•Taguchi, N. (2002b). An application of Relevance Theory to the analysis of L2 interpretation...

An application of relevance theory to theanalysis of L2 interpretation processes:

The comprehension of indirect replies

NAOKO TAGUCHI

IRAL 40 (2002), 151–176 0019042X/2002/040-0151c©Walter de Gruyter

Abstract

This study applied relevance theory to second language research by analyz-ing L2 learners’ inferential ability in comprehending conversational implica-tures. Eight Japanese students of English in two proficiency levels took a lis-tening test consisting of 22 short dialogues. In the experimental dialogues, thespeaker’s reply which appeared at the end violated Grice’s (1975) relevancemaxim and did not provide a direct response to the question. An introspectiveverbal interview was conducted after each item to allow the researcher to in-terrogate learners’ thought processes and to identify specific strategies usedduring comprehension. The results showed that, regardless of proficiency dif-ferences, learners were able to seek relevance of the speaker’s implied meaningbased on context. Paralinguistic cues and the rule of adjacency pair were com-mon inferencing strategies. Less proficient learners relied more on backgroundknowledge and key word inferencing. Proficient learners identified more fre-quently the speaker’s intended purpose of using an implicature.

1. Introduction1

With the emergence of the model of communicative competence (Canale andSwain 1980) and communicative language ability (Bachman 1990; Bachmanand Palmer 1996), second language (L2) learning is no longer viewed as mas-tery of grammatical forms alone. Acquisition of functional control of the formshas come to be regarded as an indispensable aspect of L2 learning. Thus,pragmatic competence, the ability to convey and interpret meaning in context,forms a distinct component of communicative ability. What is important aboutmeaning interpretation, from a pragmatic point of view, is understanding whatthe speaker intends to accomplish in making the utterances. A key aspect ofpragmatic competence is the ability to recognize speaker intention, even whenit is implicit and covert, and to make accurate inferences about speakers’ com-municative goals.

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152 Naoko Taguchi

Several pragmatics theories seek to account for the process of meaning in-terpretation. Among them, relevance theory (RT) (Sperber and Wilson 1995)focuses on people’s cognitive processes while comprehending meaning and thecontextual influence during the processes. Because context is claimed to play acrucial role in comprehension, learners’ ability to utilize contextual cues and tomake inferences of implicit input would provide important insights into theirpragmatic competence. Thus, the present study analyzes L2 comprehensionprocess from the relevance-theoretic perspective. It aims to reveal cognitiveinferencing processes by examining whether learners can interpret speaker in-tention when it is not explicitly stated in an utterance, and how they access andinteract with contexts in order to arrive at the correct interpretation.

2. Background

2.1. Relevance Theory

RT (Sperber and Wilson 1995) was proposed as an account of the way hearersunderstand utterances in context. RT claims that the key element in humancommunication is the recognition of speaker intentions, which is guided by or-dinary, cognitive inferential processes. The theory claims that communicationis never achieved by the mere decoding of linguistic stimuli; communicationalso includes interpreting contextual cues and using them as evidence towardthe correct inferencing of speaker intentions. When the speaker says some-thing, the hearer assumes that the message is relevant to discourse context, andthus seeks the most relevant and easily accessible interpretation of the intendedmeaning. The linguistic structure of an utterance determines only a fraction ofwhat is intended, whereas context plays a crucial role in the interpretation ofmeaning.

In RT, context is not limited to external factors such as physical environ-ment or the immediately preceding discourse. A set of all the assumptions thatthe hearer has about the world, including “expectations about future, scientifichypotheses or religious beliefs, anecdotal memories, general cultural assump-tions, beliefs about the mental state of the speaker” (Sperber and Wilson 1995:15) contribute equally to the meaning interpretation. RT also introduces theconcept of cognitive environment, namely the set of all the facts that the heareris aware of or is capable of becoming aware of in the environment of utterance.Utterance interpretation is considered a global process because the hearer uti-lizes all conceptual information available in his/her cognitive environment.

RT also emphasizes the relation between contextual effects and processingeffort. RT claims that humans process information as productively as possible.When people interpret a message, many different assumptions from diversesources come to mind. Among them, they select the most immediately rel-evant interpretation which has the greatest contextual effects for the smallest



The comprehension of indirect replies 153

processing effort.2 Processing effort is reflected in the number and intensity ofcontextual signals available for interpretation (e.g., complexity of information,intonation, non-verbal cues).

2.2. The place of relevance theory in L1 pragmatics

The presumption of relevance and context in RT can be applied to explain com-prehension mechanisms of nonliteral messages. Understanding what is meantis a process of pragmatic decoding rather than mere linguistic decoding (Blake-more 1992; Blass 1990); people draw upon any contextual cues that they haveaccess to in order to assign meaning to an implicit message. The gap betweenthe literal and intended meaning can be bridged because pragmatic informa-tion via context helps determine the proposition of the message. RT stressesthat such pragmatic decoding is initiated by people’s cognitive inferential pro-cess, namely relevance seeking.

A number of studies have examined whether and how people interpret speak-er intention that is not explicitly stated in an utterance (Clark 1991; Cacciari1993; Colombo 1993; Gibbs 1999; Gibbs and Moise 1997; Holtgraves 1999;Nicolle and Clark 1999). Clark (1991) analyzed whether people process anindirect speech act of request literally or conventionally. Requests for infor-mation were made of 950 local merchants by telephone, either directly (i.e.,What time do you close?) or indirectly (i.e., Do you close before 7:00?). Theresults showed that the requestees successfully understood the requesters’ im-plied goals; they interpreted the questions as requests and provided the infor-mation the callers wanted.

Holtgraves (1999) also examined people’s comprehension of indirect replies:the replies that violate the relevance of the preceding utterance and thus conveynegative meaning indirectly. Here is an example from Holtgraves:

A: What did you think about my presentation?

B: It’s hard to give a good presentation.

