Implicature and its application in teaching listening comprehension skills to students

SOME PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS AMONG VIETNAMESE STUDENTS Implicature and its application in teaching listening comprehension skills to students Nguyen Bich Ngoc M A student , course 18, university of languages and international studies, Vietnam national University Abstract Conversational implicature appears to play a vitally important role in understanding spoken English As not all conversations go in a direct and straight forward way but sometimes implied and indirect, students have to infer the r.

Implicature and its application in teaching listening comprehension skills to students Nguyen Bich Ngoc M.A student , course 18, university of languages and international studies, Vietnam national University Abstract Conversational implicature appears to play a vitally important role in understanding spoken English As not all conversations go in a direct and straight forward way but sometimes implied and indirect, students have to infer the real meaning from a conversation The author, from her real teaching experience, has found out that college students’ English Listening Comprehension relies much on how students interpret conversational implicature of the speakers, which, in fact, bring them a lot of difficulties This paper examines the notion of implicature in Grice’s theory with a focus paid on conversational implicature and his cooperative principles, then goes into the possible application in teaching College English listening skills to students by looking at the study of Wang Sihai (2005): the factors that affect students’ listening comprehension, the classification of conversation that involves conversational implicature in listening comprehension the importance of culture in interpreting implicature and the possibilities to enhance the students’ listening comprehension competence Implicature The term “implicature” is used by Grice (1975) to account for what speakers may imply, mean or suggest as different from what they literally say Grice’s theory of implicature includes two main kinds that he called conventional implicature and conversational implicature 1 Conventional Implicature Conventional implicature is defined as an addition unstated meaning associated with the use of a specific word (Vo, 2005) Vo (2005) also divides conventional implicature into two types which are Common and Scalar However, I find Lyons’ classification more comprehensive While Vo (2005) concentrates on ‘word’ level, Lyons has analyzed conventional implicature from the small unit of ‘word’ to the larger unit of ‘expression’ Take for example the utterance: “He is poor but honest”, “poor but honest” implies a contrast between “poor” and “honest” With this, the speaker may be implicating that it is unusual for someone to be both poor and honest The conventional implicature of “but” here is “contrast” We can also extend the list of forms which meet Grice’s criteria for Conventional Implicature considerably Many of the connectives giving cohesion to a text fall within the scope of this definition: therefore, however, nevertheless, moreover, yet, ect So modal particles such as even, well or just as in the following examples: E.g Even Daisy likes that dish She may well be right It was just one of the good news Lyons (1996) even logically extends the notion of conventional implicature with the choice of one form of an expression, rather than another For example, if the speaker says Michael asks me to work for him or Michael has asked me to work for him rather than Michael asked me to work for him he or she may imply that Michael ‘s statement had or still has validity In fact, differences of tense and mood are also associated with differences of expressive meaning frequently From the above analysis, Lyons (1996) defines conventional implicature as the one depends on something other than what is truth-conditional in the conventional use, or meaning, of particular forms and expressions 1.2 Conversational Implicature This is the type of implicature which is mentioned the most frequently Because of the reasonable explanation for implications in conversations, it is not difficult to understand why conversational implicature has received such a lot of attentions from linguists As we know, there are many situations where the speakers and listeners’ responses seem to be not literally relevant but the participants yet understand each other In fact, they interpret the information by implying, not stating Grice argued that this predictability of inference information could be explained by postulating cooperative principle which is a kind of tacit agreement by speakers and listeners to cooperate in communication Thus, in order to understand the notion of conversational implicature thoroughly, we need to understand the maxims of Cooperative Principle suggested by Grice (1975) Maxims: a Quantity (also called the Maxim of Informativeness) - Make your contribution as informative as is required - Do not make your contribution more informative than is required b Quality (also called the Maxim of Truthfulness) Try to make your contribution one that is true - Do not say what you believe to be false - Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence c Relation (also called the Maxim of Relevance) - Be relevant d Manner (also