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3 Discourse
and pragmatics
Chapier averviaw
PRSP 3.1 What
is pragmalics?
53
ì 3.
Language, context and
discourse
53
‘
É
3.3 Speech acts and discourse
55
The cooperative principle
and discourse
;
3.5 Flouting the co-operative
principle
64
i
3.6 Crosscultural
pragmatics and discourse
66 i
1
3.7 Conversational
implicature and discourse
70 |
i
3.8 Politeness,
face ond discourse
72
3.9 Face
and politeness across cultures
74
3.10 Politeness
and gender
76
Facedhreatening acts
77
i 3.
Politeness and cross
cultural pragmatic
failure
78
%
3.13 Conclusion
79 i
3.14 Discussion questions
79
i 3.
Data analysis projects
80
Directions for further
reading
81
This chapter
presents an overview
of research
in the area of
pragmatics
that
is of relevance
to peoplc
interested
in looking at
language from
a
discourse
perspective. It
discusses the
relationship between
language
and
context, a key
issue in the area
of pragmatics as
well as in the area
of
discourse analysis.
It also looks
at ways in
which pcople
typically
perform
speech acis
(such as apologizing
or requesting,
etc.) in spoken
and written discourse.
The chapler
discusses
the reasons we
choose to
perform
a speech act
in a particular way
such as, for example,
reasons
of politeness. The
ways in which people
perform speech
acts across
cultures is also discussed
as well as
what happens when
people do not
follow culture-specific expectations for performing particular speech
acts.
3.1 What is pragmatics?
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in relation to the context in
which a person is speaking or writing. This includes social,
situational
and textual context.
It also includes
background
knowledge context; that is, what people know about each other
and about the world. Pragmatics assumes that when people
communicate with each other they normally follow some kind of
co-operative principle; that is, they have a shared understanding
of how they
should co-operate
in their communications.
The
ways in which people do this, however, varies across cultures.
What may be a culturally appropriate way of saying or doing
something in one culture may not be the same in another culture.
The study of this use of language across cultures is called cross-
cultural pragmatics.
The relationship between linguistic form and communicative function
is of central interest in the area of pragmatics and, as Cameron (2001)
argues, is highly
relevant to
the field of discourse
analysis. We
need to
know
the communicative
function
of an utterance,
that is, what it
is
‘doing’ in the particular setting, in order to assign a discourse label to
the
utterance in
the place of the
overall discourse.
For example,
if
someone says ‘The bus was late,” they may be complaining about the
bus service (and so we label the stage of the conversation ‘complaint’),
they may be explaining
why they are
late as a follow up
to an apology
(and so we label the stage of the conversation ‘explanation’) or they
may be doing something else. We also need to know what this meaning
is in order
to understand. at
a broader level, what
people typically say
and do as they perform particular genres in particular social and cul-
tural settings.
3.2 Language, context and discourse
An understanding of how language functions in context is central to an
understanding of the relationship between what is said and what is
understood in spoken and written discourse. The context of situation
of what someonc says is, therefore, crucial to understanding and
interpreting the meaning of what is being said. This includes the
physical context, the social context and the mental worlds and roles of
involves sacial, psychological and cognitive factors that are relevant to
the production and interpretation of what a speaker (or writer) says,
and what a hearer (or reader) understands by what is said (Thomas
1995). Discourse, then, in the words of Jaworski and Coupland (1999:
- is ‘a form of collaborative social action’ in which language users
‘jointly collaborate in the production of meanings and inferences’ as
they communicate with each other in spoken and written discourse.
3.3 Speech acts and discourse
Two influential works in the area of pragmatics, and relevant to the
area of discourse analysis, are Auslin's (1962) How to Do Things With
Words and Searle’s (1969) Speech Acts. Austin and Searle argued that
language is used to ‘do things’ other than just refer to the truth or
falseness of particular statements. Their work appeared at a time when
logical positivism was the prevailing view in the philosophy of lan-
guage. The logical positivist view argued that language is always used
to describe some fact or state of affairs and, unless'd statement can be
tested
for truth or falsity,
it is basically meaningless.
