University of Aleppo
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
English Department
Linguistics
A Cross-Cultural Study of Implicatures in English TV Commercials:
The Effect of Pragmatic Competence on Recipients’ Cognitive Abilities
by
Raghad Mohammad Chouihna
Supervised by
Dr. Marwan Radwan
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA in
Linguistics
Department of English
University of Aleppo
2018 University of Aleppo
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
English Department
Linguistics
A Cross-Cultural Study of Implicatures in English TV Commercials:
The Effect of Pragmatic Competence on Recipients’ Cognitive Abilities
by
Raghad Mohammad Chouihna
Supervised by
Dr. Marwan Radwan
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA in
Linguistics
Department of English
University of Aleppo
2018 I
This thesis is dedicated to
My inspiring parents
II
Declaration
I declare that this thesis is my own original work, conducted under the supervision of Dr. Marwan Radwan. It is submitted for the degree of MA in Linguistics, English
Department at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Aleppo, Syria. No part of this research has been submitted in the past, or is being submitted, for a degree at any other university.
Candidate
Raghad Mohammad Chouihna
III
Abstract
This study aims at investigating Syrian EFL learners’ pragmatic competence at the upper-intermediate level by comparing their comprehension of implicatures in the audio-visual medium of English TV global commercials to that of the native speakers of
English. The purpose is to find out whether Syrian nonnative speakers of English (NNSs) are able to understand conversational implicature and comprehend covert inferences in the context of advertising. The research also seeks to study the application of the Gricean maxims as interpretation strategies and to figure out the most difficult maxim and the constraints affecting the derivation of meaning.
This study was applied on the genre of advertising. Advertisements rely considerably on inferences and assumptions which help proceed towards eventual interpretations. It is noticed that advertisers tend to flout the maxims for the purpose of creating some effects on their recipients. They also tend to convey their messages covertly to affect the recipients’ cognition and to avoid accepting responsibility for their claims. Choosing the context of advertising allows the investigation of the contextual influence on the understanding of inferences.
Grice’s theory of implicature and Sperber and Wilson’s theory of relevance were used as two frameworks for the analyses of the different types of implicatures in the selected commercials and the participants’ comprehension of implicatures.
A comparative study employing a mixed method approach (a questionnaire and a retrospective interview) was carried out. Data were collected from 30 English NSs in
England and the US through the Internet and 30 Syrian EFL learners at the Higher
Institute of Languages (HIL) at Aleppo University, Syria. Participants watched the IV advertisements and completed a comprehension test. After that, they were interviewed.
Interviews were carried out to allow the researcher to examine the participants’ thinking processes during comprehension.
Results showed that speaking different languages was not a barrier in understanding conversational implicatures in a global context. Both groups applied the
Gricean maxims as an interpretation strategy. However, participants’ different reaction to some implicatures was due to differences in their cultural background and personal experience. The results also showed that understanding covert inferences were hard for both groups; however, the expectations of relevance and the nature of the context of advertising helped participants in identifying and, sometimes, interpreting the covert inferences in the advertisement.
It is recommended that implicature identification should be addressed in language syllabuses for both NSs and NNSs of English. As for advertisers, they should be cautious when employing implicatures derived through maxim flouting in standardized commercials.
V
Acknowledgements
All praise and glory be to Allah the Almighty Who made this thesis be accomplished. He has shown me that it is a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates.
Special thanks go to the University of Aleppo and the Faculty of Arts and
Humanities for giving me the opportunity to do this research. Thanks are also extended to all the members of staff in the English Department. My deepest appreciation goes to my supervisor, Dr. Marwan Radwan for his care, support, and encouragement without which I would have given up along the way. My sincere gratitude goes to my thesis committee: Dr. Saleh Al-Khateeb and Dr. Adnan Al-Sayed for offering time, support and insightful comments.
Heart-felt thanks go to my dedicated dad, mom, aunt Amal, and Dr. Ahmad for their constant support, prayers, and patience and to my siblings for their sense of humour when the going gets tough. Thanks for being so tender and loving. The warmest thanks are also to my fiancé for his encouragement.
Thanks are also due to the native and the nonnative research participants. Special thanks are to Mr. John Why for helping me collect my native speakers of English sample.
Thanks also go to my friends, colleagues and students for their questions and interests in my work. In particular, I want to thank Assmaa Khorsheed, Sarah Al-hussein and Noor Al-Huda Abed. Thanks for your enthusiasm and the motivating discussions. I owe special thanks to my friend Rahaf Sekhnii for her long-standing generosity and assistance throughout the thesis. I am grateful to everyone who has helped me conduct this research. God bless you all!
VI
Table of Contents
Title
Dedication I
Declaration II
Abstract III
Acknowledgment V
Table of Contents VI
List of Tables XI
List of Figures XIII
List of Abbreviations XV
Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Introduction ………………………………………….………………………... 1
1.2 Background of the Study ………………………………………………………. 1
1.3 Problem of the Study …………………………………………………………... 3
1.4 Purpose of the Study …………………………………………………………… 4
1.5 Significance of the Study ………………………………………………………. 5
1.6 Research Questions ……………………………………………………………. 6
1.7 Scope of the Study …………………………………………………………….. 7
1.8 Definitions of Concepts ………………….……………………………………. 7
1.9 Chapter Summary ……………………………………………………………… 8
1.10 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 10
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
2.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………… 11 VII
2.2 Inferential Communication …………………………………………………… 12
2.2.1 Grice’s Theory of Implicature …………………………………….………… 13
2.2.1.1 Grice’s Cooperative Principle and the Four Maxims ………………….…. 14
2.2.1.2 Grice’s Classification of Implicature ………………………………………. 17
2.2.1.3 Working out the Implicature ……………………………………………….. 20
2.2.2 Sperber and Wilson’s Theory of Relevance …………………….…………… 22
2.2.2.1 Relevance and Communication ……………………………………………. 23
2.2.2.2 Overt and Covert Communication …………………………………………. 24
2.2.2.3 Explicature/ Implicature in Relevance Theory …………………………….. 25
2.2.3 Differences between Grice’s Theory and Relevance Theory ………………... 29
2.2.4 The Role of Background Knowledge in the Interpretation of Implicature …... 33
2.2.5 Grice’s Theory and Relevance Theory as Two Analytical Frameworks ……. 36
2.3 Commercial Media in our Daily Life ………………………………………….. 37
2.3.1 Definition of Commercial …………………………………………….……… 38
2.3.2 Global Commercials …………………………………………………….…... 39
2.3.3 The Communicative Situation of Commercials …………………………….. 40
2.3.4 The Effect of Gender and Mood …………………………………………….. 42
2.3.5 The Best Length for TV Commercials ………………………………………. 43
2.3.6 The Function of Commercials ………………………………………………. 44
2.3.7 The Linguistic Features of Commercials ……………………………………. 44
2.3.8 The Nonlinguistic Features of Commercials ……………………………...... 47
2.3.9 The Role of Implicature in Commercials ………………………………...... 50
2.4 Native and Nonnative Speakers’ Interpretation of Implicatures in English ….. 55 VIII
2.5 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………... 62
Chapter Three: Research Methodology
3.1 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………. 64
3.2 Cross-Cultural Research ……………………………………………………….. 64
3.3 Context of the Study …………………………………………………………... 66
3.3.1 Scripts …………………………………………………………………..……. 66
3.3.2 Participants and Settings ………………………………………………….…. 68
3.3.2.1 Selection of Nonnative Speakers ………………………………………….. 69
3.3.2.2 Selection of Native Speakers ………………………………………………. 71
3.4 Mixed-Method Approach ……………………………………………………… 72
3.5 Data Collection Instruments …………………………………………………… 74
3.5.1Questionnaire …………………………………………………………………. 75
3.5.1.1 Definition and Rationale …………………………………………………… 75
3.5.1.2 Questionnaire Construction ……………………………………………….. 77
3.5.1.3 Questionnaire Procedure ………………………………………………….. 78
3.5.2 Retrospective Interview ………………………..…………………………….. 80
3.5.2.1 Definition and Rationale …………………………………………………… 80
3.5.2.2 Interview Procedure …………………………………………...………….. 81
3.6 Validity and Reliability ……………………………………………………….. 83
3.6.1 Validity and Reliability of the Questionnaire ………….……………………. 84
3.6.2 Validity and Reliability of the Retrospective Interview ………………….… 84
3.7 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………... 85
IX
Chapter Four: Research Results
4.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………… 86
4.2 Scripts Analysis ………………………………………………………………. 86
4.3 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Data ……………………….…..…… 96
4.3.1 Comprehension of Intended Implicature ………………….………..……….. 97
4.3.2 Participants’ Awareness of Covert Implicature …………….……………….. 98
4.3.3 Comprehension of Conventional and Conversational Implicature ………….. 111
4.3.3.1 Comprehension of Conventional Implicature …………..……………...... 111
4.3.3.2 Comprehension of Conversational Implicature ………………...………… 116
4.3.4 Participants’ Application of the Gricean Maxims as Interpretation Strategy 116
4.3.4.1 The Maxim of Quality as Interpretation Strategy …………..…………… 117
4.3.4.2 The Maxim of Quantity as Interpretation Strategy ………….…………… 124
4.3.4.3 The Maxim of Relevance as Interpretation Strategy …………..………… 129
4.3.4.4 The Maxim of Manner as Interpretation Strategy ………………..……… 134
4.3.5 Identification of Maxims Flouting ………………………………………… 141
4.3.5.1 Identification of Quality Flouting ………………………………………... 142
4.3.5.2 Identification of Quantity Flouting ………………………………………. 144
4.3.5.3 Identification of Relevance Flouting ……………………………………. 149
4.3.5.4 Identification of Manner Flouting ………………………...... 152
4.3.6 Interview Analysis …………………………………………………………… 155
4.4 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….. 160
Chapter Five: Discussion and Conclusion
5.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………… 161 X
5.2 Discussion and Implications ………………………………………………….. 161
5.3 Conclusions …………………………………………………………………… 172
5.4 Limitations of the Study ………………………………………………………. 173
5.5 Recommendations for Further Research ………………………………………. 174
5.6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….. 175
References …………………………………………………………………………. 176
Appendices ………………………………………………………………………... 186
Appendix A
List of Commercials ……………………………………….……………….….….. 187
Appendix B
Commercials’ Transcription …………………………………..…………..………. 189
Appendix C
Participants ………………………………………………………………………… 198
Appendix D
Question to The Pilot Study ………………………………………………………. 205
Appendix E
Comprehension Test ………………………………………………………………. 207
Appendix F
Interview Questions ……………………………………………………………….. 224
Appendix G
Statistical Tables ………………………………………………………………….. 226
Appendix H
Transcription ……………………………………………………………...... 227 XI
List of Tables
Table 4.1 Questions Analysis in the First Commercial ………………………. 89
Table 4.2 Questions Analysis in the Second Commercial …………………… 90
Table 4.3 Questions Analysis in the Third Commercial ……………………… 91
Table 4.4 Questions Analysis in the Fourth Commercial …………………….. 92
Table 4.5 Questions Analysis in the Fifth Commercial ………………………. 92
Table 4.6 Questions Analysis in the Sixth Commercial ……………………… 93
Table 4.7 Questions Analysis in the Seventh Commercial …………………… 94
Table 4.8 Responses to Question Two: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature
Identification ………………………………………………………. 99
Table 4.9 Responses to Question Four: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature
Identification ………………………………………………………. 100
Table 4.10 Responses to Question Six: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature
Identification ………………………………………………………. 101
Table 4.11 Responses to Question Seven: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature
Identification ………………………………………………………. 102
Table4.12 Responses to Question Ten: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature
Identification ………………………………………………………. 103
Table 4.13 Responses to Question Fifteen: Testing Overt and Covert
Implicature Identification …………………………………………. 104
Table 4.14 Responses to Question Seventeen: Testing Overt and Covert
Implicature Identification ………………………………………….. 105
XII
Table 4.15 Responses to Question Eighteen: Testing Overt and Covert
Implicature Identification ………………………………………….. 106
Table 4.16 Responses to Question Twenty One: Testing Overt and Covert
Implicature Identification ………………………………………… 107
Table 4.17 Responses to Question Twenty Five: Testing Overt and Covert
Implicature Identification …………………………………………. 108
Table 4.18 Sample Answers of Participants’ Comprehension of Covert
Implicature ………………………………………………………… 109
Table 4.19 Responses to Question Sixteen: Testing Identification of Quality
Flouting …………………………………………………………….. 142
Table 4.20 Responses to Question Eight: Testing Identification of Quantity
Flouting ……………………………………………………………. 144
Table 4.21 Responses to Question Twenty Nine: Testing Identification of
Quantity Flouting ………………………………………………….. 146
Table 4.22 Responses to Question One: Testing Identification of Relevance
Flouting ……………………………………………………………. 149
Table 4.23 Responses to Question Eleven: Testing Identification of Manner
Flouting ……………………………………………………………. 152
Table 4.24 Participants’ Attitude to the Interview Question ………………….. 156
Table 4.25 Participants’ Dependence on the Semiotic Aspects in the
Commercials ………………………………………………………. 157
Table 4.26 The Effect of Background Knowledge on Participants’ Perception 158
XIII
List of Figures
Figure 3.1 Explanatory design (Creswell and Clark, 2007) ………....…..…….… 74
Figure 4.1 The overall percentage of correct answers for the questions having one
intended implicature …………………………………….……………. 97
Figure 4.2 The overall percentage of correct answers for the questions having
overt and covert implicatures …………………………………………. 98
Figure 4.3 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of
conventional implicature ……………………………………………… 114
Figure 4.4 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of
conventional implicature ……………………………………………… 115
Figure 4.5 The overall percentage of correct interpretations of maxims flouting 116
Figure 4.6 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of the
quality maxim ……………….…………………………………….…. 122
Figure 4.7 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of the
quality maxim …………………..……………………………………. 123
Figure 4.8 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of quantity
maxim ……………………………………………..………………….. 127
Figure 4.9 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of quantity
maxim ………………………………………………………………… 127
Figure 4.10 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of relevance
maxim …………………………………………………………………. 132
Figure 4.11 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of relevance
maxim ………………………………………………………………… 133 XIV
Figure 4.12 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of manner
maxim ………………………………………………………..……… 139
Figure 4.13 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of manner
maxim ………………………………………………………………. 140
XV
List of Abbreviations
CP Cooperative Principle …………………………………………….
EFL English As a Foreign Language ………………………………….
ESL English as a Second Language …………………………………..
GCI Generalized Conversational Implicature …………………………
H Hearer or The Addressee ………………………………………...
MCQs Multiple-Choice Questions ………………………………………
NNSs Nonnative Speakers ………………………………………………
NSs Native Speakers ………………………………………………….
P The Said ………………………………………………………….
PCI Particularized Conversational Implicature ……………………… q The Implied Meaning …………………………………………….
Q Question ………………………………………………………….
RT Relevance Theory ………………………………………………..
S Speaker …………………………………………………………..
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 1
Chapter One
Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Mastering a language does not only include learning its grammatical structures but also learning the rules governing discourse. Learners need to develop their pragmatic competence, so they can produce appropriate discourse forms and communicate effectively (Hymes, 1972). One important component of pragmatic competence is learners’ ability to understand implicature (Grice, 1975; Brown &
Levinson, 1978). Communication involves making inferences that will connect what is said to what is mutually assumed or what has been said before. The failure to interpret the implicatures properly is a main source of miscommunication not only between native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) but also among NSs themselves. The present study seeks to compare the interpretation of different types of implicatures in English commercials by NSs and NNSs of English as a foreign language. It attempts to integrate the linguistic, cognitive and cultural dimensions of the reception of commercials into a coherent theory of comprehension.
1.2 Background of the Study
Communication via language is a cooperative process in which both the speaker and the listener are actively involved. It is well-known that any kind of communication is unsuccessful if the receiver cannot grasp the implied components of meaning. The significance of the way interlocutors use and understand implicatures in different languages continues to grow as the international communication continues to increase as well. According to Grice (1975), communication involves a mutual understanding of intentions between the senders and the recipients. Therefore, the attaining of this state of mutual understanding of communicative intentions is to have
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 2 successful communication. In this respect, one important aspect of a speaker’s communicative competence is the ability to use and interpret implicature.
An important form of communication in which implicatures are heavily used is in advertising communication. According to Melchenko (2003), this form of communication relies considerably on inferences and assumptions which help proceed towards eventual interpretations. Marketing scientists (Levitt, 1983; Tansey, Hyman,
& zinkhan, 1990) assert that advertising communication has become one of the most recognisable and appealing forms of social communication to which everyone in society is exposed. They recommend advertisers to globalise their advertising themes across different countries as the needs and values of international customers are increasingly alike. Those authors argue that there is now a global village of customers who share common needs and social values.
Hayward and Siaya (as cited in Hager, 2003, p. 66) propose that advertisers need to be aware of cultures and their implications in order to be successful in the global market. They believe that the understanding of cultural differences is often considered a prerequisite for successful international advertising because consumers grow up in a particular culture and become aligned with that culture’s value system as well as beliefs and perception processes. Galloway (as cited in Hager, 2003) perceives language as a “part of the system of communication called culture” (p.66).
According to Garfinkel (as cited in Hager, 2003), “the basis of culture is not shared language, but shared rules of interpretation” (p. 67). In other words, language exists through shared cultural elements such as meanings, perceptions, and values.
In this context, the theory of implicature (Grice, 1975) and the theory of relevance (Sperber & Wilson, 1986) stand as paradigmatic examples of the nature and power of pragmatic explanations of the present linguistic phenomena; namely,
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 3 understanding implicatures. These approaches help establish pragmatics as the study of meaning embedded within its context. They provide an explicit account of how it is possible to mean more than what is actually said. They distinguish between what is said, which is part of meaning that is determined by truth-conditional semantics, and what is implicated, which falls outside the truth conditions and, therefore, belongs to pragmatics.
1.3 Problem of the Study
In an increasing internationalization world, different languages and cultures have come into contact with each other via different means of communication. This cross-cultural interaction is vulnerable to misunderstandings in many instances. In fact, successful cross-cultural communication does not only depend on language proficiency, but it also requires pragmatic competence. One important element of pragmatic competence is implicature comprehension. Unfortunately, our teaching curricula neglect this important dimension of language learning.
Based on general observations made throughout her teaching experience, the researcher has noticed that Syrian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) lack the essential pragmatic competence required to understand some kinds of implicatures appropriately. During communication, a lot of conclusions that are not asserted or logically implied are drawn. Learners might fail to recognise the underlying inferences. In some instances, they fail to detect the specific cultural clues which are meant to lead them to recognise the existence of the underlying inference.
In some other instances, they tend to interpret the utterances literally, so some utterances that carry implicatures in the target culture are taken at face value by speakers from another culture.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 4
1.4 Purpose of the Study
In order to account for this problem, the researcher investigates to what extent
Syrian EFL learners are able to interpret implicatures in the manner native speakers of
English do and the effect of the cultural background on the derivation of meaning.
The present study attempts to explore the difficult kinds of implicatures for Syrian
EFL learners. It also seeks to further our understanding of what role social and cultural factors play in the cognitive processes through investigating the validity of
Grice's theory of implicature and the theory of relevance as two processing models.
This study can be applied to several kinds of discourse. However, the researcher aims to apply it on English commercials in particular. Television commercials are one of the most prominent culture-specific forms of discourse which enables the researcher to investigate the relationship between language (the verbal context) and culture (the situational context). Advertising is also used as a text between people with different linguistic, cultural and world knowledge background.
Cook (as cited in Culpeper, 2001) suggests that advertisements are a new discourse type that does not simply try to attract recipients’ attention and persuade them to buy the product. For him, advertising discourse (like other discourse types which make a creative use of language, such as fictional writing, poetry, joke telling and humour) indulges in code play. This fulfils a societal need for light-hearted code play and display which is no longer satisfied by the traditional discourse types.
Therefore, the genre of advertising is a suitable context to process the different kinds of implicatures used in the selected commercials and then to test the NNSs’ comprehension of these implicatures. The commercials are analysed using Grice’s theory of implicature and the theory of relevance as two analytical frameworks.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 5
1.5 Significance of the Study
Researches into the differences between cultural norms associated with different languages are essential for peaceful co-existence and mutual tolerance.
Wierzbicka (2002) believes that the world is moving towards globalization. Cross- cultural communication is part of a wider debate about globalization and its impact on society and on interpersonal relations in a world of increasing mobility.
The findings may provide some insights into how advertisers can globalize their advertisements and have the desirable effect on their audience. Advertisements generate messages that should be purposefully chosen by the advertisers according to the type of products and the market cultural contexts. Although there may be some intentional or unintentional gaps in the text, it still has meaning to the culturally initiated recipient since s/he can decode deeper connotations. However, a foreign audience may have significant difficulties in perceiving the discourse cues.
Therefore, awareness of the significance of cultural, social and linguistic context is crucial for comprehension.
Providing evidence about the importance of developing the learners’ pragmatic competence in language teaching would be pedagogically enlightening for learners, teachers and curriculum designers alike. The findings would encourage teachers to develop their learners’ ability to use and interpret the different types of implicatures in order to provide their learners with the ability to communicate effectively in the nonnative language. It would give important insights into the relationship between linguistic, pragmatic, and cultural components of communication.
This study also stresses the importance of equipping the recipients with the awareness of words as symbols that have persuasive power especially in contexts such
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 6 as advertisements where the door is open for associations and seduction, and where the advertiser’s purpose is to communicate half-truth and appeal to the subconscious mind.
It is hoped that this study would provide a chance for more successful communication on the level of cross-cultural communication, thus avoiding socio- pragmatic failure and enhancing cross-cultural communication. It is also hoped that knowledge derived from this study might open up the investigation for further research in the field.
1.6 Research Questions
For the purpose of this study, the following research questions will be explored.
1. Are Syrian EFL learners able to infer correct implicatures from an English global
context the same way NSs of English do?
2. Are the NS and the NNS participants aware of covert inferences?
a. If not, what are the constraints that prevent each group from processing the
covert inferences?
b. Does the context influence the understanding of covert inferences?
3. Which implicature is troublesome to the NS and the NNS participants,
conventional or conversational implicature?
4. Do participants apply the Gricean maxims as interpretation strategies for
implicature interpretation?
a. If yes, which is the most difficult maxim?
b. What is the source of difficulty?
5. Can participants naively identify Gricean maxims flouting? If yes, which is the
most difficult maxim?
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 7
6. In the light of the above questions, are Grice's (1975) theory of implicature and
Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) theory of relevance suitable models for processing
implicatures in commercials and implicatures comprehension?
1.7 Scope of the Study
The research was the result of a comparative study which included the Syrian adult learners of English as a foreign language, and the native speakers of English. It was based primarily on the analysis of implicature perception in seven selected TV commercials advertising IT products. The research was conducted at the Higher
Institute of Languages (HIL) at Aleppo University. The period during which the researcher carried out the research was between 2015 and 2017. The upper- intermediate level was selected in the study at hand as a representative sample. The scope was limited to two theories of implicature, namely Grice’s (1975) theory of implicature and Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) theory of relevance.
1.8 Definitions of Concepts
The following are theoretical terms used in the study and are defined for the research purpose.
Competence is the perfect knowledge of an ideal speaker/listener of the language in a homogeneous speech community (Chomsky, as cited in Levinson, 1983).
Cross-cultural pragmatics is the study of differences in expectations based on cultural schemata. It applies to something which covers more than one culture (Fries,
2008).
Gricean pragmatics is an approach to discourse analysis. It suggests that speakers are able indirectly to communicate certain further things by saying certain things in certain contexts (Bezuidenhout, 2006).
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 8
Implicature refers to all kinds of pragmatic inferences percieved. It is an inference about the speaker’s intention that arises from the recipient’s use of both semantic meaning and conversational principles (Levinson, 1983).
Inferential pragmatics is the explanation of how the hearer infers the speaker’s meaning on the basis of the evidence provided. Pragmatic inferences are divided into presupposition, implicature, speech acts, and deixis (Levinson, 1983).
Manifestness is a term used by Sperber and Wilson (1986). Manifest is what someone is capable of inferring or capable of perceiving. The sum of all the manifest assumptions is the person’s cognitive environment.
Pragmatic competence is a term that refers to the knowledge of “the extent to which utterances are produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts depending on contextual factors such as status of participants, purposes of interaction, and norms of conventions of interactions” (Canale, 1983, p. 7).
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics that refers to the study of utterances in contexts
(Levinson, 1983).
Proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs (Hurford, Heasley & Smith, 1983, p. 19).
Schemata refer to the background knowledge that recipients need to have in order to understand the function and the information in the text (Culpeper, 2001).
Semantics is the study of meaning in a language (Hurford, Heasley & Smith, 1983, p.
1).
What is said refers to the truth-condition of the sentence (Grice, 1975).
1.9 Chapter Summary
This study consists of five chapters. Chapter One presents the background of the problem examined in the present study. It also includes the purpose and
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 9 significance of the study, followed by the research questions as well as the scope of the study. It concludes with definitions of some concepts used in this study.
Chapter Two offers a review of the literature. It is basically divided into two sections. The first section is a review of inferential communication as a process of discourse analysis. Then it narrows down to focus on two main influential studies in this field, which are Grice’s (1975) theory of implicature and its discussion and
Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) theory of relevance and their typology of overt and covert communication. After that, it proceeds to discuss the boundaries between saying and implicating, the role of the background knowledge in determining the intended inference, and the universality of Grice’s maxims. The second section is a review of the context of marketing and advertising. It discusses the linguistic and the non-linguistic features in advertisements and the role of implicature in the genre of advertising. This chapter concludes with previous studies on implicature comprehension.
Chapter Three explains the research methodology. It provides a description of the nature of this research. It also describes the setting and the criteria for the selection of participants and commercials. It also gives a full description of the approach upon which the research is based, the instruments implemented, and the procedures undertaken to collect data. The chapter concludes by explaining the research validity and reliability.
In Chapter Four, the researcher reports the collected data depending on the specific data analysis technique used. First, the researcher has provided an analysis of the different kinds of implicatures in each commercial and the four multiple choices for each question according to Grice’s theory of implicature and the theory of relevance. Then, quantitative and qualitative analyses of participants’ responses to
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 10 the questions in the comprehension test are discussed in groups according to the type of implicature they are testing. It also presents a qualitative analysis of the audiotaped interviews.
Chapter Five commences with discussions and implications of the results.
Then it concludes with the study conclusions, limitations, and recommendations for further research. The study closes with the references and the appendices section.
1.10 Conclusion
This chapter has introduced the theoretical basis of the present study. Then it has presented the problem, the purpose, and the significance of the study. Identifying these components helped in formulating the research questions, which have been provided in this chapter. The chapter has also highlighted the scope of the thesis in which the researcher has described the time and the place limits. Definitions of the main concepts have been also provided. After that, it has proceeded to the structure of the thesis. The following chapter aims at contextualising this study within the larger body of the relevant literature.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 11
Chapter Two
Review of the Literature
2.1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to discuss the issue of inference in communication.
Communication is not a simple process of coding and decoding. Linguistic communication is obviously based on a code, but knowledge of the code is not a sufficient condition for successful communication. The structure of this chapter consists of two sections. The first section is a review of two main influential studies in this field, which are Grice’s (1975) theory of implicature and its discussion and
Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) theory of relevance and their typology of overt and covert communication.
For the purpose of this study, it is important to draw a distinction between saying and implicating, and the boundaries between these two notions with reference to some linguists’ discussion on this issue (Bach, 1994; Carston, 1998; Grice, 1975;
Recanati, 1989; Sperber and Wilson, 1986). The role of the background knowledge and the sociocultural context in determining the intended inference, on the one hand, and the universality of the maxims, on the other hand, are taken into consideration and discussed.
The second section is a review of the context of marketing and advertising. It discusses the linguistic and nonlinguistic features in advertisements and the role of implicatures in the genre of advertising. The aim of this section is to show the purpose of applying this study on the genre of advertising and the criteria used for selecting the commercials and analysing them. At the end of this chapter, major studies on the topic are reported, and findings are summarised and discussed.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 12
2.2 Inferential Communication
Communication is largely reliant on human inferential abilities. Inference is any piece of information that is not explicitly stated. Inference or implicature stands for what a speaker does not say but rather communicates, suggests, and implies. It is best explained as the meaning that can be found by reading between the lines. Geis
(1982) says that “human beings are inferencing creatures, trained to read into what is said as much as is consistent with the literal meaning of what is said and the context in which it is said” (p. 46). Therefore, inference is one of the important steps in discourse comprehension. It is essential for effective communication because discourse is not just a set of linguistic units. Linguistic forms and meanings work together with social and cultural meanings, and interpretive frameworks, to create the speaker’s intended message.
To understand this process, a look at the history of inference tells us that the idea of inferential communication has its roots in philosophy in the notion of abduction which was first introduced by Aristotle and later on developed by the pragmatist philosopher Charles Peirce (1955). Peirce (1955) believed that in addition to the deduction and induction modes of inference, there should be a third mode of inference called abduction. He said:
Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only
logical operation which introduces any new idea; for induction does nothing
but determine a value, and deduction merely evolves the necessary
consequences of a pure hypothesis. Deduction proves that something must be;
induction shows that something actually is operative; abduction merely
suggests that something may be. (p.172)
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 13
In this sense, abduction is a method of logical inference for which the colloquial name is guessing. It is guesswork since it can only suggest what may be the case. It starts with consideration of observations. These observations then give rise to a hypothesis which relates them to some other facts or rules which will account for them. This is formed by combining implication (incomplete information) provided by the message producer with various schemata including prior knowledge, attitudes, and associations that may have been learned socioculturally.
In the following, two basic approaches to inferential communication are reviewed. The first one is Grice’s (1975) theory of implicature. The second is Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) theory of relevance. Both approaches explain human communicative behaviour from a cognitive perspective.
2.2.1 Grice’s Theory of Implicature
The first approach, which appeals to something like abduction in natural language understanding, was proposed by the rationalist philosopher Herbert Paul
Grice (1975) when he introduced the concept of conversational implicature in his
Williams James Lectures at Harvard. Grice (1975) in his article, “Logic and
Conversation” displayed his theory of implicature in which he distinguished between what is said (saying) and what is meant (implicature). Grice was concerned with the way in which speakers know how to generate implicit meanings, and in the problem of how they can assume that their addressee will reliably understand their intended meaning. His aim was to discover the mechanism behind this process. He attempted to distinguish between the natural meaning and the nonnatural meaning. For him, natural meaning is not conventional meaning and in this sense, it is similar to Peirce’s idea of icons or indexicals, while non-natural meaning is only a matter of convention and is similar to Peirce’s idea of symbols.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 14
2.2.1.1 Grice’s Cooperative Principle and the Four Maxims
Grice (1975) states that what the speaker means by an utterance is not necessarily closely related to the meaning of the utterance at all. He suggests the following general cooperative principle (CP): “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, 1975, p. 45).
Grice’s cooperative principle suggests that participants assume one another to believe and observe (Schiffrin, 1994). The reference to the domain of the stage is connected with the domain of genre. Fetzer (2007) illustrates that the phrase “at the stage at which it occurs” implicitly accounts for the sequential organisation of dialogue. The phrase “such as is required” refers to appropriateness which is an important factor in the communication process.
Under this general principle, Grice (1975) lists four basic maxims which jointly express a general cooperative principle. The maxims are derived from the fact that talking is “a special case or variety of purposive, indeed rational, behaviour” (p.
47). The maxims are quantity, quality, relation and manner:
1. Quantity
Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of
the exchange.
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
For example, if you are assisting me to mend a car, I expect your contribution to be neither more nor less than is required; if, for example, at a particular stage I need four screws, I expect you to hand me four, rather than two or six.
2. Quality
Do not say what you believe to be false.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 15
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
For example, I expect your contribution to be genuine and not spurious. If I need sugar as an ingredient in the cake you are assisting me to make, I do not expect you to hand me salt.
3. Relation
Be relevant.
For example, I expect a partner’s contribution to be appropriate to immediate needs at each stage of the transaction; if I am mixing ingredients for a cake, I do not expect to be handed a good book, or even an oven cloth.
4. Manner
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
Be orderly.
For example, I expect a partner to make it clear what contribution s/he is making and to execute his/her performance with reasonable dispatch.
The previous examples (as cited in Levinson, 1983, pp. 101-102) show that the specific expectations and presumptions connected with the maxims have their analogies in the sphere of transactions that are not only talk exchanges. In other words, they are motivated by human rationality.
Some theories claim that there are certain rules that underlie all conversational interaction in any language (Brown & Levinson, 1978; Grice, 1975). Although Grice claims that the codes of conversation are universal in application, it is an empirical question as to whether in all societies and in all situations, these codes of conversation are followed and the interlocutors are able to arrive at the same interpretations.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 16
Researchers have expressed their scepticism about the universality of maxims.
