Conversational implicature a pragmatic application to the teaching of listening of listening comprehension section in toeic courses m a 60 14 10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES  CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE A PRAGMATIC APPLICATION TO THE TEACHING OF LISTENING COMPREH

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES



CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

A PRAGMATIC APPLICATION TO THE TEACHING OF

LISTENING COMPREHENSION SECTION

IN TOEIC COURSES

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (TESOL)

SUPERVISOR

ĐOÀN HUỆ DUNG, Ph.D

SUBMITTED BY TRẦN LÊ VIẾT CHUNG

HO CHI MINH CITY 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES



CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

A PRAGMATIC APPLICATION TO THE TEACHING

OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION SECTION

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)

Supervisor

ĐOÀN HUỆ DUNG, Ph.D

Submitted by

TRẦN LÊ VIẾT CHUNG

HO CHI MINH CITY, March 2010

i

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

A PRAGMATIC APPLICATION TO THE TEACHING OF

LISTENING COMPREHENSION SECTION

IN TOEIC ® COURSES

in terms of the Statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Department of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City, March 14, 2010

TRẦN LÊ VIẾT CHUNG

ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Trần Lê Viết Chung, being candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited

in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan, and reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, March 14, 2010

TRẦN LÊ VIẾT CHUNG

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would have been hardly made possible without the help support, and incentive of a large number of people who now deserve my heartfelt thanks

I would first like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Doan Hue Dung, Ph.D., for her enthusiastic encouragement, valuable comments and support in the preparation and completion of this thesis, asserting her indispensable role as a whole-hearted thesis supervisor

I am greatly indebted to the organizers of the Master course, the Department

of English Linguistics and Literature, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, and their staff members My special thanks must

go to all my instructors for their enthusiasm and helpful instructions during the 2006-2009 course

I wish to thank all the members in my thesis defense committee, who were enthusiastic to read this thesis

I would like acknowledge and express my appreciation for the assistance of the authorities at Nong Lam CFS, who have created good conditions so that

I am able to carry out the experimental teaching successfully

I am also indebted to the teachers and students at Nong Lam CFS for their assistance in collecting the data for this study

My sincere thanks go to Mr Truong Hon Huy, Ph.D for his valuable opinions for the research project, without which I would hardly have been able to overcome difficulties to pursue my studies up to now

Finally, thanks are also due to my family and my good friends whose love, understanding and support were a constant source of encouragement and confidence to me

in teaching listening comprehension The results of the study have indicated that (1) both the teachers and students have positive attitudes towards the teaching of conversational implicatures, (2) and (3)

Ho Chi Minh City First Language Second Language

University of Social Sciences and Humanities

Questionnaire for students before experimental teaching Questionnaire for students after experimental teaching Questionnaire for teachers

vi

LIST OF CHARTS 3.1 Time Distribution of Language Skills in reality (Wilt, 1950) 26

3.2 Time Distribution of Language Skills in training years (Wilt,

4.1 Learners’ habitual options for Question-Response test items 66

4.3(a) Learners’ assessment of the influence of linguistic factors (in

a broader sense) (before experimental teaching) ……… 72

4.3(b) Learners’ assessment of the influence of linguistic factors (in

a broader sense) (after experimental teaching) ……… 73

4.4(a) Learners’ assessment of the influence of linguistic factors (in

a narrower sense) (before experimental teaching) ………… 74

4.4(b) Learners’ assessment of the influence of linguistic factors (in

a narrower sense) (after experimental teaching) ……… 75

4.5 Learners’ awareness of the importance of CP and CI theory 76

4.6(a) Learners’ evaluation of the applicability of the Maxim of

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LIST OF TABLES

3.1 Characteristics of the first group of subjects (learners) …… 39

3.2 Characteristics of the second group of subjects (teachers) … 40

3.3 Schedule for incorporating the theory of Cooperative

Principle into the experimental teaching ………

comprehension vs Teachers’ opinion about the

effectiveness of the strategies ………

69

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Table of Contents

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF CHARTS vi

LIST OF TABLES viii

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 The rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 4

1.3 Scope of the research 4

1.4 Background to the study 5

1.4.1 About the Nong Lam University Center for Foreign Studies 5

1.4.2 Listening Comprehension Section in the TOEIC® test format 6

1.5 Scientific and Practical Significance 6

1.6 Overview of the research 8

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 9

2.1 Definitions of terms related to the Research 9

2.1.1 Inference 9

2.1.2 Cooperative Principle 9

2.1.3 Implicature 11

2.2 Development of the theory by Grice and post-Gricean linguists 12

2.2.1 What is a ‘Standard Implicature’? 13

2.2.2 What is a ‘Flouting Implicature’? 14

2.2.3 Conversational Implicatures in view of conversational maxims 14

2.2.4 Four steps to discover Conversational Implicature 18

2.3 The nature of listening comprehension 20

2.3.1 Definitions 20

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2.3.2 The process of listening 22