called the Maxim of Clarity) Be perspicuous - Avoid obscurity of expression - Avoid ambiguity - Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) - Be orderly Understanding the maxims above, we now come to the definition of conversational implicature Vo (2005) stated that conversational implicature is created by flouting the maxims It has an additional unstated meaning that has to be assumed in order to maintain the cooperative principle Further examples of implications below will illustrate the logic between the maxims and conversational implicatures a Quantity A: Did you the final assignment? B: I intended to Literally and grammatically, the question “Did you the final assignment?” requires the answer of “Yes” or ”No” Thus, the response “I intended to” is not as informative as required Moreover, A did not ask about B’s intention so B’s response contribute more information than it is required In short, the response violates the Maxim of Quantity However, A can still assume B’s unstated meaning in order to maintain the cooperative principle Then the response can be understood as “I intended to but I haven’t done it yet” and the implication in this case is “No” b Quality A: (To a friend who did a terrible thing to him) You are a fine friend! The utterance “You are a fine friend!” in this situation infringes the Maxim of Truthfulness: not say what you believe to be false The friend who did a bad thing to A can not be called a fine friend A certainly knows that but he intentionally says so because he wants to imply the contrary: “You are a bad friend!” This way of irony is also popular in everyday conversations c Relation A: Where’s Bill, you know? B: His coat’s gone Instead of saying something related to the place where Bill is, B’s response mentions Bill’s coat which seems not to be relevant to the question This violation of Relevance Maxim indicates that “His coat has gone so he perhaps went home and is not here” d Manner A: Who are those standing by the door? B: That’s my father and his wife B does not say ”Those are my parents” The way B says “That’s my father and his wife” violates the Maxim of Clarity Assuming that B is in fact obeying the Maxim of Clarity and also Truthfulness, B’s reason for speaking this way is that she/ he means that the woman is not a mother to her/him and B may also implicate that she/ he does not like the woman So far, we have looked through kinds of implicature as well as the ways to interpret an implication In the next part, I would like to mention some of the practical aspects of implicatute Implicature and English listening comprehension classroom In listening comprehension classroom the importance of interpreting the conversational implicature is obvious For the teacher, his/her major task should not be just finish the class by letting the students listen to the materials again and again and then provide the correct answers to the questions Instead the toughest part of the job is that how to support the students in the process of listening and interpretation, and how to develop the competence of implicature interpretation in listening comprehension classroom Wang Sihai (2005) has stated a number of ideas relating to implicature and English listening comprehension classroom The followings are taken from her points and are those which I find useful and also applicable in my context of teaching 2.1 What are some factors that affect the listening process? Listening is a demanding process, not only because of the complexity of the process itself, but also due to factors that characterize the listener, the speaker, the content of the message, and any visual support that accompanies the message (Brown & Yule, 1983) The Listener - Interest in a topic increases the listener's comprehension - The ability to use negotiation skills, such as asking for clarification, repetition, or definition of points not understood, enable a listener to make sense of the incoming information The Speaker - Colloquial language and reduced forms make comprehension more difficult - A speaker's rate of delivery may be too fast, too slow, or have too many hesitations for a listener to follow - Awareness of a speaker's corrections and use of rephrasing ("er I mean That is ") can assist the listener Learners need practice in recognizing these speech habits as clues to deciphering meaning Content Content that is familiar is easier to comprehend than content with unfamiliar vocabulary or for which the listener has insufficient background knowledge Visual Support Visual support, such as video, pictures, diagrams, gestures, facial expressions, and body language, can increase comprehension if the learner is able to correctly interpret it 2.2 The classification of conversation that involves conversational implicature in listening comprehension In college English listening comprehension, as far as the conversations are involved, they fall into several categories A: Those that observe the Cooperate Principles very strictly and are easy to infer the meaning For example: a) M: I’d like to see the blue jacket in the window W: What size you want? In this example the answer to the question is both informative and relevant, so it brings not too much difficulties to the student listener Only by the interpretation of the literal meaning of the sentence can the student understand all the information conveyed through the