Austin
and Searle
observed that there are many things that we say which cannot meet
these
kinds of truth
conditions but which
are, nevertheless,
valid and
which
do things that go
beyond their literal
meaning. They argued
that
in the same way that
we perform physical
acts, we also
perform acts by
using language. That is, we use language to give orders, to make
requests, to give warnings
or to give
advice; in other words,
to do
things
that go beyond the
literal meaning
of what we say.
A central issue which underlies this is the relationship between
the literal meaning, or propositional content, of what someone says
and what the person intends by what they say. Thus. if someone says
‘It’s
hot in here’ they are not
only referring to the
temperature, they
may
also be requesting someone
to do something,
such as turn on the
air conditioning.
What we say, then, often
has both a literal meaning
and an illocutionary meaning (or illocutionary force); that is, a mean-
ing which goes beyond what someone, in a literal sense, has said.
Austin argued that there are three kinds of act which occur with
everything we say. These are the locutionary act, the illocutionary act
and the perlocutionary act. The locutionary act rcfers to the literal
meaning of the actual words (such as ‘It’s hot in here’ referring to the
temperature). The illocutionary
act refers to
the speaker’s intention
in
uttering the words (such as a request for someone to turn on the air
conditioning). The perlocutionary act refers to the effect this utterance
has on the thoughts or actions of the other person (such as sumeone
getting up and turning on the air conditioning).
The following example on a bus illnstrates this. Clearly the bus
driver is doing more than making a statement. He is also telling the
boys to move. The locutionary act, in this case, is the driver saying he
won't start the bus with people standing in the doorway, the illocu-
tionary act is an order and the perlocutionary act is the boys moving
inside the bus:
Bus driver: This bus won't move until you boys move in out of the
doorway.
It is not always easy, however, to identify the illocutionary force of
what someone says, as it may also depend on the stage in the dis-
course, as well as the social context, in which the person is speaking.
‘OK’ for example may be an expression of agreement to what someone
has just said, it may also be a ‘continuer’ in a conversation with no
indication of agreement, or it may function as a ‘pre-closing’ signalling
that a conversation is about to end. The illocutionary force of what
someone says. thus, can really only be determined in relation to what
has come before and what follows, rather than in isolation from the
overall discourse (Flowerdew 1990).
An illoentionary force, further, might be spread over more than
one utterance. The example below, where the sales request is spread
over several utterances, illustrates this:
A: Hello, welcome to Hungry Jack's. Can I take your order
please?
B: Can 1 have a Whopper with egg and bacon...
A: Would you like cheese with that?
B: Yes please ... and a junior Whopper with cheese ...
and large fries please.
A: Would you like any drinks or dessert with that?
B: No thank you
A: OK ... that's a Whopper with cheese, egg and bacon, a
Whopper junior with cheese and large fries.
D: Yes. Thank you.
A: OK ... Please drive through.
It is also not unusual for what someone says to have more than a single
illocutionary force. For example, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ might
be both a question and an invitation. A person might reply ‘I still
haven’t finished my homework' treating the utterance as both a ques
tion and invitation which they decide not to accept. They may equally
reply ‘Nothing special. What do you feel like doing?’ providing an
answer to the question but this time accepting the (as yet unspoken)
invitation.
Indirect speech acts are often difficult for second langnage lear-
ners to recognize as they may not necessarily know that in English
‘This room’s a real mess’ might he a request for someone to help tidy
up the room, or an order to tidy up the room. They also may not realize
that an expression such as ‘Would you mind helping me move the
tahle?” is not asking about whether someone would mind doing
something or not. It is a request for someone to do something, or it
could indeed be an order.
ii. Felicity conditions and discourse
An important notion in speech act theory is the concept of felicity
conditions. For a speech act to ‘work’, Austin argued that there are a
number of conditions that must be met. The first of these is that there
must be a generally accepted procedure for successfully carrying oul
the speech act, such as inviting someone 10 a wedding through the use
of a formal writlen wedding invitation, rather than (for many people)
an informal email
message. Also the circumstances
must be appro-
priate for the use of
the speech act. That is, someone
must be getting
married. The person who uses the speech act must be the appropriate
person to use it in the particular context — such as the bride or groom'’s
family, or in some cases the bride or groom, inviting the person to the
wedding. A friend of the couple getting married cannot, for example,
without the appropriate authority invite someone to the wedding.
