are choosing German as the main language
to learn rather than French nowadays, I find). It is the tradition of British empiricism, of the emphasis on personal experience, on the limitations of ones knowledge, and on tolerance for diverse points of view and respect for everyones personal
opinion.
Finally, it is worth noting that in its reference to personal experience as a source
of some (limited) knowledge, the verb to find has a parallel in another languagespecific English verbto sense, also without exact semantic equivalents in other European languages. For example, the Collins Robert French Dictionary (1990) glosses
to sense (as in to sense that one is unwelcome) as sentir (intuitivement), deviner,
pressentir, rendre compte, that is, to feel (intuitively), to guess, to have a premonition, to realize, but none of these French glosses captures the characteristic combination of components that makes up the meaning of the English verb to sense.
Tentatively, I would explicate this meaning as follows:
I sense that Im unwelcome / I sense danger. =
a. I say: I think like this now: I am unwelcome/in danger (in this place)
b. I cant say I know it
c. at the same time, I know something about it because I feel something in
my body now
d. I know that I feel something like this in my body when something like
this happens to me (e.g., when I am unwelcome in a place, when Im in
danger)
What is characteristic about this semantic configuration is a link between knowledge
and personal experience (especially sensory experience), as well as a recognition of
the limitations of such knowledge.
7.9. I Expect
The epistemic phrase I expect is closely related to the lexical verb to expect, and in
many sentences the two can be almost interchangeable. Consider, for example, the
following fragment from Cobuild:
. . . so I expect this one to be really crap.
Here, the last sentence could be paraphrased as so I expect this one will be really
crap. Generally speaking, when the speaker is talking about his or her current expectations, the lexical verb to expect used with a direct object can be replaced with
the epistemic phrase including the future auxiliary will.
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This apparent interchangeability of to expect as a lexical verb and the epistemic

phrase I expect seems to suggest that not only the former but also the latter have an
inherently future orientation.
I expect this one to be really crap. =
I expect that this one will be really crap.
Following this lead, we can try to explicate the meaning of the epistemic phrase as
follows:
I expect its got to the bottom of the washing basket. =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: its got to the bottom of the washing
basket
b. I dont know
c. I think that I will know (later)
There are numerous examples of I expect in the Cobuild corpus that appear to be
consistent with such an explication. For example:
(If anybody has any questions Ill try and answer them)
I expect theyll be difficult ones and I may not be able to. . . . =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: they will be difficult
b. I dont know
c. I think that I will know (later)
The future tense of the complement clause appears to support such an explication,
but the epistemic phrase I expect can of course also be used with complement clauses
with the present, present perfect, or past tense. For example:
The Chorus of Hebrew Slaves in the opera by Verdi. I expect its probably
Tosca.
She was brilliantyouve heard of her I expect.
I expect you have talked to MX? Yes I have.
It was a rather good bobble hat and I was going to wash it but Ive mislaid it.
But I expect its got to the bottom of the washing basket.
The simplest hypothesis seems to be that the complement clause states what the
speaker expects to find out (in the near future). Numerous examples referring to the
addressee and seeking confirmation from the addressee seem to support this hypothesis. For example:
I expect you have talked to MX? =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: you have talked to MX
b. I dont know
c. I think that I will know later (i.e., when you tell me)
If one studies all the examples in the corpus, however, one might come to the conclusion that some of them do not seem to fit this formula very well. Here is an example from Winnie the Pooh:
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Dont you know what Tiggers like to eat? asked Pooh. I expect if I
thought very hard about it I should, said Christopher Robin.
It could be argued that what Christopher Robin is saying is not I dont knowI
think that I will know but rather I dont knowI think that I can know. There are
other examples in the Cobuild corpus where I can know seems to fit better than I
will know. Here is one referring to jogging outfits:
That ones very popular. Is it? Mm. I expect its not very comfy though.
If the second speaker doesnt buy the outfit in question, then probably they will not
know whether it is comfy. What this speaker seems to be implying is that they can
find out that the outfit is not comfortable. Another example:
Just continue over the river and through the city walls and its just there.
Oh yes. I expect I could walk that far couldnt I.
Is the speaker saying, roughly speaking, I think that I will find out or I think that
I can find out? Since the decision to walk as suggested has not been taken yet, here,
too, I can appears to fit the situation better than I will. And one last example:
. . . and the Secretary of State set up a committee of enquiry . . . which of
course came out with the expected conclusions. I expect Ive got them
somewhere.
The speaker who doesnt search for the papers in question will not know whether he
or she has them; the speaker can know it, howeverif he or she can be bothered to
have a look.
On the other hand, all the examples in which I can appears to be more appropriate than I will can be interpreted as including an understood if-clause.
I think that if I think very hard about it I will know.
I think that if I jog in this outfit I will know that its not very comfy.
I think that if I have a look I will know that Ive got them.
Given this possibility of interpreting all the examples in terms of either I will know
or I will know if, the hypothesis that I expect is always linked with the future tense
(I will) can be sustained.
The analysis of the epistemic phrase I expect proposed here comes close to one
of the meanings postulated for expect in the OED: to anticipate that it will turn out
to be the case that; hence, to suspect, suppose, surmise. This meaning is illustrated
by the OED with the following sentences (inter alia):
It is expected that the Duke of Guieses horse was shot under him. (1592)
I expect they [the forces] are much stronger than I am made believe. (1645)
The OED states that this meaning is now rare in literary use, adding: the misuse
of the word as a synonym of suppose, without any notion of anticipating or looking
for, is often cited as an Americanism, but it is very common in dialectal, vulgar or
carelessly colloquial speech in England.
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229
One can wonder, however, whether the use of I expect as an epistemic marker in
twentieth- and twenty-first-century English (and its growing use in the nineteenth century) doesnt actually show that the meaning described by OED as now rare has in
fact expanded in some ways rather than shrunk in modern English. It is, of course, true
that sentences like it is expected that his horse was shot under him are now archaic, but
if framed by the first-person phrase I expect, they would be more acceptable:
I expect that his horse was shot under him.
Furthermore, analogous sentences with I expect and without that, referring to
the addressee, are well attested in modern English. Consider, first, the following
nineteenth-century quote (from the writings of Thomas Jefferson):
How many children have you? You beat me, I expect, on that count.
(1812)
As is common in modern English, the speaker is using here the phrase I expect to say
something about the addressee and is clearly expecting confirmation from the addressee: the speaker expects to hear something that will confirm what she or he now
thinks but doesnt know.
The modern wide use of the epistemic phrase I expect in dialogue (especially in
British English), seeking immediate confirmation from the addressee, may well create the impression that speakers are now using it (OED says: misusing) as a synonym of suppose, without any notion of anticipating. In fact, however, we have
seen that the quote from Jefferson does lend itself to an interpretation involving anticipation, and the same applies to numerous analogous instances of the phrase I
expect in Cobuild (typically, with the present perfect rather than past). For example:
I expect youve come across. . . . Yes.
She was brilliant youve heard of her I expect. Yes. Ive heard of her yes.
I expect youve talked to MX? Yes I have.
I expect you have enough of the countryside dont you. Yeah.
Examples of this kind are so common in the Cobuild corpus that they point to a wellestablished modern conversational routine. This routine does not have to be seen as
a misuse of expect and as the speakers failure to distinguish, intuitively, between
expect and suppose; in fact, it can be seen as building on a meaning of expect that
OED itself has documented as going back to the sixteenth century.
At the same time, we must note that in contemporary usage, the relevant meaning of expect cannot be extracted from the meaning of the epistemic phrase I expect
as a whole. The emergence of this phrase, with its particular quasi-performative status and its characteristic semantic combination of components I think and I dont
know, is clearly part of a more general phenomenon: the development of an elaborate system of epistemic phrases reflecting the intellectual and social legacy of the
British Enlightenment. In particular, the expectation that one will find out highlights the emphasis on the need for evidence (for finding out, empirically, how things
are) and also on the need for caution in making statements until the necessary evidence is found.
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7.10. I Take It
The epistemic phrase I take it is typically used in response to something that someone else has just said to us; at the same time, it is a response that itself is seeking a
response. For example:
[He] was a pop journalistI wrote him a private letterhe used bits of
it in a review which got published in a music paper.
You dumped him I take it.
Ive never spoken to him since.
I take it the natives are friendly?Yeah.
In broad outline, the role of the phrase I take it in sentences like these can be represented as follows:
I take it the natives are friendly. =
a. I say: I can think now that it is like this: the natives are friendly
b. I can think that it is like this because you said something to me now
c. I dont know
d. I want to know
e. I can know if you say something more about it now
f. I want you to say it
The image of taking something provides a useful clue here. I take it applies to a thought
formed on the basis of what the interlocutor has just said: one takes that thought from
what they have said. But taking something from what has been said does not amount
to extracting information and therefore obtaining new knowledge: the thought taken
from somebody elses words is only a thought and, as such, may be mistaken. Consequently, the speaker seeks confirmation, or disconfirmation, from the other person. As
a result, I take it functions somewhat like a yes-or-no question and is typically followed
by a yes or a no (or by something that amounts to a yes or a no).
Thus, looking in the OED advanced search for the phrase I take it, one finds
that the vast majority of twentieth-century examples take the form of a question. Some
examples:
Someone crowned me, I take it? The sergeant nodded. With the poker
from our own hearth. (1959)
The Oxford law would know about this, I take it? (1973)
Youd like the Sanction, I take it? (1980)
The police tried to trace the handkerchief, I take it?
They did, but no soap. (1972)
Miss BlandishI take it you can keep a secret?
Try me, Mr Stone. (1971)
But even in those sentences where I take it is not accompanied by a question mark,
it is usually clear from the context that the speaker is asking for confirmation. For
example:
I Think
231
When shall I start? In the spit and sawdust? I take it youll do the saloon
bar yourself. (1969)
Typically, the sentence in the I take it frame refersdirectly or indirectlyto the
addressee, who is understandably seen as someone who would know and thus be in
a position to confirm.
Although the phrase I take it is well attested in English from the end of the sixteenth century, such an interrogatory use of I take it (asking for confirmation) is a
relatively recent phenomenon in English. Thus, in the OEDs advanced search, we
find only one nineteenth-century example of it (among numerous examples of other
uses), whereas in the twentieth-century material it is the vastly predominant pattern.
In older (roughly, pre-twentieth-century) usage, the phrase I take it does not imply
seeking confirmation. It often occurs in the syntactic frame as I take it and as part of
the expression I take it for granted, both of which indicate the speakers confidence
rather than lack of knowledge.
I take it for granted, he will come to the moderates (and by thus reuniting
the party . . . ). (1794)
I take it for granted, this whole affair will end in smoke. (1709)
Some have been true sportsmenand as I take it, the phrase true sportsman includes everything that is manly and gentlemanly. (1894)
Furthermore, even in those cases where I take it occurs on its own (without as or for
granted), it is often clear from the content of the sentence that the speaker is expressing a judgment and is not seeking confirmation. One example from Shakespeare:
I take it he is somewhat a weakly man: and he has as it were a whay
coloured beard. (1602)
This character of I take it as the speakers own judgment is also clearly visible in sentences where I take is used with a direct object, as in the following example, also
from Shakespeare:
Come, wife, I take it be almost dinner time.
Thus, it is only in the modern use (from the nineteenth century onward) that I
take it has developed into a distinct conversational routine, with the components
I dont know, I want to know, I can know if you say something, and I want
you to say it.
In fact, I take it has two variants that are interrogative in structure as well as
meaning: do I take it . . . ? and can I take it . . . ? The first one (though not the second one) can be illustrated with examples from Cobuild:
He said do I take it that they disobeyed you? And she said of course not.
Do I take it that you can write Lem? Yeah.
There is a difference of register between the two, can I take it being more informal
than do I take it, and there is also a difference in meaning: can I take it implies that
the speaker wants to hear confirmation rather than disconfirmation, whereas do I
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take it is neutral in this regard. In the advanced search, there are no examples of can
I take it, but there is one late-nineteenth-century example of may I take it:
May I take it that you will sign the document? (1881)
Clearly, may I take it implies here that the speaker would like to hear the question
confirmed.
When the sentence with I take it does not have an interrogative structure, it can
still have an interrogative intonation and be marked in writing with a question mark.
Or it can be followed by a pause, indicating that the speaker is waiting for a response.
Some examples (from Cobuild):
So I take it then youre kind of asking my attitude?
Yeah.
And I take it youve not used it?
No.
I take it then its ten oclock and some sort of bell has gone? Has it?
No. Five past ten the bells going to go off.
You mentioned [in] one of your opening phrases that thirty million
pounds over the next five years was going to be expended against the arts.
That excludes the cost of Symphony Hall I take it.
Yeah.
Youve see them around I take it.
Oh yes.
As these examples make clear, what the speaker takes to be the case does not have
to be a conclusion drawn from the preceding utterance (as in the case of you dumped
him I take it). Rather, it can be a detail filling in or clarifying some aspects of the
picture emerging from that preceding utterance.
All these examples are consistent with the phrasing of the component I think
now that it is like this but would not necessarily be compatible with an added because of this. For example, the statement that excludes the cost of Symphony Hall
is not a conclusion drawn from what the interlocutor has said but rather a kind of
lateral commenta corollary rather than an implication of that earlier utterance.
Finally, we should note the continuity as well as the change in the history of the
phrase I take it. The confidence that it initially showed through its link with I take it
for granted gave way to a conversational reserve (I dont know) and the seeking of
confirmation from the addressee. At the same time, the speakers attitude is one of
cautious confidence: he or she is willing to form a judgment, at least a provisional
one (I can think now that it is like this).
As with other epistemic phrases, the OED does not acknowledge that the phrase
I take it has developed a meaning of its own in modern English. It does posit for the
verb take a meaning denoting intellectual action, which it glosses as to apprehend
mentally, to conceive, understand, consider, but this definition is so vague and
imprecise that it could cover both the older meanings of the verb to take and the
meaning of the modern phrase I take it. Here as elsewhere, it is clear that to be able
to understand the semantic change (including its cultural underpinnings), we need
a rigorous and effective semantic methodology.
I Think
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7.11. I Understand
Used as a lexical verb, understand implies thinking and knowledge. For example,
I understand that its their problem implies that I know that its their problem
and Ive thought about it. It also implies a causal link between the thinking and
the knowing: I know it because Ive thought about it (not because someone told
me so).
Used as an epistemic phrase, I understand retains its links with both thinking
and knowing, but the overall configuration is different. Consider, for example, the
following fragment:
. . . so anyway so he left his card and I rang up this morning and said I
understand you called at my home yesterday and he said yes
It is obvious that in colloquial language understand can be used in this sense only in
quasi-performative first-person (present-tense) sentences. For example, it would not
normally be possible to say:
*John understands that you called at his house yesterday.6
The speakers attitude, expressed in the epistemic phrase I understand, presents a
subtle combination of confidence and reserve, which can be portrayed as follows:
I understand that you called at my home yesterday. =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: you called at my home yesterday
c. I think that it is like this because someone else said something like this
d. I think that this someone can know
The speakers attitude is more confident than in the case of I think, but it stops short
of a fully confident I know. It is not just I think that, but it is not quite I know
either. This midway position between I think and I know can be captured by
means of the component I think with a reference to someone else saying something like thissomeone who can know. The widely used syntactic frame as I
understand (it) highlights this fairly confident and at the same time noncommittal
attitude: as I understand implies some evidence but also leaves some room for being
wrong.
I understand appears to be the only epistemic phrase that allows such a frame:
one cannot say *as I gather, *as I assume, *as I presume, *as I suppose, *as I expect,
*as I guess, and so on. This tentativeness of I understand is highlighted by examples
like the following ones:
Thats the way I understand it anyway.
Now that is how I understand it. If Im wrong Martin Deaner can ring up
and tell us.
These examples, which feature the introducers how and the way, are not exactly examples of I understand as an epistemic phrase, but the tentativeness implied by how
(or the way) I understand it carries over to as I understand it, as the following example illustrates:
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I remember reading a book by Gareth Lloyd Davis who as I understand

in the past was a lecturer here is that right?
An acknowledgment of the limitations of ones knowledge is also clearly conveyed
by another common frameas far as I understand. For example:
. . . as far as I understand from the lets say first part of your reports all the
republics in the former Soviet Union are very closely interdependent.
. . . as far as I understand what Michael Heseltines saying hes keeping an
element of the people there anyway isnt he?
The pointed tentativeness of the epistemic phrase I understand is linked with its
implication of being based on what someone else has said (whether orally or in writing). The other persons words can serve both as evidence and as a distancing device.
The frames as (I understand) and as far as (I understand) reflect the distance
and the possibility of error. The reference to evidence provided by somebody elses
words is reflected in the syntactic frame from . . .:
I think as I understand from conversations last week that is something that
were using both of us.
I understand from what Ive been told that MX did not feel deeply defensive of the Cow Green site.
As far as I understand from lets say first part of your reports. . . .
I understand from reading the financial papers that its fifty percent of the
domestic appliance company.
I understand from the commissioners that they see [house name] as a teethcutting exercise on how to get [hospice name]. . . .
Curiously, the phrase I understand is also often linked with the preposition from in
a different way: not as I understand from but as from what I understand. In this
latter frame, the understanding itself is presented as the source of the speakers tentative knowledge:
. . . from what I understand I think that Princess Diana was addicted to peppermint after tennis.
from what I understand you know some ecological theories maintain that
assemblage might just be by chance rather than actually having any particular internal relationships.
Most of them are from what I understand they tend to be school-based.
From what I understand of it they are not allowed to counsel or advise are
they.
The first from frame is also characteristic of the epistemic phrase I gather (I gather
from). The second one, seldom used in combinations with I gather, has its parallels in
expressions like from what I hear and from what I can see. These parallels suggest that
in the expression from what I understand the thinking-interpreting process is seen as a
potential source of evidence. All these expressionsfrom what I understand, from what
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235
I hear, and from what I can seeappear to imply a judgment as well as some basis for
making this judgment: judging from (i.e., on the basis of) what I hear/see/understand. . . .
This is consistent with the proposed combination of components I dont say I know,
someone else said something like this, and I think that this someone can know.
7.12. I Imagine
I imagine differs from all the other epistemic phrases in its tendency to co-occur with
the irrealis modal auxiliary would. Some examples from Cobuild:
I imagine that would be really interesting.
I imagine that they would freak out a bit about it.
Well I imagine a tree would go right through an MR Two. I mean they are
not exactly substantial cars.
I imagine Hull would be a place where there are more scrap Ladas around.
In addition to would, I imagine often combines with two other modals: must and will.
For example:
A yearly diary and it listed all the societies. I imagine there must be some
still extant.
Must be very different now I imagine.
I imagine theyll have a lot of books in common.
I imagine when this hall opens that Roman Catholics will be using it at least
occasionally for worship.
The irrealis character of sentences introduced by I imagine, often signaled by would,
can be linked with (though not fully explained by) the speakers lack of knowledge,
which is often expressed overtly. For example:
I dont actually know how much it is but I would imagine that it would have
been too expensive for me to do that.
I dont know if anyones actually said it but this is the sort of thing I imagine
they would say.
They do seem to know a lot about drugs, but crime generally I dont know.
I imagine that there is but I have got no firm evidence.
As a first approximation, then, we could consider positing for I imagine two semantic components: I think and I dont know, bringing it thus very close to I suppose. As a final analysis, however, this would not be very satisfactory, because I imagine
has a more imaginary (unreal) quality than I suppose. Consider for example the
following sentence:
I imagine its very easy to get lost here.
If I say this, am I saying (inter alia) that I think its very easy to get lost in that place?
Not necessarily. I may not actually think so (hold such a view); however, I can imagine
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myself thinking that this is the case. More simply, I can think that this is so if I give
free rein to my imagination, that is, if I allow myself briefly to think what I want.
Arguably, the combination of an if-component with an I can think-component would
account best for the irrealis character of the phrase I imagine, reflected in the element would. This leads us to the following explication:
I imagine its very easy to get lost here. =
a. I say: I can think like this now: it is very easy to get lost here
b. I dont want to say: I think that it is like this
c. I dont know
d. if I want to think something about it now I can think that it is like this
The component I dont know links I imagine with I suppose. The component I
can think accounts for the more imaginary, more evocative character of I imagine (often associated with mental pictures of imagined states of affairs). By contrast,
I suppose (a supposition) implies a more or less momentary thoughtactual, not
potential, and unrelated to fancy, images, or mental pictures: I think like this now.
In addition, I suppose implies a moment of reflection, and it is often combined with
an intonation indicating indecision and a process of forming a thought: Im thinking about it now. There are no such implications in I imagine.
7.13. I Bet
Let us start by considering a few examples from Cobuild:
Theyre very pretty glasses. Theyre from Snips, I bet.
I bet I win the horrible basket of fruit with one banana in.
I bet the kids dont know what guineas are nowadays, I bet theyve never
even heard of guineas.
I bet that happens a lot.
He didnt like that at all.I bet he didnt.
As these examples illustrate, the epistemic phrase I bet is related to the lexical verb to
bet in conveying a paradoxical combination of mental states: on the one hand, they
lay no claim to knowledge, and on the other, they express a subjective certainty. If
one bets, one knows that one doesnt really know what is going to happen, and yet
one feels as confident about the outcome as if one did knowso much so that one
is willing to put ones money on it. Similarly, if one says I bet, this implies something
like I feel absolutely certain and at the same time something like an admission that
one doesnt really know: I dont say I know. This leads us to the following formula:
I bet that happens a lot. =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: that happens a lot
b. I cant say I know
c. I think like this because I know some other things
d. I say this because I want to say something about it now
I Think
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I bet you wont get the cash. =

a. I say: I think now that it is like this: you wont get the cash
b. I cant say I know
c. I think like this because I know some other things
d. I say this because I want to say something about it now
The epistemic phrase I bet combines a virtual admission that one doesnt know with
a great subjective certainty that something is the casea certainty reflected in the
image of putting ones money on a certain thought (as one would put money on a
horse). As in the case of I guess, it may seem that the speaker is throwing caution to
the winds, expressing a confident opinion without sufficient objective evidence. In
the case of I bet, however, the speaker has at least some relevant knowledge, which is
not the case with I guess. At the same time, the very use of the phrase I bet indicates
that the speaker is aware of the uncertain epistemic status of the utterance and is also
drawing the addressees attention to it. While expressing a subjective certainty, the
speaker is scrupulously stressing at the same time: I cant say I know.
7.14. I Suspect
The epistemic phrase I suspect is obviously closely related to the lexical verb suspect,
to the noun suspicion, and to the adjective suspicious. The OED posits several meanings for the verb suspect, beginning with the following two definitions: 1. To imagine something evil, wrong or undesirable in (person or thing) on slight or no evidence;
to believe or fancy to be guilty or faulty, with insufficient proof or knowledge. . . . 2.
To imagine or fancy something, esp. something wrong, about (a person or thing)
with slight or no proof. . . . What these definitions clearlyand rightlyimply is
that the meaning of suspect includes, roughly speaking, thinking something bad
about someone or something, as well as not knowing. Clues from these related
words suggest that in the case of the epistemic phrase, too, there is something one
doesnt know that one thinks could be bad. But does this suspected badness carry
over to all the instances of the epistemic phrase I suspect?
If one looks through pages upon pages of this phrase in the Cobuild corpus, one
can see many examples that clearly do imply something bad. For example:
Were going to have to live with it, I suspect.
Dont you think its going to backfire on him?Well I suspect it may.
It would take too long to do it here David I suspect.
Its very time consuming in any case I suspect.
I suspect theyd run into all sorts of trouble.
I suspect hes quite hung up about it.
If one focuses on such examples, one can be tempted to posit for I suspect a component along the lines of I think about it like this: it is something bad. On the other
hand, there are also examples in the Cobuild corpus that seem not to be compatible
with such a component. For example:
238
Its all very complicated politics I suspect.

I suspect this citation of akespeare is the Bard with his Sh missed off.
Examples of this kind suggest that the evaluative component of I suspect (if there is
one) should be given a weaker formI think about it like this: it is not something
good, rather than the one derived from the lexical verb suspect: I think about it
like this: it is something bad.
In fact, some uses of the phrase I suspect may seem to be lacking any evaluative
implications whatsoever. For instance, what could be seen as not good in the following example from Cobuild?
Now you were obviously quite a bright young person I suspect.
The OED, which doesnt distinguish the epistemic phrase I suspect from other uses
of the verb suspect, is clearly ambivalent about the presence (or otherwise) of an
evaluative component in this verbs meaning(s). This indecision is reflected in the
sequence of putative meanings, starting with a definitely bad one (1. To imagine
something evil, wrong or undesirable), then moving to a predominantly bad one
(2. To imagine or fancy something, esp. something wrong), and then moving to
one without any bad connotations (3. To imagine or fancy something to be possible or likely).
If any uses of suspect can be suspected of having no evaluative component at all,
the epistemic phrase I suspect would be the prime suspect in this respect. The OED
(1849) example The late Alexander Knox . . . learned, I suspect, much of his theological system from Fowlers writings may seem a good case in point. On the other
hand, without context, the following sentences sound rather odd:
?I suspect its all right.
?I suspect hes okay.
certainly odder than their counterparts with suppose:
I suppose its all right.
I suppose hes okay.
What contrasts like these suggest is that I suspect does have some evaluative implications. I suggest that to reconcile our two conclusions, which appear to be in
conflict, we need to consider the broader context of those sentences whose propositional content refers to something neutral or good rather than something not
good. If, for example, the speaker has been arguing that something must be defective and now begins to think that he or she may have been wrong, then the sentence I suspect its all right does not sound odd any longer. In such a context, I
suspect its all right could be seen as a compressed version of I suspect that I was
wrong. Similarly, in my own sentence if any uses of suspect can be suspected of
having no evaluative component at all . . . I have used the word suspected because
if some uses of suspect had no evaluative component at all, this would mean that
my initial hypothesis was wrong.
I Think
239
A good example of such a use of I suspect is provided by one of the citations in

