Disjunctive Answer Options Complicate Communication – A Linguistic Analysis of the Danish EQ-5D (5L) Version

Background: EQ-5D is an internationally acknowledged tool for assessing health-related quality of life. Our aim was to examine how pragmatic dynamics may influence answers to the EQ-5D-5L and how the logical structure of answer options affects the communication of the questionnaire.Methods: We performed a 3-step linguistic analysis building on the seminal work of Grice, including 1) examination of the lexical meanings of the answer options, 2) considerations of how conversational maxims might affect the respondent’s interpretation of answer options when two or more answer options in an item are compatible, and 3) analysis of how the questionnaire’s context might counteract the problem of omissions of answer options by shifting the meaning of context-sensitive expressions. Results: All items exhibit compatibilities and omissions. In items 1 and 3, ordinary conversational norms provide sufficient guidance to determine how a respondent should decide between compatible answer options. In items 2, 4, and 5, the available answer options complicated the communicative task for some respondents. Conclusions: In items where answer options have a disjunctive structure, respondents relying on Gricean maxims of conversation will have to depend on their individual understanding of fine-grained details concerning the questionnaire’s purpose and may have to weigh how conflicting norms should be balanced.

Coherence Problems of EFL Students’ Writing in Light of the Gricean Maxims

Aim. In academic writing, lack of coherence is thought to occur mostly due to the lack of necessary linguistic skills and knowledge in L2. Thus, the analysis of a written text is concerned with understanding the local relations among the ideas conveyed in a text. Concept. As is usually the case, students writing in a second language generally produce texts that contain varying degrees of grammatical and rhetorical errors. Most of the studies have been conducted with only one criterion for the analysis of coherence and they reported different results. Also, most of them have been conducted on a small scale in terms of the number of participants, and writing samples collected. Therefore, this study tries to investigate the coherence problems/errors of university students in their writing, if any, on a fairly large scale in light of the Cooperative principle and its maxims. Results and conclusion. The study revealed that the basic problem of the students in their essay writing was the way the text should be structured with reference to how cohesion and coherence are established. In the analysis of maxim violations, the violation of the Quality maxim was identified as making overgeneralisations or giving inadequate or no evidence/support for the claims/ideas. The violation of the Quality maxim indicates that students tend to do it due to their linguistic inadequacies.

A Survey of Infringements of Gricean Maxims in Some Precautionary Inscriptions on Medicine Packets

In communication, participants are expected to cooperate through observing a set of maxims. Nevertheless, some communicative instances reveal that there are cases of unintentional non-observance of the maxims, which Grice (1975) categorized as “infringing a maxim”. These instances of infringements call for attention to the extent that they could cause breakdown in communication. In this regard, the aim of this paper is to investigate some cases of infringements of the maxims in selected precautionary inscriptions on some medicine packets, with the objective to examine how such messages are interpreted. The theoretical framework adopted for this research is based on Gricean pragmatics. The method for this research is qualitative and its paradigm is interpretive. The data were collected from some packets of medicine sold in some pharmacy shops in Lagos, Nigeria. One of the major observations made in the course of this research is that, out of the four classes of the Gricean maxims, only the maxim of quality was not infringed in any precautionary inscription in the data. This result may be justified by the reason that precautionary inscriptions on medicine packets should be carefully couched in truth, so as not to jeopardize the health of the patients. Further studies on various cases of infringements in diverse aspects of communication are strongly recommended. Keywords: Precautionary Inscriptions; Communication; Pragmatics; Maxims; Infringements

The Flouting of Gricean Maxims Found in the TV Series Mom

This research discusses the flouting of Gricean maxims done by all the characters in the TV series Mom in the first 10 episodes in season 1. This research aims to identify and to classify the flouting of Gricean maxims according to Cutting’s classification and the most used method of flouting. The quantitative and qualitative methods are used as data analysis instruments. It is discovered that there are 99 flouting, with 59.6% (59 cases) among which is flouting of maxim of quality, 18.2% (18 cases) is flouting of maxim of quantity, 13.1% (13 cases) is flouting of maxim of relation, and 9.1% (9 cases) is flouting of maxim of manner. The characters in Mom tend to flout the maxims by using metaphors, being irrelevant, using irony or sarcasm, using hyperbole, or being ambiguous or obscure. The analysis shows that the characters flouted the maxims for several reasons, with the most frequent one is to offend or to hurt the hearer and to convince the hearer.