Holtgraves conducted a series of six experiments, in which a total of 375 col-lege students were presented with short dialogues and instructed to indicatewhether the presented replies were meaningful. The analyses of mean re-sponse time showed that the participants were able to infer the indirect meaningpromptly.

Several studies have proved that children whose linguistic skills had not ma-tured could nevertheless incorporate contextual cues in understanding ambigu-ous message.3 In Bezuidenhout and Sroda’s (1998) study, children from threeto five years old (N = 176) were asked to put a ball in a basket. One basket wasin a visible place from the experimenter, while the other was invisible. Seventypercent of the children chose the basket visible to the experimenter, indicating



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that they could take a speaker’s visual perspective into account when determin-ing his/her intended referent.

These three studies clearly demonstrate that when hearers interpret linguis-tic input, they make maximum use of the contextual information and selectan interpretation which best confirms the relevance of the utterance. Suchrelevance-seeking behavior and the ability to interpret implied meaning areacquired naturally as we mature, along with the development of communica-tive competence. Relevance processing is considered as part of general humancognition, and thus could be directly transferred to the L2 comprehension pro-cess.

2.3. The place of relevance theory in L2 pragmatics

Although the corpus of the relevance-theoretic studies in L2 is still limited,there is a growing interest that RT can be usefully exploited to explain L2 com-prehension processes (Foster-Cohen 2000). Based on the premise that the prag-matic process of L1 comprehension works in a similar manner for L2 learners,research has started to apply RT in understanding L2 input processing.

Although most studies in the area of input processing have examined howlearners make use of the existent input, there is a line of research that has in-vestigated whether learners have access to implicit contexts: input that is notexplicitly stated but implied (Bouton 1992, 1994; Carrell 1981; Kasper 1984;Takahashi and Roitblat 1994). Bouton analyzed whether L2 learners of En-glish could comprehend conversational implicatures. L2 learners (N = 436)took a test consisting of 33 short dialogues of implicatures. The results showedthat compared with native speakers, learners’ performance in comprehendingthe implicatures was significantly poorer. However, their comprehension im-proved over time along with their length of stay in the target culture. Takahashiand Roitblat (1994) also investigated L2 comprehension of indirect requests.Thirty-six Japanese and American students at college read twelve stories: sixstories with implied requests and the other six with literal interpretations of theutterances. The results showed that, although learners were able to arrive at thecorrect interpretations, they took longer to comprehend indirect requests thannative speakers.

A few L2 studies have examined the actual contextual influence in under-standing an ambiguous message (Cameron and Williams 1997; Cheng andWarren 1999; Ying 1996, 2001). Cameron and Williams analyzed the inter-action between a native and non-native speaker in medical settings and showedthat the non-native speaker’s inferencing skills were guided by the expectationand search for relevance. The non-native speaker effectively used contextualcues and background knowledge in order to disambiguate inexplicit messages.Ying (1996) also investigated how L2 learners comprehended structurally am-




biguous sentences. Forty-two adult ESL learners in two groups comprehendedthe sentences either with prosodic cues or with contextual cues. Both typesof pragmatic cues assisted comprehension, suggesting the interaction betweenlinguistic and pragmatic information in L2 processing. Wolf (1999) also ar-gues that the notion of context and the mechanisms in which learners interpretutterances in context require more attention in second languag acquisition.

Although RT has potential in explaining L2 comprehension of nonliteralmeaning, little research has analyzed learners’ actual comprehension processes.Existing studies have examined whether comprehension is guided by the pre-sumption of relevance and whether the inferential process utilizes contextualcues. However, most studies have focused on the learners’ end product – howaccurately they can recognize the speaker’s implied meaning – and studies thatlooked into how learners actually make sense of nonliteral, implicit messageare scarce. Investigation into learners’ underlying processes would providebetter insights into the nature of comprehension. Such investigation will helpdescribe how learners find a context which assists utterance interpretation, andwhat procedures or strategies they take when deriving a correct interpretation.Such analysis could also shed light on the actual components or factors impli-cated in pragmatic comprehension.

Moreover, few studies in the field of interlanguage pragmatics have ad-dressed the relationship between general L2 proficiency and comprehensionof nonliteral meaning. Previous studies identified learners by their L1, butthe attempt to include other relevant variables, such as L2 proficiency, has notoften been made (Bardovi-Harlig 1999). Thus, investigating how overall pro-ficiency interacts with learners’ inferencing ability, and the use of contextualcues and strategies could add to our understanding of the L2 pragmatic systemand possible influences on it.

3. Research questions

This study aims to offer some insights into the ways in which L2 learners pro-cess nonliteral, indirect messages. It focuses on the comprehension strategiesused by higher and lower proficient learners in order to describe the interactionbetween linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge during comprehension. Thestudy investigates comprehension of particularized implicatures: the utterancesthat violate Grice’s (1975) relation maxim and thus require contextual informa-tion for the recovery of meaning. These three questions guide the investigation:1. Can L2 learners recognize the implied meaning of implicatures based on

context?2. Can the strategies used to infer implicit meaning be clearly identified?3. Are there differences between higher and lower proficient learners in their

use of inferential strategies in comprehending implicatures?



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4. The introspective verbal reporting method

In this study, learners’ ability and the process of comprehending implicatureswere investigated by introspective verbal reporting, i.e., by asking learners toreport their thoughts upon completing a task. Because this study aimed toanalyze learners’ use of internal, cognitive context while making inferencesof implicit input, verbal reporting was considered potentially useful in tracinglearners’ mental processes during comprehension. In addition, because mostprocesses involved in learning are not directly observable, the introspectivemethod is useful to determine underlying language processes.4 The researchercan have direct access to learners’ mental processes that are unavailable byother means (Cohen 1987; Gass and Mackey 2000).