Austin argued that this procedure must be carried out correctly
and completely. And the person performing the speech act must (in
most circumstances) have the required thoughts, feelings and inten-
tions for the speech
act to be ‘felicitous’. That
is, the communication
must be carried out by the right person, in the right place, at the right
time and, normally, with a certain
intention or it will not
‘work’. If the
first two of these conditions are not satisfied, the act will not be
achieved and will ‘misfire’. If the third of these conditions does not
hold, then the procedure will be ‘abused.’
iii. Rules versus principles
Searle took Austin’s work further by arguing that the felicity condi-
tions af an utterance are ‘constitutive rules’. That is, they are not just
something
that can ‘go right’
(or wrong) or be ‘abused’
— which was
Austin’s view — but something
which make up and
define the act itself.
That is, they are rules
that need to be followed
for the utterance to
work. They thus, in Searle's view, ‘constitute’ the particular speech
act. In his view, the pragmatic usc of language is rule governed and
these rules can be precisely stated. He then attempted ta classify
speech acts into groups according to shared sets of conditions. He
found this impossible ta do, however, and proposed instead a set of
criteria that might he nsed for classifying speech acts. The most
important of these are the purpose of the utterance (in the sense of
what we want the other person to do), the ‘direction of fit' between the
words we use and what we want the other person to do, and the
amount of belief the speaker has in what they say.
Thomas (1095) critiques this notion of constitutive rules and
suggests that the notion of principles is perhaps more helpful to this
discussion. She suggests that Scarle, in drawing on the notion of rules,
was trying to describe communication in a manner that is more
appropriate for grammatical, rather than pragmatic descriptions of
language. In her view, the pragmatic use of language is constrained by
maxims or ‘principles’ rather than by ‘rules’.
Thomas points out that it is extremely dilficult to devise rules
which will satisfuctorily account for the complexity of speech act
Leliavivur. She presents five basic differences between rules and
principles to support her argument. The first of these is that rules are
‘all or nothing’, whereas principles are ‘more or less'. That is, rules are
‘yes/no’ in their application whereas principles can be applied par-
tially. Thus, you can speak extremely clearly, fairly clearly, or not at all
clearly, rather than simply ‘clearly’. l'homas also argues that rules are
exclusive
whereas principles can
co-occur. Thus, using one rule
pre-
cludes another whereas a number of principles (rather than rules)
might apply at the same time. Rules aim to define a speech act whereas
principles describe what people do. Further, whereas rules are defi-
nite, principles are ‘probabilistic’; that is, they describe what is more or
less likely to be the case, rather than something which either does or
does not apply. Finally Thomas argues that rules are arbitrary, whereas
principles are ‘motivated’. That is, people follow them for a reason, or
purpose, to achieve a particular goal.
If, for example, someone apologizes for something (in English)
there is the assumption that they were responsible for what has heen
done (or in a position to represent this on someone alse’s hehalf}, have
actually said ‘lm sorry’, are sincere in what they say and will do
something to rectify the situation, if this is required (or possible). The
person may not be completely responsible for what was done, how-
ever, so it is more helpful to see this as a case of more or less, rather
than yes or no. Equally, an apology is often more ritual than ‘sincere’
but has been carried out for a very important reason; so that the person
being apologized to will feel better about the situation and the tension
that was therc will be resolved. Taking a principles-based view of
This morning all the hausemates are already awake and out of bed.
The girls are in the bathroom and the boys are eating hreakfast in
the backyard. Ryan offers some bread to the birds. Paul says:
‘Fryzie, You're not allowed.” The boys talk about birds. ‘Crows, are
like weak,” Ryan says. He corrects himself: ‘Not like the football
team, they rock. [ mean the bird.’