The Flouting of Gricean Maxims Found in the TV Series Mom

This research discusses the flouting of Gricean maxims done by all the characters in the TV series Mom in the first 10 episodes in season 1. This research aims to identify and to classify the flouting of Gricean maxims according to Cutting’s classification and the most used method of flouting. The quantitative and qualitative methods are used as data analysis instruments. It is discovered that there are 99 flouting, with 59.6% (59 cases) among which is flouting of maxim of quality, 18.2% (18 cases) is flouting of maxim of quantity, 13.1% (13 cases) is flouting of maxim of relation, and 9.1% (9 cases) is flouting of maxim of manner. The characters in Mom tend to flout the maxims by using metaphors, being irrelevant, using irony or sarcasm, using hyperbole, or being ambiguous or obscure. The analysis shows that the characters flouted the maxims for several reasons, with the most frequent one is to offend or to hurt the hearer and to convince the hearer.

A GENDER-BASED ANALYSIS OF OBSERVANCE AND NON-OBSERVANCE OF CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS IN FRONT OFFICE STAFF’S SPEECH AT RESTAURANTS IN UBUD DISTRICT

This study was intended to investigate, describe and explain how conversational maxims are observed by the Front Office staff at restaurants in Ubud when they handle table reservation and what types of non-observance are committed by the Front Office staff in observing conversational maxims. The subjects were the Front Office staff at restaurants in Ubud district. The data for this naturalistic qualitative study were collected through observation and audio-recording which were then analyzed by using Paul Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle theory. In this research, there were 30 conversations of taking table reservation via telephone which were conducted by the front office staff at restaurants in Ubud sub-district when they handle table reservation. Generally, both male and female front office staff produced more observance of maxims than non-observance of maxims. The highest frequency of observance and non-observance of Gricean maxims produced by male front office staff was maxim of quantity (100%), then followed by flouting of maxims (62.5%), and infringing maxims (25%). The highest frequency of observance and non-observance of Gricean maxims produced by female front office staff was maxim of quantity (100%), then followed by flouting of maxims (68.1%), and infringing of maxims (9.0%). Moreover, there was no opting out of maxims and suspending of maxims occurred in the conversation. The utterances were obtained from 30 data in restaurant setting. In general, both male and female front office staff produced more observance of maxims than non-observance of maxims.

Flouting Gricean Maxims for Comic Implicatures in Hassan El Fad’s Sitcom Comedy Tendance Forth Episode

This paper explores how the flouting of the Gricean maxims is used to bring about comedy and humorous effect in Hassan El Fad’s 4th episode of Tendance sitcom. Therefore, it aims at finding out what maxims are flouted the most to create comedy and what maxims the two main characters disobey for the sake of making people laugh. To reach the study objective, the paper is based on the analysis of the fourth episode transcription. That is, the study relies on a qualitative descriptive method as it aims at exploring the flouting of Grice’s cooperative principle in Moroccan Arabic comedy and describing how such flouting generates humour and comedy. The results show that the most frequently flouted maxim was the maxim of quantity (39.3%), followed by the maxims of quality (29.6%), manner (26.2%) and the least maxim flouted was relevance (4.9%). The results suggest that the use of flouts has to do with their different moods and personalities, which is why the main characters did not use as many flouts in order to create comedy, since it would not be in line with their personalities. Furthermore, the study shows that most of maxim flouts that create comic implicature are perceived via the use of obscure overstatement and personification, use of misleading conventional-coded expressions, irrelevant oddness of conversation-established ideas, and flouting of Moroccan communication patterns. The study concludes that the use of urban accent of Marrakech city alongside maxims flouting generated humorous effect.