the OEDs advanced searcha quote from Richard Dawkinss chapter in Evolution
from Molecules to Men (1983):
In the modern context I do not think Darwin should be labelled a strong
gradualist. In the modern context I suspect that he would be rather openminded.
At first sight, the statement that in the modern context Darwin would be rather openminded appears to be saying something good about Darwin, rather than something
not good, let alone something bad. Yet if we follow this citation to its source and
consider it in the broader context in which it occurs, we will see that what the author
is saying with it can indeed be seen as something not good. In the passage in question, Dawkins is arguing forcefully against scholars (especially Gould) who see Darwin as a strong gradualist. Inter alia, he writes: Why on earth should Darwin have
committed himself to such an arbitrarily restrictive version of evolution, a version that
positively invites falsification? (p. 418). Whereas Gould describes the key statement
by Darwin on this point as clearly invalid, Dawkins argues that it is valid and very
wise. In this context, the remark that Darwin would now be seen as rather openminded functions as a polemical shotunderstated (I suspect rather than I maintain or I believe) but clearly implying something not good about Goulds argument.
Before proposing a full explication of I suspect, we need to consider one other aspect
of its meaning, separating it from most other epistemic phrases: its detective connotations. I suspect implies that I dont know but that someone can knowif they do
something (investigate, ask questions, follow the clues, etc.). This combination of I
dont know and someone can know links I suspect with I expect, and indeed in most
examples the two appear to be interchangeable. Nonetheless, in native speakers estimation, I suspect has a different flavor. This perceived different flavor can be explained in terms of the evaluative component, discussed earlier (I think about it like
this: it is not something good) and also of a detective attitude (an inclination to do
something to find out). This brings us to the following overall explication:
I suspect hes quite hung up about it. =
a. I say: I think now that it can be like this: hes quite hung up about it
b. I dont know
c. I think that someone can know if this someone does some things
d. I think about it like this: if it is true it is not something good
For example, if it is true that in the modern context Darwin would be rather openminded, this is not something good for Dawkinss argument (although it would of
course be something good about Darwin).
7.15. I Assume
The epistemic phrase I assume, which judging by the OEDs advanced search appears to have spread in the twentieth century and originated not much before, clearly
has its source in an older meaning of the verb to assume, described in the OED as
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follows: to take for granted as the basis of argument or action; to suppose. The earliest
example of this meaning cited by the OED reads:
Plotinus always assumeth that beatitude and eternity goeth ever together. (1598)
I argue that the epistemic phrase I assume also refers to a thought taken as a basis for
a further argument or action. It would not be accurate to say, however, that I assume also implies I take it for granted. As in the case of several other epistemic
phrases, the meaning of the verb on which they are based has weakened in those
phrases and has developed ignorative components like I dont know, I dont say I
know, and I cant say I know.
In the case of I assume, this ignorative component cannot take the form I dont
know because the speaker sounds too confident for that. At the same time, it does
not have the overconfidence of phrases like I presume and I bet, which warrant the
component of, as it were, reluctant admission: I cant say I know. The phrasing
that appears to fit I assume best is a free, rather than reluctant, admission: I know
that I dont know.
The thought inherent in an assumption is often short-lived rather than enduring: I think now that it is like this. This temporary character of an assumption can
be illustrated with the following example:
are you able to give another description. . . . I assume at this point in time
that the gentleman that you are with is perhaps not very tall clean-shaven
with dark hair . . . [from a police inquiry]
At the same time, this provisional thought is not a fleeting one, without any consequences, but on the contrary, it is one intentionally taken as a basis for doing something, including speaking or further thinking (e.g., for developing an argument or
for proceeding with a hypothesis). Expressions like Im working on the assumption
that and Ill proceed on the assumption that are particularly revealing in this respect.
Thus, we arrive at the following explication:
I assume that I will be attacked. =
a. I say: I think now that it is like this: I will be attacked
b. I know that I dont know
c. I want to think for some time that I know that it is like this
d. because if I think like this I can do some other things because of this
Lets test this explication against some examples. First, a few examples from the OED:
Hansard Commons I assume that my hon. Friend has in mind what are sometimes called billeting surveys. (1938)
Mag. Fantasy & SF (N.Y.) I assume that I will be attacked, and decide to
file a situation report. (1960)
A.HALL Id left my things in Room 29 as . . . routine procedure for a skip,
to let them assume I was simply out for the evening. (1981)
It seems clear that in all these examples the speaker wants, as the OED puts it, to
take something for granted as the basis of action. The proposed action can be either
I Think
241
physical or intellectual: the speaker may want to know somethingor to think that
they know itin order to proceed, to build a picture, to continue an investigation.
This can be further illustrated with some examples from Cobuild:
You were born in Minehead.Right.I assume your parents for occupational reasons moved to London is that right? (Implied: so that I can
proceed)
Well I was standing at the top and I remember sitting at the bottom so I
assume I fell down them. (Implied: so that I can continue my story)
You mentioned two friends in particular who I assume are about the same
age as you. (Implied: I want to build a picture)
I assume thatll be available. (Implied: I want to base my further planning,
etc., on this assumption)
I assume that if youre called Girls Against Smoking that none of you smoke
is that right? (Implied: I want to work on this assumption)
I assume youve got a good idea of where it is. (Again: I want to work on this
assumption)
So if somebody took your mums washing machine away I assume its your
Mums it could be your Dads how would she feel about that? (I assume its
your MumsI want to base my further questions on this assumption)
In all these cases, one wants to proceed to do something, and to do so, one needs to
thinkif only for a momentthat one knows something that in fact one doesnt know.
One is willing to do so, as it were, experimentallyeither to have ones thought
confirmed by someone who does know or simply to take an intellectual stab and live
with the consequences.
There is something counterfactual about an assumption and something creative. One is taking a risk, but this risk is well calculated. Above all, one is conscious
of what one is doing, and the addressee is warned, too. Thus, in making assumptions
one is not acting counter to the Lockean doctrine that the degree of assent must be
commensurate with the scope of our knowledge (and our ignorance). Rather, one is
acting in accordance with this doctrine, insofar as one is carefully paying attention
to, and making clear for the addressee, the exact epistemic status of what one is thinking and saying.
7.16. Conclusion
The set of epistemic phrases discussed here is by no means exhaustive. To mention
just a few, the following have not been discussed: I estimate, I surmise, I conjecture,
I speculate, I feel, I foresee, I hear. The group explored here, however, is sufficient to
give us a good insight into the main themes in the semantics of the English epistemic
phrases and to throw light on their cultural underpinnings.
The leitmotif of these phrases is the acknowledgment of the limitations of ones
knowledge and of the tentative status of most of the things that we say. The recurrent
242
semantic components are I dont know, I dont say I know, and I cant say I
know.
This brings us back to Lockes discussion of the limitations of human knowledge and the value of being cautious and tentative in ones statements. In most cases,
Locke tells us, our judgments have more or less shaky grounds:
. . . it is unavoidable to the greatest part of men, if not all, to have several opinions,
without certain and indubitable proof of their truth. (Locke 1959, 371)
For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he
holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to
the bottom all his own, or other mens opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action
and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others. (Locke 1959, 373)
The idea of not imposing our own opinions on others, expressed in the last sentence
of this quote, is another great theme in Lockes Essay and in modern Anglo culture
as a whole, and it is closely related to the Lockean emphasis on the distinction between thinking and knowing and on the importance of acknowledging the limitations of ones knowledge.
Of course, it is one thing to demonstrate the correlation between the semantics
of English epistemic phrases and the great themes of the British Enlightenment, and
another, to establish a causal link between the two, as I have hypothesized here. To
verify this hypothesis, one would need to study in considerable detail the history of
English epistemic phrases. This is a task for the future. In this chapter, I can only
make some preliminary observations, derived from a partial examination of a limited set of historical sources. In particular, I want to invite the reader to first take a
look at the overall epistemic scene in one classic sixteenth-century work, Thomas
Mores A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation (1965 [1557]), and second, to briefly
consider the history of the epistemic phrase I believe.
To begin with More, I suggest that even a cursory reading of his work shows that
the epistemic scene in it is quite different from the modern one. First of all, the range
of epistemic verbal phrases used by More is very narrow, and those he does use exude
certainty and conviction. They include I doubt not, I nothing doubt, methinks verily,
I think verily, I verily suppose, I suppose surely, I suppose very surely, I ween, I verily
ween, I trust, I wot, and I know.
It is particularly striking that the phrase I suppose, which in modern English
implies lack of confidence (I dont know), in Mores language is confident and
combines readily with the expression very true, as in the following example:
This is, I suppose, uncle, very true.
It also combines readily with the adverb surely, which has now also changed its
meaning but which for More implied certainty. For example:
For I suppose surely that any man that hath reason in his head shall hold
himself satisfied with this. (p. 217)
I Think
243
For I suppose very surely, cousin, that many a man and woman too . . . of
whom there now sit some (and many shall hereafter sit) full gloriously
crowned in heaven, had they not first been afraid of hell, would toward
heaven never have set foot forward. (p. 227)
The combinations of I suppose and other epistemic verbal phrases with the adverb
verily are also revealing. For example:
I verily suppose that the consideration of this incomparable kindness could
not fail . . . to influence our key-cold hearts. . . . (p. 234)
Me thinketh verily, cousin, that you say the truth. (p. 183)
I verily ween that the thing is thus of very plain truth in very deed. (p. 202)
For I think verily that so much of your tale is true. (p. 211)
In addition to the combinations with the emphatically assertive adverbs surely and
verily, collocations with the adverb well, such as the following ones, are also striking:
I perceive well, I see well, and I believe well (not to mention I wot well). For example:
I perceive well . . . that you would esteem Death so much the less if she
should come alone without either shame or pain. (p. 210)
That I believe well, cousin. (p. 210)
I see well that you reckon that who so dieth a natural death dieth like a
wanton even at his ease. (p. 223)
The frequent use of such expressions implying strong confidence and conviction is,
of course, all the more remarkable, given that epistemic expressions implying caution and lack of confidence such as I expect, I suspect, I gather, I understand, I imagine, or I presume are totally absent. Equally remarkable is the fact that of the large
class of cautious epistemic adverbs that we find in modern English (e.g., presumably,
apparently, allegedly, evidently) the only one that can be found in Mores prose is
undoubtedly, which is the least cautious of them all.
From a modern point of view, it is also striking how frequently the speaker
vouches emphatically for the truth of what he is saying, using phrases like very sure (I
am very sure), very true, very true indeed, plainly true, this is very truth, very truth it is,
of very truth, open truth, and plain and open evidential truth, as well as adverbial and
exclamatory expressions like verily, forsooth, by troth, by my troth, and in good faith
(not to mention by our Lady and the like). There are also various combinations of
such expressions, such as, for example, This is, good uncle, in good faith very true,
forsooth, uncle, this is very truth, and verily that is truth.
In the semantic universe reflected in this kind of discourse, truth and faith reign
supreme, and there is little concern indeed with the limitations of human knowledge or the need for modulating ones assent in accordance with the strength of the
available evidence. It is definitely a pre-Enlightenment type of discourse.
Turning now to the history of the epistemic phrase I believe, I will point out that
this phrase emerged in the history of English in the Age of Reason, not in the Age of
Faith. The OED defines the verb to believe with a complement clause as to hold it
244
as true that . . . , be of the opinion, think, but this formula covers different senses of
the word and obscures significant semantic and cultural changes.
In Shakespeares language, believe is indeed related to truth: to believe someone
or something means, essentially, to think that what someone says is true. It is also a
matter of choice: one chooses to believe someone or something voluntarily, and although one can do so only in part, one can also do so well, even potently, and
surely. To illustrate:
The complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe. (Alls Well That
Ends Well)
dukes Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy / Can do all that that he
hath promised?
orlando I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not (As You Like It)
I will upon all hazards well believe / Thou art my friend. (King John)
I do well believe you. (Cymbeline)
So have I heard and do in part believe it. (Hamlet)
. . . all which, sir, / Though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet. . . .
(Hamlet)
messala Believe not so. For we will hear, note and believe in heart. (King
Henry V)
Furthermore, believe is used predominantly in combination with a direct object referring to a person, for instance, who will believe thee, Isobel? you are now bound
to believe him, I do constantly believe you, do not believe him, I must believe
you, he will not believe a fool, would they believe me, and widow I should
believe you, and the most common collocation is the imperative with the first-person
object: believe me, sir, not I, believe me, believe me, lord, believe me, sister, believe me, I cannot. What all these supplications and pleas appear to mean
is not only I want you to think that it is true but also I dont want you to think:
maybe this is not true. Although believe occurs also in other frames and in other
senses, including what may seem to be an epistemic sense, it appears that in
Shakespeare, as in More, it is never compatible with doubt; indeed, it is, as it were,
an opposite of doubt. Although we do find in Shakespeares works the phrase I believe in part and the sentence I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not, this
is not incompatible with the suggestion that by itself, believe, including I believe,
implies in Shakespeares language a strong conviction.
Since it is impossible to undertake a fuller discussion of this matter here, I will
comment more fully on just one key example: the sentence cited by the OED in
support of the claim that the current epistemic meaning of believe can be attested in
Shakespeares language. This key example reads: I believe I know the cause (Measure for Measure). This sounds indeed just like the present-day usage, and this particular instance of I believe seems indistinguishable from the epistemic verbal phrase
I believe discussed in this chapter.
And yet when we consider this example in context, we will see that this impression is deceptive. In this scene, in which Lucio is speaking to the duke, who is dis-
I Think
245
guised as a friar, Lucio has full knowledge of the situation and is constantly making
hints to this effect, but he does not want to state overtly what he knows. In particular,
he speaks of the duke to the same (disguised) duke like this:
lucio: He would be drunk too; that let me inform you.
duke: You do him wrong surely.
lucio: Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the duke: and I believe I know
the cause of his withdrawing.
duke: What, I prithee, might be the cause?
lucio: No, pardon; tis a secret must be locked within the teeth and lips: but this
I can let you understand. . . .
duke: You speak unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened
in your malice. . . .
lucio: Come, sir, I know what I know.
Thus, when the duke responds to Lucios sentence I believe I know the cause with
the question what . . . might be the cause? Lucio replies that it is a secret; and when
the duke tries to question Lucios knowledge, Lucio replies, sir, I know what I know.
Clearly, then, Lucios initial I believe does not have the present meaning of I think,
I dont say I know. Lucio does know, and he says so. Far from implying I dont say
I know, his I believe implies something like I have no doubt at all, I am certain.
This is not the present-day meaning.
Thus, in Shakespeares times, I believe was associated with truth and implied
strong conviction (an absence of doubt). By the end of the eighteenth century, however, believe had developed a strong association with reasons and, in particular,
with the phrase I have reason to believe (see Hahn 2002), and in this new use it
had lost its association with truth. For example, when Swift says in Gullivers
Travels:
The continent of which this kingdom is a part, extends itself, as I have
reason to believe, eastward.
believe is not referring to somebody elses words that the speaker may or may not hold
as true but rather to what one thinks, and why. It is clearly in this context of having
good reason to believe something that the epistemic phrase I believe is borna phrase
that implies caution and lack of full knowledge and that does not refer to truth. Three
early examples from the writings of Daniel Defoe:
In which drawer there was a great deal of money in gold, I believe near two
hundred guineas, but I knew not how much.
As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is, I believe, the worst of all
snares. But I waive that discourse till I come to an experiment.
I believe they are dead, for I have heard nothing of them for above two
days; and I was afraid to inquire after them, said he, for I had nothing to
relieve them with.
246
In her highly acclaimed Bible and Sword, historian Barbara Tuchman (2001 [1956],
148) characterizes the eighteenth century in Britain as follows: It was the age of reason and free thought. . . . The awful logic of John Locke opened new realms of uncertainty. . . . Security of faith gave way to the insecurity of knowledge. The chapter
from which this quote comes is entitled The Reign of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and
this title captures a great deal about the new post-Lockean consciousness that developed in Britain at that time. Mr. Worldly Wiseman is a reasonable man in the new,
post-Lockean sense of the word reasonable (see chapter 4), and he is someone sufficiently confident in his reason to be able to form and express an opinion (I think)
but also wise enough to express it very cautiously and unimposingly: I dont say I
know. Phrases like I believe and I suppose (in the new, weakened sense of these
words) were perfect tools for conveying such an attitude.
I said at the outset that the emergence of a large class of epistemic phrases is a
striking innovation of modern English, quite remarkable in both a historical and crosslinguistic perspective. I also said that I wanted to investigate not only the semantics
of these phrases but also their cultural underpinnings. We can see now that the two
tasks are in fact inseparable.
First of all, it is only through a rigorous semantic analysis of the individual
epistemic phrases that we can establish the existence of these phrases as a major grammatical and semantic class in modern Englisha class that is not recognized either
in authoritative English grammars (e.g., Quirk et al. 1985) or in the Oxford English
Dictionary. As we have seen, the OED makes no distinction between the meaning
of verbs like believe, guess, gather, or suspect when used in the first-person singular
present tense and in other grammatical contexts, and English grammars do not make
such a distinction eitherand so fail to recognize the epistemic phrases as a distinct
grammatical class.
Second, it is only through rigorous semantic analysis that we can discover the
deep correspondence between the meanings of epistemic phrases and the ideas of
the British Enlightenment, epitomized by Lockes Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and thus establish a historical link between the two.
A rigorous semantic analysis, valid in both a cross-linguistic and a historical
perspective, is not possible without a suitable methodological framework. The natural semantic metalanguage provides such a framework and so opens new perspectives on meaning, grammar, history, and culture.
Chapter 8
probably
English Epistemic Adverbs and
Their Cultural Significance
8.1. Introduction
8.1.1. Epistemic adverbs as a striking category of
modern English
As mentioned in chapter 2, English has a much larger repertoire of epistemic
(sentential) adverbs than other European languages, possibly indeed without parallel in other languages of the world. The set of these adverbs includes the following:
probably, possibly, clearly, obviously, presumably, evidently, apparently, supposedly,
conceivably, undoubtedly, allegedly, reportedly, arguably, unquestionably, seemingly,
certainly, and, in American English, likely.
As I will discuss in more detail, this rich repertoire of epistemic adverbs developed
in English gradually. Undoubtedly, the rise of this semanticogrammatical category in
English was related to the rise of verbal epistemic phrases, such as I presume, I assume,
I gather, I understand, and I suppose. The cultural concerns reflected in the two categories are essentially the same, and in both cases they can be linked with the postLockean emphasis on the limitations of human knowledge, on the need to distinguish
knowledge from judgment, and on differentiating between different degrees of assent.
The fact that the existence of a large class of epistemic adverbs constitutes a
peculiar feature of modern English appears to have gone unnoticed in the relevant
literature. In fact, Nuyts (2001), who has discussed what he calls epistemic adverbs
and adjectives in English, Dutch, and German in considerable detail, comments
that the classes are actually remarkably comparable across the three languages considered here (p. 56).
But to compare the class of epistemic adverbs in different languages, one must
first identify this class in each language, and for this, one needs some explicit semantic criteria. In the absence of a detailed semantic analysis of the individual words, it
is impossible to rigorously delimit the class in question; without delimiting it, it is
impossible to compare its size across language boundaries.
247
248
For example, Nuyts matches the English words undoubtedly and surely with the
German words zweifelsohne (lit., without doubt), zweifellos (lit., doubtless), and
bestimmt (roughly, definitely), as well as matching the English maybe and perhaps
with the German word vielleicht. He doesnt explain, however, on what basis he places
undoubtedly, surely, and perhaps in one class (epistemic adverbs), nor does he
explain on what basis he matches these English words with what he sees as their
German counterparts. In fact, as I will argue in detail in this chapter, the English
words undoubtedly, surely, and perhaps belong to different semantic and, indeed,
syntactic classes. Furthermore, although the English words maybe and perhaps (which
I am assuming mean exactly the same)1 do correspond semantically to the German
word vielleicht, the other correspondences claimed by Nuyts are not in fact correct
not just because the meanings of the individual adverbs do not match exactly but,
above all, because epistemic adverbs are not separated from modal particles. Blurring the boundary between epistemic adverbs like undoubtedly and evidently and
words like surely or perhaps obscures the existence of an extended class of epistemic
adverbs in modern English. Contrary to what Nuyts suggests, most of these adverbs
do not have corresponding adverbs in either German or Dutch or, indeed, in other
European languages. This is illustrated in Table 8.1. (The meanings of the adverbs
in one row of the table are not necessarily exactly the same, but this is beside the
point; what matters here is the number of epistemic adverbs.)
Although the German repertoire of epistemic adverbs is larger than the Dutch
or the French, it is still considerably smaller than the English one. This fact is consistent with Kaspers (1979) observations about German learners of English, who
apparently have great difficulty in mastering English epistemic expressions and who
8.1 Common epistemic adverbs in English, German, Dutch,
and French
TABLE
English
German
Dutch
French
probably
possibly
clearly
evidently
wahrscheinlich
mglicherweise
waarschijnlijk
probablement
duidelijk (?)
klaarblijkelijk
evidemment
blijkbaar
kennelijk
apparemment
obviously
apparently1
apparently2
supposedly
seemingly
conceivably
undoubtedly
allegedly
reportedly
arguably
unquestionably
likely
certainly
presumably
18
offensichtlich
(offenbar)
anscheinend
vermutlich
prtendument
schijnbaar
zweifellos
angeblich
ongetwijfeld
vermoedelijk
certainement
8
vermoedelijk
9
Probably
249
demonstrate a generally low awareness of modality as a pragmatic category (see

also Robberecht and Peteghem 1982).
As I will try to show, the existence of such an extended class of epistemic adverbs in modern English is a fact of great cultural significance. But that cultural
significance cannot be explored without first identifying the existence of such a
class of words, this cannot be done without a detailed semantic analysis that enables us to identify the semantic components shared by all the members of this
class, and such a detailed semantic analysis in turn is not possible without a rigorous semantic framework.
For a long time, the literature discussing epistemic adverbs was focused on their
syntax rather than either meaning or use. One syntactic property that frequently attracted scholars attention was the inability of these adverbs to occur in questions.
For example, Jackendoff (1972, 84) noted the infelicity of sentences like:
*Did Frank probably beat all his opponents?
(See also Bellert 1977; Lang 1979; Foley and van Valin 1984; Nuyts 2001.) The inability of adverbs like probably and evidently to occur in questions is all the more
remarkable given that the corresponding epistemic adjectives do not share this restriction, for example:
Is it probable that Frank beat his opponents?
Clearly, the inability of epistemic adverbs to occur in questions is an important clue
to their meaning. At the same time, I would argue, it is only their meaning that can
explain their inability to occur in questions. Some words that various writers on the
subject include in the class of epistemic adverbsfor example, perhaps and surely
do not share the restrictions on their use in questions. For example, it is perfectly
acceptable to say:
Perhaps he did it himself?
Surely he did it himself?
Thus, under further scrutiny, even the generalization about the nonuse of epistemic
adverbs in questions seemingly evaporatesunless words like perhaps and surely do
not belong in the same class as probably and evidently.
In what follows, I will try to show that if the class of epistemic adverbs is properly
delimited, the generalization about their nonuse in questions can be maintained. And
once the class of epistemic adverbs is properly delimited, we can see clearly that it is
indeed exceptionally large in modern English, as compared with other European languages and also with earlier stages of English itself. Having established this fact, we
can look for its causes and ask how it is related to other striking semantic features of
modern English, such as, for example, the great profusion of epistemic verbal phrases.
Above all, having asked questions about the meaning of English epistemic adverbs, we
can explore their role in Anglo culture, and in doing so, we can link meaning, history,
and cultureas well as grammarin a way that will illuminate them all.
To investigate the meaning of individual words, we need to have a set of
indefinablessemantic primesin terms of which all the other words can be
250
defined. If our definitions are to explain the meaning of the individual words and
to do so in a way that would allow us to meaningfully compare them with one another, as well as with the closest words in other languages, they have to be formulated in simple and universal concepts. The key concept relevant to the area under
discussion is, I believe, that of knowingin natural semantic metalanguage
(NSM) semantics, knowas argued by Danielewiczowa (2002) with reference
to Bogusàwski (1981, 2002). In contrast to Danielewiczowa, however, I believe
that another equally important building block in the area in question is that of
thinkingin NSM semantics, think. As I will try to show, all the differences, as
well as similarities, between the individual epistemic adverbs can be explained
clearly, intelligibly, and in a way that can be tested against the intuitions of native
speakers, in semantic explications based essentially on the concepts know and
think and, more particularly, i know and i think. The other concepts recurring
in these explications are negation (not), can, say, people, other, and a few others. What I will posit as a semantic core defining the class of epistemic adverbs
will consist of a specific configuration of these conceptsincluding, in each case,
know, not, think, and i.
I said earlier that perhaps and maybe have an exact semantic equivalent in the
German word vielleicht. In fact, as cross-linguistic investigations show, they have exact
semantic equivalents in all languages, and all these semantically equivalent words represent an indefinable semantic prime maybe (= perhaps). If we identify the class of
epistemic adverbs in terms of specific configurations of primes including know and
think, it becomes clear that semantically elementary (nondecomposable) words like
perhaps, maybe, and vielleicht do not belong to that class. This is, I think, a good
illustration of the general thesis that to make a valid generalization about epistemic
adverbswhether syntactic, typological, or culturalwe need first to delimit this class
in a precise way.
In the literature, it is often assumed that speakers can, as Lyons puts it, qualify
their epistemic commitment (1981, 238) to their statements in various ways and that
although languages may differ in their preferred means for doing so, from a semantic point of view, these are only different means to the same goal. To quote Lyons:
As far as making statements is concerned, there are various ways in which a locutionary
agent can qualify his epistemic commitment. He can indicate that his evidence for
what he asserts is less good than it might be; that his commitment is tentative, provisional or conditional, rather than absolute; and so on. Subjective epistemic
modality is nothing other than this: the locutionary agents qualification of his
epistemic commitment. All natural spoken languages provide their users with the
prosodic resourcesstress and intonationwith which to express these several
distinguishable kinds of qualified epistemic commitment. Some, but by no means
all, grammaticalize them in the category of mood; and some languages, like English,
lexicalize or semi-lexicalize them by means of modal verbs (may, must, etc),
modal adjectives (possible, etc), modal adverbs (possibly, etc) and modal particles (perhaps, etc). (Lyons 1981, 238)
Lyons is right to distinguish modal adverbs like possibly from modal particles
like perhaps, but I believe that statements of this kind obscure an important semantic and cultural feature of modern English, namely, its extraordinary elaboration of
Probably
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the area of what Lyons calls subjective epistemic modality. To recognize and explain this phenomenon, we must go beyond abstract linguistic typology, with its assumption of different means, the same expressive needs and goals, and look at
English in its unique historical and cultural context.2
Given the role of English in the contemporary world, we must also recognize
the needs of learners of English all over the world, who, to be proficient in English,
have to learn not only new words and grammatical constructions but also new meanings and new ways of speaking. They have to learn that the need to qualify ones statements and differentiate ones degree of epistemic commitment is greater in English
than in most other languages and that speaking English with the appropriate degree of conviction (Holmes 1983) can present a great difficulty for students of English as a second language (see, e.g., Robberecht and Peteghem 1982: Kasper 1979:
Scarcella and Brunak 1981).
Holmes writes:
Many language learners report that they have found it difficult to master the expression of degrees of certainty and conviction in English. Without a command of
such skills speakers tend to sound abrupt, rude or didactic in different situations.
Asserting facts as if they were irrefutable or unchallengeable is appropriate only in
very specific contexts such as when providing a factual report or describing an observed event, where the subject matter is uncontentious or the speaker an acknowledged authority on the topic. (Holmes 1982, 24)
Acquiring the means of qualifying ones statements is a matter of great importance

for the learner of English. To quote Holmes (1982, 24), it is more often a speakers
social survival than his or her integrity which is at stake in the skilful use and interpretation of such forms. The need to master this area of English to function in an
Anglo society can be compared with the need to master honorifics in Japanese to be
able to survive socially in Japan. Consequently, an adequate semantic analysis of
epistemic adverbs, which could really explain their meaning to students and teachers of English, is essential for the teaching of English across the world, as well as for
understanding modern Anglo culture. To be taught effectively, English cannot be
totally separated from its cultural traditions, and its areas of cultural elaboration and
special cultural emphasis need to be recognized, elucidated, and examined in their
historical and social context.
8.1.2. Epistemic adverbs: A question of truth or
a question of knowledge?
In the literature on English, epistemic adverbs have been discussed predominantly from
a syntactic point of view. Two important semantic observations have been made, however: first, that epistemic adverbs are speaker-oriented rather than subject-oriented
(Jackendoff 1972, Cinque 1999; see also Lyonss 1977 notion of subjective modality)
and, second, that they express a lack of confidence on the part of the speaker (Cinque
1999, 86). Cinque discusses this lack of confidence in the context of a comparison
between epistemic adverbs and epistemic modals such as must and should. The focus
of his analysis is syntactic, but he also makes some semantic observations:
252

In English, for example, the epistemic uses of must express a confidence stronger
than that expressed by the epistemic uses of should (but still less than absolute):
a. John must be home, now.
b. John should be home, now.
As many people have observed, the same lack of confidence on the part of the
speaker can also be expressed by such speaker-oriented or epistemic adverbs
as probably, likely, presumably, supposedly, and so on. . . . For example, Jackendoff
(1972: 84, 102ff.) notes that neither feel[s] comfortable in questions *Must it be
five oclock? and *Did Frank probably beat all his opponents?, concluding that if
epistemic modals are treated like speaker-oriented adverbs . . . this restriction will
follow automatically. (Cinque 1999, 86.)
As this quote illustrates, the generative syntacticians interest in epistemic adverbs focuses mainly on how they should be treated or in what position they are
generated (Jackendoff 1972, 105). By contrast, my concern here is what these adverbs mean. From this point of view, the observations that they are speaker-oriented
and that they express a lack of confidence on the part of the speaker are relevant and
useful but clearly insufficient. In what way exactly are these adverbs speaker-oriented,
and how exactly do they differ from other speaker-oriented elements? In particular,
how do they differ from speaker-oriented verbal expressions such as I presume or I
suppose? And, above all, how do they differ from one another?
Quirk et al. (1985, 620), in their A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, put epistemic adverbs in a category they call content disjuncts, in the subcategory labeled degree of truth. They define this category as follows: These
disjuncts present a comment on the truth value of what is said, expressing the extent
to which, and the conditions under which, the speaker believes that what he is saying is true. Other writers on the subject who have claimed that epistemic adverbs
are concerned with the truth of what the speaker is saying include Bellert (1977)
and Foley and van Valin (1984). To quote the latter work, with its endorsement of
the former:
Bellert (1977) points out an important distinction between modal adjectives and
modal adverbs . . . She points out that while modal adjectives modify a proposition by expressing its reality status, modal adverbs modify the truth of the proposition, not the proposition. . . . She points out that sentences like . . .
a. Probably, John will come.
b. Certainly, John can do it.
are paraphrasable as:
a. It is probably true that John will come.
b. It is certainly true that John can do it. (Foley and van Valin 1984, 219)
I would argue, however, that the semantic characterization linking epistemic adverbs
with truth is misleading: from the speakers point of view, adverbs of this kind refer
to thinking and knowledge (or lack of knowledge) rather than to truth. A sentence
like Probably, John will come does not mean the same as It is probably true that John
will come, because the latter is concerned with the truth of somebodys (normally
Probably
253
somebody elses) words, whereas the former is concerned with the speakers own
current thought. The question whether, or to what degree, a sentence like Probably,
John will come is true reflects concerns of logicians, not those of ordinary speakers or
hearers. From an ordinary persons point of view, the use of probably signals opinion
(I think) and lack of knowledge (I dont know) rather than truth.
Truth may be relevant to the meaning of one or two epistemic adverbs (supposedly, allegedly) but not all or even most of them. To characterize the class as a
whole, Cinques term confidence is more apposite, although the phrase lack of confidence is too restrictive in the case of adverbs like clearly and obviously. The real key
to the semantics of epistemic phrases, however, lies in the concepts of thinking and
knowing and, more specifically, in the semantic components I think and I dont
say I know. The great expansion of epistemic adverbs in English took place at a time
when (as discussed in other chapters of this book) the focus of attention shifted, conspicuously, from truth to knowledge and, in particular, to the limitations of human
knowledge. As I will try to show, the semantics of the new class of epistemic adverbs
(together with the semantics of a new class of epistemic verbal phrases) reflected and
epitomized that shift.
The introduction to the well-known typological survey of evidentiality edited by
Wallace Chafe and Johanna Nichols opens with the following paragraph:
This book is about human awareness that truth is relative, and particularly about
the ways in which such awareness is expressed in language. . . . Often enough,
speakers present things as unquestionably true; for example, its raining. On other
occasions, English speakers, for example, may use an adverb to show something
about the reliability of what they say, the probability of its truth: Its probably raining, or Maybe its raining. (Chafe and Nichols 1986, vii)
It is important to note, however, that evidential and epistemic systems of the

worlds languages are typically concerned not with the truth of sentences but the
knowledge of the speakers. In fact, later on in their introduction, Chafe and Nichols
themselves switch from truth to knowledge, as if it didnt matter which of the
two tends to be grammatically and lexically elaborated in the worlds languages. The
truth of the matter is that while all languages have a word for true as well as a word
for know, it is the latter and not the former that tends to be so elaborated. What specific semantic configurations involving know are elaborated in a particular language
is a matter of great cultural importance. As I will try to show in this chapter (see also
chapter 2), in modern English the key configuration elaborated in the languages
semantic system is I think, I dont say I know.
8.1.3. Why can one say indubitably
but not dubitably?
The fact that one can say indubitably but not dubitably may be shrugged off as a
quirk of the English lexicon, and the question posed in the heading of this section
may seem gratuitous (one cant explain everything). But this question is harder to
dismiss when one notices that this supposed quirk has several parallels among other
epistemic adverbs. Thus, one can also say undoubtedly but not doubtedly, un-
254
questionably but not questionably, conceivably but not inconceivably, clearly

but not unclearly (in the epistemic sense), probably but not (unless in jest) improbably, and certainly but not (in the epistemic sense) uncertainly. These asymmetries are all the more intriguing, given that the corresponding epistemic verbal
phrases often do have their polar opposites. For example:
a.
b.
a.
b.
a.
b.
a.
b.
a.
b.
I think he did it himself.

I dont think he did it himself.
Conceivably, he did it himself.
*Inconceivably, he did it himself.
I doubt that he did it himself.
I dont doubt that he did it himself.
Undoubtedly, he did it himself.
*Doubtedly, he did it himself.
Indubitably, he did it himself
*Dubitably, he did it himself.
What is even more intriguing is that the epistemic adjectives corresponding to the
unpaired epistemic adverbs are often paired (see Nuyts 2001). For example:
a.
b.
c.
d.
a.
b.
c.
d.
a.
b.
c.
d.
a.
b.
c.
d.
a.
b.
c.
d.
It is clear that he did it himself.