Introspective methods require caution because a number of factors can un-dermine the reliability and validity of the obtained data. One limitation is theaccuracy of data (Ericsson and Simon 1993; Nisbett and Wilson 1977). Theparticipants’ reports could be biased by the researcher’s assumptions or thetask instructions (Ericsson and Simon 1987; Robinson 1992). Reactivity isalso a possible problem because interrupting participants to ask them to reporttheir thoughts may change the nature of their thought processes (Russo et al.1989).5 Memory is another possible threat to the accuracy of reporting. Bloom(1954) showed that accuracy declined and the loss of memory occurred due tothe time length been the event and the recall. In addition, participants may pro-vide limited information due to the task unfamiliarity (O’Malley et al. 1989).Because talking about a task while doing the task is a complex activity, sometraining is necessary. Van Someren et al. (1994) also referred to criteria forselecting participants and tasks. The language for reporting (L1/L2) and taskcomplexity could affect the amount of protocol obtained.

To sum up, there are various factors to keep in mind when applying the in-trospective method in a research project. Types of prompts/questions, timingof recall, participant training, and participant/task characteristics warrant atten-tion if the introspective method is to yield reliable and valid information aboutlearners’ cognitive processes.

5. Methodology

5.1. Participants

The participants were eight Japanese female students (age range between 20and 30, mean 22.8) of two different proficiency levels in an American college.The participants of lower proficiency (N = 4) were full-time students at theProgram of Intensive English (PIE) (length of stay in the United States: 3–9months, mean 4.8 months). The participants in the higher proficiency group (N= 4) were enrolled in undergraduate courses (the length of stay: 4–19 months,




Table 1. Three implicature categories and their simplified examples

Implicature category Example

1. Opinion giving (5 items) Indirectreplies are given in order to avoid neg-ative opinions.

Jack: Did you enjoy Jennifer’s party?Mike: It’s hard to give a good party,isn’t it?Question: Did Mike have a good timeat Jennifer’s party?

2. Request refusals (5 items) Indirectreplies are given in order to refuse re-quests.

Ben: Could I get a ride home with you?Sam: Oh Ben, I took the bus to worktoday.Question: Can Barbara give Ben a ridetoday?

3. Disclosures (5 items) Indirect repliesare used to avoid disclosing embarrass-ing information.

Mother: How were your grades thissemester?Jim: I don’t think the teacher gradesfairly.Question: Did Jim get bad grades thissemester?

mean 14.0 months). These two groups were considered to exhibit distinct pro-ficiency differences based on their academic levels and TOEFL scores (Testof English as a Foreign Language). All undergraduate students had once beenplaced in the PIE program, but they had exited the program upon achieving aTOEFL score of 500. All PIE students had a TOEFL score under 500.

5.2. Instrument

The researcher gave participants an individual listening task in order to exam-ine their ability to understand the intended meaning of implicatures. The taskconsisted of a total of 24 dialogues spoken by native speakers: 2 practice di-alogues, 15 experimental dialogues, and 7 control dialogues (see appendix).Each dialogue followed a short Japanese description of each interaction. Inthe experimental dialogues, the reply which appeared at the end violated themaxim of relevance and thus did not provide the requested information. Inthe 7 control versions, the replies were literal. Each experimental and controlitem was followed by a yes/no question which was designed to test whetherthe learners understood the speaker’s intended meaning. Most of the 15 impli-cature dialogues were adapted from Holtgraves (1999), and a few came fromBouton (1992, 1994). They were classified into three categories based on Holt-graves. Table 1 shows the three categories and simplified examples.



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5.3. Procedures

A pilot test was conducted with a Japanese student who did not participate inthe main study. In the main study, the participants listened to the test itemswhich were presented randomly, and chose “Yes”, “No” or “I don’t know”for each question. The verbal reporting session started immediately after thelearners had chose their answers. The researcher stopped the tape and askedquestions such as: “Why did you choose the answer?”, “Were there any hintsin the conversation?”, and “What were you thinking when you chose the an-swer?”. When the participants chose “I don’t know”, the researcher asked:“Between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, which would you guess and why?” During the twopractice items, the participants were pre-trained in verbal reporting. Great carewas taken not to give concrete reactions to the participants’ responses nor toplant inferencing strategies in their mind. The data collection sessions wereconducted individually in Japanese and were tape-recorded for later codingand analysis. Individual sessions lasted about 30 minutes.

5.4. Data analyses

This study investigated L2 learners’ ability to comprehend implicatures, theprocess of comprehending implicatures and the differences in comprehensionbetween more and less proficient learners. Two types of data were collected:the number of items that the participants answered correctly and transcriptionsof introspective verbal reports. One point was assigned per correct inferencemade in the listening task. The participants did not receive a point if theyanswered wrongly or chose “I don’t know”. The average score was comparedbetween the lower and higher proficiency students.

As Chi (1997) states, blending qualitative and quantitative analyses can bedone by examining qualitative data for trends and developing coding methodsto capture those trends. Tape-recorded data were transcribed by the researcherand coded for the incidence of particular strategies used to make inferencesabout each implicature. Table 2 displays the six strategy categories identifiedin the current study. Once the coding had been completed, the frequency ofdifferent inferencing strategies was determined, along with their representativeexamples.

6. Results and discussion

6.1. Research question one: Can L2 learners comprehend the implicatures?

The first research question addressed whether the learners were able to under-stand the intended meaning of implicatures. Table 3 displays the descriptivestatistics of the listening task. Table 4 presents the list of the items for whichparticipants did not receive a point (i.e., marking the wrong answer or choosing




Table 2. Definitions of categories for the inferencing strategies with representative ex-amples

Strategy category Example

1. Paralinguistic Cues: Identifying par-alinguistic cues used by the speakerto show his/her attitudinal and emo-tional state toward the message (Morley1991). The cues are vocal qualities, in-cluding intonation, stress, pause, tone,or speech rate.