(Extract courtesy Big Brother Series 4 website,
Endemol Southern Star Pty Ltd)
In this interaction, Ryan
is talking about the birds
he is feeding but is
concerned Paul will think he is talking about the local football team,
the Crows.
Both speakers are in the
same situation looking at the
birds
while Ryan is speaking. They both know about the [votball team, the
Crows. Ryan assumes (or presupposes) thal Paul will not want him to
criticize
the Crows so makes il clear
he is talking about the
birds and
there is no double meaning in what he says.
The following example in the delicatessen section of a super-
market works in the same way. The customers know they need to take
a ticket from the ticket machine and wait their turà to be served. The
person with the ticket with ‘2’ on it is the next person
to be served. B
implicates what A has said as an offer of service to them (alone).
A: Customer number two!
R: Ah ..... could I have 250 grams of the honey smoked
ham please?
These are
examples of pragmatic presuppositions
based on a shared
knowledge of the world. i
Presuppositions are crucial to an understanding of what people
mean by what they say in spoken and written discourse. Often we
presuppose a person will have a similar understanding to us in terms
of what we mean by what we say. Ryan does this in the Big Brother
example, as does the sales person in the delicatessen section of the
supermarket. It is indeed
because
people make this assumption that
discourse (normally) proceeds as smoothly as it does.
3.4 The co-operative principle and discourse
In his paper, ‘Logic and conversation’, Grice (1975) argues that in order
for a person to interpret what someone else says, some kind of co-
operative principle must be assumed to be in operation. People
assume, he argued, that there is a set of principles which direct us to a
particular interpretation of what someone says, unless we receive some
indication (o the contrary. The co-operative principle says we should
aim to make our conversational contribution ‘such as is required, at the
stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction’ (Grice
1975: 45) of the exchange in which we are engaged.
Thus, when someone is speaking to us, we base our under-
standing of what they are saying on the assumption that they are saying
what needs
to be said,
rather than more
than needs
to be said (as
in the
delicatessen example above). they are saying it at an appropriate point
in the interaction
(such as when
the persan
working in the
delicatessen
has finished serving one person and is ready to serve another) and they
have a reason for saying what they say (as both an offer of service as
well as to make it clear whose turn it is to be served). The person
working in the delicatessen follows these assumptions, assuming that
their
customers
will follow
them as
well. In this
way, both
people
involved in the service encounter co-operatc
in its production and
interpretation.
Grice based his co-operative principle on four sub-principles, or
maxims. These are the maxims of quality, quantity, relation and
manner. The maxim of quality says people should only say what they
believe to be true and what they have evidence for. Grice's maxim of
quantity says we should make our contribution
as informative as is
required for the particular purpose and not make it more informative
than is
rcquired.
The maxim
of relation
says
we should
make
our
contribution
relevant to the interaction, or we should indicate in what
way
it is not.
Ilis maxim
of manner
says
we should
be clear
in what
we
say,
we should
avoid
ambiguity
or obscurity
and
we should
be brief
and orderly in our contribution to the interaction.
In
the following
example
both speakers
observe
all of these
maxims. Both say all that is required at the appropriate stage in the
conversation.
They both observe the purpose and direction of the
conversation.
What
they say
is relevant
to the
conversation
and
they
are each brief, orderly and unambiguous in what they say:
A: Hi. What would you like?
B: Two hundred grams of the shaved ham thanks.
If
someone
is unsure
of what
they
want to
say, or
wants to
avoid
someone inferring they have evidence for what they say, people often
use metadiscourse
(Hyland 2005b)
to comment
on what they
are ahout
to say,
or have
just said.
This use
of metadiscourse
is
central to
the
interpretation
of
texts as it
shows both
their attitude
to what
they are
saying as
well as their
attitude
to the audience
of
the text.
A speaker may, for example, say ‘1 may be mistaken, but ...’ or
end a sentence
with
‘maybe
..." to
show they
are aware
of and
are
following
the
maxim of
quality.