Clearly, he did it himself.
It is unclear that he did it himself.
*Unclearly, he did it himself.
It is conceivable that he did it himself.
Conceivably, he did it himself.
It is inconceivable that he did it himself.
* Inconceivably, he did it himself.
It is unquestionable that he did it himself.
Unquestionably, he did it himself.
It is questionable that he did it himself.
*Questionably, he did it himself.
It is probable that he did it himself.
Probably, he did it himself.
It is improbable that he did it himself.
?Improbably, he did it himself.
It is possible that he did it himself.
Possibly, he did it himself.
It is impossible that he did it himself.
*Impossibly, he did it himself.
What these contrasts suggest is that an epistemic adverb cannot be used to dissociate
the speaker from the proposition that is being pronounced: syntactically, this proposition is the main clause, and semantically, it represents what the speaker says. Thus,
the epistemic adverb can qualify what the speaker is saying but cannot completely
undermine it (see Lang 1979). A verbal epistemic phrase is different because if it is
used sentence-initially, it can represent the main clause and be, as it were, the main
Probably
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assertion, and so the speaker doesnt have to be committed in any way to the validity
of the complement (one can always say that one thinks that something is not the case).
The semantic restrictions on epistemic adverbs discussed here are similar to those
noted by Rardin (1968) with respect to parenthetical verbs. As reported by Jackendoff
(1972, 97), Rardin pointed out that the parenthetical must be of positive import:
John is, I think, a vegetarian.
John is, *I dont think, a vegetarian.
John is, *I doubt, a vegetarian.
John is, I dont doubt, a vegetarian.
Evidently, a parenthetical epistemic verbal phrase (used in a noninitial position) can
qualify the speakers commitment to the statement in some way but cannot cancel
this commitment altogether. (For this reason, when the complement clause contains
negation, the parenthetical verbal phrase can in fact contain negation, too: a sentence like John isnt, I dont think, a vegetarian is not self-contradictory.) A sentence-initial epistemic verbal phrase can have a negative import (e.g., I dont think,
I doubt), because such a sentence-initial phrase can be interpreted as the main
clause, that is, as what the speaker actually says (asserts), on a par with a verbal
phrase of a positive import, such as I think.
In the literature discussing the use of I think in modern English, it has been
suggested that I think has now become a discourse marker and that it is no longer a
main clause (Thompson and Mulac 1991). But if one were to judge by the polarity
test (i.e., one based on negation), a sentence-initial I think could still be regarded as
the main clause (see Aijmer 1997, 40), because in the sentence-initial position I think
can be replaced with I dont think:
I think / I dont think that John is a vegetarian.
When used parenthetically, however, I think could no longer be replaced with I dont
think, and so it has to be regarded as a qualifier of the main clause and not as in any
sense itself a main clause. In the NSM system, this can be portrayed as follows:
I think John is a vegetarian =
I say: I think that John is a vegetarian
I dont say I know
I dont think John is a vegetarian =
I say: I dont think that John is a vegetarian
I dont say I know
John is, I think, a vegetarian =
I say: John is a vegetarian
I say I think, I dont say I know
Thus in a parenthetical clause, what the speaker actually says (asserts) is the proposition introduced by the epistemic phrase (John is a vegetarian, not I think John is a
vegetarian).
256
An epistemic adverb functions similarly to a parenthetical clause in that it, too,

only qualifies what the speaker says (asserts) rather than contributing an assertion
of its own: what occurs in the assertive frame I say is the proposition introduced
by the epistemic adverb rather than any attitudinal component of the epistemic adverb itself. For example, the sentence
Undoubtedly, John is a vegetarian.
includes in its meaning an assertion: I say: John is a vegetarian, qualified by various attitudinal components of the adverb undoubtedly (to be spelled out shortly).
These components have to be consistent with the assertion. They can include, therefore, the component I think that it is like this but not I think that it is not like
this, because the latter would involve the speaker in a contradiction. I can assert
that John is a vegetarian, or I can assert that John is not a vegetarianin neither
case would I be contradicting myself in any waybut if I said that doubtedly (or
dubitably), John is a vegetarian, I would be asserting something in the main body
of the sentence while the sentence-initial adverb would be sending a contradictory
message. Schematically:
*doubtedly/*dubitably/*questionably it is like this =
I say it is like this
I think that it is not like this
This is then, I suggest, the explanation for the absence of epistemic adverbs with a
fully negative import. The same explanation applies to the absence of parentheticals
verbal phrases with a negative import. (such as *John is, I doubt, a vegetarian).
One feature that distinguishes the two categories is the absence versus presence of a
reference to other people and of an expectation that they could share the speakers
attitude. I will return to this feature shortly. Another feature that distinguishes the
two is the relative emphasis on the speakers nonassertive attitude, reflected iconically
in the word order: parenthetical phrases (of the kind discussed here) do not occur at
the beginning of the sentence, whereas epistemic adverbs not only can but also in modern English very frequently do. In fact, Leech and Svartvik (1975, 202) comment: the
normal position for most sentence adverbials is front-position. They are usually separated from what follows by a tone unit boundary in speech or a comma in writing.
The sentence-initial position of epistemic adverbs, which gradually became more
and more prominent in modern English, is significant because it serves as a kind of
advance warning for the hearers. The prosodic independence of such as an opening
gambit (reflected in Quirk et al.s 1985 term disjunct) highlights this initial warning,
without which the hearer can expect a declarative sentence to carry the component I
know. Of course, such an expectation can be corrected later onwith a modal verb
(must, can, should, etc.), a sentence-internal epistemic adverb (e.g., it was probably/
apparently, etc., like this), or a parenthetical (sentence-internal or sentence-final) verbal phrase (e.g., I think, I presume). But a sentence-initial, semi-independent disjunct can serve as an advance warning, and thus it places a special emphasis on the
component I dont say I knowcontrary to what Quirk et al. (1985), Bellert (1977),
and Foley and van Valin (1984) say, not one qualifying the truth of what is being said
but one signaling an abstention from a claim to knowledge. I further explore the his-
Probably
257
torical significance of the component I dont say I know in epistemic adverbs in section 8.3.1, focused on the adverb probably. For the purposes of exposition, however, it
will be helpful to first consider two other epistemic adverbs, presumably and undoubtedly, in order to develop my general scheme for explicating the words of this category.
Having done this, I will be in a better position to tackle the most important of all
epistemic adverbs, probably, followed by its close relative likely. After this, I will discuss and compare most of the other epistemic adverbs, arranging them in groups:
first, the most confident ones, evidently, clearly, and obviously; then the less confident possibly and conceivably; and then those based on hearsay, apparently, supposedly, allegedly, and reportedly. The last adverb to discuss will be certainly, which I
will argue is only a marginal member of the class (if it belongs to it at all). After
that, I will compare and contrast epistemic adverbs with modal particles, and finally I will present a tentative outline of the history of English epistemic adverbs
as a lexicogrammatical class and discuss its cultural underpinnings.
8.2. Developing a Format for the Semantic Analysis of

Epistemic Adverbs
8.2.1. Presumably: A personal stance plus an appeal to
other people
Let us start with some sentences from the Cobuild corpus.
Presumably both those aspects of the companys work play a part in its high
efficiency.
Presumably, it was the latter type of young man whom the navy was after.
Presumably, blood from sores in the babys mouth entered the mothers body
through the crack in the mothers nipples.
Why should human beings have evolved into intelligent creatures? Presumably we have done so because such a feature is adaptive: it fits us better for
our environment.
Tom, Arakny and Abasio were gone. Presumably they were busy.
Presumably that means you make sure the customer is satisfied from the
minute the car goes out the show room.
Correct.
Presumably while you were working you also had the opportunity to look
at the films.
Well you had to.
As these examples illustrate, presumablyrather like I presumesignals a conclusion that goes beyond what the speaker can know. The first question to ask, therefore, is how the two (the adverb and the verbal phrase) are related.
In their A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Quirk et al. (1985,
614) describe sentences like (a) and (b):
258
a. Presumably, Alison has bought a new car.

b. I presume that Alison has bought a new car.
as plausible paraphrases. But if presumably did indeed mean the same as I presume, then we would expect that in the following pair of sentences, (b) is as acceptable as (a):
a. Dr. Livingstone, I presume.
b. Presumably, you are Dr. Livingstone.
In fact, sentence (b), in contrast to (a), sounds odd. I suggest that the main reason for
this contrast in acceptability lies in the fact that presumably projects the speakers
own attitude onto other people. Like the phrase it can be presumed, presumably makes
a claim that goes beyond the view of the present speaker and includes other people
as well. It can be presumed implies not only that it can be presumed by me but also
that it can be presumed by other people or, rather, that it can be presumed by people
in general. Presumably is not identical in meaning with it can be presumed any more
than it is with I presume, but it, too, refers to people and not only to the speaker. It
is speaker-oriented in the sense that it does refer to the speaker, but unlike I presume, it is not exclusively speaker oriented. Roughly:
Presumably, he did it himself. =
a. I presume he did it himself
b. I think that other people can think the same
To be more precise, we need to decompose the meaning of I presume into semantic
primes. The explication proposed for this phrase earlier (in chapter 7) reads:
I presume he did it himself. =
a. I say: I think that he did it himself
c. I think that I can know it
Apart from the difference in what is the main clause (that is, what occurs in the frame
I say), the explication of presumably should differ from the explication of I presume in adding to the speakers own I presume his or her expectation that other
people could think the same (I think that other people can think the same). Furthermore, if the adverb presumably occurs sentence-initially, it sends from the outset a signal that what is being said expresses the speakers thought: I want to say what
I think (a point that I will discuss more fully in the next section). This brings us to
the following overall explication:
Presumably, he did it himself. =
a. I want to say how I think when I think about it
b. I say: he did it himself
c. I dont say I know
d. I think that I can know it
e. I think that other people can think the same
If this explication of presumably is correct, then an epistemic adverb like presumably
is indeed speaker-oriented, insofar as it refers to what the speaker thinks, but it is not
Probably
259
focused exclusively on the speaker; it refers also to what other people can think. The
sentence Presumably you are Dr. Livingstone sounds strange because, under the circumstances, it would make no sense for the speaker to speculate about any other
peoples possible thoughts about the identity of the figure in front of him; what matters is who he thinks this person is.
The place of other people in the meaning of epistemic adverbs is an important clue to their cultural significance. Epistemic verbal phrases like I presume or I
believe present the speakers own personal attitude, and so by using them, the speaker
purports not to be trying to influence other peoples ways of thinking. As I discuss in
more detail later, the stance they project is therefore quite different from that conveyed by various interactive particles or other expressions that do not similarly fence
off the speakers position from that of the addressee. For example, German words
like doch and gewiss or French words like hein and voil, which have no counterparts in English, are inherently interactive and, as it were, addressee-oriented (as are
also English words like surely, sure, or the dialectal British innit).
The English epistemic adverbs are not like that: they are indeed speakeroriented. Of course, they, too, can be used in sentences eliciting a response from
the addressee, and in spoken English, presumably often does. But they can also be
used in sentences that are not seeking to directly engage the addressee. The epistemic
verbal phrase I presume can also be used in a sentence eliciting a response from an
addressee, as the sentence Dr. Livingstone, I presume illustrates, and yet the phrase I
presume can legitimately be regarded as speaker-oriented.
But while epistemic adverbs like presumably can also be regarded as speakeroriented, they are not personal and subjective like the epistemic verbal phrases.
For example, if I say I presume, I am presenting my own personal stance and nobody elses, but if I say presumably, I am, as it were, supporting my stance with an
appeal to some expected general consensus. The difference between the two expressions can be compared in this respect with that between, on the one hand, it is
obvious or it seems and, on the other, it is obvious to me or it seems to me. I presume
is personal in the way it is obvious to me or it seems to me is personal. Presumably,
on the other hand, implies that other people can think the same as I do, and so it
is closer in this respect to impersonal expressions like it is obvious or it seems. To
anticipate the discussion in the next section, to write in a reference that Undoubtedly Joe Bloggs is the best candidate is stronger support than I dont doubt that
Joe Bloggs is the best candidate, because it implies that other people can be expected to agree with me.
The rich set of epistemic verbal phrases like I presume gives English speakers
the means to mark and differentiate their personal stand. The rich set of epistemic
adverbs allows them to partly objectify their stand, to hint at some valid grounds
for it, to convey an expectation that their stance would be seen by other people as
reasonable. The two sets can be said to complement each other in that they both
allow the speakers to say what they think and to delineate their stance accurately,
carefully, responsibly, and unimposingly. They can both be said to reflect the cultural concerns that first arose in Britain at the time of the Enlightenment and that, as
I have been arguing all along, have shaped aspects of Anglo discourse in the subsequent centuries as well.
260
8.2.2. Undoubtedly: The significance of

the sentence-initial position of the adverb
In his article Refocusing the Burden of Proof in Criminal Cases: Some Doubts about
Reasonable Doubt, the legal scholar Lawrence Solan writes:
The verb to doubt is what linguists and philosophers call a verb of propositional
attitude. It describes the speakers attitude toward a proposition. Loosely, it means
something like, to think a proposition is not true, as in: Do you think it will rain
tomorrow? I doubt it. Justice Scalias recent characterization of the cognate
noun, an uncertain, tentative or provisional disbelief, gleaned from various dictionaries, describes this sense of the concept well. The word is a label for a cognitive process that occurs innately. (Solan 1999, 132)
But does this definition gleaned from various dictionaries really explicate doubt
well? I believe not, if only because all the words used in the definition (uncertain,
tentative, provisional, and disbelief) are at least as complex as doubt itself.
Let us start again with a set of examples from Cobuild:
He is undoubtedly one of the best players in the world in that position.
Undoubtedly the problem was that the banking system wasnt geared up to
the increase in the number of projected appraisals.
Undoubtedly there have been wrangles over policy wordings.
It has undoubtedly affected the Council.
So undoubtedly the house was overcrowded.
Clearly, just as presumably is closely related to I presume, undoubtedly is closely related to I dont doubt, so it will be useful to begin our analysis of the adverb by comparing it with the verbal phrase:
a. I dont doubt that he did it himself.
b. Undoubtedly, he did it himself.
To explicate the phrase I dont doubt, we may need to start with its counterpart without negation, that is, I doubt. If we rely on simple and universal human concepts
like know and think, we can explicate doubt (and the phrase I doubt) clearly and
precisely (see the explication later). We can also show that the word doubt is not really
a label for a cognitive process that occurs innately but rather a language-specific
configuration of semantic components constructed out of concepts like think and
know that do indeed occur innately.
I doubt that he did it himself.
a. I say: I think that he did not do it himself
c. I say this because I want to say what I think when I think about it
d. I think that it can be like this
For I dont doubt, we can then propose a symmetrical explication:
I dont doubt that he did it himself =
a. I say: I think that he did it himself
Probably
261

d. I dont think that it can be not like this
For undoubtedly, we can now propose an explication extending the attitude of I dont
doubt to other people (while preserving the reference to the speaker himself or
herself):
Undoubtedly, he did it himself =
d. I think that it cannot be not like this
I have said earlier that a sentence-initial epistemic adverb emphasizes the non-fully
assertive nature of what is being said more than a sentence-internal one, and I have
suggested that the explication of a sentence-initial epistemic adverb should include,
at the very outset, the warning component I want to say what I think (by implication, not what I know). I have not yet addressed, however, the question of how we
can capture in explications the difference between sentence-initial and sentenceinternal epistemic adverbs. What I want to propose is that the explication of a
sentence-internal adverb should not start with such an initial warning signal (I want
to say what I think) but rather should start, as the sentence itself does, with the main
proposition itself and only later add to it a component clarifying the status of this
proposition as something that the speaker thinks rather than knows (I say this because I want to say what I think). Formulaically:
He undoubtedly did it himself =
a. I say: he did it himself
d. I think that it cannot be not like this
In what follows, I will be explicating only epistemic adverbs occurring in the initial
position. I will do so for reasons of space, on the assumption that in each case the
difference between the two versions is exactly the same as that shown here between
the two versions of undoubtedly.
8.3. Probably and Likely: The Heart of the Category

of Epistemic Adverbs
8.3.1. Probably
Probably is the most important of all English epistemic adverbs, insofar as it is the
most frequent and the most widely used one (across a wide range of registers and
types of discourse). The differences between probably and other epistemic adverbs
262
are quite spectacular, as Table 8.2 demonstrates. (I have not included in this table
those adverbs whose polysemy would make it impossible to easily find out their frequencies in an epistemic sense. The figures for likely include its use as an adjective
as well as an adverb. Except for the last one, which has not been discussed in this
chapter in any detail, the order of the adverbs in this table corresponds to the order
in which they are discussed here.)
The differences in frequency between probably and its counterparts in other
European languages, though of a different order, are also quite remarkable.
English: according to the data in the Cobuild UK spoken corpus, the frequency of probably in spoken English is 28 tokens per 50,000 words,
in Holmes (1988, 35) it is 32 tokens per 50,000 words, and in the Lund
corpus of 320,000 words, 44 tokens per 50,000 words (compare Holmes
1988, 35)
Swedish: in The English-Swedish Parallel Corpus (of circa 300,000 words),
the joint frequency of its two counterparts frmodligen and antagligen is 12
tokens per 50,000 words (information courtesy of Karin Aijmer).
German: in the Mannheim corpus of spoken language (of circa 1.6 million
words), the word wahrscheinlich has 14 tokens per 50,000 words, and in the
Mannheim corpus of written language (of circa 2.5 million words), 9 tokens
per 50,000 words.
French: in the Cobuild corpus of French Books (of circa 3 million words),
the word probablement has 3.5 tokens per 50,000 words.
The wide use of probably across all registers can be illustrated with the following
interview with a 14-year-old British schoolboy (note the last sentence):
TABLE
8.2 Frequency (per million words) in the Cobuild corpus
presumably
undoubtedly
probably
likely (adv.)
evidently
clearly
obviously
possibly
conceivably
apparently
supposedly
allegedly
reportedly
seemingly
arguably
unquestionably
UK Spoken
UK Books
US Books
67
3
561
2
1.8
57
346
83
0.8
62
7
0.8
0.3
2
0.9
0.3
26
39
312
5
15
158
107
74
3
80
17
16
1.5
16
4
4
24
22
219
11
20
143
75
47
2
81
10
9
5
23
2
3
Probably
263
rp: Do you think of yourself as being English, or white?

ben: Um, I do fink of myself as a British person, a British citizen but I, I dont
fink of myself as any other race because I was born in England which makes me
English so Im not nofing else, I wouldnt try and be nofing else.
rp: Right. Do you think some boys do they try and be something else?
BEN :
Yeah. Yeah, try and act hard or try and talk in a, like some people like try
talkin like a Jamaican accent or=
rp: =Do they?
ben: Yeah and like kiss their teeth like Africans, like Afro-Caribbean do, try and
copy them.
rp: This is English boys tryin to be like that. White English boys?
ben: Yeah. Some do. Yeah.
rp: So why is that then? Why do they try and be like that?
ben: Dunno because they look as . . . quite hard people and if they try and, if
they act like that then theyre gonna, people are gonna fink oh look they look
hard. Dont look at them else theyre gonna start trouble. So thats probably
why. (Frosh, Phoenix, and Pattman 2000, 53)
One can doubt whether the German word wahrscheinlich or the French word
probablement would be used in the register spoken by this interviewee, as they appear to belong to a more educated and formal stratum of language. The extremely
high frequency of probably in spoken English is no doubt linked with its wide sociocultural range of use.
When and why did the word probably (in its modern epistemic meaning) come
to occupy such an important place in English Anglo discourse?
To begin with the question when, we will note that although the word itself was
already used in the sixteenth century, its meaning was then different, as the following
sentence cited by the OED shows: You wrote so probably that it put me in fear of
dangers to come (1535). The first fully convincing example of the epistemic use of
probably recorded by the OED is dated 1774: The present stones were probably substituted in place of these. My own database derived from the Literature Online Web
site also suggests that the epistemic probably emerged in English in the eighteenth
century and that its use has gradually expanded.
In The Emergence of Probability, Ian Hacking (1975) has written:
Until the end of the Renaissance, one of our concepts of evidence was lacking:
that by which one thing can indicate, contingently, the state of something else . . .
[A] probable opinion [in the Renaissance] was not one supported by evidence, but
one which was approved by some authority, or by the testimony of respected judges.
(Quoted in Franklin 2001, 203)
In quoting this passage, Franklin (2001, 203) remarks, ironically, that to reach these
conclusions, it was necessary to ignore everything written about evidence in law and
almost all medieval and early modern writing in Latin, and he cites a long list of
other scholars who have tried to refute Hackings claim. But the controversy between
264
Hacking and his critics cannot be settled without a meticulous semantic analysis of
the relevant words in the Latin documents, as well as in various early sources in
modern European languages. In fact, in a section entitled Probability in Ordinary
Language, Franklin himself points out that while the first known occurrence of
the word probable in English is in Trevisas translation of Higdens Polychronicon, of
about 1385 (2001, 127), it must be borne in mind that the early uses of probable and
likely in English are nothing like It will probably rain tomorrow (p. 127).
According to the available linguistic evidence, probably as an epistemic adverb
first emerged in ordinary English in the eighteenth century, and its use spread gradually, reaching in the twentieth century a position of prominence unrivaled by its
counterparts in other European languages or by other English epistemic adverbs.3
To the best of my knowledge, the current epistemic sense of the adjective probable is not incontrovertibly attested before the eighteenth century either. It is true
that the OED includes in its entry on the current meaning of probable some examples
from the seventeenth century, but the meaning of probable in these examples is either obscure or clearly different from the current one. For example:
1. The birds neither sow, reape, &c. as you doe, Ergo tis less probable that
they should be fed. (1620)
2. This were a probable opinion, though not warranted by holy writ. (1736)
Clearly, in 1, probable means something like justifiable, and in 2, something like
tenable.
The OED distinguishes the meaning of probable illustrated in sentences 1 and
2 from that of probable used in the frame probable by (analogous to provable by), as
in some other seventeenth-century examples, such as the following two:
3. No man in religion is properly a heretic . . . but he who maintains traditions or opinions not probable by scripture. (1659)
4. Executions by a Barrons Officer are valid, though not given in Writ, and
that the same are probable by Witnesses. (1678)
Although the meaning of probable in 3 and 4 may indeed be different from that in
1 and 2, its meaning in 1 and 2 is still different from the contemporary one. Examples
of this kind, and their treatment by the OED, should alert us to the dangers facing
anyone who wants to study the history of the concept of probability without careful semantic analysis of the relevant words, at different stages of their history.
The question of why probably has become so prominent in modern English leads
us, first, to the changes in seventeenth-century European thinking in general and,
second, to the ideas and the influence of British thinkers of the Enlightenment, especially to John Locke.
As for the European roots of the modern probabilistic outlook, let me quote
from a recent book entitled The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life, which tells how quantitative ideas of chance transformed
the natural and social sciences, as well as daily life, over the past three centuries:
The ultimate result of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation clashes over the
fundamental principles of faith and their justification, and of the radical scepticism of Michel de Montaigne and other sixteenth-century thinkers was vastly to
Probably
265
erode the domain of the demonstrative proof and to expand that of probable
reasoning. . . . Confronted with a choice between fideist dogmatism on the one
hand and the most corrosive scepticism on the other, an increasing number of
seventeenth-century writers attempted to carve out an intermediate position that
abandoned all hope of certainty except in mathematics and perhaps metaphysics, and yet still insisted that men could attain probable knowledge. (Gigerenzer
et al. 1989, cover)
It is widely held that, next to the Reformation, a key influence in the modern prominence of probabilistic thinking must be attributed to the Enlightenment. In a book
entitled Classical Probability in the Enlightenment, Daston writes:
The sixteenth-century revival of Greek scepticism, combined with the blistering
polemics of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, had subverted traditional
criteria for belief in religion, philosophy, and the sciences. To counter this erosion of belief, a group of seventeenth-century thinkers, including Marin Mersenne,
Pierre Gassendi, Hugo Grotius, John Tillotson, Robert Boyle, and John Locke,
advanced a new philosophy of rational belief which Richard Popkin has called
constructive scepticism. (Daston 1988, xi)
So far, so good. But tracing the origins of the modern probabilistic thinking to the
Reformation and the Enlightenment does not explain why the word probably is used
so widely, and so frequently, in Englishmore so than its counterparts in other European languages. To explain this, another key historical factor must be taken into
account: the influence of John Locke on the everyday ways of thinking, speaking,
and writing in Britain and Americaan influence far greater than Mersenne or
Gassendi could possibly have had in France, or Grotius, in Holland, given that
Gassendi and Grotius wrote in Latin, and Mersenne was influential through his
correspondence with other philosophers and through his activities as a publisher
rather than through his own writings, whereas Locke wrote in English, was endlessly
reprinted, and was read by the entire educated public. To quote Yolton:
Lockes influence on eighteenth-century thought in Britain is extensive. . . . One
can find, in the tracts and pamphlets of the eighteenth century, frequent usage of
Lockean terminology and concepts. . . . The quick absorption of Lockes language
and concepts by his contemporaries is another indication of the impact his ideas
had on his own and the following centuries. (Yolton 1977, 8)
As emphasized by Roy Porter (2000, 62), among many others, Lockes ideas on probable knowledge in particular proved enormously influential in staking out an enlightened epistemology:
Knowledgeas distinct from faith and sham syllogizingwas of two kinds. One
was intuitive. This, the more certain but restricted in scope, consisted of truths
requiring no proof: for instance, a semicircle is less than a whole circle. The other
type arose from the acquisition and assimilation of sense data, and would generate
probable knowledge. While inevitably lacking the certitude of revelation or intuition, this formed the main stock of truth available to mortals. (Porter 2000, 63)
It is true that (as pointed out to me by James Franklin, personal communication),

while Gassendi, Mersenne, and Grotius were not read much compared with Locke,
Pascal was. At the same time, however (as Franklin notes), while Locke was for prob-
266
ability, Pascal was against ita fact that (as Franklin also notes) could well have been
significant.4
Turning now to the semantic analysis of the adverb probably as it is currently
used, I note, first of all, that its meaning should not be uncritically equated with that
of the adjective probable, because the two cannot always be used interchangeably.
In particular, probably can be used with personal opinions and moral judgments,
whereas probable cannot. For example:
a.
b.
a.
b.
a.
b.
Its probably not worth it.

?It is probable that it is not worth it.
I probably should (do it).
?It is probable that I should (do it).
You probably ought to (try harder).
?It is probable that you ought to (try harder).
It is also significant that probable can be modified by the adverb highly, whereas
probably cannot (highly probable vs. *highly probably). A collocation like highly
probable can be compared with highly paid: it suggests something that is somehow
measurably quantifiable. It is related to the fact that one can ask how probable
something is, and what is the probability that. . . . No such question can, of course,
arise with respect to probably, which is not an estimate but a hedge. These contrasts
in acceptability are consistent with the fact that probably has a reduced variant in
spoken English (probly) and that its frequency is incomparably higher than that of
probable. Table 8.3 shows the relative frequencies of probably and probable in the
Cobuild corpus.
All these facts suggest that probably is less scientific and intellectual than
probable and that it is well and truly entrenched in English colloquial speech. While
it is epistemically cautious and does imply a certain amount of conscious reflection
(perhaps some mental weighing of the evidence), it can also be relatively casual. It
does not imply that one can prove the validity of what one is saying or demonstrate
how one has arrived at ones judgment.
On the basis of all these considerations, I would propose the following explication:
Probably he did it himself =
e. I think like this because I have thought about it for some time
f. I think that other people can think the same
TABLE
8.3 Frequency of probably and probable per million words
probably
probable
UK Spoken
UK Books
US Books
561
1
312
9
219
12
Probably
267
Thus, like the other epistemic adverbs, probably indicates that one thinks something
and also that one abstains from claiming knowledge (I dont say I know). By itself,
the phrasing of the I say-component (I say he did it himself) would sound too confident for a sentence with probably, but this seemingly excessive confidence is counterbalanced by the great caution of the I think-component: not I think that it is like
this but I think that it can be like this. At the same time, the speaker gives some
extra weight to the cautiously expressed thought by implying that it is based on reflection: I think like this because I have thought about it for some time. The speakers
confidence is also reflected in the seemingly self-assured assertion: I say: he did it
himself. Presumably, it is this component of assertion (however qualified by the other
components) that gives the adverb probably a certain casual confidence, which is
absent from the more scientific-sounding adjective probable.
A detailed study of epistemic adjectives is beyond the scope of this chapter, but
I will sketch here an explication of the first component of the phrase it is probable to
indicate how it may differ from that of the adverb probably,
It is probable that he did it himself =
I say: I think that if someone thinks about it they can think that he did it
himself
By itself, this difference in the first component would not be sufficient to account for
the more impersonal, more objective, and more intellectual ring of the adjective than
of the adverb, but it could be part of the answer.
Given the prominent place that probability occupies not only in the literature
on the history of science but also in the literature on modern ways of thinking (see,
e.g., Hacking 1975; Gigerenzer et al. 1989; Franklin 2001), it is important to take note
of these differences between probable and probably. For example, when Franklin
(2001) discusses, in a separate section, probability in ordinary language, it would
be useful to distinguish not only older meanings of these words from the current ones
but also the meaning of the adverb from that of the adjective. Given that (according
to Cobuild) the ratio of probably to probable in contemporary spoken English is 560
to 1 (and that even in written English, it is of the order 35 to 1 in Cobuilds U.K. books
and 18 to 1 in U.S. books), it is probably probably rather than probable that can lead
us into the heart of modern Anglo cultural attitudes and illuminate the nature of the
changes in everyday thinking that are linked in the literature with the emergence of
probability.
Reportedly, Bertrand Russell once said in a public lecture that probability is
the most important concept in modern science, adding, especially as nobody has
the slightest notion what it means (Stevens 1951). We could complement Russells
statement by saying that probably is the most important qualifier in modern English/
Anglo discourse. The two conceptsthe scientific concept of probability and the
everyday concept encapsulated in the word probablyare by no means identical,
but they can be traced, in some measure, to the same origins. In English, an awareness of probability as an important philosophical concept appears to have spread
relatively early and relatively widely through the titles of books like The Doctrine of
Chances: or, a Method of Calculating the Probability of Events in Play (1718, De
Moivre) and through the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
268
This new philosophical concept of probability appears to have started early on

to influence English speakers thinking on matters lying outside the province of philosophy or science, as reflected in Bishop Butler s (1736) statement Probability is
the very Guide of Life (OED).5 Arguably, then, the ascent of probably in English/
Anglo discourse has its starting point in seventeenth-century philosophical analysis
and in the dissemination of philosophical ideas through works published in English
and widely read. Once again, a special role must be attributed here to John Lockes
Essay on Human Understanding, both as a source of philosophical ideas and as a
vehicle for their dissemination.
8.3.2. Likely
According to the OED, likely is frequently used as an adverb in American English
and only rarely in British English, mainly in the collocations most likely and very
likely. (In Australian English it is hardly used as an adverb at all, although The
Macquarie Dictionary (1981) does list it as such, with the gloss probably.)
The OED glosses likely (in its current adverbial usage) as probably, in all probability and illustrates it with examples like the following one:
The American public never has understood, and likely never will, the
chaotic and complex character of the Indian problem during the 19th
century. (1964)
But is it true that when used as an adverb, likely means exactly the same as probably
(or, for that matter, that when used as an adjective, likely means exactly the same
thing as probable)? I do not think this is the case, although undoubtedly both the
two adverbs and the two adjectives are very close.
To begin with, there are some phraseological differences between likely and
probable or probably. For example, likely combines much more readily with very.
One example (from an American memoir):
The doctors knew then that Marilee very likely was going to die.
(Hermann 1990, 46)
One can, of course, say that something is highly probable, but first, this sounds more
scientific than very likely, and second, as noted earlier, a combination of highly
with probably is not possible (*highly probably).
There are also some syntactic differences between likely and probable, as the
following contrasts illustrate:
She is likely (unlikely) to do it.
*She is probable (improbable) to do it.
This chair is likely (unlikely) to break.
*This chair is probable (improbable) to break.
What these contrasts suggest is that likely can be seen as referring to a persons
propensity to behave in a certain way or to an objects invisible individual characteristics (and reflecting the speakers conjecture based on personal experience),
Probably
269
whereas probable always refers to a fact or a state of affairs (it is probable that),
never to a person or an object. To put it differently, probable is more factual than
likely, as it were, more objective, whereas likely is more subjective, more impressionistic, and more applicable to possible events that are unpredictable and unknowable.
Thus, typically, likely is used in relation to the future, which can be regarded as
unknowable rather than simply unknown to me. For example, in the OED sentence about the American public who likely never will understand the chaotic and
complex character of the Indian problem, likely does not indicate a prediction that
may or may not turn out to be accurate but rather an impression, a subjective assessment, a thought that is not meant to be verifiable, perhaps a lament.
Consider also the following passage from the American memoir quoted earlier,
in which probably and likely are used side by side (in a sermon preached in a hospital by a woman chaplain):
Somehow I felt like I was preaching at a drive-in movie. The patients
probably felt the same way. Most of you likely have heard God defined
as love. (Hermann 1990, 56)
In the first sentence, probably refers to the patients current feeling, that is, to something that the speaker doesnt know but that some other people (the patients) can
know and that the speaker could perhaps find out. In the second, with its loose reference to most of you and an indefinite time frame, likely refers to something that
probably could not be verified (the patients may not even remember whether they
have heard this).
Consider also the combinations of the adjectives probable and likely, and their
opposites, with the nouns scenario and story:
a.
b.
a.
b.
likely/unlikely scenario
probable/improbable scenario
likely/unlikely story
probable/improbable story
According to the intuitions of all the native speakers I have consulted, likely and
unlikely go better with scenario, and probable or improbable with story, than the other
way around (although the sarcastic use of the expression A likely story! is quite
common). The expression a likely scenario is almost a clich, whereas a probable
scenario is not. Consider, for example, the following sentence from Cobuild:
It was true . . . that the coalition of France and Russia was the maximum
combination of powers that Germany could hope to defeat, but this was
no longer the most likely scenario, for, in all probability, Britain would
enter any war against the Reich.
The expression the most likely scenario refers here to a purely hypothetical course of
events, whereas in all probability, to something real and verifiable that is expected to
happen.
The hypothetical and unverifiable character of some sentences with likely can
also be illustrated with the following example (also from Cobuild) concerning occupancy arrangements between sellers and buyers:
270
A more likely scenario works like this: You dont want to move in but
you would like to paint and fix up. If the property is empty, why not?
In this situation, sellers are likely to want a pre-settlement decorator
agreement. . . .
The sellers mentioned here are hypothetical sellers, sellers in general, so their future actions can hardly be described as probable (any statements about them are
not even potentially verifiable). Evidently, however, both the sellers and the scenario
can be described as likely. These contrasts are consistent with the fact that a story
can be factual and thus knowable, whereas a scenario is fictitious.
All these considerations lead us to the conclusion that first, the adjective likely
does not mean the same as the adjective probable, and second, the adverb likely should
not be explicated in exactly the same way as the adverb probably. Above all, I would
assign to likely the component I dont say I can know instead of the component I
dont say I know, which has been assigned to probably. Since likely often refers to
things that are not knowable or not verifiable, I dont say I can know fits it better
than I dont say I know. Probably, on the other hand, implies that what is being
said is, in principle, verifiable (if not by me, then by someone else, and if not now,
then at some other time, and if not verifiable, then at least justifiable).
Furthermore, since probably implies some reflection or consideration, whereas
likely can be more off the top of ones head, the component I think like this because I have thought about it for some time, which has been included in the explication of probably, has not been included in that of likely. This leads us to the
following explication:
Likely he did it himself. =
c. I dont say I can know
d. I know that I cant know
e. I think that it can be like this
Since many linguists, and not only linguists, like to think about linguistic phenomena in terms of scales, it could be suggested that probably occupies, in some respects,
an intermediate position between probable and likely, with probable being the most
objective and calculable of the three, and likely, the least. However, helpful as
such a generalization might be, it cannot replace careful semantic analysis that would
identify, in each case, the exact configuration of components that can account best
for a given words range of use.
8.4. Confident Adverbs: Evidently, Clearly, Obviously

8.4.1. Evidently
The epistemic adverb evidently doesnt have a corresponding verbal phrase (although
there is, of course, the adjectival phrase it is evident that), but its semantic structure
Probably
271
is analogous to that of presumably and undoubtedly, insofar as it, too, expresses both
the speakers own attitude and the expected attitude of other people. The speakers
attitude expressed by the use of evidently can be clearly seen in the following examples
from Cobuild (UK books):
Cuddly womanthe kind one would least expect to find working as a barmaid. She looked too soft and innocent to handle rowdy drunks, but according to Artie she could gentle the roughest. Evidently Julie approached her
job at the Doghouse Bar in the same manner she approached life in general, trusting and carefree.
Theres an airstrip in Edisonville, but I dont think youll be using it. It belongs to Douglas Osborne. About five years ago, he had it put in and bought
a Cessna. Evidently the Cessna was too slow because he had the strip enlarged and bought a small Lear, complete with private pilot.
Then, as quickly as it had been lost, the truck turned up again. The wind
seemed to have blown off some of its makeshift camouflage. Evidently the
guerrillas had not yet been able to move it to a better hideout.
Adam and Zelikov crawled on their bellies through the scrub towards the
brick wall of the ablutions block. Evidently the pipe discharged from there.
Flares of every size, colour and power, were shooting up into the sky, some
bursting randomly like a fireworks display that had got out of hand.
As these examples show, the speaker is making a conclusion on the basis of some
evidence and is quite confident that although this conclusion represents thinking
rather than knowledge, if other people thought about this evidence, they would have
to come to the same conclusion.
Evidently, he did it himself =
d. I think that it is like this because I know some other things
e. I think that if someone knows these other things they cannot not think
like this
Note here the semantic weakening in the history of evidently, which can be summed
up as a transition from know to not know. The earlier meaning can be illustrated
with the following example:
Things which men by the light of their natural understanding evidently
know. (1611, OED).
Collocations like evidently know, evidently prove, evidently disclose, or evidently
show are common in older English, and the meaning reflected in them was still in
use in the nineteenth century (as in A), alongside the weakened epistemic one
(as in B):
272
A. And this is evidently proved to have been fulfilled. (1833, OED)

B. The spirit and the muscles were evidently at war. (1860, OED)
It is also worth noting that early examples of the epistemic evidently co-occur with
the intensifier so, as in the following example from the OED:
Reason was so evidently on their side. (1761)
Arguably, when it was used with so, evidently did not yet include the component I
dont say I know and was close in meaning to manifestly, which also tended to cooccur with so, for example:
The treaty was still so manifestly of advantage to England. (1759, OED)
When used sentence-initially, evidently can never be combined with so (used as an
intensifier; obviously, it can be introduced by the causal so, in the sense of thus), and
even when it is used sentence-initially, in current usage it doesnt present the fact
referred to as manifest or plain but rather as something that can be inferred from
what is observed and known.
8.4.2. Clearly
To begin again with some examples from Cobuild:
I think there is clearly a clear evidence [sic] that . . . there is much more
cooperation, there is much more rapport between them.
I think CCM Two clearly has a superior climate.
When I was in my first two years and I was a fag the discipline was imposed by the older boys and so that made life much more pleasant when
you became an older boy yourself. . . . Clearly it was better to be an older
boy.
But youre more independent than they think you are . . . youre clearly able
to go out alone.
Clearly the smaller the unit of the loan or the financial asset the higher the
transactions cost.
Clearly if you look back MX was a tremendous influence in the building
programme, the expansion and making the residential provision et cetera.
Yes.
The epistemic adverb clearly doesnt have a corresponding verbal phrase either, although it can be seen as related to the phrase I see (as well as the adjectival phrase it
is clear that). In addition to its epistemic role, clearly is used very widely as a manner
adverb, as in to speak clearly or to write clearly. In fact, clearly is such a common and
colloquial word that its role as an epistemic sentential adverbial can easily be overlooked. It is important to note, therefore, that in many other languages the counterparts of clearly as a manner adverb cannot be used to provide an epistemic frame for
a sentence, as clearly can in English.6 Compare, for example:
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English: Clearly he did it himself.

