Re: Irony and Cultural Neutrality

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>In the case of the deeper
>meaning, it's _not_ Lojban, but a 'language of allegory'.

Any language of allegory depends on a common language/culture to refer to.
A Lojban user who assumes non-Lojbanic cultural knowledge is taking ri
sks.
Especially if he does not mark that heis going outside the languqge norm.

>You(?) seem to be making the distinction between face-value and deeper
>meaning yourself in the Lojban Brochure:
>
>     This precision in no way confines the meaning of a Lojban
>     sentence. It is possible to be fanciful or ridiculous, to
>     tell a lie, or to be misunderstood.        You can be very
>     specific, or you can be    intentionally vague.    Your hearer
>     may        not understand what you meant, but will always
>     understand what you said.
>
>Here, 'what you said', seems to refer to face-value meaning, and 'what
>you     meant' seems to refer to deeper meaning. At the time you wrote this,
>were you thinking of _marked_ fancy and ridiculousness? Arguably, if you
>point out the ridiculousness, you're no longer being ridiculous.

Why not?  First of all, the marking need not be specific.  You can mark your
whole discourse as being allegorical for all I care - in which case I have
to figure out what deeper meaning you intend with hardly a
clue.  But it is
still at least marked as figurative.

In Lojban, marking your ridiculouslness does not make it any less ridiculous.
Even in English, one can explicitly make fun of oneself to great hilarity