“She sounded a little hesitated becauseshe started the utterance with ‘Um . . .’ ”

2. Adjacency Pair Rule: Using the knowl-edge of conversation structure. Accord-ing to Conversation Analysis (Sacks etal. 1974; Goffman 1976), utterancesusually come in an adjacency pair, andthe parts are dependent upon one an-other for coherence.

“He didn’t answer the question with‘good’ or ‘bad’. Instead he asked aquestion.”

3. Background knowledge/Experience:Referring to life experience and globalbackground knowledge.

“If I get good grades, I would be hap-pier, and I would show my grades rightaway.”

4. Key word inferencing: Catching a keyword in the input and associating it withmeaning.

“I heard the word ‘marry’, so I thoughthe is still married.”

5. Logical Reasoning: Recognizing literalmeaning and working deductively to-ward the implied meaning.

“She said she is going to her Parents’home. That means she won’t be there,so she can’t clean the house this week-end.”

6. Speaker Intention: Understanding thefunction of the implicature spoken bythe speaker; why and for what purposethe speaker used the implicature insteadof a literal response.

“He was saying the utterance as an ex-cuse for being arrested.”

“I don’t know”). Disclosure items seemed to be the most difficult among thethree categories. Items 5, 11, 14, 20, and 22 were the ones that the majority ofthe students could not answer correctly, suggesting that they were distinctivelydifficult.

Table 4 shows that the PIE students missed more items than the undergradu-ate students. The PIE students got 66.7 % of the items correct on average, whilethe undergraduate students answered 88 % of the items correctly. The results ofthe Mann-Whitney U test revealed that the undergraduate students performedsignificantly better than the PIE students (p<0.05).6 However, posthoc anal-



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Table 3. Descriptive statistics of the listening task

Group N Mean Median SD Min Max Range

Total 8 11.7 12.0 0.9 10 14 0–15PIE students 4 10.3 10.0 0.5 10 11Undergraduates 4 13.3 13.0 0.5 13 14

N = number of participants; PIE = Program in Intensive EnglishThe listening task had 15 implicature items in total, so the range is the lowest and highest scorepossible.

Table 4. Implicature items that the learners could not answer correctly

Request refusals Disclosures Opinions

PIEStudent A #20 #1, 14, 22 #5Student B #20 #14, 22 #5, 8Student C #20 #11, 14 #5Student D #20 #11, 22 #5, 13

UndergraduateStudent E #11Student F #11, 14Student G #20 #5Student H #20 #22

yses showed that, PIE students answered nearly 85 % of the items for whichthey did not receive a point, with “I don’t know”. When the learners selected“I don’t know” during the verbal reporting sessions, they were encouraged tochoose between “yes” and “no” by guessing. The verbal protocols revealed thatthe PIE students guessed right nearly in 90 % of the cases where they had cho-sen “I don’t know” for the item. Thus, the obtained statistical difference mightbe generated from difference in confidence in comprehension. PIE studentsseemed to have similar access to the inferential processes, but they might beless confident in providing a definite answer. The results suggest that in spiteof the proficiency difference the learners were generally able to comprehendimplicatures in this listening task.

These findings suggest that utterance interpretation is guided by the questfor the recognition of speaker intentions. Inferential abilities seem to make itpossible to comprehend meaning that is not explicitly stated, even in a secondlanguage. Inference processing also seems to function similarly regardless ofL2 proficiency. Learners with limited proficiency can still utilize context and




Table 5. Frequency distribution of the inferential strategies reported for each item

Para- Adjacency BGK and Key word Logical Speaker Totallinguistic pair rule experience inferencing reasoning intention

Item # PIE UG PIE UG PIE UG PIE UG PIE UG PIE UG

1 (D) 1 1 1 32 (R) 04 (D) 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 3 135 (O) 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 97 (R) 1 3 48 (O) 2 3 4 4 1 2 1 179 (R) 2 2 4

11 (D) 1 2 1 3 3 1 1113 (O) 1 4 3 1 2 2 1314 (D) 1 1 1 1 3 1 2 1016 (O) 017 (R) 019 (O) 1 2 2 520 (R) 2 1 3 2 1 2 1122 (D) 1 3 2 2 1 2 1 1 3 16

Total 13 18 12 17 9 3 7 1 9 9 7 12 117

PIE = Program in Intensive English students; UG = undergraduate students; BGK = backgroundknowledge; R = request refusal; D = disclosure; O = opinion.

search for the most relevant interpretations of indirect utterances. These find-ings imply that inferential communication and the search for relevance are partof ordinary cognitive ability, and can be transferred to L2 comprehension pro-cess. The next section discusses how learners actually find a context whichenables them to understand implicit meaning.

6.2. Research question two: Can the inferential strategies be clearly identi-fied?

The second research question addressed how learners derived the speaker’sintended meaning in implicatures. The transcribed protocols were coded forsix types of strategies: paralinguistic cues, the adjacency pair rule, backgroundknowledge/experience, key word inferencing, logical reasoning, and speakerintention. Table 5 displays the frequency of the strategies reported.

A discrete strategy was counted only once per item, even if it appeared re-peatedly within each item. A total of 117 strategy occurrences were identifiedin the transcripts. Disclosure and opinion items elicited frequent strategies, 53and 45 incidences respectively, but only 19 strategies were identified for re-



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quest refusals. The learners did not use multiple strategies to understand theillocutionary intent of the request refusals probably because they were embed-ded in conventional, easily recognizable contexts. Sperber and Wilson (1991)state that implicatures vary in their degree of strength; some implicatures arestrongly conveyed, while others are weakly understood. Indirect refusals maybe a type of speech act whose illocutionary force is conventionalized and trans-parent, and which are thus easily recognized.

In addition, the learners reported multiple strategies for some items. Thefollowing two extracts from an undergraduate student’s report, Examples (1)and (2), illustrate that three strategies – paralinguistic cues, the adjacency pairrule, and speaker intention – co-occurred and interacted with each other, andcontributed to drawing correct inferences.