2.3.3 Schema 23

2.3.4 The significance of listening in L2 learning 25

2.3.5 Characteristics of effective teaching of listening classes 26

2.4 Related researches on the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature theory 28

2.4.1 Why pragmatic knowledge should be incorporated? 28

2.4.2 Effective approach to the successful discovery of the contextual meaning of Conversational Implicatures 30

2.4.3 Interpretation of Implicature in English: Does it come automatically without being explicitly taught? 31

2.5 Summary 33

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 35

3.1 Research questions 35

3.2 Research design 36

3.3 The characteristics of the subjects 37

3.3.1 The first group of subjects 37

3.3.2 The second group of subjects 38

3.4 Instruments 39

3.4.1 Description of the questionnaires 39

3.4.2 Observation 42

3.4.3 Discussions with colleagues 43

3.5 Data collection procedure 43

3.6 Assumptions 44

3.7 Teaching settings 44

3.8 Experimental teaching outline 45

3.9 Model analysis of test items 46

3.9.1 Analysis of test items employing the maxim of Quality 47

3.9.2 Analysis of test items employing the maxim of Quantity 50

3.9.3 Analysis of test items employing the maxim of Relevance 53

3.9.4 Analysis of test items employing the maxim of Manner 56

3.9.5 Analysis of test items employing the Scalar Implicature 58

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Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 61

4.1 Data analysis 61

4.1.1 The importance of listening comprehension 62

4.1.2 The learners’ daily practice listening and their self-assessment of listening ability .62

4.1.3 Learners’ habits of choosing answers for test items in Question-Response part 63

4.1.4 Learners’ practice to improve their listening comprehension ability 65

4.1.5 Learners’ practice to improve their listening comprehension ability 66

4.1.6 Learners’ self-assessment of their listening comprehension ability 69

4.1.7 Learners’ evaluation of the Conversational Maxim of Quantity (after the experimental teaching) 74

4.1.8 Learners’ evaluation of the Conversational Maxim of Quality (after the experimental teaching) 75

4.1.9 Learners’ evaluation of the Conversational Maxim of Relation (after the experimental teaching) 76

4.1.10 Learners’ evaluation of the Conversational Maxim of Manner (after the experimental teaching) 77

4.1.11 Learners’ evaluation of the Conversational Maxims (after the experimental teaching) 78

4.1.12 The learners’ results of the mini-test on the Cooperation Principle and Conversational Implicature theory (after the experimental teaching) 80

4.2 Discussion of the findings 81

4.2.1 The importance of the pragmatic theory of Cooperative Principle 81

4.2.2 Incorporation of the pragmatic theory of Cooperative Principle into the teaching syllabus 82

Chapter 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 84

5.1 Conclusion 84

5.2 Implications 85

5.2.1 Preliminary recommendation for teachers 86

5.2.2 To what extent should the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature theory be realized? 87

5.2.3 How to teach the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature? 87

5.2.4 Encouraging the independence and confidence of learners 88

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5.3 Recommendation for further research 89

BIBLIOGRAPHY 91

APPENDIX 1 98

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 102

APPENDIX 2 106

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 112

APPENDIX 3 119

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS 122

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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

This study looks into the ways to deal with TOEIC® listening comprehension of students of English at the Center for Foreign Studies, Nong Lam University (Nong Lam CFS) in Thu Duc district, Ho Chi Minh City and how to improve their listening test performance by incorporating certain features of the

Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature theory in the teaching

process Then, the thesis, based on the findings, will come up with feasible solutions to enhance students’ listening comprehension in the target language

This chapter first presents the rationale, followed by the aim of the study, then the background to the study as well as the context of teaching TOEIC®listening comprehension as the premise for the thesis The final part is the overview of the thesis

1.1 The rationale of the study

Katsiavriades and Qureshi (2009) states that “It [English] is the second most

spoken language in the world,” and “It is estimated that there are 300 million native speakers and 300 million who use English as a second language and a further 100 million use it as a foreign language It is the language of science, aviation, computing, diplomacy, and tourism It is listed as the official or co-official language of over 45 countries and is spoken extensively in other countries where it has no official status.”