Research has shown that these maxims of conversation exist to certain degrees in languages and cultures (Blum-Kulka; Fraser; Keenan & Traunmuller as cited in
Schiffrin, 1994). However, the boundaries of these domains vary situationally and cross-culturally. The extent to which these domains vary and the specificity of how they differ need to be determined. Thus, in cross-cultural communication and situations where nonnative speakers have not yet attained native-like proficiency, the process of making inferences and creating meanings out of the used of implicatures has a great risk of going astray.
Grice believes that speakers share the cooperative principle and its four maxims. When these maxims are fulfilled, the utterance is interpreted literally according to the cooperative principle, and it results with truthful, informative, relevant and clear communication, but this is not always the case in every day conversation. Grice explains that speakers may deliberately or accidentally violate one of the maxims for a number of reasons. “Thus by overtly infringing some maxims, the speaker can force the hearer to do extensive inferencing to some set of propositions, such that if the speaker can be assumed to be conveying these then at least the overarching cooperative principle would be sustained” (Levinson, 1983, p.
109). Violating a maxim may be done in various ways and for various reasons. This includes the following cases:
1. S/He may quietly and unostentatiously violate a maxim; if so, in some cases s/he
will be liable to mislead.
2. S/He may opt out from the operation both of the maxim and the cooperative
principle. Opting out is a direct refusal to participate in the talk exchange as
required.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 17
3. S/He may be faced by a clash; s/he may be unable, for example, to fulfil the first
maxim of quantity (Be as informative as is required) without violating the second
maxim of quality (Have adequate evidence for what you say).
4. S/He may flout a maxim. Flouting can be done cooperatively with the intention of
creating a conversational implicature. When a conversational implicature is
generated in this way, a maxim is being exploited (Grice, 1975, p. 49).
Therefore, flouting can be done deliberately by the speaker who intends and knows that the hearer will recognise that a maxim has been broken, while violating the maxims can be done to mislead. For example, unwilling informant may violate the maxim of quantity. Speakers can also violate the maxim of quality for the sake of indirectness or they may speak falsely for a specific purpose as in the rhetoric methods such as irony, metaphor and exaggeration. They may speak unreasonable remarks which lack proof intentionally to produce a specific implicature. Speakers violate the maxim of relation through giving irrelevant answer intentionally in order to produce certain implicature. Speakers may also give an ambiguous sentence to show the speaker’s cleverness or humour. All these examples show us that inferential communication intends to affect the thoughts of an audience and to get them to recognise that one has a particular intention.
2.2.1.2 Grice’s Classification of Implicature
For Grice, what is said is the truth conditional content i.e. the decoded linguistic meaning. On the other hand, what is implicated is any pragmatically determined aspect of utterance meaning. The identification of implicature depends on the speaker’s communicative intention in uttering a sentence, not on the semantic content of the sentence. The kinds of inferences/ implicatures that are communicative in Grice’s sense are those intended to be recognised as having been intended. Grice
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 18 distinguishes between two kinds of implicature: conventional implicature and conversational implicature.
In conventional implicature, the hearer does not need to assume that the cooperative principle is being followed in order to correctly interpret the answer.
Conventional implicature is nontruth conditional inferences that are not derived from superordinate pragmatic principles like the maxims. They are simply attached by convention to particular lexical items or expressions. Grice provides the following example of conventional implicature:
“He is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave.” (Grice, 1975, p.44)
In this sentence, the meaning of therefore implicates causality. The hearer does not need to assume that the CP is being followed in order to correctly interpret the utterance.
In contrast, conversational implicature is not a part of the conventional meaning of an utterance. It depends on the assumption that the speaker is following the maxims of the cooperative principle. Conversational implicature is divided into generalised and particularised implicature. Generalised conversational implicature
(GCI) is context-independent and is rooted in the conventionalised default meaning of linguistic structures. The following example can illustrate the idea:
I walked into a house.
The implicature is that the house was not my house. This is indicated by the use of the indefinite article ‘a’.
Particularised conversational implicature (PCI), on the other hand, is context dependent and rests in the obvious flouting of a maxim by the speaker. Grice (1989) says that “…generalized conversational implicatures are those that arise without any particular context or special scenario being necessary, in contrast to particularised
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 19 implicatures which do require such specific contexts” (as cited in Levinson, 1983, p.
126). Levinson (1983) gives an example which better illustrates the idea:
“A: What on earth has happened to the roast beef?
B: The dog is looking very happy.
Inference. Perhaps the dog has eaten the roast beef.” (p. 126)
Implicatures that arise from the flouting of the maxim of relevance are considered a particularised kind of implicature because utterances are relevant only with respect to the particular topic at hand.
Grice (as cited in Levinson, 1983, pp.114-121) lists five criteria to distinguish between conventional and conversational implicatures. First, conversational implicatures are cancellable (or deniable). It is possible to cancel an implicature by adding some additional premises to the original ones. They do not contribute to the truth conditions of the utterance. Therefore, they can be cancelled without contradiction. Second, they are nondetachable. An implicature is attached to the semantic content of what is said, not to the linguistic form. Therefore, implicatures cannot be detached from an utterance for synonyms. Third, they are not part of the conventional meaning of the linguistic expressions. They are not determinate because they are not conventional. This means that a precise content cannot be attached to the implicature. Fourth, they are universal. The maxims are considered universal because they “are derivable from considerations of rational co-operation, we should expect them to be universal in application, at least in cooperative kinds of interaction”
(as cited in Levinson, 1983, p. 121). In other words, people communicate by relying on linguistic rules and rationality based principles that apply not just to language use but also to behaviour in general. This was evident in the analogy of the maxims in section 2.2.1.1. They are universally shared expectations about behaviour and their
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 20 violations have the ability to convey meaning. Finally, they are calculable of being worked out on the basis of the literal meaning, on the one hand, and the cooperative principle and the maxims, on the other hand. The process of working out the implicature is the concern of the subsequent section.
2.2.1.3 Working out the Implicature
Grice (1975) explains the way by which the conversational implicature is worked out. He said:
A general pattern for the working out of a conversational implicature might be
given as follows: ‘He has said that p; there is no reason to suppose that he is
not observing the maxims, or at least the CP; he could not be doing this unless
he thought that q; he knows (and knows that I know that he knows) that I can
see that the supposition that he thinks that q is required; he has done nothing to
stop me thinking that q; he intends me to think, or is at least willing to allow
me to think that q; and so he has implicated that q’ (Grice, 1975, p. 50).
According to Grice (1975), speaker (S) is saying that the said (p) conversationally implicates the implied meaning (q) if:
1. S is presumed to be observing the maxims, or at least (in the case of flouting)
the cooperative principle.
2. In order to maintain this assumption it must be supposed that S thinks that q.
3. S thinks that both S and the addressee H mutually know that H can work out
that to preserve the assumption in (1), q is in fact required.
Then, he points out that for the hearer (H) to be able to calculate the q, s/he must know, or believe that s/he knows, the following facts:
1. the conventional content of the utterance together with the identity of any
reference involved;
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 21
2. the cooperative principle and its maxims;
3. the context of the utterance (e.g. its relevance);
4. other items of background knowledge;
5. that (1) to (5) are mutual knowledge shared by speaker and hearer.
The Gricean framework, thus, accounts for the connectedness between communicative competence, coparticipants, and the linguistic and social context.
For Grice, implicature is part of what a speaker communicates. It is part of the speaker’s meaning, and the speaker’s meaning is a matter of his/her intention. As it is mentioned earlier in this section, the kind of implicatures that are communicative in
Grice’s sense are those intended to be recognised as having been intended. According to Davis (1998), sentence implicature is defined in terms of speaker’s implicature.
Davis (1998) suggests that a sentence implicates, roughly, what speakers using the sentence with its regular meaning would commonly use it to implicate. He believes that speaker’s implicature is a matter of intentions and sentence implicature is a matter of community-wide conventions, speakers may implicate claims that their sentences do not implicate and sentences may implicate claims that their speakers do not implicate. Davis (1998) takes speaker’s implicature to be Grice’s particularised implicature, and sentence implicature to be Grice’s generalised implicature.
The notion of generalised conversational implicature has been extensively explored by neo-Griceans, such as Atlas and Levinson (1981), Gazdar (1979),
Hirschberg (1991), Horn (1992), and Levinson (1983, 1987, 1995, 2000) ( as cited in
Huang, 2006). Much attention has been paid to the so-called scalar and clausal implicatures, which are sub-classes of what Levinson (2000) calls quantity Principle.
Another important classification of implicatures was suggested by Horn (1992) who replaced all the maxims with two fundamental principles: The quantity principle
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 22
(Make your contribution sufficient and say as much as you can.) and the relevance principle (Make your contribution necessary and say no more than you must.)
As the previous review shows, Gricean pragmatics offers discourse analysis a view of how communicators’ assumption about what comprises a cooperative text for communication contributes to meaning. However, there is another important cognitive theory of human communication which has emerged as an alternative to
Grice’s cooperation ruled explanation of human communication, which is to be reviewed in the following section.
2.2.2 Sperber and Wilson’s Theory of Relevance
The second influential theory in the field of inferential communication is the theory of relevance by Sperber and Wilson (1986) which departs from the Gricean principle of cooperation to support the idea that to understand an utterance is to prove its relevance. The relevance theory (RT) offered by Sperber and Wilson (1986) is based on Grice’s view of communication as intention recognition. It is an inferential system of communication. According to the RT, the process of understanding an utterance is driven by a kind of comprehension procedure based on accessibility in which the hearer follows a path of the least effort then s/he stops when the expected level of relevance is achieved (Carston, 2002). We are biologically geared toward processing the most relevant inputs available.
Sperber and Wilson (1986) indicate that the universal cognitive tendency to maximise relevance makes it possible, at least to some extent, to predict and manipulate the mental states of others. Fetzer (2007) says:
It has also been adopted to cognitive pragmatics as is reflected in the
relevance-theoretic conception of context as an onion, metaphorically
speaking. Sperber and Wilson not only point out to the interconnectedness
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 23
nature of the individual layers but also stress the fact that their order of
inclusion corresponds to their order of accessibility (Sperber & Wilson, 1986).
This is very important for language processing and for inferencing and the
calculation of implicatures. (p. 4)
This ensures that processes are ordered, and that their order is based on meta-layers and meta-contexts. This is similar to Grice’s principle of cooperative principle which implicitly accounts for the sequential organisation of dialogue.
2.2.2.1 Relevance and Communication
According to Sperber and Wilson (1986), inferential communication is an ostensive inferential communication. It involves two layers of intentions: informative intention and communicative intention. Informative intention is the intention to make certain assumptions manifest to the receiver, and communicative intention is the intention to have the informative intention recognised. Understanding is achieved when the audience is able to recognise the speaker’s communicative intention which happens after one’s informative intention is recognised. The fulfilment of informative intention depends on how much the audience trusts the communicator.
Ostensive inferential communication involves the use of an ostensive stimulus, designed to attract an audience’s attention and focus it on the communicator’s meaning. Sperber and Wilson (1986) believe that every ostensive stimulus conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance. In other words, an ostensive stimulus creates a presumption of relevance if it is relevant enough to be worth the audience’s processing efforts, and if it is the most relevant one compatible with communicators’ abilities and preferences.
Sperber and Wilson (1986) also propose the notion of mutual manifestness.
For them, what is ‘manifest’ is what one is capable of inferring or capable of
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 24 perceiving, even if one has not done so yet. The sum of all the manifested assumptions is the person’s cognitive environment. A set of assumptions manifested to several individuals constitutes their shared cognitive environment. In other words, when it is manifested to all the people sharing a cognitive environment that they share, then this is a mutual cognitive environment made up of mutually manifested assumptions.
In short, the relevance theory characterises communication as achieved by means of recognition of intentions, the operation of inferential process, and the consequent mutuality of the cognitive environment.
2.2.2.2 Overt and Covert Communication
Sperber and Wilson (1986) show that getting an audience to draw inferences may be accomplished in two different ways. The first one is called overt communication. The speaker may undertake an efficient, overt attempt to secure the hearer’s attention and make it mutually manifest that s/he intends to convey a particular piece of information. The second one is through covert communication.
The speaker does not make his/her communicative intentions manifest and leaves it up to the hearer to draw inferences that s/he wants to be drawn.
In the context of advertising, covert communication is “a case of communication where the intention of the speaker is to alter the cognitive environment of the hearer, i.e. to make a set of assumptions more manifest to him/her, without making this intention mutually manifest” (Tanaka, 1994, p. 41). Advertisers exploit the way in which the mind works; that is, the stimuli employed by advertisers are designed to create only minute effects in their audience, while achieving success in a cumulative way. We can notice here that the notion of overt and covert
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 25 communication is similar to Grice’s discussion of the evolution from natural meaning to nonnatural meaning.
2.2.2.3 Explicature/ Implicature in Relevance Theory
According to Sperber and Wilson (1986), there are two types of communicated assumptions on the relevance-theoretic account: explicature and implicature. As for explicatures, an appropriate hypothesis is constructed about the conveyed content via decoding, disambiguation, and reference resolution. It is a propositional form communicated by an utterance which is pragmatically constructed based on the propositional schema or template (logical form) that the utterance encodes. Its content is an amalgam of linguistically decoded material and pragmatically inferred material. Although the term explicature is related to the Gricean notion of ‘what is said’, it also departs significantly from it, and while the Gricean notion is often thought of as a semantic construct, explicature is not.
With regard to the second assumption, ‘implicature’ is “any other propositional form communicated by an utterance; its content consists of wholly pragmatically inferred matter” (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, p.182). What is said or saying is located between the linguistic meaning and the cognitive information.
Implicatures consist of implicated premises and implicated conclusions. Implicated premises construct an appropriate hypothesis about the necessary contextual assumptions. Implicated conclusions construct an appropriate hypothesis about conclusions that are normally drawn from the contribution but are not necessary to preserve coherence and relevance.
Sperber and Wilson (1986) clarify the characteristics of explicature and implicature. They say:
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 26
An assumption communicated by an utterance U is explicit (hence is an
explicature) if and only if it is a development of a logical form encoded by U,
where explicitness is a matter of degree: the greater the contribution of
encoded meaning the more explicit the explicature is and the greater the
contribution of pragmatically inferred content the less explicit it is. Any
assumption communicated, but not explicitly so, is implicitly communicated:
it is an implicature. (p.182)
So implicatures can be more or less strongly communicated, depending on the extent to which they can be taken to have been intended by the speaker.
For Sperber and Wilson (1986), the explicature/ implicature distinction applies only to ostensive communicated assumptions; in other words, the assumptions that are made clear by the speaker that s/he intends them and wants the hearer to pick them up. Carston (2002) explains that in relevance theory explicature derivation involves the following pragmatic processes:
1. Reference Assignment
According to Carston (2002), reference assignment is understood in relevance theory as an online process of decoding and enriching an explicature. It is typically a process that contributes to the interpretation of an utterance as a computational process that helps to manipulate the conceptual content of an utterance for achieving optimal relevance. It is truth-conditional because it enriches the propositional content of an explicature. Demonstratives and pronouns are two examples of reference assignment. Their identification requires knowledge of context and consideration of speaker’s intention.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 27
2. Saturation
A pragmatically determined aspect of meaning is part of what is said if its contextual determination is triggered by the grammar, that is, if the sentence itself sets up a slot to be contextually filled (Carston, 2002). For example:
a. It is the same. [as what?]
b. He is too young. [for what?]
c. It’s hot enough. [for what?]
These sentences are semantically incomplete until the constituent is supplied contextually (p.22). In each case, there is a lexical item which, as a matter of its meaning, requires completion.
3. Disambiguation
Disambiguation is the process employed by the speaker to identify the linguistic expressions. Any perceptual signal may be ambiguous until it is contextualized (Carston, 2002). For example:
a. An utterance of the sentence ‘Tom gave Pat a ring’ is true just in case Tom
telephoned Pat.
b. An utterance of the sentence ‘Tom gave Pat a ring’ is true just in case Tom
gave to Pat a circle of such and such a sort.
In these examples, hearers need to use contextual cues to figure out the speaker’s intentions (p.17).
4. Free enrichment
Pragmatic enrichment refers to the process in which the content conveyed by an utterance comes to include all sorts of elements which are contextually implied without being part of what the utterance literally means. Instances of free enrichment
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 28 are noticed in semantically under-specified lexical items and discourse initial utterances (Carston, 2002). For example:
a. Every student [in my class] passed the exam.
b. Mary is tall [for a six-year-old].
c. He has got [a very high] temperature.
d. [That man is] Michael’s Dad. (uttered while indicating to the addressee a man
who has just come into the room)
e. [That is a] Great haircut. (uttered upon encountering a friend one has not seen
for a while)
In each example, the accompanying prepositional phrase between brackets is the enriched preposition and it is unarticulated constituent of the proposition expressed
(p.25).
5. Ad hoc Concept Construction
A lexical concept appearing in the logical form is pragmatically adjusted, so that the concept understood as communicated by the particular occurrence of the lexical item is different from, and replaces the concept it encodes; it is narrower, looser or some combination of the two. Its denotation merely overlaps with the denotation of the lexical concept from which it is derived (Carston, 2002). For example:
The steak is raw. (Uttered by someone who has seen the steak being stirred over a
flame)
The word (raw) entails an unacceptable degree of undercookedness but does not entail uncookedness (p.39). The extension of the pragmatically inferred concept is more inclusive in certain respects than that of the lexical concept from which it was derived.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 29
These pragmatic processes show that explicitly communicated information does not only demand as much contextualization as do implicatures, but also covers aspects of communicated meaning which Grice included in the term implicature.
Generalised conversational implicatures are considered explicit information (Carston,
2002; Levinson, 2000). For Levinson, there can be pragmatic intrusion into truth- conditional content.
2.2.3 Differences between Grice’s Theory and Relevance Theory
In fact, the explicature/ implicature distinction in RT takes us back to Grice’s classification of implicature into conventional and conversational implicature (see section 2.2.1.2) and the debate about the boundaries between saying and implicating.
For Grice (1975), what is said involves little inference, mainly reduced to disambiguation and reference assignment, while the entire inferential load is laid upon the derivation of implicatures when finding that an interpretation reduced to the literal meaning is inappropriate. These inferences are triggered by pragmatic mechanisms.
Levinson (1983) says:
The reason for linguistic interest in the maxims is that they generate inferences
beyond the semantic content of the sentences uttered. Such inferences are, by
definition, conversational implicature, where the term implicature is intended
to contrast with terms like logical implication, entailment and logical
consequence which are generally used to refer to inferences that are derived
solely from logical or semantic content. For implicatures are not semantic
inferences, but rather inferences based on both the content of what has been
said and some specific assumptions about the cooperative nature of ordinary
verbal interaction. (pp. 103-104)
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 30
Grice (1989) defines what is said as what a speaker means that is closely related to the conventional meaning of the sentence uttered. Cohen (as cited in Carston,
1998) is like Grice. Some phenomena that Grice would label as conversational implicature are reanalysed by Cohen as part of semantically encoded content.
Conventional implicature is also added to what is said; yet, unlike the conversational implicature, it is determined by the linguistic meaning of the words used. What is said in an utterance is “to be identified with the part of linguistically coded content that is expressible by the sentence’s truth conditions. Since this latter does not exhaust the semantics of the sentence, we need a category to denote whatever is coded linguistically yet falls outside what is said. The notion of conventional implicature serves exactly this purpose” (Levinson, 1983, p. 128). In this sense, the linguistic levels that must be referred to in the calculation of implicatures are the semantic representation or logical form of the sentence uttered, together with the truth conditions.
Levinson (1983) describes Grice’s differentiation between saying and implicating as Grice’s circle saying that Grice’s account makes implicature dependent on a prior determination of what is said. What is said in turn depends on disambiguation, indexical resolution, reference fixing, not to mention ellipsis unpacking and generality narrowing. However, each of these processes, which are prerequisites to determine the proposition expressed, may themselves depend crucially on processes that look indistinguishable from implicatures. Thus, what is said seems both to determine and to be determined by implicature.
Carston (2002) presents the Gricean account in the following way: the maxim first can perform its role in determining what is said, which then becomes an input to implicature derivation. Levinson (2000) accepts that there are strong pragmatic
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 31 effects on truth-conditional content. He does not offer any solution for the circularity problem, but he suggests that his theory of generalised conversational implicature can make substantial inroads on it. He distinguishes between two kinds of implicature: generalised and particularised. While the particularised one depends on the context of the utterance, the generalised one arises across context. The generalised implicature can contribute to the truth conditional content of the utterance. On the contrary, Bach
(1994) believes that there is nothing circular about Grice’s (1957) idea that a hearer is to recognise the speaker’s communicative intention partly on the basis of taking himself as being intended to do so.
Some researchers have discussed the idea of what is said and the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics. For instance, Bach (1994) states that a constituent is needed to specify what completes the proposition which is incompletely expressed when speakers are not fully explicit. When an utterance is semantically underdetermined, understanding an utterance requires a process of completion to produce a full proposition. In other cases, an utterance may not express a complete proposition, so a process of expansion is required to complete the proposition.
Expansion is Bach’s alternative term for the process of free enrichment which involves the addition of conceptual material to the decoded logical form.
Jackendoff (2002) alludes briefly to what he might call the semantics- pragmatics interface. It turns out to be an interface level between two sublevels within the conceptual system. It is the level that integrates thoughts that are conveyed by means of language with one’s previous knowledge, including knowledge of the communicative context and the speaker’s intentions. Such integration may lead one to inferentially derive further thoughts (i.e., Gricean implicatures).
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For Recanati (1989) and Carston (2002), what is said falls on the side of pragmatics, since there is pragmatic intrusion into truth conditional content. Carston
(2002) thinks that pragmatic processes are also involved in the enrichment of lexical concepts (encoded meanings) to arrive at ad hoc concepts (contextualized meanings).
He believes that the processing of explicatures and implicatures happens in parallel, and that the overall interpretation of a speaker’s utterance is something arrived at via a process of mutual adjustment.
In fact, a close look at both theories shows that the kinds of conversational implicatures distinguished by the relevance theoretic analysis (Sperber and Wilson,
2004) applies in the same way as Grice’s theory of implicature but with different terminologies (Benotti, 2010). For example, implicated premises and implicated conclusions in RT refer to Grice’s idea that contribution has to be anchored into the previous context (i.e., the stage at which the contribution occurs). The notion of
Explicature in RT refers to Grice’s idea about the relation between the contribution and the goal of the talk (i.e., the accepted purpose or direction of the exchange) has to be worked out.
A second important difference between the two theories is that Grice leaves the maxim of Relation (be relevant) relatively undeveloped, and acknowledges that its formulation conceals a number of problems that he finds ‘exceedingly difficult’
(Grice, 1989, p. 46). He suggests that a properly developed maxim of relevance might subsume his quantity maxim. In contrast, relevance theory is not maxim-based, i.e. the communicative principle of relevance is not a maxim that speakers need to know but a generalization about acts of inferential communication. It follows that deliberate maxim-violation, which is central to Gricean pragmatics, has no role in relevance-theoretic comprehension. Relevance theory does not treat communication
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 33 as necessarily cooperative in Grice’s sense. For communication to be successful, the only goal that the speaker and the hearer need to share is that of understanding and being understood.
A third difference is in the way each theory describes human communication.
Whereas Grice explains expectations in terms of the assumption by hearers that speakers were observing the cooperative principle and its maxims, within relevance theory expectations are explained in cognitive terms without reliance on a cooperative principle. Sperber and Wilson’s suggestion of the circularity of Grice’s idea make them reject the traditional notion of mutual knowledge because it generates an endless recursion (A knows that p, B knows that A knows that p, A knows that B knows that
A knows that p, and so on). Instead, they propose the notion of mutual manifestness
(Sperber & Wilson, 1986). The manifest assumptions which are available to several individuals construct their shared cognitive environment.
Mey and Talbot (as cited in Yus, 2006) point out that “what Sperber and
Wilson do is to send mutual knowledge out at the front door and then let it in at the back, disguised as mutually manifest assumptions” (p. 857). For these authors, cognitive environments are not distinguishable from mutual knowledge; thus, Sperber and Wilson appear to be using the same concept that they want to abandon. Bach
(1994) believes that in working out what a speaker means, an addressee presumes that the speaker intends him/her to work this out. Communication is a kind of game of coordination, involving strategic interaction, not an ordinary cognitive process.
2.2.4 The Role of Background Knowledge in the Interpretation of Implicature
The mutual point between all the theories and approaches to discourse is that successful communication requires a degree of shared knowledge (or cultural background). In other words, speakers assume that certain information is known to
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 34 the listeners because there is a degree of shared knowledge between them. Shared cultural background, or as Sperber and Wilson call it the cognitive environment, plays a vital role in the understanding of utterances and the calculation of implicature.
Schiffrin (1994) suggests that “background knowledge can be analysed as schema that provides structured expectations about what kind of people and things typically appear in a given setting, and what kinds of actions occur there” (p. 368).
Most of our ability to interpret the unsaid is based on some pre-existing knowledge structures and familiar patterns from previous experience which is called schemata.
So underdeveloped schemata (a lack of prior knowledge) result in an inability to understand an inference. According to Culpeper (2001), the crucial function of schemata is to enable people to construct an interpretation, a representation or situation model in memory which contains more than the information we receive from a text. One way in which schematic knowledge enables additional inference is by supplying default values for schematic slots.
It is noticed that comprehension is built through activating a schema and then constructing a new schema that provides a coherent explanation of the new ideas.
Schemata guide perception toward schema-relevant information. In other words, the schema is activated when its contribution to interpretation counter-balances the effort expended in activating it (Semino, as cited in Culpeper, 2001). This reminds us of relevance theory which claims that in comprehension there is a balance between the effort involved in searching and activating background knowledge and the resulting cognitive effects.
This approach to discourse analyses the way the speaker’s meaning relies on a cognitive context of shared beliefs and assumptions. Schiffrin (1994) believes that
“Gricean pragmatic compartmentalises context into different sources of background
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 35 knowledge (assumptions about human nature, text, situation, the world)” (p. 369). In fact, the terms shared knowledge, cultural background, and cognitive environment take us back to one of the earliest hypotheses about the relationship between language and culture which is Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Whorf’s (as cited in Duranti, 1997) notion is about the relationship between language and worldview. For him “the structure of any language contains a theory of the structure of the universe” (p.58).
Whorf’s notion of world view is tied to a particular theory of culture, namely ‘culture as knowledge’ which states that members of a culture “must share certain patterns of thought and ways of understanding the world and making inferences and predictions”
(as cited in Duranti, 1997, p. 27).
Whorf (as cited in Duranti, 1997) introduces the linguistic relativity principle which states that “users of markedly different grammars are pointed by the grammars towards different types of observations and different evaluations of extremely similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world” (p.60). In other words, each language will mould its speakers’ world view differently, so people who speak different languages perceive and think about the world quite differently. Thus, language causes a particular cognitive structure.
Brown and Levinson (1978) want “to rebut the once-fashionable doctrine of cultural relativity in the field of interaction” and “to show that superficial diversities can emerge from underlying universal principles and are satisfactorily accounted for only in relation to them” (p. 61). Their major conclusion is that “interactional systematics are based largely on universal principles” (p.283). They argue that the diversity in linguistic and cultural practices follow universal principles (such as the theory of relevance and Grice’s cooperative principle) that guide perception.
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In fact, there has been a move from theories of context free lexical and grammatical meaning to theories of language use, distinguishing universal principles
(such as Gricean conversational maxims) from cultural-specific features of language use in context. Gumperz and Levinson (1996) explain this as follows:
The issue of linguistic relativity shifts significantly. From an “inner circle” of
links between grammar, categories, and culture as internalized by the
individual, the focus shifts to include an “outer circle” of communication and
its relation on the one hand to interaction in social settings and on the other
hand to individual patterns of cognition which are partly contextually attuned,
and even perhaps acquired primarily through patterns of communication, in
turn enabling it. (p. 9-10)
Gumperz and Levinson (1996) believed that different languages code the world with distinct semantic concepts, and these concepts influence cognitive processes.
The previous discussion stresses Duranti’s belief that language is a cultural practice, and that meaning does not reside in a text, but arises in its interpretation which is shaped according to our cultural background.
2.2.5 Grice’s Theory and Relevance Theory as Two Analytical Frameworks
The theory of conversational implicature is considered one of the key concepts in pragmatics for its powerful explanatory role in language communication. The effects of the omission of key information on consumer inferences can be explained by Grice’s conversational norms (Grice, 1975). Gricean theory may be particularly relevant to understanding how consumers process half-truths. Specifically, the maxim of quantity proposed by Grice suggests that the provider of information is expected to make his/her contribution as informative as required. If the recipient of information
(through an advertisement) applies this conversational norm, s/he will conclude that
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 37 all information needed to draw valid inferences has been provided. Failure to do so will induce the recipient to generate invalid inferences.
The theory offered by Sperber and Wilson (1986) based on Grice’s view of communication as intention recognition has been suggested to be suitable for use in the analysis of advertisements. The theory has been applied to the study of the language of advertising by Tanaka (1994) and Byrne (1992), and to the study of the language of the media by Zegarac (2003). Sperber and Wilson do not deal directly with advertising, but their distinction between overt and covert communication can show which messages are made manifest and which messages are chosen by the advertiser to be communicated covertly. Byrne (1992), who studied the applicability of the relevance theory to the study of the language of advertising, states that “in advertising there is always a general direction or area of contextual implications that the advertiser wishes the hearer to access” (p. 34).
Advertising is a loaded language, the advertiser communicates with certain intention, and it is the task of the audience to supply those implications based on the presumption of optimal relevance. Tanaka (1994) believes that covert communication is used by advertisers to overcome public distrust of advertising and to avoid responsibility for negative social reaction. According to Tanaka (1994), the reader’s search for relevance causes that a particular word meaning may be ‘stretched’ to include concepts that would not be contained in the referential meaning of the word in another context. For the purpose of this research, the discussion proceeds to present a brief summary of the genre of commercial.
2.3 Commercial Media in our Daily Life
According to Schrøder (2006), we live in ‘mediatized societies’ in which media plays a vital role. Therefore, it is necessary for the understanding of modern
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 38 society to understand the complex social meaning processes which have media at their centre. This “requires ‘a pragmatics of media’ which explores media discourses in their situational and social contexts” (Schrøder, 2006, p. 584). It is important not to just analyse the media texts but also to consider the production and reception processes involved in the media texts.
Schrøder (2006) talks about critical linguistics as an influential school of early discourse analysis. Critical linguistics is able to demonstrate the close relationship between the detailed linguistic choices and the production of ideology in media texts.
Implicature is one of the linguistic aspects which critical linguistics pays close attention to in their study of media genre.
2.3.1 Definition of Commercial
A commercial is one form of social communication. Commercials are authentic texts and one of the most recognisable and appealing forms of social communication to which almost everyone in society is exposed. They play a role in shaping some behaviour in some individuals. Advertising pervades our culture, and interaction with advertising is usually an unavoidable fact of modern life. Beasley and Danesi (2002) point out that “brand names, logos, trademarks, jingles, and slogans have become part and parcel of the mental encyclopedia of virtually everyone who lives in a modern day society” (p. 1). Advertising is a marketing tool and a cultural artefact; therefore, it is an element of popular culture.
According to Bovee and Arens (1989), advertisement is “a communication process, a marketing process, an economic and social process or an information process, a public relation and persuasion process depending on the point of view” (p.
13). Advertisement is also defined by Daramola (1997) as “any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of products, services, or ideas by an
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 39 identifiable individual or organization” (p. 145). Advertising is a form of public announcement intended to direct people’s attention to the availability, qualities, and/or cost of specific commodities or services. Advertisers have their own motivations: spending less money through fewer ads, making their ads more memorable, and encouraging the recipient to spend more money.
Advertisements are classified into different categories according to their purpose. Krčmařova (2008) identifies three main categories. The first category is consumer advertising which is directed towards the promotion of some product or service to the public. The second category is trade advertising which is directed to dealers and professionals through appropriate trade publications and media. The third category is public relations advertising which is directed towards society by citizens or community groups, or by politicians, in order to promote some issue of social concern or political agenda.
2.3.2 Global Commercials
Advertising based on area of operation has gone through five major stages of development: domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global (Melchenko,
2003). Tansey, Hyman, and zinkhan (1990) point that there has been a tendency for advertisers to use standardized advertisements campaigns because the needs and values of international customers are becoming increasingly alike due to increasing international communication. Levitt (1983) argues that there is now a global village of millions of consumers who share common needs and common social values.
