Defining Pragmatics

Towards an Explanatory Theory of

Pragmatics
 Introduction

 SYNTAX, SEMANTICS, AND PRAGMATICS.

 Phonetics is the study and classification of speech sounds.
 Phonology the study that deals with the system of contrastive
relationships among the speech sounds that constitute the
fundamental components of a language.
 It the branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds (including or
excluding phonetics), within a language or between different languages.
 Morphology is the study of words and their parts. Morphemes, like
prefixes, suffixes and base words, are defined as the smallest
meaningful units of meaning.
 Syntax is the study of the relationship between linguistics forms,
how they are arranged in sequence, and which sequences are well formed.
 Semantics is the study of the relationships between linguistics forms
and entities in the world; how words literally connect to things.
 What is pragmatics?

 Finding satisfactory definitions for any academic field is not an easy task and that these definitions are not easily
available. The best one can do is to read the works of researchers in the field without trying to formulate a
definition.

 We already know that syntax is ‘the study of the combinatorial properties of words’ and semantics ‘the study of
meaning’.

 Pragmatics can be defined in a similar way as: the study of language usage. This definition, however, is quite
vague because it does not tell us concretely what pragmatics is.

 Another possible definition is that Pragmatics is the study of language from a FUNCTIONAL perspective
which means that pragmatics attempts to explain the use of language with reference to non linguistic causes.
 The weakness of this definition, however, is that it fails to distinguish pragmatics from the other linguistic fields
which are interested in functional approaches to language such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics etc…
 A more reliable definition has been proposed by Katz and Fodor (1963) who have
observed that pragmatics should be interested in principles of language usage.
 The definition suggests that pragmatics would essentially be concerned with the
disambiguation of sentences by the contexts in which they were uttered.
 Another idea stresses on context and deals with the dividing line between
semantics and pragmatics: assuming that we have a clear idea of the limits of
semantics, then pragmatics studies all the non semantic features that are
encoded in languages, and these features are aspects of context.
 To be much clearer, let us consider the following definition:
 Pragmatics is the study of all those aspects of meaning not captured in a
semantic theory.
 To make this definition clearer, we have to add that a great deal of the general
field of meaning is left unexplained by a restricted semantic theory.
 This residue is accounted for by pragmatics.
 ‘So the notion that pragmatics might be the study of aspects of meaning not
covered in semantics certainly has some cogency (truth).
 However, we still need to know how the broad sense of meaning, on which
the definition relies, is to be delimited.
 This broad sense should include the ironic, metaphoric and implicit
communicative content of an utterance, and so it cannot be restricted to the
conventional content of what is said (Levinson, 1983:15).
 Bearing in mind that the dividing line between semantics and pragmatics is found
in sentences (the domain of study in semantics) and utterances (the domain of
study in pragmatics), we can add that a sentence is an abstract theoretical entity,
while an utterance is the issuance of a sentence in an actual context.
 This leads us to the following: semantics should be concerned with meaning
out of context, and pragmatics with meaning in context.
Levinson (1983) states that this distinction between sentence meaning and utterance meaning
cannot be relied upon to clarify the distinction between semantics and pragmatics.
He then came up with another definition which says that pragmatics is the study of the
relations between language and context that are basic to an account of language
understanding.
‘Language understanding’ is used here to mean not only the meaning of words and their
grammatical relations but also to have knowledge of the world, mutual knowledge and the
ability to make inferences.
The strength of this definition is that it tells us that it is mainly concerned with inferences; i.e.,
for any linguistic form uttered in a context, a pragmatic theory must account for the inference
of implicatures, presuppositions etc…
 Another quite similar definition is based on the notion of exploitation of Grice’s
(1975) maxims (quantity, quality, relevance and manner).
 Normally, speakers do not observe these maxims. They rather violate or exploit them.
E.g. : if someone sleeps till 1 p.m. and you tell him ‘good morning’, then this would
be irony and in irony we don’t say what we mean and we don’t mean what we say.
 Pragmatics, therefore, should be concerned with studying hidden meanings.
 Pragmatics should be much concerned precisely with such mechanisms whereby a
speaker can mean more than, or something quite different from, what he actually
says, by inventively exploiting communicative conventions (Levinson, 1983:26-27).
 Other Definitions

 Pragmatics is a theory of contextual disambiguation. Katz and Fodor (1963).