In the context of economic, social and cultural reforms taken place in Vietnam during the last few recent decades, English has constantly been witnessed

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as the predominant foreign language The ‘open-door’ policy, launched in 1986, has ignited a series of changes which favorably cherished the learning and exploitation of English on a large scale in Vietnam A large number of English-speaking tourists and business people have arrived in Vietnam since then This situation has led to the emergence of English as the language for broader and cooperation

With Vietnam’s entry into the WTO and opening its markets to the outside world, the demand for English speaking proficiency among workers is rising In recent years, the communicative approach has become more and more widely used

in Vietnam’s English education and therefore, learners’ communicative competence has been stressed The recognized need for competence in listening in English students is increasing proportionately, so that listening teaching has recently attracted considerable attention

Despite the tendency of equating communication with speaking, few would deny that listening plays an important role in communication Doff (1998:98) states that, “We cannot develop speaking skills unless we also develop listening skills; to have a successful conversation, learners must understand what is said to them.” Newmark and Diller (1964) argue to consider the systematic development

of listening comprehension not only as a foundation for speaking, but also as a skill

in its own right Moreover, listening in almost any setting is the most frequently used language skill in everyday life The time we spend in listening far exceeds the time spent in the other skills, i.e reading, speaking, or writing In fact, researchers (Morley, 1991; or Rivers, 1981) estimate that we listen to twice as much as language as we speak, read four times as much as we read, and five times as much

as we write Communicators have to listen to other people speaking, and listen to themselves while talking and even implicitly while reading and writing The ability

to understand what others are saying (i.e listening) is undoubtedly essential to all

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kinds of interactions because “it provides input for the learner Without understanding input at the right level, learning cannot begin” (Nunan, 1999); therefore, it should be considered as one of the most fundamental language skills, rather than “the Cinderella skill” (in Nunan’s term)

As a rule, many learners of English often find themselves in a problematic situation of communication in which they find it hard to understand native speakers and vice versa

Moreover, most of L2 learners find listening comprehension very difficult to acquire or develop This can be explained by the previous researches on listening task difficulties (Brown and Yule, 1983; Anderson and Lynch, 1988), learners’ problems (Ur, 1999), and limitations to the current listening teaching As Bouton (1992) suggests, this major constraint could also originate from the learners’ incapability of conversational implicature interpretation due to the lack of formal instructions on pragmatic knowledge, for instance, the Cooperative Principle

After several years teaching listening comprehension to EFL students at Nong Lam CFS, the researcher of this study has realized that they are well aware

of the importance of Listening Comprehension section, yet they often fail to introduce a good end-of-course TOEIC® test performance Should the poor result

be explained by their ineptness in utilizing test tips, or something more than classroom technical tips are being required to deal with the issue? Obviously, there arises the role of teachers, those who should and can realize the objective of listening comprehension, which says that students should learn to function successfully in real-life listening situations

Hence, the presented situation motivated my current research into how to

incorporate Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature theory into a

listening comprehension class I strongly believe that these pragmatic theories, when firmly implanted in the students’ mind, will prove their effectiveness in the

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TOEIC® tests, where external sources of support such as dictionaries or classmates’ reference are not allowed

1.2 Aims of the study

First, the research aims at (1) clarifying crucial reasons for teachers to apply some parts, and all if there are favorable conditions, of the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature during their lectures for the sake of

their students

Second, (2) troubles in comprehending the conversations and their communicative purposes in part Question-Response of Listening Comprehension

section, are recognized here and there in TOEIC® classes

In light of pragmatic perspective, (3) some hints of “how more gets communicated than said” (Yule, 1996) are suggested to be applied in order that

students can benefit from a more effective listening comprehension class which has been incorporated with the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature theory

1.3 Scope of the research

The study mainly deals with the students in TOEIC® courses at Nong Lam CFS Therefore, the results of this study just aim to be applied in this setting, and thus, might not be generalized to all other circumstances

Due to the time limit, the study does not cover all aspects of the theory, but

just concentrates on the basic Cooperative Principle and Conversational

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Implicature theory, through which, as the researcher believes, students can

improve their listening comprehension abilities when taking the TOEIC® test

1.4 Background to the study

1.4.1 About the Nong Lam University Center for Foreign Studies

The Nong Lam University Center for Foreign Studies (NLU/ CFS) is a nationally accredited language institution, founded according to Decision No 331/QD dated March 14, 1990, and Decision No 884/QD dated May 2, 1992, by the Minister of Education and Training The NLU/ CFS is one of the premier English language centers in Ho Chi Minh City as well as the whole country (“About the Center for Foreign Studies.” nlucfs.edu.vn 28 October 2009

<http://nlucfs.edu.vn>)

The Center’s major functions include teaching foreign languages, mainly English, to adult learners, administering various international tests, organizing faculty and student exchange, promoting opportunities for cultural and linguistic exchange and teaching, developing international education programs, and finally conducting research on distance education, development education and language teaching and learning Serving a student population of 30,000 per year in Ho Chi Minh City and from two neighboring provinces

of Dong Nai and Binh Duong, besides the main campus inside the Nong Lam University campus, the CFS has established eight satellite annexes in Ho Chi Minh City and Bien Hoa City