According to Ercan (as cited in Relly, 2013), globalisation has brought about a workforce that adds the factors of culture and language to the dilemma. Advertisers who develop one set of advertisements for their multinational markets achieve some benefits such as reduced costs and a stronger brand image.
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Other authors question the wisdom of sharing advertising themes among countries. For example, Harris (as cited in Tansey, Hyman, & Zinkhan, 1990) believes that standardised advertisement campaigns are inappropriate for most brands except for the brands which have an international image or which use low information content. Walters (as cited in Tansey, Hyman, Zinkhan, 1990) argues that differences across cultures hinder marketing uniformity. Values that provide the context for interpreting advertisements are frequently implied by advertisements and vary among countries. Hong (as cited in Tansey, Hyman, Zinkhan, 1990) suggests that the advertisement which portrays the values of the target culture is more effective than the advertisement which ignores these values.
For global advertisers there are four business objectives which must be balanced when developing worldwide advertising (Relly, 2013). They are:
1. building a brand while speaking with one voice;
2. developing economies of scale in the creative process;
3. maximising local effectiveness of advertisements; and
4. increasing the company’s speed of implementation.
For instance, Interbrand Agency puts several criteria for inclusion in
Interbrand’s annual Best Global Brands. According to this agency, for the brand to be truly global, it needs to have successfully transcended geographic and cultural boundaries. It must have expanded across the established economic centres of the world, and be establishing a presence in the major markets of the future.
2.3.3 The Communicative Situation of Commercials
Schiffrin (1994) suggests that the nature of communication itself “can provide a framework of expectations relative to which cooperation is geared: The actual situations in which language is used include speakers and hearers, whose needs, goals,
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 41 and wants are tailored to a particular socially and culturally defined communicative situation” (p. 368). The first distinctive feature of the advertisement discourse is its one-way direction. This means that it is one-way communication since the sender and the receiver (or audiences) are physically distant from each other; in addition, the time and the place of producing the message are different from the time and place of its reception. A message is often produced in one country and consumed in another. In the last few years, the digital communications revolution has completely transformed this balance of control. We can see that the consumer’s voice has become louder and much more public; for example, consumers can publish their experience of a brand and compare it with the experience of others. There is even a thriving market in brands whose primary strategy is to champion the consumer’s voice. However, this does not change the fact that at the time of watching commercials, recipients cannot negotiate the advertisement’s message with the producer. In such an environment, only the cooperative principle is available in mind with no chance for negotiation.
The fact that the audience is passive is likely to make them uncritical participants in the communicative process, which makes them more vulnerable to persuasion (Reardon as cited in Melchenko, 2003, p. 10). Products allow consumers to create meaning for themselves and to symbolize for themselves who they are as suggested in self-concept theory. Images provide viewers with ‘dreams of identity’ through which consumers can participate in a shared cultural mythology that encodes allegorical meanings about how to live one’s life. Possible selves provide a conceptual link between cognition and motivation ((Hirschman and Thompson; Stern as cited in Pinson, 1998). Consumers learn to make inferences about others based on their choices of consumption objects and prefer products with images more similar to their ideal self-concept.
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Another feature of advertisement is that both sender and recipient do not refer to a single person, but to a group of people (Melchenko, 2003). The creators of a message are a group of people, copywriters and art directors working for an advertising agency. The recipient of the message are also a group of people of a heterogeneous nature, i.e. they are different in terms of cultural background, gender, mood, age, occupation, income, and education. Advertisers have a developed view of their goals and of the general nature of the audience they work for. Simpson (as cited in Melchenko, 2003) says that “each mass media organ has to anticipate an ‘idealised’ reader to whom its material is tailored. It is to this typical reader that all people have to relate themselves” (p. 10). Therefore, advertisers have to take into account for whom this or that commercial is made.
2.3.4 The Effect of Gender and Mood
The effect of gender on mood in relation to attitude toward the advertisement and brand attitudes plays an important role. Studies (as cited by Martin, 2003) have shown that positive moods result in more favourable evaluation, while negative moods result in more negative evaluation. Similarly, happy moods result in heuristic processing while sad moods result in more effortful processing.
Gender, on the other hand, can influence information processing. Martin
(2003) states that males use heuristic processing, whereas females prefer more detailed processing. However, these differences disappear when males are sufficiently motivated. Martin (2003) suggests that mood state can override gender predispositions.
In addition, the nature of the advertisement stimulus or the motivational state of the subject plays a role. Meyers-Levy and Maheswaran (as cited in Martin, 2003) suggest that when recipients are exposed to a stimulus of interest, they may
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 43 experience a high involvement processing state even if someone may be low in need of cognition.
2.3.5 The Best Length for TV Commercials
Advertiser should take into account the standard television commercial length as Young (2008) suggests. A good advertisement is thought to increase the consumers’ appetite for a particular product. As resources, space, and time are limited, advertising has become a very creative and innovative medium in terms of both the usage of language and images. For Cook (2001), advertisements often exist on the periphery of the recipients’ attention and their brief is to gain and hold attention, fix a name with positive associations and go. No matter what length of commercial an advertiser decides to use, the goal is to make a meaningful impression on the audience and to make the brand real, or present in the mind of the consumer.
Based on advertisement recall, Young (2008) argues that the 30-second spot is a cost effective alternative to using a 60-second spot. He believes that the 30-second commercials are the right length to deliver, and it has become the norm in recent years. He also suggests that 30-second advertisements are better and more memorable than their shorter in length counterparts. However, Singh and Cole (1993) find that informational 15s and 30s advertisements do not differ significantly when it comes to learning product claims and other attitudinal variables.
Young (2008) believes that what is important for attention capturing of the conscious mind is the amount of meaning it contains. The consumer devotes more attention to the most meaningful advertisements and to the semantic content of the advertisement. Semantic content means product-related content, such as visualisations of functional product features and benefits product in use shot, product demos, packaging, or visuals containing the brand name.
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2.3.6 The Function of Commercials
Advertising, by definition, is a form of marketing communication used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate the audience (viewers, readers, or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to take or continue taking some actions (Melchenko,
2003). Advertising has to work within a fixed set of restrictions such as legal matters.
For example, the Advertising Standards Authority in Britain and the American
Federal Trade Commission regulate what advertisers can say and how they should say it.
A good advertisement should attract the consumers to direct their attention to its product. Krčmařova (2008) believes that the advertisement should arouse the interest of the consumers. It should encourage customers to buy the product, and make them realise that this product is just what they want. Advertising makes customers respond to the advertising information and evokes them to purchase the product. American Marketing Manager’s Handbook (as cited in Krčmařova, 2008) points out that an advertisement should have four functions. The four functions are attention, interest, desire, and action.
Advertising through its linguistic and nonlinguistic aspects should be able to achieve these functions (Krčmařova, 2008). From a linguistic perspective, advertising messages can be conveyed overtly or covertly to inform and manipulate. From a pragmatic point of view, advertising speech acts are considered as acts of recommendation and persuasion. This will be dealt with in the next two sections.
2.3.7 The Linguistic Features of Commercials
Advertising language is perceived to be creative, complex, and attention grabbing. The visual images and the words are constructed to manipulate and
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 45 persuade customers. Leech (1966) attributes the characteristics of advertising language to four principles.
The first principle is attention value. Advertisers employ different strategies to catch recipients’ attention through employing images, typography, colours, and layout. They also use untypical form of the language such as spelling mistakes, new coined words, and literary devices such as paradox. The second principle is memorability. Advertisers want short advertisements with long impact; therefore, they put an emphasis on a unique, well-memorable logo and slogan. The third principle is readability which is achieved through employing familiar vocabulary, simple, personal and colloquial style. The last principle is selling power. It is fulfilled when the advertisement gets into recipients’ awareness and stimulates them to take an action.
Advertisement is usually packed with various distinguished elements like repetition, strategic word order, neologisms, superlatives, hyperbole, connotations, sentence structure, openings, economy of expression, persuasion and abbreviations.
Advertisements may also be intentionally ambiguous and vague. Leech (1966) believes that “… in informative discourse, ambiguity is usually considered a fault to be eliminated. In advertising, on the contrary, it is usually treated as a mean of enriching the communicative resources of the language” (p. 184). Avoiding direct statements, advertisers are only hinting on the desired conclusion. Their aim is to provoke recipients to produce associations and draw implications about the product by themselves.
According to Leech (1966), advertising language usually appears in the form of informal, nonfigurative structures. However, figurative language can also be found in the majority of advertisements serving as one of the attention seeking devices that
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 46 make a lasting impression upon the reader. Advertising uses lexical sparsity which refers to a limited range of lexical elements. The words do not say much, they rather implicate the metaphors and abstractness. If one perceives only the literal meaning communicated, the message is not understood.
Krčmařova (2008) points out that advertisements are divided into sentences marked with capitals and full stops. They also use block language which refers to a simple, short message which tends to be verbless and consists of a noun or a noun phrase as noticed, for instance, in Microsoft’s slogan “Your potential, our passion”.
Advertisements are economically worded. Therefore, sentences are sometimes incomplete and sometimes the advertisement as a whole can be one complex clause or one long sentence.
Tanaka (1994) provides an analysis of the language of advertising. She says that advertisements make frequent use of emphasis in different ways. Ideas are emphasised by placing important words at the beginning or at the end of the sentence, by using loose sentences in which the main idea comes first and less important ideas or details follow, by arranging ideas in the order of importance with the strongest idea last, by using passive voice instead of active voice, by repeating important words, by putting a word or phrase out of its usual order, or by using a balanced sentence structure. A sentence is balanced when grammatically equal structures are used to express contrasted or similar ideas. It emphasises the contrast or similarity between parts of equal length and movement, and by abruptly changing sentence length.
The majority of advertisements have a slogan, which is a representative phrase of the message. It is a sort of a motto of a commercial, which can be a rhyme or just a short phrase. Its main function is to be memorable, catchy, and recognisable to the audience (Hermerén, as cited in Melchenko, 2003). For example, Apple’s computer
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 47 slogan is “The Power to Be Your Best”. Nokia’s slogan is “Connecting people”.
These slogans make a deep impression on the consumers’ minds and help to remember the product.
2.3.8 The Nonlinguistic Features of Commercials
In advertising, an adequate consideration of the interpretation of advertisements cannot be done based purely on semantic interpretation without making reference to semiotics. Krčmařova (2008) states that videos provide visual support to an audio message and combine elements of cinematic construction through a director’s guidance, editing camera angles, background music, and sound effects in support of the linguistic and cultural content. Colour, typography, layout, background and image are of vital importance to the success of an advertisement.
The semiotics of advertising has its roots in the work of Roland Barthes in which he used a rhetorical and semiological approach. Barthes (1977) defines semiotics as the study of signs and how they are interpreted. Semiotics is the theory of signification of the generation or production of meaning. Semioticians are interested in what makes an utterance meaningful, how it signifies and what precedes it on a deeper level to result in the manifestation of meaning. They believe that meaning is not inherent in objects, but meaning is constructed by the competent observer.
Barthes (1977) suggests analysing images in terms of two levels of meaning:
The denotative level and the connotative level. Barthes (1977) in his work draws on
Saussure’s dichotomy of the signifier and signified. Saussure (as cited in Barthes,
1997) distinguishes between the material object which is called the signifier and the mental concept which is referred to as signified. The relationship between signifier and signified is often not based on resemblance nor on a natural link. In the case of
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 48 symbols, the signified is related to the signifier by convention as where a crown is used as a trademark for a beer (Pinson, 1998, p.5). The signifier and signified dichotomy has been considered by many applied semioticians as the key to the advertising analysis.
For Barthes (1977), the signified has two meanings known as denotative and connotative. The denotative meaning is the meaning of the product. It is related to the literal meaning of the advertising sign, to what is objectivity referred to in the advertising image. It carries the innocent, factual meanings available to any observer irrespective of cultural background. It is the iconic noncoded message. The connotative meaning, on the other hand, is the hidden meaning of the product.
Connotative meaning of the signified is introduced by the receiver of the advertising message. It carries the visual meanings that a specific culture assigns to the denotative message. It is the coded iconic or the symbolic message that requires an interpretation by means of cultural conventions or codes.
According to Barthes ( as cited in Schrøder, 2006), “connotative meanings will appear to the consumer as naturally given, not as ideological constructs, because they are grafted onto the underlying, innocent denotative meaning” (p. 589). In this way, connotations are used to convey taken-for-granted meanings that are shared within a community without bearing any responsibility for these ideological meanings.
Peirce’s (1955) categorisation of meaning into iconic, symbolic and indexical provides another way of looking at advertising signs. An icon is the natural meaning.
It is where there is a similarity between a sign and what it represents. An example of icon is a portrait and a real life subject. Iconic advertising signs are used to make the signifier-signified relationship one of resemblance to the real object or person. A
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 49 symbol is the nonnatural meaning. It is where there is only a conventional link between the sign and its signified. A symbol can be noticed in the relation between mourning and black clothes. An index is where the sign is closely associated with its signified. The index sets up a relation of a natural contiguity. The main types of indexical signs include symptoms (smoke and fire), clues (cloudy sky as a sign that it will rain), and traces (a footstep is interpreted as the trace of a man or animal). Pierce
(1985) applies semiotics to the study of signs and their structures (syntax), as well as to the representation of signs (semantics) and the relationship between signs and their interpreters (pragmatics).
Rigotti and Greco (2006) argue that the semiotic approach appears to interpret communication “as a process where a speaker constructs a message by coding a certain meaning by means of a linguistic system, and transfers it to a hearer who simply decodes it, thus retrieving its original meaning. The roles of the speaker and the hearer in a communicative event are thus reduced to coding and decoding respectively” (p. 85). They believe that the coding and decoding model suggests that the semiotic component is not sufficient to explain the process of communication.
Many messages do not communicate through words or another semiotic system, but through traces by which the hearer is expected to be guided to infer the communicative intention of the message.
Sperber and Wilson (1986) argue that Grice’s cooperative principle suggests that the identification of the communicator’s intentions is enough for successful communication, and the mediation of a verbal code is not necessarily needed. They argue that “verbal communication is a complex form of communication. Linguistic coding and decoding is involved, but the linguistic meaning of an uttered sentence falls short of encoding what the speaker means: it merely helps the audience infer
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 50 what she means” (Sperber & Wilson,1986, p. 27). They propose that verbal communication involves coding and inferential processes which are quite different.
They illustrate this saying:
An inferential process starts from a set of premises and results in a set of
conclusions, which follow logically from, or at least warranted by, the
premises. A decoding process starts from a signal and results in the recovery
of a message, which is associated to the signal by an underlying code. In
general, conclusions are not associated to their premises by a code, and signals
do not warrant the messages they convey (Sperber and Wilson, 1986, p. 13).
Within this complex form of communication, the results of the decoding process are considered a piece of evidence from which the hearer, through a noncoded mechanism, can infer the speaker’s intentions. In this sense, the semiotic component becomes subservient to the inferential process.
Hall (1980) creates an encoding/decoding model of mass communication.
This model implies that any study of media genre or of the media coverage of real- world events must research, in addition to the textual aspects, the production and reception stages around the text. The model serves to remind analysts that in analysing a text, they are not dealing with a fixed structure of meanings but with a phenomenon resulting from the signifying codes of both the producers and the recipients of the text.
2.3.9 The Role of Implicature in Commercials
Advertisement, by definition, is a form of marketing communication used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate an audience to take or continue taking an action.
Schmidt and Kess (as cited in Melchenko, 2003) define persuasion as “the process of inducing a voluntary change in someone’s attitudes, beliefs or behaviour through the
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 51 transmission of a message” (p. 8). Persuasion primarily acts on “an individual’s beliefs about an object, his evaluation of it, and his intentions towards it. This may, but does not necessarily affect his behaviour towards the object” (Sandell, as cited in
Melchenko, 2003, p. 8). Manipulation is the use of messages below the conscious perception.
Melchenko (2003) believes that advertisers, who are in the business of manufacturing statements, make the most implicatures and the fewest entailments.
Flouting the maxims represents “a complex continuum of message functions fluctuating between informing and manipulating” (p. 7). Advertisers make indirect claims as in the case of manner flouting where strong claims about the efficiency of the product are left for the reader to extract. According to Tanaka (1994), advertisers want to provoke the recipients to produce associations and draw implications. At the same time, they want to avoid accepting responsibility for their claims.
Melchenko (2003) argues that in language-based communication, the one transmitting the message either in spoken or written language guides the recipient to make inferences. However, in the process of making meaning from nonverbal communication, viewers are responsible for interpreting the messages. Advertisers want to make their recipients draw inferences beyond what was originally stated and thus sell more meanings at the price of one word. Geis (1982) believes that “the attractiveness of implying something rather than asserting it overtly derives from the fact that one does not have to defend unasserted claims and consumers seem not to defend well against them” (p. 37). Implicit language is also used for cognitive reasons. Psychological research (Harris, 1977) shows that inferred information is remembered and recalled as if it were explicitly stated. It is also used for the purposes of brevity, drawing attention, and memorability.
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Therefore, in advertising, implicatures reached at through maxim flouting are more interesting, though less definite than those derived through filling-in the cooperative maxims. Implicatures are generated by filling-in with contextually appropriate inferences automatically, without any obvious violation of the cooperative principle as in the following example:
A: Where are the children?
B: I hear noise in the yard.
Hearer automatically “fills in” that B thinks that the children are in the yard.
(Melchenko, 2003, p.23)
According to Melchenko (2003), implicatures derived through maxims flouting are exploited for different reasons. Their flouting usually gives rise to figures of speech. For example, the flouting of quality creates metaphors, and it is preferred for indirectness. The flouting of quantity is seen in unfinished comparisons, and it is preferred for extraction of stronger claims. The flouting of manner is noticed in puns or idiomatic expressions, and it is used for avoidance of strong claims. It is also used to avoid making direct strong claims about the efficiency of a product. The flouting of relevance is preferred for covertness. The flouting of relevance alone is difficult to find because an advertisement which brings no relevance at all flouts its commercial purpose.
Advertisers may undertake to convey information in a covert way when their communicative intention is not manifested, leaving it up to the audience to draw inferences that they want to be drawn and thus avoid taking responsibility for them.
In the context of advertising, the distinction between overt and covert types of inferences lies in the concept of communicative intention. An advertising inference can be regarded as overt if the advertisers make it mutually manifest that they wished
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 53 to communicate it, and recognise their responsibility for it (Sperber & Wilson, 1986).
In the case of covert communication, the advertisers still wish to make certain inferences manifest to the hearer, but they do not want to take responsibility for doing so. Therefore, they mask their communicative intention.
The literature about the use of implicature in commercials suggests that advertisers tend to flout the four maxims. For instance, Silva (1993) studied fifteen
Brazilian commercials and found a high frequency of implicatures in these commercials. She concluded that conversational implicature was a communicative mechanism used widely by the speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. In another study,
Melchenko (2003) analysed 20 Russian and 20 Swedish TV commercials and found out that flouting was used commonly when manipulating with socially loaded issues in order to draw the audience’s attention and to promise something more. Pop (2010) found that conversational implicatures arising from the flouting of the cooperative maxims of quantity, quality, manner, and relevance were employed by advertisers to make readers draw inferences beyond what was originally stated. Liu (2012) found that advertisers tended to impart information in an indirect way by openly and intentionally flouting the maxims of the CP in order to allow readers of advertisements to infer the conversational implicature from the literal meaning.
Tsojon and Jonah (2015) wanted to find out the extent to which adverts billboards adhered to Grice maxims of the CP. The results suggested that advertisers violated certain maxims in order to arouse the interest of the public in the product. They also asserted the importance of the CP in understanding language use in society.
Advertising language has gained consideration as an important area of linguistic research. Television commercials have the advantage of offering authentic linguistic models within dynamic contexts that employ auditory as well as visual
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 54 communication channels using verbal and nonverbal means of communication to create an especially interesting linguistic environment.
Although this study is applied on the genre of advertisements, it is found useful to review some other studies that have examined the use of implicature in other genres. For example, Sarami (1993) carried out a study which showed the role of implicature within a text. He picked up 105 Persian dyads from four current satiric periodicals. He analysed Persian satires in terms of observing or violating the Gricean maxims in order to find out the conversational implicatures. The obtained results revealed that in most cases, Persian satires tended to observe the Gricean maxims, but the other cases showed a tendency to violate Grice’s four maxims in order to produce implicatures which were orderly: first, the maxim of quality; second, the maxim of manner; third, the maxim of quantity, and forth; the maxim of relation. Sarami (1993) concluded that there is a high frequency of violating the maxim of quality in Persain satires. Therefore, the recipients could get the intended meaning of the satire by exploiting their background knowledge and knowing the meaning of the words. In contrast, when the maxims of quantity, manner and relation were violated, the recipients could not understand the conversational implicature by relying only on the present wording of the text.
Alvaro (2011) conducted a pragmatic analysis of the use of implicatures as fundamental resources in Woody Allen’s film named “Anything Else”. Alvaro investigated 59 scenes of this film and analysed the characters interactions quantitatively. The results showed that implicature, especially those that were generated by the non-observance of the Gricean maxims and their flouting, played an important role in the creation of humor in the mentioned film.
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Kheirabadi and Aghagolzadeh (2012) reviewed a wide range of Galtung and
Rouge’s news values lists. They used Grice’s cooperative maxims as linguistic set of news values. The results indicated that an indispensable number of news values were rewording of these maxims. They also showed that journalists were aware of these pragmatic maxims while writing their news events.
Jafari (2013) conducted a study in which she analysed dyads in “The importance of being Ernest”, written by Oscar Wilde (1895), in terms of observing or violating the Gricean maxims. The obtained results showed that in most cases interlocutors tended to violate Grice’s four maxims in order to create the intended implicatures. The violation of Grice’s maxims was respectively: first, the maxim of quality; second, the maxim of manner; third, the maxim of quantity; fourth and the last one is the maxim of relation.
After this review of the theories of inferential communication, the genre of advertisement and the use of implicatures in advertisements, the discussion proceeds toward presenting a brief summary of previous studies and their major findings of implicature comprehension.
2.4 Native and Non-native Speakers’ Interpretation of Implicatures in English
Several studies have investigated nonnative speakers’ ability to interpret implicatures. Recent studies on the way native and non-native speakers of English comprehend and understand conversational implicatures have revealed that nonnative speakers of English do not interpret implicatures the way native speakers do due to cultural differences.
Keenan (1976) investigated the validity of the universality of Grice’s maxims of conversation by examining the use of the maxim of quantity ‘be informative’ in a
Malagasies society. She found that the maxims do not function the same way in all
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 56 cultures due to differences in expectations of behaviours in different cultures. Keenan argued that speakers from different cultures can interpret the same utterance in the same context differently. For Keenan (1976), there are several reasons for the withholding of information. For example, there were cultural reasons such as “the stigma of guilt attached to those who provide incorrect or damaging information and the reactive rarity of new information in society” (p.70) as well as situational constraints related to the familiarity of the interlocutors and the gender of the speaker.
In another study to investigate whether the maxims of conversation are universal or not, Devine (1982) examined how second language learners and native speakers of the target language interpreted implicatures arising from the violation of these conversational maxims. He chose 15 L2 language students and 15 American students as his subjects. The L2 students were in advanced English classes at
Michigan State University. This group consisted of ten males and five females with various language backgrounds such as, Farsi, Japanese, Spanish, and Korean, and their ages ranged from 18 to 43. The other group, namely American students, studied in an introductory level course on language at Michigan State University. Devine
(1982) found that the extent to which the NSs and the NNSs recognised and interpreted the implicatures was dependent on the type of the maxims which were violated and what the basis of the violation was. She concluded that Grice’s maxims were not universal. If they were indeed universal, speakers of different languages would not have any difficulty in interpreting them. Speakers did not uniformly respond to the manipulation of Grice’s maxims as the Gricean analysis predicted. The findings of her research supported Keenan’s view (1976) that conversational expectations of interlocutors may vary because of cultural or situational constraints on these maxims. Her findings suggested that the use of implicature in cross-cultural
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 57 interaction was a barrier to effective communication. She concluded that studies should control the variables of age, gender, language and culture of the respondents.
In fact, Grice’s theory did not preclude these findings. His definition of CP supported Keenan’s and Devine’s findings. Grice suggested that the contribution should be “as informative as is required for the current purpose of exchange”, and that one’s utterance should contribute to the talk exchanges when he said “accepted purpose or direction” (Grice, 1989, p. 26). Regarding his quantity maxim, Grice did not give the exact measurements of informativeness required for every conversation and context. The Gricean analysis was that social conventions shape the requirements of talk exchanges. His analyses of interlocutors’ construction of meaning were not just based on maxim adherence but also on shared background knowledge and context.
Carrell (1984) used data from both advanced and high intermediate learners of
English as a second language (ESL) and compared them to data from NS controls to investigate the drawing of two types of inferences, presuppositions and implications.
Results showed that ESL learners performed better with implications than with presuppositions. Carrell’s (1984) results also revealed that the semantic content of the verb used in the utterance had an effect on learners’ ability to make inferences.
Results of the study, which were compared to earlier empirical studies of fully proficient native speakers of English, suggested that the learners were in the process of acquiring the ability to make inferences in English, but this aspect of pragmatic competence was related to their overall ability in English.
Bouton (1988) conducted a cross-cultural study by comparing the abilities of speakers from six foreign cultures including German, Portuguese/Spanish, Japanese,
Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese and who have similar levels of English proficiency
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 58 to interpret implicatures. He used a multiple-choice implicature test. His findings supported the results of Devine’s (1982) study. Bouton used 60 NSs and 79 NNSs in an open-ended pilot study of informants’ elicited interpretations of 33 given utterances with contextual descriptions to create the answer bank for his test items.
The NSs’ interpretations (which were conclusively consistent) became the right answers while common variant NNSs’ interpretations became distracters, and then he presented their answers as options on the multiple-choice test. There were statistically significant differences between the ability of informants from different cultures to interpret implicatures. The Germans scored highest of the NNSs on accuracy/native-likeness, but they were not significantly different from the
Spanish/Portuguese. The Taiwanese were not significantly different from any subgroup except the Chinese. The Europeans were significantly more native-like than the Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese. Bouton concluded that the cultural background was a reliable predictor of NNSs’ ability to interpret implicatures the way NSs did.
Bouton, in his study (1988), sought to discover if a specially designed instrument of multiple-choice questions could measure a person’s ability to interpret implicatures, and the extent to which a person’s cultural background could affect comprehension accuracy of conversational implicatures. He proceeded to develop his instrument upon the premises of two initial assumptions, which both proved correct.
The first assumption was that for any implicatures involved, there was an interpretation that most American NSs would tend to accept as its primary meaning in the context in which it occurred. The second assumption was that test items could be developed in which there was enough contextual information to permit a NS to interpret any implicature found in the dialogue.
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Four and a half year after conducting his previous study, Bouton (1992) replicated the same test to thirty of the same original informants in order to investigate the improvement in implicature comprehension over a long immersion period.
Bouton found that the only test items still misunderstood were idiosyncratic because knowledge of specific American cultural points (like attitudes on marriage and friendship) was interfering, rather than actual language use (such as implicature type groupings and maxim of relevance floutings). The results were complementary to the previous findings (1988) showing an overall steady progression over time in pragmatic comprehension. He found that NNSs are likely to become quite proficient in their ability to interpret implicatures when they have had ample time to experience and observe the culture that influences their communication with American English
NSs.
Silva (1994) investigated the extent to which NSs of Portuguese and American
NNSs of Portuguese understood implicatures in contemporary Brazilian TV commercials spoken in Portuguese. The corpus of the study was composed of five
TV commercials selected from the fifteen commercials that Silva had studied in
(1993). They advertised five different products: an alcoholic drink, a car, a sound stereo, a typewriter, and health insurance. Silva used a multiple-choice test followed by an oral interview to measure the correct inference of the implicatures.
The difference between the performances of the two groups was statistically significant. The Brazilians’ interpretations of implicatures were very uniform, with a high average of correct answers. Conversely, American NNSs of Portuguese inferred different meanings from implicatures in Portuguese. The findings suggested that the participants’ linguistic and cultural background knowledge was a predicator of their relative success in interpreting implicatures in the L2. Each case of successful
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 60 inference required some specific knowledge which may not be equally shared between NSs and NNSs. It was also noticed that some implicatures were harder to interpret than other implicatures regardless of the person’s cultural and linguistic background. Silva’s (1994) study proposed that the inclusion of pragmatics in the second language syllabus could enable learners to communicate more effectively in the second language.
Lee (2002) compared the ability of Korean NNSs of English with NSs of
English to interpret implicatures. He presented a situation, a dialogue and a question concerning the meaning of the implicature within the dialogue. The questions represented different types of implicatures based on the violation of the four maxims.
For every question, there were four multiple-choice answers and two 5-point scales asking the participants to rate their perception of the degree of accuracy of their answers and the difficulty of the question. The participants were also asked to think aloud and explain their reasoning behind the interpretation of the implicatures as they solved the problems.
He found that regardless of the length of exposure to the target culture, learners with high linguistic proficiency seemed likely to have the linguistic and pragmatic strategies that allowed them to derive the same meaning as NSs. The NSs rated their responses to be more accurate with a certain level of confidence and authority as opposed to the NNSs who might possess a very high level of competence in the language but still lack the sense of authority in the language. The NNSs had more difficulty interpreting conversational implicatures that were sensitive to cultural context and suprasegmental features such as intonation and tone. They were less sensitive to the suprasegmental features of language use and more focused on the semantics of the lexical items used. PCIs were based on the specific codes related to
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 61 the contextual cues and nonlinguistic cues. Lee suggested that vocabulary and expressions need to be taught in full context with the appropriate gestures, facial expressions, intonation and tone. In this study, Korean NNSs of English arrived at the interpretations of implicature based on their translations of the meaning in Korean alongside their own native cultural norms.
Taguchi did a number of studies to investigate implicature comprehension. In a significant study, Taguchi (2002) investigated the cognitive strategies used by NNSs to interpret L2 implicatures. Eight female Japanese participants studying abroad in an
ESL environment, four from a lower proficiency level and four from a higher proficiency level listened to 24 English language dialogues and after each one, they answered multiple choice questions designed to test their ability to interpret implicature meanings like NSs. Then they discussed their reasons for doing so.
Results showed that the particular cognitive inferential processing strategies of lower proficiency ESL learners might be characterised as different from those of higher proficiency learners. The lower proficiency learners relied on keywords and background knowledge, while the higher proficiency ESL learners relied on recognition of various speaker’s intentions. The results indicated that only over time
NNSs can interpret utterances according to Grice’s framework.
In another study, Taguchi (2005) addressed other aspects of implicature comprehension. The study examined how accuracy and speed related to each other, how L2 proficiency affected accuracy and speed, and how different types of implied meaning affected accuracy and speed. It used 206 informants composing two groups, one being 46 NSs of American English and the other 160 Japanese NNSs. The NNSs were students in a college in Japan whose language of instruction was English, but who did not have any extensive experience of living in English-speaking countries.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 62
TOEFL scores were used to determine L2 proficiency. The study used multiple- choice research tool which consisted of 40 dialogues and corresponding questions.
The NNSs’ results showed significant difference in both accuracy and speed between more and less conventionalised items, with the less formulaic implicatures showing more processing time to interpret and less accuracy in comprehension than the more formulaic implicatures, which proved to be easier and faster. L2 proficiency seemed to have a moderate effect on comprehension accuracy. No relationship was found between comprehension speed and accuracy, suggesting that the two do not develop in parallel in L2 pragmatic acquisition.
Mitchelson (2011) investigated in what ways NSs and NNSs interpret particularised conversational implicatures (PCIs). He also tested the operationality of the Gricean theoretical model. He collected data from 19 NSs and 19 NNSs who completed a written dialogue comprehension test. Results indicated that the NNSs showed notably low accuracy in the comprehension of PCIs in English. Both the NSs and the NNSs used Grice’s maxims as implicature interpretation strategies which supported Grice’s theory as a universal model and a legitimate processing tool used by interlocutors naturally.
Research has shown that Grice’s maxims of conversation exist to certain degrees in all languages and cultures. However, the boundaries of these domains vary situationally and cross-culturally. Cognitive processes by which the native and the nonnative speakers arrive at an interpretation are grounded in their cultural backgrounds.
2.5 Conclusion
This chapter has attempted to identify the context of this study by summarising ideas and conclusions in the literature and investigating the theories
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 63 related to inferential communication and the boundaries between saying and implicating. It has also given an overview of the genre of advertising. It has grouped major related works and discussed their developments to provide the researcher with methodological insights for data collection and analysis. Therefore, the researcher is to carry out this study based on the theoretical background established in this chapter and aligned with guidelines outlined by previous studies.