 Pragmatics is the study of the contribution of context to language understanding.
Levinson (1983).
 Pragmatics studies the factors which govern a language user’s choice of utterance.
Crystal (1968:48)
 Pragmatics is the study of utterance disambiguation.
 Finally, which of these definitions is the best?
 At this stage of development of pragmatics, we can’t say that x or y is the best.
 As the field gets more mature, we expect researchers to be more explicit in their
formulation of a theory of pragmatics.
 Pragmatics is the only study which allows humans to investigate and analyze people’s
intended meanings, their assumptions, their purposes, or goals, and the language
functions, and the intended actions that they are performing when they speak
DEFINITIONS AND BACKGROUND
 Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning; it deals more with the
interpretation of what people mean by their utterances than what the
utterances actually mean by themselves.
 The interpretation involves what people mean in a particular context and
how the context influences what is said.
 Therefore, Pragmatics is also the study of contextual meaning.
 Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said.
 This refers to the investigation of what is unsaid.
 Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance.
 This raises the idea that what determines the choice between the said
and the unsaid depends on the notion of distance
Conclusion
 Pragmatics may simply be defined as the the study of language in
relation to its context of use

 The most comprehensive definition of pragmatics in the

literature on pragmatics is the following:

“ The study of LANGUAGE from the point of view of the users,

especially of the CHOICES they make, the CONSTRAINTS they
encounter in using language in social interaction, and the
EFFECTS their use of language has on the other participants in
an act of communication.” (Crystal 1985:240, 2008:379)
 2. The Speech Acts Theory (Austin,
1962)
 We are attuned in everyday conversation not primarily to the sentences we utter to one another, but to the speech
acts that those utterances are used to perform:

 requests,
 warnings,
 invitations,
 promises,
 apologies,
 predictions,
 and the like.

 Such acts are staples of communicative life.

 Recognition of the significance of speech acts has illuminated the ability of language to do other things than
describe reality.
 It has come to be commonly held that many utterances which look like statements are either not intended at all,
or only intended in part, to record or impart straightforward information about the facts…
 Speech act theory is a subfield of pragmatics that studies how words are used not
only to present information but also to carry out actions.
 Many philosophers and linguists study speech act theory as a way to better understand
human communication.
 Researchers suggest that a sentence is a grammatical unit within the formal system of
language, whereas the speech act involves a communicative function separate from this."
 "Part of the joy of doing speech act theory, from my strictly first-person point of view, is
becoming more and more remindful of how many surprisingly different things we do when
we talk to each other," (Kemmerling 2002).
 "In the past three decades, speech act theory has become an important branch of the
contemporary theory of language thanks mainly to the influence of [John Rogers] Searle
(1969, 1979) and [Herbert Paul] Grice (1975) whose ideas on meaning and communication
have stimulated research in philosophy and in human and cognitive sciences...
In the set of lectures, later published as How To Do Things With Words, Austin set about
demolishing the view of language that would place truth conditions as central to language
understanding.
-Before 1962, it was believed that truth conditions were of the greatest importance to language
understanding.
Austin (1962), however, has his own different opinion concerning this issue. He observed that
there are some ordinary language declarative sentences that are not apparently used with any
intention of making true or false statements, and pointed out that they cannot be assessed as true
or false.
He also observed that these sentences form a special class as in the following set:
-I object.
-I sentence you to ten years of hard labour.
-I hereby christen this ship The Titanic.
-I declare war on Japan.
-The peculiar thing about these sentences, Austin (1962) notes, is that they are not used
merely to say things or describe states of affairs, but rather to actively do things i.e. in
uttering these sentences, the speaker is performing some non-linguistic act such as
daring, nominating, declaring, warning, objecting…
-After you have declared war on Japan, or sentenced x to hard labour the world has
changed in substantial ways.
-Furthermore, you cannot assess these utterances as true or false because they are not
uttered with the intention of producing true or false statements.
Austin (1962) has called these sentences PERFORMATIVE SENTENCES or
PERFORMATIVES which he contrasted with the remaining sentences or utterances
which he called CONSTATIVES, sentences which affirm about fact, report events,
and describe situation and condition.
They must contain truth values. e.g. Prices slumped. The sentence is true if the fact in
the actual world the prices are slumped.
 Unlike constatives, performative sentences, given their special nature, cannot be true
or false, yet they can go wrong.
 For a sentence not to be wrong, unhappy or infelicitous (inappropriate) some
institutional arrangements are needed, for example:
 I hereby christen this ship The Titanic.
 For the naming of the vessel to be successful, happy or felicitous the following
conditions are needed:
 -The speaker has to be the appointed person to name the ship.
 -There must be witnesses.
 -The ship mustn’t already have a name.
 -A bottle of champagne must be broken against the ship.
 etc…
If one of these conditions is not met, then the action that the utterance attempts to perform is
simply null and void (i.e. empty, having no force or effect).
We, therefore, need to have some conditions for a sentence to be successful, happy or felicitous.
Austin (1962) called these conditions: felicity conditions that he divided into three categories:
A
(i)There must be a conventional procedure having a conventional effect.
(ii)The circumstances and persons must be appropriate, as specified in the procedure.
B The procedure must be executed
(i) Correctly,….. and (ii) Completely
C Often,
(i) The persons must have the requisite thoughts, feelings and intentions, as specified in the
procedure, …… and
(ii) If consequent conduct is specified, then the relevant parties must so do.
 For example: I hereby divorce you.
 If this utterance is said by a Christian it will be unhappy or infelicitous because of the following reasons:
 the divorce will not take place automatically, or will not be achieved because in Christianity there is no
such procedure concerning divorce as the one specified in A(i), thanks to which divorce can take effect by
simply uttering the sentence, which is the case in Islam.
 For condition
 A(ii) consider the example of a ship being named by the wrong person, or a head of state welcoming
another but addressing the bodyguard instead of the head of state.