Nong Lam CFS is currently adopting over 50 different textbooks for various academic programs These textbooks are either compiled by the CFS or carefully selected from different sources of textbooks by prestigious publishers such as Oxford, Cambridge, Longman, Prentice Hall, Heinemann, Barron’s, etc The

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textbook subjected to this study is Oxford Practice Tests for the TOEIC ® Test,

Oxford University Press 2000

1.4.2 Listening Comprehension Section in the TOEIC® test format

TOEIC® - the Test of English for International Communication was originally designed to test the English proficiency levels of people engaged in international business However, TOEIC® tests are considered suitable for

“improving overall English language skills.” (Arbogast et al., 2001)

A TOEIC® test is divided into two sections: Listening Comprehension and Reading Comprehension Each section contains 100 questions

Many EFL learners, even advanced ones, when asked, “What is the most difficult skill in learning English?”, have replied, “Listening.” And the subjects of this thesis, namely the learners at level BE 3A and BE 3B of Nong Lam CFS, are

no exception Most of them have reported of, more or less, certain difficulties dealing with Listening Comprehension section of TOEIC® tests, particularly the Question-Response test items; and often find it hard to improve their listening comprehension abilities

How should this issue be solved for the learners’ sake? This question has

urged the author to carry out a research titled Conversational Implicature - A Pragmatic Application to the Teaching of Listening Comprehension section in TOEIC ® courses

1.5 Scientific and Practical Significance

Vietnamese linguists are currently painstakingly treading a delicate path between adopting and refining the traditional Indo-European grammatical approach, and developing a more modern theory of Functional Grammar Van (2002:28) divides the path into three periods: programmatic, transitional and

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current period, which is noticeable for cornerstone researches by Cao Xuan Hao Hao (1991) canvasses a number of features of what he supposes Vietnamese linguists should follow: the theory of Functional Grammar to discover and describe the core of Vietnamese language

Due to the limits of such a path-finding stage as well as the unavailability of materials of modern linguistic trends in Vietnam educational institutions, Vietnamese learners are knowledgeably poorly-equipped of modern linguistic theories and obsessed with impacts of traditional Indo-European grammatical approaches Thus, they are blocked from benefits of modern, useful pragmatic

theories like Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature, which

generalize communicative rules shared between people from various cultures, regardless of their diverse linguistic backgrounds

Practically, many learners have coped with various difficulties in recognizing a specific function of an utterance, and in selecting satisfactory responses that enable them to fulfill comprehension tasks, that is to say, to get the correct choices in a certain TOEIC® test Moreover, few materials on English teaching skills, especially listening comprehension have so far dealt with the

problem General strategies like short-term memory, or guessing are

recommended, based on listening tips that read “Listen for question words” or

“Pay close attention to words that sound alike” (Arbogast et al.: 67) From a

similar viewpoint that “questions about time and location are common in the TOEIC® test”, Trew (2007:88-9) suggested tactics applicable for those questions, and thus, deserted a large proportion of items that requires pragmatic

interpretations

Scientifically, there arises a need to focus an analytic view on the

Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature theory in order that a

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pragmatic pedagogical approach can be applied for the sake of learners’ effective comprehension and communication

1.6 Overview of the research

The thesis is composed of five chapters

Chapter 1 is the Introduction, providing the rationale for the research, the

scope of the research, and the scientific and practical significance

Chapter 2 presents a review of the literature relevant to the study

Chapter 3 describes the methodology including research questions, research

design, characteristics of the subjects, instruments and implementations of the study

Chapter 4 analyzes and discusses the finding of the questionnaires in two

sections: learners’ responses and teacher’s responses

Chapter 5 draws conclusions about the findings and presents suggestions for

improvement of the Nong Lam CFS learners’ performance at the TOEIC®Listening Comprehension section

Bibliography

Appendices

*

* *

on the important role of pragmatic knowledge to the interpretation of conversation

meanings, and the need to incorporate the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature theory into the teaching of Listening Comprehension

section of TOEIC® course

2.1 Definitions of terms related to the Research

2.1.1 Inference

Inference is the process of deduction which listeners characteristically

employ in interpreting utterances

Inference is crucial to interpretation because a good deal of meaning is implied rather than being explicitly stated As Finch (2000:168) summarized, the amount of inferring which speakers expect listeners to undertake depends on the degree of shared knowledge between them

2.1.2 Cooperative Principle

Cooperative Principle is defined by Chalker & Weiner (1994:96) as an

unspoken agreement to be truthful, relevant, and informative, especially in

conversation (also called Conversational Principle)

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The concept comes from the influential work by the philosopher H P Grice (1913-88) He suggested that in general speakers cooperate by following certain

‘maxims of conversation’, such as speaking the truth, giving enough information,

avoiding irrelevances, and so on Of course, speakers sometimes lie or deliberately mislead, but the cooperative principle is so strong that people usually try to make sense of what they hear (Chalker & Weiner: 96)

