4.10.

2021

2 Who is Erdem Akbas?

Pragmatics and Language  BA in ELT, Selcuk University, 2008

Teaching 


MEB YLSY Scholarship (MA+PhD), 2009

MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other

Languages), University of York, 2010

 PhD in Education, University of York, 2014

 Musician (playing Bağlama, Guitar, Violin and Bendir)

Dr. Erdem Akbas
 Chess Player
Erciyes University, 2021
 Photographer
www.erdemakbas.webs.com
 Researcher in the area of Discourse Analysis and Corpus
https://york.academia.edu/ErdemAkbas
Linguistics
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/erdem_akbas/
 Published books and chapters internationally

What do you need to pay attentIOn?

 I appeal to the principle of efficiency in learning. Therefore, my experience is that if we (I and
you) do the following, you are likely to learn more. Course Material
 I view class attendance as an individual student responsibility (even if it is ONLINE).
https://www.pegem.net/pragmatics-
and-language-teaching
 Students are expected to attend classes (online/face to face) and to complete all assignments
as requested.
 I will provide the notice of the dates on which major exams will be given and assignments will
be due on the course syllabus.
 You are expected to attend all examinations required by department or advisory committees
as scheduled formally.
 Always be polite and considerate to everybody and leave grudges outside the classroom
door.
 During the class, respect each other and respect other people's property.
 Treat people the way you would like to be treated.
 Turn off your mobile phones/iPods and keep them out of sight unless I tell you to use it.
 Lastly, Smile  and Enjoy!
 4.10.2021

Online tools of the class for asynchronous Let’s discuss

learning
Please visit the following websites and sign up!
VoiceThread: https://voicethread.com
Ted-Ed: https://ed.ted.com
Learning Paths: https://learningpaths.symbaloo.com/
 Do you know what a foreign accent is?
 It is a sign of bravery. (Amy Chua)
 Now go to VoiceThread and complete
the activity:
https://voicethread.com/share/15682948/
 Please do translate this first..
 Now, discuss what is meant here!?

Introduction to Pragmatics Activities for Wk 1

 What Does Pragmatics Do?
 Deixis
Make sure you complete the following before coming to the
 Person Deixis
next class:
 Place Deixis
1. Complete the lesson I created on TedEd:
 Time Deixis
https://ed.ted.com/on/bN996gVG
 The Cooperative Principle
2. Join the learning Path I created on symbaloo:
 Speech Acts
https://learningpaths.symbaloo.com/start?accessCode=337
 Conversation Analysis 75

Language in use: Formulaic, Automatic
and Rehearsed!
 Bolinger (1976: 2) suggested that "speakers do at least as much
remembering as they do putting together".
 Charles Fillmore (1976: 24-25) also found that "an enormously large
amount of natural language is formulaic, automatic and rehearsed,
rather than propositional, creative or freely generated".
 Nowadays, speakers in conventional speech situations tend to do more
'remembering' than 'putting together'.
 Imagine the first thing you say to someone (a friend, relative, student) you
meet on the road?
 A considerable part of our everyday conversation is usually restricted to
short routinized interchanges where we do not always mean what we
say.
What is Pragmatics?
 Pragmatics examines how speakers understand and communicate
more than the literal meaning o f words or sentences.
 The type o f meaning studied in pragmatics is known as utterance
meaning, meaning in context or meaning in interaction.
 In short, pragmatics is about getting from what is said to what is
meant.
4.10.2021
Language in use:
Formulaic, Automatic and Rehearsed!
 For instance:
Bob: Hi Jim, how are you doing?
Jim: Fine, thank you.
 Bob does not necessarily care how Jim is doing, and Jim may be far from being 'fine', but
he says so.
 The gap between 'what is said' and 'what is communicated' in such situations can be quite
wide.
 Fonagy (1961) and Coulmas (1981) argued that frequency of occurrence has a crucial
impact on the meaningfulness of linguistic elements: the more frequent they are, the more
meaningless they become in terms of referential semantics.
 The compositional meaning of utterances frequently becomes of secondary importance
and the functional aspect dominates.
What Does Pragmatics Do?
 Pragmatics is the systematic study o f how people understand and
communicate more than the literal meaning o f words or sentences when
they speak, write or gesture, or, in more general terms, when they interpret
and produce what linguists call utterances.
 Utterances are spoken, written or gestured contributions within a particular
social context that derive their meaning partly from that context.
 Therefore, pragmatics is also called the study o f utterance meaning, or
meaning in context, or meaning in interaction.
 These terms take into account that contexts develop and redevelop
dynamically, most markedly when we engage in live encounters with others.
Our utterances are not only shaped by the contexts in which they occur but
also create new contexts for what can follow.
 In other words, they are not only context shaped but also context renewing.
 4.10.2021