 For condition B(i) to take effect the words uttered must be the conventionally correct ones. The
answer to the next question will not do in the Church of England marriage ceremony:

 Curate: Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife…so long as ye both shall live?
 Bridegroom: ? Yes. (wrong answer)
 I will (the convention requires one to say:, I will)
 For condition B(ii) to take effect one must do what the condition requires fully. For
example: while naming a ship, the utterance: I hereby christen this ship The Titanic
must be accompanied by the action of breaking a bottle of champagne against the
ship.
 For C(i): to witness against someone accusing him of a crime while you know that he
is innocent is a violation of C(i).
 And to promise to do something which one has no intention whatsoever of doing
would be a straightforward violation of C(ii).
 Violations of conditions A and B are called misfires i.e. the intended action fails to
come off.
 Violations of conditions C(i) and C(ii) are called insincerities or abuses. Abuses are
not easily detected at the moment of speaking. We say, then, that the action is
performed infelicitously or insincerely.
 As a conclusion to what we have seen so far, one can say Austin believes that
performatives are special sentences because
 a) uttering them does things, and does not merely say things (i.e. report state of
affairs); and
 (b) these performative sentences achieve their corresponding actions because there are
specific conventions linking the words to institutional procedures.
 Performatives are, if one likes, just rather special sorts of ceremony.
 And unlike constatives, which are assessed in terms of truth and falsity, performatives
can only be assessed as felicitous or infelicitous, according to whether their felicity
conditions are met or not.
 Perfomatives vs. Constatives
-Let us now go back to our list of performative sentences and try to find out what makes
them different from the other sentences, which Austin (1962) calls constatives.
1- I promise to come on time. (performative)
2-I take my breakfast in cafés. (constative)
for a sentence to be performative it needs the following:
-‘I‘ or ‘we’ (first person singular or plural)
- indicative mood (states facts in the form statement ; questions)
- active
- present tense
Both 1 and 2 have these properties, yet 1 is performative while 2 is not.
Another device to distinguish performatives from constatives is to use the adverb hereby :
-I hereby promise to come on time.
-? I hereby jog ten miles on Sundays.
This means that when the verb of the sentence collocates with the adverb ‘hereby’ the
sentence is, then, performative, and the verb is, thus, called a performative verb.
Later on in his investigation, Austin (1962) stopped distinguishing between performatives and constatives and
joined them under illocutionary acts of which the various performatives and constatives are just special sub-
cases (Levinson, 1983:231).

These two types of sentences have, then, been joined in a single family of speech acts which Austin called The
Speech Acts Theory.

The question now is why such a change has occurred!