French: *Clairement il la fait lui-mme.
German: *Klar hat er es selbst getan.
Russian: *Jasno on sdelal e[to sam.
The attitude conveyed by the English epistemic adverb clearly can be compared
with that expressed by evidently, which in older usage could also be a manner adverb (especially in the collocation to show evidently, analogous to to show clearly,
and also to show manifestly). But clearly conveys even more confidence than
evidently. If evidently implies inferences drawn from some evidence, clearly
(like plainly) implies knowledge potentially available to anyone. This does not mean
that the speaker already knows what he or she sees as clearly open to people
to know. As the first two examples show overtly, clearly implies I think rather
than I know, and the clear evidence mentioned in the first example does not
indicate that the speaker already knows but rather that in his or her view, a
moments thought can make a person (anybody) see, that is, know: no inference
from the knowledge of other things is necessary for that. This can be represented
as follows:
Clearly, he did it himself. =
d. I think that if someone thinks about it for a short time this someone will
know it
Finally, a few words on the history of clearly as an epistemic or quasi-epistemic adverb. Although the details are at this stage anything but clear, it is clear that its meaning has changed and that, as the following examples illustrate, its link with knowledge
has weakened (that is, it once implied a greater confidence on the part of the speaker
than it does now):
a. There be many other places that clearly prove the same (1651, Hobbes,
OED)
b. They, who have been so clearly detected in ignorance or imposture. (1752,
OED)
c. Sigurd clearly seems to have believed the man to be speaking truth; and
indeed nobody to have doubted but he was. (1875, Carlyle, Literature
Online)
The collocation clearly prove, as in (a), is evidently incompatible with the component I dont say I know, and so is the collocation clearly detected (as in b). On the
other hand, the combination of clearly with seems (as in c) is not only compatible
with such a component but in fact clearly implies its presence.
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8.4.3. Obviously
The word obviously can be used in contemporary English in two different ways. In
one sense, it is close to the expression of course. For example:
Obviously I dont want to overcook it [the stirfry].
Used in this way, obviously is an interactive expression that has nothing to do with
the limitations of the speakers knowledge or with the use of evidence. The epistemic
sense of obviously, which concerns us here, can be illustrated with the following
examples from Cobuild (UK spoken):
Its obviously a brief written by a public servant I would guess.
Where did you get the lady gnome from?
She came actually free with the first book. So you know it was obviously
a sort of a thing to get you to buy the books I think.
All mine break in recording. . . .
Oh well youve obviously never done it properly.
Tell me a bit about your mother then, shes obviously a very important person.
. . . obviously theyre going to bring more business to the area.
I saw a different doctor and he turned round and said to me erm You can
have the baby at home if you want. And I thought to myself well obviously
hes not read my records.
A motorist had pulled up to see to his windscreen wipers into this lay-by but
he obviously wanted a tinkle and probably walked into the trees and found
her body.
If clearly conveys more confidence than evidently, obviously is even more confident
than clearly. Roughly (and metaphorically) speaking, what is clear everyone can see,
but what is obvious, no one can not see: what is clear is visible to everyone, whereas
what is obvious has to be visible to everyone. More precisely, we can represent the
meaning of obviously as follows:
Obviously, he did it himself =
d. I think that if someone thinks about it for a short time they cannot not
know it
As the first Cobuild example illustrates, in saying obviously one is not implying that
one knows, and in fact one is indicating that no claim to knowledge is being made.
At the same time, the speakers are extremely confident of the validity of their statement: in their assessment, a moments thought would be sufficient to reveal to anyone that what they say is really the case, and they expect this assessment to be shared
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by other people. Thus, in the subgroup of epistemic adverbs that I have called here
confident adverbs and that includes evidently, clearly, and obviously, obviously is
the most confident one. Yet even obviously includes in its meaning the caution component I dont say I know.
Lyons has observed that, generally speaking, epistemic qualifiers weaken the
speakers commitment to the factuality of a sentence:
Although it might appear that a statement is strengthened by putting the proposition that it expresses within the scope of the operator of epistemic necessity, this is
not so, as far as the everyday use of language is concerned. It would be generally
agreed that the speaker is more strongly committed to the factuality of It be raining by saying It is raining than he is by saying It must be raining. It is a general
principle, to which we are expected to conform, that we should always make the
strongest commitment for which we have epistemic warrant. If there is no explicit
mention of the source of our information and no explicit qualification of our commitment to its factuality, it will be assumed that we have full epistemic warrant for
what we say. But the very fact of introducing must, necessarily, certainly,
etc., into the utterance has the effect of making our commitment to the factuality
of the proposition explicitly dependent upon our perhaps limited knowledge. There
is no epistemically stronger statement than a categorical assertion, symbolized here
as p. (Lyons 1977, vol. 2, 809)
Lyonss general principle, to which we are allegedly expected to conform, is

questionable because expectations may differ from culture to culture, with some
cultures favoring hyperbole and others, understatement. Furthermore, even in English, a categorical assertion such as it is raining can be strengthened with words
like definitely or indeed. Nonetheless, Lyonss comment is insightful insofar as the
semantics of English epistemic adverbs is concerned: by virtue of their meaning, even
confident epistemic adverbs like evidently, clearly, and even obviously can be said
to weaken the assertion, because they include in their meaning the semantic component I dont say I know.
The presence of this component in present-day use of obviously (in an epistemic
sense) is not reflected in the OED entry, which defines it as follows: in a clearly
perceptible manner, evidently, plainly, manifestly. The examples offered by the OED
include the following:
Texts of holy Writ obviously writ or painted. (1638)
Arthur . . . was obviously in a bad temper. (1872)
Clearly, the first of these examples does not include the component I dont say I
know, and it is possible that the second one does not include it either. However, if
obviously were used at the beginning of that last sentence, then (in current usage) it
would clearly imply this component:
Obviously, Arthur was in a bad temper.
In current usage, this sentence would imply inference rather than saying something
that one knows.
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8.5. Nonconfident Adverbs: Possibly and Conceivably

8.5.1. Possibly
At first sight, possibly may seem to mean the same as perhaps, and examples like the
following one from Cobuilds corpus of spoken English appear to support this:
Im seventy-one, and possibly the person who took it perhaps thought
they needed the money more than I did.
The speaker seems to be choosing at random between possibly and perhaps, and the
unedited text ends up with both. But the same example that seems to identify the
two can also be used to illustrate the difference between them. Most notably, perhaps, in contrast to possibly, can be used in a question:
a.Perhaps they thought they needed the money more?
b.?Possibly they thought they needed the money more?
As this contrast illustrates, possibly is speaker-oriented, whereas perhaps is not. It
expresses the speakers assessment of what is possible, what can, or cannot, be the
case. It is cautious, reflective, careful, and intellectually responsible. It reflects the
speakers desire not to say more than what one has grounds for sayinggrounds that
could also be seen as such by other people.
The cautious and reflective attitude indicated by possibly is particularly clear in
the following sentences (Cobuild, UK books):
Solomons fleet of ships . . . brought gold and precious woods from Ophir
(probably in South Arabia, but possibly in India).
Responding to the last sentence, Haig scribbled in the margins: possibly
correct as to the Cabinet, but absolute rubbish as regards the people.
Not surprisingly, scientific and legal language appears to favor possibly over perhaps.
For example:
The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain
there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in
the mans brain.
After eight oclock she would have gone and got dressed . . . and she would
be collected by her boyfriend in the car and they were out for the night. So
where was MX? Where was the young lad? Possibly with a friend. Possibly
at home by himself. And this little lad also has got pretty severe asthma and
he uses a bronchial dilator inhaler. So that young lad could have an asthma
attack and hes by himself. He could easily die.
In colloquial language, possibly occurs more commonly as a kind of intensifier in
the collocation could possibly, rather than in the epistemic sense. When it is used in
an epistemic sense, it implies a cautious, detached, quasi-scientific attitude, as in the
following example:
Possibly the worst attack I ever had was from a cat and that wasnt from a dog.
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If we substituted perhaps for possibly in this last example, or indeed in any other
examples, it would suggest a spontaneous thought for which the speaker does not
take full responsibility. By contrast, possibly implies caution and responsibility.
Finally, as illustrated earlier, possibly can be used concurrently with two
different possibilities, as in possibly with a friend, possibly at home by himself.
Perhaps would normally not be used like that but rather would require an or: Perhaps with a friend, or perhaps at home by himself. But a repetition of possibly
does not require or even allow an or: ?Possibly with a friend. Or possibly at home
by himself.
If possibly he was with a friend included in its meaning the component I say:
he was with a friend, and possibly, he was at home by himself, the component I say:
he was at home by himself, the two sentences would be mutually incompatible, and
so a combination of the two would require an or. The fact that it does not require or
even allow an or suggests that the assertion introduced by possibly includes the semantic element can: I say: he could have been with a friend, he could have been at
home by himself.
All these observations bring us to the following explication:
Possibly, he did it himself. =
b. I say: maybe he did it himself
8.5.2. Conceivably
The epistemic adverb conceivably implies very little confidence in the validity of the
statement that one is making. Indeed, it nearly always co-occurs with the words might,
may, or could, as the following examples from Cobuild illustrate:
William thanked him, put it into his desk and forgot about it. Months later,
when tidying up, he examined the paper for the first time and, seeing that it
was a prescription in Sanskrit, had it made up. It might, conceivably, be
efficacious.
Even if spontaneous reincarnation experiences prove to be evidentially valueless, they still . . . could contribute conceivably to the sociological understanding of reincarnation.
Enterprise autonomy means inter alia giving the enterprises the right to set
the prices. So thats something else that has to come at the same time as
price liberalization. Then the social safety net. Well conceivably that could
come before.
Conceivably, Kritik might also be a paradigm for intellectual activity that
is spiritual, i.e. the intense contemplation of spirit, James Joyces epiphany
and Benjamins aura, as Steiner observed.
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Results like this may represent a real breakthrough, not only in helping us
to understand the origins of hyperactivity, but conceivably in devising better
treatments.
I believe that to account for this regular co-occurrence of conceivably with might,
may, and could, we need to include in the I say component of its explication too
(as in the case of possibly), the word maybe: not I say: he did it himself but I say:
maybe he did it himself. To distinguish conceivably from possibly, we can replace
the component I think that it can be like this with an even weaker one: I can think
that maybe it can be like this. This double weakeningI can think instead of I
think and maybe it can instead of it canaccounts, I believe, for the highly
skeptical tone of conceivably.
Conceivably, he did it himself =
b. I say: maybe he did it himself
d. I can think that maybe it can be like this
8.6. Hearsay Adverbs: Apparently, Supposedly, Allegedly,

and Reportedly
8.6.1. Apparently
The epistemic adverb apparently is obviously related to the impersonal verbal phrase
it appears, as well as to the noun appearances. For example, the following sentence
from Jane Austen, Captain Wentworth, however, came from his window, apparently not ill-disposed for conversation, could be paraphrased approximately as
Captain Wentworth, however, came from his window, and he appeared to be not
ill-disposed for conversation.
I will call this sense of apparently, closely related to the impersonal phrase it
appears, apparently1. However, in current usage, and especially when it is used in
sentence-initial position, apparently is usually interpreted as referring to hearsay. Thus,
a sentence like Apparently, he did it himself is no longer understood as meaning something close to It appears that he did it himself, but rather, as the following examples
(from Cobuild) make clear, as referring to something that someone else has said:
I was talking to the Youth Chamber of Denmark this week and apparently
theyve sent a fax out this week. So they tell me.
This was an article in one of the national papers earlier this week it said er
it was talking about er accents it said er Glasgow apparently erm is the pits.
The Glaswegian accent is the pits. They say its the verbal equivalent of an
arm tattooed with snakes.
I was listening to Derek Jamieson earlier this morning. . . . Apparently . . .
before we took Saint George as our Patron Saint . . . we recognised Edward
the Confessor as Patron Saint. He was apparently made Patron of the
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Order of the Garter in thirteen forty eight and then some time after that
declared Patron Saint of England.
When youre on about roads did you hear the news about that chap on the
motorway today? . . . Apparently a bloke had a heart attack driving down
and he was bearing towards the central reservation and a lorry went and
pushed him onto the hard shoulder.
I was reading in the paper the other day apparently they [the Germans]
have more industrial disputes than we do at the moment.
. . . these have bite pressures of hundreds of pounds per square inch these
days. Apparently eighteen hundred pounds pressure theyreIs it really? Apparentlythats what I read.
But apparently so I hear it [the womens club] was not as well appointed as
the Mens Club, apparently.
Apparently theres eight times more sheep than there are people in New
Zealand.
This last example does not refer to speech overtly, but it is obvious that the speaker
must have heard or read this information somewhere.
The speakers attitude to what this other person has said is neither one of trust
nor one of skepticism. Rather, it is noncommittal: the speaker is not casting doubt
on the other persons words but doesnt accept responsibility for their validity either.
At the most, it is implied that that person can think that they knowthey can think
that because they have some evidence, some grounds for thinking so, but this evidence may be insufficient or unreliable.
Apparently, he did it himself. =
a. I want to say what someone else says
d. I think that this person can know
The combination of components I want to say what someone else says and I think
that this person can know implies more trust than skepticism. Apparently differs in
this respect from supposedly and allegedly, both of which suggest, in different ways,
more skepticism than trustsupposedly by means of the component I think that it
is not true and allegedly by means of the component I think that it can be not true.
It is not as positive, however, as reportedly, which implies that the original source of
information is someone who can know not only this but things of this kind in
general (an expert, a professional reporter, an official).
8.6.2. Supposedly
Let us start again with some examples from Cobuild.
I mean when the poll tax was introduced it was supposedly to improve services but in all honesty the services have been cut drastically. . . .
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You know in local government and government jobs these days theyre so
hot or supposedly hot on qualifications to get into the jobs and then theyre
being lectured by somebody who isnt qualified.
Supposedly called the brew house because the middle class reckoned
working-class people brewed beer in the copper that was in the brew house
but actually the name goes back centuries.
And when they got to there the bigger ones had to walk to give the horses
Cos the horses were quite tired by that time. Or supposedly tired.
But I mean theyre redoing all or supposedly redoing all the seafront round
there arent they.
Now if youve been pushed down you were manipulated by the person who
was supposedly ministering in love.
We had a teacher who supposedly took guitar lessons. But all he did was
play all the different things he knew whilst [laughs] we had to sit and listen
to him.
There were delivered to every household in the country or supposedly which
is half a million households. Now you know I dont know whether they did
get to every household cos we heard that there were huge gaps.
Its supposedly the family house [laughter]. You could raise a family here
[laughs]. Well quite honestly Id want a bigger house if I was going to raise
a family. Id want a bigger bathroom.
What is particularly characteristic about these examples is the repeated use of the
skeptical phrase or supposedly, the combination of supposedly with laughter (ironic
or sarcastic), and in co-occurrence with discourse markers like but and well (note
also the dismissive phrase but all he did).
As all these skeptical devices indicate, the epistemic adverb supposedly is not related to the verbal phrase I suppose as closely as presumably is related to I presume. It
has a closer relative in one of the two meanings of the past participle supposednot in
the one the Collins Cobuild dictionary (1987) paraphrases what should be done (e.g.,
Im not supposed to talk to you about it) but the one described as follows:
Supposed is used when you are referring to a statement or to a way of describing
something and when you want to express doubt about the truth of the statement or
about how appropriate it is. E.g. . . . his supposed ancestor, the pirate Henry Morgan. . . . the supposed benefits of a progressive welfare state.
It is from this latter meaning, according to the same dictionary, that the adverb supposedly is derived: supposedly. E.g. . . . a robot supposedly capable of understanding spoken commands. . . . It supposedly tied up with her interest in dance. . . . a
supposedly inferior form of life such as the reptile.
Let us start, then, with the form supposed. What exactly does a phrase like the
supposed benefits or his supposed generosity mean? Clearly, one component is that
someone else says this (that there are benefits; that the person in question is generous), and another, that this person wants people to think that it is true. But the speaker
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who qualifies something as supposed dissociates himself or herself from the original
statement (I dont say I know) and in fact expresses some skepticism (I think that
it is not true). For example, in his polemical book The Case for Christianity, C. S.
Lewis writes:
Dualism means the belief that there are two equal and independent
powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other
bad. . . . The two powers, or spirits, or godsthe good one and the bad
oneare supposed to be quite independent. (Lewis 1989, 37)
The word supposed implies here not only that the advocates of dualism say that the
two powers are quite independent but also that they want people to think that this is
true. The polemical intention behind this use of supposed is also clearly visible in
the following sentence, from the same book:
If the whole show [i.e., the universe] was bad and senseless from A to Z,
so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find
myself in such violent reaction against it? (Lewis 1989, 34)
Again, C. S. Lewis is arguing here not only against those people who say that the
universe is bad and senseless from A to Z but also, and more particularly, against
those who want people to think that this is true (that is, by implication, that C. S.
Lewis himself is but a part of a totally bad and senseless universe). By using the word
supposed, Lewis dissociates himself from such a view. The adverb supposedly appears
to carry all these elements, too, adding to them the familiar expectation that other
people can think the same. This brings us to the following explication:
Supposedly, he did it himself. =
d. I know that this someone else wants people to think that it is true
e. I think that it is not true
Unlike the other epistemic adverbs, and unlike the verbal phrase I suppose, supposedly has a somewhat sarcastic ring. This can be accounted for by the combination of
the assertive component I say with the component of disbelief I think that it is
not true. In this one case, then, the speaker is undermining his or her own statement. This would be incoherent were it not for the component I want to say what
someone else says, which explains the apparent contradiction and accounts for the
somewhat sarcastic tone of the utterance.
8.6.3. Allegedly
The epistemic adverb allegedly is clearly closely related to the adjective alleged and
the noun allegations. It is used more widely, however, and although it, too, typically
occurs in contexts that imply bad things, it does not have the same criminal
implications (or connotations) as the other two words. To illustrate:
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Allegedly, Tyrrell had added lead ballast to the fuel.

They had also been used in military intelligence and allegedly as mine detectors.
They had produced a hand-written diary, allegedly written by a member of
the Red Army.
The manager, allegedly struck by a flying 200pound music machine, was
in hospital with multiple injuries.
You could also have a special dinner for 3 roubles (30 kopecks). This allegedly had meat in one of the courses, but it need a miracle to find it.
During this short-lived Mormon War, 120 Gentiles were allegedly led
into an Indian trap by overzealous Mormons in the Mountain Meadows
Massacre.
The General Services people clogged the elevators, heading down into the
bowels of the building to revive, allegedly, the dead air-conditioning system.
He (Nikodim) died, allegedly of a heart attack, in the arms of the Pope.
As these examples show, the use of allegedly allows one to distance oneself from what
one is saying in a number of ways. First, the statement in the allegedly frame is attributed to someone else: I say: someone else says that. . . . Second, here as elsewhere
the speaker disclaims knowledge: I dont say I know. Third, in addition to disclaiming knowledge, the speaker expresses some doubt as to the truth of the other persons
statement: I think it can be not true. This brings us to the following explication:
Allegedly, he did it himself. =
b. I say: someone says: he did it himself
d. I think that people can want to know
e. I think that it can be not true
Note that the I say component of the explication differs from that of supposedly,
apparently, and, as we will see in the next section, reportedly. All these four adverbs
can be said to be based on hearsay, but it is only in the case of allegedly that the speaker
distances himself or herself totally from the statement that is being attributed to someone else. In the case of apparently, the speaker appears to be prepared to buy the
original statement, and in the case of reportedly, even more so, whereas in the case
of supposedly, the speaker is, as it were, ironically pretending to be buying the original statement. In the case of allegedly, however, the speaker is emphatically disassociating himself or herself from the original statementnot by saying I think that it
is not true (as in the case of supposedly) but by not lending his or her voice to that
statement at all. This is why in this one case I have formulated the I say component as I say: someone says. . . .
Finally, it needs to be pointed out that in the case of allegedlyin contrast to
apparently and supposedlywhat the speaker is repeating after someone else is a
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matter of public interest. Hence the need for the component I think that people
can want to know. Typically, a sentence introduced in the frame allegedly refers to
something bad that someone has done, but this is not invariably so. Invariably,
however, what is being alleged is something that people can want to know.
8.6.4. Reportedly
Reportedly appears to be the latest addition to the class of epistemic adverbs, presumably linked with the role of the media in modern life. Its use can be illustrated
with the following sentences from Cobuild:
During her first interview with the superteam, Sonia reportedly began to
speak in French, a language she had never studied.
When the Turks had ruled Cyprus, they had a garrison in the square fort on
the harbour wall. It was said that on top of the battlements they placed a
huge cannon. Reportedly this piece was able to hurl a ball to any part of the
town and thus the Greek Cypriots lived under constant threat.
But poor Tsa Rongba was in a very bad way. He was reportedly being tortured every other day and was frequently interrogated.
The average age of face-lift patients has reportedly dropped from sixty to fifty,
with many forty-year-olds now facing the knife.
This report, picked up by an Arizona highway patrolman, bore the notation: Subject reportedly drunk at time.
The blackout reportedly reduced some Iraqi surgeons to operating by
candlelight.
Although Schwarzkopf had rated the chances of killing Saddam as high, no
one in Washington or Riyadh underestimated Saddams elusiveness. He
reportedly had survived five assassination attempts in 1981 alone and countless plots since.
Geller was reportedly very shaken by this sudden and unexpected glimpse
into his capacity to cause harm.
To account for the fine balance between confidence and caution implied by reportedly, I would propose for it the following explication:
Reportedly, he did it himself. =
d. I think that people can want to know what this someone else says
e. I think that this someone else can know things of this kind
This explication is fairly close to that of apparently, but it differs from it in two respects. First, although in both cases the original speaker is presented as someone who
can know, in the case of reportedly this person is, as mentioned earlier, an official
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or professional source of information (someone who can know things of this kind).
Second, in the case of reportedly, as in that of allegedly, the matter spoken of must be
of some public interest. Whether this is sufficient to account for the semantic difference between the two is a matter for further consideration.
8.7. The Uncertain Status of Certainly

Certainly is usually included among epistemic adverbs, and indeed it may seem to
be close in meaning to undoubtedly and indubitably. All these words appear to convey certainty, that is, something like an absence of doubt. In fact, however, in some
important ways certainly breaks the ranks of epistemic adverbs. To show this, I will
first consider sentences with certainly in the initial position. Since I will argue in this
section that in the case of certainly, the two variantsthe sentence-initial and the
sentence-internal oneare further apart than in the case of the other adverbs addressed in this chapter, I will call the sentence-initial one certainly1 and the sentenceinternal one certainly2 Consider, then, the following sentence with certainly1:
Certainly, I lied to her.
It would be difficult to replace certainly in this sentence with any of the epistemic
adverbs discussed earlier (unless the speaker were suffering from amnesia):
?Apparently, I lied to her.
?Evidently, I lied to her.
?Clearly, I lied to her.
?Presumably, I lied to her.
?Supposedly, I lied to her.
?Probably, I lied to her.
?Possibly, I lied to her.
?Conceivably, I lied to her.
Undoubtedly and obviously seem less infelicitous in this context than most of the other
epistemic adverbs, but even these two cant always be felicitously substituted for a
sentence-initial certainly. As for allegedly, reportedly, and arguably, they often sound
decidedly odd in sentences with a first-person subject, for example:
Certainly, I was ashamed of what Id done.
??Allegedly, I was ashamed of what Id done.
??Reportedly, I was ashamed of what Id done.
??Arguably, I was ashamed of what Id done.
All these infelicities can be explained if we recall the semantic component I dont
say I know, which has been posited for all the epistemic adverbs discussed here (with
a minor variation in the case of likely). Normally, one doesnt disclaim knowledge
when one speaks of ones own deliberate actions and conscious feelings.7
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In fact, I would argue that in a sentence-initial position, certainly (certainly1) is

not an epistemic adverb at all (i.e., a device qualifying ones commitment to what
one is saying) but rather that its function is conversational; in this position, certainly
is used to agree, or to partially agree, with what has been said before. This conversational function of a sentence-initial certainly can be illustrated with the following
examples from Cobuild, UK spoken (M stands for a male speaker, and F for a female one; and the numbers identify individual male and female speakers):
1. <F021> Fifty pounds a year was something in those days. <M01> Certainly was. Yes.
2. you were saying <F01> That I had a stronger Lancashire accent. <M01>
that about losing your Lancashire accent and getting a Scottish one in
Glasgow <F01> Yes. But London I expect that it modified during the
three years. But certainly when I first went up I had a strong Lancashire
accent but I didnt notice.
3. <M01> How do you feel about gimmick weddings Youve talked about
weddings which are in many ways traditional even if theyre at a registry
office. I mean certainly a synagogue wedding can be the most gorgeous
traditional thing and equally one in a church. How do you feel about
people I dont know getting married under water and all that stuff <F04>
Well the thing is <M01> Bit tacky isnt it.
4. <M02> we feel we probably need increasingly more of a general manager down there <M01> Mm our Yes. Certainly as administrator.
In example 1, speaker M01 agrees with speaker F021; in example 2, F01 agrees with
M01; in example 3, M01 agrees with F04; and in example 4, first M01 agrees partially
with M02.
One can also use certainly at the beginning of a sentence to indicate an endorsement or a partial endorsement of something that one has said oneself. For example:
5. I was infatuated with A Clockwork Orange and in fact at the age of nineteen I adapted A Clockwork Orange for the stage which not many people
know about. Certainly MX didnt. <laughter>
6. <M01> I think hes threatened by me basically but theres no reason why
that should be. . . . <F01> Mhm <M01> so supervisions initially were
excellent very very good. Certainly filled some of the gaps that we were
developing. <F01> Mhm.
In example 5, the speaker indicates that even if the first assertion could not be fully
upheld, a modified version of it certainly could. Example 6 is particularly interesting in showing that a modified reassertion may follow some real or imagined skepticism from ones interlocutor (in this case, F01s Mhm).8
The conversational character of the sentence-initial certainly distances it from
epistemic adverbs and links it with interactive particles, which will be discussed in
section 8.8.
Turning now to the sentence-internal use of certainly (certainly2), which is closer
to epistemic adverbs, let us consider the following sentences from John Bayleys recent memoir, Widowers House (2003):
286
I asked her if she would like to have a look at it, since the book certainly
made an impression. (p. 568)
The way in which the repetition made me forget that Iris was dead was certainly remarkable. (p. 573)
To be a good cry it must be done on ones own. . . . Tennyson the Victorian certainly knew all about it. (p. 574)
First of all, it is clear that in these sentences certainly is not used conversationally: it is
not used to agree or partially agree with something that someone else has said, and
neither is it used to modify something that one has said oneself, in response to someone elses real or imaginary reaction to it. In this respect, the sentence-internal certainly
(certainly2) is more like the genuine epistemic adverbs discussed in this chapter. At the
same time, however, it differs from those other adverbs, insofar as it expresses the
speakers full (not merely subjective) certaintya certainty that is expected to be shared
by other people. Unlike the genuine epistemic adverbs, then, a sentence-internal certainly (certainly2) does not carry with it the component I dont say I know. To account for both its closeness to epistemic adverbs in its overall semantic structure and
for its sui generis semantic status, I would propose the following explication:
He certainly did it himself (I saw him do it). =
a. I say: he did it himself
b. I cant think that maybe it is not like this
c. I know that it is like this
d. I think that other people can know the same
What distinguishes the sentence-internal certainly from bona fide epistemic adverbs
is the presence of the component I know, the concomitant absence of the component I dont say I know, and also the absence of the component I think (apart
from the final I think other people can say the same): clearly, the component I
know precludes the presence of a concurrent I think (as well as of a concurrent I
dont say I know).
It is worth recalling in this context Cinques observation that epistemic adverbs
express a lack of confidence on the part of the speaker. Slightly rephrased, this observation can be applied even to adverbs like clearly, obviously, and undoubtedly, which
imply if not a lack of confidence, then at least a lack of full knowledge. It does not,
however, apply to certainly, which is compatible with full knowledge, as the following sentence illustrates:
He was certainly thereI know because I was sitting next to him.
Clearly, evidently, and obviously could not be used in such a context, and even undoubtedly would not sound fully felicitous:
?Clearly, he was thereI know because I was sitting next to him.
?Evidently, he was thereI know because I was sitting next to him.
?Obviously, he was thereI know because I was sitting next to him.
(?)Undoubtedly, he was thereI know because I was sitting next to him.
Probably
287
To conclude, certainlyusually treated as one of the prime examples of English

epistemic adverbsdiffers from the genuine members of this class both semantically
and syntactically. Unlike those genuine members of the class, it cannot be used in
two different positions in essentially the same sense. Furthermore, when it is used
sentence-initially, it is not an adverb at all, but a pragmatic or discourse particle like
surelya topic to which I now turn.
8.8. Epistemic Adverbs vs. Discourse Particles