Equally,
a speaker
may say
‘I won't
bore you with all the details’ to show they are aware of thc maxim of
There are times, however, when being truthful, brief and relevant
might have different meanings. Indeed different contexts and situa-
tions may have different understandings of what ‘be truthful, relevant
and brief”
means. There
are. further, occasions
where we
cannot be
brief
and true at the
same time (Cook
1989). This
leads us to the
‘flouting’
of the co-operative
principle and
its maxims.
3.5 Flouting the co-operative
principle
On some occasions speakers flout the co-operative principle and
intend their hearer to understand this; that is, they purposely do not
observe the maxim, and intend their hearer Lo be aware of this. In the
following
example a student
goes to
the library to
collect books
he had
asked to be
put on hold
for him. The librarian
knows,
in his final line,
what he is saying is not true (or physically possible), and intends the
student to know this:
Librarian: [raises his eyes. looks at the student with no facial
expression)
Student: Hi. Could you check for me whether I have any books to
collect?
Librarian: (swipes the student’s card, clears his throat, wipes his
nose with a tissue, glances at the computer screen,
turns to the shelf to get a book, then another book)
Student: Any more?
Librarian: (turns and gets a third book, stamps them all with the
return date)
Student: Is that all?
Librarian: Are you going to barrow all the books in the library?
Student: OK .. I see .. thank you very much
People may also flout the maxim of relation. or he told they are
flouting this maxim.
in similar ways. The
following extract
is an
example of this.
An American student
has asked a Chinese
student
directions to the station. As they are walking to the station, the fol-
lowing conversation occurs:
Chinese student: What do you do in America?
American student: I work in a bank.
Chinese student: It’s a good job isn't it?
American student: Well, just so so.
Chinese student: Then, how much is your salary every
month?
American student: Oh no...
Chinese student: What's wrong?
American student: Why are you asking that?
[LGN
Chinese student: Just asking, nothing else. ..
American student: The station isn't far is it?
Here the question
the Chinese student has
asked does not observe
the
maxim of relation
for an English conversation
of this kind. He is not
aware
of this, although the American
student clearly is. He
then asks
her if she is travelling
alone and if she is
married. The American
student
quickly hails a taxi and takes it to the station.
In
the next example the
serving person politely suggests
the
customer
is flouting the maxim
of quantity, saying more
than is
necessary, as the ham is already thinlv sliced.
Can I get six thin slices of Danish ham please?
Six thin slices. ...
Yep.
They're all really thin, so....
w>
i. Differences between Aouting and violating maxims
Thomas (1995) and
Cutting (2002) discuss differences
between flouting
and violating maxims. A speaker is flouting a maxim if they do not
observe a maxim but
has
no intention of deceiving or misleading the
other person. A person is ‘violating’ a maxim if there is a likelihood
that they are liable to mislead the other person. For example ‘Mum-
my’s gone on a little holiday hecause she needs a rest’ meaning
‘Mummy’s gone away to decide if she wants a divorce or not’ violates,
rather than flouts, the maxim of manner (Cutting 2002: 40). Here, the
speaker intends
the hearer to understand
something other than
the
truth, on purpose.
A speaker may also ‘infringe’ a maxim when they fail to observe a
maxim with no intention to deceive, such as where a speaker does not
have the
linguistic capacity to answer
a question. A speaker may
also
decide to ‘opt out’ ofamaxim such as where a speaker may, for ethical
or legal reasons, refuse to say something that breaches a confidentiality
agreement they have with someone, vr is likely to incriminate them in
some way (Thumas 1995; Cutting 2002).
ii. Overlaps between maxims
There is also often overlap between each of Crice’s maxims. An
utterance may be both unclear and longwindcd, flouting the maxims of
quality and quantity at the same time (Cutting 2002). Equally it may be
socially acccptable, and indeed preferred, to flout a maxim (such as
in conversational interactions. Béal (1992) found in a communication
in the workplace study that communication difficulties occurred
between English and French speakers because the English speakers
saw questions such as ‘How are you?’ or ‘Did you have a good week-
end?’ as examples of ‘phatic’ communication and expected short,
standard answers such as ‘Fine thanks’. The French speakers, how-
ever, saw the questions as ‘real’ requests for information and, in the
English speakers’ eyes, flouted the maxim of quantity, by talking at
length about their health or what they did at the weekend.