Grice's work is one of the foundations of the modern study of pragmatics Born and raised in the United Kingdom, he was educated at Clifton College and then at Corpus Christi College, Oxford After brief period teaching at Rossall, he went back to Oxford where he taught until 1967 In that year, he moved to the United States to take up

a professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught until his death

in 1988 He returned to the UK in 1979 to give the John Locke lectures on Aspects of

Reason He reprinted many of his essays and papers in his valedictory book, Studies in the Way of Words (1989)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Grice>

Grice is remembered mainly for his contributions to the study of speaker meaning, linguistic meaning, and (several of) the interrelations between these two phenomena He provided, and developed, an analysis of the notion of linguistic meaning in terms of speaker meaning (according to his initial suggestion, 'A meant something by X' is roughly equivalent to 'A uttered X with the intention of inducing a belief by means of the recognition of this intention')

In order to explain how nonliteral utterances can be understood, he further postulated the existence of a general cooperative principle in conversation, as well

as of certain special maxims of conversation derived from the cooperative

principle In order to describe certain inferences for which the word "implication"

would appear to be inappropriate, he introduced the notion of (several kinds of)

implicatures

2.1.3 Implicature

Implicature can be referred as the pragmatic implications of an utterance;

and they are possibly not mentioned in the words at all

The term is taken from the philosopher H P Grice, who developed the theory of Cooperative Principle On the basis that speaker and listener are cooperating and aiming to be relevant, a speaker may well imply something that he

or she does not actually even refer to, confident that the listener will understand (Chalker & Weiner: 198)

Implicatures result from the process of implication which speakers and

listeners rely on in the production and interpretation of utterances (Finch: 167)

Grice distinguishes between two kinds of implicature, conventional implicature (scalar implicature) and non-conventional implicature

Non-conventional implicatures depend on “their interpretation on a wide

range of contextual information, including information about the participants, and their relationship with each other” (Finch: 159)

However, a sub-class of non-conventional implicatures, which is referred as conversational implicature by Grice, has been most influential in pragmatic theory Conversational implicature arises from the necessity we are under in

communicating to make our utterances coherent, clear, and orderly (Finch: 159)

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2.2 Development of the theory by Grice and post-Gricean linguists

Yule (1996:35) stated that when the listener, asking for a comment on the lunch hour and hearing the apparently pointless expression like ‘a hamburger is a

hamburger’, which is called a tautology, he/ she “first has to assume that the

speaker is being cooperative and intends to communicate something” – “to communicate more than is said.”

“The concept of there being an unexpected amount of information provided

in conversation” (Yule, 1996:36) has required the elaboration of the cooperative principle of conversation in four sub-principles, called maxims, as shown in Table

2.1

The co-operative principle

Make your 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

 The maxim of Quality

Try to make your contribution one that is true, specifically:

1) Do not say what you believe to be false

2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

 The maxim of 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

 The maxim of Quality

Make your contributions relevant

 The maxim of Quality

Be perspicuous, and specifically:

1) Avoid obscurity of expression (be clear)

2) Avoid ambiguity (be unambiguous)

3) Avoid unnecessary prolixity (be brief)

4) Be orderly

Table 2.1: The cooperative principle (following Grice 1975)

The additional conveyed meaning is termed an implicature Conversational implicatures in general are the propositions which a hearer is required to assume in

order to preserve her view of the speaker as a cooperative partner in communication

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Thus, to put things rather more formally, according to Grice (1989:30-31), a

speaker S conversationally implicates that q by saying that p only if:

(i) S is presumed to be following the conversational maxims, or at least the Cooperative Principle;

(ii) the supposition that S is aware that (or thinks that) q is required to make S’s saying or making as if to say p consistent with this presumption;

(iii) the speaker thinks (and would expect the hearer to think that the speaker thinks) that it is within the competence of the hearer to work out, or grasp intuitively, that the supposition mentioned in (ii) is required

To correctly understand these conversational implicatures, or to profoundly

perceive what is being communicated more than is said, the listener either has to,

in terms of observation or violation of the conversational maxims, determine

whether a standard implicature or flouting implicature is being produced

2.2.1 What is a ‘Standard Implicature’?

The Cooperative Principle, along with the Conversational Maxims, partly accounts for Conversational Implicatures Participants assume that a speaker is being cooperative, and thus they make standard implicatures about what is said

A standard implicature is a conversational implicature based on an

addressee's assumption that the speaker is being cooperative by directly observing the conversational maxims

In the following exchange given by Levinson (1983:104), A assumes that B

is being cooperative, truthful, adequately informative, relevant, and clear Thus, A can infer that B thinks A can get fuel at the garage:

(i) A: I’ve just run out of petrol

B: Oh; there’s a garage just around the corner

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2.2.2 What is a ‘Flouting Implicature’?