In the literature on English grammar, epistemic adverbs are often treated on a par
with various discourse (or modal) particles. For example, Quirk et al. (1985) include in their category of content disjuncts, along with epistemic adverbs such as
presumably, undoubtedly, unquestionably, apparently, conceivably, and supposedly,
various discourse markers such as indeed, surely, of course, perhaps, and maybe, which,
I will argue, have quite a different semantic structure, and Jackendoff (1972) includes
among his speaker-oriented adverbs expressions like of course.
As mentioned earlier, I believe that the distinction between epistemic adverbs and
discourse markers is important and that by blurring it one is obliterating a culturally
significant peculiarity of modern English: the wealth of epistemic adverbs. Particles
and other discourse markers are common in many other languages; for example, there
is a great wealth of them in German, Russian, and Japanese. Modern English is relatively poor in this respect. Broadly speaking, the difference between the two classes can
be characterized as follows: particles can be interactive, as it were, dialogical, whereas
epistemic adverbs are monological or, to use Jackendoffs term, speaker-oriented. To
put it differently, particles can include in their meaning both the speaker and the addressee, whereas epistemic adverbs express the speakers own stand, without any reference to the addressee. It is true that as analyzed here, epistemic adverbs refer also to
other people: the speaker thinks that his or her own stand can be shared by other people.
But this reference to other people does not build a bridge between I and you, the
speaker and the addressee, in the concrete speech situation.
Traugott, to whose comments on the history of epistemic adverbs I will refer
later, has suggested that these adverbs are used for strategic negotiation of speakerhearer interaction and, in that connection, in modern English for the purposes of
politeness, articulation of speaker attitude (1989, 51). I think that this comment is
valid, but it is worth adding that the kind of speaker-hearer interaction involved in
the use of epistemic adverbs is different from that realized by means of interactive
particles. Particles build bridges between the speaker and the addressee and often
exercise more or less subtle pressure on ones interlocutor (as, for example, surely
does in English). The epistemic adverbs serve a different, hands-off, kind of interaction. By pointedly emphasizing that I want to say what I think, they indicate that
the speaker has no wish to impose his or her point of view on the addressee. This
attitude of nonimposing is not part of the meaning of epistemic adverbs, but it can
well be their pragmatic effect and, indeed, part of the modern Anglo speakers motivation for using them. Semantically, however, these adverbs are speaker-oriented; as
Traugott says, they articulate the speakers attitude, and they help keep the addressee
288
at arms length by not referring to the addressee at all and explicitly limiting the utterance to saying what I think. The strategic negotiation of speaker-hearer interaction (Traugott 1989, 51) is not part of their meaning (as it is in the case of particles)
but a pragmatic effect of their semantic focus on the speakers attitude. Arguably,
then, given the modern Anglo cultural scripts of nonimposition and hands off the
addressee (see chapter 2), the relative scarcity of interactive particles in modern
English has the same cultural explanation as the abundance of epistemic adverbs.
Comparing the English modal scene with the Swedish one, Karin Aijmer notes
in relation to the Swedish particle vl, which according to her data is by far the most
common Swedish epistemic qualifier, that vl refers to the hearer as well as the
speaker (vl is associated with an appeal to the hearer to confirm something or to
agree, in addition to the epistemic meaning; 1997, 29). In Aijmers view, such an
inclusion of the addressee (a hearer) distinguishes modal particles like vl from verbal epistemic phrases such as I think and I believe, which focus exclusively on the
speakers own attitude to the utterance. As we have seen, epistemic adverbs, unlike
epistemic verbal phrases, objectify the speakers own attitude by extending it, in
anticipation, to other people. They do not, however, engage the addressee either,
in the way particles like vl usually do.
English expressions like of course, indeed, and surely, included by, for example,
Quirk et al. (1985) and Jackendoff (1972) in the same category of content disjuncts
or speaker-oriented adverbs as epistemic adverbs, are also interactive rather than
speaker-oriented. The interactive character of such expressions is clearly reflected in
the descriptions of their meaning and use offered, for example, by the Collins Cobuild
English Language Dictionary (1987). To quote:
Indeed 1 You use indeed 1.1 to confirm or agree with something that has just been
said . . . 1.2 to add a further comment or statement which strengthens the point
you have already made.
You say of course 1.1 when you are briefly mentioning something that you
expect other people already realize or understand, or when you want to indicate
that you think they should realize or understand it. . . . 1.2 when you are talking
about an event or situation that does not surprise you. . . . 1.3 as a polite way of
saying yes, of giving permission, or of agreeing with someone. . . . 1.4 in order to
emphasize a statement that you are making, especially when you are agreeing or
disagreeing with someone. . . .
2 Of course not is an emphatic way of saying no.
Surely 1 You use surely 1.1 in order to emphasize that you think something is
true and to express surprise that other people do not necessarily agree with you. . . .
1.2 in order to express surprise at something that seems to contradict what you are
saying. . . . 1.3 in order to contradict something that someone else has said.
It is important to note that Collins Cobuilds definitions of epistemic adverbs are

phrased quite differently, with no reference to the addressee (you in these definitions stands for the speaker). For example:
Presumably. You use presumably to say that, although you are not certain that
what you are saying is true, you think that it is very likely to be true.
Probably. You use probably to say that you think that something is likely to
be the case, although you do not actually know whether it is the case or not.
Probably
289
Evidently is used . . . to indicate that you think something is true but that you
are not sure, because you do not have enough information or proof.
Apparently. Apparently is (1) used to indicate that the information that you
are giving is something that you have heard but you are not sure that it is true. . . .
(2) used to refer to a situation that seems to exist although you are not sure that it
exists.
This is not the place to undertake detailed discussion of the meaning of particles,
so I will only sketch a few explications to show how their interactive character can
be reflected in semantic formulae. Before doing so, however, I must point out that
such particles are often polysemous and require slightly different explications,
depending on their place in discourse, as reflected in fact in the Collins Cobuild
dictionary definitions (see also Travis 2005). For example, we need to distinguish
an indeed occurring in a response to somebody elses words from an indeed referring to something within the speakers own utterance. I suggest that in the first case,
the speaker says, in essence, I want to say: it is true, and in the second, I want to
say more. (The examples are from Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary
1987.)
indeed1 (e.g., I think you knew him when you were in Pretoria.
I did indeed.) =
a. you said something about something to me now
b. because of this I know that you think something about it
c. I want to say: it is true
indeed2 (e.g., Im very happy, indeed anxious, that students views should
be expressed)=
a. I said something about something to you now
b. I want to say more
Similarly, I will posit two explications for of course, linking them with the expressions
position in discourse, with of course1 being used, essentially, in response to questions,
and of course2, in an utterance initiated by the speaker himself or herself.
of course1 (e.g., Dan, do you remember Margaret?Of course.) =
a. you want me to say something about something to you now
b. I say: it is like this
c. I think that it cant be not like this
d. I dont have to say to you why I think like this
of course2 (e.g., there is of course an element of truth in this argument) =
a. I say: it is like this (there is an element of truth in this argument)
b. I think that it cant be not like this
c. I dont have to say to you why I think like this
For surely, we can perhaps propose a uniform explication:
surely (e.g., she was surely one of the rarest women of our time) =
a. I say: I think like this: she was one of the rarest women of our time
b. I cant not think like this
c. I think that you cant not think the same
290
As pointed out earlier, Jackendoff (1972, 82, 102ff.) observed that speaker-oriented
adverbs do not feel comfortable in questions. Yet Jackendoffs category of speakeroriented adverbs includes elements (e.g., by the way) that do feel comfortable in
questions (as does surely), and so do other scholars categories of epistemic adverbs.
This inconsistency can be eliminated if we distinguish epistemic adverbs, which are
speaker-oriented, from interactive particles or discourse markers, which often refer in their meaning to the addressee as well as to the speaker.
Admittedly, some interactive expressions, for example, of course, indeed, or sure,
do not feel comfortable in questions either. This can be explained, however, if we
recognize that interactive particles can occur in responses as well as in utterances
that invite a response. If we analyze expressions like of course and indeed in the way
that has been suggested herethat is, as essentially response cries (Goffman 1981)
their inability to occur in questions will be explained. Of course, epistemic adverbs
can also occur in response to somebody elses utterance, as in the following example
from Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice:
. . . But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.
Undoubtedly, replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly
addressed.
But as the explications developed here show, epistemic adverbs do not engage the
addressee in their very semantics, as interactive particles and discourse markers do.
Although modern linguistic accounts of parts of speech tend not to include particles, I would suggest that most languages appear to have a class of words (distinct
from nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, numerals, conjunctions, prepositions or adpositions, and interjections) whose main function is interactive. Sometimes, as in a recent book by Kate Beeching (2002), these words are called pragmatic
particles. Beechings book focuses on the French words cest--dire, enfin, hein, and
quoi, which are said to lubricate reformulation and contribute to both sociability
and social indexation (cover). The sociability of such words is clearly linked to
the fact that in their very semantics they engage the addressee.
Words of this kind can be distinguished from interjections, whose function is,
prototypically at least, monological; in most cases, they express the speakers current
emotion (see Wierzbicka 1991/2003; Ameka 1992). Pragmatic particles, on the other
hand, can be said to be, prototypically at least, dialogical: they link, in some way, the
speaker and the addressee, the I and the you. In form, some pragmatic particles
can be indistinguishable from adverbs, but in their semantic structure they are different. For example, the English word surely is analogous in form to the epistemic
adverbs like obviously or undoubtedly; nonetheless, semantically, it is quite different. For example, in the following pair of sentences:
(a) Clearly/obviously/undoubtedly, he did it himself.
(b) Surely, he did it himself.
sentence (b) invites a response, whereas none of the variants in sentence (a) do so.
Looking back at the Collins (1987) dictionary entries of surely, indeed, and of
course quoted earlier, we can say that epistemic adverbs are not used to agree or disagree, to confirm or disconfirm, to elicit agreement or confirmation, to contradict
Probably
291
someone, or to express surprise at being contradicted, that is to say, to perform any of

the interactive functions attributed in the dictionary to words like surely, indeed, and
of course. They are indeed speaker-oriented, and while I have argued that they
project the speakers attitude on some other people, they do not seek to engage the
addressee. Thus, the sentences in (a) express the speakers own view, and although
the speaker expects this view to be shared by other people, there is no appeal to the
addressee to either agree or disagree, and there is no expectation that the addressee
will respond. On the other hand, sentence (b) appeals to the addressee, and in this
case, the addressee can indeed be expected to respond.
Once again, this is not to say that all pragmatic particles invite a response. Some,
like the English particle well, can themselves be linked with a response:
Well, yes.
Well, no.
But clearly, such responsive particles are also interactive rather than monological.
The widely used term discourse markers is suggestive in this regard: discourse implies
stretches of speaking extending beyond a sentence and thus likely to involve an exchange between a speaker and an addressee (or addressees), and even if one person
is speaking and another only listening, discourse markers provide some guidance for
the hearer. An epistemic adverb, on the other hand, has to do with the speakers
epistemic stance, quite regardless of what the hearer may think or say.
Thus, having considered the difference between, on the one hand, epistemic
adverbs and, on the other, particles and discourse markers, I can finally attempt a
definition of the class that is the subject of this chapter. Up till now, I have been
talking about the class of epistemic adverbs in modern English without attempting
to define this class in a precise way. I have now reached a point at which a precise
definition can be proposed. Here it is: the class of English epistemic adverbs includes
words that meet the following four conditions:
1. They can be used sentence-initially.
2. They can be used sentence-internally (after the auxiliary if there is one,
otherwise before the main verb).
3. They cannot be used in questions.
4. They include in their semantic structure the components I think and
I dont say I know.
Having this definition at our disposal, we are in a better position to consider the history of this class in modern English.
8.9. The History of Epistemic Adverbs in Modern English

The question of when the class of epistemic adverbs (as understood here) emerged
in English, and in what order they appeared on the scene, deserves detailed study.
(For valuable earlier studies bearing on this question, see Goossens 1982; Hanson
1987; Traugott 1989.) All I can do here is to sketch a very tentative outline on the
basis of a number of concordances and works from Literature Online.
292
To begin with Thomas More (14781535), the only epistemic adverb that can be
found in his Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation is undoubtedly.
The same is true for Shakespeare (15641616). Although the words possibly and
apparently (not to mention clearly) also appear in Shakespeares works, they are not
used in them in the epistemic sense. For example:
When possibly I can, I will return. (Two Gentlemen of Verona)
Arrest him, officer,
I would not spare my brother in this case
If he should scorn me so apparently. (Comedy of Errors)
In Miltons (16081674) works, too, undoubtedly is the only epistemic adverb that I
have been able to find (used in an epistemic sense).
In Daniel Defoes (16611731) works, we can find evidently and probably, for
example:
This was evidently my case. (Moll Flanders)
. . . that he might very probably, with my assistance, make a remove from
this wilderness, and come into his own country again. (Robinson Crusoe)
What is noticeable about the use of probably in Defoe is not only that it co-occurs
with very but also that it is invariably accompanied by modal verbs like might and
should. It is possible, therefore, that its meaning is not yet identical with that which
it has in contemporary (twentieth- and twenty-first-century) English.
In Jonathan Swifts (16671745) Gullivers Travels (1726), we find again undoubtedly and probably. Probably is, once again, nearly always accompanied by a modal
verb: might, will, or could.
In Lawrence Sternes (17131768) Tristram Shandy (1760), we find undoubtedly,
evidently, unquestionably, and possibly.
In Thomas Carlyles (17951881) works, we find evidently, unquestionably, possibly, and presumably.
In Jane Austens (17751817) works, we find undoubtedly, evidently, probably,
unquestionably, possibly, obviously, and apparently. Interestingly, in her usage, probably is no longer typically accompanied by modal verbs and can refer to specific facts.
For example:
You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation. (Sense and Sensibility)
In George Eliots (18191880) works, we find undoubtedly, evidently, probably,
unquestionably, possibly, presumably, obviously, and apparently.
In George Bernard Shaws (18561950) works, we find undoubtedly, evidently,
probably, unquestionably, possibly, presumably, obviously, apparently, and conceivably.
The picture that emerges from these (admittedly limited) data can be summarized in the form of Table 8.4.9
Needless to say, this table does not claim to represent well-established findings
but rather preliminary results that would need to be corroborated by further investi-
Probably
TABLE
293
8.4 The historical expansion of the category of epistemic Adverbs
undoubtedly
evidently
probably
unquestionably
possibly
presumably
obviously
apparently1
apparently2
arguably
allegedly
conceivably
reportedly
16th
Century
17th
Century
18th
Century
X
X
X
X
X
First
half 19th
Century
Second
half 19th
Century
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
20th
Century
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
gations. In particular, it is impossible to determine without careful semantic analysis

of many examples, considered in context, whether at a particular time a particular
adverb included in its meaning the component I dont say I know. Do, for example,
the early (sixteenth- and seventeenth-century) uses of undoubtedly include this component? For example, when Milton says of God, in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, that he undoubtedly will relent and turn from his displeasure (Book X), he
appears to be expressing a deep faith and certainty incompatible with a cautious I
dont say I know. In fact, even in the following early-eighteenth-century sentence
(from Gullivers Travels), in which undoubtedly appears sentence-initially, the presence of the component I dont say I know is highly questionable:
Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing
is great or little otherwise than by comparison. (1726, 28)
Undoubtedly appears to mean here (rather like without doubt does in contemporary
speech) that, roughly, nobody can doubt, without any accompanying disclaimer
I dont say I know. On the other hand, a century later, when in Jane Austens Pride
and Prejudice (1813) Darcy replies, Undoubtedly. to a remark formulated as a personal opinion (in my opinion), his response can be plausibly interpreted as including such a component.
In her paper On Subjectivity and the History of Epistemic Expressions in English, Hanson writes:
The epistemic adverbs of English include possibly, probably, evidently, apparently, obviously, certainly, indubitably, conceivably, indisputably,
presumably, allegedly, unquestionably, admittedly, and others. These are
all what Jackendoff (1972) has called speaker-oriented adverbs. Speaker-oriented
adverbs are understood as conveying something about the speakers attitude toward
the proposition expressed in the rest of his sentence; in the case of these epistemic
ones, it is something about his knowledge of it. In discussions of the history of
294

epistemicity in English, it is commonly said that these adverbs were acquired during the Middle English period. But in fact, although it is true that the words entered the language at that time, none of them had their present-day epistemic
meanings then. (1987, 137)
It is interesting to note that Hansons class of epistemic adverbs does not include
interactive particles, which are often included in this class by other scholars.10 It is
also worth noting Hansons comment that only over a long period of time did they
become sentence adverbs, capable of characterizing whole propositions, and ultimately to be clearly speaker-oriented ones, expressing subjective epistemic meanings (p. 137).
Similarly, in her paper On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English: An
Example of Subjectification in Semantic Change, Traugott states that epistemic
meanings arise out of nonepistemic ones and that stronger epistemic meanings are
later than weak epistemic meanings (1989, 32), and she sees the same general principles as operating in the history of English epistemic adverbs.
Hanson 1987 has shown that similar kinds of changes are also attested in the history of modal adverbs such as possibly, probably, evidently, apparently, and obviously, a set which Jackendoff calls speaker-oriented (1972: 76). Exactly as would
be expected, where manner and epistemic (sentential) adverb meanings coexist,
the former is earlier than the latter. To put this in the terms I have used, the meaning based in the sociophysical world precedes that based in the speakers mental
attitude. Indeed in some cases an adverb that is now no longer a manner adverb
originally was one. (Traugott 1989, 46)
Thus, in both Hansons and Traugotts accounts, nonepistemic meanings of adverbs

give rise to epistemic meanings, and weak epistemic meanings, to strong ones.
What exactly is meant by weak subjective epistemic and strong subjective
epistemic can be illustrated with Traugotts interpretation of two sentences with
evidently, one from the seventeenth and one from the twentieth century:
1690 Locke, Hum. Und. II. Xxix: No idea, therefore, can be undistinguishable from
another . . . for from all other, it is evidently different (evident to all, weak subjective epistemic) (OED)
20th C?: He is evidently right (in the meaning I conclude that he is right;
strong subjective epistemic inviting the inference of some concession of doubt on
speakers part). (Traugott 1989, 47)
As these examples and their glosses show, a weak epistemic is not yet speakeroriented (e.g., evident to all), whereas a strong epistemic is speaker-oriented
(e.g., I conclude).
The analysis presented in this chapter is consistent with Hansons and Traugotts
conclusions. At the same time, the hypothesis about the rise of the semantic component I dont say I know allows us to make the claim about the pragmatic strengthening (Traugotts term) more specific and more testable in context (see also Hansons
insightful but vague phrase: something about his [the speakers] knowledge). It also
allows us to link the rise of epistemic meanings in English not only with the general principles of subjectification but also with the culture-specific factors that have
led to a unique modal scene (Aijmer 1997, 39) in modern English.
Probably
295
The rise of epistemic adverbs in modern English (in what Traugott calls a strong
subjective epistemic sense) reflects, I suggest, a rise of epistemological concerns in
Anglo culture at a particular time of its development.
It must be emphasized again that the picture outlined here (and summed up in
Table 8.4) has to be regarded as very tentative, and the results presented in it, as only
preliminary. Such as they are, however, these preliminary results are, I think, suggestive, and they support the overall hypothesis developed here and in the other
chapters of this book. Not only is the semantics of the large class of epistemic adverbs in modern English consistent with the ideas developed in Lockes Essay on
Human Understanding but also the rise of this class appears to be linked in time with
the spread of Lockes ideas. The gradual growth of this class is also consistent with
the hypothesis that the Lockean concerns, no doubt together with other factors, have
led to the emergence of certain cultural scripts that triggered a trend in the English
language continuing, apparently, to this day.11 The extraordinary career of the word
probably (and probly) in its modern, post-Lockean meaning epitomizes this trend,
as does, in its own way, the emergence of the discourse marker I think, which has
already been recognized as a hallmark of modern Anglo discourse (see, e.g., Jucker
1986; Thompson and Mulac 1991; Aijmer 1997; Scheibman 2000, 2001).
It is worth noting in this context the extremely high frequencies of the formulaic
expression I dont know and its reduced variant I dunno in spoken English (Scheibman
2000, 2001) and the fact that both I think and I know function epistemically or serve to
mitigate assertion (Scheibman 2001, 70). I would hypothesize that the elaboration and
frequent use of epistemic verbal phrases and epistemic adverbs in English Anglo discourse is closely related to the extremely frequent use of both I think and I dont know
in conversational English, given that I think and I dont say I know are core semantic components for both these classes; also, the high frequency of probably is closely
related to the high frequencies of I think and I dont know (and in American English,
I guess). I believe that to fully understand these phenomena, we need to look at them,
first of all, in a contrastive perspective. Without a contrastive perspective, there is always a danger that we will seek to explain language-particular phenomena in terms of
universalist explanations, as Grice (1975) and Griceans once did (and as Neo-Griceans
still do), whereas a contrastive perspective provides a window on cultural differences
between languages (Aijmer 1997, 39). Thus, a contrastive perspective leads us to a
cultural perspective on English (and, of course, on other languages as well). It also leads
us to a historical perspective: for example, twentieth-century English needs to be compared and contrasted not only with twentieth-century Norwegian or German but also
with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English, and the cultural values reflected in
twentieth-century English need to be compared with those reflected, for example, in
Shakespeares English. Last but not least, we also need to combine grammatical and
pragmatic approaches with careful semantic analysis of the relevant linguistic expressions, because it is only by revealing the exact meanings of these expressions that we
can fully understand their cultural underpinnings and the reasons for their salience in
modern English and Anglo discourse.
Discussing the origins of the concept of proof beyond reasonable doubt, which
continues to play an important role in Anglo systems of criminal justice, the legal
scholar Lawrence Solan writes:
296

In essence, seventeenth century thinkers, influenced heavily by John Locke, developed an epistemology that differentiated among various kinds of evidence.
Demonstrative evidence, experienced first hand through sensory experience, was
considered the most reliable. Indirect evidence, from the report of witnesses, was
called moral evidence, and was considered less reliable. The expression moral
certainty, which we still hear in some reasonable doubt instructions today, essentially meant the highest degree of certitude based on such evidence. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt was equated with moral certainty. (Solan 1999, 111)
As I have tried to show, in the English-speaking world, this epistemology differentiating among various kinds and degrees of certainty has had an impact on ordinary
ways of speaking, and on the English language itself. This impact continues to this
day.
part iv
CONCLUSION
The Cultural Baggage of

English and Its Significance
in the World at Large
9.1. The Legacy of History

In a passage titled The Legacy of History, David Graddol (1997, 5) writes: Britains
colonial expansion established the pre-conditions for the global use of English, taking the language from its island birthplace to settlements around the world. The
English language has grown up in contact with many others, making it a hybrid language which can rapidly evolve to meet new cultural and communication needs.
As I have tried to show in this book, however, the legacy of history goes well beyond
the fact that English is a hybrid language with a capacity to evolve rapidly.
David Crystal (2003b, 20) notes that language is a repository of the history of a
people. It is their identity. Crystal is speaking here of the languages of the world
currently threatened by the spread of English as a global language. But as I have tried
to show in this book, the same point applies to Anglo English itself: it, too, is the
repository of the history and culture of a people. The fact that English can rapidly
evolve does not mean that it has no cultural core, no internal legacy of cultural
meanings.
As David Malouf writes in Made in England:
It is all very well to regard language as simply a means of communication. It may
be that for poor handlers of a language and for those to whom it is new and unfamiliar, who use it only for the most basic exchanges. But for most of us it is also a machine for thinking, for feeling; and what can be thought and felt in one languagethe
sensibility it embodies, the range of phenomena it can take in, the activities of mind
as well as the objects and sensations it can deal withis different, both in quality
and kind, from one language to the next. The world of Chinese and Arabic is different from the world of German or French or English, as the worlds those European
languages embody and refer to differ from one another. (Malouf 2003, 44)
Maloufs reference to the profound differences between English and other European
languages is a useful reminder, given that much of the literature on English and
299
300
Conclusion
Englishes contents itself with a crude distinction between Western and nonWestern languages and ways of thinking. Malouf, who in addition to his part-English, part-Lebanese background has lived his life through Italian as well as English,
has no doubt as to the distinctiveness of Anglo culture, which he calls our culture
I mean the culture that belongs to the language we speak and have our life in, English (2003, 2). He also has no doubt that this culture and language have been shaped
by history: A language is the history and experience of men and women, who in
their complex dealings with the world, made it; but it is itself one of the makers of
that history, and the history it makes is determinedlimitedby its having developed in one direction rather than another; in one direction to the exclusion of others. It is also shaped and changed by what is said in it (p. 44).
In addition to the enduring legacy of Shakespeare and other classics of English
literature, Malouf emphasizes the impact of the discourse of the British Enlightenment and of the social and political institutions related to it on the English language
as spoken, in particular, in Britain and Australia. According to Malouf, the American colonies, founded in the early seventeenth century, inherited an English that
in contrast to that transplanted to Australiawas:
passionately evangelical and utopian, deeply imbued with the religious fanaticism and
radical violence of the time. . . . It was far removed from the cool, dispassionate English in which, a hundred and eighty years later, in the 1780s, a Parliamentary committee argued the pros and cons of a new colony in the Pacific. This was the language
of the English and Scottish Enlightenment: sober, unemphatic, good-humoured; a
very sociable and moderate language, modern in a way that even we would recognize,
and supremely rational and down-to-earth. . . . The business of politics became negotiation, and of conflict, compromise. This was the reasonable language of the English and Scottish Enlightenment that became the language in which social institutions
in Australia argued and resolved their difficulties. (pp. 46, 48)
Yet despite all the differences between American English and American public discourse, with their roots in pre-Enlightenment English, and the post-Enlightenment
English transplanted in the late eighteenth century to Australia (not to mention the
differences between British English and Australian English, or Canadian and New
Zealand English), all of these Englishes can be seen as sharing a common heritage
and a common cultural core. As Malouf puts it, they are not the same language
but they can be seen as a shared language (2003, 4); and with that shared language
go particular habits of mind (p. 3). Judging by linguistic evidence, these shared
habits of mind have a great deal to do with the heritage of the British Enlightenment,
epitomized by words like reasonable, fair, and pros and cons, by discourse markers
like on the one hand . . . on the other hand and as a matter of fact, by epistemic markers
like presumably, allegedly, and arguably, and by speaking and writing routines associated with all such characteristically English words and phrases.1
9.2. Living with Concepts

In philosopher Cora Diamonds memorable words (quoted in Besemeres 2002), we
live with concepts, and the more a given concept is central to the life of a commu-
The Cultural Baggage of English
301
nity, the more likely people in this community are not to notice it but simply to take
it for granted, as they take for granted the air they breathe. It is the immigrants and
other crossers of cultural boundaries who are more likely to notice the key concepts
that a given speech community lives by.
For example, a few hundred yards from my home there is a preschool, with a
sign warning that any person who trespasses on these premises without a reasonable excuse may be prosecuted. Every time I pass this school, I am struck by how
Anglo and how untranslatable its phrasing is, with its reliance on the key Anglo concept reasonableuntranslatable into my native Polish, into French, German, and,
I believe, any other language of the world (see chapter 4). I was similarly struck recently by a sign in a British bus asking the passengers not to speak to the driver without reasonable cause. The commonsense flexibility of such signs (as compared, for
example, with the German Verboten signs; see Wierzbicka 1998b) echoes the pragmatism of British and American law, with their reliance on phrases like reasonable
doubt, reasonable force, reasonable care, reasonable excuse, and reasonable cause. For
non-Anglo immigrants to countries like Britain, Australia, and the United States, it
is essential to learn how to interpret such phrases and how to live in accordance with
the concepts embedded in them.
For international communication, too, concepts like reasonable have become
essential, as can be illustrated, for example, by official ASEAN documents. Thus in
the 2002 Agreement on Economic Cooperation between ASEAN and the Peoples
Republic of China we read: Compensation and the suspension of concessions or
benefits are temporary measures available in the event that the recommendations
and rulings are not implemented within a reasonable period of time (Agreement
on Dispute Settlement 2002, 8).
ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong (2003), in a speech delivered during his visit to the United States in November 2003, said: It is not fair to issue a travel
advisory against all of Southeast Asia merely because of one or two acts of terrorism
in one or two cities in the region. Clearly, any official warnings against travel to
Southeast Asia go against the regions vital economic interests. The ASEAN appeal
to fairness to prevent the issue of such warnings illustrates the transnational use of
English as a cultural lingua franca (Krasnick 1995) and not just a culture-neutral
medium of international communication.
9.3. Two Illustrations: International Law

and International Aviation
No domain illustrates the significance of English in the world today better than law,
in particular, international law. The very idea of a contract is based on the assumption that the parties agree to the same thing, and this implies that they can understand the text of the agreement in the same way. But if a contract is between native
speakers of different languages, how can it be ensured that they can understand the
agreement in the same way, given that words in generaland words relevant to law
in particulardo not match across language boundaries? As John Locke wrote three
centuries ago:
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Conclusion
A moderate skill in different languages will easily satisfy one of the truth of this, it
being so obvious to observe great store of words in one language which have not
any that answer them in another. Which plainly shows that those of one country,
by their customs and manner of life, have found occasion to make several complex ideas, and given names to them, which others never collected into specific
ideas. (Locke 1959 [1690], 48)
Locke saw the scale of the phenomenon in question more clearly than many language professionals have in more recent times:
Nay, if we look a little more nearly into this matter, and exactly compare different
languages, we shall find that, though they have words which in translations and
dictionaries are supposed to answer one another, yet there is scarce one of ten
amongst the names of complex ideas . . . that stands for the same precise idea which
the word does that in dictionaries it is rendered by. (p. 48)
Locke also appreciated, before anyone else did, the significance of this phenomenon
for law, especially in the context of the expansion of the British empire: The terms
of our law, which are not empty sounds, will hardly find words that answer them in
the Spanish or Italian, no scanty languages; much less, I think, could any one translate them into the Caribbee or Westoe tongues (p. 48). As Caffentzis points out,
Lockes concerns were far from purely theoretical:
As a maker of constitutions for the imperial provinces and as a member of the Board
of Trade and Plantations, Locke naturally wondered whether the native speakers of the tongues . . . of the empire could understand, with the best will in the
world, the very law that was to govern them. He undoubtedly wondered what legal
status contracts with Americans would have if the parties involved did not understand the very terms of the contracts in the same way (or did not have a similar
notion of a contract). (Caffentzis 1989, 8283)
According to Caffentzis, given the indeterminacy of translation (due to the semantic

incommensurability of languages), one key question for Locke was How is world
trade possible?
Three centuries later, in a world where the need for accurate international communication (including international agreements) has increased beyond anything that
Locke could have envisaged, questions like how is world trade possible? are even
more pertinent and pressing; and they are inseparable from questions about the use
and role of English.
As the legal scholar George Fletcher has stressed, language is not a neutral field
for law, and it is naive to think that the content of law can be transferred, intact, from
one language to another:
Language matters more than most observers realize in shaping the contours of the
law. The common law and the English language have a strong affinity for each other.
The English common law has flourished in countries where English is the language
of legal discourse. Some countries influenced by English law, notably Israel, have
endeavoured to translate English terms into the native lexicon, but there seems to
be as much lost in translation of law as in the translation of Shakespeare. There is no
way to convey the connotations of due process, reasonable doubt, and malice
aforethought in any language except English. (Fletcher 1996, 5)
303
Consider, for example, Article 13 (concerning copyright) of the international Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (so-called TRIPS),
accepted by the World Trade Organization in 1994. The official languages of this
organization are English, French, and Spanish. In English, Article 13 reads: Members should confine limitations or exceptions to exclusive rights to certain special
cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder. In the French version,
the phrase unreasonably prejudice has been rendered as causent un prjudice injustifi
and in Spanish, as causen un prejuicio injustificado. Both the French phrase and the
Spanish phrase mean cause an unjustified loss (damage). But the words unjustified, injustifi, and injustificado do not mean the same as unreasonable (see chapter
4). Thus, although the three versions of Article 13 are supposed to mean the same, in
fact they do notunless the French and Spanish versions are to be understood via
the prism of the English version.
An additional complication is the fact that, according to some experts, the current American fair use doctrine may be in conflict with international copyright
law as formulated in Article 13. The way the debate about this putative conflict is
often framed is shown in the title of a specialist article in the Stanford Law Review
(Newby 1999): Whats Fair Here Is Not Fair Everywhere: Does the American Fair
Use Doctrine Violate International Copyright Law? Framed in this way, the title
question implies not only that standards of fairness may differ across countries but
also that they can be meaningfully compared (using the same conceptual yardstick,
fairness). In fact, standards of fairness cannot even be debated in French or Spanish (not to mention the languages of all the other signatory nations) because fairness is an Anglo/English concept, and the word cannot be translated into other
languages (see chapter 5).
Problems of this kind, which beset international trade law, apply even more
in the area of human rights, where, for example, two of the fundamental notions
are the right to a fair trial and the right to a fair hearing. It is impossible to
accurately transfer these notionswhich have been established in English for more
than two hundred years2into languages that have no word corresponding to fair,
and the same applies to the use of fair in many other contexts. For example, Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966 and entered into force
in 1976, states that everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a
competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law. In the French
version of the same document, fair had to be replaced by the adverb quitablement,
equitably, and in the Spanish one, by the phrase con las debidas garantas, with
due guarantees. (In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, available in 300
languages, the Spanish version renders fair in a similar context as con justicia
[roughly, with justice], the Russian one relies on the noun spravedlivost [roughly,
justice], and the German one uses the adjective gerechtes [roughly, just]). Quite
apart from the semantic differences between justice, justicia, spravedlivost, and
Gerechtichkeit, the English word fairness, which refers to procedures, does not mean
the same as justice, which refers to outcomes (compare, e.g., a fair hearing vs. *a
just hearing; see chapter 5).
304
Conclusion
My second example concerns English as the language of international aviation.

