2. TOPIC 8 WORKSHEET PRESUPPOSITION & ENTAILMENT

Identify the presuppositions and discuss how this is dealt and what are the implications

Denis Skinner: Does the Prime Minister regret using a three-line whip as a guillotine of

the Single European Act?

Mrs. Thatcher: No, I don't, Mr. Speaker, no, no, no

regret

Presupposition: the PM used a three-line whip as a guillotine of the SEA.

She does not deny the presupposition, confirming she did use it, and does not regret it at all (the

repeated ‘no’ endorses the presupposition).

Identify the presuppositions and discuss how this is dealt and what are the implications

Jon Snow: Did you know that during all these years you'd been sitting next to an

interventionist labour sympathiser?

Norman Tebbit: Let me point out first of all that the Tory party does not necessarily exist

for the business of being elected.

know

Presupposition: NT was sitting next to an interventionist labour sympathiser (provocative and

controversial)

He does not deny nor confirm the presupposition, but opts out of the imposed presupposition and

gives what seems a prepared statement about his own party’s policies.

Identify the presuppositions and discuss how this is dealt and what are the implications

Neil Kinnock: Doesn't the Prime Minister remember saying in Zimbabwe last year that

tax reductions in the March budget would be fool's gold?

John Major: What I said in the interview in Harare that he quotes from was that the

reduction in interest rates just to stimulate the economy would be fool's gold, as it would

be.

Doesn't / remember

Presupposition: PM said that tax reductions in the March budget would be fool’s gold (foolish,

nonsense)

JM does not give a yes/no answer (as the journalist was trying to elicit), but reshapes the words

he is alleged to have said (in other words, he neither confirms nor denies the presupposition)

Consider the following ad: What Went Wrong? Professor Law’s important study of the Blue Cross presents some shocking facts and

figures...she examines the development of Blue Cross into a web of local insurance

agencies...[and] arrives at the conclusion that the Blue Cross is not serving the public well’.

1. If I ask: ‘What went wrong?’ what are the two immediate presuppositions?

2. What is the answer to the question ‘What went wrong?’

3. How do we go about determining where in the text to find the answer?

1.Something happened, something went wrong

2.Something happened in the development of the BC into a web of local insurance agencies

3.Arrives at the conclusion