Pragmatics and Culture

 Why do we very often not spell out explicitly what we mean? On A short activity:
the one hand, this has to do with saving effort by leaving many What makes you find
things unsaid.
the correct
 On the other hand, it has to do with social and cultural norms,
which may vary strongly across cultures. expressions to
speak/write and the
 Differences in how humans from different cultures use and
understand language, and linguistic phenomena that occur contexts?
when people from different cultures communicate, are
examined and compared within cross-cultural pragmatics and
intercultural pragmatics.
 Crosscultural and intercultural pragmatics are two closely related
and relatively new subfields o f pragmatic research.
 In the age of globalisation, studies of this kind are rapidly gaining
importance.

Activity for Wk 2 Pragmatic Competence

Make sure you complete the following before coming to the
next class:
1. Complete the lesson I created on TedEd:
https://ed.ted.com/on/78LC0PwO
Let’s do this now: https://voicethread.com/share/15763341/
 Students of a foreign language will know from their own experience, for
example as exchange students or from travels, that the best theoretical
command o f a language is not sufficient as soon as it comes to
communicating with real people.
 Our general linguistic competence provides us with rules that tell us how to
judge whether a sentence is grammatical, and how to make sense o f single
words or single sentences.
 But as indicated above, this may not be sufficient when you try to
communicate with other people.
 What you need to successfully communicate in face-to-face conversation,
on the telephone, or when writing letters, e-mails or text messages, is
pragmatic competence.
 Pragmatic competence is the ability to use language appropriately within
social contexts. The following slides will give you a brief overview o f some
core notions of pragmatics, starting with deixis.
 4.10.2021

Deictic Expressions
Deixis
 The term deixis corresponds to the Greek verb deiknynai meaning ‘to point’
or ‘to show’. Deixis refers to all linguistic means that have mainly to do with
pointing at extralinguistic contexts.
 Imagine finding the room o f your linguistics class empty with the following
notice on the door:
Introduction to Linguistics  All linguistic expressions that are used to point at someone or something, such
as me and you, or here and there, are called deictic expressions (or
We are here today: deictics).
Guest Lecture Professor XY  Occasionally, deictic expressions are also called indexicals, corresponding to
the Latin verb indicare, which also means ‘to point’ or ‘to show’.
Room Z
 We use deictic expressions to point at persons (person deixis), at places
 You will know how to interpret this notice, although you are not in the same (place deixis), or at particular points o f time (time deixis). Some authors also
physical context as its authors who are obviously not present. describe further dimensions o f deixis, such as social relationships that are
 Instead, their absence tells you that the here refers to room Z because here is reflected in language (social deixis) or pointing activities within a text
(discourse deixis).
an expression which is normally used for locations close to a speaker.

Person Deixis: Pointing at Persons/People

 Person deixis is about pointing at persons.

 Consider the following extract from the British play Feelgood, a political
satire by Alistair Beaton (2001).
 The beginning o f Act One shows two men, one o f them busy at a
laptop, the other watching him. Paul is a young professional
speechwriter, and Eddie is the Press Secretary o f the present
government. Now try to list all expressions pointing at individuals in the
opening dialogue o f Feelgood. Whom are they referring to?