Air traffic controllers and pilots need to communicate with each other everywhere
in the world, and the effectiveness of their communication is a matter of life and
death for the passengers as well as the crew. The principal medium of this communication is English. Often, communication between pilots and controllers fails, resulting in runway incursions, unauthorized takeoffs and landings, and, most dire of
all, midair collisions. Often, failures of communication that lead to tragic results
involve non-native speakers of English.
For example, a recent paper entitled Miscommunication between Pilots and
Air Traffic Control noted that Aeroflot planes have started to land on a city street
in Seattle and a highway in Israel. . . . Under a Hindi controller, a Kazakh airplane
collided in midair [in 1996] with a Saudi plane. There were 349 deaths. . . . A New
York crash in 1990 . . . was the direct consequence of incorrect wording by the Spanish-speaking copilot. . . . In a recent case . . . the last words of a Chinese pilot recorded
on the cockpit voice recorder were What does pull up mean? (Jones 2003, 235
236)
One of the most famous aviation disasters of recent times was the runway collision at the Canary Islands in 1977 between a KLM Boeing 747 and a Pan American
Airways B-747, which killed 583 people. The disaster was due directly to the nonnative use of English by the Dutch pilot, who radioed: We are now at takeoff, translating this expression literally from Dutch and meaning, We are now beginning to
take off. The controller, however, assumed that the plane was merely ready for takeoff and would await further instructions, so he said OK (adding: stand by for takeoff. . . . I will call you). The pilot heard OK, so he continued rolling down the
runway and collided with the Pan Am plane, which, invisible in the thick fog, was
already on the same runway.
As emphasized in a recent report of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA), Effective and accurate communications are crucial to air safety. As aircrafts
approach their destination airport, they converge and operate under reduced separation minima. . . . Under these circumstances, there is little margin for error (Koenig
1997, 8).
Aviation writers who discuss the tragic costs of miscommunication between pilots and controllers sometimes despair of English as a language of international aeronautical communication. For example, Jones (2003, 244) writes: The standard form
of speech of aviation . . . must be superior to any given variety of English in the clarity of its spoken form. . . . Perhaps here there is a practical solution in Esperanto. . . .
The inability of English to express specific instructions to pilots without confusion
would seem to disqualify it as a language for permanent use by aviation.
The hope that Esperanto could serve international aviation better than English
scarcely seems realistic. But the case of aviation highlights the globalized worlds need
for a standardized international language. Presumably, it is English that for the foreseeable future is going to play this role, and presumably, it is Anglo English that will
serve as the touchstone and reference point in efforts aimed at both minimizing variation and at increasing the English proficiency of pilots and controllers to the level
necessary for dealing effectively with nonroutine and emergency situations (see
Uplinger 1997).
305
Quintessentially Anglo concepts like reasonable also play a not insignificant

role in the language of international aviation. For example, the word reasonable frequently occurs in air traffic control guidelines and other similar documents in phrases
like reasonable grounds for, for a reasonable period, reasonable level of, reasonable
precautions, reasonable amount of, to sustain a reasonable level of, reasonable access
to, reasonable steps should be taken, reasonable attempts, and reasonable accuracy.
A Web search for the word reasonable used in conjunction with the phrase air traffic
control yielded well over 100,000 results. Thus, living with concepts includes flying
with concepts and controlling air traffic with concepts, as well as negotiating international agreements, trading, and the like with concepts. Many of these concepts
come from historically shaped Anglo English.
9.4. Communication and Vibes

According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor (Baldauf 2004), the
fastest growing language in India is Hinglish, spoken by an estimated 350 million
peoplea language that may soon claim more native speakers worldwide than
English. The article cites as typical a Pepsi advertisement, Yeh Dil Maange More
(the heart wants more), and Cokes Life ho to aisi (life should be like this),
which have replaced earlier English-language advertisements like Ask for more.
The article cites the head of the creative division of Publicis India, an advertising
firm, as saying, if you use English, you may be understood but not vibed with. Thats
why all the multinational companies now speak Hinglish in their ads.
The importance of vibes in human communication is widely recognized in
the literature on the worlds new Englishes and post-Englishes: Hinglish, Singlish
(from Singapore English or Sri Lankan English), Pringlish (from Puerto Rican
English), and so on. It is seldom recognized, however, in the literature on international English or on English as a lingua franca. On the contrary, it is often assumed that the main (if not sole) goal of English used as a tool of intercultural
communication is to convey information, that the pragmatics of language use are
not relevant in this case; and that Anglo conversational norms and conventions are
(or should be) irrelevant in English-based cross-cultural exchanges.
The people who are least likely to be aware of the importance of Anglo norms in
English-based intercultural communication seem to be Anglos themselves. Ron
Scollon and Suzanne Wong Scollons Intercultural Communication (2001, 135136)
contains a nicely illustrative vignette in which two businessmen, one American
and the other Chinese, meet on a plane from Tokyo to Hong Kong and strike up a
conversation:
mr. richardson: By the way, Im Andrew Richardson. My friends call me
Andy. This is my business card.
mr. chu: Im David Chu. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Richardson. This is my
card.
mr. richardson: No, no. Call me Andy. I think well be doing a lot of business together.
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Conclusion
mr. chu: Yes, I hope so.

mr. richardson (reading Mr. Chus card): Chu, Hon-fai. Hon-fai, Ill give
you a call tomorrow as soon as I get settled at my hotel.
mr. chu (smiling): Yes. Ill expect your call.
Commenting on this encounter, the Scollons point out that there is in American
business a preference for close, friendly, egalitarian relationships, linked with the
use of first names. By contrast, in Chinese culture, new business acquaintances would
prefer a mutual use of titles and a certain initial reserve. In particular, a Chinese given
name (in this case Hon-fai) would never be used by a stranger. If a given name is to
be used at all (in a cross-cultural encounter), it should be Mr. Chus Western name,
David. As a result, Mr. Chu is embarrassed, and he smiles to cover up his embarrassment. His smile is misinterpreted by Mr. Richardson as an indicator that he will be
friendly and easy to do business with (Scollon and Scollon 2001, 135136). Thus:
When these two men separate, they leave each other with very different impressions of the situation. Mr. Richardson is very pleased to have made the acquaintance of Mr. Chu and feels they have gotten off to a very good start. . . . In contrast,
Mr. Chu feels quite uncomfortable with Mr. Richardson. He feels it will be difficult to work with him, and that Mr. Richardson might be rather insensitive to
cultural differences. (p. 136)
The Scollons explain the cultural differences involved by using expressions like symmetrical solidarity, symmetrical deference, involvement strategies, and independence strategies. Since, however, these expressions are tied to technical English,
and have no equivalents in either Mandarin or Cantonese, their commentary might
be said itself to contain an element of Anglo bias (see Goddard 2002a, 2004b, in press,
on terminological ethnocentrism). Although the authors show the importance of
cross-cultural training for both Anglo and non-Anglo speakers of English, their generalizations are themselves culture-bound (as well as language-bound). By contrast,
if we rely on simple and universal concepts like good and bad, know and say,
or when and if, their insights into cross-cultural differences can be formulated
in a universally teachable form. To see how this can be done in relation to Chinese
cultural norms, see Ye (2004; see also Yoon 2004).
I first illustrate this with an example drawn from another work by the same authors (Scollon and Scollon 1983), this time concerned with intercultural communication within America itself between Anglo-Americans and Athabascans (in Alaska).
The Scollons call the former of the two groups English speakers, but in fact the
table partially reproduced here (Table 9.1) refers to two groups of English speakers:
Anglo and Athabascan.
Perceptions like those reproduced in Table 9.1 point to different cultural scripts
that the speakers themselves are not fully aware of. Noticing that the Athabascans
behave differently, the Anglos judge them in accordance with Anglo scripts, which
they take for granted, and vice versa. Not surprisingly, as a result each group forms a
negative view of the other (e.g., they talk too much; they talk too little). To teach
effective intercultural communication, it would be helpful to identify the relevant
scripts and state them in a neutral cultural notation that could be intelligible to both
307
Table 9.1 Anglos and Athabaskan: Mutual (Mis)perceptions

Whats confusing to English
speakers about Athabaskans
Whats confusing to Athabaskans

about English speakers
They
They
They
They
They
They
They
They talk too much

They always talk first
They talk to strangers or people they dont know
They think they can predict the future
They always talk about whats going to happen later
They ask too many questions
do not speak
keep silent
avoid situations of talking
only want to talk to close acquaintances
deny planning
avoid direct questions
never start a conversation
sides and would allow the outsiders to understand the perspective of the insiders. Using
NSM, this can be done as follows (one example):
An Anglo cultural script
when I am in one place with someone for some time
it is good if I say something to this someone
An Athabaskan cultural script
when I am in one place with someone
if I dont know this someone
it is good if I dont say anything to this someone
Communication between Anglo Americans and Athabaskans may seem to be an
exotic case, far removed from problems arising in communication between, for example, Arabs, Americans, Russians, and Indonesians, but in fact the same issue is
involved in all such cases. The differences in the unconscious cultural assumptions
that underlie cross-cultural misperceptions and misunderstandings cannot be efficiently explained to all parties without a neutral cultural notationa culturally neutral lingua franca for comparisons and explanations.
Andy Kirkpatrick (2004) proposes as an auxiliary language of intercultural communication a Lingua Franca English (LFE), which speakers with different mother
tongues and different cultural backgrounds can all speak according to their own native
norms, understanding each other by virtue of goodwill and mutual tolerance, without any standard monolithic norms (p. 88. In this way, Lingua Franca English
becomes the property of all and it will be flexible enough to reflect the cultural norms
of those who use it (p. 87). According to Kirkpatrick, the use of various local cultural norms by speakers of LFE need not be a problem: I think it is inevitable and
desirable that speakers will transfer some of the pragmatic norms of their L1 [first
language] to lingua franca English (p. 88).
But what will happen in a case where the pragmatic or cultural norms of different speakers are in conflictfor example, where one interlocutors cultural background encourages him or her to express requests to equals or superiors in the form
of a naked imperative (Do this! Go there! Bring me that!), whereas another
308
Conclusion
regards such bare imperatives as an intolerable assault on their personal autonomy

(see chapter 2; see also Clyne 1994)? What will happen when, for example, a Russian uses LFE when speaking to a Malay, given the conflicting attitudes of Russian
and Malay culture to spontaneous expression of ones current thoughts and feelings
(see Wierzbicka 2002c; Goddard 2000a)? The example is not far-fetched, given the
reported use of English as a lingua franca in transnational teams, for example, between Ukrainians and Bangladeshis in the UN Peacekeeping Forces in the former
Yugoslavia (Wright 2000, 90).
What the NSM-based theory of cultural scripts offers for such situations is the
prospect of intercultural training in the form of culture-specific cultural scripts that
can be written in the English (as well as any other) version of the natural semantic
metalanguage and that can be easily taught to speakers of any background. For example:
A Russian cultural script
when I feel (think) something
I can say to other people what I feel (think)
it will be good if someone else knows what I feel (think)
A Malay cultural script
when I feel (think) something
I cant always say to other people what I feel (think)
it will be good if I think about it before I say it
The language in which these scripts are writtenthe English version of NSMcan
serve as an auxiliary language for teaching intercultural communication: being culturally neutral itself, it can be used effectively as a cultural notation for comparing
languages and cultures. Crucially, explanations formulated in the English NSM can
be readily translated into any other language, for example, into Russian or Malay.
They can be taught through the words of any language the rudiments of which the
interlocutors share. If interactants share a hundred (or even sixty or so) simple English words, cultural scripts of any other culture can be explained to them through
those simple words (provided, of course, that they share the right ones, that is, the
minilexicon of NSM).
Good vibes cannot always be achieved in intercultural communication, but many
bad vibes can be avoided if the participants receive intercultural training. To be effective, this training must help the trainees learn about their own cultural scripts, as well
as those of their culturally different interlocutors. Given the realities of the world
today, it is particularly important for both the insiders and the outsiders that the cultural
scripts of Anglo English be identified in an intelligible and readily translatable form.
9.5 Intercultural Communication and Cross-Cultural Education

There is a widespread view that English can be used worldwide as a culturally neutral
medium of communication. To quote, for example, Wardhaugh (1987, 15), since no
309
cultural requirements are tied to the learning of English, you can learn it without having to subscribe to another set of values. As I have tried to show in this book, this is
largely an illusion: there are some values, assumptions, and expectations that one has
to subscribe to, at least provisionally, to learn English. For example, to learn English,
one has to learn to use the words right and wrong, and to do that one has to subscribe,
if only provisionally, to the everyday philosophy of rationalist ethics embedded in these
words. This point is vividly illustrated by a recent experience of the American sociologist Douglas Porpora (personal communication). Lecturing in English on the kinds of
moral reasoning used in American newspaper editorials either to justify or to oppose
the war in Iraq, Porpora wanted to make the point that presidential candidate John
Kerrys statement Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time was intentionally ambiguous: did Kerry mean wrong in a moral or prudential sense, or was he skating between
the two? The point was easy to make in Englishbut not in Spanish, as Porpora realized when he was called upon to give a lecture in Spanish on the same topic: there is
no word in Spanish that could translate wrong in Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time,
rolling into one idea bad deed and bad thinking (see chapter 3).
Thus, Anglo key words like right and wrong are not culturally neutral, and neither are key Anglo conversational routines, such as addressing everyone with the same
word you, avoiding a bare imperative in requests (see chapter 2), and softening no
with an explanation rather than avoiding it altogether in refusals and denials.
Emphasizing the role of such sociocultural factors (as she calls them) in intercultural communication, the Indian American scholar Yamuna Kachru (1995)
illustrates their importance with an observation made a century earlier by nineteenthcentury diplomat and author Chester Holcombe: Much of the falsehood to which
the Chinese as a nation are said to be addicted is a result of the demand of etiquette.
A plain, frank no is the height of discourtesy. Refusal or denial of any sort must be
softened and toned down into an expression of regretted inability. . . . Centuries of
practice in this form of evasion have made the Chinese matchlessly fertile in the
invention and development of excuses (Holcombe 1895, 274275).
A plain, frank no as an expression of refusal or denial is, of course, not a natural human way of speaking but a norm (or perceived norm) of Anglo culture. As
Kachru illustrates with another apt quote, such norms are often invisible to English
native speakers, and their infringement by non-native speakers can lead to an affective reaction unfavourable to the speaker/writer: These speakers are often viewed
as rude or uncooperative or . . . arrogant or insincere. Native speakers are much more
likely to attribute grammatical or phonological errors to a lack of knowledge of the
target language . . . conversational features are subtle and not easily recognizable;
hence their basis is attributed not to the language of the speaker but to the personality of the speaker (Gass and Selinker 1983, 12, quoted in Y. Kachru 1995, 189).
Similarly, Krasnick (1995) links effective teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) with bicultural competence and insists that language cannot be separated from culture. Discussing cross-cultural problems arising in the teaching of
English by Anglo teachers in Indonesia, he comments: Even when one party is
employed specifically to meet the needs of the other cross-cultural communication
problems still intrude. If intercultural communication problems appear to crop up
in situations like these, where an officially agreed upon agenda and cooperation rather
310
Conclusion
than competition is the clear norm, what must be expected of intercultural encounters in government and business where these supportive conditions are not found?
(Krasnick 1995, 91).
Typically, authors who emphasize communicative failure and problems in crosscultural encounters between Anglo and non-Anglo speakers call for more research
in world Englishes (Y. Kachru 1995, 190) and stop short of clearly formulating the
conclusion that Anglo English, too, is a linguaculture whose concepts and norms
need to be articulated. Nonetheless, the whole thrust of their examples and discussions point to such a need.
For example, Krasnick (1995) calls (with special reference to ASEAN countries)
for intercultural communication training (p. 92) and deplores the fact that the
practitioners of second language teaching have relegated culture to the status of an
optional extra (p. 82). By the year 2020, he predicts, the problem will be less and
less English [as a grammatical code], and more and more intercultural communication competence (p. 85).
What Krasnick does not say explicitly is that the teaching of intercultural communication competence cannot be separated from the teaching of Anglo concepts
and communicative norms. Such concepts and norms dominate in particular the
domains of international diplomacy, science, business, economics, finance, and
geopolitics (perhaps best exemplified by discourse of the United Nations and in
affiliates . . . especially the language of treaties and covenants on human rights that
depend on a special vocabulary and collocations [Gonzalez 1995, 59; see also Toolan
2003]). For these areas, Gonzalez envisages the construction of a cultural dictionary, alongside a cultural encyclopaediaa suggestion I regard as eminently sound
but realizable only with the help of a culturally neutral semantic metalanguage. The
natural semantic metalanguage based on universal human concepts provides a tool
with the aid of which such a cultural dictionary could be effectively compiled. In
a sense, the analyses of concepts like reasonable, fair, or right and wrong
carried out in this book can be regarded as sections of such a future Anglo cultural
dictionary, readily translatable into any language and explaining, in simple words,
the nature of these foundational Anglo concepts and ideas.
9.6. English in the World Today

Those who write about the global spread of English are often accused of
triumphalism. But the global spread is simply a fact. As Barbara Seidlhofer (2001,
157) put it, people need and want to learn English whatever the ideological baggage
that comes with it, a fact acknowledged even in Canagarajahs 1999 Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Tom McArthur concurs, commenting that
it would appear that no amount of post-colonial liberal-humanist anguish will make
much difference to this state of affairs (2001, 13).
As Wright (2000, 102) points out, globalisation seems to constitute Anglicisation.
Transnational corporations, international organizations, peacekeeping forces all
exhibit a tendency to use English as an official or de facto lingua franca. This applies even to the UN:
311
A single lingua franca is not the actual policy of the UN, which has six official and
working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. However, the primacy of English within the organization has been evident for some
time. A graphic illustration of the true hierarchy of languages in the organisation
was provided by Kurt Waldheims message from the UN to be carried by the 1977
Voyager expedition into outer space. The Secretary-Generals message to other
galaxies was in Englishand only in English! (Wright 2000, 102)
Discussing the implications of the global spread of English for Singapore with references to accusations of linguistic imperialism in works like Phillipson (1992) and
Pennycook (1994), Singaporean linguist Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew (1999, 39) argues
that the concept of linguistic imperialism ascribes too much power to the language
as opposed to the language policy makers and language users. In Singapore, which
she treats as a case study, the early dominance of English came about not so much
as a result of linguistic imperialism, but through a conscious decision on the part of
its leaders and populace, after the careful consideration of world trends and local
conditions (p. 40).
Chew does acknowledge some negative consequences of the rise of English in
Singapore. For example, in Singapore, many grandparents have been unable to
communicate with their grandchildren due to the loss of the mother tongue (p. 42),
but as she sees it, this has not changed the countrys resounding yes to English
resounding but qualified: yes to English and no to western cultural values (Chew
1999, 39).
At this point, however, the question of the cultural underpinnings of English
must again be raised. Can a country effectively say yes to English and no to all
the assumptions embedded in it? To some extent, no doubt, it can. But evidence
suggests that when this happens, English diversifies, and there emerge nativized
varieties of it that are no longer culturally Anglo and that are, as David Parker (2003,
13) says about English in South East Asia, partly constitutive of local culture and
identity.
This is very much the case in Singapore (see Wong 2004a, 2004b, 2005). But the
English which, as Wong shows, is partly constitutive of local culture and identity in
Singapore, is not the same variety of English that Chew is talking about, that is, the
English that is the language of international communication (Chew 1999, 43).
Chew says lightly: As is well-known in Singapore, one language can, in fact, be
the courier of many cultures and sub-cultures, of myriad values and sets of values (Chew
1999, 42). Arguably, however, the Singapore case shows something different: Singapore
English is the carrier of Singapore culture, and although it can serve its speakers as a
bridge to other forms of English, to take part in global communication, its speakers
find that they have to move to those other forms. English as the language of international communication is closer to Anglo English than to Singapore English.
Nothing illustrates this better than documents like the keynote speech delivered
by the Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong at the ASEANUnited States
Partnership Conference in New York on September 7, 2000, a speech that crucially
depends on Anglo English words like resources, challenges, commitment, opportunities, relevance, relevant, controversial, fairly, and unfairly and on epistemic phrases
like I think and I believe, both sides view, was perceived to be, and in the eyes of. To
312
Conclusion
give the flavor of Goh Chok Tongs language, here are a few sentences from his
speech:
The US committed enormous resources and lives to contain aggression in
the region.
Let me now give my assessment of how I think both sides today view US
engagement with ASEAN, and what I believe to be some of the challenges
that will shape US interests in ASEAN.
Fairly or unfairly, the US was perceived to be not forthcoming enough in
helping the Southeast Asian countries.
ASEAN is relevant to the US for strategic reasons.
ASEANs commitment to free trade has helped reinforce US interest in preserving an open multilateral trading system.
ASEANs current difficulties and perceived lack of political cohesiveness and
vision risk diminishing its relevance in the eyes of US policy makers.
Examples like these show how unrealistic the slogan yes to English and no to Anglo
cultural values really is.
The appeal to fairness is an obvious bow to Anglo cultural values, as is the structuring of the speech in terms of two perspectives (the ASEAN perspective and the
US perspective), the references to how both sides view ASEAN-U.S. relations, and
also the epistemic hedges like I believe and perceived. Less obvious perhaps but no less
significant is the covert acceptance of Anglo values like commitment and relevance,
implied by the very use of these words in the prime ministers speech. It is worth stressing again that the value-laden words highlighted in these sentences (challenge, fairly,
unfairly, relevant, commitment) are distinctively English words, without equivalents in
other European languages. What is at issue here, then, is not Western values but,
more specifically, Anglo values.
Chew emphasizes that Singaporeans want modernity, not Westernness (Chew
1999, 42). As Parker (2004, 31) notes, however (with special reference to Hong Kong,
but the same applies to Singapore), Western modernity has been, and continues to
be, mediated through the English language to many non-Western cultures (see also
Ndebele 1987). The English that ASEAN has used from the outset as its only language (without any debate or discussion, by implicit mutual agreement; see Okudaira
1999) is, essentially, Anglo English, and it bears the imprint of the cultural history of
the English language. This history continues to operate as a kind of magnetic field
of distinctions and values on those who use the languageor, we might say, who get
used by it (Parker 2004, 31). As I understand it, those who are used by the English
language are people who dont recognize the cultural heritage embedded in it and
who simply take it for granted.
When (for example) Seidlhofer (2001) writes about the ideological baggage
that comes with English, it is clear that she means external factors like its history as
a language of colonialism and its role in what Wright (2000, 95) calls the new geography of power. As this book seeks to show, however, there is also an internal cultural baggage. (I prefer to call it cultural rather than ideological because it is
313
usually unconscious.) English as a language of modernity and as a global language

has inherited much of that baggage.
Alongside centrifugal forces leading to the ongoing diversification of English,
there are also powerful centripetal tendencies, assisted by new technologies such
as satellite television and fueled by the need for English to be fully intelligible in
international communication. (See Crystal 2003b.) Furthermore, as the speech of
Singapores prime minister illustrates, what matters is not only intelligibility but
also a desire for acceptance and for success in achieving ones goals. For example,
it is just as important in international communication to be perceived as reasonable as to be simply understood.
Thus, rather than denying the existence and continued relevance of the cultural
baggage embedded in Anglo English, it is important to explore the contents of that
baggageimportant for practical, as well as intellectual, reasons: for language teaching, cultural literacy teaching, cross-cultural training, international communication, and so on. It is also important to denaturalize Anglo English and to identify
and acknowledge the historically shaped cultural meanings embedded in it, if only
so that they are no longer taken for granted as the voice of reason itself.
Notes
Chapter 1
1. The term English (as a noun) is used in at least two different senses. Most commonly, it is used to refer to what I am calling here Anglo English. In a more restricted use,
English stands for a loose conglomerate of language varieties derived historically from the
English spoken in Englandroughly, the same conglomerate that in the last two or three
decades has started to be referred to as Englishes.
2. A concept closely related to Anglo culture is that of Anglosphere (see Bennett 2004).
3. Recently, some Australian government departments have started to promote the use
of the term dob in in a positive sense, encouraging citizens to dob in illegal immigrants,
tax dodgers, dole bludgers, insurance fraudsters, and the like.
Chapter 2
1. For earlier attempts to articulate and justify some Anglo cultural scripts, see Wierzbicka
1991/2003a, 1994a, 1994c, 1997, 1999; Goddard 2003. See also Wierzbicka 2002c, 2003b; Goddard
and Wierzbicka 2004; and the studies in Goddard and Wierzbicka, eds., 2004.
2. Strauss and Quinn (1997, 209) talk about the ethnography of the inner life, based
largely on ethnographic interviews. The ethnography of thinking, as I understand it, is not
inconsistent with that idea, but it relies primarily on linguistic evidence (interpreted through
semantic analysis carried out in terms of universal human concepts).
3. Hopwood notes that this region as of his writing was divided into the states of Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and the West Bank of the Jordan under Israeli occupation, but, he
says, the term is still used to signify the whole areagreater Syriaand to underline that,
despite political frontiers, there still exists the concept of unity (Hopwood 1988, 1).
4. From a cross-linguistic perspective, the most striking piece of evidence is the emergence of the discourse particle well, which shows a desire to word ones thought well (i.e.,
carefully and cautiously). Frequent use of this careful particle is particularly characteristic of the interviews with Anglo politicians, who like to start their responses to questions with
a careful and cautious well.
5. To compare semantic domains across languages one needs a tertium comparationis,
that is, a universal semantic grid. The NSM set of primes provides such a grid, and think
315
316
Notes to Pages 4778
is one of its elements. In positing think as a universal semantic prime, NSM researchers do
not assume that all the uses of the English word think realize this prime (and nothing else).
The complex meaning of the English discourse marker I think discussed in this chapter is
a good example of a language-specific use of a word that in its other uses is an exponent of
a universal semantic prime. The universal syntactic frames that have been posited for think
are the following five (for detailed discussion, see Goddard 2002b and 2003; see also
Wierzbicka 1998d):
1. X thinks about Y [topic of thought]
2. X thinks: [quasi-quotational complement]
3. when X thinks about it, X thinks that []s [propositional complement anchored
in time]
4. X thinks like this [way of thinking]
5. X thinks something about Y [nonpropositional complement]
These frames are posited as universal, as is the prime think itself. The universality of think
(identified here, for practical reasons, in terms of its English exponent) is often missed or
denied because the English verb think is used more widely that the exponents of the same
prime in many (most) other languages. For example, Aijmer (1998, 283) states that there is
no corresponding verb in Swedish sharing the vagueness and multifunctionality of think but
the Swedish translations of I think require different verbs. If by corresponding verb Aijmer
means corresponding in usage, then no doubt she is right; this doesnt mean, however,
that there is no verb in Swedish corresponding in meaning to think in the relevant sense.
Nor does it mean that the English verb think presents a complex pattern of polysemy corresponding to lexical differentiation in other languages (Aijmer 1998, 277). As NSM researchers
have shown in many publications, patterns of polysemy can be identified only with reference to a set of semantic primes (see Wierzbicka 1996b; Goddard 2000b).
6. Linguistic evidence for the importance of good thinking in modern Anglo culture is discussed in chapter 4.
7. For further discussion of control over ones emotions in modern Anglo (and especially Anglo-American) culture, see, for example, Wierzbicka (1999, 258266); Hoffman (1989,
269270); Lutz (1990, 72).
8. Another characteristic Anglo conversational routine, or group of routines, is based
on the word consider: Would you consider doing X? You might consider doing X, and so
on. Not only does one in this way avoid saying, I want you to do it but also I want you to
think about it (not to mention I think you will do it because of this).
9. In an interview with Mary Catherine Bateson (1989), Johnetta Cole, the first black
woman president of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia (in the United States), reminisces
about her marriage to a white man (also an academic), whose family was at first strongly
opposed to his marriage to a Southern black. But on the other hand, they loved their son
and over the years we got pretty close, although getting close to his folk is about 1,500 yards
away from what I would call close. From the perspective of someone born in a very loving
black household, this is pretty cold stuff (p. 70). Cross-cultural interviews and memoirs
suggest, again and again, that there may be an inverse relationship between, roughly speaking, cultural scripts of personal autonomy and independence and cultural scripts of interpersonal closeness and warmth.
Chapter 3
1. See the table of primes in chapter 1 of this book.
2. It is worth noting that one can prove someone right (or prove someone wrong)
Notes to Pages 97102
317
but not prove someone good or prove someone true. Presumably, to prove someone right means inter alia to prove that they think well and that other people can know
this.
3. Arnold (1870) renders in this way the Greek prautes, known to the readers of the King
James version of the Bible as meekness. In this way, the Beatitude of the meek becomes,
by implication, the Beatitude of the reasonable.
4. The reluctance to make absolute moral judgments is also reflected in the presentday use of the words right and wrong in the frames right for and wrong for, as in the
following utterance from the Donahue show:
Theres been other living patterns in the history of the world and what is right for
some is not right for others. Maybe its wrong for her, okay. But maybe its right for
other people and we dont have a right to judge others. (Carbaugh 1988, 32)
5. Fernndez-Armesto writes that reason had its moment of highest prestige and
widest acceptance in the western world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (1998,
113) and that outside western or western-dominated societies reason has never attained
the high place in the common scale of values it won for a brief spell in Europe and America
(p. 87). But the western world is not a homogeneous entity, and judging by linguistic evidence, some effects of the Enlightenment may have lasted longer and reached
deeper in England and then America than they did, for example, in Italy, Spain, or even
France.
6. It is interesting to compare, for example, the title of a classic Russian book on ethics,
Losskij s (1991) Uslovija Absoljutnogo Dobra (The Conditions of the Absolute Good) with
the characteristic titles of many English and American books: Right and Wrong, The Place
of Reason in Ethics, Methods of Ethics, Reason over Conduct, Search for a Rational Ethics,
Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, and so on.
7. The importance of the word right (as an adjective) in modern Anglo culture is highlighted by the association with the noun right (and rights). The central place of rights talk
in modern English-speaking societies is a huge topic (see Fukuyama 2002) that cannot be
discussed here. Suffice it to say that in the linguistic consciousness of contemporary speakers of English, the two are closely related and that the appeal of notions like human rights
and individual rights may be heightened by the language-based conviction that it is right
for people to have those rights. For example, Francis Fukuyama, in his acclaimed Our
Posthuman Future, writes:
The language of rights has become, in the modern world, the only shared and widely
intelligible vocabulary we have for talking about ultimate human goals or ends,
and in particular, those collective goals or ends that are the stuff of politics. . . .
The great struggles over rights since the American and French revolutions are testimony to the political salience of this concept. The word right implies moral judgment (as in What is the right thing to do?) and is our principal gateway into a
discussion of the nature of justice and of these ends we regard as essential to our
humanity. (Fukuyama 2002, 108)
Fukuyama takes it for granted that the moral force of the language of rights is derived in part
from its association with the word right used as an adjective in sentences like What is the
right thing to do? Although Fukuyama refers here to both the American and the French
revolutions, it is likely that the semantic equivalents of rights in languages other than English (e.g., les droits in French, prava in Russian) do not have the same passionate moral
connotations as the English word rights, associated by the speakers of English with what is
the right thing to do.
318
Chapter 4
1. Gertrude Himmelfarb (2005) highlights the culture-specific character of the Anglo
faith in the ordinary reasonable man by contrasting the two Enlightenments, British and
French:
For the British philosophers, that social chasm was bridged by the moral sense and
common sense that were presumed to be innate in all people, in the lower classes
as well as the upper. The philosophes, allowing to the common people neither a
moral sense nor a common sense that might approximate reason, consigned them,
in effect, to a state of naturea brutalized Hobbesian, not a benign Rousseauean,
state of nature . . . (2005, 156)
As she points out, both Voltaire and Diderot were exceedingly contemptuous of the masses.
For example, Diderot wrote: Distrust the judgement of the multitude in matters of reasoning and philosophy; its voice is that of wickedness, stupidity, inhumanity, unreason, and
prejudice . . . The multitude is ignorant and stupefied . . . (Himmelfarb 2005, 154).
2. For example, Wilkins 1969 [1693] spoke of assent arising from such plain and clear
Evidence as doth not admit of any reasonable doubting (Quoted in Shapiro 1983, 85).
3. John Wilkins distinguishes moral certainty from physical and mathematical certainty as follows:
I call that Moral Certainty, which hath for its object such Beings as are less simple,
and do more depend upon mixed circumstances. Which though they are not capable of the same kind of Evidence with the former, so as to necessitate every mans
Assent, though his judgment be never so much prejudiced against them; yet may
they be so plain, that every man whose judgment is free from prejudice will consent unto them. And though there be no natural necessity, that such things must
be so, and that they cannot possibly be otherwise, without implying a contradiction; yet may they be so certain as not to admit of any reasonable doubt concerning them. (Wilkins 1969 [1693], 78)
The term reasonable doubt is linked here with the notion of every man whose judgment
is free from prejudice. In the same book, Wilkins speaks of such Evidence as was itself
sufficient to convince reasonable and unprejudiced men (p. 33) and also refers to beliefs
that every sober rational man, who will not offer violence to his own faculties, must submit
to (p. 40).
4. This is not to say that the phrase reasonable man has not been frequently linked,
from early on, with reasons. For example, Shapiro (1983, 34) notes that for the seventeenthcentury philosopher Walter Charlton substantive and satisfying Reasons . . . were sufficient to the full establishment of Truth in the mind of a reasonable man. But the question
is whether a reference to reasons is included in the meaning of the phrase reasonable man
itself.
5. It is interesting to note that in earlier (seventeenth- and eighteenth-century) usage
the word unreasonable was not linked, as it is now, with interpersonal interaction. For example, when Sir Charles Wolseley published his book The Unreasonableness of Atheism Made
Manifest (London 1675), the word unreasonableness in the title of his book had no such
implications. But for this very reason, today this title sounds archaic.
6. For a discussion of the differences between the English adverb reasonably and the
French adverb raisonnablement, see Wierzbicka, in press d).
7. I am not suggesting by any means that the English sensible means the same as the French
raisonnable. In fact, sensible stands for another culture-specific Anglo concept, linking good
319
thinking with practical wisdom (derived from experience). The practical and empirical character of sensible contrasts with the intellectual character of the French raisonnable. At the same
time, as the phrase sensible shoes illustrates, sensible has nothing to do with accommodating
other people (compare *reasonable shoes).
8. In her book entitled Reasonable Democracy, Simone Chamber discusses the dispute
between the Anglophone and Francophone communities in Quebec over language legislation. She notes that although they resolved their dispute largely through the power of reasoned argument, . . . the settlement took a long time (1996, 278). One wonders how the
concept of reasonable democracy was identified in French in this debate and whether the
discrepancy between reasonable democracy and dmocratie raisonnable was acknowledged
and taken into account.
Chapter 5
1. In proposing this explication of justice, I am trying to do what Locke called for more
than three centuries ago:
Justice is a word in every mans mouth, but most commonly with a very undetermined, loose signification; which will always be so, unless a man has in his mind
a distinct comprehension of the component parts that complex idea consists of:
and if it be decompounded, must be able to resolve it still on, till he at last comes
to the simple ideas that make it up . . . I do not say, a man needs stand to recollect,
and make this analysis at large, every time the word justice comes in his way: but
this at least is necessary, that he have so examined the signification of that name,
and settled the idea of all its parts in his mind, that he can do it when he pleases.
(Locke 1959, vol. II 152)
2. In his discussion of Fukuyamas distinction between high-trust and low-trust societies, Bennett (2004, 114) repeatedly uses the word fair. For example: Properly, this distinction should be termed one of societies with, variously, a high and low radius of trustthe
size of the circles within which one can expect fair dealing and impartial treatment.
Chapter 6
1. I say partial because make-causatives do not passivize straightforwardly but require
the addition of the word to: he was made to pump the tyres every morning. (See note 2.)
2. One can say, Mary was made to do it, with the added word to, but this is not a
simple passivization of John made Mary do it, which does not include to. For discussion,
see Wierzbicka (1988).
3. We (us) is not a semantic prime. For present purposes, however, it doesnt need to
be analyzed any further.
Chapter 7
1. The fact that first-person epistemic verbal phrases do not include the corresponding
mental verbs in their usual sense has numerous consequences for their grammatical and
discourse-related behaviour, as discussed in detail in Danielewiczowa (1998). To illustrate:
1. a. Probably she assumes that he did it himself.
b. *Probably I assume that he did it himself.
2. a. I think she assumes that he did it himself.
b. *I think I assume that he did it himself.
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3. a. She rightly assumes that he did it himself.
b. *I rightly assume that he did it himself.
4. a. I now think he did it himself.
b. *I now guess he did it himself.
5. a.Is she okay?Yes, I suppose she is.
b.Is she okay?*Yes, Peter supposes she is.
2. Danielewiczowa (1998) discusses a large number of Polish epistemic verbal phrases