Austin has observed that there are sentences in the form of ‘Go’ where only the verb is used. Even though
such a sentence is not in the first person, indicative active, present simple, it is a performative
sentence because it can perform the giving of advice, ordering etc… according to context. Austin has called
these sentences implicit performatives.
Austin has now conceded that utterances can be performative without being in the normal form of explicit
performatives, he suggests that performative verbs are still the best way into a systematic study of all the
different kinds of performative utterance.
This suggestion seems to rely on the claim that every non-explicit performative could in principle be put
into the form of an explicit performative.
Another point that urged Austin to make this change is that he observed that constatives can also be
infelicitous,
E.g.: All of John’s children are students.
This sentence presupposes that John is married since his children are students.
But if we know John and know that he is not married, and that he doesn’t have children, then, there is a
presupposition failure which makes the sentence infelicitous because it violates condition A (ii). Namely, the
circumstances and persons must be appropriate.
Austin concludes that the dichotomy between statements as truth-bearers, and performatives, as action-
performers, can no longer be maintained.
‘The dichotomy between performatives and constatives is thus rejected in favour of a general full-blown
theory of speech acts’ (Levinson, 1983: 235).
 We saw earlier that by saying or producing an utterance one is also doing something or
performing an action. How does this take place?
 Austin observed that there are three ways thanks to which one says something and at the same
time performs an action. He, therefore, distinguishes three types of acts that are simultaneously
performed:
 (i ) Locutionary Act: the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense
 and reference i.e. non-ambiguous meaning, and reference.
 (ii) Illocutionary Act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. in uttering a sentence, by
virtue of the conventional force associated with it. i. e; performing an act by uttering a sentence
 (iii) Perlocutionary Act: the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering the
sentence, such effects being special to circumstances of utterance(the effects the sentence
might have: the perlocution).
 (Note that the force (i.e. intention) of a sentence is what it achieves when uttered, e.g.: Come
here. It can have the force of an order, an invitation, a piece of advice etc. depending on context)
Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary
Acts
 The locutionary act is the act of saying something with a certain sense and reference;

 The illocutionary act is the act performed in saying something, i.e. the act named and identified by the
explicit performative verb.

 The perlocutionary act is the act performed.

 Example.

 The phrase "Don't do that!", a locutionary act with distinct phonetic, syntactic and semantic features, which corresponds to
meaning, is an utterance serving as warning to the listener to not do the thing they are currently doing or about to do.

 The perlocutionary act (or perlocutionary effect) is the effect of an utterance on an interlocutor. Examples of
perlocutionary acts include persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise affecting the interlocutor.
LOCUTION vs. ILLOCUTION
 From Searle's view (1968), there are only five illocutionary points that speakers can achieve on
propositions in an utterance, namely: the assertive, commissive, directive, declaratory and expressive
illocutionary points.

 Speakers achieve the assertive point when they represent how things are in the world,

 the commissive point when they commit themselves to doing something,

 the directive point when they make an attempt to get hearers to do something,

 the declaratory point when they do things in the world at the moment of the
utterance solely by virtue of saying that they do and

 The expressive point when they express their attitudes about objects and facts of the world
(Cf. Vanderkeven and Kubo, 2002).
 5 types of speech acts by Searle

 Let's take a look at each category and some examples.

 Declarative - The speaker declares something that has the potential to bring about a change in the world.
• 'I now declare you husband and wife.‘ 'You're fired!‘

 Assertives - The speaker asserts an idea, opinion, or suggestion. The speaker presents 'facts' of the world, such
as statements and claims.
• 'Paris is the capital of France.‘ 'I watched a great documentary last night.‘

 Expressives - The speaker states something about their psychological attitudes and their attitudes towards a
situation. This could be an apology, a welcome, or an expression of gratitude.
• I'm so sorry about yesterday. ‘ 'I really appreciate your help.‘

 Directives - The speaker intends to get the listener to do something. This could be by giving an order, offering
advice, or making a request.
• 'Pass me the salt please.‘ 'You should not drink that!‘