The same is a true of silence. Japanese, for example, has much
greater tolerance for silence than does English. In a study of Japanese
speakers’ participation in English university tutorials, Nakane (2003)
found that miscommunication occurred because native English
speaker tutors interpreted the Japanese students’ ‘wait time’ in
answering questions as flouting the maxim of quantity. In this case, the
Japanese students did not say enough, soon enough, in relation to the
tutors’ English speaking expectations for interactions in this kind of
setting. What the tutors did not understand was that in Japanese
communication silence is typically of longer duration than in Western
countries and that silence can play quite a different role than it does,
for example, in English. Silence, for Japanese students, does not
necessarily mean they have nothing to say. It can, for example,
represent thoughtfulness and a wish not to be seen as forward or
selfish. Silence, thus, in Japanese has a very important role in the
creation of group harmony which is quite different to its role in English
spoken interactions (Davies and Ikeno 2002).
Austin’s (1998) discussion of letters of recommendation in aca-
demic settings is a further example of cross-cultural pragmatic differ-
ences. As she points out, in English academic settings letters of
recommendation may vary in strength of recommendation. Readers
also take into account the prestige of the person writing the letter,
where they work and the content and tone of the letter. They might
also notice ‘what has not been said’ in the letter. In Japanesc academic
settings, however, the situation is quite different. Japanese letters of
rccommendation are often much shorter than they are in English and
often there is no particular relationship between the length of the letter
and the quality of recommendation. A reader may need to ask for more
information about a candidate, rather than rely on the letter alone. An
English-speaking academic, thus, may misread a Japanese letter of
recommendation if they are not aware of the different pragmatic role
and values these texts have in their particular cultural setting.
ii. Cross-cultural pragmatics
Studies which investigate the cross-cultural use of speech acts are
commonly referred lv as cross-cultural pragmatics. As Wierzbicka
(2003) points out, different pragmatic norms reflect different cultural
values which are, in turn, reflected in what people say and what they
intend by what they say in different cultural settings. Wierzbicka gives
the example of thanking in Japanese and English. The concepts
encoded in the
English word
thanks, she argues,
do not really
fit
Japanese culture.
In English, she says,
to thank someone
means,
roughly, to say we feel something good towards them because of
something good they have done and we want them to feel good in
return. But in Japanese culture with its stress on social hierarchy,
moral duty and
the repayment of favours,
this situation
is somewhat
different.
Japanese speakers
of English, further,
may frequently
say
sorry
when they mean
thank you, leading
to a completely different
interpretation
of what they mean,
from what they intend
to mean. As
Cameron (2001: 74) explains, the act of thanking is an expression of
indebtedness
in both
English and Japanese.
In the case of Japanese.
however, ‘a debt not yet repaid calls for an apology from the debtor'.
Apologizing, thus, for a Japanese speaker. is one way of expressing
indebtedness, and thanking someone.
iii. Pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics
Two key notions in the area of cross-cultural pragmatics are pragma-
linguistics and sociopragmatics (Leech 1983). Pragmalinguistics is ‘the
study of the more linguistic end of pragmatics — where we consider the
particular resources which a given language provides for conveying
particular illocutions' (Leech 1983: 11); that is, the study of speech acts
in relation to typical linguistic structures. Sociopragmatics, on the
other hand,
refers to specific
local conditions of
language use; that is,
the pragmatic performance of speech acts in specific social and cul-
tural contexts.
iv. Cross-cultural pragmatic failure
The failure
to convey or understand a
pragmatic intention in another
language and culture is what Thomas (1983) terms cross-cultural
pragmatic failure. She describes two main types of cross-cultural
pragmatic.
failure: sociopragmatic
failure
and pragmalinguistic
failure.
Socinpragmatic failure refers to a situation where a speaker of a second
language assesses situational factors on the basis of the sociopragmatic
speak’ in
the target culture
due to
her lack of
sociopragmatic
and
pragmalinguistic
competence
in the particular
linguistic
and cultural
situation (Thomas 1983).