(1) Item 22 (Sally asks Bill if he got arrested for drunk driving last se-mester, and Bill responds, “It’s hard not to celebrate the end of thesemester.”

Researcher: Did you understand the last sentence?Student H: Well . . . no.Researcher: How about Sally’s question? Did you get that?Student H: She said she heard that he got arrested for drinking and

driving, but I didn’t understand when it happened.Researcher: She said, “last semester”. Do you remember what Bill

said?Student H: I thought he said, “It’s about last semester.”Researcher: Between “yes” (Bill got arrested.) and “no” (Bill didn’t

get arrested.), which would be your guess?Student H: I’d guess “yes”. He said hesitantly. Also, if he didn’t

get arrested, he would explicitly say, “No, it’s not true.”,but he didn’t. He sounded like he was embarrassed withwhat happened.

(2) Item 11 (Mary asks John if he had a date with her friend, Sally, butJohn responds, “Sally is not really my type.”)

Researcher: Why did you think the answer is “no” (John didn’t havea date.)?

Student H: He said she is not really his type.Researcher: Why did you connect the utterance with the answer?Student H: His way of speaking. He used a circumlocution. So

maybe negative.Researcher: What do you mean by “circumlocution”?Student H: He implied that he didn’t have a date. He didn’t say

directly. He wanted her to understand his feelings. He




was appealing to her understanding because it was adifficult thing to confess. He didn’t say in a straight-forward manner. He said slowly, thinking about everysingle word he said. He was thinking how he could sayit to her.

In Examples (1) and (2), although the learner could not hear the utteranceclearly, she noticed a slight hesitation in the speaker’s voice, and she also rec-ognized that his response did not confirm the adjacency pair rule. She offeredfurther elaboration of her understanding of why the speaker responded indi-rectly.

The following example from a PIE student, Example (3), documents thatmultiple strategy use was also evident in the lower proficiency group. Thelearner noticed the violation of the adjacency pair rule and the sign of hesitationin the speaker’s utterance. She also recognized the speaker intention behindthe implicature; since providing negative evaluation is a face-threatening act,the hearer recognized that the speaker used an indirect reply as a strategy tominimize the threat.

(3) Item 8 (Susan asks her professor what he thought about her presenta-tion, and the professor responds, “It’s hard to give a good presentation,isn’t it?”)

Researcher: Why do you think the answer is “no” (He didn’t like herpresentation.)?

Student D: When Susan asked the question, the professor used acircumlocution, so I thought the presentation wasn’tgood.

Researcher: What do you mean by “circumlocution”?Student D: He responded with a sentence. If the presentation was

good, he would say something like “It’s great.” immedi-ately. But he said “difficult,” somaybe the presentationwasn’t good. He also sounded hesitated when he saidit. It seems that he was wondering how he could saysuch negative evaluative comments to her.

These three examples document that several strategies are reinforcing eachother in order to help learners to understand the intended meaning of implica-tures. The current task seems to be tapping different types of contextual cuessimultaneously during the inferential process. The results imply that pragmaticcompetence, the ability to recognize speaker intentions, is multi-dimensional.Contextual information that learners employ for interpretation includes variousfactors, such as vocal qualities, the structural frame of a conversation, and thefunction of speech.



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The results could also be interpreted from a relevance-theoretic perspective.As RT claims, communication is never achieved by the mere decoding of lin-guistic input. People’s inferential abilities guide meaning interpretation, evenin the absence of the linguistic code. The verbal protocols clearly documentthat the learners were able to interpret implicit messages even when they didnot completely understand the language in the test sentences. Learners usedcontextual cues which were salient for interpretation. These findings also sug-gest a modular system of comprehension: a system in which several levelsinteract and simultaneously contribute to meaning interpretation. As Foster-Cohen (2000) notes, pragmatic inferencing involves interaction between thelower-level explicature (i.e., understanding what is said) and upper-level ex-plicature (i.e., understanding the speaker’s attitude towards the message), cor-responding to bottom-up and top-down processing. Contextual cues such asintonation or hesitation seem to contribute to the upper-level explicature andplay a notable role in utterance interpretation.

In sum, the results support the RT argument that discourse is not compre-hended as a set of connected sentences or texts. Inferencing is not a deductiveprocess in which conclusions are logically drawn from a set of formalized rules.It is a global process in which all the facts and information that the hearer canperceive play a role. The learners also used multiple cues in order to compre-hend implicatures, supporting RT’s claim that “humans may be able to controlmore than one technique” or piece of evidence while inferencing (Sperber andWilson 1995: 65).

Multiple strategies also reflect the roles of contextual effects and processingeffort in RT. The frequency of strategies developed in the work of inferencingseemed to correspond with the degree to which the meaning is accessible, or thedifficulty of implicature. The items that the majority of the learners missed (i.e.,items 5, 11, 14, 20, 22) elicited the development of more strategies probablybecause those items required greater processing effort. As RT states, among thevarious assumptions that come to mind, the choice of a particular assumptionis guided by the search for maximum relevance. People select the assumptionwith the greatest contextual effects and the least processing effort. What makesone interpretation more relevant than others is the amount of processing effortrequired. Processing effort is reflected in the number of signals to be processedand the amount of searching involved. The greater variety of strategies thatappeared in some implicatures might mirror the greater number and varietyof signals to be processed, indicating that those implicatures required moreextensive searching.

In the present analyses, paralinguistic cues and the adjacency pair rule ap-peared most frequently in the verbal protocols, 31 and 29 times respectively.As Morley (1991) states, an important part of communication is the expressionand comprehension of attitudes and affect. Vocal features such as pause, into-




nation, or speech rate display the speaker’s attitude and affect toward his mes-sage. The results show that the paralinguistic features served as salient cuesin understanding the attitudinal/emotional aspects of a message, and helpedlearners to draw inferences about the speaker’s intended meaning, particularlywhen they could not comprehend the language. As shown in the responses toitems 13 and 20, Examples (4) and (5) below, learners identified intonation and‘tone of voice’ as relevant clues to interpretation.

