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The Social Side of Language
Below, you will find examples of language use that invites additional inferences that go beyond the conventional linguistic meanings of the sentences. For each example, identify how a hearer might be likely to elaborate the meanings beyond their conventional values, and explain how one or more of Grice’s maxims of cooperative conversation might drive such an elaboration. (You may find yourself proposing more than one possible interpretation.)
Keep in mind that in some cases, what looks like a flagrant violation of one of the maxims may serve as the signal for a specific inference—rather than assume that the speaker is uncooperative, the hearer will often assume that there is a specific purpose behind the speaker’s apparent violation of conversational norms.
Example 1
A: How long have you two been married?
B: Four years, 45 days, and 17 hours.
Example 2
A: I don’t think my son is that absent-minded.
B: Have you met your son?
Example 3
Miranda began a relationship with James Holt in April. Three months later, she was dead.
Example 4
A: What does Terrence do for a living?
B: He works in an office.
Example 5
A: Denzel Washington is a famous black actor.
B: No, he’s not. He’s a famous actor who is black.
Example 6
Don’t get me wrong. Rick has a number of great qualities as a boyfriend. He keeps his fingernails trimmed. He enunciates his vowels. He has never had three different blondes show up at his door on the same morning, each claiming to be his new wife.
Example 7
A: Which one is Samantha?
B: She’s the bride wearing the dress.
Example 8
A: How was your job interview?
B: Pour me a scotch, will you? Make it a double.
Example 9
I’d like you to meet the male contributor to my DNA.
Example 10
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
—Matt Groening, Love is Hell
Example 11
In the following dialogue* from the movie When Harry Met Sally, Harry and his friend Jess are discussing a female friend of Harry’s (Harry is trying to set up a blind date between Jess and his woman friend). A disagreement ensues over what Jess is entitled to infer from Harry’s description of his friend. Comment on Jess’s attempts to draw two inferences (1: The friend is not attractive; 2: The friend is not beautiful) by appealing to Grice’s conversational maxims.
Jess: If she’s so great, why aren’t YOU taking her out?
Harry: How many times do I have to tell you, we’re just friends.
Jess: So you’re saying she’s not that attractive.
Harry: No, I told you she IS attractive.
Jess: But you also said she has a good personality.
Harry: She HAS a good personality.
Jess: [Stops walking, turns around, throws up his hands as if to say “Aha!”]
Harry: What?
Jess: When someone’s not that attractive, they’re always described as having a good personality.
Harry: Look. If you were to ask me what does she look like and I said she has a good personality, that means she’s not attractive. But just because I happen to mention she has a good personality, she could be either. She could be attractive with a good personality, or not attractive with a good personality.
Jess: So which one is she?
Harry: Attractive.
Jess: But not beautiful, right?
(*This example was discussed by linguist Larry Horn: Horn, L. R. (2004) Implicature. In L. R. Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 3–28.)