comparable to those discussed here. Not many of these phrases, however, are widely used in
everyday language. Those that are so used include my~le$, sa$dze$, uwaz[am, przypuszczam, and
podejrzewam.
3. The key concept relevant to the area under discussion is that of knowing, in NSM
semantics, know, as argued in a recent book on Polish epistemic verbs by Danielewiczowa
(2002), who is drawing on the work of Bogusàwski (1981, 2002). In contrast to Danielewiczowa,
however, I believe that another equally important building block in the area in question is
that of thinkingin NSM semantics, think. As I will try to show, all the differences as well
as similarities between the individual epistemic adverbs can be explained clearly, intelligibly, and in a way that can be tested against the intuitions of native speakers, in semantic
explications based essentially on the concepts know and think and, more particularly, I
know and i think. The other concepts recurring in my explications of this area are negation (not), can, say, people, other, and a few others.
4. I am by no means assuming that a sentence-initial I suppose means exactly the same
as a sentence-internal or a sentence-final one. I will address the question of the semantic
differences between I suppose in these different positions in chapter 8. In this chapter, I will
use examples of sentences with I suppose regardless of the position of this phrase, but in the
explications I will focus on sentences with I suppose in the initial position. I will proceed in
the same way in the sections on the other epistemic verbal phrases.
5. The alert reader will notice that in some explications in this chapter the initial component is phrased as I say: I think like this (now), whereas in some others as I think now
that it is like this. The first phrasing suggests a thought currently going through the speakers
mind, the secondsomething like a provisional opinion about a factual matter. One test
that differentiates between the two types of phrases is that of intention: one can say, I think
Ill go, I guess Ill go, or I suppose Ill go but not I gather Ill go, I presume Ill go,
I take it Ill go or I bet Ill go.
6. As Cliff Goddard points out (personal communication), a lawyer could say, perhaps:
My client understands that . . . in the sense in question, but this is not normal colloquial
English.
Chapter 8
1. Cliff Goddard (personal communication) has suggested that perhaps may in fact
include an additional component in its meaning: I have thought about it. This could mean
that only maybe and not perhaps can be matched with vielleicht. I will ignore this possibility
in the present discussion, in order not to complicate the argument.
2. For example, Holmes writes:
All languages provide strategies for expressing epistemic modality, but the particular devices used differ from one language to another. In some languages, moreover, speakers cannot avoid providing information concerning the precise degree
of their commitment to the truth of every proposition they assert (Lyons 1981, p. 239).
321
This information is obligatorily expressed by means of a device such as a verb affix

(cf. Kiparsky and Kiparskys comments on Hidatsa, for instance, 1971, p. 367). In
English, speakers may choose whether or not to explicitly signal the extent of their
epistemic commitment to a proposition. (Holmes 1983, 101102)
The comments by the Kiparskys referred to in this passage read as follows:
There are languages which distinguish factive and non-factive moods in declarative sentences. For example, in Hidatsa (Matthews 1965) there is a factive mood
whose use in a sentence implies that the speaker is certain that the sentence is true,
and a range of other moods indicating hearsay, doubt, and other judgments of the
speaker about the sentence.
But is it true that, for example, in Hidatsa there is a whole range of moods forcing speakers to
provide information about, as Holmes put it, the precise degree of commitment to the truth
of every proposition (1983, 101102)? A quick check in Matthewss Hidatsa Syntax (1965, 99)
will show that this is not the case. Leaving aside two moods that can be glossed as I think that
you dont know and I think that you know, which clearly have nothing to do with the speakers
degree of commitment, there are four moods that can be characterized in these terms: Emphatic (I know or I do know), Period (I think), Quotative (someone says), and
Report (they say). If one compares these four moods with the lexicogrammatical classes of
epistemic phrases and epistemic adverbs in English, one must come to the conclusion that it
is English rather than Hidatsa that provides the speakers with the highly differentiated means
of indicating the precise degree of commitment to the propositions they assert.
3. Both Hanson (1987) and Traugott (1989) appear to assume that probably in the modern
sense goes back to the seventeenth century, and they both cite, in support of this dating, the
same example from the OED:
A source, from whence those waters of bitterness . . . have . . . probably flowed.
(Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, 1674)
However, the meaning of probably in this sentence is unclear without a larger context, especially because the OED quotes it in an abbreviated form. The full sentence in the original
source reads:
And here I cannot but let my self loose to say, that no Man can shew me a Source,
from whence those waters of bitterness, we now taste, have more probably flowed,
than from these unreasonable, unskilful, and precipitate Dissolutions of Parliaments; In which, by an unjust survey of the Passion, Insolence, and Ambition of
particular Persons, the Court measured the Temper and Affection of the Country;
and by the same standard the People considerd the Honour, Justice, and Piety of
the Court. . . . (Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, 1674)
Read in context, probably appears to mean here something closer to certainly or believably
(compare provably) than to the cautious and agnostic probably of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The seventeenth-century speaker is, in effect, saying, with rhetorical passion,
something like this: No one can show me a source from which those waters of bitterness
that we now taste could have more certainly/more believably/more obviously flowed than
from these unreasonable, unskillful, and precipitate dissolutions of parliaments.
4. Franklin points in this connection to the following wonderful fragment in Pascals
Provincial Letters (a fictitious dialogue between a naive Everyman and a Jesuit father, who
defends probabilismin Pascals view, a source of the Jesuit moral laxism):
322

Think you that Father Bauny and Basil Ponce are not able to render their opinion probable?
Probable wont do for me, said I, I must have certainty.
I can easily see, replied the good father, that you know nothing of the doctrine of probable opinions. If you did, you would speak in another strain. Ah! My
dear sir, I must really give you some instructions on this point; without knowing
this, positively you can understand nothing at all. It is the foundationthe very A,
B, C of our whole moral philosophy.
Glad to see him come to the point to which I had been drawing him on, I
expressed my satisfaction and requested him to explain what was meant by a probable opinion.
That, he replied, our authors will answer better than I can do. The generality of them, and among others the four-and-twenty elders, describe it thus: An
opinion is called probable, when it is founded upon reasons of some consideration.
Hence it may sometimes happen that a single very grave doctor may render an
opinion probable. The reason is added: For a man particularly given to study would
not adhere to an opinion unless he was drawn to it by a good and sufficient reason. [The quotation is from Escobar] (quoted in Franklin 2001, 97)
5. To see exactly what Butler has in mind, it will be helpful to read the context for this
characteristic statement. (Not surprisingly, this context includes a reference to Mr Lockes
Chapter on Probability.):
Probable evidence is essentially distinguished from demonstrative by this, that it admits
of degrees; and of all variety of them, from the highest moral certainty, to the very lowest presumption. . . . That which chiefly constitutes Probability is expressed in the word
Likely, i.e. like some truth, or true event . . . Probable evidence, in its very nature,
affords but an imperfect kind of information; and is to be considered as relative only to
beings of limited capacities. For nothing which is the possible object of knowledge,
whether past, present, or future, can be probable to an infinite Intelligence; since it
cannot but be discerned absolutely as it is in itself, certainly true, or certainly false.
But to Us, probability is the very guide of life. (Butler 1840 [1736], 1, 3)
6. At the same time, it is interesting to note that in many languages, including German, Russian, and Italian, the counterpart of the English manner adverb clearly can be used
as a predicative word describing the speakers attitude to what has been said.
7. In this context, it is also useful to note the following contrast in acceptability:
(a) Im certain that he lied to me.
(b) ? Im certain that I lied to him.
Both sentences (a) and (b) imply a subjective certainty, with no claim to knowledge, and
this makes sentence (b) odd, unless again the speaker is suffering from amnesia. But the adverb
certainlywhether it is used sentence-initially or sentence-internallyhas no similar restriction on first-person subjects (compare, e.g., the full acceptability of the sentence I certainly
lied to her).
8. It is interesting to note what Goossens says of Old English adverbs that he glosses as
certainly and very certainly: they are probably best regarded as reinforcements of an otherwise unqualified assertion (1982, 82). The same could be said, I suggest, of the present-day
sentence-initial word certainly.
9. On the basis of the OED, it can be conjectured that this table could be expanded in
the following way (the matter requires further investigation):
323
table 8.5 Some further conjectures on the historical expansion

of Epistemic Adverbs
16th
Century
seemingly
likely
clearly
supposedly
17th
Century
18th
Century
X?
X?
First half
of 19th
Century
Second half
of 19th
Century
X
X
X
X
X
X
20th
Century
X
X
X
X
10. This is not to say that my class of epistemic adverbs would be exactly coextensive
with Hansons. In particular, I think that admittedly, which figures on her list, is not epistemic
and that neither is definitely, which is mentioned elsewhere in her article. Definitely can
even appear in questions (e.g., Was he definitely there?), and when it is used in a declarative
sentence, it is what Goossens (1982) calls a reinforcement, not an epistemic qualification
of the statement. The function of admittedly is different again: it presents the statement as
an admission, but it doesnt weaken in any way the force of the assertion. For example, the
sentence Admittedly, I lied to her does not imply I dont say I know.
11. Speaking of the fairly recent acquisitions such as allegedly and arguably, Hanson
comments: Perhaps once the class was firmly established additions to it began to be freely
made (1987, 142). I think this is an insightful comment, as is also the note attached to it:
There is also an interesting point to be made with regard to the syntactic distribution of these adverbs. . . . In all cases, the first instances of the speaker-oriented
meanings of the epistemic adverbs occur in this [auxiliary] position, co-occurring
with either a copula or a modal. Nowadays, most of the ones that the OED gives
no epistemic citation for are ones that seem less natural or impossible in initial
position. Perhaps these remain in some kind of transitional stage.
Chapter 9
1. I note that in the television program for preschoolers watched avidly by my two-yearold granddaughter, the speech of animal characters abounds with value terms like unfair
and epistemic phrases like I suppose (I spose) and that the legacy of the British Enlightenment is being passed on in this way to a two-year-old toddler.
2. The earliest record of the expression fair trial in the OED is dated 1623. However, in
the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the meaning of fair changed considerably, and consequently, so did that of fair trial (see Langford, to appear).
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Index
Index
Note: In addition to subjects and proper names, this index lists (in italics) words from several
languages that are discussed in the book. Non-English words are followed by a rough gloss for
ease of reference, but this must not be taken as equivalent in meaning to the word discussed in
the text. Abbreviations used include Du[tch], Fr[ench], Ge[rman], Gr[eek], It[alian],
Ja[panese], La[tin], Po[lish], Ru[ssian], Sw[edish]. Other abbreviations are adj[adjective],
n[noun], pl[plural], pp[past participle], vb[verb].
accuracy, 31, 32
accuracy, value, 2629, 30, 33, 34, 37
accurate, 31, 34
address, forms of, 102
adjective
epistemic 249, 254, 267
modal, 250, 252
admittedly, 323 n.10
adverb
epistemic (sentential), 247264, 266295,
321 n.2, 323 n.10
manner, 272, 273, 294, 322 n.6
modal, 250, 252, 294
Africa, 9, 213
Age of Enlightenment, 109. See also
Enlightenment
Age of Faith, 243
Age of Reason, 109, 119, 243
alleged, 35
alleged, concept, 16
allegedly, 243, 247, 248, 253, 257, 262, 279,
281284, 293, 300, 323 n.11
amae (dependency, Ja), 135
America, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 21, 24, 25, 36, 84,
9698, 111, 117, 119, 132, 135, 172, 207,
265, 301, 306, 311, 317 n.5
American conversational routines, 98. See
also Anglo conversational routines
American culture, 49, 80. See also Anglo

(American) culture
American public discourse, 300
American (U.S.) English, 5, 6, 29, 38, 145,
206, 210, 247, 268, 295, 300
Americanism, 228
angeblich (supposedly/allegedly, Ge), 248
Anglicanism, 97
Anglo (American) culture, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13,
21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 3537, 39, 41, 42,
4547, 49, 50, 54, 55, 65, 66, 68, 74,
80, 82, 84, 9395, 100, 109, 131133,
136, 140, 141, 142, 151, 155, 160, 166,
141, 167, 190, 191, 199, 201, 224, 242,
249, 251, 300, 301, 315 Ch.1 n.2,
316 n.7
Anglo (American) law, 120, 123, 124, 140, 301.
See also British law
Anglo Australian culture, 163
Anglo concept, 10, 142, 301, 303, 305, 310
Anglo conversational norms, 199, 305
Anglo conversational routines, 309, 316 n.8
Anglo cultural attitudes, 267. See also Anglo
(cultural) values
Anglo cultural construct, 226. See also Anglo
concept
Anglo cultural norms, 12
Anglo cultural patterns, 22
340
Index
Anglo (cultural) script, 25, 26, 30, 31, 35, 36,
47, 5052, 5558, 131, 138, 190, 288, 306,
307, 315 Ch.2 n.1
Anglo (cultural) values, 12, 140, 143, 312. See
also Anglo cultural attitudes
Anglo democratic ethos, 195
Anglo discourse patterns, 35. See also Anglo
ways of speaking
Anglo English, 57, 9, 1214, 19, 166, 299,
304, 305, 311313, 315 Ch.1 n.1
Anglo (English) discourse, 35, 3740, 45, 46,
54, 55, 68, 99, 100, 104, 116, 137, 140, 141,
143, 199, 207, 259, 263, 267, 268, 295
Anglo (English) key word, 309
Anglo folk philosophy, 71
Anglo society, 151, 173, 251
Anglo ways of speaking, 21, 22, 48. See also
Anglo discourse patterns
Anglo ways of thinking, 40, 105
Anglocentric bias, 65
Anglophone countries, 7
Anglosphere, 173, 315 Ch.1 n.2
annehmen: ich nehme an (I assume/take, Ge),
206
anscheinend (apparently/seemingly, Ge), 248
antagligen (probably/very likely/presumably,
Sw), 262
antiemotionalism, 47
apologize, 113
apparemment (apparently, Fr), 248
apparently, 243, 247, 248, 257, 262, 278, 279,
282, 283, 287, 292, 293
approximator, 29
Apresjan, Valentina, 93
Apte, Mahadev, 54
Aquinas, Thomas, 66
Arabic language, 25, 35, 43, 299, 311
Archer, Margaret, 57
arguably, 247, 248, 262, 284, 293, 300, 323 n.11
Aristotle, 161, 165
Arnold, Matthew, 97, 317 n.3
Arpino, Giovanni, 76
Asano, Yuko, 93
ASEAN (countries), 14, 301, 310312
Ashcraft, Richard, 36, 207
ask, 185
assertion, 41, 46, 48, 255, 267, 275, 277, 285,
295, 322 n.8, 323 n.10
assume, 239
I assume, 206, 207, 239, 240, 247
assumptions, cultural, 5, 11, 13, 17, 45, 49, 152,
166, 198, 307
Athabascans, 306, 307
attitudes, cultural, 64, 139, 198
Audi, Robert, 156, 157
341
Austin, J. L, 204, 217

Austin, Jane, 45, 290, 292
Australia, 49, 11, 14, 21, 22, 24, 29, 45, 86, 98,
162, 163, 300, 301
Australian (Aboriginal) languages, 161, 171,
172
Australian culture, 6, 9
Australian English, 69, 29, 145, 268
autonomy, 50, 57, 58, 194. See also personal
autonomy
Bacon, Francis, 31, 110
bad, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70
Baldauf, Scott, 305
Barnstone, Aliki, 96
basically, 128
bastard, 101
Bateson, Mary, 316 n.9
Bauman, Richard, 42, 155
Bayley, John, 285
Beeching, Kate, 290
behave, 101
behavior, 101
Belfellah, Abdellatif, 4, 57
belief, 120
believably, 321 n.3
believe, 204, 216, 218, 219, 243246
believe in, 213, 219, 220
believe someone, 218
I believe, 206, 207, 213218, 220, 243246,
259, 288, 311, 312
I believe that, 213, 216218
Bellah, Robert, 68, 76
Bellert, Irena, 249, 252, 256
Bennett, James, 174, 315 Ch.1 n.2, 319 Ch.5
n.2
Benveniste, Emile, 205, 206, 208
Berlin, Brent, 160
Berlin, Isaiah, 56, 187, 201
Besemeres, Mary, 6, 7, 11, 21, 25, 57, 102, 300
bestimmt (for certain, Ge), 248
bet, vb, 236
I bet, 207, 236, 237, 240
Betlem, Elisabeth, 8
Bevan, E. Dean, 85
bias, concept, 16
Bible, 96, 156, 317 n.3
Binmore, Ken, 162
blijkbaar (apparently/evidently/obviously,
Du), 248
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, 84, 93
Boas, Franz, 22, 152
Bogusàwski, Andrzej, 250, 320 n.3
Bond, Michael, 17, 18
bonum (good, La), 66
342
Index
Bowen, Charles 108

Boyle, Robert, 110, 119, 265
Brett, Lily, 45
Briggs, Charles, 42, 155
Britain (UK), 49, 11, 14, 21, 24, 33, 36, 73, 96,
97, 99, 110, 111, 117, 119, 135, 207, 246,
259, 265, 299301
British Academy, 112
British empire, 301
British English, 5, 6, 29, 145, 268, 300
British law, 107, 109. See also Anglo
(American) law
Britishness, 213
Brown, Donald, 160, 161
Brown, Penelope, 11, 12, 34, 57, 64, 199
Brown, Roger, 25
Brunak, Joanna, 251
Buechner, Frederick, 12
Bunyan, John, 69, 96, 97
Burke, Edmund, 132
Burton, Richard, 67
Butler, Bishop, 268, 322 n.5
Butler, Sue, 8
Btow, H., 28
Buzo, Alexander, 75, 8991
Caffentzis, Constantine, 302
Calvinism, 96
Calvinist doctrine of predestination, 82
can, vb, 256
Canada, 5
Canadian English, 300
Canagarajah, A. Suresh, 310
Cantonese, 306. See also Chinese language;
Mandarin
Carbaugh, Donald, 87, 93, 94, 98, 317 n.4
Carlyle, Thomas, 45, 273, 292
case, 42
causation, interpersonal, 173, 175, 183
causative, 174. See also construction,
causative
certainement (most probably/most likely/
surely, Fr), 248
certainly, 247, 248, 254, 284287, 321 n.3
Chafe, Wallace, 253
challenge, 311, 312
Chamber, Simone, 319 n.8
Chappell, Hilary, 172
Charlton, Walter, 318 n.4
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 109
Chew, Phyllis Ghim-Lian, 311
China, 9, 15, 301
Chinese culture, 3, 306
Chinese language, 3, 43, 51, 299, 311
Chomsky, Noam, 16, 20
Chow, Claire, 7, 11
Christianity, 99, 134
Cinque, Guglielmo, 251253, 286
clause, parenthetical, 256
clearly, 247, 248, 253, 254, 257, 262, 272275,
286, 322 n.6, 323 n.9
Clyne, Michael, 308
Cole, Johnetta, 316 n.9
commitment, 311, 312
commitment, concept, 16
commitment, epistemic, 251
common sense, 109
communication
cross-cultural, 15, 20, 22, 46, 309
intercultural, 20, 21, 24, 305310
international, 311, 313
competence, 3
bicultural, 309
intercultural communication, 310
composure, 50
compromise, concept, 16
compromiser, 29
conceivably, 247, 248, 254, 257, 262, 277, 278,
287, 292, 293
concept, key, 11, 102, 301
concept, universal (human), 23, 24, 65, 160,
175, 260, 310, 315 Ch.2 n.2
conduct, n, 101
confirm: I confirm, 204
Congreve, William, 97
conjecture: I conjecture, 241
Conklin, Harold, 171
conscience, 120
consider, 316 n.8
considerate, 142
consideration, 58
constater (note/notice, vb, Fr), 225
construction, causative, 172, 174, 175, 183. See
also causative
controversial, 311
conversational routine, 11, 25, 32, 33, 53, 54,
56, 63, 64, 7476, 85, 86, 89, 90, 94, 102,
198
conversational tool, 220
conviction, 122
cool, 49
coolheaded, 42, 49
coolheaded, 48
coolheadedness, 46, 48, 49
cooperation, 89, 187, 193, 194, 197, 209
corps (body, Fr), 73
correctness, value, 27
could, 277, 278, 292
Cowper, William, 70
croir: je crois (I think, Fr), 206, 220
Index
Crossan, John, 76
cross-cultural writer, 11
Crystal, David, 35, 9, 299, 313
cultural scripts, theory of, 18, 2224. See also
script, cultural
culture, 3, 6
Curti, M., 36
Danielewiczowa, Magdalena, 250, 319 Ch.7
n.1, 320 Ch. 7 nn.2, 3
Danquah, Meri, 7, 11
Darwin, Charles, 239
Daston, Lorraine, 265
dat-causative (let-causative, Ru), 199, 201
dat-construction (let-construction, Ru), 199
201
data, 42
Davis, Wayne, 144
Dawkins, Richard, 239
death of conviction, 98
definitely, 275, 323 n.10
Defoe, Daniel, 245, 292
deintensifier, 29
democracy, 95, 98, 172, 173, 219
Dench, Alan, 172
denken: ich denke (I think, Ge), 37, 206
denken: ik denk (I think/suppose, Du), 37
derivation, expressive, 171
Descartes, Ren, 73, 109, 110
Diamond, Cora, 101, 300
Dickens, Charles, 86
Diderot, Denis, 318 n.1
dikaiosyne (justice, Gr), 156
diminisher, 29, 128
directions, 173
discourse, 86, 300
marker, 209, 255, 287, 316 n.5
pattern, 11, 21
strategy, 12
dispassionate, 47
diversity, 110
dob, 8, 9
dob in, 8, 315 Ch.1 n.3
dobber, 8, 9
dobbing, concept, 8, 9
doch (Ge), 259
Doi, Takeo, 135
doubt, vb, 260
I doubt, 260
downtoner, 29, 38, 128
Drasdauskiene, M.-L., 37
droits, (rights, pl, Fr), 317 n.7
duidelijk (clearly, Du), 248
Dutch language, 37, 247, 248, 304
343
Eades, Diana, 191

Eakin, Paul, 143
education, cross-cultural, 22, 24, 308
efficiency, concept, 16
effusiveness, 26
Egypt, 26
elaboration, cultural, 171, 183, 202, 207, 251
Eliot, George, 292
Emerson, Ralph, 79
empiricism, 33, 34, 43, 73, 224
England, 119, 228, 315 Ch.1 n.1, 317 n.5
English as a foreign language (EFL), 3, 14, 15,
309
English as a language of international
aviation, 3, 304
English as a lingua franca, 1315, 301, 305,
307, 310, 311
English as a native language, 4, 6,
English causative constructions, 202
English culture, 96, 166. See also Anglo
(American) culture
English language, 35, 8, 9, 12, 21, 25, 2935,
37, 38, 42, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 62, 65, 66
68, 7277, 7982, 8587, 97102, 105,
109, 110, 111, 115117, 119, 120, 122, 133,
135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 142, 144, 152, 154,
156, 160163, 171173, 178, 184186, 188,
192, 197, 199, 202, 203, 204208, 224, 225,
229, 243, 246, 247251, 253, 255, 256, 259,
262267, 271274, 291296, 299, 300,
302305, 307313, 315 Ch.1 n.1, 316 n.5,
317 n.7, 320 n.6, 321 n.2, 322 n.6
English, learning of, 29
English, native speakers of, 309
English, teaching of, 10, 15, 251, 309
English, varieties of, 46, 14, 18, 311
Englishes, 46, 9, 11, 13, 300, 305, 310, 315
Ch.1 n.1
English-speaking communities, 4
English-speaking world, 3
Enlightenment, 10, 38, 42, 73, 81, 82, 95, 97,
99, 100, 104, 109, 110, 131, 135, 259, 264,
265, 317 n.5, 318 n.1
British Enlightenment, 104, 109, 117, 134,
135, 152, 213, 229, 242, 246, 300, 318 n.1,
323 n.1
English Enlightenment, 109
French Enlightenment, 318 n.1
post-Enlightenment, 104, 154, 300
pre-Enlightenment, 243, 300
Scottish Enlightenment, 300
enough, 128
entitle, 58
entitlement, 57
equality, 146
344
Index
quitablement (equitably/fairly, Fr), 303

equity, 58, 146, 152
equity rights, 57
Esperanto, 304
esprit (mind, Fr), 73
estimate, vb, 204
I estimate, 241
ethics of right and wrong, 72
ethnocausology, 174
ethnocentrism, 10
terminological, 306
ethnogeology, 174
ethnography of speaking, 23
ethnography of thinking, 23, 315 Ch.2 n.2
ethnozoology, 174
Europe, 4, 43, 317 n.5
European languages, 31, 32, 35, 37, 42, 43, 52,
53, 62, 6466, 70, 71, 77, 100, 104, 138,
141, 155, 156, 172, 174, 206, 220, 224, 226
249, 262, 264, 265, 299, 312
evidemment (of course/obviously, Fr), 248
evidence, 10, 73, 74
evidence, concept, 16, 56
evidently, 243, 247249, 257, 262, 270275,
286, 292, 293
evil, 66, 100, 102
exact, 31, 32
exactly, 10, 32, 33
exaggeration, 27, 30, 126, 127
expect, 113, 226228
I expect, 206, 207, 226229, 239, 243
explication, semantic 17, 250
exponent, lexical, 17
extremely, 31
fact, 4144
as a matter of fact, 300
facts, 10, 43, 44
facts, 41, 42, 45, 46, 109
fair, 710, 141167, 300, 303, 319 Ch.5 n.2
fair, concept, 16, 310
fair dinkum, 8
a fair go, 8, 146
fair play, 8, 146, 164, 165
fair prices, 146, 147
fair treatment, 57
fair trial, 323 n.2
fairly, 58, 128, 311, 312
fairness, 9, 144, 151, 154, 166, 303
fairness, concept, 16, 132, 141, 142, 144147,
152155, 159163, 165, 166
fairness, value, 141, 143, 144, 154, 162
false, 63
feel: I feel, 206, 241
Fehr, B., 50
Fernndez-Armesto, Felipe, 33, 7274, 76, 83,