3.7 Conversational
implicature
and discourse
A further
key notion in
pragmatics which
has implications
for
both the
production
and interpretation
of discourse
is the concept
of con-
versational
implicature.
Conversational
implicature
refers to the
inference
a hearer makes
about a
speaker’s intended
meaning
that
arises from
their use of
the literal meaning
of what
the speaker
said, the
conversational
principle
and its
maxims. For
example, if
I say “There’s
nothing
on at the
movies’ I do
not mean
‘nothing at
all’, but rather
‘nothing that
I'm interested
in seeing’.
The person
| am speaking
to will
assume
this and ‘implicate’
my meaning.
Implicature is not
the same,
however, as
inference. As Thomas
58) explains,
an implicature
‘is generated
intentionally
by the speaker
and may
(or may
not) be
understood by
the hearer’.
An inference,
on the other
hand, is pro-
duced
by a hearer on the
basis of certain
evidence and
may not, in fact,
be the
same as what
a speaker intends.
To calculate
an implicature,
Grice
(1975)
argues, hearers
draw on
the conventional
meanings
of words,
the co-operative
principle
and its
maxims,
the linguistic
and non-linguistic
context of
the utterance,
items
of background
knowledge and
the fact that
all of these are
available
to both
participants and
they both assume
this to be the
case.
Given
this basic
process, implicature
can
be created in
one of three
ways. A
maxim can be
followed in a
straightforward
way and the
hearer implicates
what the
speaker intends.
The following example,
where
a customer
orders a beer,
illustrates
this:
A: What'd you like?
B: A beer thanks.
Here.
B has followed
the
maxim of quality
by saying
what he wants,
the maxim
of manner
by answering
clearly.
the maxim
of quantity
by
saying enough
and no
more, and the
maxim of relation
by providing
an
answer
that is clearly
relevant to
the question. Here,
no implicature
is
generated
that is
necessary for
the interpretation
of the utterance.
A
maxim might also
be flouted because
of a clash
with another
maxim as in:
A:
What time did
your flight get
in this morning?
B:
Seven (when
it actually arrived
at 7.04 am)
Here B flouts the maxim of quality (the truth) in order to obey the
maxim of quantity (be brief).
Or a maxim might be flouted in a way that exploits a maxim as in:
A: How are we getting to the airport tomorrow?
B: Well ... Pm going with Peter.
Here, B has given less information than is required and is flouting the
maxim of quantity — from which B derives that he or she may have to
make their own way to the airport.
i. Conventional and particularized conversational implicatures
Grice describes two kinds of conversational implicature: conventional
and particularized conversational implicatures. With conventional
implicatures, no particular context is required in order to derive the
implicature. In the above example, the use of ‘well’ can conventionally
implicate that what the speaker is about to say isnot what the hearer is
hoping to hear. Similarly, the use of ‘anyway’ conventionally impli-
cates a return to the original topic of a conversation (Lo Castro 2003).
The use of ‘but’ and ‘on the other hand’ to express contrast, ‘even’ to
suggest something is contrary to expectation and ‘yet’ to suggest
something will be different at a later time, are further examples of
conventional implicatures.
Particularized conversational implicatures, however, are derived
from a particular context, rather than from the use of the words alone.
These result from the maxim of relation. That is, the speaker assumes
the hearer will search for the relevance of what they are saying and
derive an intended meaning. For example in:
A: You're out of coffee.
R: Don’t worry there’s a shop on the corner.
A derives from
B’s answer that they will
be able to buy coffee from the
shop on the
corner. Most implicatures,
in fact, are particularized
conversational implicatures.
ii. Scalar implicatures
A further kind of implicature is scalar implicature. These are derived
when a person uses a word from a sel of words that express some kind
of scale of values. Words such as ‘all’, ‘most’, ‘something’ and ‘nothing’
are examples of this. In the following conversation B is on a bus,
talking on his mobile phone to A. A asks B about his private life:
