2. Background
In this section there will be a general presentation of pragmatics in section 2.1. Another important aspect of the study is implicature which will be presented in section 2.2. Grice’s cooperative principle and the four conversational maxims will be presented in sections 2.3—2.4.
Relevance theory and neo-Gricean theory will be presented in section 2.5. A previous study of where the use of flouting has been studied during dinner conversations will be presented in section 2.6.
2.1 Pragmatics
What pragmatics is about can summed up in two phases: meaning in use and meaning in context. There are two different scholarly camps that divide up the field of pragmatics depending on whether the focus is on speaker meaning or utterance interpretation (Thomas 1995:1). The term speaker meaning is often used by scholars who study social factors in the field, i.e the focus is on the producers of the utterances and the different levels of meaning in their utterances. The second term, utterance interpretation, is often used among scholars who study the cognitive processes by which the receivers of the utterances interpret the meaning of the utterances (Thomas 1995:2).
There are three different levels of meaning within the field of pragmatics. The first level of meaning is called abstract meaning. Abstract meaning deals with the interpretation of words, phrases and sentences, to see what they could mean. The aim is to see what different meanings can lie within one word, one phrase or one sentence (Thomas 1995:2-3).
The second level of meaning is called utterance meaning. Utterance meaning looks at what 3 is intended by the person who is making an utterance, due to the context in which the sentence is said. Cruse (2000:26) gives an example of utterance meaning (2):
(2) A: Am I in time for supper?
B: I've cleared the table.
In this example the speaker is implying more than what is said, due to the context, i.e., the sentence I've cleared the table actually means that A is too late for supper. This is what utterance meaning is, the understanding of an utterance due to its context (Cruse 2000:27).
The third and final level of meaning is called force. Force is the communicative intention of a speaker, i.e., what the speaker intends to say. An example of force can be illustrated with the utterance “Is that your car?” (Thomas 1995:18), where the interlocutor understands the utterance meaning of the sentence, i.e. that the car belongs to the person being asked. However, the fact that the interlocutor understands the utterance meaning does not mean he understands the force behind the utterance. With that utterance the speaker could mean several things, such as asking for a lift, asking the interlocutor to move the car if he is blocking the driveway, or he could be expressing admiration of the car’s appearance.
These are examples of what the speaker could be intending with the same utterance (Thomas 1995:18) and that is force.