A flouting implicature is a conversational implicature based on an

addressee's assumption that the speaker is deliberately breaking (flouting) a conversational maxim while still being cooperative

In the following exchange, Levinson (1983:104) states that B flouts the

maxim of Manner, thereby implying that an open discussion of the ice cream is not

desired:

(ii) A: Let’s get the kids something

B: Okay, but I veto I-C-E C-R-E-A-M-S

The term ‘flouting implicature’ is a coinage The concept of an implicature

derived from the flouting of a maxim is an important one in the literature of Conversational Implicature, but there is not a specific name for it It would commonly be more appropriate to speak of an implicature derived from the speaker’s flouting of a conversational maxim

It is important to assume that people are normally observing these maxims to

be cooperative in their daily conversations: “they are telling the truth, being relevant, and trying to be as clear as they can” (Yule, 1996:37) However, there should be cases in which one, or more, of these maxims are not strictly obeyed, or

violated Moreover, the speaker can also observe one maxim at the expense of another It is right upon this clue should the listener refer to conversational implicatures to decode and understand what is being communicated

2.2.3 Conversational Implicatures in view of conversational maxims

Conversational implicatures may be generated by the maxims which the

speaker deliberately and ostentatiously breaches or flouts In this way, the surface

A quality implicature is a conversational implicature based on the

addressee's assumption as to whether the speaker is observing or flouting the

conversational maxim of Quality

If the speaker is assumed to be observing the maxim, then the addressee

makes a standard implicature If the speaker is assumed to be flouting the maxim,

then the addressee makes a more nonstandard type of implicature

In this exchange (Levinson, 1983:110), the obvious falsehood of B’s utterance implicates that B is saying that A is wildly incorrect:

(iii) A: Tehran’s in Turkey, isn’t it, teacher?

B: And London’s in Armenia, I suppose

The subtle and rather complicated process of analyzing the response to extract the core meaning can be illustrated in the following examples:

(iv) Tom: Today is a special day, isn’t it?

Daisy: Uh, you know, I’m paralyzed with happiness

Here, by overtly violating the maxim of Quality (do not say what you believe

to be false), as a normal person can hardly be paralyzed with happiness, a

conversational implicature can be interpreted from the hyperbole1 that Daisy is

overwhelmingly happy

(v) “Philadelphia wants you on the phone, sir.”

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This is another case of figure of speech, called metonymy2 it is safe to infer

the conversational implicature “Someone from Philadelphia wants you on the phone” instead that a lifeless place wants whatever

(vi) As fair art thou, my bonnie lass (As fair as you, my lovely girl)

So deep in luve am I; (So deep in love am I)

And I will luve thee still, my dear (And I will still love you, my dear)

Till a’ the seas gang dry (Till the seas come dry.)

The great Scottish poet, violating the maxim of Quality (do not say that for

which you lack adequate evidence), implicates that his love for his beloved girl

will last forever

2.2.3.2 Quantity Implicature

A quantity implicature is a conversational implicature based on an

addressee's assumption as to whether the speaker is observing or flouting the

conversational maxim of Quantity

1 hyperbole is a saying or writing things that make something sound much more impressive than

it really is

2 metonymy is a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something

intimately associated with that thing or concept

The utterance ‘Nigel has 14 children’ commonly implicates ‘Nigel has only

14 children’, even though it would be compatible with Nigel’s having 20 children (Levinson, 1983:106)

The utterance ‘War is war’ is itself lack of new information, therefore, uninformative; however, depending on its context, it will implicate items such as the following:

‘All war is undifferentiated (and thus uniformally unjust).’

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‘This is the way war is; stop complaining.’ (Levinson, 1983:111)

(vii) Daisy: “Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically

Nick: “The whole town is desolate All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”

According to the maxim of Quantity (do not make your contribution more informative than is required), one word “Yes” is enough to answer Daisy’s question But by flouting the maxim of Quantity, as well as maxim of Quality, Nick

satisfies Daisy’s vanity with his redundancy and hyperbole

2.2.3.3 Relevance Implicature

A relevance implicature is a conversational implicature based on an

addressee's assumption as to whether a speaker is observing or flouting the

conversational maxim of Relation/ Relevance

In the following exchange, the implicature that A draws as to the time of day

from B’s presumably relevant response is a relevance implicature:

(viii) A: Can you tell me the time?

B: Well, the milkman has come. (Levinson, 1983:107)

In the following exchanges, the implicatures A should draws (that A’s

remark was not welcome to B) from B’s response is a relevance implicature:

(ix) A: Mrs X is an old bag

B: The weather has been quite delightful this summer, hasn't it?

(Grice, 1975:54)

(x) A: I really cannot endure anymore The work is so hard, and the salary is so

pity Do you agree?