The answer depends on pragmatic norms and epistemic reflection. A linguistic and epistemological analysis of the Danish Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36)

Purpose The SF-36 is a commonly used tool for measuring health status in a general population. Despite the overall moderate to high validity scores, we believe that certain communicative dynamics of the questionnaire deserve more careful attention. Our aim was to examine how pragmatic dynamics and epistemic reflection may influence answers to the SF-36.Methods We applied a three-step Gricean analysis, which included identification of the items in which pragmatic dynamics are most likely to have a significant effect, examination of how Gricean maxims might affect the answers given to the items identified, and finally, assessment of whether the combined influence of linguistic context-sensitivity and pragmatic norms is benign.Results Items 6, 9a, 10 and 11a–d were included in the analysis. Regarding these items, our analysis showed that the pragmatic dynamics of scalar implicatures are crucial to the interpretation of answer options. In addition, we raised concerns specifically about the answer option ‘Ved ikke’; rather than representing a neutral midpoint, the answer is compatible with both a positive and a negative answer option. Nonetheless, we found that the communicative dynamics of the questionnaire are mostly benign.Conclusion Compared to the significance of scalar implicatures, the potential effects of epistemic reflection that we identified are minor because they concern only items with a ‘Don’t know’ answer option. However, we raised the concern that attention to epistemic error possibilities might prompt respondents to opt for a ‘Don’t know’ answer despite having evidence supporting a different answer. Therefore, although pragmatic norms of communication are far more significant than attention to epistemic error possibilities in shaping answers to the SF-36, we think that both factors belong in a description of how the questionnaire works.

Children’s and Adults’ Sensitivity to Gricean Maxims and to the Maximize Presupposition Principle

Up to age 5, children are known to experience difficulties in the derivation of implicitly conveyed content, sticking to literally true, even if underinformative, interpretation of sentences. The computation of implicated meanings is connected to the (apparent or manifest) violation of Gricean conversational maxims. We present a study that tests unmotivated violations of the maxims of Quantity, Relevance, and Manner and of the Maximize Presupposition principle, with a Truth Value Judgment task with three options of response. We tested pre-schoolers and school-aged children, with adults as controls, to verify at which age these pragmatic rules are recognized and to see whether there is a difference among these tenets. We found an evolutionary trend and that, in all age groups, violations of the maxims of Quantity and of Relation are sanctioned to a higher degree compared to infringements of the Maim of Manner and of the Maximize Presupposition principle. We conjecture that this relates to the effects that the violation of a certain maxim or principle has on the goals of the exchange: listeners are less tolerant with statements that transmit inaccurate or incomplete information, while being more tolerant with those that still permit to understand what has happened.

Curative or beauty treatment? Language and manipulation in leaflets of medical devices

The aim of the paper is to examine the mechanisms of potential (cognitive) manipulation used in the leaflets of selected medical devices. The assumption is that in the texts under analysis some of the Gricean conversational maxims are violated in an attempt at discursive manipulation or can be perceived as violated by the reader, which is favoured by activation of certain idealized cognitive models (ICMs). For the purposes of the study leaflets of four antifungal medical devices – their English- and German-language versions – are examined. The theoretical basis is mainly centred on the Gricean notion of implicature and the contemporary theory of conceptual metaphor and metonymy. The texts are analysed at relevant sub-tiers (for instance metaphor-metonymy conceptual tier) of particularly the sectional and conceptual tier. The examination of the selected leaflets reveals that the texts evoke certain ICMs whose presence seems to result – in 3 out of 4 leaflets – from, to a large extent, the intention to at least bend some Gricean maxims. Hence, the reader might be under the impression that the product does something that is not explicitly promised.