Person Deixis: Pointing at Persons/People
 If you do not know the play, you may think at first that Paul is the first person
singular I in But I can tell you now.
 This is what person deixis via the first person singular personal pronoun would
normally suggest, because we usually assume speakers to be the deictic
centre o f their utterances.
 Only Eddie’s utterance It ’ll make him sound like he needs dentures reveals
that Paul’s text is obviously not going to be read out by Paul but by another
male person.
 We are told so by the masculine third person singular pronoun him. But who is
that person? To create suspense, it is revealed only gradually in the course o f
Paul’s and Eddie’s conversation that he is the current British Prime Minister and
that Paul and Eddie are spin doctors working on a speech for him.
 That is, in the utterances There will he other challenges facing us in the
twenty-first century and But I can tell you now, which Paul quotes from the
Prime Minister’s future speech, it is not Paul who is going to be the deictic
centre o f these utterances but the Prime Minister.
Place Deixis: Closeness and Distance
 Generally, the English language distinguishes between referring to individuals or
things close to the deictic centre, and referring to individuals or things away from
the deictic centre.
 We use proximal terms like this or here to refer to individuals or objects relatively
close to the speaker, and distal terms like that and there for relatively remote
individuals or objects. This is even the case when the reference o f these
expressions changes.
 For instance, when one o f your friends is travelling through the world and sends
you an e-mail each time she comes across an Internet cafe, you might not know
where exactly the here is which she praises so enthusiastically in her messages. The
only thing you can say for sure is that it refers to the place where she is at the time
o f writing.
 This example shows that there is a temporal dimension to place deixis, too.
Interestingly, distal terms such as that are often also used to Express psychological
distance or even dislike (that boring book, that awful lesson).
 When such deictic terms are used to refer to humans (that silly cow, that stupid
guy), this may also be interpreted as social deixis because they are used to
indicate social distance.
4.10.2021
Place Deixis: Pointing at Locations
 Place deixis is about pointing at the location o f individuals or things. To give
you an example: Imagine buying cheese at the market.
 What do you do if you do not know the name o f a particular cheese you
would like to try?
 Most people would simply point at the cheese in question and ask for a piece
o f it, saying: “Could I try a piece o f this one, please?”
 Usually, this straightforward practice o f place deixis works quite well. But what
if the person serving you picks out the wrong cheese? You would probably
say: “No, not that one, this one!”
 If this fails, too, you would either have to physically point at your desired
cheese in an unmistakable manner, or, if you find that embarrassing or
unhygienic, you would have to use further linguistic means, for example to
precisely describe the location o f the cheese relative to some prominent
object, e.g. “next to the stuffed green peppers”.
Time Deixis: Time and Distance
 Like place deixis, time deixis also distinguishes between close to the deictic
centre and away from the deictic centre.
 This is reflected in expressions like now, today or this week for a time close to
the moment o f speaking, and then, yesterday or next month for a time
remote from the moment o f speaking, i.e. either in the past or in the future.
 Expressions like soon, ten minutes later or two weeks ago also mark points or
periods o f time relative to a speaker’s current situation. Many literary texts
make extensive use of time deixis.
 For instance, fairy tales usually begin with “Once upon a time, there
was….’’
 As this fairy tale beginning also shows, another important device for
establishing temporal reference is the choice o f verb tense.
 4.10.2021

Time Deixis: Time and Distance Time Deixis: Time and Distance
 Consider the following examples:  Additionally, time deixis may serve to mark events as distant from the
(1) I live here now. speaker’s current situation in a hypothetical sense, i.e. away from the reality
o f the present. This can be seen in the use o f past verb forms for the
(2) I lived there then.
subjunctive mood or in certain types o f if clauses, as in examples (4) and
(3) I could swim (when I was a child). (5):
(Yule 1996:15) (4) I could be in Hawaii (if I had a lot of money).
 The choice o f verb tense depends on the options a language provides: (5) If I was rich...
“Whereas other languages have many different forms o f the verb as (Yule 1996:15)
different tenses, English has only two basic forms, the present and the past.
[...] The present tense is the proximal form and the past tense is the distal  All in all, we can say that deixis is a very efficient tool for saving
form.” (Yule 1996:14-15) communicative effort. However, this tool only works if the deictic centre is
clear.

Let’s make up a scenario and find out

Pragmatics examples related to pragmatics!
 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkai_little-britain-she-pushed-me_news
 What Does Pragmatics Do?
 Deixis
 Person Deixis
 Place Deixis
 Time Deixis
 The Cooperative Principle
 Speech Acts
 Conversation Analysis
Using words in CONTEXT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM9Wuzj4k24
https://onedio.com/haber/benedict-cumberbatch-ve-jimmy-fallon-
dan-rastgele-kelimelerle-kisa-film-oyunu-739362 (Turkish subtitle)
 4.10.2021