B: Huh, I saw your program yesterday, and I suggest some improvements

here and there

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Here B’s utterances in both cases, in the appropriate circumstances, might

implicate, “Hey, watch out, the boss [or the person you are talking ill to] is standing right behind you.”

2.2.3.4 Manner Implicature

A manner implicature is a conversational implicature based on an

addressee's assumption that the speaker is either observing or flouting the

conversational maxim of Manner

The manner implicature ‘Miss Singer sang badly’ is derivable from the

utterance “Miss Singer produced a series of sounds corresponding closely to the

score of an aria from Rigoletto." (Levinson, 1983:108)

(xi) A: “I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to do ”

B: “I know Could we have another beer?”

A: “All right But you’ve got to realize ”

B: “Would you please please please please please please please stop

talking?”

(from Hills like white elephants by Ernest Hemingway)

The violation of the sub-maxim “Be brief” implicates the opposite meaning

of the underlined utterance If the man really doesn’t want the girl to do anything that she doesn’t want to do, he mentions it once is enough

However, he persists on mentioning it once again even after he is interrupted

on purpose, which actually means that he does want the girl to do it though she doesn’t want to

The successive seven ‘please’ implicates that the girl cannot bear the boy’s persuasion any longer

2.2.4 Four steps to discover Conversational Implicature

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Gawron (2007), when discussing Conversational Implicature, has cited an

example of Grice’s, as well as four basic steps to work out the implicatures that underlie the surface of a given utterance

 Example:

A is writing a testimonial about a pupil who is a candidate for a philosophy

job and his letters reads as follows: “Dear Sir, Mr X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular Yours, etc.”

 Is what is said really what is communicated?

There are two very positive things about Mr X: that he speaks English well and that he is a regular and reliable fellow

However, are these things the exact information that the speaker A wants the hearer to perceive (i.e., Mr X’s ability of philosophy)? To get the thorough answer

to this question, we have to read between the lines and perform a close-up analysis

of what A has done, step by step

 Analysis of what A has done

1 Maxim of Quantity says:

(i) Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange); and

(ii) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

In this context, the utterance “Mr X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular” first appears to be superfluously

informative; yet, it carries no message about Mr X’s abilities as a philosopher

2 Maxim of Quality says: Be truthful

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3 A has apparently observed the second maxim of truthfulness at the expense of the first maxim of informativeness On the assumption he is not just being a randomly uncooperative guy, there must be a reason

4 The reason is that he is confining himself to things he can say truthfully

On the other hand, he must be cooperative by giving certain pieces of information relevant to the subject

activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear

then.” Spearrit (1962:3-4) assumes that listening is “an action that involves

directed attention to the sounds such as spoken words, musical sounds, mechanical noise or other noises.” In the context of verbal communication, he refers to

listening as “an active process involved in attaching meanings to the sounds; that is the spoken words.” Floyd (1985:9) defines listening as “a process that includes

hearing, attending to, evaluating, and responding to spoken messages.” Also,

Carter and Nunan (2001:7) share a similar view of listening as “a complex process

that allows us to understand spoken language.”

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Emmert (1994:1) states that “listening is more than merely hearing words Listening is an active process by which learners receive, construct meaning from, and respond to spoken and/ or nonverbal messages.”

Whatever definition of listening has been stated, it can be generally understood that listening is a complicated action of purposely catching the sounds from which we extract the meaning

Listening comprehension is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howatt

and Dakin, 1974) An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously

In a careful attempt to compile a definition of listening as a synthesis of many other definitions, Hirsch (1986) treats aspects that span neurological responses and interpretation of sound to understanding and assigning meaning by reacting, selecting meaning, remembering, attending, analyzing, and incorporating

previous experience He groups definitions as: 1) attempts to define the process; 2) explanations of sequential phases in listening how sound is received, comprehended, and acted upon; and 3) generalist definitions that examine aspects

of listening without sequencing them or relating each to the others as part of a process Hirsch's own definition presents numerous components that do not

suggest any sequential model but leave one free to focus on particular aspects of listening without attempting to oversimplify the complexity of how they may relate

to each other

To successfully listen to spoken language, we need to be able to work out what speakers mean when they use particular words in particular ways on

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particular occasions, and not simply to combine and understand the words themselves

2.3.2 The process of listening

Listening is a dynamic process drawing on a variety of mental processes and

knowledge sources Wolvin and Coakley (1985) divide the act of listening into

three very broad sets of processes: 1) Perceiving aural stimuli; 2) Attending to aural stimuli; and 3) Assigning meaning to aural stimuli

