Volume 6, Issue 3

Among the criteria Grice (Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, 1989: 39–40) proposed for identifying conversational implicatures, cancelability is unquestionably the most celebrated one and the one that is often used as the main, obvious test for classifying speaker's meaning as implicit. Problems with fitting some rather obstinate examples under the requirement of cancelability have led some critics to proposing amendments to Grice's original formulation of the test (Weiner, Analysis 66: 127–130, 2006; Blome-Tillmann, Analysis 68: 156–160, 2008). The purpose of my contribution to the debate is twofold. First, to demonstrate that, in spite of the recent criticism, Grice's cancelability test remains a reliable and effective criterion. The second objective is to employ the test for the discussion and delimitation of the primary and secondary meanings vis-à-vis the what is said/implicated distinction. The test is implemented in the current paradigm of contextualism, including its arguably most radical variety of Default Semantics which models the main, most salient meaning (called here the primary meaning) as intended by the model speaker and recovered by the model addressee (Jaszczolt, Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication, Oxford University Press, 2005, Representing Time: An Essay on Temporality as Modality, Oxford University Press, 2009, Semantics and pragmatics: The boundary issue, forthcoming a). On such a construal, cancelability is assessed separately for the domains of primary and secondary meanings, as well as for what is said and what is implicated. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 1 introduces Grice's criterion of cancelability. Section 2 critically assesses a suggestion proposed recently in the literature that the criterion is defunct, discusses an attempt to save the criterion, and concludes that it is not in need of any amendment, albeit its original formulation by Grice easily yields to misinterpretation. Section 3 adopts the “saved” criterion and applies it to the explicit/implicit distinction. Section 4 follows suit by taking up the issue of cancelation and processing, discussing the question of the stage in the incremental processing at which cancelation occurs. Section 5 is the core part of the paper. It builds on the discussions from the preceding two sections and focuses on cancelability vis-à-vis the primary meaning/secondary meaning distinction, where the distinction is construed as orthogonal to that between the explicit and the implicit content—in agreement with the assumptions of Default Semantics and the requirement of modeling salient, intentional meanings as primary meanings independently of their relation to the structure of the uttered sentence. The conclusions of the paper are then twofold: firstly, they concern the defense of Grice's criterion of cancelability, and secondly, the defense of the distinction between primary and secondary meanings which cuts across that between the explicit and the implicit. The role of the criterion in these two distinctions is assessed.

The growth of English as an instrument of international communication (EIL) has put it in the unprecedented position of having more non-native than native speakers. This has incurred changes in EIL form and usage profound enough for some scientists to proclaim it a specific variety in its own right that needs to be thoroughly described and codified for the purposes of establishing internationally accepted standards of use. The paper argues that EIL (English as an International Language) codification and standardization, though important for some domains of use, could not account for the full complexity of cross-cultural communication. Used by a highly diverse community of bilingual/multilingual speakers seeking to satisfy their ever-shifting communicative needs and promote their identities across cultural boundaries, EIL is largely constructed in the process of communication. Considering it an auxiliary language, EIL speakers have no express purpose of developing their own norms of speaking. What they seek instead is a fair level of mutual understanding despite culturally set constraints on shared knowledge, and smooth and harmonious relations between conversational partners. Against this backdrop, self-directed strategic behaviour emerges as an equally, and in less formal contexts even more important EIL feature than codification and standardization.

This study aims to examine other-repair in Chinese conversation, focusing on Web-based academic discussion. The data collected were based on naturally occurring written interaction on Web-based discussion boards in teacher education courses offered by the Open University of Hong Kong. From the 1,525 postings by the participants, 351 repair cases were identified for studying how repair is managed and organized. There were 128 (36.5%) cases of self-repair and 223 (63.5%) of other-repair—an outcome which differs from Schegloff et al.'s (Language 53: 351–382, 1977) conclusion that there is a preference for self-repair, and Levinson's (Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press, 1983) argument that other-repair is a “rare event,” but is in line with some previous findings on Chinese oral conversation. The motivations behind the more frequent use of other-repair in this study are explored by focusing on (a) two aspects which may be interpreted differently in Chinese conversation compared with English conversation—the cultural notions of “face” and “not-yet-competent”—and (b) the availability of “opportunity” for, and the operation of “withholding”, in the turn-taking system for repair. It is argued that, due to cultural factors, Chinese tend to do other-repair in this setting either for seeking knowledge or cooperating with the speaker of the trouble source to continue the conversation. Other-repair may constitute a positive contribution rather than being damaging to face; and when “others” have the competence for repair, they tend to initiate and accomplish it immediately. The opportunity for others to initiate repair is used not only to afford trouble speakers a further chance for self-repair but also for other-repair.