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Chapter Three
Research Methodology
3.1 Introduction
After establishing the context of the present study, this chapter aims to describe and justify the research methodology. An overview of cross-cultural research is presented and apparent difficulties of the present study are discussed.
Then criteria for selecting scripts and participants are drawn. It is followed by a description of the research design. After reviewing the literature, the researcher has selected the methods which best suit the research aims. The design of this study is an amalgamation of previously published studies by the following authors investigating implicature comprehension: Bouton (1988, 1992), Devine (1982), Lee (2002),
Mitchelson (2011), Silva (1994), and Taguchi (2002). Instruments are discussed and particular attention is paid to the validity and reliability of the adopted methods.
3.2 Cross-Cultural Research
The term “culture”, in the context of cross-cultural research, refers to the culture that is shared by a group of people who live in the same area and speak a language not understood by their neighbours. Lusting and Koester (1999) define culture as “a learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, and norms which affect the behaviours of a relatively large group of people” (p. 30). For them, language is part of the social and cultural practice. Thus, culture suggests shared rules of interpretation that depict a specific speech community.
In general, cross-cultural research is a scientific method of comparative research that compares two or more different cultures. It focuses on “systematic comparisons that compare one culture to another and explicitly aims to answer questions about the incidence, distributions, and causes of cultural variation and
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 65 complex problems across a wide domain” (Olatundun, 2009, p.82). In terms of language, cross-cultural pragmatics, also called contrastive pragmatics, refers to the study of different expectations about the ways in which meaning is constructed by speakers from different cultures (Yule, 1996). In the present study, the concept of cooperative principle, the maxims and the theory of relevance provide a basic analytical framework for the comparison.
According to Brislin (1976), cross-cultural research has two goals referred to as the emic-etic distinction. The first goal is to describe behaviour in any one culture,
“taking into account what the people themselves value as meaningful and important”
(p. 217). This goal is called emic analysis. The second goal is to make generalisation across-cultures that take into consideration all human behaviour. This goal is called etic analysis.
In cross-cultural research, there are two main methodological concepts. The first concept is that comparison is essential to anthropological research. Therefore, to understand culture, societies must be compared (Winthrop, as cited in Olatundun,
2009). The second concept is that all the hypotheses and theories that are proposed to explain the variation recorded require testing (Levinson & Ember, as cited in
Olatundun, 2009). Researchers need to develop a conceptual framework that will enable them to classify how samples differ.
There are apparent difficulties in such research. The first difficulty is not being a member of the culture under study (Duranti, 1997). This can create doubts about the validity of generalisations made about meanings by the researchers who are nonnative speakers. The second difficulty is the large degree of indeterminacy in the nature of conversational inferences, and especially in the case of flouting which might create some doubt from a methodological perspective (Melchenko, 2003). To
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 66 overcome these two problems, two aspects have been considered by the researcher.
The first aspect is that the researcher in the present study does not base her analysis of implicatures in commercials on her intuition and introspection only but more on correlations that is, a deep study of implicatures. The second aspect is that the intended meaning of each implicature is based on the analyses provided by the advertising agencies that produced the commercials as well as on English native speakers’ intuitions and judgment.
Revealing the cultural background and the hidden meaning is a hard task because researchers need to bring to the foreground what is usually in the back of the mind that is, the assumptions that are taken for granted by people. Duranti (1997) believed that “one of the ways to describe culture is to look at it from inside and outside. Whereas it is hard and often impossible for nonmembers to see things from the inside, it is equally hard for members to see things from the outside because one can leave much knowledge implicit” (Duranti, 1997, p. 160). Collaboration between the researcher and the participants to reveal this knowledge and the ability of the participants to verbally report on their comprehension play an important role.
3.3 Context of the Study
3.3.1 Scripts
According to Schiffrin (1994), both text and context create the communicative content. For him, text is “the stable semantic meanings of words, expressions, and sentences … It is the propositional meanings that are linguistically realised in grammatically definable units such as clauses, and through the relations that are conveyed among such units” (p. 363-364). The Context, on the other hand, is “a world filled with people producing utterances. People who have social, cultural and personal identities, knowledge, beliefs, goals and wants, and who interact with one
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 67 another in various socially and culturally defined situation” (p. 346). Text and context are considered as “interdependent contributions to utterance meaning and to discourse coherence across utterances” (p. 363). The inferences are available to hearers depending on the context in which words, expressions, and sentences are used.
The corpus of this study was composed of seven TV commercials. The TV commercials were of one type; namely, information technology commercials and telecommunication. They advertised the following products: Apple Macintosh
Computer, Microsoft, Google Nexus 5 iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S5, Sony Xperia Z2
Tablet, Apple iPad 2 (see Appendix A). A lexicon dictionary was used because it defines words in the company they keep, and this is the way they occur in the human mind. The language of the selected scripts of the commercials was supposed to use common and basic vocabularies to cause no problems to participants (see Appendix
B). Participants were supposed to be familiar enough with the products to be able to make judgments and to avoid nonsense responses and process the commercial information effectively. For the importance of nonverbal communication in determining the intended inference, it was found necessary to give a description of the nonlinguistic context for each commercial (see Appendix B).
All commercials were displayed in no more than 60 seconds. They were short and to the point. That length allowed more time to tell each brand story and build persuasion. The selected commercials were global and commercially successful.
They were consumer advertising. The choice of commercials was based on brand agencies ranking of the best global brands. The researcher chose global commercials to control the cultural effect on the recipients. In other words, she attempted to minimize the need for specific social or cultural knowledge in order to maximise the
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 68 focus on cognitive processing. This allowed her to test whether communication is a cognitive process in essence only or encompasses other techniques. Choosing global commercials also allowed testing the universality of Grice’s maxims. Grice believed that the codes of conversation are universal in application. It is an empirical question whether they are followed in all societies and in all situations, and whether the interlocutors are able to arrive at the same interpretations.
This study of implicature comprehension is applied to the genre of advertising, which is not always based on the principle of cooperation because of the nature of the relationship between the advertiser and the audience. This matter arises the question whether Grice’s approach is possible to be applied on the genre of advertising. The theory of Sperber and Wilson (1986), which is based on Grice’s view of communication as intention recognition, can offer a solution for this problem through their distinction between informative intention and communicative intention (see
Section 2.2.2.1). The process of inferencing is inevitable in both types of communication. However, the informative intention is a prerequisite for the recognition of the communicative intention that the advertiser aims for.
3.3.2 Participants and Settings
During the act of communication, one person is assumed to make a message available to another person. Different assumptions about how human beings are oriented towards participation in the communication process depend on the nature of each participant’s role and contribution to the process of communication. According to Schiffrin (1994), the choice of a particular pair of terms for participants has theoretical consequences. For example, using the terms ‘sender and receiver’ stresses the transmission aspect of communication, whereby a message is expected to be created at one end of the process and sent to the other end of the process along a
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 69 channel. The terms ‘speaker and hearer’ involve that communication is “typically verbal and dyadic, and that communicative roles can be neatly segregated as to relatively active versus passive roles (i.e. speaking versus hearing)” (Schiffrin, 1994, p. 387). In the context of television commercials, the addresser or sender is referred to as copywriter or advertiser. The receiver is referred to as viewer, audience or consumer. The interaction constituted in commercials is different from everyday talk. Commercials depend on the participation of a silent viewer. The viewer listens, rather than verbally contributes. This relationship is as important as face-to-face interactions, and it requires a pragmatic analysis.
In the present study, the commercials targeted adults due to their purchasing power, but there was no focus on a specific gender. The commercials were of equal gender relevance. In other words, the products were important for both genders in order to manage the consumer’s interest in the commercial. The population of the study consisted of two groups of recipients. The first group was the Syrian adult learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). The second group was the British and American native speakers of English (see Figure C1). The programme Mintab 16 was used to study the power sample, and it was found that the power sample value exceeded the value 0.82. Consequently, the power sample was acceptable in each group, and it was 30. Drawing on these aspects, the implemented sampling plan included a description of the participants and the settings.
3.3.2.1 Selection of Nonnative Speakers
For the nonnative speakers, the researcher selected a sample of Syrian adult
EFL learners. The information obtained from the background information questions indicated that the participants varied in age, gender, and educational background. The participants were thirty male (n=23) and female (n=7) adult learners who had enrolled
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 70 in a General English course at the Higher Institute of Languages (HIL) at Aleppo
University in the summer of 2015 (see Figure C2 ). The mean age in this group was
(25.53) ranging from 17 to 46 years old (see Table C3). They were all university learners who had completed the placement test and were accordingly assigned to the upper-intermediate level. They were all Syrian learners who came from Syrian schools and faculties, and they were all learning English as a foreign language. They were from literary and scientific majors. However, the majority of them were from scientific majors. They shared the same mother tongue language (Arabic), the same cultural background (Syrian), and the same foreign language background (English).
No one of them had ever lived in an English speaking community (see Table C4).
The researcher chose to conduct her study at the Higher Institute of Languages
(HIL) at Aleppo University because of the relative ease of accessibility to the sample in the institute. The researcher contacted the institute administration and gained approval for conducting the study. The Higher Institute of Languages is an educational centre which usually attracts a wide variety of learners. The general
English tuition running at HIL includes seven-week English courses. Each course offers 63 instruction hours over ten levels of proficiency. The levels range from beginners to advanced. The objective of the course is to develop learners’ language skills. The average number of students in each class is 20. The taught textbook is an adult English course written specifically for EFL learners. It is a balanced, integrated- skills syllabus with a strong grammar focus and real world skills.
Selecting the sample for a research study depends upon the population it represents. The researcher chose to apply a nonprobability convenience sampling strategy in order to collect her data from NNSs of English. The nonprobability sampling is used in exploratory research when demonstrating that a particular trait
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 71 exists in the population. In this kind of sampling, it is unknown which individual from the population will be selected as a sample. The convenience sample is accessible to the researcher and easy to recruit. According to Dornyei (2007), the nonprobability convenience sampling method is used when there are only a few available members of the target population who can participate in the study. In the study at hand, participants met certain criteria and shared certain characteristics that made them a suitable sample for the purpose of the present investigation. Upper- intermediate learners were available at the time of data collection, and they expressed their willingness to volunteer. Upper-intermediate learners are assumed to be able to talk and read about a wide number of subjects using appropriate vocabulary and moderately correct grammar. They can confidently use all the main tenses. In this stage of learning, upper-intermediate learners understand far more than they can say.
They can explain words or phrases and if they do not know the appropriate term for something, they are able to find a way of describing it, but they do this slowly with frequent pauses. Their explanations sometimes suffer from a lack of clarity, stemming from fluency problems or from a weakness with vocabulary. They can discuss different topics, but this requires time and patience at the time of interviewing.
3.3.2.2 Selection of Native Speakers
Web-based procedure was used to collect data from native speakers of
English. The same test was sent to adult native speakers of English participants through building an online survey using Google Docs. It is a free Web-based application that enables users to create online surveys. Files can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection and a full-featured Web browser. This provides opportunities for users to collect data in an easy, streamlined way with
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 72
Google Forms. Users can also create a form from an existing spread sheet that can record the responses to their form in a quick and easy manner.
Through the Internet, the researcher could reach a much larger and more diverse sample which makes it a useful procedure in cross-cultural research. The problem with the Internet-based research is that it is not possible to apply any systematic, purposive sampling strategy. The participants were thirty male (n=11) and female (n=19) adult native speakers of English (see Figure C5). The mean age in this group was (43.47) ranging from 17 to 81 years old (see Table C3). The sample that completed the study was heterogeneous (see Table C6). The researcher collected data from adult NSs of English living in the United States of America and the United
Kingdom through using a nonprobability voluntary sampling strategy. The researcher invited volunteers to take part in the study. A voluntary sample is made up of people who self-select themselves into the survey. The disadvantage of this approach is that it allows for a high degree of dropout. Participants are free to choose whether they participate in a study or not. The researcher also used a nonprobability Snowball sampling strategy which relied on referrals from initial subjects to generate additional subjects. The researcher identified a few people who met the criteria of the present study and then asked these participants to identify further appropriate members of the population. This strategy is used when the access to a suitable group is difficult for varied reasons such as geographical availability.
3.4 Mixed-Method Approach
Researchers can collect data using different strategies, approaches, and methods in an attempt to capture a full picture of the issue under investigation. There are three approaches to research. Dornyei (2007) offer a thorough description of the characteristics of each approach. The first approach is the quantitative approach
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 73 which uses deductive logic of inquiry. It is centred around the study of variables that capture common features which are quantified by counting, scaling, or by assessing values to categorical data. Therefore, it draws on large samples. The reason for this is to increase the generalisability of findings.
The second approach is the qualitative approach. Inductive approach is pursued through profound investigation and frequent analyses of data. Data are transformed into a textual form and analysis is done with words. The qualitative approach is ideal for providing insight into contextual conditions and influences because it takes place in natural settings. The qualitative approach is interested in individual cases; therefore, it uses a small sample size. Qualitative researchers believe that examining cases can be helpful in providing insights into a phenomenon.
The third approach is the mixed method approach. The emergence of mixed method as a third methodological movement in the social and behavioural sciences began during the 1980’s (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003). This methodology involves collecting, analysing and integrating quantitative and qualitative research in a single study. Words are used to add meaning to numbers and numbers are used to add precision to words. Green (as cited in Dornyei, 2007) explained that “quantitative researchers aspire to objectivity and universal truths, while qualitative advocates emphasise the interpretive, value-laden, contextual, and contingent nature of social knowledge” (p.166). Combining both qualitative and quantitative research is called triangulation (Dornyei, 2007). The purpose of this form of research is that both quantitative and qualitative, in combination, provide a better understanding of a research problem or issue than either research approach alone. In other words, the strengths of one method can be utilised to overcome the weaknesses of another
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 74 method used in a study. It validates the conclusion by presenting converging results through different methods.
In this study, the researcher selected the mixed method approach to find out if
Syrian non-native speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL) were able to understand implicature in global commercials in the same manner native speakers of
English do. She conducted an explanatory design which consisted of two phases with the first phase dominating. In this design, a questionnaire survey with a follow-up interview were used. This is illustrated in the following diagram:
QUAN QUAL Data & Data & Interpretation Results Results
Figure 3.1 Explanatory design from Creswell and Clark (2007)
Information from the first quantitative phase was explored further in the second qualitative phase in more depth by interviewing the participants from the initial phase.
The reason for following up with qualitative research in the second phase was to better understand and explain the quantitative results in the initial phase.
Creswell and Clark (2007) suggest that the use of a statistical procedure allows the researcher to examine the interrelationship of the variables measured. The questionnaire data usually reveals little about the exact nature of the relationship.
Adding a qualitative component to the study provides depth to these facts and figures.
At the same time, transcripts of the interviews were not deeply explored, but rather the researcher tried to extrapolate common themes from them.
3.5 Data Collection Instruments
From a mixed-method approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using two instruments: a questionnaire and an interview. Data obtained
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 75 from these methods were categorised in a way to allow for both quantitative and qualitative analyses in order to yield illuminating results and conclusions.
3.5.1 Questionnaire
3.5.1.1 Definition and Rationale
Questionnaires are questions or statements to which participants are expected to respond. Brown (as cited in in Dornyei, 2007) defines questionnaire as any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing answers” (p. 102). For Dornyei (2007), questionnaire items, unlike written tests, do not have good or bad answers. They are not tests in the same sense as achievement or aptitude tests. According to Dornyei (2007), questionnaire can yield three types of data about participants. The first type is factual questions which ask about the participants’ age, gender, nationality, level of education and occupation. The second type is behavioural questions which focus on participants’ life style, habits, and personal history. The third type is attitudinal questions which are asked to find out about participants’ opinion, beliefs, interests, and values.
In the present study, a questionnaire is used to address the different kinds of implicatures available in each commercial. They consisted of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and two-scale questions. They were constructed in the form of closed-ended format. A Closed-ended format does not require the participants to produce any free writing. They choose one of the four given options. The results of questionnaires are typically quantitative. The selected response options were numerically coded and entered into a computer database.
Since the range of possible answers was unknown, the “other” option in the multiple-choice items was added. Dornyei (2007) explains that open-ended item is
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“not followed by response option for the participants to choose, but rather by some blank space for the participants to fill in” (p107). He believes that this option permits greater freedom of expression because participants can write what they have in mind that is not included in the previously mentioned choices. According to Dornyei
(2007), these responses require a certain amount of subjective interpretation and summary on the part of the researcher. Therefore, responses to this item are spread out at once in a data matrix and categorised in terms of common answers that use similar words or ideas. The researcher then noticed the similarities and dissimilarities among participants in relation to the given choices.
The multiple-choice instrument was based on Bouton’s study (1988). He developed his instrument upon the premises of two assumptions. The first assumption was that “for any utterance involving implicature, there is one interpretation that will tend to be dominant among the native speakers of that language” (p. 184). The second assumption was that it would be possible to provide enough contextual information about dialogue’s situation in a brief description to permit a NS to interpret the intended implicature. However, this study addresses the recipients’ perception of implicatures in TV commercials, which is different in nature from everyday communication.
Scale is another type of closed-ended questionnaires. Ordinal Scales, which arise when items are rated or ranked, were used. This kind of scaling is called a semantic differential scale, and it is frequently used in asking for opinions and attitudes. It consists of a characteristic statement, and participants are asked to indicate their answers by marking a continuum between two adjectives at the extremes (Dornyei, 2007). This technique distinguishes order, but it does not say anything about how much larger one item is from another (Bell, 1987). Coding
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 77 procedure is used to process data obtained from ordinal scales (Dornyei, 2007). Each response option is assigned a number and entered into a computer database to be processed statistically.
3.5.1.2 Questionnaire Construction
The comprehension test, in the present study, aimed at evaluating the participants’ comprehension of the commercials, focusing on the intended implicature. Questions were expected to address the different kinds of inferences based on the violation of the four maxims and the classification of implicature into conventional and conversational implicature. The researcher classified the questions into three categories and analysed them according to this classification.
The first category of questions addressed participants’ ability to understand conventional implicature (see Section 2.2.1.2). Questions 6, 7, 12, 13, and 24 were conventional implicatures. This group of implicatures was generated by filling-in with contextually appropriate inferences automatically, without any obvious violation of the cooperative principle.
The second category of questions addressed participants’ ability to understand conversational implicature (see Section 2.2.1.2). In this category, inferences were derived through flouting the four maxims (see Section 2.2.1.1). Consequently, this category was classified into four groups. Questions 2, 3, 9, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 26 were quality conversational implicature. Questions 4, 19, and 25 were quantity conversational implicature. Questions 2, 4, 10, and 15, 18 were relevance conversational implicature. Questions 5, 10, 14, 15, 17, 22, 27, and 28 were manner conversational implicature.
The third category included the questions 1 (relevance), 8, 29 (quantity), 11
(manner), and 16 (quality). Each question targeted a particular Gricean maxim. The
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 78 purpose of these questions was to ascertain whether participants were able to report if there was a violation of the maxims. It is important to highlight that for some questions, there were two correct answers. One of them was the overt meaning and the other was the covert meaning which was intended by the advertiser. This enabled the researcher to test the recipients’ abilities to notice the implied covert meaning.
A well-constructed questionnaire provided the researcher with fast and relatively straightforward data processing. Each question did not exceed 20 words. It was written in simple clear sentences. It was worded carefully in order to avoid introducing bias. With the objective of testing the questionnaire, and detecting possible problems with any of the four options, it was tested on a pilot group of five participants (see Appendix D). When the researcher had ensured that the questionnaire was clearly understandable, she started collecting her data. From the eight commercials used with the pilot group of NNSs, seven commercials were selected to be used in the final data collection.
3.5.1.3 Questionnaire Procedure
The questionnaire opened with the title of the study. A letter of consent was provided. It introduced the researcher and the purpose of the research. It explained how the information would be used and requested participation (see Appendix E1).
Then native participants and nonnative participants were asked some personal information to associate their responses with their personal information if needed.
Factual questions were used to find out certain facts about the participants. Personal and factual questions were drawn from the work of Mitchelson (2011).
Confidentiality was assured which means that the findings will be published, but no names will be mentioned in the report.
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NNSs were numbered randomly during analysis as 1 - 30, and NSs were labelled 31- 60. All participants were asked about their gender, age, nationality, occupation and educational background. They were also asked about their prior knowledge of Gricean pragmatics and higher-level linguistics. Participants who had prior knowledge of Gricean pragmatics or high-level linguistics were excluded. Only
NNSs participants were asked some behavioural questions about their previous exposure levels to English before participating (see Appendix E2). Specific instructions which explain how participants should answer the questions were given
(see Appendix E3).
The comprehension test involved 29 questions related to seven TV commercials. Each commercial item consisted of the name of the product and the video of the commercial followed by a number of questions about the different implied meanings available in the commercial. Each question was followed by four possible interpretations (see Appendix E4). The native and the nonnative participants were asked to watch the commercial for one time only, and then to choose the option that most closely approximated what the implicature meant. Participants were also asked to write out what they thought the answer should be in the blank labelled
“Other” if they disagreed with all the multiple choices. The selected response options were converted into numerical codes to be statistically analysed, and entered into a computer database.
There were two 5-point rating scales for each question. The first one was asking the participants to rate their perception of the degree of accuracy of their answer, and the second one was asking participants to rate the difficulty of the question (see Appendix E4). It was interesting to note how NSs and NNSs perceive
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 80 their responses. Each response was assigned a number for scoring purposes. The scores of the items addressing the same target were averaged.
3.5.2 Retrospective Interview
3.5.2.1 Definition and Rationale
Explanatory design involves conducting a retrospective interview with some of the survey participants, using their own survey responses as the retrospective prompts for further open-ended reflection about what they really meant (Creswell &
Clark, 2007). This requires the participants “to infer their own mental processes and strategies from their memory” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989. p. 170). Thus, time interval between the occurrence of the thought and the retrospective interview plays a vital role.
A retrospective interview allowed interviewees to discuss their perception and interpretation in regards to each question. The interviewees were encouraged to elaborate on the issues raised in an explanatory manner. Through the interview, the researcher had opportunities to probe for views and opinions of the interviewee.
Probes included low-inference paraphrasing or reflective summary, and detail- oriented and clarification questions. For example, the researcher took a salient content word used by the respondent and repeated it with an interrogative tone or she asked the interviewee to elaborate on it.
Participants were asked if they understood the commercial. This question was adapted from Taguchi (2002) where she allowed her informants to admit uncertainty.
Participants were also asked to explain the reason behind their choice (see Appendix
F). Silva (1994) used this instrument. She asserted that through the interviews, she had access to information which could not be obtained through a multiple-choice format alone.
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The explanatory model seeks to explain the initial phase of quantitative findings in more depth through interviewing a few of the participants from the initial phase. Dornyei (2007) recommended a range of sample size that falls between 6 and
10. He believed that “…a well-designed qualitative study usually requires a relatively small number of respondents to yield … rich data … needed to understand even subtle meaning in the phenomenon under focus” (p. 127). According to him, small-sized interviews can provide rich material. However, the researcher had the chance to interview all the thirty NNSs participants who expressed their willingness to be interviewed. As for the NSs, the researcher had difficulty conducting one-to-one interview with them due to technical issues related to availability and speed of the
Internet connection. She was able to interview just one participant who was living in
Aleppo. To overcome this difficulty, the researcher chose to convert the interview questions into open-ended questions and insert them in the comprehension test.
The researcher selected audio-recording in order to help respondents feel more relaxed and thus better able to express their views. According to Dornyei (2007), audio-recording is the most suitable way for a semi-structured interview because taking notes is not sufficient to ensure that all details are recorded; in addition, note- taking may disturb the interview.
3.5.2.2 Interview Procedure
The researcher conducted one-to-one interviews with the NNSs participants.
She interviewed them at the HIL. Each interview lasted for approximately 30 minutes depending on the responsiveness of each participant and his/her ability to express his/her thoughts. Dornyei (2007) recommended that a 30-60 minute interview would be preferable to yield more profound data. Since the interview was developed on the basis of the first data analyses of the survey data, the relevant information needed to
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 82 be retrieved from long-term memory. Therefore, the validity of the retrospective interviews depended on the time interval between the occurrence of a thought and its verbal report (Dornyei, 2007). Unfortunately, not all participants were ready to conduct the interview right after answering the questionnaire. Therefore, some sort of stimulus was used as a support for the recall such as watching the commercials again and showing the participants their own answers to the multiple-choices questions.
Gass and Mackey (as cited in Dornyei, 2007) believed that some tangible reminder of an event will stimulate recall to an extent that the respondents can retrieve and verbalize what was going on in their minds during the event.
The researcher explained to the interviewees the reason behind the interview.
For each commercial, the interviewees were asked if they understood the commercial.
They were also asked to explain the reason behind their interpretation of the implicatures in each question and how they came to that interpretation. The interviewer asked the questions to all participants, but not necessarily in the same wording. During the interviews, interviewees were allowed to use their native language just in case they found difficulty in expressing their ideas in English. Most interviewees were able to discuss their perception and interpretation in English in regard to each question. At the end of the interview, the researcher gave the participants an explicit chance to make any comments that might be relevant or important. She expressed her gratefulness and respect. She also discussed the ways in which the material would be used.
With the consent of the participants, each interview was audio-recorded in a quiet room in the HIL by means of a mobile microphone as the medium. Files were immediately and precisely labelled with participant’s name and number. Data collected from interview records were stored, transcribed and centralised in one
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 83 database; then they were compared and analysed (see Appendix H in the attached
DVD).
As for the NSs, the researcher wrote the interview questions in the form of open-ended items, and then she inserted them in their appropriate place throughout the comprehension test. The interview questions were worded in a focused way that the question could be answered succinctly (see Appendix F). Their answers were also centralised in one database, then they were compared with NNSs’ answers and analysed.
3.6 Validity and Reliability
The goal of methodology in cross-cultural research is not different from other types of research. Validity and reliability are two important requirements in academic research. Whatever methods for collecting data researchers would select, they should always examine these methods critically in order to assess to what extent they are likely to yield valid and reliable data. Wiersma (1994) explains that validity deals with the accurate interpretability of results (Internal validity) and the generalizability of the results (External validity). Both types of validity are matters of degrees.
Internal validity is a prerequisite for external validity (Wiersma, 1994, p.5). Validity is based on facts and evidence through various statistical and theoretical sources.
Reliability concerns the replicability (External reliability) and consistency
(Internal reliability) of the methods, conditions and results (Wiersma, 1994).
Reliability is not only a characteristic of the instrument. It is a property for the scores on a test for a particular population of test takers. Bachman (as cited in Dornyei,
2007) asserts that all the professional international standards require researchers to estimate and report the reliability of “each total score, subscore, or combination of
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 84 scores that is to be interpreted” (p. 50). Both validity and reliability establish the credibility of research.
3.6.1 Validity and Reliability of the Questionnaire
Open-ended items provide qualitative and exploratory data. They can provide a far greater richness than fully quantitative data. The problem with these types of questions is that participants have a somewhat superficial and relatively brief engagement with the topic. Therefore, in most cases they will prefer to choose from the provided options. This shallow engagement also makes it difficult to explore complex meaning directly with this technique.
Silva (1994) preferred to use an open-ended format. For her, a closed-ended format may force participants to focus on the implied meaning that participants might not otherwise notice; then she chose to use the closed-ended format preferred by
Bouton (1988). Bouton (1988) objected to the use of the open-ended format. He believed that these unstructured questionnaires presented serious problems. It is very difficult to quantify and evaluate them, since the open answers of the subjects are often ambiguous.
3.6.2 Validity and Reliability of the Retrospective Interview
One of the present study aims was to gain access to the mental processes that are central to language processing, and to examine the way participants arrived at the right answer. This could go hand in hand with the choice of retrospective interview.
The researcher used this method in order to elicit data about how the participants came to their conclusion. Retrospective interviews provided explanations to the findings obtained. Kormos (as cited in Dornyei, 2007) points out that “the method is particularly important in second language research because it can help to uncover the cognitive and psycholinguistic processes underlying language performance.” (p. 148).
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Duranti (1997) believes that most cognitive processing is inaccessible because it is unconscious, and even certain conscious processes can be argued to be too complex to be captured in verbal protocols. Thus, the researcher faced the problem that some participants were shy and inarticulate to produce sufficient data, or they were too verbose generating some useless data.
Choosing to send the interview questions in the form of open-ended items was very helpful, but the problem with this kind of questions was that the participants had superficial and relatively brief engagement with the topic which could be a reason for the participants’ dropping out or leaving some questions not answered.
Based on the insights obtained from the interviewees’ responses, it could be suggested that the interview method was of practical value. It gave evidence for the validity of the research outcomes through the convergence and corroboration of the findings. This can increase the generalisability; that is, the external validity of the results. It also ensures the precision and accuracy of results which can increase the research reliability.
3.7 Conclusion
This chapter has provided a description of the nature of this research. It has described the criteria for selecting the participants and the commercials. It has explained how the data were collected in a way which matched the research orientation. It has concluded by explaining the research validity and reliability. The raw data, however, has to be organised, and broken into units to be analysed and interpreted. The next chapter will show whether these methods yielded complementary or contrasting findings, which will allow the researcher to make interpretations and highlight any relevance or mismatches in the results.
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Chapter Four
Results
4.1 Introduction
This chapter elaborates on the advertisements included in the corpus. It provides an analysis of the different types of implicatures in each commercial. It also sheds the light on the connections which emerged after quantitative and qualitative data were filtered out and analysed. That was done through detailed descriptions of the process. As the research suggests, certain analysis techniques were used to provide a greater breadth of perspectives around the present issue.
As for quantitative data, the SPSS statistical software was used to carry out the descriptive and the correlational analyses using Cramer's coefficient test. The statistical results were then displayed in tables and charts, which showed certain correlations found between variables as well as the significance of these correlations.
Qualitative data, both verbal and written, were plotted using data matrices.
The researcher identified and sorted the relevant segments of the text according to an organising scheme and looked for commonalities, regularities, and patterns across the data text taking into account the predetermined categories from previous studies.
Findings were then crosschecked to see if the results of each method corresponded to or contradicted with that of the other method and to attempt to make sense of unrelated data and conflicting results.
4.2 Scripts Analysis
Several types of inferences were noticed in advertising communication. Two analytical frameworks were used to analyse the selected commercials and to process the inferences they included. The first framework was Grice’s theory of implicature and its cooperative principle. As shown in Chapter Two (see Section 2.2.1), Grice
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 87 suggests four maxims of conversation and classifies them into quality, quantity, relation and manner. These maxims are violated for different reasons. The violation of any of these maxims gives rise to different kinds of implicatures. ‘Filling in’ generates conventional implicature while ‘flouting’ gives rise to conversational implicature. Grice’s theory of implicature is based on the principle of cooperative communication. The addressee interprets the advertiser’s statement and makes inferences in order to preserve the assumption of cooperation. It is important to note that the generalised/particularised distinction is not used in the analysis because of the interdependent nature of the maxims, for example, conversational maxims such as quantity, which typically yield generalised implicatures, interact with maxims such as relevance, which are heavily context-dependent.
The second framework was the theory of relevance and its typology of overt and covert inference (see Section 2.2.2). The theory of relevance considers communication as a cognitive process. According to this theory, conversational implicatures are divided into implicated premises, implicated conclusions and explicatures. An inferential process starts from a set of premises and results in a set of conclusions, which follow logically from the premises. Conventional implicatures are regarded as explicatures in terms of relevance theory (see Section 2.2.2.3).
According to Tanaka (1994), advertising is a typical situation where there is usually no trust between the speaker and the hearer. Therefore, the speaker cannot rely on the recipient’s co-operation to achieve his/her goal of getting the recipient to buy the product. It is the task of the advertiser to convince the recipients to buy the product despite their distrust. Advertisers can convey their messages in overt or covert way.
However, the majority of them tend to convey their messages covertly to affect the recipients’ cognition and to avoid accepting responsibility for their claims. Sperber
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 88 and Wilson (1986) did not deal directly with advertising, but their distinction between overt and covert communication can show which messages are made manifest and which ones are chosen by the advertiser to be communicated covertly. The typology of overt and covert inference was used in the commercials’ analysis when there were two levels of meaning for the same implicature.
The following tabulations provide an analysis of the different types of implicatures addressed in each question about each commercial. Readers can watch the commercials in the attached DVD or by following the links in Appendix A.
Questions about implicatures are arranged in the same order they occurred in the questionnaire (see Appendix E). The four multiple choices for each question are analysed taking into consideration the overt and covert intended meanings. As mentioned earlier in Chapter Three (see Section 3.2), the intended meanings for each implicature is based on the analyses provided by the advertising agencies that produced the commercials in addition to the researcher’s deep study of implicatures.