At each step of the way, learners are actively engaged in processing what

they hear Perception of aural stimuli refers to the physiological aspects of listening, and it is necessary aspect of listening comprehension Attending to aural stimuli involves active concentration by the listener The listener must be focused

on aural stimuli and must select what to pay attention to and what to disregard We all have some internal mechanisms responsible for filtering incoming stimuli; we can perceive all the sounds around us, but we only attend to some of them Once

stimuli are attended to, they must be assigned meaning Assigning meaning to perceived and attended stimuli is an interpretative act that involves personal,

cultural, and linguistic matters interacting in complex ways (Wolvin and Coakley, 1985; cited in Lee and Vanpatten, 1994:60)

Richards (1983) (cited in Brown, 1993:235) believes that there are eight processes involved in listening comprehension

(1) The hearer processes what we’ll call “raw speech” and holds an “image” of it in term memory This image consists of the constituents of a stream of speech

(2) The hearer determines the types of speech event that is being processed

(3) The hearer infers the objectives of the speakers through consideration of the type of speech event, the context, and content

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(4) The hearer recalls background information relevant to the particular context and subject matter A lifetime of experiences and knowledge are used to performed cognitive associations in order to bring a possible interpretation to the message

(5) The hearer assigns a literal meaning to the utterance This process involves a set of semantic interpretations and the surface strings that the ears has perceived, in many instances, literal and intended meanings match

(6) The hearer assigns an intended meaning to the utterance A key to human communication is the ability to match perceived meaning with intended meaning This match-making can extend well beyond simple metaphorical and idiomatic language (7) The hearer determines whether information should be retained in short-term or long- term memory Short-term memory is appropriate in contexts that simply call for a quick oral response from the hearer Long-term memory is more common when you are processing information in a lecture

(8) The hearer deletes the form in which the message was originally received The words and phrases and sentences themselves are quickly forgotten – “pruned” – in 99 percent of speech acts You don’t need to retain this sort of cognitive “clutter” Instead, the important information is retained conceptually

Long and Richards (1987:159) assume that there are two complementary processes in listening One, sometimes referred to as “bottom-up processing,” involves decoding the incoming utterance or message and making use of the linguistic signals actually transmitted Bottom-up processing involves such things

as identifying and distinguishing words, structures, grammar, and other features of the message The other process, known as “top-down processing,” involves the listener making use of previous knowledge and information, which is not transmitted in the message, and using this information as a basis for interpreting the message

2.3.3 Schema

by particular words, discourse patterns or contexts, such schematic knowledge is

activated and we are able to recognize what we see or hear Without schematic knowledge, the learners of listening comprehension can face some difficulties in

listening comprehension

The role of schematic knowledge in listening is also acknowledged by Rost (2002) when he stated that the listener has multiple sources of information that facilitate word recognition and help achieve comprehension The concept of

schema, from which the term schematic is derived, is associated with the work of

the cognitive psychologist Bartlett (1932) Bartlett’s theory stated that humans that share the same socio-cultural background had certain specific psychological tendencies that hold them together as a group and provide a bias for dealing with external circumstances This bias according to him activates prior knowledge in the memory, which in turn helps comprehension Anderson and Lynch (1988), define

schema as a mental structure consisting of relevant individual knowledge, memory

and experience, which allows us to incorporate what we learn into what we know The schematic knowledge is generally considered as two types of prior knowledge: the content schema or background information of a topic and the formal schema or knowledge of discourse organisation and socio-cultural knowledge (Celce-Murcia

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and Olshtain, 2000) Obviously, a specific amount of pragmatic knowledge should

be incorporated into the teaching of listening comprehension

Viewing from the other side, the teacher should not totally ignore the limitations of schematic knowledge as an additional input to support comprehension, especially in a nonreciprocal situation Anderson and Lynch (1988), Rost (2002), Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000) and others have pointed out how a lack of shared schemata can make comprehension difficult or lead to misunderstanding This problem arises when there is a socio-cultural difference between the listener and the speaker Brown (1990) has pointed out that being sensitive to the socio-cultural behaviours and skilfully combining linguistic

knowledge and pragmatic knowledge can help to overcome this problem

2.3.4 The significance of listening in L2 learning

In language classrooms, listening is very essential because “it provides input

for the learners Without understanding input at the right level, learning cannot begin” (Nunan, 1999) Nonetheless, listening is often regarded as a secondary skill

or in Nunan’s (1999) term, “the Cinderella skill”

Listening is the first language mode that children acquire It provides a foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and it plays a life-long role in the processes of learning and communication essential to productive participation in life A study by Wilt (1950), which found that people listen 45 percent of the time they spend communicating, is still widely cited (e.g., Martin, 1987; Strother, 1987) Wilt found that 30 percent of communication time was spent speaking, 16 percent reading, and 9 percent writing That finding confirmed what Rankin had found in 1928 that people spent 70 percent of their waking time communicating and three-fourths of this time was spent listening and speaking