Pragmatics and the Intuitions of

Law Enforcement Officers

International Pragmatics Association

Annual Conference, 2005
Riva del Garda, Italy
Kerry Linfoot-Ham, University of
Florida
Introduction

“If you are ever arrested in the US,

remember that what you say may not
be as important as how you say it.”
Cho (2001:11).
Theories

 “Co-Operative Principle” (Grice, 1975)

 “Relevance Theory” (Sperber and Wilson, 1986)

 “Politeness Principle” (Brown and Levinson, 1987)

 “Derivational Thinking” (M.J. Hardman, 1996)

 “Norm Resistance Theory” (Austin Turk, 1966)

Co-operative Principle

“…make your conversational contribution such

as is required, at the stage at which it occurs,
by the accepted purpose or direction of the
talk exchange in which you are engaged.”
Grice (1999:78)
Co-operative Maxims
 Quantity – make your contribution as
informative as is required
 Quality – make your contribution one
that is true
 Relation – be relevant
 Manner – be clear, unambiguous,
brief, and orderly
Grice (1975:45-46)
Quality
 Quality – make your contribution one
that is true
– Do not say what you believe to be false
– Do not say that for which you lack
adequate evidence

“ COPS HATE LIARS [sic.]”

(Florida Police Officer Ray Wisher, 1999:38)
Principle of Relevance

Principle of relevance:
“Every act of ostensive communication
communicates the presumption of its own
optimal relevance.”
Sperber and Wilson (1986:158)
Politeness Principle
 Leech’s (1983) maxims:

– Tact maxim
– Generosity maxim
– Approbation maxim
– Modesty maxim
– Agreement maxim
– Sympathy maxim

(see also Brown and Levinson, 1987)

Hierarchy of Importance for the
Conversational Maxims and the
Politeness Principle :

1) quality
2) politeness
3) relevance
4) manner
5) quantity
Derivational Thinking (DT)
Linguistic Postulates:
– number (use of singular/plural structures)
– sex-based gender (with the masculine form as
the root and the feminine derived from the masculine)

– ranking comparative/absolute (e.g. better,

best)

e.g. Hardman (1996)

Norm Resistance Theory

“[law is a] consensus-coercion
balance maintained by the
authorities …”

Turk (1966:607)
Variants of Authority-subject Values
 Subjects and authorities both act congruently with their
cultural norms
 Little/no agreement between the verbal and behaviour of
authorities and subjects and the cultural norms they hold

 Congruence is present for the authorities with regard to

adhering to their cultural norms, but incongruence exists for
the subjects
 “Incongruence between official norms and behaviour
among the authorities will reduce the chance of overt
conflict because it deserves discretion”, (Turk, 1966, p. 608)
Organization and Sophistication
 Organization
– Levels of support for actions within a group, and how far this is
integrated into the group dynamics.
– Turk assumes police have complex organization, whereas subject
organization may vary according to their social circle.

 Sophistication
– Knowledge of others, which may be used to manipulate them.
– Turk again assumes that authorities have high levels of
sophistication, whereas the levels of subjects may vary.
Other Pragmatic Theories
 Conversation Analysis (CA)

– For example, Schegloff, Jefferson, and

Sacks (1977)

– See Heydon, 2005 for an example of CA

used within a law enforcement setting
The Future

Aims:
–Prevent physical/verbal conflict
caused by communicative frustration

Training law enforcement officers:

–Create a few simple, user-friendly
categories that front line officers can
access and utilise without effort
 The End

Thank you
for listening!