dialogue b) M: When is Mary coming? W: Well, it’s eight forty She’ll arrive in fifteen minutes In this example both the speakers are very cooperative and the answer to the question is relevant and informative enough to provide the sufficient information that the first speaker needs To these kinds of conversation it is not a difficult task for the both the students and the teacher B: Through the flouting of CP maxim(s) there evokes the conversational implicature that listeners should try hard to interpret In listening comprehension classroom, the types of conversation that need to be interpreted to figure out the implicature includes (Laurence F.B, 1999): a) Relevance A: How about going for a walk? B: Isn’t it raining out? b) Minimum Requirement Rule Two golfers are talking about their chances in the local university golf tournament A: What you think it will take to make the cut tomorrow, Brad? B: Oh, a 75 ought to it Did you have a 75? I didn’t c) The POPE Q implicature: The POPE Q implicature answers one question with another For the implicature to work, the person asking the first question with another For the implicature to work, the person asking the first question must realize that the answer to that question is the same as the answer to the second one and just as easy This implicature is highly formulaic and is named for the prototype response, Is the pope Catholic? A: Does Sr Walker always give a test the day before vacation? B: Does the sun come up in the East? d) Indirect criticism: The Indirect Criticism implicature often follows a request for an evaluation of something When expressed using this implicature, the evaluation is negative That effect is achieved by praising some unimportant feature of the item being evaluated, thus implying that there is nothing more flattering that can be said A: Have you seen Robin Hood? B: Yeah I went last night A: What did you think of it? B: The cinematography was great A: Oh, that bad, hug? e) Sequence-based implicature Sequence-based implicatures are based on the assumption that unless there are indications to the contrary, events being described occur in the order in which they are expressed The effect of this assumption is easily seen in the difference in the sequence of events implied by sentences such as : Jack drove to Chicago and had dinner Jack had dinner and drove to Chicago f) Irony: Bill and Peter work together in the same office They sometimes are sent on business trips together and are becoming good friends They often have lunch together and Peter has even invited Bill to have dinner with him and his wife at their home several times Now Peter’s friends have told him that they that they saw Bill out dancing with Peter’s wife recently while Peter was out of town on a business trip On hearing this, Peter’s comment was… Peter: Bill knows how to be a really good friend, doesn’t he? 2.3 Culture and the interpretation of implicature Culture plays an important role in the course of the implicature interpretation , and now more and more teacher and student have come to realize the importance of culture teaching in College English Only after you have a solid foundation of the culture of the target language, can you get what they mean implied So it required to enhance cross-cultural awareness and to understand the culture of second language with open-minded attitude from different perspectives Some approaches are recommended here to help English-learners better perceive and understand cross-cultural awareness: 1) To encourage learners to read extensively, including varieties of newspapers, magazines, novels, fiction and even children’s books Through such exposure learners will develop a more mature and comprehensive understanding of second language and its culture 2) Attach the emphasis of learning the culture of English speaking countries with the importance of one’s own native culture Students may be in a better position to develop cross-cultural skills and make comparisons and contrasts between the properties of their own culture and that of the target culture so as to get a better understanding of another culture 3) To motivate learners to participate in all kinds of English activities, such as English poem recitations, oral English completion, English programme performances; to watch TV programmes on Channel 9, CCTV, to listen to the radio of BBC or VOA, and to encourage interpersonal contacts that learners are apt to pick up some of the authentic and cultural information they would not be able to obtain from classroom or textbook As a teacher of English listening he should keep in mind the principle of teaching English in a cultural perspective, a major concern in the whole teaching process The teacher should not miss the chance to inform the students of the TL culture knowledge concerned, and to compare it wity the SL culture so that the students could have a better understanding and memory of it Proverbs, folk tales, legends, etc show the students English natives’ important values, beliefs, customs and their ideas about life, death, relationship, nature, and the like, and thus were used frequently in the class English songs and movies also work well in disclosing TL culture This was ultimately to inspire the students’ interest in English, to increase their cultural awareness, and to help them use their knowledge as guidance to effective inference