 Commissives - The speaker commits to doing something in the future. This could be making a promise, a plan, a
vow, or a bet.
• 'I'll see you at 6 tomorrow‘ 'I do!'
 When we use the term speech act, it is the second type of act ,namely the
illocutionary act that we mean.
 Let us now take an example and try to distinguish between the three types of acts:
 Example: “Shoot her.”
 It can have the illocutionary force of ordering, urging, advising the hearer to ‘shoot
her’.
 Its perlocutionary effect can be to persuade, to force or to frighten the addressee
into shooting her.
 ‘I promise to come.’
 It has the illocutionary force of promising but the perlocutionary effect of pleasing.
 There are five basic types of actions that one can perform while speaking, by
means of the following five kinds of utterance:
 In Other words…
 Assertives (representatives) commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed
proposition(e.g.: asserting, concluding)
 2-Directives are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something
(e.g.: requesting, questioning)
 3-Commissives commit the speaker to some future course of action (e.g.:
promising, threatening, offering)
 4-Expressives express a psychological state (e.g.: thanking, apologising,
welcoming, congratulating)
 5-Declarations effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and
which tend to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions (e.g.:
excommunicating, declaring war, christening, firing from employment)
 The Conversational Principle (Grice, 1975)

 Imagine John and Peter talking about their friend William who works at a bank. John asks Peter how William
is getting on in his job and Peter answers:

 -Oh quite well, I think, he likes his colleagues, and he hasn’t been to prison yet.
 -John might well think about what Peter implied by saying that William ‘hasn’t been to prison yet’.

 From the context it is clear that Peter implied something of the sort that William is the sort of person who may
be tempted by stealing money, or that his colleagues are wicked and treacherous people who may play a trick
on him and send him to prison.

 We have ended up now by having one example but two different meanings: the one which is said and the one
which is implied:
 -he hasn’t been to prison yet. (said)
 -kind of dishonest person. (implied)

 It is necessary to introduce at this stage the verb implicate and the related noun implicature.
Conversational Implicature
 Conversational implicature is a form of indirect speech: the speaker may mean more than they actually
say.
 It’s the act of suggesting that you feel or think something is true, without saying so directly.

 Implicatures can be determined by sentence meaning or by conversational context, and can be

conventional (in different senses) or unconventional. Figures of speech such as metaphor and irony
provide familiar examples, as do loose use and damning with faint praise.

 Conversational implicature is the phenomenon whereby a speaker says one thing and thereby conveys
(typically, in addition) something else.

 For example, in (1) below, Harold says that Sally should bring her umbrella, but further conveys
that (he believes that) it is likely to rain.
 Our discussions are not disconnected pieces of language. They are, rather, talk exchanges that have a purpose or a goal which
makes them cooperative.

 While talking, therefore, speakers make cooperative efforts to achieve their communicative goals.
 This means that some possible conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable, e.g.: How is John? I
live in London.

 We have now reached a stage where we can say that participants in a talk exchange do their best to cooperate in their talk
exchange by observing the Conversational Principle (CP).

 Let us now consider the following example to have a more concrete idea about implicatures:

 A: Can you tell me the time?

 B: Well, the milkman has just come.

 What can a semantic theory tell us about how to understand this exchange?
 All it can do is to tell us that there is a reading that can be paraphrased as follows:

 A: Do you have the ability to tell me the time? (said)

 B: [pragmatically interpreted particle] the milkman came at some time prior to the time of speaking. (said)
 Here is now how native speakers would understand this exchange:

 A: Do you have the ability to tell me the time of the present moment, as standardly on
a watch, and if so please do so tell me. (conveyed)
 B: No, I don’t know the exact time of the present moment, but I can provide some
information from which you may be able deduce the approximate time, namely the
milkman has come. (conveyed)

 It is thanks to implicature that we can understand how it is possible to mean more

than what one actually says, in other words, more than what is literally conveyed by
the conventional sense of the utterance.
 In other words, the notion of implicature bridges the gap between the literal
meaning (what is said) and the conveyed meaning (what is implicated).

 We should make it clear at this point that an utterance may have more than one
inference.
 The question is: are we going to consider all these inferences implicatures?
 The answer is no, only the intended inferences can be considered implicatures.

 When we talk about implicature, we presuppose intention.(Because of this

reason when indirect speech acts are produced with intention they are said to be
implicatures).
 We have now reached a point where we can say that participants in a conversation do their best to
co-operate in their talk exchange by observing The Conversational Principle (CP). The CP in which
Grice (1975) develops the concept of implicature, is a theory in which he explains how people use
language.