(4) Item 13 (Jane asks Dr. White what he thought about her paper, andDr. White responds, “How much time did you put into it?”)

Student F: I couldn’t get the last utterance by Dr. White, so I’m notsure, but I think the answer is “no” (Dr. White didn’tthink the paper was good.)

Researcher: Why?Student F: His way of speaking didn’t make it sound like the paper

was good.Researcher: What do you mean?Student F: Intonation.Researcher: Do you remember anything about the last utterance?Student F: He said, “What work” something.

(5) Item 20 (Susan asks her brother if she can wear his sweatshirt tonight,and Jeff responds, “You haven’t returned the sweater you borrowedlast time.”)

Student D: Jeff sounded a little angry about his sister wearing hissweater.

Researcher: Why did you think so?Student D: His voice sounded gloomy. He was angry, so probably

she can’t wear his sweatshirt tonight. I guessed fromthe context because I couldn’t understand the rest ofthe conversation. I guessed “no” because of his angrytone of voice.

Similarly, the frequent use of the adjacency pair rule can be explained fromthe previous claim in the field of conversation analysis (CA). According to CA,conversation usually consists of a sequence of turns, and specific interactionalconstraints determine what is relevant in the “next turn” (Sacks et al. 1974;Goffman 1976). The concept of adjacency pairs in CA explains how the secondpair-part in a conversation is constrained by the first pair-part. For example, agreeting sets up a constraint that the next pair-part should be a return greeting.According to Hutchby and Drew (1995), because the norm of the adjacencypair rule is so strong, not confirming the rule can lead to “motivational infer-ences”. “Not returning a greeting may be taken as a sign of rudeness; not pro-



166 Naoko Taguchi

viding an answer to a question may be taken as indicative of evasiveness; whilenot proffering a defense to an accusation may be taken as a tacit admission ofguilt” (Hutchby and Drew 1995: 188). Responses which do not agree with theexpectation from the first pair-part are accompanied by an explanation aboutwhy the speaker is responding in such a way (Sacks 1987; Schegloff 1988).

The present results offer support for the analysis of CA. Because the adja-cency pair rule is normative, the violation of the rule became a salient incidencefor the learners during listening. A question asking for evaluative commentsshould be followed by “good” or “bad”. When asked for information, the per-son usually provides the requested information. Not providing a straightfor-ward answer to the question triggered the learners’ inquiry into the speaker’sunderlying intention of the indirect utterances. As Hutchby and Drew (1995)state, responses that diverge from the expectation of the adjacency pair frame-work tend to be marked with intonation, pause, or hesitation markers. Theverbal protocols revealed that the learners picked up such cues and used themto seek relevance of the seemingly irrelevant reply, together with the rule ofadjacency pairs.

These findings also show that these two types of contextual information, par-alinguistic cues and adjacency pair expectation, were particularly salient to thelearners. According to RT, context that assists utterance interpretation is par-tially determined by people’s encyclopaedic entries: a set of “stereotypical as-sumptions and expectations about frequently encountered objects and events”(Sperber and Wilson 1995: 88), and not all encyclopaedic entries are equallyaccessible at any given time. The present findings suggest that these two typesof contextual cues served as the most immediately accessible encyclopaedicentries during comprehension.

6.3. Research question three: Are there group differences in the use of infer-ential strategies?

The final research question investigated whether PIE and undergraduate stu-dents used inferential strategies differently while comprehending the impli-catures. Table 6 presents the frequency of each type of strategy reported bythe two groups. The total incidences of strategy use were 57 for the PIE stu-dents, and 60 for the undergraduate students. Analyses using a Chi-Squaretest revealed no significant difference between the two groups (p>0.05). Al-though the overall frequency was similar between the two groups, analyses ofindividual strategy categories suggest some between-group differences. Moreundergraduate students reported using paralinguistic cues, the adjacency pairrule, and speaker intention strategies, while the use of background knowl-edge/experience and keyword inferencing were reported more often by the PIEstudents.




Table 6. Frequency distribution of the inferential strategies reported for each item

Para- Adjacency BGK and Key word Logical Speaker Totallinguistic pair rule experience inferencing reasoning intention

PIE 13 12 9 7 9 7 57UG 18 17 3 1 9 12 60

PIE = Program in Intensive English students; UG = undergraduate students; BGK = backgroundknowledge.

The key word processing category demonstrates the sharpest between-groupcontrast; seven incidences of key word inferencing were identified in the verbalreports of the PIE students, while only one incidence was observed in those ofthe undergraduate students. The findings are consistent with Ross (1997) thatthe hearing of a key word is the most common processing level for lower pro-ficiency L2 listeners. Weak listeners tend to make the first choice of key wordand go directly to the first association of the key word and the referent. Con-versely, more proficient listeners appear to explore several possibilities of theassociations between the words and referents before making the final decision.The following excerpt from a PIE student’s report , Example (6), illustrates thatthe student made the wrong key word choice, and as a result, made a wronginference.

(6) Item 1 (Sally asks Dennis if it is true that he got divorced, and Dennisresponds, “I think we got married too young.”)

Researcher: Why did you think the answer is “no” (Dennis is notsingle.)?

Student A: I heard the word “marry” and “too fast” so I thoughthe is married.

Researcher: Why did you connect “too fast” and “marriage”?Student A: I think he also said “young”. He said he isyoung, but married.

The following example, Example (7), contrasts different approaches taken byPIE and undergraduate students in order to understand implicatures. The PIEstudent came to her conclusion by using her own background knowledge andexperience about “colorful food”, while the undergraduate student came to herconclusion by using knowledge of the adjacency pair rule.

(7) Item 5 (Tom asks Sally how she liked the food at the company party,and Sally responds, “It’s certainly colorful.”)