in the interpretation of conversational implicature in listening comprehension class 2.4 What should be considered when selecting listening techniques and activities in interpretation of conversational implicatures? What is known about the listening process and the factors that affect listening can be a guide when incorporating listening skill development into adult ESL classes The following guidelines have been adapted from a variety of 10 sources including Brod (1996), Brown (1994), Dunkel (1991), Mendelsohn (1994), Morley (1991), Peterson (1991), Richards (1983), and Rost (1991) Listening should be relevant Because learners listen with a purpose and listen to things that interest them, accounting for the goals and experiences of the learners will keep motivation and attention high For example, if learners at a worksite need to be able to understand new policies and procedures introduced at staff meetings, in class they should be helped to develop the abilities to identify main ideas and supporting details, to identify cause and effect, to indicate comprehension or lack of comprehension, and to ask for clarification Material should be authentic Authenticity should be evident both in language and in task The language should reflect real discourse, including hesitations, rephrasing, and a variety of accents Although the language needs to be comprehensible, it does not need to be constantly modified or simplified to make it easier for the level of the listener Level of difficulty can be controlled by the selection of the task For example, in a unit on following instructions, at the beginning level, the learner might hear a command ("May I borrow your hammer?") and respond by choosing the correct item At an intermediate level, the learner might hear a series of instructions ("Go to the broom closet, get the floor polisher, take it to the hall in front of the cafeteria, polish the floor there, then go to the ") and respond appropriately by tracing the route on a floor plan of the worksite An advanced-level learner might listen to an audio tape of an actual work meeting and write a summary of the instructions the supervisor gave the team Use of authentic material, such as workplace training videos, audio tapes of actual workplace exchanges, and TV and radio broadcasts, increases transferability to listening outside of the ESL classroom context to work and to community 11 Opportunities to develop both top-down and bottom-up processing skills should be offered Top-down oriented activities encourage the learners to discuss what they already know about a topic, and bottom-up practice activities give confidence in accurate hearing and comprehension of the components of the language (sounds, words, intonation, grammatical structures) The development of listening strategies should be encouraged Predicting, asking for clarification, and using non-verbal cues are examples of strategies that increase chances for successful listening For example, using video can help learners develop cognitive strategies As they view a segment with the sound off, learners can be asked to make predictions about what is happening by answering questions about setting, action, and interaction; viewing the segment again with the sound on allows them to confirm or modify their hypothesis (Rubin, 1995) Activities should teach, not test Teachers should avoid using activities that tend to focus on memory rather than on the process of listening or that simply give practice rather than help learners develop listening ability For example, simply having the learners listen to a passage followed by true/false questions might indicate how much the learners remembered rather than helping them to develop the skill of determining main idea and details Pre- and post-listening task activities would help the learners to focus attention on what to listen for, to assess how accurately they succeeded, and to transfer the listening skill to the world beyond the classroom References Brown, G 1990 Listening to Spoken Language[M].Longman 12 Hurford, I.R., and Heasley, B (2003) Semantics - A course book Vietnam: First New Kearns, K (2002) Implicature and Semantic Change Retrieved March 06, 2009 from www.ling.canterbury.ac.nz/documents/implicature.pdf Kearns, K (2000) Semantics New York: Palgrave Macmillan Lyons, J (1996) Linguistic Semantics - An introduction Cambridge: CUP Nguyen Hoa (2004) Understanding English Semantics Hanoi: VNU Publishing House Saeed, J I (2005) Semantics Oxford, UK: Blackwell Vo Dai Quang (2005) Semantics Hanoi: Publishing House of Culture and Information Wang Sihai (2005) Interpretations of Conversational Implicature in Listening Comprehension Retrieved June 23rd, 2020 from www modlinguistics.com/PAPERS/2005/wangsihai.doc 13 ... followings are taken from her points and are those which I find useful and also applicable in my context of teaching 2.1 What are some factors that affect the listening process? Listening is a demanding... effective inference in the interpretation of conversational implicature in listening comprehension class 2.4 What should be considered when selecting listening techniques and activities in interpretation... conversational implicatures? What is known about the listening process and the factors that affect listening can be a guide when incorporating listening skill development into adult ESL classes The following