 -The Conversational Principle:
 Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs,
by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

 -Quantity:
 1-Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the
exchange).
 2-Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.



 -Quality: ‘Try to make your contribution one that is true’.
 1-Do not say what you believe to be false.
 2-Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

 -Relevance:
 1-Be relevant

 -Manner: ‘Be perspicuous’ (clear, easily understood)

 1-Avoid obscurity of expression
 2-Avoid ambiguity
 3-Be brief(avoid unnecessary prolixity)
 4-Be orderly
 Grice observes that the use of language is governed by some assumptions
which are guidelines for the efficient and effective use of language in
conversation to further co-operative ends. He identifies as guidelines for the
efficient and effective use of language four sub-principles that he calls
maxims of conversation
 -What these maxims are, then, used for?
 In other words, why are they used or what is their importance?
 In short, these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to
converse in a maximally efficient, rational, co-operative way: they should
speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while providing sufficient data.
 -But do speakers really stick to these maxims while conversing
or communicating?
 Obeying or not obeying these maxims depends on the context
(lectures vs. discussions with in-groups) and on the addressee
(dean vs. intimate friends).
 -For investigators, people do not all the time communicate
obeying these maxims. It seems that we need to have a utopic
world to have people communicating in such a way.
 Grice, however, does not share this opinion and believes that though speakers do not
obey these maxims at a surface level, they do obey them at a deep level. E.g.:
 A: Haven’t you seen John?
 B: The light is still on in his office.
 -Literally speaking B’s reply does not answer A’s question and hence violates
Relevance. We, therefore, can interpret B’s answer as a lack of co-operation or as a non
co-operative response.
 -B’s answer is co-operative at a deeper level and we should rather say that B was
extremely co-operative. If his answer were ‘I don’t know’ while he knows where John is
, in that case we can say that B is not co-operative.
 -Let us now interpret B’s response:
 I haven’t seen him but I saw the light on in his office and, therefore, believe, that he
might still be there though I’m not so sure.
 Another example:
 A: Where’s Bill?
 B: There’s a white Volkswagen outside Sue’s house.

 In such cases hearers make inferences to reach the implicated

meaning or the implicature or the conversational implicature.

 Grice believes, therefore, that though speakers do not adhere to these

maxims at a superficial level, they do adhere to them at a deeper
level.
 Reminder:
 The violation of maxims generates inferences.

 These inferences are beyond the semantic or literal meaning of the utterance.
 These inferences can be worked out only by finding the non literal meaning of the utterance.
 The question which imposes itself now is the following: How is it possible for speakers to produce inferences?

 1-A speaker can observe a maxim yet generate an inference e.g.:


 A: John doesn’t seem to have a girl friend these days.
 B: He has been paying a lot of visits to New York lately.

 In this exchange the unstated connection between A’s and B’s remarks is so obvious that we cannot say that the
maxim of relevance has been infringed or violated. The implicature or inference in this example is that John has
or may have a girl friend in New York. Grice calls the implicatures which are generated by observing the
maxims Standard Implicatures.
 2-A second way to generate implicatures is by flouting or exploiting maxims,
e.g.:

 Dear Sir,
 Mr. X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance
 at tutorials has been regular. (Quantity and Relevance flouted)

 The writer of this letter is not opting out. He had the choice not to write at all.
 Since he is X’s teacher, then he knows more than he has written about X. He also
knows that more information about X is wanted.
 We may wonder now why he has preferred to write the example above instead of
not writing at all.
 He must, therefore, be wishing to impart information that he is reluctant to write in a
reference letter. He is, therefore, dropping an implicature, which is that X is not good at
his subject.
 A: Let’s get the kids something.
 B: Okay, but I veto I C E C R E A M S (Manner flouted)
 By spelling out the words ‘ice creams’ the speaker exploits/flouts the manner maxim and,
as a consequence, generates the implicature that he prefers not to mention the words ‘ice
creams’ in the presence of children for fear they ask for some.
 According to an Islamic proverb, each word we utter should have to pass through three
gates before we say it. At the first gate, the gatekeeper asks, “Is it true?” (Quality) At the
second gate, he asks, “Is it necessary?” (Manner) and at the third gate, “Is it kind?”
(Idiomaticity)