Student C (PIE):The last utterance, she said it was colorful. She was



168 Naoko Taguchi

talking about the color, but I think she said it was justcolorful.

Researcher: Why did you connect it with “she didn’t like the food?”Student C: American food is usually colorful, and I have image

that colorful food is not good.Student F (UG):When asked about the food, she didn’t answer the

question, and she talked about the color, so I thoughtshe didn’t like the food.

Researcher: Why did you connect “colorful” and “no”?Student F: Normally, if asked “How was it?” and if it was good,

we would say “yes” immediately. But she didn’t saythat.

Although the current data are too few to draw any definite conclusions, theysuggest that keyword inferencing and the use of background knowledge/ex-perience could be the strategies which characterize the lower level cognitiveinferential process.

Another noteworthy difference is that the undergraduate students recognizedthe speaker intention behind the implicatures (i.e. the purpose for which thespeaker uses an implicature instead of a literal response) more often than thePIE students. Twelve incidences of the recognition of speaker intention werereported by the undergraduate students, while there were seven incidences inthe PIE students’ verbal reports. Example (8) is an extract from an undergrad-uate student’s protocols.

(8) Item 4 (Mother asked her son about his grades, and the son responds,“The teacher didn’t grade fairly.”)

Researcher: Why did you think the answer is “yes” (Jim got badgrades.)?

Student F: The last utterance by Jim. He was blaming the teacher.He used an excuse for getting bad grades by saying,“The teacher didn’t grade fairly.”

The undergraduate students identified various types of speaker intention inthe listening task, including making an excuse, blaming someone, self-defense,minimizing the threat to face, self-reflection or reflecting one’s weaknesses,and avoiding embarrassment. Recognizing the speaker intention requireshigher level skills because learners need to understand the meaning and pur-pose of implicatures simultaneously. Thus, it could be a characteristic of thehigher level inferential process and a factor which distinguishes proficient fromless proficient listeners.

These findings demonstrate that, although both groups searched for interpre-tations that are consistent with the principle of relevance, individual differences




occurred in the actual context the learners chose to interpret implicit meaning.According to RT, context includes all the contents from one’s physical envi-ronment, one’s short-term memory, and encyclopaedic entities. Context is areflection of one’s cognitive state because it contains all the facts that one isaware of or is capable of becoming aware of. Thus, the context that the hearerbrings in order to understand a message may differ among individuals becauseof their internal states and cognitive abilities. In the present study, individualdifferences may, in part, be attributed to language proficiency differences, assuggested by the learners’ different preferences for certain categories of strat-egy.

7. Summaries and conclusions

The present study applied RT to the analysis of L2 comprehension of impliedmeaning. It examined whether and how learners seek the relevance of implicitinput in context, and whether general proficiency plays a role in comprehen-sion. The introspective verbal method provided the process-oriented perspec-tives to L2 comprehension; it tapped learners’ “online” responses and helpedreveal their mental processes and individual differences during the task of in-ferencing. The verbal reporting revealed the nature of input processing in L2,by exemplifying the types of strategies used to make inferences of implica-tures. The results suggest that RT, which is claimed to characterize L1 com-prehension mechanisms, could also serve as a useful means to understand L2pragmatic comprehension. It helps us understand the role and nature of thecognitive context that L2 learners interact with during comprehension.

7.1. Interpretation of ability to comprehend implicatures

The first research question addressed whether the learners were able to un-derstand the intended meaning of implicatures. The results showed that thelearners in both groups successfully comprehended 70 % or more of the im-plicature items. Although higher proficiency students were significantly betterin their comprehension, analyses of verbal report protocols demonstrated thatlower proficiency students had similar access to inferential processes, but thatthey were less confident or hesitant about making a definite answer choice. Itcan be concluded that, in spite of the proficiency difference, the learners weregenerally able to seek relevance of the speaker’s implied meaning in the presentlistening task. Inferential abilities could be part of general human cognition,and can be transferred to L2 comprehension and guide utterance interpretation.

7.2. Interpretation of strategy use while comprehending implicatures

The second and third research questions investigated the learners’ strategieswhen making inferences of implicatures. Different strategies identified in the



170 Naoko Taguchi

verbal protocols support RT’s claim that utterance interpretation is not merelythe decoding of linguistic input nor the retrieval of logic. Various kinds of in-formation in context, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, are placed on the samelevel, as observed in the occurrence of multiple strategies during comprehen-sion. Learners select the information with the least processing effort and thegreatest relevance for interpretation.

The use of paralinguistic cues and the adjacency pair rule were the mostcommon strategies reported by both groups, indicating that these two were thecues that the learners most immediately accessed in context. The use of back-ground knowledge/experience and key word inferencing were reported moreoften by the lower proficiency students, while more proficient students rec-ognized speaker intentions of implicatures more frequently, suggesting someindividual differences in the context they choose for interpretation. The resultsoffer support for RT’s argument that cognitive context is an individual affair;learners’ different experiences and ability with language might shape their con-text differently and provide different access to certain types of information.

Northern Arizona University�[email protected]�

Appendix: The listening instrument

1. Item specifications

Strategy categories Item numbers

1. Opinions (5 items) #5, 8, 13, 16, 192. Request Refusals (5 items) #2, 7, 9, 17, 203. Disclosures (5 items) #1, 4, 11, 14, 224. Control items (7 items) #3, 6, 10, 12, 15, 18, 21

2. Test items

(1) Sally: Hi Dennis, long time no see.Dennis: Yeah, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? What’s new?Sally: Oh, just the usual stuff. By the way, is it true you got

divorced?Dennis: You know . . . I think we got married too young.Question: Is Dennis single?

(2) Mark: Hey Jane. Are you busy?Jane: Ah . . . not right now. I just finished that big project.Mark: Wow, good for you. I’m glad you finished it. I know

that was a lot of work. By the way, can you work myshift this Friday? My son is graduating from college.