Let’s make up a scenario and find out

Extralinguistic signals: Paralinguistic features
examples related to pragmatics!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pw8m_NTJ_0  As interlocutors are most often in face-to-face encounters (unless using a phone) they take
advantage of extralinguistic signals as grimaces, gesticulation, expressions such as ‚here’,
‚now’, or ‚this’ are used.
 Employment of nonsense vocabulary, slang and contracted forms (we’re, you’ve) is another
feature of oral discourse.
 Among other significant features of speech there are rhythm, intonation, speed of uttering
and, what is more important, inability to conceal mistakes made while speaking.
 Let’s see two examples from an EMI Class (Mathematics) where the teacher deploys some
extra linguistic signals (focus on them) and some other significant features of speech (Akbas &
Bal-Gezegin, 2021)
 Pet aversions (Until 20:51): https://youtu.be/AJvjtK2mmpU?t=1205
 Perger (Until 29:19): https://youtu.be/AJvjtK2mmpU?t=1723

Extralinguistic signals: Paralinguistic features The Cooperative Principle: Unrelated

Utterances?
 Paralinguistics are the aspects of spoken communication that do not involve words.
 Human face-to-face communication is full of exchanges that may appear,
 These may add emphasis or shades of meaning to what people say.
at first sight, rather unrelated, such as the following three examples:
 Some definitions limit this to verbal communication that is not words.
(6) A Can you tell me the time?
 Example: Body language, gestures, facial expressions, tone and pitch of voice are all
examples of paralinguistic features. B Well, the milkman has come.
 In the classroom: Paralinguistic features of language are extremely important as they can (7) A I do think Mrs. Jenkins is an old windbag, don’t you?
change message completely. B Huh, lovely weather for March, isn’t it?
 Tone and pitch of voice is commonly dealt with at all language levels in different classrooms
(8) A Where’s Bill?
 They simply help us achieve the communicative purpose of our communication with the
interlocutors! B There’s a yellow VW outside Sue's house.
(Levinson 1994)
 How can we interpret these exchanges? In his ground-breaking lecture “Logic and
Conversation” (1975), Herbert P. Grice presents a basic principle that governs human
interaction: the so-called Cooperative Principle (CP).
 4.10.2021

The Cooperative Principle: The Cooperative Principle:

 Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it  The Maxim of Relation
occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you
 Make your contribution relevant.
are engaged. (Grice 1975:45)
 From this principle, four maxims are derived:  The Maxim of Manner
 The Maxim of Quantity  Be perspicuous (= be clear). More specifically:
 1. Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purpose  1. Avoid obscurity.
 of the exchange.  2. Avoid ambiguity.
 2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.  3. Be brief.
 The Maxim of Quality  4. Be orderly. (adapted from Grice 1975:45-46)
 Try to make your contribution one that is true, specifically:
 1. Do not say anything that you believe to be false.
 2. Do not say anything for which you lack adequate evidence.

The Cooperative Principle: The Cooperative Principle:

 When one or more of these maxims are not being observed, as it is the case
in examples (6) to (8) above, this gives rise to conversational implicatures.
 Conversational implicatures are not part o f the conventional meaning o f
what is said.
 Their interpretation is context-dependent.
 If somebody violates (or flouts) one or more o f the Maxims o f
Conversation, we are alerted to look for additional information that might
help to make the utterance in question meaningful, provided that we have
reason to believe that the person who is uttering it is acting rationally and
intentionally.
 Finding such additional information is also known as inferring
 For instance, in example (6), B does not observe the Maxim of Relation.
 Well, the milkman has come is, at first sight, not a relevant answer to the
question Can you tell me the time?
 However, we are able to bridge the gap between what is said and what is
meant by interpreting B’s answer as a cooperative attempt o f giving A at
least some helpful hint if not the exact time.
 Apparently, B does not know the exact time but knows that A knows the
time at which the milkman usually comes and will interpret B’s utterance
accordingly.
 This is what we can infer from B’s reply.
 4.10.2021

The Cooperative Principle:

 Example (7) is another example for the violation o f the Maxim o f Relation.
 B’s reply Huh, lovely weather fo r March, isn’t it? bears no obvious relevance
to A’s remark I do think Mrs. Jenkins is an old windbag, don’t you?
 But it may implicate a warning for A, who is backbiting Mrs Jenkins and
possibly about to go on with it.
 Alarmed by B’s irrelevant remark, A can infer that B’s utterance might mean
something like Watch out, her nephew’s standing right behind you.
Some examples to the violation/observation
of Maxims
 Let’s watch one of the funniest scenes from Hababam Sınıfı and discuss the
communication (question and answers) in this context by remembering Maxims:
https://youtu.be/sutTAoFsOx8?t=26 (Until 1:11)
 İlk Halife kimdir? Hz Ebubekir
 İstanbul hangi tarihte fethedildi? 1453
 Vatan bizim neyimiz? Anamız
 Yükselme devrinin son padişahı kimdir? Kanuni Sultan Süleyman
 Roma’yı kim yaktı? İmparator Neron
 What happens after the inspectorr arrives?
 https://youtu.be/sutTAoFsOx8?t=82

The Cooperative Principle:
 Occasionally, more than one maxim is violated at the same time. This is the
case in example (8).
 When B answers There’s a yellow VW outside Sue’s house to A’s question
Where’s Bill?, he or she flouts both the Maxim o f Quantity and the Maxim o f
Relation.
 But his or her answer is at the same time co-operative and effort-saving.
Obviously, B knows that A knows that Bill owns a yellow VW.
 I f the yellow VW outside Sue’s house is his, Bill may well be in Sue’s house.
 But B avoids such a lengthy reply by simply producing an utterance that
enables A to infer what B does not say explicitly.
 All in all, these examples show that finding out about speakers’
communicative intentions plays an important role for our interpretation o f
utterances. At the same time, human communication is also about making
things happen in the real world. Such aspects o f meaning in interaction are
discussed in speech act theory.
Speech Acts and Speech Acts Theory
 As we have seen, utterances can be used to perform actions.
 Actions performed via utterances, such as requesting, threatening, or
thanking, are based on speech acts.
 The systematic study o f speech acts is based on speech act theory.
Speech act theory has its roots in thoughts formulated by John L. Austin in
How to Do Things with Words (1962) and John R. Searle in Speech Acts. An
Essay in the Philosophy o f Language (1969).
Locutionary, lllocutionary, and Perlocutionary Acts
 All actions performed by utterances can be divided into three related acts:
the locutionary act, the illocutionary act, and the perlocutionary act.
4.10.2021
Speech Acts: Utterances as Actions
 Take the simple utterance It ’s cold in here.
 What does it mean? Who could say it to whom in what situation?
 At first sight, this is a statement about the temperature in a particular room.
 However, this is not always the communicative intention with which this
declarative sentence is uttered.
 Most people who say It’s cold in here to another person will want this person
to do something about the cold.
 In this case It’s cold in here may mean Could you please close the window?
or Could you please turn on the heating? or Could you please lend me one
o f your famous hand-knitted sweaters?
 In short, the utterance may serve as a polite request for some appropriate
action in order to make the speaker more comfortable.
 Depending on the relationship between the participants o f the
conversation, it could also be used as a command.
Speech Acts :Locutionary, lllocutionary, and
Perlocutionary Acts
 The locutionary act is the physical act o f producing understandable
language that may be regarded as meaningful within a given context.
 Consider the indirect request Do you know where I left my textbook?
 What we intend to do by producing an utterance is called the
illocutionary act, i.e. in this case the intention o f asking for information.
 The cognitive or emotional effect an illocutionaiy act has on an
addressee or addressees in reality is called the perlocutionary act (or
perlocutionary effect).

Speech Acts : lllocutionary Force
 The locutionary and the illocutionary act are within our control, whereas the
perlocutionaiy act is not.
 In these examples, the first speaker’s illocutionary act of requesting
succeeds because the speaker has managed to produce an utterance
that is suitable to convey her communicative intention, even though the
perlocutionary effect is negative.
 This communicative intention is often called the illocutionary force.
4.10.2021
Speech Acts : Types
 Generally, linguists distinguish between several main types o f speech acts, to describe what
humans may do by performing these acts.
 We use representatives (or assertives) to make statements about the world (Germany is a
country in Europe);
 directives like requests or commands to get others to perform certain actions, e.g. to do us a
favour, or to answer our questions (Please send me an e-mail)',
 commissives like promises or threats to inform others about our future actions (I will write to you
every day)',
 expressives like greetings, thanks and congratulations to express our feelings (HU, Thank you! or
Happy birthday!); and declarations for actions that are performed by pronouncing the
appropriate formula, e.g. marrying a couple or baptising somebody.
4.10.2021
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Short cuts of Speech Acts

 Representatives (S conveys a belief)

 Directives (S tries to get H to do something)
 Commissives (S commits to future action)
 Declarations (S creates a new external
situation—performatives)
 Expressives (S expresses personal feelings)
 4.10.2021

Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

 Direct speech acts

 Use verbs that have the meaning of the act (e.g. ‘I
promise I will go’, ‘Did you steal my pencil?’)
 Indirect speech acts
 Use other ways to perform the speech act
 ‘Can you come tomorrow?’
 ‘I didn’t know I made you angry’
 ‘I suggest you get out of my office before I punch you!’