This paper explores a specific dimension of intercultural interaction by examining how leadership is enacted specifically through talk by two Māori male managers in New Zealand professional organizations. Any effective leader must be able to provide strong direction to his or her team, as well as having well-developed relational skills, and examples are provided to show how each leader achieves these facets of leadership in a very specific intercultural context. Both leaders work in organizations within a society with predominantly western (Pākehā) values, but which are nevertheless committed to promoting Māori values and furthering Māori goals; ethnicity is thus an important and omni-relevant aspect of interaction in these workplaces. Their Māori values and identity are salient features of the managers' interactions, and integral to their leadership styles and the way they each enact their roles as leaders. Māori concepts such as tikanga (customs), kawa (protocols) and whakaiti (humility), along with the importance given to family and looking after people in Māori culture, are evident. Although some of these values are shared by Pākehā, the analysis highlights areas which contrast with the way Pākehā managers lead in majority group organizational contexts.

This paper proposes that mutual understanding is a procedural achievement in intercultural interaction. Drawing on SLA and LSI studies, this paper examines the specific procedures in which understanding troubles are displayed and managed in a number of dyadic interactions between international teaching assistants and American college students in office hours. The close analyses of these interactions revealed that understanding troubles might occur in the forms of non-understanding, misunderstanding, and understanding with uncertainty, and that mutual understanding could be procedurally achieved in the give and take of communication. The findings here suggest that interactional skills should be included as an integral part of intercultural competence in the study of pragmatics.

Through migration, travel, globalization, and new technologies, languages and their address systems are increasingly in contact. Modes of address are both fundamental to expressing human relations and closely linked to cultural value systems. In European languages these modes may include a pronoun, first name [FN], honorific and/or title + last name [LN] (Herr or Herr Professor Kecskés), or other formal mode (sir/madam) or informal mode (mate, dear). They enable people to include and exclude and to express common ground and degrees of social distance. However, the interaction of languages and cultures presents both opportunities and challenges. I will first introduce an address model arrived at through a large-scale study of variation and change in address in four European languages. Participants' reports on the effects of language contact on address will be included. I will then discuss some email in intercultural professional contexts focusing on switches between address modes. The theoretical model for this paper derives from a project on variation and change in address and perceptions and expectations of address patterns. The research locations were Paris, Toulouse, Mannheim (in western Germany), Leipzig (in eastern Germany), Vienna (for Austria), Stockholm (for Sweden), and Vaasa (for the Swedish minority in Finland; Swedish being one of the official languages). The data is from focus groups, interviews, chat groups, and participant observation on address in French, German, and Swedish, taking into account national varieties. For comparison, focus groups were also conducted in three English-speaking locations in Europe, London, Newcastle (in the north-east of England), and Tralee (in the south-west of Ireland, where there are a considerable number of Irish-English bilinguals). I have been conducting the study together with colleagues at the University of Melbourne, Leo Kretzenbacher, Catrin Norrby, and Jane Warren (Clyne, Kretzenbacher, Norrby and Schüpbach, Journal of Sociolinguistics 3: 287–319, 2006, Kretzenbacher, Clyne and Schüpbach, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 29: 2006, Norrby, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 29: 2006, Warren, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 29: 2006, Clyne, Norrby and Warren, Language and human relations: styles of address in contemporary language, Cambridge University Press, 2009). The email is from communication with a range of professional interlocutors (writing in English, German or Dutch) from first encounter in intercultural contexts. Strings of email indicate what progression (if any) occurs in the decrease of social distance through modes of address.