The researcher tried to extract from each advertisement as much items for each maxim as possible in order to increase the statistical meaningfulness. The following analysis of the questionnaire is the baseline for the data analysis of the participants’ comprehension of implicatures.
The first commercial was about Apple Macintosh Computer. In his analysis of the commercial, Ramirez (2014) believed that Apple wanted to be perceived as offering innovative products. Apple used more instances of attitudinal lexis, targeting the customers’ beliefs and values. The phrases spoken during each individual's appearance corresponded roughly to the popular conceptions about each individual.
So the viewers were meant to identify themselves with the individuals shown. These individuals had nothing to do with Apple Computer. None of these people were
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 89 shown using computers. The commercial wanted to associate the greatness of the individuals shown with Apple. It wanted to say that the best changes are made by special people and that the viewers can also do great things, if only s/he will purchase an Apple Macintosh Computer. The use of black and white footage served well earlier in the commercial, when it conveyed impressions of the old great figures. It also provided a strong contrast to the bright hues of Apple's apple at the end of the commercial. This contrast then provided another instance of how Apple was different and supposedly better because of being different. “Think different” aimed at those who wanted to be unique and different. Depending on this overview of the commercial, different implicatures were extracted from this commercial as shown in
Table 4.1 below:
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Table 4.1 Questions Analysis in the First Commercial Question Type of Context of Implicature Multiple-Choice Answers Number Implicature Q1 Relevance The whole commercial A is the covert inference. B is the overt inference. C and D are the distractors. The answer depends on each participant’s perception of the commercial. Q2 Quality and “The people who are A is the overt inference. Relevance crazy enough to think they B is the covert inference. can change the world are C and D are the distractors. the ones who do.” Q3 Quality The whole commercial A is more specific. B is general. C and D are the distractors. Q4 Quantity and “think different” B is the covert inference. Relevance D is the overt inference. (The Slogan) A and C are the distractors. Q5 Manner “The round pegs in the C is the intended implicature. (Idiom) square holes.” A, B and D are the distractors. Q6 Conventional “The ones who think A is the reference mentioned Implicature differently.” in words during the (Reference commercial. Assignment) B and C are the overt reference. D is the covert reference. Q7 Conventional “The people who are C is the overt meaning. Implicature crazy enough to think they D is the covert meaning. (Saturation) can change the world are A and B are the distractors. the ones who do.”
The second commercial was advertising Microsoft. Microsoft’s 2014 Super
Bowl commercial, “empowering us all”, displayed an inspirational multitude of common adversities in today’s society and the way in which technology helped them
(See Appendix A). The commercial spoke about the power of technology in general and then connected it back to Microsoft (Woods, 2014). The argument was strengthened by calling upon the opinions and beliefs of the audience, and making
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 91 many appeals to pathos to draw on the emotions of the audience and make them feel more connected (Mcgovern, 2014). Three types of implicatures were found in this commercial as it appears in Table 4.2 below:
Table 4.2 Questions Analysis in the Second Commercial Question Type of Context of Implicature Multiple-Choice Answers Number Implicature Q8 Quantity “What is technology? What The answer depends on can it do? How far can we each participant’s go?” perception of the commercial. Q9 Quality The whole commercial A and C are more general. (Hyperbole) B is the intended inference. Q10 Manner and “Empowering us all.” A is the overt inference. Relevance D is the covert inference. (The Slogan) B and C are the distracters.
The third commercial was also about Microsoft. This short commercial targeted creative people. It showed how an ordinary young woman could turn into a famous hat designer by using Microsoft technology. Microsoft wanted to show that their mission and values were to help people and business throughout the world realise their full potential (Woods, 2014). The company was committed to customers and had a passion for technology. The slogan “your potential, our passion” showed that the company took on big challenges, and prided itself on seeing them through. In this commercial, participants were asked about the following implicatures shown in
Table 4.3 below:
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Table 4.3 Questions Analysis in the Third Commercial Question Type of Context of Implicature Multiple Choice Answers Number Implicature Q11 Manner The whole commercial The answer depends on each participant’s perception of the commercial. Q12 Conventional “Latest craze” A is the intended implicature. Implicature B, C and D are the distractors. Q13 Conventional “We're inspired to create C is the intended implicature. Implicature software that helps her A, B, and D are the distractors. reach it.” Q 14 Manner “We see her potential.” A is the intended implicature. B, C, and D are the distractors. Q15 Manner and “Your potential, our A is the overt inference. Relevance passion.” D is the covert inference.. (The Slogan) B and C are the distractors.
The fourth commercial advertised Google Nexus 5 Android phone. The commercial focused on the wedding of people from a variety of nationalities, races, and genders, while showing how the Nexus phone was able to capture photos from the ceremonies. According to Minor (2013), Google was branding itself through making an emotional appeal to women in its new wedding-themed spot. The commercial was seen as quirky, accessible and positive. It depicted the device as fun and almost life-affirming. It was all in the context of complementing the phone's camera. It was also about establishing Google as a brand connected to its users’ diverse lives. This commercial included the following types of implicature as shown in Table 4.4 below:
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Table 4.4 Questions Analysis in the Fourth Commercial Question Type of Context of Implicature Multiple Choice Answers Number Implicature Q16 Quality The whole commercial The answer depends on each participant’s perception of the commercial. Q17 Manner “Ok Google, show me my A is the overt inference. wedding photos.” D is the covert inference. B and C are the distractors. Q18 Relevance “You are the one for me.” A is the overt inference. C is the covert inference. B and D are the distractors. Q19 Quantity “made to capture the B is the intended moments that matter.” implicature. A, C and D are the distractors.
The fifth commercial advertised Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone. The commercial highlighted the features of the Galaxy S5 that made everyday moments better. It was about being more productive and innovative. It also mentioned its competitor by name by throwing a barb at the iPhone for good measure (Murphy,
2014). The commercial ended with the phrase “the next big thing is here” which was a buzz word that gave impetus to the presentation. Participants were asked about the following implicatures shown in Table 4.5 below:
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Table 4.5 Questions Analysis in the Fifth Commercial Question Type of Context of Implicature Multiple-Choice Answers Number Implicature Q20 Quality “Same photos with twice A is more general. (strong the resolution of the B is the intended implicature. claim) iphone.” C and D are the distractors. Q21 Quality “This is the innovation that A and B are the distractors. makes every day better.” C is the covert inference. D is the overt inference. Q22 Quality and “The Samsung Galaxy S5, A is the intended Manner the next big thing is here.” implicature. B, C and D are the distractors.
The sixth commercial was about Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet. Sony, the global entertainment company, wanted to say that it had the best tablet ever. It was the ticket to a world of entertainment and amazing experiences. It wanted to say that little things made a huge difference (Hoyle, 2014). Table 4.6 shows the kinds of implicatures that were found in this commercial.
Table 4.6 Questions Analysis in the Sixth Commercial Question Type of Context of Implicature Multiple-Choice Answers Number Implicature Q23 Quality “At Sony we live and D is the intended implicature. breathe entertainment” A, B and C are the distractors. Q24 Conventional “to do it justice” C is the intended implicature. Implicature A, B and D are the distractors. Q25 Quantity “Designed to perfection. A is the overt inference. And with utmost B is the covert inference. attention to every detail.” C and D are the distractors. Q26 Quality “Powered by the fastest A is the intended implicature. processor and still power B, C and D are the distractors. efficient.” Q27 Manner “Take it for a spin, A is the intended implicature. (Idiom) Xperia Z2 Tablet will B, C and D are the distractors. deliver like nothing else.”
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The last commercial, entitled “We Believe”, was advertising Apple iPad 2. It focused on the pure functionality and the capabilities of the latest iPad with no mention of individual apps or hardware specifications. The advertisement aimed at showing an intuitive and emotional tie between the iPad and the user. Apple iPad2 was created and marketed as being immaterial. According to Tussey (n.d), Apple wanted to convey the message that technologies were everywhere, but the ones that people used on a daily basis were invisible because people believed them to be indispensable, ordinary, and outside of consideration, or as it was expressed in the commercial “out of the way”. In this case, our experience could be supplemented rather than replaced by technology. From this short commercial, two implicatures were extracted as Table 4.7 shows:
Table 4.7 Questions Analysis in the Seventh Commercial Question Type of Context of Implicature Multiple-Choice Answers Number Implicature Q28 Manner “This is what we believe. A, B and C are distractors. Technology alone is not D is the intended enough … But when implicature. technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful.” Q29 Quantity The whole commercial The answer depends on each participant’s perception of the commercial.
As can be noticed from the previous analyses of the seven commercials, advertising communication relied heavily on inferences. The analysis included the available instances of implicatures in each commercial regardless of the number of inferences for each type of inference. These seven commercials differed in the way they advertised their technological products. It was also noticed that the first, second
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 96 and third commercials did not mention anything about the products they advertised, and we, as recipients, did not know what the commercials were about until the end when the logos appeared. They were working indirectly and creating an image of the company. The fourth and seventh commercials were highly emotional. They talked a little about the products they advertised. The fifth and sixth commercials talked about the features of their products.
4.3 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Data
After analysing the different kinds of implicatures in each commercial and the four multiple choices for each question, analyses of the English native speakers’ and the Syrian EFL speakers’ answers to the implicature comprehension test were conducted. Their answers on the multiple-choice test and their explanations of their choices were also compared.
The corresponding table was presented to show the response values and their corresponding statistics. The first table shows the cross-tabulation between each group and their choices. It shows the frequency (count), the central tendencies (% within group) and the standard deviation (adjusted residual) of the answers within each group for each option. Frequencies count the number of occurrences of a phenomenon. Central tendencies provide information on the average behaviour of the subjects. Standard deviation measures variability. It indicates how heterogeneous or homogeneous the subjects are with regard to their behaviour.
For the purpose of analysing data obtained from the descriptive results, each crosstab table is followed by a symmetric measure table which examines the existing relationships between variables. It includes analysis of variance on the dependent variable of implicature comprehension against the independent variable of language and cultural background (NSs and NNSs of English). In order to check the
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 97 significance level, Cramer’s V coefficient was used. Cramer’s V coefficient is “a measure of association for the two variables forming a two dimensional contingency table. It is related to Phi-coefficient but applicable to tables larger than 2×2” (Everitt,
2006, p. 106). Through the symmetric measure table, we can check the probability value (p-value), which is the significance level. An alpha level of (0.05) for all statistical tests was used. This means that if p-value is less than (0.05), there is a significant difference between variables. However, if p-value is more than (0.05), this means that there is no significant difference between variables.
The following sections provide analyses of the results obtained from the comprehension test. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the participants’ responses to the questions in the comprehension test are discussed in groups according to the type of implicature they are testing. The corresponding table for each question are presented in Appendix G. It should be noticed that participants’ numbers from one to thirty refer to the NNSs and from thirty-one to sixty refers to the
NSs (see Appendix C, Tables C4 & C6).
4.3.1 Comprehension of Intended Implicature
The main purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent Syrian nonnative speakers of English are able to infer correct implicatures from the English global context of commercials the same way native speakers of English do. The researcher wants to find out whether cognitive differences (language and culture) affect the understanding of the implied meaning taking into account the nature of the context (i.e., commercials).
With regard to the above-mentioned purpose, the researcher divided the questions in the comprehension test into two groups. The first group of questions were 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, and 28 (see Appendix E). They
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 98 had one intended meaning (see Section 4.2). Results showed that 48.73% of the
NNSs and 51.15% of the NSs were able to infer the correct implicature (see Figure
4.1) below:
Intended Implicture 60 50 40 NNSs 30 20 NSs 10 0 NNSs NSs
Figure 4.1 The overall percentage of correct answers for the questions having one intended implicature
Figure 4.1 above shows that the highest percentage of correct answers was by NSs
(see Appendix G, Tables G3, G4, G5, G19, G20, G21, G23, G24, G25, G45, G71,
G73, G77, & G78 in the attached DVD).
4.3.2 Participants’ Awareness of Covert Implicature
The second group of questions (2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 21, and 25) had two correct implied meanings (see Appendix E). One of them is the overt meaning and the other is the covert meaning, which is the meaning intended by the advertisers (see
Section 4.2). A percentage of 57.44% of the NNSs and 44.81% of the NSs were able to identify the overt meaning. Figure 4.2 shows that only 22.32% of the NNSs and
26.07% of the NSs noticed the covert meaning.
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70
60
50
40 NNSs 30 NSs 20
10
0 Overt Implicature Covert Implicature
Figure 4.2 The overall percentage of correct answers for the questions having overt and covert implicatures
Figure 4.2 shows that the highest percentage of overt implicature comprehension was by the NNSs. However, the NSs were more able to identify the covert implicature than the NNSs.
It was noticed that the NS participants, unlike the NNS participants, tended to explain the statements in this group of questions their own way rather than choosing one of the given multiple choices. This explains the reason behind the higher percentage of correct answers by the NNS participants. In many instances, the NSs paraphrased the meaning given in one of the multiple choices instead of choosing it.
The following tables illustrate the relation between the chosen option and each group. Each crosstab table is followed by a symmetric table in order to check the significance level.
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Table 4.8 Responses to Question Two: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q2: The statement “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do” implies that A: Best B: Best C: World D: E:Other changes changes are changes Creative Total are made made by are made things are by Macintosh by crazy made by special people average people people Count 16 1 7 2 4 30 % Within 53.3% 3.3% 23.3% 6.7% 13.3% 100.0% Nonnative Group Adjusted 2.1 -1.6- .8 1.5 -2.6- residual Count 9 5 5 0 14 33
Group % Within 27.3% 15.2% 15.2% 0.0% 42.4% 100.0% Native group Adjusted -2.1- 1.6 -.8- -1.5- 2.6 Residual Count 25 6 12 2 18 63 Total % Within 39.7% 9.5% 19.0% 3.2% 28.6% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .444 .015 Nominal by Nominal Cramer's V .444 .015 N of Valid Cases 63
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Table 4.9 Responses to Question Four: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q4: The slogan of Apple Macintosh is “think different”. The slogan implies that A:you B:you can C:Apple D:Apple E:Other will also do Macintosh Macintosh change great can is inviting into a things, if change people to Total different only you people be unique person, if will through you buy purchase thinking Apple Apple differently Macintosh Macintosh computer computer Count 1 4 2 22 1 30 % within 3.3% 13.3% 6.7% 73.3% 3.3% 100.0% Nonnative Group Adjusted -.5- -1.0- .1 2.8 -2.5- Residual Count 2 8 2 13 9 34
Group % within 5.9% 23.5% 5.9% 38.2% 26.5% 100.0% Native Group Adjusted .5 1.0 -.1- 2.8 2.5 Residual Count 3 12 4 35 10 64 % Total within 4.7% 18.8% 6.3% 54.7% 15.6% 100.0% Group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .399 .038 Nominal by Nominal Cramer's V .399 .038 N of Valid Cases 64
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Table 4.10 Responses to Question Six: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q6: The pronoun “ones” in “The ones who think differently” refers to A: the crazy B:the C:the great D:the E:Other ones; the ones people in audience misfits; the who history who are Total rebels; want to shown watching troublemakers. be during the the The round unique commercial commercial pigs in the and square holes different Count 5 13 8 4 1 31 % Within 16.1% 41.9% 25.8% 12.9% 3.2% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted -1.6- .3 .3 2.3 -.4- residual Count 13 15 9 0 2 39
Group % Within 33.3% 38.5% 23.1% 0.0% 5.1% 100.0% Native group Adjusted 1.6 -.3- -.3- -2.3- .4 residual Count 18 28 17 4 3 70 Total % Within 25.7% 40.0% 24.3% 5.7% 4.3% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Nominal by nominal Phi .322 .122 Cramer's V .322 .122 N of valid cases 70
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Table 4.11 Responses to Question Seven: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q7: In the statement “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. The question here is to do what? A:To invent C:To D:To E:Other Total Macintosh change purchase computer the world Apple Macintosh Count 2 23 5 0 30 % Within 6.7% 76.7% 16.7% 0.0% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted 1.5 -.3- .6 -1.7- Residual Count 0 27 4 3 34
Group % Within 0.0% 79.4% 11.8% 8.8% 100.0% Native group Adjusted -1.5- .3 -.6- 1.7 residual Count 2 50 9 3 64 Total % Within 3.1% 78.1% 14.1% 4.7% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Nominal by nominal Phi .285 .158 Cramer's V .285 .158 N of valid cases 64
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Table 4.12
Responses to Question Ten: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q10:The statement “Empowering us all” refers to A:technology B:Microsoft C:medical D:Microsoft E:Other Total technology technology Count 13 1 4 12 0 30 % within 100.0 43.3% 3.3% 13.3% 40.0% 0.0% Nonnative Group % Adjusted .0 -1.8- 1.3 2.5 -2.0- Residual Count 18 7 2 10 5 42
Group % within 100.0 42.9% 16.7% 4.8% 23.8% 11.9% Native Group % Adjusted 2.0 1.8 -1.3- -1.5- 2.0 Residual Count 31 8 6 22 5 72 Total % within 100.0 43.1% 11.1% 8.3% 30.6% 6.9% Group %
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .362 .041 Nominal by Nominal Cramer's V .362 .041 N of Valid Cases 72
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Table 4.13
Responses to Question Fifteen: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification
Crosstab Q15: The slogan of Microsoft is “Your potential, our passion”. Microsoft has passion for Total A:helping B:design C:potential D:technology E:Other people Count 20 3 3 5 0 31 % within 64.5% 9.7% 9.7% 16.1% 0.0% 100.0% Nonnative Group Adjusted 1.8 .8 -.9- -.2- -2.5- Residual Count 17 2 7 7 7 40
Group % within 42.5% 5.0% 17.5% 17.5% 17.5% 100.0% Native Group Adjusted -1.8- -.8- .9 .2 2.5 Residual Count 37 5 10 12 7 71 Total % within 52.1% 7.0% 14.1% 16.9% 9.9% 100.0% Group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .330 .112 Nominal by Nominal Cramer's V .330 .112 N of Valid Cases 69
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Table 4.14
Responses to Question Seventeen: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q17: The commercial starts with a female voice saying: “Ok Google, show me my wedding photos”. The speaker is A:watching C:testing D:introducing E:Other Total photos and the voice the new voice remembering quality of feature of happy events Google Google Count 18 2 10 1 31 % within 58.1% 6.5% 32.3% 3.2% 100.0% Nonnative Group Adjusted 1.2 .1 -1.3- .1 Residual Count 15 2 17 1 35
Group % within 42.9% 5.7% 48.6% 2.9% 100.0% Native Group Adjusted -1.2- -.1- 1.3 -.1- Residual Count 33 4 27 2 66 Total % within 50.0% 6.1% 40.9% 3.0% 100.0% Group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .168 .604 Nominal by Nominal Cramer's V .168 .604 N of Valid Cases 66
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Table 4.15
Responses to Question Eighteen: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q18: The song in the commercial ends with the statement “You are the one for me”. The pronoun “You” refers to Total A:the B:the C:Google D:a E:Other partner camera Nexus 5 specific application Phone moment Count 4 0 21 5 1 31 % within 12.9% 0.0% 67.7% 16.1% 3.2% 100.0% Nonnative Group Adjusted -1.1- -1.6- 4.1 2.6 .2 Residual Count 9 3 26 0 1 39
Group % within 23.1% 7.7% 66.7% 0.0% 2.6% 100.0% Native Group Adjusted 1.1 1.6 3.1 -2.6- -.2- Residual Count 13 3 47 5 2 70 Total % within 18.6% 4.3% 67.1% 7.1% 2.9% 100.0% Group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .372 .046 Nominal by Nominal Cramer's V .372 .046 N of Valid Cases 70
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Table 4.16 Responses to Question Twenty One: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q21:The statement “This is the innovation that makes every day better” implies that A:having C:no other D:this phone E:Other another phone phones has the best Total will not change have the features your life to the same which better quality improve your life Count 1 3 27 0 31 % Within 3.2% 9.7% 87.1% 0.0% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted 1.0 -1.8- 1.9 -1.4- residual Count 0 9 22 2 33
Group % Within 0.0% 27.3% 66.7% 6.1% 100.0% Native group Adjusted -1.0- 1.8 -1.9- 1.4 residual Count 1 12 49 2 64 Total % Within 1.6% 18.8% 76.6% 3.1% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .318 .091 Nominal by nominal Cramer's V .318 .091 N of valid cases 64
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Table 4.17 Responses to Question Twenty Five: Testing Overt and Covert Implicature Identification Crosstab Q25: The statement “Designed to perfection. And with utmost attention to every detail” implies that A:Xperia Z2 B:Xperia C:Xperia E:Other Tablet is a Z2 Tablet Z2 Tablet Total unique device is perfect has the best designed with features accuracy Count 15 7 10 0 32 % within 46.9% 21.9% 31.3% 0.0% 100.0% Nonnative Group Adjusted .2 -1.3- 1.4 -.9- Residual Count 16 13 6 1 36
Group % within 44.4% 36.1% 16.7% 2.8% 100.0% Native Group Adjusted -.2- 1.3 -1.4- .9 Residual Count 31 20 16 1 68 Total % within 45.6% 29.4% 23.5% 1.5% 100.0% Group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .230 .307 Nominal by Nominal Cramer's V .230 .307 N of Valid Cases 68
With reference to Figure 4.2, results showed that both groups failed to identify
the covert meaning. However, the interview in Appendix H (in the attached DVD)
revealed that some participants in both groups were able to understand the implied
meaning in the commercials even though they chose the overt meaning only when
they answered the questions in the test. Table 4.18 below provides some examples:
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Table 4.18
Sample Answers of Participants’ Comprehension of Covert Implicature
Question Participant Response No. No. 2 9 Yes I wrote it changes are made by special people and here Macintosh thinks that they are special so their people who work in Macintosh are special. 2 33 Best changes are made by special people, there is also an implied message of, if you use our products, you can be like those crazy, brilliant people who change the world. 4 20 Because the way they linked between the old inventions and then they appear the Microsoft logo and the slogan is think different here they are inviting people to be unique. So everybody use Apple Macintosh will be unique. 4 48 Those people in the commercial did great things so by choosing apple they meant to say that everyone will be able to be like them and achieve something better. 6 28 I think this to audience and the people who watched the commercial because the advertisement watched to people to make them think differently. So I conclude that. 6 51 Because this is how an advertiser wants you to think, he she wants to connect the audience to something great 10 7 Umm because the commercial the whole commercial was for Microsoft just like that it was for technology but it specifically about Microsoft technology. 10 59 It may also be a subtle indirect statement about Microsoft. 18 3 The song is for her partner but in the commercial it refers to the phone. 18 34 Because that is the item the commercial is advertising. 21 43 Competing to be the best in the market. 25 24 Designed to perfection perfection means the best features
Table 4.18 shows that a few participants in both groups were able to identify the covert meaning.
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4.3.3 Comprehension of Conventional and Conversational Implicature
The second research question asked which implicature was particularly troublesome to each group (see Section 1.6). To answer the question, the researcher classified the questions in the comprehension test into two categories: Conventional implicature and conversational implicature (see Section 4.2). Cross-tabulations of the responses of the research participants as well as their rates of the accuracy of their answers and the difficulty of the questions were grouped according to the type of implicature they represented and presented in Appendix G in the attached DVD.
4.3.3.1 Comprehension of Conventional Implicature
Conventional implicature was addressed in the questions number 6, 7, 12, 13, and 24 (see Appendix E). Results showed that 61.43% of the NNSs and 67.77% of the NSs answered these questions correctly. Having a close look at each question and the responses to the interview question showed the following results:
Question Six
Question six tested reference assignment in the statement “The ones who think differently.” Results showed that both groups chose option B, which was the general idea of the commercial. Unlike the NNSs, it was found that 33.3% of the NSs chose option A. They were aware of the reference mentioned in the commercial. Only
12.9% of the NNSs chose option D, which indicated their awareness of the covert meaning, while none of the NSs chose option D (the covert inference). Cramer's V coefficient test showed no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group. The p-value = 0.122>0.05 (see Table G1).
In addition to these findings, the interview (see Appendix H) revealed that most NNS participants concentrated on the general idea of the commercial without paying much attention to the specific words. This can explain the low percentage of
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 112 the participants who chose option A. For instance, participant no. 3 said: “Actually I couldn’t remember this sentence from the commercial.” Only in one instance, participant (no. 17) said that he used the rules of grammar “I got it from the ad nothing more. I used the Grammar rules.”
On the other hand, the NS participants were aware of both the general meaning as well as the specific words mentioned during the commercial. For example, participant no. 38 said: “I think the wording is intentionally open. The viewer can decide who the "ones" are. The one thing that is clear, according to the commercial is that the "ones" are special.”
Question Seven
Question seven focused on the saturation in the statement “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” The responses showed no significant difference between the chosen option and the group, where p- value =0.158>0.05. A percentage of 76.7% of the NNSs and 79.4% of the NSs chose option C (the overt meaning). Only 16.7% of the NNS and 11.8% of the NSs chose option D (the covert meaning) (see Table G2).
The Participants’ explanations for their choices showed that both groups used the grammar rules to choose the proper answer. The following answers are some examples:
“It was clear for me to choose C. It’s mentioned”. no. 11
“It's referring to the act it already mentioned.” no. 31
Question Twelve
Question twelve focused on the semantic meaning of the word “craze” in that specific context. Results showed a correlation between the chosen option and the
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 113 group, where p-value =0.002<0.05. Both groups chose option A, the intended implicature (see Table G3).
The interview showed that both groups depended on the context of the commercial to infer the proper meaning of the word “craze” as the following answers show:
“Because the commercial is about Sophie and her Fashion, designing hats.” no. 6
“This phrase can mean latest fashion, hobby, etc. “What people are in to”. But in
the ad, it is clearly fashion (mainly hats I think).” no. 40
Question Thirteen
Question thirteen was about the meaning of the phrase “We're inspired to create software that helps her reach it.” The correlation between the chosen option and the group was statistically significant since p-value =0.001<0.05. It was found that 30.0% of the NNSs and 45.0% of the NSs chose option C, the intended implicature (see Table G4).
The NNS participants tried to answer the interview question by explaining their understanding of the sentence. For example, participant no. 5 used paraphrasing.
He said: “In that sentence I understood it like that Microsoft helps people who have potential to make more steps better to their life or something like this.”
On the other hand, NS participants talked about the structure of the sentence and their use of grammar rules as the following examples show:
“It's about the user and how the operating system can help them reach their
potential” no. 33
“Because that's what is said! "We're inspired" is passive voice, they avoided
saying by whom they were inspired!” no. 45
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Question Twenty four
Question twenty four focused on the semantic meaning of the phrase “to do it justice.” There was a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group where p-value =0.041<0.05. Both groups chose option C, the intended implicature
(see Table G5).
In the interview, most NNS participants (no. 5, 6, and 23) were able to infer the right answer although some of them (no. 10, 11, 13 and 25) were confused whether this sentence refers to the features of the mobile or to the advertising of it.
On the other hand, the NSs expressed their familiarity with this phrase as the following examples show:
“It's the way the phrase is normally used.” no 31
“This is another common phrase.” no. 52
The participants rated their perception of the degree of accuracy of their answers. The overall percentage of accuracy rating of the conventional implicature is statistically significant since p-value =<0.05. Figure 4.3 shows that 36.9% of the
NNSs rated their answers as “average” and 68.9% of the NSs rated their answers as
“very accurate” (see Appendix G, Tables G6, G7, G8, G9, G10, & G11).
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80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-native
Native
Average
Inaccurate
inaccurate
Somewhat
Very accurate Very Somewhat accurate Somewhat Conventional
Figure 4.3 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of conventional implicature
Figure 4.3 shows that the NSs perceived their answers as being accurate, while the
NNSs were hesitant about their answers.
Participants also rated their perception of the degree of difficulty for each question. Figure 4.4 shows a significant difference between the NSs and the NNSs in their ratings of implicature comprehension difficulty since P-value is less than 0.05 as shown in the symmetric table (see Table G17). Results show that 40.9% of the NNSs rated the questions as “average”, while 62.2% of the NSs rated the questions as “very easy” (see Appendix G, Tables G12, G13, G14, G15, G16, & G17).
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70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-native
Native
Average
difficult
Veryeasy
Somewhat
Verydifficult Somewhat easy Somewhat Conventional
Figure 4.4 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of conventional implicature
Figure 4.4 shows that the NS participants perceived this kind of implicature as very easy, while the NNS participants were uncertain.
4.3.3.2 Comprehension of Conversational Implicatures
The second category of questions examined conversational implicature and the four maxims. It attempts to answer the fourth research question (Do participants apply the Gricean maxims as interpretation strategies for implicature interpretation? If yes, which is the most difficult maxim? What is the source of difficulty?). It was found that 65.95% of the NNSs and 58.7% of the NSs were able to understand the conversational implicature.
4.3.4 Participants’ Application of the Gricean Maxims as Interpretation Strategy
The conversational implicatures in the second category were derived through flouting the four maxims. Consequently, the questions in this category were classified into four groups in an attempt to identify the participants’ application of the Gricean maxims as an interpretation strategy and also to figure out the most difficult maxim for each group. Questions 2, 3, 9, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 26 tested the maxim of quality.
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Questions 4, 19, and 25 tested the maxim of quantity. Questions 2, 4, 10, 15, and 18 tested the maxim of relevance. Questions 5, 10, 14, 15, 17, 22, 27, and 28 tested the maxim of manner (see Section 4.2). Figure 4.5 below shows the percentage of the correct answers for each maxim in each group.
90 80 70 60 50 NNSs 40 NSs 30 20 10 0 Quality Quantity Relevance Manner
Figure 4.5 The overall percentage of correct interpretations of maxims flouting
As figure 4.5 shows, both groups had the highest percentage of correct interpretations of the questions related to the maxim of relevance.
4.3.4.1 The Maxim of Quality as Interpretation Strategy
The maxim of quality suggests that interlocutors should believe in what they assert, and they should have evidence for the truth of their claims. In the context of advertisements, this maxim is flouted for indirectness. For example, it can be seen in metaphoric expressions. Questions number 2, 3, 9, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 26 targeted the maxim of quality (see Appendix E4). A percentage of 61.63% of the NNSs and
56.52% of the NSs chose the right answer. Taking each question into consideration, the following results were found:
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Question Two
Question two was about the implication in the statement “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” There was a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value
=0.015<0.05. The statistical analysis of the answers showed that 53.3% of the NNSs and 27.3% of the NSs chose option A (the overt inference). Only 3.3% of the NNSs and 15.2% of the NNSs were aware of the covert meaning (see Table G18). It was also noticed that 14 instances of the NSs tended to choose the “other” option and give meanings to this statement using their own words. Their written answers contained similar ideas to option A as the following examples show:
“World changes are made by the creative and brave people.” no. 48
“Ambitious people can make a change in the world.” no. 54
The interview showed that the NNSs (No. 2, 7, 8, 10, 24) and the NSs (no. 39,
51, 55, 57, 58) based their choice of option (A) on their perception of the commercial as the following examples show:
“It best suits the commercial.” no. 36
“It best captures the message” no. 50
“I was thinking about the people in the video.” no. 51
Question Three
Question three focused on the implied meaning in the commercial about
Macintosh computer. There was no significant relation between the chosen options and the two groups since p-value =0.260>0.05. However, the results indicated that the participants in both groups were aware of the general meaning of the commercial
(see Table G19).
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The NNSs’ and the NSs’ explanation of their choices (for instance no. 5, 7, 38, and 43) showed that their answers were based on their ability to understand the main idea of the commercial which emphasised the idea of being different as the following examples show:
“Because that’s the last sentence. They wrote it in the commercial. They said
“think different” the thoughts came to me like thinking different so I chose it.”
no. 5
“Because the entire message in the ad is that people and ideas that were different
and perceived as crazy at one time turned out to be revolutionary in a positive
way. For that reason, since the commercial is for Apple products, one would think
that Apple sees itself similarly.” no. 38
Question Nine
Question nine focused on the implied meaning in the second commercial about Microsoft. Answers were statistically significant since p-value =0.022<0.05. A percentage of 32.3% of the NNSs and 44.7% of the NSs chose option B, the intended implicature (see Table G20).
The interview showed that the participants (for instance no. 4, 5, 48, and 53) based their answers on the main idea of the commercial. Some responses also showed their awareness of the quality maxim of the commercial as the following answers show:
“In my mind there was a picture like stay awake and watch this advertisement
then go to sleep. At least the general theme but you told us to pay attention so I
had to concentrate. This’s why I added robot like / In general the voice was
sluggish. There was how I can say that like monotonic.” no. 17
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 120
“The advert was so boring that I had already forgotten what was said and had to
watch it again.” no. 52
Question Twenty
Question twenty was easy for both groups. It focused on the implied meaning in the statement “same photos with twice the resolution of the iphone.” Answers were statistically significant where p-value = 0.021<0.05. It was found that 62.5% of the
NNSs and 60.0% of the NSs chose option B, the intended implicature (see Table
G21).