98, 122, 317 n.5
Fernando, Chitra, 13
Ferreira, M. Jamie, 110
find, 225
I find, 207, 220226
finden: ich finde (I find, Ge), 206, 224, 225
Finnish language, 77
Fischer, Olga, 189, 202
Fletcher, George, 140, 141, 165, 302
Foley, William, 249, 252, 256
folk philosophy, 152
folk theory, 13
force, n, 124
force, vb, 182, 183, 202
Ford, John, 87
foresee: I foresee, 241
frmodligen (presumably, Sw), 262
frame, universal syntactic, 316 n.5
France, 42, 265
Franklin, Benjamin, 68, 72, 84, 97, 129
Franklin, James, 263267, 321 n.4, 322 n.4
freedom, 203
freedom, 199
freedom from imposition, 57
freedom of choice, 57
French language, 31, 33, 62, 66, 70, 73, 74,
79, 100, 104, 138, 139, 154, 161, 162, 206,
220, 221, 224226, 248, 259, 262, 263, 273,
290, 299, 301, 303, 311
Friedman, P., 121
Friedrich, Paul, 171
Frosh, S., 263
Fukuyama, Francis, 167, 173, 317 n.7, 319
Ch.5 n.2
Gabain, Marjorie, 161
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 10, 11, 23
Galsworthy, John, 136
Gass, Susan, 309
Gassendi, Pierre, 265
gather, 211, 246
I gather, 206, 207, 210212, 234, 243, 247
Geist (mind/spirit, Ge), 73
gentleman, 103
gerecht (just, Ge), 303
Gerechtigkeit (justice, Gr), 156, 303
German language, 4, 31, 37, 43, 57, 62, 66, 73,
74, 77, 79, 100, 141, 154, 156, 160, 161,
174, 175, 184, 186, 188, 189, 191, 197, 201,
202, 206, 220, 224, 226, 247, 248, 250,
259, 262, 263, 273, 287, 295, 299, 301,
303, 322 n.6
Germany, 29
get-causative, 177179, 183, 185, 202
Index
get-construction, 174, 178180, 202
gewiss (certainly, Ge), 259
Gigerenzer, Gerd, 265, 267
Gilbert, W. S., 114, 129
Gilman, Albert, 25
Glanville, Joseph, 119
glauben: ich glaube (I think/believe, Ge), 37,
206, 220
Goddard, Cliff, 11, 1618, 23, 24, 27, 30, 38,
54, 55, 65, 70, 306, 308, 315 Ch.2 n.1, 316
n.5, 320 nn.1, 6
Goffman, Erving, 290
Gonzalez, Andrew, 310
good, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70, 73, 144, 151
goodness, 159
Goossens, Louis, 291, 322 n.8, 323 n.10
Gospels, 25, 102
Graddol, David, 299
grammar, philosophy of, 174
grammar, universal, 17, 23, 24
Gray, Simon, 75, 88
great, 104
Greek language, 156
greet, 113
greetings, 102
Grice, Herbert, 11, 34, 64
Grotius, Huge, 265
guess, vb, 204, 209, 246
I guess, 204, 206, 207, 209, 210, 237
guilt, 67
Hacking, Ian, 263, 264, 267
Hahn, Anna, 245
Hale, Kenneth, 172
Hall, Edward, 24
Hambly, David, 108, 109
Hamilton, W., 33
Hanson, Kristin, 291, 293, 294, 321 n.3, 323
n.10
Hanuno language, 171
hardly, 34
Hargrave, Susanne, 162
Harr, Rom, 57
Harris, Randy, 20
Harrison, Jonathan, 63
have-causative, 172, 175179, 183, 185, 189, 202
have-construction, 172, 174, 176178, 185, 202
Hayes, Robert, 108, 109
Hayhow, Mike, 4
hear: I hear, 241
heated arguments, 47
Heath, Jeffrey, 172
Hebrew language, 141
hein (Fr), 259
Hermann, Nina, 268, 269
345
Herrick, Robert, 67
Hibberd, Jack, 90
Hidatsa language, 321 n.2
Higden, Ranulf, 264
highly, 31
Himmelfarb, Gertrude, 318 n.1
Hinglish, 305
Hirsch, Eric, 10
Hobbes, Thomas, 110, 273
Hoffman, Eva, 21, 57, 84, 316 n.7
Hofstede, Geert, 24
Holcombe, Chester, 309
Holland, 265
Holmes, Janet, 251, 262, 320 Ch.8 n.2, 321 n.2
honesty, 67
Hong Kong, 9, 305, 312
honorifics, 251
Hopwood, Derek, 26, 315 Ch.2 n.3
Hornby, Nick, 137
Howell, Wilbur, 37
Huebler, Axel, 28, 29, 34, 128
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 5, 9, 12
Hume, David, 31, 74, 99, 110
Huxley, Thomas, 32, 97
Hymes, Dell, 23
identity, ethnic, national, 7
imagine: I imagine, 206, 207, 235, 236, 243
immigrants, 7, 8, 11, 20, 25, 47, 58, 163, 301.
See also refugees
impartial, concept, 16
imperative, 174, 189
bare, 22, 25, 308, 309
straight, 183
impose, 55
imposing, 192, 193
imposition, 58
inaccuracy, value, 27
indeed, 275, 287291
India, 9, 11, 305
Indian English, 6, 11
Indonesia, 309
indubitably, 284
influence, 53
inform, 191
injustice, 159
instructions, 173
intensifier, 43, 276
interjection, 290
into-causative, 179
into-construction, 179
intolerance, 134
invite, 53
Iraq, 309
Ireland, 5
346
Index
Israel, 302, 315 Ch.2 n.3

Israeli culture, 84
Italian language, 62, 66, 70, 74, 76, 77, 79,
224, 300, 301, 322 n.6
Italy, 317 n.5
Jackendoff, Ray, 249, 251, 254, 287, 288, 290,
293, 294
Jackson, Gabriele, 36, 37, 207
Japan, 251
Japanese culture, 3, 4, 93
Japanese language, 3, 4, 12, 43, 135, 175, 206,
251, 287
Jefferson, Thomas, 68, 71, 229
Jewish culture, 93
John Paul II, 66
Johnson, Oliver, 64
Johnson, Samuel, 132
Jones, R. Kent, 304
Jordan, 315 Ch.2 n.3
Jucker, Andreas, 295
judgment, 120
judgment, 35
judgmental, 82
just, adj, 142, 145, 154, 156158, 161
juste (just/fair, Fr), 161
justice, 157159, 303, 319 Ch.5 n.1
justice, concept, 142, 152, 154157, 159161
justice (justice/fairness, Fr), 161
justicia (justice, Sp), 303
justifiable, 139
Kachru, Braj, 3, 5, 6, 10, 14
Kachru, Yamuna, 309, 310
Kandiah, Thiru, 15, 16
Kant, Immanuel, 154
Karlsson, Susanna, 53
Kasper, Gabriele, 248, 251
Kay, Paul, 160
Kelly, Erin, 144
kennelijk (obviously, Du), 248
Kerr, Katherine, 71
Kerry, John, 309
Kim, Young Yun, 20, 21
kind, adj, 144
King, J. T., 111
Kingston, Maxine Hong, 11
kinship, 172
Kiparsky, Carol, 321 n.2
Kiparsky, Paul, 321 n.2
Kirkpatrick, Andy, 307
klaarblijkelijk (clearly, Du), 248
know, 204
I dont know, 39, 208, 209, 295
I know, 295
knowledge, 35, 253

to the best of my knowledge, 34
knowledge, cultural, 11
Kochman, Thomas, 49, 50, 56
Koenig, Robert, 304
Kohlberg, Lawrence, 64
Korean language, 43
Krper (body Ge), 73
Kramsch, Claire, 7, 14
Krasnick, Harry, 301, 309, 310
Kristeva, Julia, 7
Kuhn, Thomas, 18
Lahiri, Jhumpa, 11
Lakoff, Robin, 51
Lang, Ewald, 249, 254
Langford, Ian, 323 n.2
language, teaching, 313
lassen-causative (let-causative, Ge), 184186,
188, 189, 191
lassen-construction (let-construction, Ge),
175, 184, 185, 201, 202
Latin language, 109, 263265
law, international, 301
Lebanon, 315 Ch.2 n.3
Leech, Geoffrey, 11, 34, 64, 256
left, adj, 70, 82
Leibniz, G. W., 17
let-causative, 172, 183185, 188, 189, 199, 201
203
let me do Z for you, 193195
let of cooperative dialogue, 196198
let of cooperative interaction, 197198
let of cooperative thinking, 198199
let of intentional interpersonal
causation, 200
let of nonprevention, 199
let of permission, 188
let of shared information, 191193
let of tolerance, 189, 190, 200
lets do Z, 195196
let-construction, 172, 174, 184, 186, 187, 190
193, 196, 199, 201, 202
Levin, David, 84, 97
Levinson, Stephen, 11, 12, 34, 57, 64, 199
Lewis, C. S., 281
Lewis, Clarence Irving, 62
lexicon, universal, 17
Li, Ming, 14
lie, vb, 45
white lies, 45
likely, 247, 248, 252, 257, 259, 262, 268270,
284, 323 n.9
Lincoln, Abraham, 68
lingua franca, 9
Index
literacy, cultural, 10, 21, 313
Lithuanian language, 37
Livingston, D. W., 111
Locke, John, 22, 31, 3537, 39, 40, 48, 50, 55,
73, 74, 81, 97, 99, 109, 110, 116, 119, 122,
128, 134, 154, 155, 207, 242, 246, 264,
265, 268, 294296, 301, 302, 319 Ch.5
n.1, 322 n.5
Losskij, N. O., 317 n.6
Luntz, Harold, 108, 109
Lutheranism, 82
Lutz, Catherine, 49, 316 n.7
Lynch, T., 157
Lyons, John, 250, 251, 275, 320 Ch.8 n.2
Macauley, Thomas, 97
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 99
Maclean, Kenneth, 36
Mahapatra, M., 65
Maher, Brigid, 241
make-causative, 172, 175, 176, 179, 182, 183,
202, 319 Ch.6 n.1
make-construction, 172, 174, 177, 180182, 202,
203
Malay culture, 308
Malay language, 43, 65, 308
Malouf, David, 7, 8, 148, 163, 165, 193, 299,
300
malum (bad, La), 66
Mandarin, 306. See also Chinese language;
Cantonese
Manson, Michael, 96
marker
epistemic, 229
hesitation, 209
Marshall, Herbert, 66
Marx, Karl, 156
Matsumoto, Yoshiko, 12, 199
Matthews, George, 321 n.2
Mautner, Thomas, 155
may, 277, 278
Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 66, 100
maybe, 248, 250, 278, 287, 320 Ch.8 n.1
McArthur, Tom, 5, 9, 310
meinen: ich meine (I think/mean, Ge), 37, 206
Merlan, Francesca, 172
Mersenne, Marin, 265
merzavec (scoundrel, Ru), 101, 102
metalanguage, semantic, 174. See also natural
semantic metalanguage
Middle English, 189, 191, 203, 294
Middle-Eastern, 25, 27, 57
Middle-Eastern ways of speaking, 48
might, 277, 278, 292
Mikes, George, 28
347
Miller, J. G., 65
Miller, Laura, 12, 13
Milton, John, 96, 293
mind, 73, 120
minimizer, 29
Mistry, Rohinton, 11
modal, epistemic, 251
modality, epistemic, 224
Modern English, 189
mglicherweise (possibly, Ge), 248
Moivre, Abraham de, 267
Montaigne, Michael de, 264
Montano, Josie, 141
mood, indicative, 191
moral philosophy, 62
Morano, Anthony, 117, 119121
More, Thomas, 242244, 292
Morgan, Edmund, 96
Morris, Lewis, 68
Muggeridge, M., 33
Mulac, Anthony, 38, 39, 206, 210, 255, 295
Murray, L., 33
must, vb, 222, 251, 252, 256
my~le$ (I think, Po), 320 Ch. 7 n.2
Naipaul, Vidiadhar, 11, 175, 181
name, proper, 171
natural semantic metalanguage, 1619, 22, 23,
160, 188, 201, 207, 246, 250, 255, 307,
308, 310, 315 n.5, 316 n.5
naturalism, 110
Ndebele, N. S., 312
negative freedom, 56, 187, 201
negodjaj (scoundrel, Ru), 101, 102
neo-Griceans, 295
nepravda (untruth, Ru), 92
New Zealand, 4, 5, 98
New Zealand English, 300
Newby, T. G., 303
Newton, Isaac, 31, 72, 110
Nichols, Johanna, 253
ni-construction (Ja), 175
niesprawiedliwy (unjust, Po), 156
Nietzsche, 167
Nigerian English, 6
nondiscrimination, 146
nonexaggeration, 29, 30, 37
nonexaggeration, value, 29, 30, 37
nonimposing, 54, 55, 287, 288
nonimposition, 187, 197
noninterference, 187, 199, 201, 203
not fair, 143145, 148, 153
not just, 145
Novak, Michael, 21
NSM. See natural semantic metalanguage
348
Index
Nuyts, Jan, 247249

object: I object, 204
obviously, 247, 248, 253, 257, 262, 274, 275,
286, 290, 292, 293
o-construction (Ja), 175
of course, 274, 287291
offensichtlich (evidently, Ge), 248
offer, vb, 53
okay, 98
Okudaira, Akiko, 312
Old English, 322 n.8
ongetwijfeld (undoubtedly, Du), 248
opinion, 94, 242
opportunity, 311
opportunity, concept, 16
orders, 173
osuzdat (judge/try/condemn/convict, Ru),
102
Ovid, 66
Paikeday, Thomas, 14
Parakrama, Arjuna, 13
Parker, David, 10, 11, 311, 312
Parker, Stephen, 4
participle, past, 280
particle, 287291
discourse (modal), 248, 250, 257, 287, 288,
315 n.4
interactional, 206
interactive 259, 288, 294
Pascal, B., 265, 266, 321 n.4
Patterson, Orlando, 10
Pattman, R., 263
Pavlenko, Aneta, 11
Paxman, Jeremy, 166
Pennycook, Alastair, 311
penser: je pense (I think, Fr), 206
Peoples Republic of China. See China
perhaps, 248250, 276, 277, 287, 320 Ch.8 n.1
permit, vb, 187, 188
personal, 50
personal autonomy, 12, 5052, 5456, 173, 201,
203, 308, 316 n.9
Philippines, 171
Phillipson, Robert, 311
Phoenix, A., 263
phrase
adjectival, 270, 281
epistemic (verbal), 41, 204, 206, 210, 211,
213, 216, 220, 226, 227, 229, 230, 233, 234,
236, 237, 239243, 246, 247, 249, 253
255, 259, 288, 295, 319 Ch.7 n.1, 320
Ch.7 n.2, 321 n.2
parenthetical, 256
performative, 204
quasi-performative, 217, 218
verbal, 270, 272, 281
Piaget, Jean, 161
Pinker, Steven, 160
Plato, 155, 156
ploxo (bad, Ru), 66, 100
podejrzewam (I suspect, Po), 320 Ch.7 n.2
podlec (scoundrel, Ru), 101, 102
Podleskaya, Vera, 199
Poland, 84
Polish culture, 51
Polish language, 37, 77, 156, 161, 163, 224, 301,
320 n.3
political philosophy, 154, 155
polysemy, 189, 262, 316 n.5
Popkin, Richard, 265
Porpora, Douglas, 61, 63, 76, 8083, 88, 91,
98, 102, 309
Porter, Roy, 109, 110, 117, 120, 128, 135, 155
posluat (listen, Ru), 200
posmotret (look, vb, Ru), 200
possibly, 247, 248, 257, 262, 276278, 292, 293
postcolonial world, 12
post-Englishes, 305
post-Lockean, 211, 246, 247, 295
postupat (act/behave, Ru), 101
prautes (meekness, Gr), 317 n.3
prava (rights, pl, Ru), 317 n.7
pravda (truth, Ru), 92
precise, 31, 32
precisely, 10, 32
precision, 32
precision, 33
Preisler, Bent, 15
pre-Shakespearean, 30
pressure, 52, 53
presumably, 7, 243, 247, 248, 252, 257260,
262, 271, 280, 287, 292, 293, 300
presumably, concept, 16
presume: I presume, 206, 207, 212, 240, 243,
247, 252, 256260, 280
prtendument (supposedly/allegedly, Fr), 248
pretty, adv, 128
Prichard, H. A., 151
primes, semantic, 249, 258, 316 n.5, 319 n.3
primes, (universal) conceptual, 17. See also
concept, universal (human)
Pringlish, 305
privacy, 7
probability, 267, 268
probable, 264, 266270
probablement (probably, Fr), 248, 262, 263
probably, 247249, 252, 253, 257, 261263,
265268, 270, 292, 293, 321 n.3
Index
procedural morality, 80, 165
pros and cons, 300
Protestant Reformation, 82, 96
Protestantism, 82, 135
przypuszczam (I suppose, Po), 320 Ch.7 n.2
Puerto Rican English, 305
Puritans, 9597, 99, 100
qualifier, epistemic, 37, 39
qualifier, epistemological 56
quasicausative, 202
Quinn, Naomi, 22, 23, 213, 315 Ch.2 n.2
Quirk, Randolph, 35, 14, 29, 128, 246, 252,
256, 257, 287, 288
quite, 128
raisonnable (sensible/reasonable, Fr), 138
140, 318 n.7, 319 n.7
raisonnablement (reasonably, Fr), 318 n.6
Rardin, R., 254
rascal, 101
rather, 30, 31, 128
rational, 89, 116, 117
rational, concept, 116, 136
rationalism, 34
Rawls, John, 116, 132, 143, 144, 152155, 162
razumnyj (reasonable, Ru), 138
really, 10, 73, 75
reason, 97, 104, 105, 118, 128, 245
reasonable, 7, 10, 74, 89, 103140, 143, 144,
246, 300, 305
reasonable, concept, 16, 301, 310
reasonable amount, 125127
reasonable care, 124125, 138
a reasonable creature, 105, 133
reasonable doubt, 117123, 127, 134, 135, 318
n.3
beyond reasonable doubt, 111, 117, 119,
138
reasonable force, 123124, 127, 138
a reasonable man, 105, 107115, 117, 118, 128,
133, 318 n.4
a reasonable man, concept, 107109, 117, 318
n.1
a reasonable request, 130, 133, 134
reasonable time, 125127, 138
it is reasonable to . . . , 112117
reasonableness, 109, 110, 122, 128, 136, 144
reasonableness, 135, 143
reasonably, 74, 104, 106, 318 n.6
reasonably good, 127, 128, 134
reflect: I reflect, 205, 206
Reformation, 264, 265
Counter-Reformation, 264, 265
refugees, 20. See also immigrants
349
Reid, J. S. C., 112

Reid, Thomas, 110
relevance, 311
relevant, 311, 312
reliable, 142
Renaissance, 263
reportedly, 247, 248, 257, 262, 279, 282284,
293
request, vb, 185
requests, 309
resources, 311
retreat from truth, 83
right, adj, 10, 61102, 143, 144, 161, 309, 317
nn.4,7
Right., 63, 8792, 98, 99
right, adj, concept, 65, 66, 68, 80, 81, 97, 99,
100, 102, 310
rightness, 63, 144
rights, pl, 159, 317 n.7
Rihbany, Abraham, 2529, 34, 35, 37, 41, 44
56
Robberecht, P., 249, 251
Ross, William, 62
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 154
Royal Society, 110, 267
rule, concept, 145
rules, pl, 146
Rumsey, Alan, 172
Russell, Bertrand, 33, 34, 40, 50, 56, 267
Russell, J. A. 50
Russian cultural script, 101
Russian culture, 100, 171
Russian folk ethics, 102
Russian language, 66, 67, 77, 92, 100102,
138, 171, 172, 174, 197, 199, 200, 206, 224,
273, 287, 303, 311, 308, 322 n.6
Sackville-West, Vita, 166
sa$dze$ (I think/believe/in my judgment, Po),
320 Ch.7 n.2
Saltman, Michael, 103
Sandall, Roger, 23
sane, 139
Sapir, Edward, 171
Scarcella, Robin, 251
scarcely, 34
scenario, 269
Schaffer, Simon, 42
schtzen: ich schtze (I reckon/think, Ge), 206
Scheibman, Joanne, 38, 39, 206, 210, 295
Schiffrin, Deborah, 93
schijnbaar (seemingly/apparently, Du), 248
Schngeisterei (Ge), 7
Schwartz, S. H., 24
science, 32, 33
350
Index
science, 34
science (science, Fr), 33
scientific revolution, 31, 38
Scollon, Ron, 305, 306
Scollon, Suzanne, 305, 306
scoundrel, 101
script, anti-compelling, 54
script, cultural, 7, 8, 17, 25, 39, 44, 4648, 50,
5457, 85, 92, 93, 100, 102, 295, 306, 316
n.9. See also cultural scripts, theory of
Searle, John, 12
see: I see, 272
seemingly, 247, 248, 262, 323 n.9
Seidlhofer, Barbara, 310, 312
Selinker, Larry, 309
sense, vb, 226
sensible, 139, 318 n.7, 319 n.7
sentence, imperative, 193. See also imperative
Shakespeare, William, 29, 31, 41, 44, 52, 54,
68, 69, 8587, 89, 95, 99, 104, 105, 111,
118, 156, 160, 191, 196, 231, 244, 245, 292,
300, 302
Shapin, Steven, 42
Shapiro, Barbara J., 41, 110, 117122, 318 nn.2,
4
sharing information, 203
Sharrock, Roger, 96
should, 251, 252, 256, 292
Show, Bernard, 85, 86, 292
Shweder, Richard, 65
Sibley, W. M., 116
Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie, 37
Singapore, 9, 11, 311313
Singapore culture, 6, 13, 308, 311
Singapore English, 6, 1113, 305
Singley, Carol, 96
Singlish, 305
Slotkin, R., 96
Smith, Zadie, 91, 92
Smollett, Tobias, 43
Snell, George, 96
social psychology, 18, 174
Solan, Lawrence, 260, 295, 296
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 101
Soueif, Ahdaf, 11
Southey, Robert, 97
Spanish language, 12, 65, 66, 77, 174, 224, 301,
303, 309, 311
speakers of English, non-native, 304
speculate: I speculate, 241
speech practice, 12, 22
Speer, Albert, 184, 185
Spencer, Herbert, 79
Spencer-Oatley, Helen, 17, 57, 58
Spevack, Marvin, 29, 85
sportsmanship, 8
spravedlivost (justice, Ru), 303
sprawiedliwy (just, Po), 156
Sri Lankan English, 13, 305
Stanley H. M., 213
statements, factual, 189
Stearns, Carol, 173
Stearns, Peter, 49, 173
Stein, Gabriele, 14
Sterne, Lawrence, 292
Stevens, S. S., 267
Stevenson, Burton, 43, 45, 65, 67, 68, 96, 97,
131
Stoffel, Cornelis, 31
story, 269
Strauss, Claudia, 22, 23, 315 Ch.2 n.2
strongly, 217
subjectivity, 206
suggest, 25, 53
I suggest, 204
suggestion, 53
Sullivan, Arthur, 114, 129
summon, vb, 185
suppose, 204, 228, 229
I suppose, 41, 204210, 214, 216, 235, 236,
242, 243, 246, 247, 252, 280, 281, 320 n.4,
323 n.1
supposed, pp, 280, 281
supposedly, 247, 248, 252, 253, 257, 262, 279
282, 287, 323 n.9
supposer: je suppose (I suppose, Fr), 206
sure, 290
surely, 243, 248, 249, 259, 287291
surmise: I surmise, 241
suspect, vb, 204, 237, 238, 246
I suspect, 206, 207, 237239, 243
suspicion, 237
suspicious, 237
Svartvik, Jan, 256
Swedish language, 37, 262, 288, 316 n.5
Swift, Jonathan, 245, 292
swine, 101
Syria, 25, 26, 315 Ch.2 n.3
Syrian cultural scripts, 26
Syrian culture, 26
Syrian discourse, 46
tag question, 7678, 208, 209
take: I take it, 206, 207, 230232
Talmy, Leonard, 176, 177
Tam, Kwok-kan, 15
Tannen, Deborah, 20
Taylor, Charles, 73, 74, 8082
team spirit, 8
tell: as far as I can tell, 41
Index
Tennyson, A., 67
thank, 113
Thats fair, 150, 151
Thats not fair, 150
thats right, 63, 71, 7476, 94
think: I think, 37, 38, 204, 206208, 214, 215,
222, 255, 256, 288, 295, 311, 316 n.5
I think that, 38, 208
Thompson, Sandra, 38, 39, 206, 210, 255, 295
Thoreau, H. D., 67
thoughtful, 142
Tillotson, John, 119, 265
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 98, 172
tolerance, 22, 55, 56, 98, 122, 134, 190, 199, 203
tolerance, value, 22
toleration, 22, 56, 110, 122, 128, 134, 135
Tong, Goh Chok, 311, 312
Toolan, Michael, 310
Toynbee, Polly, 160
traditions, cultural, 5, 6, 57, 102, 139, 251
training, cross-cultural, 313. See also
education, cross-cultural
Traugott, Elisabeth, 206, 287, 288, 291, 294,
295, 321 n.3
Travis, Catherine, 289
treat, vb, 101
tro: jag tror (I believe, Sw), 37
trouver (find, Fr), 221, 225
je trouve (I find, Fr), 206, 224
true, 62, 65, 73, 85, 86
true, 45
truly, 75
trust: I trust, 206
truth, 44, 75, 85, 86
truth, 45, 73, 159, 245, 253
truthful, 142
Tuchman, Barbara, 246
Turkey, 26
understand: I understand, 206, 207, 233, 234,
243, 247
understanding, 120
understatement, 28, 29, 33, 34, 128, 275
undoubtedly, 243, 247, 248, 253, 255, 257, 261,
262, 271, 284, 286, 287, 290, 292, 293
unfair, 141, 143, 145, 147, 149, 152, 163, 166,
167, 323 n.1
unfairly, 311, 312
United Nations (UN), 310, 311
United States (US). See America
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 303
universal, human, 23, 64, 162. See also
concept, human universal
universal, linguistic 65
universals of politeness, 11, 12, 23, 34, 57
351
unjust, 156, 158

unquestionably, 247, 248, 262, 287, 292, 293
unrealistic, 133
unreasonable, 104106, 128133, 143, 303, 318 n.5
unreasonable, 136
Uplinger, S., 304
Urmson, James, 204, 205, 211
Uspenskij, Boris, 100
uwaz[am (I think/am of the opinion, Po), 320
Ch.7 n.2
vl (Sw), 288
values, cultural, 5, 11, 17, 64
van Leeuwen, Henry, 111, 117
van Peteghem, M., 249, 251
van Valin Jr., Robert, 249, 252, 256
verb
mental state, 205, 236, 319 Ch.7 n.1
modal, 250, 256, 292
parenthetical, 204, 205
of propositional attitude, 260
speech act, 25, 53, 113, 172, 185, 187, 204
Verhagen, Arie, 206
verily, 243
vermoedelijk (presumably/probably, Du), 248
vermutlich (presumably/probably, Ge), 248
vero (true, It), 76, 77
very, 31, 126, 292
videt (see, Ru), 200
vielleicht (maybe/perhaps Ge), 248, 250, 320
Ch.8 n.1
villain, 101
Visser, Fredericus, 189
voil (Fr), 259
Voltaire, 318 n.1
Waal, Frans de, 66, 67
waarschijnlijk (probably, Du), 248
wahrscheinlich (probably/likely, Ge), 248,
262, 263
Waldheim, Kurt, 311
Wallerstein, Immanel, 7
Wang, Yanyan, 9
Wardhaugh, Ronald, 308
Watts, Isaac, 109
ways of speaking, 22, 23, 25, 48, 251, 296
ways of thinking, 2123, 64, 79, 81, 82, 94, 95,
102, 259, 300
Weber, Max, 81, 82, 97, 99, 155
Weinberger, Harry, 97
Weiss, Timothy, 15
well, 291, 315 n.4
Western law, 165
Western modernity, 312
Westerness, 312
352
Index
whimperatives, 25, 53, 56, 174, 197

White, Margaret, 138
Widdowson, H. G., 4
Wierzbicka, Anna, 6, 7, 11, 12, 1618, 2325,
37, 40, 45, 5055, 57, 65, 66, 70, 73, 74,
77, 78, 81, 93, 99, 100102, 135, 144, 160,
162, 171, 174, 184, 187, 192, 197, 201, 203,
290, 301, 308, 315 Ch.2 n.1, 316 nn.5, 7,
318 n.6, 319 Ch.6 n.2
Wilkins, John, 110, 119, 318 nn.2, 3
will, vb, 292
Wilson, James, 161
Windeyer, J., 108
Wissenschaft (science/knowledge, Ge), 32
Wolf, Eric, 7
Wolseley, Charles, 318 n.5
wonder: I wonder, 206
Wong, Jock, 6, 12, 13, 311
Woolf, Virginia, 136
word, evaluative, 103
World Trade Organization, 303

worldview, 5, 28, 64
Wright, Sue, 310312
wrong, 10, 61102, 143, 309, 317 n.4
wrong, concept, 65, 66, 68, 80, 81, 97, 99,
100, 102, 310
xoroo (well, good, Ru), 66, 100
Ye, Zhengdao, 306
Yolton, John, 36, 265
Yong, Ong Keng, 301
Yoon, Kyung-Joo, 306
Zegarac, V., 17
znat (know, Ru), 200
zweifellos (undoubtedly/ without doubt, Ge),
248
zweifelsohne (undoubtedly/without doubt,
Ge), 248

A. English Meaning and Culture

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English:

Meaning and Culture

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Copyright 2006 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

I would like to express my gratitude, and acknowledge my debt, to Cliff Goddard,

Part I. Meaning, History and Culture

Englishthe most widely used language in the world

2. Anglo Cultural Scripts Seen through

Part II. English Words: From Philosophy

The link between right and reason

4. Being REASONABLE: A Key Anglo Value and

5. Being FAIR: Another Key Anglo Value and

The importance of fairness in modern Anglo culture

Part III. Anglo Culture Reflected in English Grammar

7. i think: The Rise of Epistemic Phrases in Modern English

8. probably: English Epistemic Adverbs and

Part IV. Conclusion

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1.1. Englishthe Most Widely Used Language in the World

4 Meaning, History, and Culture

If English, which may remind us of England, nonetheless equally reflects the

English as a Cultural Universe

Clearly, if it is difficult to find safe generalizations about the social functions

1.2. English and Englishes

6 Meaning, History, and Culture

English as a Cultural Universe

1.3. An Illustration: Words, Scripts, and Human Lives

8 Meaning, History, and Culture

English as a Cultural Universe

1.4. Anglo English as a Historical Formation

Meaning, History, and Culture

For example, David Parker, professor of English at the Chinese University of

In his defense of a cultural approach to the teaching of English, Parker draws on E. D.

English as a Cultural Universe

1.5. The Tendency to Mistake Anglo English

Meaning, History, and Culture

English as a Cultural Universe

1.6. The Cultural Underpinnings of (Anglo) English

Meaning, History, and Culture

is one obvious factor contributing to its transformation. Nonetheless, Anglo English

English as a Cultural Universe

Full participation in worldwide communication in science, international law, trade,

Meaning, History, and Culture

1.7. A Framework for Studying and Describing Meaning

English as a Cultural Universe

Meaning, History, and Culture

1.1 Table of semantic primesEnglish version

I, YOU, SOMEONE/PERSON, SOMETHING/THING,

attempted to study differences in communication across cultures they found in the

English as a Cultural Universe

Meaning, History, and Culture

Anglo Cultural Scripts Seen

2.1. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

Anglo Cultural Scripts Seen through Middle Eastern Eyes

The literature on intercultural communication (including what Kim 2001 calls

Meaning, History, and Culture

2.2. The Theory of Cultural Scripts

Anglo Cultural Scripts Seen through Middle Eastern Eyes