Application of Conversational Implications in English Audiovisual Course.doc

Application of Conversational Implications in English Audio-visual Course1. IntroductionNowadays, it is gradually emphasized that we should foster English major students with integrated skills. As a result, considerable attention has been devoted to English audio-visual course. However, the teaching effect of this course has been unsatisfactory, which has led to a central question in research about how to improve students listening comprehension by watching English movies. In the past twenty years, this question has been the focus of many studies, for example, Yan Canxun (2005: 56) proposes a teaching method that oral English practice substitutes for listening training in listening classes while students learn autonomously after class; while Guo Suihong (2004: 45) advocates teaching rather than testing, paying more attention to authentic input and basing on the learner-centered approach, so that students listening comprehension can be developed; and recently, Lu Guojun and Wu Xingdong (2007: 25) focus on the structure inferences and the role of discourse intonation in listening, and try to improve the students listening comprehension by reading and intonation training.The researches above are meaningful in some ways, but one thing they often ignore is the importance of comprehension. According to Keith Johnson (2002: 254), there are strange phenomena in text comprehension. Sometimes it is possible to understand every word of a text and still not know what it is about, and sometimes it is possible to understand a message even when there is no evidence for your interpretation of the actual words on the pages. That is just the case in English audio-visual course. No matter how good ones listening skill may be, he can never make thorough and authentic comprehension if he just stops at the literal meaning. This paper makes an attempt to use the conversational implicature, proposed by Paul Grice, to analyze the conversations in English movies, and get the real and correct understanding of these seemingly strange conversations. For example:(1) Doctor: I need to give you an anesthesia.Teddy: Do I look really that stupid?Doctor: I cannot do an operation like this without an anesthesia. (From Prison Break)Judging the conversation above from its literal meaning, Teddys answer did not show any sign of rejection or acceptance of an anesthesia. It seems that he made his reply totally unrelated to the doctors words. But if we make a little analysis of it, it is very easy for us to understand that he actually refused the doctor. His way of answering is an indirect way of refusal with much stronger force.How does the reply of Teddy mean “I know that you want to make me unconscious by giving me an anesthesia. And youd better stop your plan because Im not a fool.”? And how does the doctor understand, through the literal meaning, what Teddy indicates? The conversational implicature theory can give us convincing explanations. The above conversations frequently appear in English movies. If teachers do not employ the theory to explain them, students may often fail to understand them.2. Cooperative Principle and conversational implications2.1 Cooperative PrincipleIt is known that quite often a speaker can mean a lot more than what is said. The problem is to explain how the speaker can manage to convey more than what is said and how the hearer can arrive at the speakers meaning. Grice (1975: 45) believes that there must be some mechanisms governing the production and comprehension of these utterances. He suggests that there is a set of assumptions guiding the conduct of conversation. This is what he calls the Cooperative Principle. He formulates the principle and its maxims as follows:Make your conversational contribution as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the exchange in which you are engaged. (Yule, 2000: 145)To specify the Cooperative Principle further, Grice introduced four categories of maxims as follows:The maxim of quantity:1. Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current purpose of the exchange).2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.The maxim of quality:1. Do not say what you believe to be false.2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.The maxim of relation:Be relevant.The maxim of manner:1. Avoid obscurity of expression.2. Avoid ambiguity.3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).4. Be orderly. To put it very simply, the CP means that we should say what is true in a clear and relevant manner. It is important to take these maxims as unstated assumptions we have in conversations. We assume that people are normally going to provide an appropriate amount of information, and that they are telling the truth, being relevant, and trying to be as clear as they can. Speakers rarely mention these principles simply because they are assumed tacitly in verbal interactions (刘润清、文旭，2006：154).2.2 Conversational implicationsConversational implications, to put it simply, refer to a kind of extra meaning that is not literally contained in the utterance. It is a meaning different from the “meaning” in semantics. The “meaning” in semantics is the literal meaning of a word or a sentence. For example, “Have you read todays newspaper?” just means that the speaker wants to know whether the listener has read the newspaper or not. The “meaning” in pragmatics is totally different, focusing on the meaning in a certain context. So the sentence above can mean “Please pass the newspaper to me since you have read it.”. The “meaning” in semantics and the “meaning” in pragmatics can be the same, and can also be different. When they are different, conversational implications are made (申小龙，2003：177).How does the speaker convey his implied meaning when he is speaking? And how does the hearer make the right understanding, through the literal meaning, of what the speaker indicates?Grices basic idea is that in communication, speakers aim to follow the CP and its maxims, and that hearers interpret utterances with these maxims in mind. According to Grice, utterance interpretation is not a matter of decoding messages, but rather involves (i) taking the meaning of the sentences together with contextual information, (ii) using reference rules, and (iii) working out what the speaker means on the basis of the assumption that the utterance conforms to the maxims. The main advantages of this approach from Grices point of view is that it provides a pragmatic explanation for a wide range of phenomena, especially for conversational implicationa kind of extra meaning that is not literally contained in the utterance (胡壮麟，2001:205).The conversational implications can be concluded by examining which maxim of the Cooperative Principle the speakers had violated. Take this following conversation for example:(2) A: Where does C live?B: Somewhere in the South of France.This violation can be explained by the adherence to the maxim of quality: Speaker B cannot truthfully provide more information. Alternatively, in some contexts, it can be explained as carrying an implication that the speaker does not, for some reason or other, want to reveal Cs precise location. If the maxims are fouled, the hearer infers that the speaker must have meant something else, that is, the speaker must have some special reason for having not observed the maxims.3. Application of conversational implications in English audio-visual courseIn order to improve students listening comprehension, we have both listening course and English Audio-visual course in our university for the first two years. In English Audio-visual course, we mainly watched some famous English movies and sitcoms and were sometimes required to write down actors lines. When doing this, we students were frequently confused with some seemingly strange conversations. Why, for example, does the protagonist say something that is unrelated to their topic? Why must the heroine make her speech so long and so ambiguous? All these made our comprehension impossible and consequently, the actors line impossible to be written down. But actually, all these can be explained by conversational implicature theory. Lets take the commonest movies used in this course, Prison Break and Forrest Gump for example, and see how the conversational implicature can be applied in English audio-visual course.3.1 Violation of the maxim of quantity and its implicationsThe maxim of quantity prescribes the quantity of information transmitted when we are talking. It says that we should make our contribution as informative as is required, and should not make our contribution more informative than is required. To put it in brief, we should talk no more and no less. But its violations are frequently found in English movies. Let us first take a look at an example.(3) Principle: Forrest is right here. The state requires a minimum I.Q. of eighty to attend public school, Mrs. Gump. He's gonna have to go to a special school. Now, he'll be just fine.Mrs. Gump: What does normal mean, anyway? He might be a bit on the slow side, but my boy Forrest is going to get the same opportunities as everyone else. He's not going to some special school to learn to how to re-tread tires. We're talking about five little points here. There must be something that can be done.Principle: We're a progressive school system. We don't want to see anybody left behind. Is there a Mr. Gump, Mrs. Gump?Mrs. Gump: He's on vacation. (From Forrest Gump)The principle and Mrs. Gump are talking about whether Forrest, with such a low I. Q., can attend public school or not. Normally, saying “Were a progressive school system. We dont want to see anybody left behind.” is enough for the principle to express his opinion, but he adds “Is there a Mr. Gump, Mrs. Gump?”. He has deliberately given more information than required and has violated the maxim of quantity, which can be taken as having other motives than the utterance suggests. The conversational implication here is that he wants to take advantage of Mrs. Gump since she is so eager to let Forrest study there and has no other choice. This violation of maxim of quantity is noticed by Mrs. Gump and she infers his motive. So she makes a reply “Hes on vacation.”. If we go on seeing the movie we can see that the evil motive of the principle is verified by his visiting Forrests house. Here is another different example from Prison Break:(4) Abruzzi: When were you planning on telling us about the money, man?Scofield: What money? Abruzzi: $5 million that Westmoreland planted in the desert in Utah.Scofield: Don't know what you're talking about.Abruzzi: You wish I didn't know.The answer of Scofield is, obviously, too simple. It does not convey the information wanted by Abruzzi. This violates the maxim of quantity, and it can be inferred that Scofield does not want to reveal any detail about the money. By saying “I dont know what youre talking about.” he means “This is none of your business. I dont want you to know.”.If we have some background knowledge of Prison Break, we know that the relationship between Abruzzi and Scofield is not so close, and that Scofield wants to get the huge amount of money secretly. As a result, any detail about the money cannot be revealed. So the violation of the maxim of quantity is necessary in that situation.3.2 Violation of the maxim of quality and its implicationsThe maxim of quality prescribes the authenticity of our speech. That is to say, we cannot say what we believe to be false. Nor can we say that for which we lack adequate evidence. Though it is normally required to be that way, we still find violation of the maxim. Lets look at an example from Forrest Gump:(5) Jenny: Hey, Forrest, look at me. Look at me, Forrest. There's nothing you need to do, okay? You didn't do anything wrong. Ok? Isn't he beautiful?Forrest: He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But. is, is he smart, or is he.Jenny: He's very smart. He's one of the smartest in his class.The reply of Forrest, “Hes the most beautiful thing Ive ever seen.”, at the level of what is said, is a false statement. Little Forrest could not be the most beautiful boy Forrest has ever seen. So Forrest is telling a lie. But why does he tell a lie? Why does not Jenny get angry, but instead, feel so happy after hearing this obvious lie? Because by violating the maxim of quality, Forrest expresses his love for little Forrest as well as for Jenny. His implied meaning is “He is the most beautiful boy in my heart.”. And Jenny has also comprehended his implicature, and has felt his love. By using this exaggerated expression “the most beautiful”, the love among them can be expressed. And the exaggerated way of conversation is most commonly used by people in love.Just as Grice has pointed out, conversations expressed by rhetoric devices such as irony, metaphor, hyperbole, meiosis and rhetorical question often violate the maxim of quality (Grice, 1975:53). The following is a different example from Forrest Gump.(6) LJ: You heard from Veronica today? She didnt show up, and only get me some court pointed stupid lawyers.Lincoln: No, I havent heard from her.LJ does not know what happened to Veronica. He is surprised at her absence, so when talking with his father through the telephone he asks that question. Lincoln has actually heard from her, and knows exactly what has happened to her. But he could not simply tell LJ the truth that Veronica has been killed by their enemy. If he did so, little LJ would be greatly frightened. What is more, the whole thing cannot be clearly explained to LJ by talking through the phone. So he chooses to violate the maxim of quality, to tell a well-meaning lie and conceal the fact. But the hearer, LJ, still assumes that he is observing the CP, and believes him. In daily conversations, such examples of well-meaning lie can be found frequently.3.3 Violation of the maxim of relation and its implicationsThe maxim of relation prescribes that our speech should be relevant to the topic, and that we should not talk about something that is not to the point. The following is an example violating this maxim.(7) Doctor: Im sorry, sir, II dont think I can do this. There are nerves. Look, you need a specialist, okay? You need somebody who knows what theyre doing.Teddy: I dont have the luxury of choice here, Doctor. My hand has been in that box for hours now, it is dying.Doctor: Sir, I am not capable of doing this.Teddy: I only have one hand, but I can stick this into your neck before you get to that door. Now if thats not incentive enough for you, I see that you have a Mrs. Gudat out there. With a name like that in a county like this, old M