Both the NNSs (no. 8, 10, 14) and the NSs (no. 33, 46, 52) were aware of the comparison between Samsung and iPhone as the interview revealed. Both groups were aware that the commercial was talking about the camera in particular. Samsung is just better than the iPhone because of its camera.
Question Twenty one
Question twenty one was about the implied meaning in the statement “This is the innovation that makes every day better.” Answers were not significant since p- value = 0.091>0.05. Results showed that 87.1% of the NNSs and 66.7% of the NSs chose option D, the overt implicature (see Table G22).
The interview showed that the NNSs (no. 1, 3, 9, 10, 17, 21, 27, 30) and the
NSs (no. 32, 38, 48, 55, 58) were aware of the features shown in the commercial.
Some participants talked about the quality of these claims as the following two examples show:
“That this is hyperbole.” no. 33
“The completely exaggerated claim is that having this phone can improve your
life.” no. 40
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Option C (the covert implicature) was only chosen by 9.7% of the NNSs and
27.3% of the NSs. In the interview question, only some NSs participants (no. 34, 43,
49, 59) talked about the implied meaning in this claim, and how the advertisement wanted to say that they were the best company as the following examples show:
“competing to be the best in the market.” no. 43
“It offered so many tools that the iPhone doesn't.” no. 59
Question Twenty Two
Question twenty two was about a common statement said at the end of the commercial “the next big thing is here.” Results showed no statistical significance since p-value was 0.658>0.05. The NSs (52.9%) were aware of the intended meaning of this phrase. However, the NNSs chose options A and B with a percentage of
40.0% for each choice (see Table G23).
The interview revealed that the majority of the NNS participants (no. 4, 16,
22, 23, 28, 29) took this statement literally, as the following examples show:
“Best at the moment.” no. 1
“The previous versions were big thing and Galaxy S5 is the next big thing here.”
no. 3
“Also successful” no. 12
“Because they say the previous version they said next so there is previous.” no. 13
Other NNS participants (no. 4, 22, 23) explained that this statement was used to express pleasure and success. NS participants’ responses (no. 32, 34, 53, 54) showed that they were aware of the context in which this phrase was used. They were also aware of the quality of the claim as the following examples show:
“They want you to buy all their products but especially this one.” no. 44
“The phone is a new step in a progress of creating the best mobile.” no. 48
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Question Twenty Three
For question twenty three, both groups were able to identify the intended implicature. This question was about the implied meaning in the following statement:
“At Sony we live and breathe entertainment.” Answers were statistically significant since p-value =0.005<0.05. Results showed that 93.3% of the NNSs and 54.1% of the
NSs chose option D. The NSs’ lower percentage to this answer was because 27.0% of them chose option E and gave other answers to this question. Their answers were similar to the idea expressed in option D and reflected their familiarity with the product (see Table G24).
Responses showed that both groups based their answers on the features displayed through the commercial as the following examples show:
“Because they this video they concentrate on games you can play at this at this tap
and a lot of applications you can you can enjoy it.” no. 1
“Sony entertainment they would like to be synonymous” no. 41
Question Twenty Six
Question twenty six was easy for both groups. It was about the implied meaning in the statement “Powered by the fastest processor and still power efficient.”
Results showed that 83.9% of the NNSs and 76.5% of the NSs chose option A, the intended implicature (see Table G25).
Both groups based their responses on the meaning of the statement. As in the following two examples:
“The statement just like we talk about the fast processor and the best processing
capacity. It maybe grammar just like superlative superlative and like that.” no. 7
“Accurate statement meaning.” no. 56
Participants (no. 3, 6, 8, 10, 32, 36, 60) concluded that it had the best processor.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 123
Participants rated their perception of the degree of accuracy of their answers.
The overall percentage of accuracy rating of the maxim of quality was statistically significant since p-value >0.05. Figure 4.6 shows that 36.4% of the NNSs rated their answers as “somewhat accurate”, and 67.9% of the NSs rated their answers as “very accurate” (see Appendix G, Tables G26, G27, G28, G29, G30, G31, G32, G33, &
G34).
80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% Non-Native 20.00% Native 10.00% 0.00% InaccurateSomewhat Average Somewhat Very inaccurate accurate accurate Conversational_Quality
Figure 4.6 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of the quality maxim
The figure 4.6 above illustrates that the NSs were sure of their answers, while the
NNSs considered their answers as somewhat accurate.
For the difficulty rating, it was also statistically significant since p-value
>0.05. As the figure 4.7 shows, 31.5% of the NNSs rated the questions as “average”, while 65.8% of the NSs rated the questions as “very easy” (see Appendix G, Tables
G35, G36, G37, G38, G39, G40, G41, G42, & G43).
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70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00%
30.00% Non-native 20.00% Native 10.00% 0.00% Very EasySomewhat Average Somewhat Very Easy Difficult Difficult Conversational_Quality
Figure 4.7 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of the quality maxim
The figure 4.7 above illustrates that the NSs found this maxim very easy, while the
NNSs seemed uncertain of their choices.
4.3.4.2 The Maxim of Quantity as Interpretation Strategy
The second maxim is the maxim of quantity. Questions number (4, 19, and 25) targeted the maxim of quantity (see Appendix E4). According to this maxim, the contribution should be as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange. Quantity maxim is flouted when the writer obviously gives more or less information than the situation requires. It can be seen in unfinished comparisons, and it is preferred for extracting stronger claims. For the maxim of quantity, 65.21% of the NNSs and 58.65% of the NSs chose the right answers to these questions. A close look at each question showed the following results:
Question Four
Question four asked the participants about the implication in the slogan “think different.” Results were statistically significant since p-value =0.038<0.05. Results
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 125 showed that 73.3% of the NNSs and 38.2% of the NSs chose option D, the literal meaning of the slogan. Only 13.3% of the NNSs and 23.5% of the NSs chose option
B, the covert implicature (see Table G44).
In their responses to the meaning of the slogan “think different”, most participants based their answers on the general meaning of the slogan as the following examples show:
“They said think different because if you think different maybe you can create
something unknown before maybe this is the way to be creative or talent or genius
or very good one.” no. 16
“The product celebrates and glorifies individuality and difference.” no. 32
Only 13.3% of the NNSs and 23.5% of the NSs chose option B, the covert meaning. However, the interview revealed that many participants (no. 3, 7, 20, 48,
51, and 60) were aware of the covert meaning in this commercial. They responded by explaining about the link between the product and the idea of the commercial as the following examples show:
“Because apple implies that people when they use Macintosh they will be
different from others who using other operating systems so when they use
Macintosh they will be something different.” no. 3
“Excellent sales enticement, if you buy one you will be one.” no. 60
Question Nineteen
Question nineteen focused on the implied meaning in the statement “made to capture the moments that matter” in the commercial about Google. Results were statistically significant since p-value was 0.002<0.05. Results showed that 40.0% of the NNSs and 32.4% of the NSs chose option B, the intended implicature. It was noticed that 41.2% of the NSs chose option E and gave other answers to this
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 126 statement. All their answers expressed one idea about the ability of the device to take good photos (see Table G45).
The interview showed that a lot of participants (no. 1, 5, 18, 28, 34, 43, 44, 46,
48, 49) understood this sentence literally. For them, this device can save all important events in life.
“They are here talking about just the moments that matter or that deserves.” no. 5
“It could take photos of everything but what makes it different that it can save
details.” no. 46
Other participants (no. 51, 57) concentrated on the main idea of the commercial without taking into consideration the individual claims uttered. For them, it was like any other device, and it could take whatever pictures the user wanted to take. As the following two responses show:
“It saves all important events in details, but only if a human being decides to do so
and to operate it.” no. 35
“You can capture with it the moments that you want to save and remember.” no.
48
Many participants were aware of the emotional content in this claim as the following examples show:
“It saves every moment we want to save but in the video it was a little bit
emotional it focused on the important moments that ones want to remember like
the important events in details.” no. 27
“This makes it an important lifestyle support and gives it emotional value.” no. 32
“It's evoking nostalgia.” no. 33
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Question Twenty Five
Question twenty five focused on the implied meaning in the statement
“Designed to perfection. And with utmost attention to every detail.” Results were not statistically significant since p-value =0.307>0.05. Results showed that 46.9% of the
NNSs and 44.4% of the NSs chose option A, the literal meaning. On the other hand,
21.9% of the NNSs and 36.1% of the NSs chose option B, the implied meaning (see
Table G46).
In the interview, participants based their answers on the uttered words and the display of the device. Their answers were based on the features mentioned in the commercial.
“because they in the commercial; they was showing us the features of their tablet
so they show us the feature that the best features.” no. 29
“Well, they are claiming it is perfect, but I suppose they are really just implying
that it has the best features and is designed well.” no. 57
“It looks sophisticated and sleek not bulky.” no. 59
Participants rated their perception of the degree of the accuracy of their answers. The overall percentage of accuracy rating for the maxim of quantity was statistically significant since p-value <0.05. A percentage of 37.8% of the NNSs chose “somewhat accurate” and a percentage of 63.3% of the NSs chose “very accurate” (see Appendix G, Tables G47, G48, G49, & G50).
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70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-native
Native
Average
Inaccurate
inaccurate
Somewhat
Very accurate Very Somewhat accurate Somewhat Conversational_Quantity
Figure 4.8 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of quantity maxim
Figure 4.8 shows that the NNSs were less sure about their answers than the NSs.
As for the difficulty rating, it was statistically significant since p-value <0.05.
A percentage of 31.1% of the NNSs rated their answers as “average”, and a percentage of 31.1% of the same group found the questions “somewhat easy”. A percentage of 57.8% of the NSs rated the questions as “very easy” (see Appendix G,
Tables G51, G52, G53, & G54).
70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Nonnative
Native
Average
VeryEasy
VeryDifficult
Somewhat Easy Somewhat Difficult Conversational_Quantity
Figure 4.9 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of quantity maxim
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In Figure 4.9, we can notice that the NSs perceived these questions as very easy, while again the NNSs ranked this group of questions as averaged.
4.3.4.3 The Maxim of Relevance as Interpretation Strategy
The third group of questions (2, 4, 10, 15, and 18) targeted the maxim of relevance. According to this maxim, conversation should be relevant to the course of speech. For the Maxim of Relevance, 77.63% of the NNSs and 64.89% of the NSs chose the right answer. Answers to the interview indicated the participants’ awareness of the maxim of Relevance. The examples presented for each question below include any description of relevance.
Question Two
Question two focused on the implied meaning of the statement “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
Results were statistically significant since p-value =0.015<0.05. Results showed that
53.3% of the NNSs and 27.3% of the NSs chose option A, the overt inference. Only
3.3% of the NNSs and 15.2% of the NSs chose option B, the covert inference. It was noticed that 42.4% of the NSs chose option E and gave other answers to this statement. Their answers included some elaborations on the given choices (see Table
G55).
In the interview, some participants reported using the Maxim of Relevance to interpret the meaning of the message.
“I don’t think crazy people or average people or they are concentrating on
Macintosh they are relating the people and the company” no. 15
“I didn't need to think too hard. This is an Apple advertisement and they are
making the link to other innovators.” no. 41
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Most participants (no. 1, 5, 13, 18, 21, 26, 29, 34, 39, 55, 58, 48, and 49) chose A basing their choice on the famous characters they watched in the commercial.
Question Four
Question four focused on the implied meaning of the slogan “think different.”
Results were statistically significant since p-value = 0.038<0.05. A percentage of
73.3% of the NNSs and 38.2% of the NSs chose option D, the literal meaning. Only
13.3% of the NNSs and 23.5% of the NSs chose option B, the covert implicature (see
Table G56).
In the interview, participants (no. 1, 5, 21, 23, 30, 32, 36, 41, 55) were trying to explain the idea of being unique as in the following examples:
“I understood that company invite people to think different way to be unique or
something like that.” no. 5
“being unique allows us to be different.” no. 55
Only 13.3% of the NNSs and 23.5% of the NSs chose option B, the covert inference. The interview revealed that many participants (for instance no. 3, 20, 29,
31, 43, 49, 51, and 60) were aware of the link between the slogan and the product.
Their ability to understand the hidden meaning of the commercial implicated their ability to find the relevance between the idea of the commercial and the product as the following examples show:
“not sure about but think different so invite people to be unique through use their
technology their product.” no. 29
“striking relevance between the commercial and the idea of promotion.” no. 43
Question Ten
Question ten was about the reference in the statement “Empowering us all.”
Results were statistically significant since p-value = 0.041<0.05. Results showed that
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43.3% of the NNSs and 42.9% of the NSs chose option A. A percentage of 40.0% of the NNSs and 23.8% of the NSs chose the more accurate answer (option D) (see
Table G57).
The interview revealed that many participants (no. 22, 24, 28, 29, 30, 38, 39,
46, 49, 52, 60) were aware of the implied meaning in the commercial. Consequently, they were able to understand the link between the statement and the product as the following responses show:
“because it’s belong to the technology and Microsoft and ahh I think the
commercial was about Microsoft” no. 24
“Because the ad shows the huge range of progress technology has allowed for and
since it is a Microsoft ad, one assumes that Microsoft has something to do with
progress.” no. 38
“The answer could be technology but the advertisers wish viewers to connect all
they have said about technology with Microsoft.” no. 52
Other participants (no. 2, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 32, 36, 43, 44, 51, 53) believed that the commercial was talking about technology in general. Responses indicated that their choice was based on their own beliefs.
Question Fifteen
Question fifteen was about the slogan of Microsoft “your potential, our passion.” Results showed no significance since p-value = 0.079>0.05. A percentage of 64.5% of the NNSs and 42.5% of the NSs chose the overt inference. Only 16.1% of the NNSs and 17.5% of the NSs chose option D, the intended implicature (See
Table G58).
Most participants were distracted by the idea of the commercial. Most of them
(no. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16, 17, 20, 29, 23, 28, 32, 44, 46, 52, 54, and 55) concentrated on
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 132 the idea of helping people through technology. Few instances (no. 34, 38, 43, and 51) were able to identify the meaning of the statement as the following examples show:
“About advertisement was talking about technology Microsoft. Microsoft is
specialist technology.” no. 28
“Because that seems to be the message in the commercial; that Microsoft can help
people fulfil their dreams via technology.” no. 38
Question Eighteen
Question eighteen was about the statement “You are the one for me.” Results were statistically significant since p-value = 0.046<0.05. Results showed that 67.7% of the NNSs and 66.7% of the NSs were aware of the covert inference of the statement. Only 12.9% of the NNSs and 23.1% of the NSs chose option A, the overt meaning (see Table G59).
The interview revealed that all participants were aware of what is meant from the song.
“Because this is what the commercial about.” no. 10
“Because that is the item the commercial is advertising.” no. 34
Participants rated their own evaluation about the accuracy of their answers.
Results were statistically significant since p-value <0.05. As Figure 4.10 below shows, 35.8% of the NNs rated their answers as “somewhat accurate” and 60.5% of the NSs rated their answers as “very accurate” (see Appendix G, Tables G60, G61,
G62, G63, & G64).
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70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-native
Native
Average
Inaccurate
Veryaccurate
Somewhat accurate Somewhat Somewhat inaccurate Somewhat Conversational_Relevance
Figure 4.10 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of relevance maxim
Figure 4.10 above shows that the same behaviour was repeated. The NSs were certain about their choices, while the NNSs were less certain about their answers.
For the difficulty of the question, results were also statistically significant since p-value <0.05. As indicated in the Figure 4.11 below, a percentage of 32.8% of the NNSs rated their answers as “Average”, and a percentage of 52.9% of the NSs rated their answers as “very easy” (see Appendix G, Tables G65, G66, G67, G68,
G69 & G70).
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 134
60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-native
Native
Average
Very Easy Very
VeryDifficult
Somewhat Easy Somewhat Somewhat Difficult Somewhat Conversational_Relevance
Figure 4.11 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of relevance maxim
Figure 4.11 above shows that the same rating was repeated. NNSs were hesitant about their choices, while NSs considered the questions as very easy.
4.3.4.4 The Maxim of Manner as Interpretation Strategy
The Fourth group of questions (5, 10, 14, 15, 17, 22, 27, and 28) targeted the maxim of manner. This maxim suggests that obscurity of expression and ambiguity should be avoided. In advertisement, manner flouting is used to avoid making direct strong claims about the efficiency of the product. For the Maxim of Manner, 59.33% of the NNSs and 54.77% of the NSs answered the questions correctly. Some participants reported using Grice’s maxim of Manner. The examples presented for each question include any description of ambiguity or clarity.
Question Five
Question five was about the meaning of the idiom “The round pegs in the square holes.” Results showed a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value =0.004<0.05. The statistical analysis of the answers
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 135 showed that 70.0% of the NNSs and 52.9% of the NSs chose the intended meaning
(option C) (see Table G71).
However, the interview revealed that the idiom was easy for the NSs. Some of them said that it was common and others explained it by using their own words as the following examples show:
“It is basically what the idiom means.” no. 40
“The meaning of the expression.” no. 46
In contrast to the NSs, the NNSs found the idiom very difficult. Some participants tried to interpret the idiom through imagining the situation in it. As in the following two examples:
“I understood this because pegs are round and holes are square I think it means
people in a situation no suitable for them. I just imagined the situation. The image.
Envisage like envisage.” no. 5
“If you tried to put round pegs in a square holes means you were very determined
to do it and at the same time put a lot effort in making it possible.” no. 48
Some participants reported using the maxim of manner to interpret the meaning of the message as the following examples show:
“This question was very difficult. I think (Reading option D: people who are in a
very difficult job) mmmm here I pictured something this like metaphorical
sentence. pegs are round and holes are square so I think they have a problem so I
chose D.” no. 18
“It’s again inaccurate or very difficult I see it’s the best from another choice.” no.
2
“It was not that much clear, but it was clarified by the ad. It’s the first time I ever
heard of it.” no. 27
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Question Ten
Question ten was about the reference in the statement “Empowering us all.”
Results showed a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value =0.041<0.05. The statistical analysis of the answers showed that 43.3% of the NNSs and 42.9% of the NSs chose option A. A percentage of 40.0% of the
NNSs and 23.8% of the NSs chose the more accurate answer (option D) (see Table
G72).
In the interview, only three participants reported using Grice’s maxim of manner to process the implicature as the following examples show:
“But they were focusing on just the medical technology.” no. 5
“It's what I perceived! They're using a Hawking-like voice over and showing lots
of technology whilst carefully avoiding saying (but implying) that it is all
Microsoft's.” no. 45
“It may also be a subtle indirect statement about Microsoft.” no. 59
Question Fourteen
Question fourteen focused on the implication in the statement “We see her potential.” Results showed a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value<0.05. A percentage of 51.8% of the NNSs and 22.5% of the
NSs chose option A, the intended implicature. A percentage of 51.61% of the NSs explained the statement their own way (see Table G73).
In the interview, participants in both groups explained their choice through explaining the statement. They tried to paraphrase it and reflected on the images they watched during the commercial.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 137
Question Fifteen
Question fifteen was about the statement “Your potential, our passion.”
Results showed no significance since p-value =0.112>0.05. A percentage of 64.5% of the NNSs and 44.7% of the NSs chose the overt inference. Only 16.1% of the NNSs and 15.8% of the NSs chose option D, the intended implicature (see Table G74).
In the interview, one instance of the NNSs reported using the maxim of manner saying, “It’s clear from the first of the commercial they want to help people.
We want to help you to reach your potential with us or through us.” no. 20
Question Seventeen
Question seventeen was about the statement “Ok Google, show me my wedding photos.” Results showed no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value =0.604>0.05. A percentage of 58.1% of the NNSs and 42.9% of the NSs chose option A, the overt inference. On the other hand, only
32.3% of the NNSs and 48.6% of the NSs chose option D, the covert inference (see
Table G75).
The implication in the statement was clear for the participants. Both groups were telling what was happening in the commercial to explain the statement. Some responses indicated the use of the maxim of manner as the following examples show:
“This’s familiar ahh we saw it we see it in every every mobile modern mobile.”
no. 12
“To me it is obvious that the speaker is accessing a phone feature.” no. 34
“Pretty straight forward with the request.” no 56
“Oblivious ad placement stated in the very beginning.” no. 59
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Question Twenty Two
Question twenty two was about the statement “The Samsung Galaxy S5, the next big thing is here.” Results showed no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value is p= 0.613>0.05. The statistical analysis of the answers showed that 40.0% of the NNSs and 54.3% of the NSs chose option A, the intended implicature (see Table G76).
In the interview, both groups were trying to express their understanding of the meaning of the statement through explaining it.
“I got no but it’s so clear to for me, it was so clear to answer, they are related to
each other.” no. 19
“Another thing to buy.” no. 33
“It is clear.” no. 41
“It wants to get people excited about the new features.” no. 54
Question Twenty Seven
Question twenty seven focused on the meaning of the phrase “Take it for a spin.” Results showed a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value =0.013<0.05. The statistical analysis of the answers showed that
40.0% of the NNSs and 63.6% of the NSs chose option A, the intended implicature
(see Table G77).
In the interview, the NS participants (no. 31, 32, 33, 36, 43, 47, 52, and 54) expressed their familiarity with the expression as the following responses show:
“Common phrase for a trial, originally used for cars.” no. 32
“familiar with the idiom.” no 33
“Thats usually what you tell someone when something is so good that they won't
understand it until they try it.” no. 51
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 139
“...and another cliché!” no. 52
The NNSs, on the other hand, were trying to infer the meaning of the idiom from its lexical items. Again, their responses indicated a reference to the maxim of manner as the following examples show:
“Yes, it’s a metaphor it means try it and see what it can do.” no. 9
“To buy the tablet and turn around very quickly (laughing) you see here (pointing
at the scale) to be honest this was horrible I couldn’t understand it. Spin means
rotation what is happening here (laughing)? I couldn’t understand the question.”
no.18
“I depend on this phrase. Nothing else.” no. 22
Question Twenty Eight
Question twenty eight was about the statement “This is what we believe.
Technology alone is not enough … But when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful.” Results showed a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value =0.001<0.05. Only 10.0% of the NNSs and 5.9% of the NSs chose option D. It was noticed that 41.2% of the NSs expressed their own understanding of the statement (see Table G78). Some NSs’ answers as well as their responses to the interview (for instance, participants no. 40,
43, 56, 32, 35, 57, 55, 42, 47, and 50) were close to the right meaning of the statement as the following two answers show:
“We should be able to use technology without really realising we are using it.” no.
40
“You can use and enjoy our up-to-date products without being technologically
minded.” no. 35
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In the interview, only three instances (no. 8, 9, 18) were able to give answers close to the right one. The NNSs expressed their confusion about this statement and some answers indicated the use of the maxim of manner as the following responses show:
“I didn’t know what get out I didn’t know.” no. 4
“I didn’t believe in the second part of the sentence I didn’t convince by this.” no. 5
“Yes but they were extending the limits about maybe guitar, the brain picture and
something else about something else. Just like gets out of the way maybe the
traditional way and be more extended.” no. 7
“I was confused. To confess.” no. 17
The participants rated their perception of the degree of accuracy of their answers. Results showed a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value <0.05. As shown in Figure 4.12, 34.8% of the NNSs rated their answers as “somewhat accurate” and 60.1% of the NSs rated their answers as “very accurate” (see Appendix G, Tables G79, G80, G81, G82, G83, G84, G85, G86, &
G87 in the attached DVD).
70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% Non-native 0.00%
Native
Average
accurate
Inaccurate
inaccurate
Somewhat Somewhat Very accurate Very Conversational_Manner
Figure 4.12 The overall percentage of comprehension accuracy rating of manner maxim
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Figure 4.12 shows the same trend noticed before for both groups.
As for the difficulty of the questions, the overall percentage showed a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value <0.05.
As shown in Figure 4.13 below, 37.6% of the NNSs rated the questions as “average” and 58.2% of the NSs rated the questions as “very easy” (See Appendix G, Tables
G88, G89, G90, G91, G92, G93, G94, G95, & G96 in the attached DVD).
70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Non-native
Native
Average
Difficult
VeryEasy
Somewhat
VeryDifficult Somewhat Easy Somewhat Conversational_Manner
Figure 4.13 The overall percentage of comprehension difficulty rating of manner maxim
As shown in Figure 4.13, both groups had the same attitude noticed in the other types of implicatures.
4.3.5 Identification of Maxims Flouting
The fifth research question of this study asked if participants can naively identify Gricean maxims flouting and which is the most difficult type of maxim flouting to be noticed (see Section 1.6). Questions 1, 8, 11, 16, and 29 targeted a particular Gricean maxim. The purpose of these questions was to figure out the recipients’ awareness of the maxims and their ability to identify Gricean maxims flouting.
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4.3.5.1 Identification of Quality Flouting
Question sixteen, in Google Nexus 5 commercial, targeted the maxim of quality. The commercial was branding itself in an emotional way. The researcher asked her participants whether the commercial was true or not to see if this way affected the participants’ perception of the truth-value in the commercial. As shown in the Table 4.19 below, a percentage of 70.0% of the NNS chose option A, while
43.8% of the NSs chose option C. The symmetric measures table showed that there was a correlation between the chosen option and the group, where p-value <0.05.
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Table 4.19
Responses to Question Sixteen: Testing Identification of Quality Flouting Crosstab Q16: The commercial is A:true B:not C:could be D: am not E:Other Total true true sure” Count 21 0 7 2 0 30 % Within 70.0% 0.0% 23.3% 6.7% 0.0% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted 4.3 -1.4- -1.7- -.8- -2.7- residual Count 5 2 14 4 7 32
Group % Within 15.6% 6.3% 43.8% 12.5% 21.9% 100.0% Native group Adjusted -4.3- 1.4 2.7 .8 2.2 residual Count 26 2 21 6 7 62 Total % Within 41.9% 3.2% 33.9% 9.7% 11.3% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Phi .593 .000 Nominal by nominal Cramer's V .593 .000 N of valid cases 62
With regard to the rating of accuracy, there was a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group, where p-value =0.037<0.05. Results showed that 46.7% of the NNSs rated their answers as “somewhat accurate”, while
53.3% of the NSs rated their answer as “very accurate” (see Table G97).
As for the difficulty of the question, there was no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group, where p-value =0.336>0.05. Both groups rated this question as “very easy” with 40.0% for the NNSs and 46.7% for the NSs
(see Table G98).
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In the interview, participants tried to find adequate evidence to judge the commercial. Answers showed the participants’ awareness of the maxim of quality.
Some of them (no. 1, 4, and 9) relied on the images appeared in the commercial, and some others (no. 2, 5, 21, and 30) relied on their experience in real life. Other participants (22, 23, 26, and 27) were aware of the emotional aspect in the commercial as the following two examples suggest:
“Not being on purpose of cheating but to get our emotions. Just like this”. no. 22
“Because when I saw it I have the passion in our heart and I remembered many
things in my life so I think it’s true. There’s a related between this commercial and
my life I trust them” no. 23
On the other hand, the NS participants (no. 15, 24, 30, and 31) received this commercial as a kind of advertising, and it could be true. Its main idea was just that it had the best camera. The following answers are some examples:
“True and not true are relative - they aren't making any explicit claims, just trying
to glamorize the product.” no. 7
“It might be true, haven't tried it yet”. no. 46
“The commercial just suggests that the images the phone can capture are so vivid
that they will make the user feel like they can relive memories”. no. 38
4.3.5.2 Identification of Quantity Flouting
Question eight, in the second commercial about Microsoft, targeted the maxim of quantity. As mentioned before (see Section 4.2), this commercial talked about the power of technology in general, and then they connected it back to Microsoft.
Question eight asked if the commercial was informative enough, and if it gave answers to the three questions which were asked in the beginning of the commercial.
As shown in Table 4.10 below, a percentage of 33.3% of the NNSs chose option B,
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while 42.9% of the NSs chose option A. No significant correlation was found
between the chosen option and the group, where P=0.168>0.05
Table 4.20 Responses to Question Eight: Testing Identification of Quantity Flouting Crosstab Q8: The commercial starts with the following three questions: “What is technology? What can it do? How far do we know?” A: stated in clear B: not stated C: not D: I am E: Other Total simple wording in clear given not simple sure” wording Count 8 10 4 2 6 30 % Within 26.7% 33.3% 13.3% 6.7% 20.0% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted -1.4- .2 2.2 .7 -.3- residual Count 15 11 0 1 8 35
Group % Within 42.9% 31.4% 0.0% 2.9% 22.9% 100.0% Native group Adjusted 1.4 -.2- -2.2- -.7- .3 residual Count 23 21 4 3 14 65
% Within Total 35.4% 32.3% 6.2% 4.6% 21.5% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Nominal by nominal Phi .315 .168 Cramer's V .315 .168 N of valid cases 65
With regard to their rating of the degree of accuracy of their answers, 33.3%
of the NNSs rated their answers as “average”, and 76.7% of the NSs rated their
answers as “very accurate”. The correlation between the option and the group was
p=0.001<0.05 which suggested a significant correlation (see Table G99).
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As for the difficulty of the question, 33.3% of the NNSs rated the question as
“average”, while 66.7% of the NSs rated the question as “very easy”. Statistically, there was no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p- value was 0.001<0.05 (see Table G100).
The explanations of both groups for their answers indicated that they relied on the context and the visual images to find the answers for these questions. Some answers (no. 17, 25, 27) revealed that the NNSs were able to identify the flouting of the maxim of quantity. Many participants (no. 2, 3, 4, 11, 13) believed that the commercial answered these questions through the images. The NSs participants expressed the same idea. The following are two examples:
“The commercial provides answers in the scenes that it shows. That technology
can and has already gone very far. Exactly how far is for the viewer to determine.”
(no. 38)
“Simple words were completed by the image, scenes, video of what technology
can change.” (no. 48)
Question number twenty-nine, in the seventh commercial about Apple iPad 2, targeted the maxim of quantity. The commercial was very short, so the researcher asked about the amount of information given in the commercial. As shown in Table
4.21 below, a percentage of 60.0% of the NNSs chose option B, while the NSs’ answers were divided between option A and option B with 42.4% for each option.
The symmetric measures table checked the level of significance. It showed that the p- value =0.310>0.05. Consequently, there was no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group.
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Table 4.21
Responses to Question Twenty Nine: Testing Identification of Quantity Flouting Crosstab Q29:The amount of information given in the commercial is A: too B: the right C: too D: I am not E: Total little amount much sure” Other Count 9 18 1 2 0 30 % Within 30.0% 60.0% 3.3% 6.7% 0.0% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted -1.0- 1.4 .1 .7 -1.7- residual Count 14 14 1 1 3 33
Group % Within 42.4% 42.4% 3.0% 3.0% 9.1% 100.0% Native group Adjusted 1.0 -1.4- -.1- -.7- 1.7 residual Count 23 32 2 3 3 63 Total % Within 36.5% 50.8% 3.2% 4.8% 4.8% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Nominal by nominal Phi .276 .310 Cramer's V .276 .310 N of valid cases 63
With regard to the rating of the accuracy, results showed that 50.0% of the
NNSs rated their answers as “somewhat accurate”, while 56.7% of the NSs rated their
answers as “very accurate.” There was a significant correlation between the option
and the chosen group since P-value =0.048<0.05 (see Table G101).
As for the rating of the difficulty, 43.3% of the NNSs rated the question as
“somewhat easy”, while 63.3% of the NSs rated the question as “very easy”.
Statistically, there was a significant correlation between the chosen option and the
group since p-value =0.004<0.05 (see Table G102).
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Most NNS participants considered this video as the right amount. For them, the images were sufficient to explain about the well-known Apple product as the following answers suggest:
“Because there’s a video with the words so I could understand the video the
commercial”. no. 8
“The right amount yes because when you put the right pictures in the right place it
will be the best. ah it’s the iPad 2 so iPad one all people I guess know its features
so iPad two they just said the new features”. no. 13
“It’s the right amount but not too little I can obtain the idea. It’s a quick
commercial but they are just saying this is our product”. no. 20
Other NNS participants (no. 12, 14, 25, 27) received the commercial as short. They wanted to know more information about the product.
In the second group, some NS participants regarded the information about the product as very little. They explained this saying:
“Because no information is actually given at all. I personally don't make selections
based on glossy adverts, I want specifics”. no. 32
“It does not explain the product properly” no. 36
For some others, it was enough for them to understand the general idea of the commercial. They shared the NNS participants’ point of view about the images believing that the product was well-known, and it did not need much explanation.