Task Threats

How many
ways can you
express the
speech act of
A threat or
warning?
 4.10.2021

Conditions Felicity Conditions

 Speech acts judged not by ‘truth value’ but by their ‘happiness’
 Language (propositional content)
 Not all speakers can
 Context (preparatory condition)
perform all speech
acts  ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’
 Participants/setting
 There are certain
conditions necessary  Intention
for an utterance to  Speaker is sincere, believes the act will have the desired force
be considered a  In pragmatics and speech-act theory, the term felicity conditions refers to the conditions that must be in
certain kind of place and the criteria that must be satisfied for a speech act to achieve its purpose. Also
called presuppositions.
speech act
 Several kinds of felicity conditions have been identified, including:
 Felicity conditions (1) an essential condition (whether a speaker intends that an utterance be acted upon by the
addressee);
(2) a sincerity condition (whether the speech act is being performed seriously and sincerely);
(3) a preparatory condition (whether the authority of the speaker and the circumstances of the speech
act are appropriate to its being performed successfully).

Example: Felicity Conditions Felicity Conditions

 A good example is the act of ordering someone to do something. To do this it is possible
to use the verb 'order' and say, for example, 'I order you to clean your boots,' or to use  Rules that need to be followed for an utterance to
the imperative form 'Clean your boots,' which is often associated with ordering. work.
 Yet, as with declarations, such utterances will only be perceived as orders if certain  A promise:
conditions are in operation by both the sender and the receiver. The felicity conditions for
an order are:  I say I will perform an action in the future
The sender believes the action should be done.  I intend to do it. I believe I can do it.
 The receiver has the ability to do the action.  I think I would not normally do it.
 The receiver has the obligation to do the action.  I think the other person wants me to do it.
 The sender has the right to tell the receiver to do the action.  I intend to place myself under an obligation to perform
the action.
 If any one of these conditions is not fulfilled, the utterance will not function as an order.  We both understand what I’m saying.
 If I order someone to clean their boots when I really do not believe this should be done,  We are both normal, conscious human beings.
then my order is insincere, and flawed (condition 1).
 Both of us are in normal circumstances.
 I can order someone to clean their boots, but not to eat the Eiffel Tower--they will not  The utterance contains an illocutionary force indicating
have the ability (condition 2). device.
 My order will not succeed as an order unless the person I am talking to is obliged to clean
their boots (condition 3), and I have the right and the power to make them do so
(condition 4)."
(Guy Cook, Discourse. Oxford University Press, 1989)
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Task Speech Acts across Cultures

 What are the conditions for:  Apologies

 A marriage proposal  ‘Would you like a beer?’
 A bet  Have you eaten?
 A request
 An order

Conversational Implicature Default Expectations

 According to Grice, Conversation is ‘rational behavior’.. Therefore, we
have: The Cooperative Principle
 We guess what people mean by referring to certain DEFAULT EXPECTATIONS  Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at
which it is occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
 When people do not fulfill the default expectations exchange in which you are engaged.
 They create IMPLICATURE (‘special meaning’)  Quantity
Examples:  Quality
 How is Alan doing in his new job at HSBC?  Relation
 Oh, quite well, I think. He likes his colleagues and he hasn’t been to prison  Manner
yet.
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Conversational ‘Maxims’ Maxims vs. Rules

 The Maxim of Quantity  Sets of expectations which we exploit to make meaning.

 Be only as informative as required for current conversational  The point is not that we follow these maxims or that we ‘should’ follow
purposes. them.
 The Maxim of Quality  The point is that when we deviate from them we create a IMPLICATURE.
 Say only what you believe to be true and adequately supported.
 The Maxim of Relation
 Be relevant.
 The Maxim of Manner
 Be clear: be brief and orderly and avoid obscurity and ambiguity.