The following answers are some examples:
“Because, like I said above, the images layered on top of the message fill in the
blanks. The image of a kid using the iPad shows how user friendly the device is,
for example.” no. 38
“They wanted to reflect ipad 2 technology” no. 39
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“It's enough for making a decision” no. 53
“easy to grasp” no. 55
4.3.5.3 Identification of Relevance Flouting
Question one, about Macintosh computer commercial, referred to the third
Gricean maxim: to be relevant. It asked about the relevance between the product and the commercial. The commercial did not mention anything about the product. The analysis showed no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group, where p-value =0.583>0.05. To understand the nature of this correlation, Adjusted
Standardized Residual was used. As shown in Table 4.12 below, the NNSs’ answers were divided between option A and option B with 33.3% for each option, while
50.0% of NSs chose option A.
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Table 4.22
Responses to Question One: Testing Identification of Relevance Flouting Crosstab Q1: Is the commercial relevant to the product? A: It is B: It is C: It is D: I E: Other relevant. irrelevant. related am Total somehow. not sure. Count 10 10 8 1 1 30 % Within 33.3% 33.3% 26.7% 3.3% 3.3% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted -1.3- 1.0 .1 1.0 .0 residual Count 16 7 8 0 1 32
Group % Within 50.0% 21.9% 25.0% 0.0% 3.1% 100.0% Native group Adjusted 1.3 -1.0- -.1- -1.0- .0 residual Count 26 17 16 1 2 62 Total % Within 41.9% 27.4% 25.8% 1.6% 3.2% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Nominal by nominal Phi .214 .583 Cramer's V .214 .583 N of valid cases 62
Participants were asked to rate their perception of the degree of accuracy of their answers. Adjusted Standardised Residual showed that 40.0% of the NNSs rated their answers as “average”, while 53.3% of the NSs rated their answers as “very accurate”. Statistically, there was a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group where p-value <0.05 (see Table G103).
Concerning the difficulty scale, there was a significant correlation between the chosen option and the group where p-value <0.05. The results showed that 50.0% of
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 151 the NNSs rated their answers as “average”, while 60.0% of the NSs rated their answers as “very easy”. (see Table G104).
The oral interviews revealed that the NNSs who chose option A (It is relevant.) were trying to find the link between what they watched and the product.
This indicated their awareness of the flouting of the maxim of relevance. For example, participant no. 27 said:
“It’s relevant but it’s about thinking differently, challenging the world, and not
respecting the statues que or the general ideas of the world, about making
great ideas or unexpected ones, so it’s relevant in a way but it’s not clear about
Macintosh. I think the message the director want to pass is that Macintosh is
meant for people who want to think different and challenging the world”.
Most participants (no. 12, 14, 17) connected between the idea of changing the world and the new inventions.
The NSs did the same thing. They were also trying to find the link between the idea of the commercial and the product. The following examples are some sample answers:
“The commercial assumes the viewer understands that Apple products are
revolutionary, like the characters featured in the ad. The message "think different"
implies that Apple and those who use Apple products think different like the
revolutionary figures featured in the ad.” no. 38
“I understood the commercial in the sense that Apple were relating to those others
who had shown the ability to think outside the box and thereby make progress. A
generalization.” no. 41
“Apple is stating that their product is a world changer that isn't like the other
computers and also is designed for those who don't like conformity.” no. 53
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On the other hand, participants who chose option B (It is irrelevant) expressed their inability to find the link between the idea of the commercial and the product.
For example, NNS participant no. 30 explained his choice saying: “They talked about distinguished people, famous people. There were no machines or devices. There’s nothing related to the technology and that’s why I choose.”
The NSs expressed the same idea. In addition to that, their choices were affected by their personal opinion about the commercial. For most of them, it was illogical to compare a machine with all those great people. Therefore, they refused to accept the link between the idea of the commercial and the product itself. The following are some sample answers:
“They don't mention the product or company anywhere (I think there might be a
small logo, but it is missable). And the claim is exaggerated for this company;
probably any company could produce the same ad and put their logo in the place.”
no. 40
“No products were shown nor what advances can or have been made using Apple
laptops” no. 44
“Because it's an advert about a computer. I think it's a little exaggerated to
compare the apple computer to so many humans.” no. 58
4.3.5.4 Identification of Manner Flouting
Question Eleven, in the third commercial about Microsoft, targeted the maxim of manner. According to this maxim, obscurity of expression and ambiguity should be avoided. The commercial was ambiguous and obscure because of the indirectness in the way it advertised Microsoft. Results showed that both groups chose option A and regarded this commercial as easy to understand. There was no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since P-value =0.090>0.05.
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Table 4.23 below shows the cross-tabulation between the chosen option and the group. Both groups chose option A with a percentage of 56.7% for the NNSs and
84.4% for the NSs.
Table 4.23
Responses to Question Eleven: Testing Identification of Manner Flouting Crosstab Q11: The commercial A: is easy to B: causes C: is D: I am Total understand confusion vague not sure Count 17 8 4 1 30 % Within 56.7% 26.7% 13.3% 3.3% 100.0% Nonnative group Adjusted -2.4- 2.2 .9 .0 Residual Count 27 2 2 1 32
Group % Within 84.4% 6.3% 6.3% 3.1% 100.0% Native group Adjusted 2.4 -2.2- -.9- .0 residual Count 44 10 6 2 62 Total % Within 71.0% 16.1% 9.7% 3.2% 100.0% group
Symmetric measures Value Approx. Sig. Nominal by nominal Phi .323 .090 Cramer's V .323 .090 N of valid cases 62
As for the correlation between the accuracy rating and the group, a significant correlation was found where p-value =0.006<0.05. The cross-tabulation between the chosen option and the group showed that 36.7% of NNSs rated their answers as
“somewhat accurate”, while 75.9% rated their answers as “very accurate” (see Table
G105).
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As for the difficulty scale, 26.7% of the NNSs NSs rated this question as
“average”, while 66.7% of the NSs rated this question as “very easy”. There was no significant correlation between the chosen option and the group since p-value was
0.002<0.05 (see Table G106).
Although the quantitative results showed that most participants considered this commercial as easy, the interview revealed that the commercial was confusing for many of them. However, they tried to find out the idea of the commercial. These are some examples of the NNS participants’ answers:
“Yes and I confused in this video because I at the end I don’t find or I don’t find
out the relationship between this woman and Microsoft/” no. 1
“It’s easy to understand, but a little confusing. In the first seconds, then it becomes
clear. because I didn’t what was it about”. no. 20
“No. It was a little confusing because I thought like Sophie had a passion she like
drawing maybe or designing and Microsoft made a software to help her with that.
Microsoft helped Sophie her passion was a little hard to understand. It was a
little hard for me to connect the idea of the video with Microsoft software”. no. 27
On the other hand, the NS participants found that this commercial was easy to understand. For instance, participant no. 49 said that the commercial “was pretty straightforward”. They answered this question by explaining the idea of the commercial as the following examples show:
“Technology is about helping creativity to be realized” no. 43
“That Microsoft is working to help everyone realize their dreams, if they so
desire” no. 34
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4.3.6 Interview Analysis
The oral interviews revealed some interesting points. Taking into account the nature of each commercial, the researcher asked her participants about their understanding of each commercial. This question allowed some of her participants to admit their uncertainty about their understanding. It was interesting to notice the way some NNSs expressed their uncertainty about their understanding of the commercials.
Some sample statements made by the participants about the commercials are:
“Somehow.” no. 14 (1st commercial)
“Half and Half.” no. 21 (1st commercial)
“A kind of.” no. 29 (1st commercial)
“Seventy percent.” no. 5 (2nd commercial)
“I think yes.” no. 12 (2nd commercial)
“I think yes it was averaged for me not exactly. yes yes it was short it was a bit
confusing for me.” no. 11 (3rd commercial)
“I guess so.” no. 27 (3rd commercial)
“Not very well.” no. 18 (7th commercial)
Some participants expressed their awareness of the indirect way of advertising the products in the first three commercials. Their remarks indicated their awareness of the maxim of manner as the following answers show:
“Actually at the beginning of the commercial I didn’t think it was about anything
from technology or something like that. I thought it was something about the
humanity to motivate them then when they said Apple Macintosh I said wow.” no.
3. (1st commercial).
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“Yes this one was for me the most difficult one. I just understand that they are
trying to tell us that they have a product but not in a direct way. So I just didn’t
understand what they want to say literally so I choose C.” no. 11 (1st commercial)
“They’re talking about technology also in general. You know Microsoft famous in
specific like systems or programs but the commercial was about technology in
more general in general not in specific.” no. 6 (2nd commercial)
“It was clear. They talked about themselves in semi-direct answers.” no. 20 (2nd
commercial).
“It’s easy to understand, but a little confusing. In the first seconds, then it
becomes clear.” no.20. (3rd commercial)
Some participants (no. 2 and 7) pointed out that they understood the general idea of the commercial but not every single word. The participants no. 7, 10, and 21 answered this question by explaining the general idea of the commercial.
“Is easy to understand. So simple use simple words and there are paintings or
drawings and they said Microsoft that Microsoft encourage those people who
dream or want to design things so it’s easy to understand.” no. 10 (3rd commercial)
“What I remembered that we can took photos and upload it/ what else/ yes what I
remember/ yes I understood that” no. 21.” (4th commercial)
“Yes it was talking about features and just like features.” no. 7 (6th commercial)
Throughout the interview, it was very difficult for the participants to explain exactly what happened in their minds while choosing a specific option. However, most participants were able to point, at least in a general way, how they came to choose the options they chose. However, some participants, especially the NSs, expressed their annoyance about the interview question considering it a hard question.
The following answers are some examples:
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Table 4.24
Participants’ Attitude to the Interview Question
Question Participant Response 1 52 “I have seen lots of adverts and i am a native English speaker” 2 54 “I thought of the meaning of the sentence and analyzed it against my personal thoughts” 2 52 “i have seen lots of adverts and i am a native english speaker” 2 60 “Because it is what I believe” 3 40 “Out of the options given, I think it is what they are implying” 4 40 “Again, I felt the others don't quite fit” 4 39 “Video was clear” 5 52 “I was thinking about the previous times I have heard this expression.” 5 50 “my best estimation” 6 35 “Because it's the appropriate answer! The question!” 6 50 “It seems to be fitting” 8 40 “Because I think it's right.” 10 31 First thoughts are the best ones to share! 12 50 “It's the best answer I could come up with” 13 40 “These questions are harder to answer than the actual questions about the advert” 16 45 “Because that's what I think! I was thinking about the advertisement vis-a-vis your question!” 18 31 “How I felt” 19 44 “understandable English” 21 28 “Because I see this answer more suitable than the others.” 25 38 “Straightforward.” 26 2 “from my mind (LG)” 27 53 “This best reflects the question” 27 28 “I think it’s closer than the others choice.” 29 34 “This box has been the most annoying throughout this survey. It's like saying "Why did you eat your lunch today?" "What were you thinking when you ate your food?" I have tried to answer without appearing to be facetious, but sometime this was unavoidable!”
As the answers in Table 4.24 above indicated, in many instances the participants were unable to give an explanation. In addition, the responses showed that the NSs were taking the meanings for granted because it was their native language.
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The interview has also showed that the participants depended on the context when they were unable to infer the meaning from the uttered sentences. In other words, the viewers depended on the semiotic aspects when they lost the track of the language. Table 4.25 shows some examples about the participants’ reliance on the context.
Table 4.25
Participants’ Dependence on the Semiotic Aspects in the Commercials
Question Participant Response 7th 5 There’s lots of photos and they’re changing the photos so commercial I have my work or my head or brain was working very fast to analyze that focus. It was a little bit difficult for me to remember all of the things I saw. I was just watching photos. They were going coming. The listening was a little bit absent. 11 18 The commercial is easy to understand. I think so because when you watch something it will be easier than if you just listen. Everything was clear and I could understand it easily. 16 18 yes yes and there was an old woman dancing (laughing) I love it. It is clear to understand because there were a lot of pictures in the video but there wasn’t a lot of speaking so it is easier to understand. 16 48 The order was directed to Google, and the commercial was showing phone with icon of microphone. 16 3 she was talking to service that Google provides it can recognize the human voice and take order by voice. 27 38 Because of the phrase “when technology gets out of the way” coupled with the image of a kid doing fingerprinting with the iPad. This is a simple basic activity one would not associate with technology and yet it must require much technology. What this means is that iPad offers very advanced technology that is at the same time very user friendly--anyone, even a kid can use it. You don't have to be an expert. 27 7 Yes but they were extending the limits about maybe guitar, the brain picture and something else about something else. Just like gets out of the way maybe the traditional way and be more extended.
In many cases, it was noticed that answers were affected by the participants’ experience and their background knowledge. They transferred their previous
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 159 knowledge about contextual aspects to infer the proper meaning from the utterance.
Table 4.26 below shows some examples:
Table 4.26
The Effect of Background Knowledge on Participants’ Perception
Question Participant Response 2 17 Best changes are made by Macintosh. That is what I got from the ad It is not from what I believe I got it from the ad nothing more 2 44 just having a product is not enough or thinking creatively are enough, but together 3 18 I think Apple Macintosh products are not out of the ordinary. Apple is good but not up normal or supernatural. This is my opinion 4 2 Because I have one of product so it’s maybe it’s different the system is different a lot 10 56 I think they would like us to think it is only Microsoft's technology when in fact it is technology in general 10 20 I believe that Technology in general is helping us not only Microsoft Technology 10 26 I because I interest maybe because I have ahh health problem my body so my my attention was to this medical 13 17 Microsoft and other companies depend on people’s reviews to create products. One of them can be an operating system maybe not the whole of it just parts 13 31 It’s not all about software. They are tools (I work in IT) 16 12 this’s familiar ahh we saw it we see it in every every mobile modern mobile 16 15 ahh I have this in my mobile 17 6 Because the commercial was very good so I seriously I forget about the Google Nexus/ And here just people taking photos. I’m not know anything about Google what is his references, or abilities or what the ability of this devices. 19 26 maybe my experience because I have Galaxy and my brother have or my son also have iPhone so I found Galaxy camera resolution is clearer 22 17 Here I’m prejudiced a lot because I have a Sony tablet. This is the first android device I’ve ever owned so I’m really sorry. (Reading option D) With Sony you enjoy your time yes I enjoy my time a lot but maybe I would enjoy my time with any Android Tablet. It is from my experience. 22 12 at any time I feel bored so I will open my tablet and enjoy it 22 60 Have not held the product in my hand, cannot judge the
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accuracy of the statements above 23 60 Well, I cannot "do it justice" until I actually hold one in my hand, I am the one who decides that. 60 21 That is all I can deduce from the ad, but it does not imply that I believe it until I see it
In few instances, it was noticed that the NNSs tended to use their native language to infer meaning. For example, the participant no. 26 in his explanation of his answer to question number 23 said: “maybe we have in our culture say nobody says about his own thing it’s bad ahh so they want to present this tablet.” Some NNSs had a hard time expressing their thoughts in English. Unlike the NSs, who gave short straightforward answers, the NNSs expressed their understanding in long sentences with many pauses.
Apparently, the interviews were a crucial part in this research. Through the interview, the researcher had access to information that could not be obtained from the multiple-choice questionnaire alone. The interview offered valuable insights that explained the results of the quantitative analysis. It also revealed patterns in the reasoning that the NSs and NNSs employed.
4.4 Conclusion
This chapter has attempted to present thorough analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data. Analysing the advertisements has shown the advertisers’ utilisation of overt and covert implicatures as well as the exploitation of the Gricean maxims. A close look at these data revealed many findings about recipients’ comprehension of implicature. The results generally seemed to support each other and, in certain cases, contradict each other for different reasons that are to be discussed in Chapter Five.
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Chapter Five
Discussion and Conclusions
5.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a discussion of the results of the present study. It further explains and discusses the participants’ performance in the light of the findings yielded in Chapter Four. This is followed by a summary of the conclusions with respect to the research questions stated in Chapter One. Finally, the limitations found therein and the suggested directions for future research are expressed.
5.2 Discussion and Implications
Having presented the results of the comprehension test in Chapter Four, we can notice that the results indicated that the two groups of participants had a lot of similarities in judging the implications of the advertising claims. In general, the results show that there was a significant correlation between the chosen options and the two groups in eighteen questions out of twenty nine questions. The differences, on the other hand, were attributed to the type of implicatures among other factors.
Concerning implicature identification, as mentioned before (see Section
2.2.2.1 & 3.3.1), the problem of applying Grice’s theory of conventional and conversational implicatures to advertising communication, which is not particularly cooperative, was addressed with the help of Sperber and Wilson’s distinction between informative and communicative intentions. Therefore, it should be noted here that the overt-covert meanings, which echo Grice’s discussion of the evolution from natural to nonnatural meaning, are analysed within a relevance-theoretic framework.
Results show that it was easy for both groups to identify the implied meaning in the statements that had one overt intended implicature. For the statements that had two implied meanings, overt and covert, NNSs were more able to identify the overt
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 162 implicature. Covert implicature was difficult for both groups; however, NSs were more able to identify the covert implicature. NNS participants’ inability to identify the covert inference can be related to their English proficiency. Participants were preoccupied with understanding the lexical content in the commercial. This distracted their attention from understanding the covert meaning.
Similarly, Silva (1994), Lee (2002), and Taguchi (2002) suggested that the participants’ linguistic proficiency was a predicator of their relative success in interpreting implicatures. Given this explanation, it can be suggested that learners need to be provided with language syllabuses that include some materials about inferences identification to enable them to process implicatures more effectively in the FL. Syllabuses can also include direct instructions on some theoretical models for the implicature phenomenon such as Grice’s theory of implicature. Such materials can provide learners with valuable ways of interpretations and production strategies that can be used in different kinds of speeches they encounter. It changes the way they think about the literal meaning and the implied meaning. It also improves their ability to understand the implied meaning not only in the target language but also in their native language.
Analysis of responses shows that NNSs had higher percentages of right responses than NSs in some items. This was attributed to the fact that NSs tended to fill in the “Other” option in these items instead of choosing one of the four multiple choices given. Analysing their written responses showed that their answers were not different from the intended meaning. They just answered these questions using their own words. This can be attributed to NSs’ sense of command in their native language.
The interview revealed that some participants in both groups were able to identify the covert meaning in a lot of items although in the test they chose the overt
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 163 meaning only. In this respect, employing retrospective interview was very helpful in this study. It helped explaining the results of the multiple-choice test. This supports what Silva (1994) and Mitchelson (2011) proposed that reliance on multiple-choice questionnaire alone to gauge implicature comprehension is inadequate. In comparison, Bouton (1988, 1989) preferred the multiple-choice format as a viable tool for testing and research in this field, especially when compared to the open-ended free responses used by Devine (1982). However, using multiple choices alone has proved to be faulty.
Hence, it is recommended to apply both methods to avoid this methodological dilemma. Researchers who want to determine speakers’ and hearers’ meaning have a number of solutions. They may apply a post-recording interview to ask participants what they meant or understood at various points in the communication. This method was used in interactional sociolinguistics by discourse analysts such as Schiffrin
(1987). Researchers may also investigate how the participants display their intentions and interpretations in their actual contributions to the conversation. This method was used by many researchers such as Blimes (1993). Researchers can also apply the think-aloud process by asking participants to explain their reasoning behind their interpretation as they are doing the task. Lee (2002) applied this method.
Back to covert implicature, participants’ ability to identify the covert meaning reflected their awareness of the context and the nature of the relationship between the advertisers and the audience. In other words, their advertisement schema was activated in a way that allows the informational input to be structured in a way which aids processing, storage, and retrieval. This finding proves the connection between covert implicature and the theory of relevance. On one hand, the aim of covert implicature is to alter the cognitive environment of the hearer for a certain purpose.
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 164
On the other hand, the relevance theory suggests that communication is achieved by many means. One of them is the recognition of the consequent mutuality of cognitive environment. In the context of advertisement, the advertisers wish to create some effects within the recipients’ mind, so they choose the most suitable stimulus that can be employed for this purpose. Similarly, the recipients assume that the advertisers will not put them to more effort that is not consistent with the advertisers’ communicative goals.
This balance between effect and effort leads to the recognition of the informative intention; and therefore the fulfilment of the communicative intention.
This goes in accordance with Tanaka (1994), Byrne (1992), and Zegarac (2003) who used the relevance theory to study the advertising language. It proves that the relevance theory can be a suitable tool for processing the implicated meanings in commercials.
Advertisers should take the advantage of having shared cognitive rules of interpretation. However, they should be cautious when communicating their intentions covertly. They should know that their communicative intentions are not always fulfilled because many recipients are unable to interpret the covert implied meanings in their messages. Therefore, their messages should contain stimuli that attract the attention in an overt, simple and straightforward way not in a covert way.
This can guarantee the effectiveness of their advertisements on the NS and the NNSs of English.
The same questions in the comprehension test were also analysed according to
Grice’s classification of implicature into conventional and conversational implicatures. Results revealed that NNSs found conventional implicature easier than conversational implicature. Conventional implicature is generated automatically
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 165 through filling-in with contextually appropriate inferences. In the interview, most of the participants talked about following the rules of grammar to answer these questions. This supports Lee’s (2002) and Melchenko’s (2003) view that recipients can easily recognize conventional implicatures because they follow from the conventional meaning of the words in the utterance.
Moving to participants’ application of the Gricean maxims as an interpretation strategy, it should be noted here that in many instances participants in both groups were giving similar interpretations for the same items. This revealed shared logical reasoning and application of the Gricean maxims. Participants in both groups reported their use of all the four maxims as an interpretation strategy but to different degrees. As was shown in Chapter Four, examples were presented about participants’ use of each maxim as interpretation strategies. Thus, we can conclude that the cooperative principle and the maxims are essential parts of the encyclopedic background knowledge of both the sender and the recipient, and they play an important role in the construction of meaning.
With regard to the difficulty in interpreting the violated maxims, the results of the comprehension test showed the same trend in both groups. For NNSs, the maxim of manner (59.33%) was the most difficult maxim. Difficulty in interpreting the manner maxim was due to the fact that this maxim is sensitive to the cultural context.
NNSs might misinterpret the implicated meaning in these phrases or take them literally, not knowing that they are just current expressions that are common or designed to appeal to a particular group of a specific social and cultural background.
The maxim of quality was less difficult (61.63%). Participants, talking about exaggeration, indicated their awareness of the quality of the claims presented in each commercial. Some of them regarded this as a part of the nature of advertising. Those
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 166 participants were watching the commercial, concentrating on the meaning of the statements and the general idea regardless of their own opinion about the commercial and the product. Other participants, especially NSs, questioned the quality of the claims. This indicated that the adherence to the maxim of quality directly depended on the advertiser’s and the recipient’s beliefs about the world in their background knowledge. Flouting the maxim of quality resulted from a tension between what the advertiser says and what both, the advertiser and the recipient, believe. The maxim of quantity (65.21%) was less difficult. This can be because this maxim is categorised as scalar implicature (Levinson, 2000) which can be generated automatically whenever a term that is weak on the scale is used. Finally, the maxim of relevance was the easiest maxim (77.63%), and the majority of the participants reported the use of this maxim as an interpretation strategy.
For NSs, the maxim of manner was also the most difficult one (54.77%). The maxim of quality was slightly less difficult (56.52%), and then the maxim of quantity
(58.65%), and finally the maxim of relevance was the easiest (64.89%). This goes in accordance with Silva’s (1994), Lee’s (2002), and Mitchelson’s (2011) results that some implicatures may be harder to interpret than others especially when there are cultural bounds.
Advertisers who wish to globalise their message are recommended to be cautious when employing implicatures derived through maxim flouting. They should take into consideration the degree of difficulties exposed in each maxim, avoiding the exploitation of difficult maxims such as the maxim of manner which is culturally bound. It is important to note that in the present study there were differences in the interpretation implicature between NSs of English who belonged to different cultures.
For example, Ireland has many expressions that are not current in England. Canada
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 167 has expressions that are not common in the U.S.A. There are also variations in different parts within each country.
As for the recipients, interpreting the results showed that the NNSs of English tended to take some statements literally. It is also noticed that some NSs tended to believe everything they see. Thus, both patterns of behaviour resulted with misinterpretation. Therefore, recipients in both groups should be aware of the underlying meaning of the ads and not be tricked by colors, music, celebrities’ pictures and other elements employed in the ads. They should not process implied claims as assertions or facts.
Participants’ responses to these questions suggested that the process of maxims interpretation was influenced by many factors. For example, in many cases, participants in both groups did not select the intended implicature because of their previous knowledge of the product. This suggests that recipients’ cultural values, background knowledge, and previous experience are important factors in interpreting the implicatures. This adds evidence to the previous studies in the literature, which concluded that a person’s cultural background affects the comprehension accuracy of conversational implicatures (Devine, 1982; Bouton, 1988; and Silva, 1994).
Therefore, advertisers should bear in mind that implicatures derived through maxim flouting can be risky since they might be seen by critical viewers or sensitive consumers who might not infer the implicatures wished by the advertisers.
It was also noticed that NNSs participants tended to compensate for their inability to understand the implicatures by applying certain strategies. This is similar to Lee’s (2002) perspective that learners with high linguistic proficiency seem likely to have the linguistic and pragmatic strategies that will allow them to derive the same meaning as NSs. However, the researcher noticed that sometimes these strategies
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 168 might lead to mistaken interpretations. For example, some NNSs were not able to follow the semantic and lexical content of the commercial. Accordingly, they were more focused on the context of the advertisement and the visual images presented in each commercial. However, relying on the context alone was not enough and it led to an inaccurate understanding of some implicatures. As in Silva’s (1994) account, the visual context plays an important role in inferring meaning from the implicature.
However, the exclusive reliance on the context alone may lead to wrong interpretations of implicatures.
The audio/visual nature of the task had also an important effect. Commercials were not displayed with their subtitle, so participants did not have a text to refer to when they could not understand the implied meaning immediately. In this case, they either relied on the lexical items presented in the stem of the question, or they chose an option that was simply reminiscent of the last thing they heard in the commercial.
This is similar to Taguchi’s (2002) conclusion that lower proficiency learners relied on keywords and background knowledge. It is also relevant to Geis’s (1982) idea that recipients cannot focus their attention on simultaneously presented oral and visual messages. Therefore, it is suggested that the idea intended to be conveyed should be placed at the end of the advertisement so that it can be remembered.
As for the identification of maxims flouting, results showed evidence that all the four maxims can be identified, but the degree of their identification varied.
Taking into consideration the level of directness in each advertisement, answers to these questions were affected by each participant’s perspective. That is why, the results showed no significant correlation between the chosen option and the two groups in all the items related to this research question.
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For the quality maxims, NNSs believed that the commercial about Google
Nexus 5 was true, while NSs tended to question the quality of the commercial. Again, this can be due to the different cultural backgrounds of each group, which results in different social perceptions and social behaviour as Gumperz and Livinson (1996) explained. Hence, it is important for advertisers to take into their consideration the cultural background of the target audience and its effect on their attitude.
With regard to the quantity maxim, the answers to the question about
Microsoft varied according to each participant’s perception. For this maxim, it was clear that the NNSs relied on the context and the images when they could not follow the words uttered in the commercial. For the question about Apple iPad 2, participants’ reaction conformed to the company’s expectations that it is well-known and needs no explanation about itself. Again, some NSs wanted to know more about this product.
As for the relevance maxim, participants acknowledged their actual cooperation to find a link between the products and the commercials about Apple
Macintosh computer and Microsoft. By exploiting this maxim, advertisers were able to exert an extra processing effort by adding extra attention-holding effect.
Unfortunately, not all participants were able to understand the link.
For the manner maxim, participants were aware of manner flouting in the third commercial about Microsoft. For most of them, the commercial was confusing; however, they tried to understand the general idea of the commercial again to build a link between the commercial and the advertised product.
These findings add evidence to the previous findings of Mitchelson (2011) and
Devine (1982) who examined maxim flouting identification. Mitchelson (2011) found evidence that all the four maxims can be identified, but the degrees vary. In
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 170
Devine’s (1982) study, the extent to which the NSs and NNSs recognized and interpreted the implicatures was dependent on the type of maxims which were violated and the basis of the violation.
With regard to the participants’ rating of the degree of accuracy of their interpretations, the same trend is noticed in each group for each question. NSs tended to judge their answers as “very accurate”, while NNSs tended to judge their answers as “average” or “somewhat accurate” even when they were able to work out the correct interpretation. This pattern was also noticed in the rating of the degree of difficulty in each item. NNSs rated most of the items as “average” or “somewhat easy”. NSs, on the other hand, rated all the items as “very easy”. The same behaviour was noticed in the NNSs’ answers to the question about their understanding of the commercial. In general, most of their answers expressed a kind of uncertainty about their understanding of the commercials. This shows that the status of being a nonnative speaker makes the person lack the feeling of confidence in the target language.
In contrast, NSs’ answers to the interview question about their choices showed their confidence of their answers. Many of them even deprecated this question answering it by saying that English is their native language. This supports Lee’s
(2002) finding that being a native speaker endows a certain level of authority in the language, which is something that NNSs lack even when they have a very high level of competence in the language.
With the above results in mind, we can notice that implicatures were, to a great extent, worked out the same way in both languages. Participants’ behaviour conformed to Grice’s theory of implicature in which he claimed that sharing the contextual, the linguistic, and the cultural background knowledge in addition to the
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 171 cooperative principle and its maxims lead to the configuration of the intended implicature. Their ability to notice the maxims and the cooperative principle indicated that Grice’s maxims are operational as universal processing mechanisms.
This is similar to the conclusions made by the previous studies (Silva, 1994; and
Mitchelson, 2011). At the same time, the maxim of relevance was apparent in the participants’ mind throughout all their discussion of their responses. Participants in both groups cooperated by recognising the purpose of the communication, and they also derived similar inferences. However, as noticed in the recipients’ behaviour, the degree of their ability to understand the different kinds of inferences differed due to differences in the cultural background of each group resulting in different attitudes to implicatures. This goes in accordance with Keenan (1976) and Devine (1982) who found that conversational expectations of interlocutors may vary because of cultural or situational constraints on these maxims.
Therefore, it can be said that the cooperative principle, the four maxims and the theory of relevance are universal and inherited rules in human’s logic; however, their application is affected by the recipients’ cultural background and experience.
Although the human mind is not subject to law, the existence of such shared rules of human’s logic, which can be considered like “gentle forces” as Pierces (1955. p.348) called them, make the human mind more likely to act in a given way than it otherwise would be. These shared cognitive rules give us the chance to expand the different types of communication activities to a global scale. They can help in building bridges between different cultures and even making them stronger.
The advertisements analysis showed that advertisers relied considerably on inferences and assumptions that helped proceed towards eventual interpretations.
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This also proves that Grice’s theory of implicature and the theory of relevance are valid tools that can be used to process implicatures in commercials.
5.3 Conclusions
The present study has investigated implicature comprehension by the Syrian
NNSs of English and NSs of English in English TV commercials advertising global products. The investigation was based on the analysis of the implicatures used in the seven selected commercials. To conclude, let us return to the starting research questions. The first research question aimed to find out if the Syrian learners of
English as a foreign language are able to infer correct implicatures from the English global context the same way native speakers of English do. The results showed that speaking different languages was not a barrier in understanding implicatures in a global context. Sometimes there were differences in implicature interpretation even within the same group of NSs. However, participants’ different reaction to implicatures was due to differences in their cultural background or as it is called in the relevance theory, the cognitive environment.
The second research question sought to check recipients’ ability to understand covert implicature. The results showed that few recipients were able to understand the covert meaning in the commercials. NNSs preferred literal communication instead of using implicatures. However, recipients in general tended to apply certain strategies when they failed to understand the implicated meaning. These strategies included depending on the contextual clues and their first language.
The third research question aimed at checking which group of implicatures was troublesome to the Syrian nonnative speakers of English. Results showed that conventional implicature was easier than conversational implicature since it followed the conventional rules of the language.
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Results also showed that recipients follow Grice’s maxims in their interpretation of implicatures. Results revealed that in the context of advertising the maxim of manner was the most difficult maxim, followed by the maxim of quality, then the maxim of quantity, and finally the maxim of relevance which was the easiest.
The fifth question asked about the recipients’ ability to identify Gricean maxim flouting naively. Results showed that recipients were aware of the flouting.
They were also tolerant of this flouting because of their awareness of the contextual setting. This indicated that flouting the maxims was part of their background knowledge, and the same applied to adherence to them. However, they were not always able to find an explanation for this flouting.
The sixth research question investigated if Grice's theory of implicature and the theory of relevance were suitable models for processing implicature comprehension. These two theories were very effective tools in analysing the different types of inferences in the commercials. It was found that advertisers relied considerably on inferences when constructing their messages. Participants’ performance in this study also proved that the cooperative principle and the conversational maxims as well as the theory of relevance can be interpreted as universal cognitive models and are thus an essential part of the encyclopedic background knowledge of the sender and the recipient of the message. They play an important role in the construction of messages and the interpretation of meanings.
5.4 Limitations of the Study
The present study has some limitations which should be taken into consideration. First, conducting research in this field has many inherent challenges and the phenomena that the theories are to account for, namely speakers’ and hearers’ meaning, are themselves not an observable entity.
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Second, the researcher used a retrospective interview method instead of using the think aloud process method to collect her qualitative data. Although both methods are efficient and used in the literature, but with the think aloud process the information can be directly accessed and reported. However, the researcher did not use it because it is more time consuming.
Third, the researcher was unable to interview the NSs of English directly due to problems of availability and the speed of the Internet connection taking into account the lengthy time of the interview. To overcome this problem, the researcher inserted the interview question as an open-ended question in the questionnaire.
Finally, it was difficult for the researcher to find participants, especially in the group of native speakers of English. Therefore, she used a voluntary and a snowball sampling strategies. As a result, the elements of age and gender were not controlled in this study.
5.5 Recommendations for Further Research
The present research can be further expanded in different ways. This study was limited to the university setting. It adopted the Syrian EFL learners at the upper- intermediate level. Other studies might expand to focus on learners over a wider range of levels and in different settings. The scope of the research done here could also be expanded to include participants from different cultural background and different target languages. For example, future studies can focus on the Arabic native speakers’ perception of implicature in native and foreign commercials.
The study was basically concerned with English TV commercials advertising
IT products. Further research can concentrate on different products and on implicatures in commercials other than English. For example, a comparative study can be done to compare the use of the different types of implicatures in English
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 175 commercials and in other languages. This can also be applied on different genres such as political interviews, daily conversations, religious texts and literary works.
The study adopted Grice’s theory of implicature and the theory of relevance to analyse the implied meanings in the selected commercials. Other studies can focus on other theories of communication such presuppositions or the tact maxim and the sympathy maxim in Leech’s politeness principle.
Studying the effect of age and gender on implicature comprehension was beyond the scope of the present research. Further studies can investigate the effect of age and gender on implicature perception.
5.6 Conclusion
This research has investigated NSs’ and NNSs’ ability to understand implicatures in TV commercials. To the researcher’s knowledge, it is the first study to tackle the understanding of implicature by Syrian EFL learners. The findings showed that the cooperative principle, the four maxims and the theory of relevance are shared cognitive rules. They are an essential part of the encyclopedic background knowledge of both the sender and the recipient. Understanding the implied meaning behind the violation of these rules is affected by the recipients’ language proficiency, cultural background and previous experience.
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Appendices
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Appendix A
List of Commercials
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Commercial 1
Apple Macintosh Computer. Apple. (1997). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFEarBzelBs
Commercial 2
Microsoft Commercial “Empowering us all”. Microsoft. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaOvHKG0Tio
Commercial 3
Microsoft Commercial “You potential. Our passion”. Microsoft. (2004). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL0vWNTherg
Commercial 4
Google Nexus 5 Phone. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKxAGsVaZmA
Commercial 5
Samsung Galaxy S5. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=V_gGAPOZbFA
Commercial 6
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet. (2014). Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=5o4oXFfyFs8
Commercial 7
Apple iPad 2. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=b2LLSrlKr3c
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Appendix B
Commercials’ Transcription
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Commercial 1
Name: Apple Macintosh Computer
Time: (01:00)
Script
An announcer says: “Here’s to the crazy ones; the misfits; the rebels; troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
“Think different”
Context
The commercial, after opening to a momentarily black screen, first shows some footage of Albert Einstein, the great physicist and mathematician. The voiceover is backed by some quiet piano music. As the announcer speaks, images of other great figures in history are flashed on screen: Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan,
Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Buckminster
Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi,
Amelia Earhart and Bernt Balchen, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson,
Frank Lloyd Wright, Pablo Picasso. The commercial ends with an image of a young girl, Shaan Sahota, opening her closed eyes. The commercial then fades to black, and the phrase “Think different” fades in to white. A moment later, the familiar multi- colored Apple logo appears above the text, and the commercial ends.
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Commercial 2
Name: Microsoft Commercial
Time: (01:00)
Script
Gleason: “What is technology?”
Gleason: “What can it do?”
An old man: “When I lost my eye sight, I thought my painting days were over”
Gleason: “How far can we go?”
“By using your hands, you can actually control your x-ray”
Students: “Hi”
Gleason: “Technology has the power to unite us.”
“Hang on honey, hang on”
A Nurse: “Here he is. (Baby crying) Do you see him?”
A Soldier via laptop: “I see him”
A Little Girl: “Papa.”
Gleason: “It inspires us.”
Of two pairs of legs walking on a balance beam: One prosthetic, one adult.
Gleason: “Technology has taken us places we only dream.”
“Now I can do whatever I want”
Gleason: “It gives hope to the hopeless.”
Nurse: “So your device is on. Can you hear me talking?”
Gleason: “And it has given voice to the voiceless”
Context
Steve Gleason Former NFL player living with ALS narrated the advertisement in the way he communicated daily through using a surface pro running Tobi’s eye
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 192 gazer technology to speak. During the commercial we can see inspirational videos stories showing why technology is important. Surgeons are shown using Gesture, which is built with Kinket for windows to enable surgeons to easily navigate through surgical images in the operating room by making simple gestures with their hands. A five-year-old boy, born with tibia and fibula bones in both of his legs, is shown running between pylons on prosthetic legs. Microsoft’s’ technology is used to analyze his gait. An old man who lost his eyesight is shown using his PC and Microsoft Paint to draw again. Students in the classroom are shown using Skype to call one another.
Children around the world are brought together to learn. A soldier is shown video- chatting his wife, who is currently in labor, so he can be present for the birth of his child. A group of people are holding a label saying “We are changing the human history”. It is not just big research companies and private industry that are changing lives. Every year, students from around the world use their passion, imagination, and skills to try and help others with technology. Microsoft encourages this innovation through the Imagine cup, a worldwide competition that asks students to see just how far they can go using today’s technology. Sarah Churman, who was born deaf, is shown hearing for the first time in her life due to an implant that Microsoft helped her get. The advertisement concludes with Gleason’s story. Finally the commercial ends with the slogan “Empowering Us All”.
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Commercial 3
Name: Microsoft Commercial
Time: (00:29)
Script
An announcer says: “We see Sophie designing, dreaming, making her name, turning a crazy idea into the latest craze we see her potential. We’re inspired to create software that helps her reach it.”
“Your potential, our passion”
Context
During the commercial we can see how an ordinary young lady can turn into a famous hat designer by using Microsoft technology. Sophie is in her flat drawing sketches of hats. Because of her passion for designing, she visualizes the stores in the street as hat galleries. Sophie has a dream of becoming a famous hat designer. She is walking along the street imagining paparazzi following her to take photos of her.
Even while she is sitting in the subway, she is visualizing a fashion show of models wearing her hats. In the train, she imagines people putting on her hats. As the commercial proceed, the announcer stresses the idea that Microsoft technology offers her customers the opportunity to achieve their dreams. The commercial ends with the slogan “Your potential, our passion” which summarizes the idea of the commercial.
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Commercial 4
Name: Google Nexus 5 Phone Commercial
Time: (01:00)
Script
An announcer says: “Ok Google, show me my wedding photos.” Then a soundtrack starts singing: “I had a dream I was a dove up in the sky, way up above, I looked around for you at once, but you were gone. But now I see you’re the one for me, now I see you’re the one for me, the one for me.”
Context
The commercial focuses on the wedding of people from a variety of nationalities, races, and genders, while showing how the Nexus phone is able to capture photos from the ceremonies. The commercial starts with a woman using her
Nexus 5 voice search to look up her wedding photos. Then the commercial goes on showing couples of different ages and nationalities celebrating their wedding ceremonies and having a happy time with their family and friends. They are capturing precious memories through using Google Nexus 5’s 8-megpixel rear-facing camera. Along the commercial “Now I see” lyric by Tessa Rose Jackson is used as the background music. The advertisement ends with a phrase saying “Nexus 5 made to capture the moments that matter”.
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Commercial 5
Name: Samsung Galaxy S5 Phone
Time: (01:00)
Script:
An announcer says: “This is the only Samsung Galaxy S5. Fill with innovation that makes every moment better. With five point one with full HD is the best choice of all creative smart phones. The ultra HD camera captured with more details in every moment and same photos with twice the resolution of the I phone and it enhances photo before you get the shot and lets you select the focus after you take the picture as health it can give you a note when you need it help you set goals and track your overall fitness with the first ever heartbeat. It is even water resistant so you can enjoy every moment without having a worry. This is the innovation that makes every day better. The Samsung Galaxy S5, the next big thing is here.”
Context
While showing people using Galaxy S5 in their daily life, the commercial mentions the S5’s 5.1 full HD display and declares that it is the best screen that the company has ever created for a smartphone. Then it talks about the ultra HD camera which snaps photos with “twice the resolution of the iPhone”. This is followed by a brief look at the new camera app features like the different image enhancement capabilities and the lens blur effect. Samsung also mentions S-Health, the heart rate monitor and shows the integration between the Galaxy S5 and the Samsung Gear 2. Finally it shows S5’s water resistant screen.
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Commercial 6
Name: Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
Time: (01:08)
Script:
An announcer says: “What is entertainment to you? At Sony we live and breathe entertainment and to do it justice, we design the world’s slimmest tablet with the most vivid and brightest full HD TRILUMINOUS Display combined with soul- shaking surround sound, designed to perfection and with utmost attention to every detail and whether you like to play games, listen to music, or watch movies, feel no restraints. Xperia Z2 Tablet is water proof and without standing accessories, you can turn it into a home stereo system, PlayStation mobile gaming device, or even a laptop.
Xperia Z2 Tablet is the world lightest tablet, powered by the fastest processor and still power efficient.
So, whatever your taste in entertainment is, take it for a spin. Xperia Z2 Tablet will deliver like nothing else.
Details make the difference. Sony details”
Context
The commercial starts with scenes of movies and animations depicted on the tablet screen. It shows people enjoy using Sony Xperia Tablet in different places and times. It provides a visual description of what the announcer saying about the product by showing the different usages and features of the tablet. The commercials ends with the slogan: “Details make the difference”. It is the details that make the features of this tablet the most impressive features among all other tablets.
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Commercial 7
Name: Apple iPad 2
Time: (00:30)
Script
An announcer says: “This is what we believe. Technology alone is not enough.
Faster, Thinner, Lighter_ those are all good things. But when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful …even magical. That’s when you leap forward. That’s when you end up with something like this.”
Context
The commercial starts with the statement “This is what we believe…” It highlights that the ipad2 has a “faster, lighter, thinner” design. It selects applications showcase a variety of uses. The applications featured in this commercial include video, AirStrip (patient Monitoring), iBook, Mail, Numbers, GarageBand, the Photos app, intro to Letters and Mobile MIM. The commercial finally closes with the statement “That’s when you end up with something like this” while showing the picture of the iPad2.
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Appendix C
Participants
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50% 50%
Native Non-Native
Figure C1 The number of participants in each group
23.30%
male female
76.70%
Figure C2 Gender percentage in the NNSs group
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Table C3
Age percentage in both groups
Report Age Group Gender N Mean Std. Deviation Minimum Maximum Non- male 23 25.65 6.249 17 46 Native female 7 25.14 2.968 21 29 Total 30 25.53 5.612 17 46 Native male 11 46.55 22.340 17 81 female 19 41.68 18.971 17 75 Total 30 43.47 20.029 17 81 Total male 34 32.41 16.604 17 81 female 26 37.23 17.811 17 75 Total 60 34.50 17.159 17 81
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Tale C4
Non-Native Speakers Participants
Learner Gender Age Country of Degree Major No. Birth 1 Male 23 Syria postgraduate Student Medical Electronic Engineering 2 Male 26 Syria postgraduate Student Electrical Engineering 3 Male 26 Syria postgraduate Student Electrical Engineering 4 Male 26 Syria postgraduate Student Technical environmental Engineering 5 Male 26 Syria Graduate Student 6 Male 26 Syria 7 Female 21 Syria Senior Faculty of Pharmacy 8 Male 19 Syria 9 Female 23 Syria Graduate Student Pharmacy 10 Male 19 Syria Sophomore Physics 11 Male 22 Syria Graduate Student Detergent and medicine industries 12 Male 23 Syria Postgraduate Student Mechanical Engineering 13 Male 23 Syria Postgraduate Student Mechanical Engineering 14 Male 26 Syria Graduate Student Medical laboratory and Economics 15 Female 25 Syria Postgraduate Student Architecture/ Urban planning 16 Male 25 KSA Graduate Student Aerospace Engineering 17 Male 25 Syria Postgraduate Student Aeronuatics Engineering 18 Male 22 Syria Graduate Student 19 male 17 Syria 20 Male 24 Syria postgraduate Student Textile Engineering 21 Female 25 Syria postgraduate Student Environmental Technical Engineering
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22 Female 29 Syria Graduate Student English department 23 Female 29 Syria Graduate Student English department 24 Male 25 Syria postgraduate Student Driving electrical micro motors 25 Male 40 Syria Graduate Student Dentistry 26 Male 46 Syria 27 Male 27 Syria postgraduate Student Industrial Engineering 28 Male 30 Syria 29 Male 24 Syria postgraduate Student Technical Engineering 30 Female 24 Syria Graduate Student Chemistry
36.70%
63.30% male female
Figure C5 Gender percentage in the NSs group
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Table C6
Native Speakers Profile
Learner Gender Age Country of Degree Major No. Birth 31 Male 54 New Zealand Graduate student English Literature 32 Male 24 United Graduate student Engineering Kingdom 33 Female 43 United States Graduate student Master's in of America English and Science 34 Female 63 United States Practical Nursing Nursing of America School 35 Female 75 Guyana (British Postgraduate Psychotherapy Guiana) 36 Male 17 Canada Senior Political Science 37 Female 65 United Graduate student Teacher Kingdom 38 Female 31 United States Graduate student Journalism of America 39 Female 28 United Postgraduate MBA Kingdom 40 Male 39 United Graduate student Mechanical Kingdom Engineering 41 Male 81 United English Grammar English Kingdom School Language 42 Female 40 Guyana Postgraduate Teaching. Environmental architecture. 43 Male 68 United Postgraduate English Kingdom 44 Male 44 United States Freshman None of America 45 Male 81 United Erudite - Retired Advertising Kingdom 46 Male 30 United BA Computer Kingdom engineer 47 Male 27 United Postgraduate Law Kingdom 48 Female 21 United Graduate student Arabic and
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Kingdom islamic studies 49 Female 65 United States Postgraduate Linguistics of America 50 Male 47 Canada Postgraduate Kinesiology 51 Female 18 United States Undergraduate student Chemistry-pre of America medicine 52 Female 39 United Long finished Masters Physics Kingdom course 53 Female 52 United States Senior Business of America 54 Female 28 United States Postgraduate Law of America 55 Female 56 United diploma Secretarial Kingdom 56 Female 53 United States not a student not a student of America 57 Female 17 United States Senior Idk of America 58 Female 21 United Graduate student Religion and Kingdom theology 59 Female 18 United States Freshman Foreign policy of America 60 Female 59 Ireland Graduate student English
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Appendix D
Questions of the pilot study
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1. How long did it take you to complete the questionnaire?
………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………..
2. Were the instructions clear?
………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………..
3. Were any of the questions unclear or ambiguous? If so, will you say which
and why?
………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………..
4. Did you object to answering any of the questions?
………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………..
5. Was the layout of the questionnaire clear?
………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………..
6. Any comments?
………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………..
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Appendix E
Comprehension Test
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E1. Informational Letter of Consent
Dear Interested Participant,
I am an MA student in the Linguistic program at the University of Aleppo,
Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities. I invite you to participate in a research study titled “A Cross-Cultural Study of Implicature in English TV
Commercials” that I am conducting. This study is an attempt to compare cross- cultural abilities to interpret inferences in the audio-visual medium of English TV commercials. The reason for this study is to test to what extent non-native speakers of
English as a foreign language are able to interpret implicature in the manner native speakers of English do and the effect of cultural background on the derivation of meaning. The findings of this research may provide information on cross-cultural communication and language learning.
If you volunteer to take part in this study, you will be asked to do the following things in approximately 45 minutes:
1. Provide background information. Confidentiality is observed. 2. Complete a comprehension test about your understanding of seven video commercials.
Your identity will not be associated with your responses in any published or stored format. If you have any questions or comments about this research, feel free to email me at [email protected]
Your cooperation is highly appreciated!
Sincerely yours,
Raghad Chouihna
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E2. Background Information of Participants
The responses that you give in this questionnaire will be kept confidential.
The information that you provide will help the researcher to better understand the language backgrounds of the participants in this study. Your honest and detailed responses will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your cooperation.
Part 1: Background Information for All Participants
1. Name ______2. Gender ______
3. Age ______4. Country of birth ______
5. Mobile number ______
6. What is your educational background?
Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior Graduate Student Postgraduate Student
Other ______
7. What is your major? ______
8. Have you studied Linguistics before? ______
If yes, what course(s) did you take? ______
If yes, have you studied Grice’s Theory of Implicature? ______
9. In what language(s) did you receive the majority of your precollege education?
______
10. Please describe below any exposure you have had to different languages, including your own native language and any others. The nature of such exposure could be to your native language or another language used by your family, or it could be a language you studied in the classroom or encountered during a study or work- abroad program. Please rate your language abilities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in each of these languages on the scale of:
1) Poor 2) Good 3) Very good 4) Native-like 5) Native
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Exposure 1 Exposure 2 Exposure 3 Exposure 4
Language
Location
Nature
Time of exposure
Listening ability
Speaking ability
Reading ability
Writing ability
Part 2: For Non-native Speakers of English
11. On average, how often did you communicate with native or fluent speakers of
English in English in the past year? This includes your native or fluent English- speaking friends, your instructor or classmates outside of class, service personnel (e.g. bank clerks, cashiers, etc.)
0) never 1) a few times a year 2) monthly 3) weekly 4) daily 5) always
12. On average, how often do you watch television, movies, or videos in English, read newspapers, novels, or magazines in English, or listen to songs in English?
0) never 1) a few times a year 2) monthly 3) weekly 4) daily 5) always
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E3. Instructions 1. Watch the video for one time only. 2. Read the questions that follow each commercial and choose the suitable answer. 3. Go in order: Read and answer question 1 before reading and answering question 2, etc. Complete every question. 4. If you disagree with all the multiple choices, please write out what you think the answer should be in the blank labeled “Other”. 5. Please feel free to write anything extra to explain any of your answers or add any extra thoughts. The researcher is very interested to know all of your thought processes on this test.
E4. Comprehension Test
Commercial 1: Apple Macintosh Computer Question 1: Is the commercial relevant to the product? A) It is relevant. B) It is irrelevant. C) It is related somehow. D) “I am not sure” E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5
Question 2: The statement “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do” implies that ______. A) best changes are made by special people B) best changes are made by Macintosh C) world changes are made by crazy people D) creative things are made by average people E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5
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Question 3: It is implied in the commercial that ______. A) Apple is different and supposedly better because of being different B) Macintosh Technology is a tool by which progress could be obtained C) Apple offers innovative products D) Apple Macintosh products are not out of the ordinary E) Other …………………………………………
Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5
Question 4: The slogan of Apple Macintosh is “think different”. The slogan implies that ______. A) you will change into a different person, if you buy Apple Macintosh computer B) you can also do great things, if only you will purchase Apple Macintosh computer C) Apple Macintosh can change people D) Apple Macintosh is inviting people to be unique through thinking differently E) Other …………………………………………
Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5
Question 5: The statement “The round pegs in the square holes.” means ______. A) people who try to put pigs in square holes B) people who work hard with determination C) people in a situation not suitable for them D) people who are in a very difficult job E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
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Question 6: The pronoun “ones” in “The ones who think differently” refers to ______. A) the crazy ones; the misfits; the rebels; troublemakers. The round pigs in the square holes B) the ones who want to be unique and different C) the great people in history shown during the commercial D) the audience who are watching the commercial E) Other …………………………………………
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Question 7: In the statement “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” The question here is to do what? A) To invent Macintosh computer. B) To stick to the rules. C) To change the world. D) To purchase Apple Macintosh. E) Other …………………………………………
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Commercial 2: Microsoft (Empowering us all) Question 8: The commercial starts with the following three questions: “What is technology? What can it do? How far do we know?” The answers to the three questions are ______. A) stated in clear simple wording B) not stated in clear simple wording C) not given D) “I am not sure” E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 9: The commercial implies that ______. A) Microsoft plays an important role in technology B) Microsoft technology enhances and enriches people’s life C) Microsoft is emphasizing its market leading position D) both B and C are correct E) Other …………………………………………
Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 10: The statement “Empowering us all” refers to ______. A) technology B) Microsoft C) medical technology D) Microsoft technology E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
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Commercial 3: Microsoft (Your potential. Our passion) Question 11: The commercial ______. A) is easy to understand B) causes confusion C) is vague D) “I am not sure” E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 12: Sophie will turn a crazy idea into the latest craze. The phrase “Latest craze” means ______. A) latest fashion B) latest software C) latest application D) latest insensible idea E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 13: The statement “We're inspired to create software that helps her reach it” implies that ______. A) Sophie inspired Microsoft to create an operating system B) Microsoft could provide Sophie with an operating system to help her realizing her potential C) Microsoft has a passion to help customers achieving their goal D) both A and C are correct E) Other ………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
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Question 14: The statement “We see her potential” implies that ______. A) Microsoft has the ability to discover people’s talents B) this operating system is just for special people who have special talents C) this operating system has the ability to see people’ imagination D) Microsoft is used by talented people E) Other …………………………………………
Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 15: The slogan of Microsoft is “Your potential, our passion”. Microsoft has passion for ______. A) helping people B) design C) potential D) technology E) Other …………………………………………
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Commercial 4: Google Nexus 5 Phone Commercial Question16: The commercial is ______. A) true B) not true C) could be true D) “I am not sure” E) Other …………………………………………
Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 17: The commercial starts with a female voice saying: “Ok Google, show me my wedding photos”. The speaker is ______. A) watching photos and remembering happy events B) talking to her partner C) testing the voice quality of Google D) introducing the new voice feature of Google E) Other …………………………………………
Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 18: The song in the commercial ends with the statement “You are the one for me”. The pronoun “You” refers to ______. A) the partner B) the camera application C) Google Nexus 5 Phone D) a specific moment E) Other …………………………………………
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Question 19: The commercial ends with the phrase “made to capture the moments that matter”. The statement implies that ______. A) it only takes photos of important events in life B) it saves all important events in details C) it does not take photo of minor events D) it takes photos of every single moment in your life E) Other: ………………………………………………. Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
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Commercial 5: Samsung Galaxy S5 Phone Question 20: The statement “same photos with twice the resolution of the iphone” implies that ______. A) Galaxy is better than the iphone B) Galaxy camera resolution is clearer than the iphone C) you can take the same picture two times when using Galaxy S5 D) Galaxy S5 is building trustworthy depending on the good reputation of the iphone E) Other ………………………………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 21: The statement “This is the innovation that makes every day better” implies that ______. A) having another phone will not change your life to the better B) the features of this phone are as good as other phones C) no other phones have the same quality D) this phone has the best features which improve your life E) Other ………………………………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 22: The statement “The Samsung Galaxy S5, the next big thing is here” is used to ______. A) imply a strong feeling of excitement and success in mobile technology B) remind audience that the previous versions of Galaxy S5 were also successful C) imply that this version has a big size like the previous versions D) imply that previous versions were not innovative like this version E) Other ………………………………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
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Commercial 6: Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Question 23: The statement “At Sony we live and breathe entertainment” implies that ______. A) with Sony you will breathe better B) with Sony you will play a lot of games C) with Sony your life will become easier D) with Sony you enjoy your time E) Other ………………………………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 24: The phrase “to do it justice” means that ______. A) they want to present the Tablet in the court B) they want to provide the Tablet with the best features C) they want to present the Tablet in a good way as it deserves D) they want to advertise the Tablet E) Other ………………………………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5 Question 25: The statement “Designed to perfection. And with utmost attention to every detail” implies that ______. A) Xperia Z2 Tablet is a unique device designed with accuracy B) Xperia Z2 Tablet is perfect C) Xperia Z2 Tablet has the best features D) Xperia Z2 Tablet is a complicated Tablet E) Other ………………………………………………………………… Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
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Question 26: The statement “Powered by the fastest processor and still power efficient” implies that ______. A) although it has the best processing capacity, it is energy saving B) although it has a good processing capacity, it is energy saving C) it has a long battery life D) other tablets have slower processor E) Other …………………………………………………………………
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Question 27: The phrase “Take it for a spin” in the following statement “Take it for a spin, Xperia Z2 Tablet will deliver like nothing else” means ______. A) to test or try it for fun B) to go for a quick drive C) to compare it with other tablets D) to buy the tablet and turn around very quickly E) Other …………………………………………………………………
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Commercial 7: Apple I pad 2 Question 28: The statement “This is what we believe. Technology alone is not enough … But when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful” implies that ______. A) we believe that new technologies are out of control B) we believe that technology change our life C) we believe that we cannot depend on technology alone D) we believe that new technologies are indispensible and ordinary E) Other …………………………………………………………………
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Question 29: The amount of information given in the commercial is ______. A) too little B) the right amount C) too much D) “I am not sure” E) Other …………………………………………………………………
Please rate how accurate do you think your answer is? Inaccurate Somewhat inaccurate Average Somewhat accurate Very accurate 1 2 3 4 5
Please rate how difficult was it to answer this question? Very Easy Somewhat Easy Average Somewhat Difficult Very Difficult 1 2 3 4 5
Thank You
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 223
E5. Comprehension Test on Google Docs
A cross-Cultural study of Implicature in English TV Commercials https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1lyBJckvkdVVYxS1zApp1-
BzUrzSr43KNlQoTybUika8/viewform#start=openform
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 224
Appendix F
Interview Questions
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 225
1. Did you understand the commercial?
A) Yes
B) No
2. Why did you choose this answer? What were you thinking about when you explained it this way?
3. Would you like to add anything?
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 226
Appendix G
Statistical Tables
(In the attached DVD)
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF IMPLICATURE 227
Appendix H
Transcription
(In the attached DVD)
جامعة حلب
كلية اآلداب والعلوم اإلنسانية
قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية
الدراسات اللغوية
دراسة تثاقفية لالستدالالت في اإلعالنات التلفزيونية اإلنجليزية: أثر ملكة الخطاب في
قدرات المتلقي اإلدراكية
إعداد رغد محمد شويحنة
بإشراف الدكتور مروان رضوان
دراسة قدّمت لنيل درجة الماجستير في اللغويات
قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية جامعة حلب 2018 تصريح
أص رّحّبأنّهذهّالرسالةّهيّنتيجةّعمليّوقدّقم تّّبهاّبإشرافّال دكتورّمروانّرضوانّوهيّمقدمةّلنيلّدرجةّ
الماجستيرّفيّاللغوياتّفيّقسمّاللغةّاإلنجليزيةّفيّكليةّاآلدابّوالعلومّاإلنسانيةّفيّجامعةّحلبّفيّسوريا.ّولمّ
يسبقّوأنّق دمّأيّجزءّمنّهذاّالبحثّفيّالماضي.ّكماّأنهّغيرّ مّق دّمّحالي اًّللحصولّعلىّشهادةّفيّأيّجامعةّأخرى. ّ
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المرشحة
رغد محمد شويحنة
الملخص
يهدفّهذاّالبحثّإلىّدراسةّالملكةّالتداوليةّلدىّالمتعلمينّالسوريينّللغةّاإلنجليزية،ّكلغةّأجنبيةّفيّ
المستوىّفوقّالمتوسط،ّوذلكّمنّخاللّمقارنةّفهمهمّلالستدالالتّالموجودةّفيّاإلعالناتّالتلفزيونيةّاإلنجليزيةّ
العالميةّبفهمّالمتكلمينّللغةّاإلنجليزيةّكلغةّأم.ّالهدفّمنّذلكّمعرفةّمقدرةّالمتلقيّالسوريّعلىّفهمّاالستلزامّ
الحواريّواالستدالالتّالضمنيةّالموجودةّفيّال سّياقّاإلعالني.ّكماّيهدفّالبحثّإلىّدراسةّمدىّتطبيقّالمتلقيّ
للمبادئّالحواريةّاألربعةّ)الكمّ-ّال نّوعيةّ-ّالمناسبةّ-ّالطريقة(ّالتيّاقترحهاّ)جرايس(،ّكطريقةّلتفسيرّاالستلزامّ
الحواري وإلىّمعرفةّاالستلزامّالحواريّاألصعبّومنشأّالصعوبة. ّ
جرىّتطبيقّهذهّالدراسةّعلىّالمادةّاإلعالنية،ّنظراًّّإلىّاعتمادهاّالملحوظّعلىّاستخدامّاالستدالالتّالتيّ
تدفعّبالمتلقيّنحوّالتفسيرّالمطلوب.ّحيثّيّ الحظّقيامّالمعلنينّبخرقّالمبادئّالحواريةّاألربعةّونقلّرسالتهمّبطريقةّ
ضمنيةّللتأثيرّعلىّإدراكّالمتلقيّوتجنبّتح ملّمسؤوليةّادعاءاتهم.ّوبذلكّيتيحّاختيارّال سّياقّاإلعالنيّدراسةّالتّ أثيرّ
الحاصلّفيّفهمّاالستدالالت.ّ ّ
ولقدّتمّاستخدامّنظريةّاالستلزامّالحواريّلدىّ)جرايس(ّونظريةّالمناسبةّلدىّ)ويلسون(ّو)سبربر(ّكإطارّ
لتحليلّاالستدالالتّالضمنيةّالمختلفةّالموجودةّفيّاإلعالناتّال سّبعةّالمختارة،ّوكذلكّكانتّهاتانّالنظريتانّأساساًّّ
لتحليلّفهمّاالستدالالتّمنّقبلّالمشاركينّبالدراسة.ّ ّ
ت مّإجراءّدراسةّمقارنةّحيثّجمعتّالبيّ اناتّمنّثالثينّناطقاًّباللغةّاإلنجليزيةّكلغةّأمّمنّخاللّاالنترنت،ّ
وثالثينّسورياًّّيتعلمونّاللغةّاإلنجليزيةّفيّالمعهدّالعاليّللغاتّفيّجامعةّحلب.ّوجرىّتوزيعّاستبيانّاحتوىّعلىّ
أسئلةّاستيعابّلعددّمنّالجملّالواردةّفيّسبعةّإعالناتّمختلفةّذاتّمحتوىّتكنولوجيّتمتّمشاهدتها،ّتبعّذلكّ
إجراءّمقابلةّمعّالمشاركينّفيّال دّراسةّبهدفّمعرفةّآليةّتفكيرهمّخاللّتفسيرهمّللمعنى.ّ ّ
أظهرتّال نّتائجّأنّتك لمّلغةّمختلفةّالّيمنعّمنّفهمّاالستلزامّالحواريّفيّال سّياقاتّالعالمية،ّحيثّط بقّ
معظمّالمشاركينّفيّكالّالمجموعتينّمبادئّجرايسّالحواريةّاألربعةّكطريقةّلتفسيرّالمعنى.ّأماّالتفسيراتّالمختلفةّ
لبعضّالمعانيّالضمنيةّمنّقبلّبعضّالمشاركينّفقدّنشأتّبسببّاختالفّفيّالخلفياتّالثقافيةّوالتجاربّالشخصية.ّ أظهرتّالنتائجّأيضاّصعوبةّفهمّالمعانيّال ضّمنيةّالخفي ةّمنّقبلّكالّالمجموعتين،ّغيرّأنّتوقعّالمشاركينّللصلةّ
ولطبيعةّال سّياقّاإلعالنيّساعدّعلىّإدراكّوجودّمعا نّّضمنيةّوفيّبعضّاألحيانّفهمها.ّ ّ
يظهرّمنّنتائجّهذهّال دّراسةّأهميةّتطويرّقدرةّالمتلقيّعلىّفهمّاالستدالالت،ّسواءّبلغتهّاألمّأوّباللغةّ
األجنبيةّالتيّيتمّتعليمهاّوذلكّبتضمينهاّفيّمناهجّالتعليم.ّكماّيمكنّاالستفادةّمنّنتائجّهذاّالبحثّمنّال نّاحيةّ
اإلعالنية،ّحيثّيّ نصحّالمعلنونّباالنتباهّإلىّمدىّوضوحّرسالتهمّعندّاستخدامّالمعانيّال ضّمنيةّالتيّتنشأّمنّخرقّ
المبادئّالحواريةّعندماّينوونّإطالقّإعالنّموحد.ّّ ّ
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