Jane: Um . . . gosh, I’m having a party Friday.Question: Can Jane work for Mark this Friday?

(3) Bob: Can’t believe it’s almost half way through this semester.We have so much to do in the next two months.

Sarah: Yeap, we sure do.Bob: By the way, how are you doing in history?Sarah: Well . . . not so well. I got a C on the last test.Question: Is Sarah doing well in her history class?

(4) Jim: Hi Mom, I’m home.Mom: Hi Jim. Didn’t you get the report card today? How were

your grades this semester?Jim: You know mom, I don’t think the teacher grades fairly.Question: Did Jim get good grades this semester?

(5) Tom: Wow, look. There are so many different kinds of foodhere. I can’t decide which to take first. Which do youthink is good?

Sally: So far I’ve only had some of that one – the yellow onewith reddish sauce.

Tom: Oh, that looks good. Did you like it?Sally: Well . . . it’s certainly colorful.Question: Does Sally like the food she is talking about?

(6) Joan: Hi Dave.Dave: Hi Joan. What’s up?Joan: I was wondering if I can ask you a small favor. Would

you read my paper for English 101?Dave: Gosh, Joan, sorry I can’t. I have a class in about 10

minutes.Question: Is Dave going to help Joan with her paper?

(7) Tom: Mary, where are you?Mary: I’m in the kitchen.Tom: Hey, ah . . . , could you clean the house this weekend? I

have plans.Mary: Oh, ah . . . I’m going to see my parents this weekend. I

won’t be back until Monday.Question: Is Mary going to clean the apartment this weekend?

(8) Susan: I’m so glad that my presentation is over. I was reallynervous. What did you think of my presentation?

Dr. White: Well . . . It’s really difficult to give a good presentationsometimes, isn’t it?

Question: Did Dr. Johnson like Susan’s presentation?



172 Naoko Taguchi

(9) Ben: Hi Barbara. I just came back from the car shop. Itsounds like they are gonna keep my car a day or two.Could I get a ride home with you?

Barbara: Oh Ben, I took the bus to work today.Question: Can Barbara give Ben a ride today?

(10) Nancy: Hi Paul. I’m home.Paul: Hi Nancy. How was your day?Nancy: Good. I finally decided to get my hair done. What do

you think?Paul: I think it looks good.Question: Does Paul like Nancy’s hair?

(11) Mary: Hi John, I’ve been looking for you.John: Why? What’s going on?Mary: You know. I’ve been curious if you had a date with

Sally.John: Um . . . Sally is not really my type.Question: Did John have a date with Sally?

(12) Paul: Oh, shoot, the rent is due today, but I don’t get paiduntil Monday. Could I borrow $50? I’ll give it back toyou as soon as I get paid next week.

Mary: Sure, no problem.Question: Can Paul pay his rent today?

(13) Jane: Hello Dr. White. How are you today?Dr. White: Hello, Jane. I’m doing fine, thank you.Jane: Oh, Dr. White, I’m really anxious to find out how I did

on my term paper. What did you think of it?Dr. White: Well, how much time did you put into it?Question: Does Dr. White think Jane’s paper was good?

(14) Susan: Hi Tom. What’s new?Tom: Well, not much.Susan: How was your interview? Did you get the job you ap-

plied for?Tom: Um . . . I think I need to improve my interview skills.Question: Did Tom get the job?

(15) Dave: Darn it! Mary just broke our date for the concert. NowI have two tickets for Saturday night and no one to gowith.

Paula: Hey Dave. Have you ever met my sister? She’s comingdown to see me this weekend. She might be interestedin the concert.




Question: Does Paula think Dave should take her sister to the con-cert?

(16) Sally: This one looks warm, and I love the color. What do youthink of it?

Jim: Ah . . . I wonder if they have a different style in thatcolor.

Question: Does Jim like the coat Sally is talking about?

(17) Jack: Oh, Jane. I’m so glad I ran into you. Help me!Jane: What’s up?Jack: I have a paper due tomorrow, but I’m working tonight.

Can you type my paper? I have a draft here.Jane: I have to study for my finals tonight.Question: Can Jane help Jack with his paper?

(18) John: So, how do you like Atlanta so far?Julie: I really like it. I was here in ’94 before they made so

many great changes for the Olympics. I think it’s muchmore beautiful now.

Question: Does Julie like Atlanta?

(19) Jack: Hi Sally.Sally: Hi Jack. How’s it going?Jack: Oh, it’s going really well. How about you?Sally: Yeah, not bad. Did you have a good time at Jennifer’s

party?Jack: Oh ah . . . you know it’s hard to give a good party, isn’t

it?Question: Did Jack enjoy Jennifer’s party?

(20) Susan: Hey, you’re back.Jeff: Why are you wearing my sweatshirt?Susan: Oh, I was going to ask you if I can wear it tonight. I’m

going out.Jeff: You haven’t returned the sweater you borrowed last

time.Question: Can Susan wear Jeff’s sweatshirt tonight?

(21) Susan: This movie is boring me to death. I just can’t stand it.John: Really? I don’t think it’s so bad.Question: Does John think the movie is terrible?

(22) Susan: Hey, Bill, long time no see . . . what’s up?Bill: Not much. Just trying to keep up.Susan: Oh, by the way, is it true you got arrested for drinking

and driving at the end of last semester?



174 Naoko Taguchi

Bill: Well, it’s hard not to celebrate the end of semester.Question: Did Bill get arrested by the police last semester?

Notes

1. I wish to thank Dr. Susan Fitzmaurice for her constructive feedback and guidancethroughout this study. I am very grateful to Professor Susan Foster-Cohen for hervery detailed, constructive comments, and also to an anonymous reviewer of IRALfor helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. I am solely responsible forall the errors that may remain.

2. For example, a person who asks for the time will receive an answer such as “10:30”rather than “10:31:04”. This is called “loose use” of language. The speaker aims atoptimal relevance by providing a rough answer which requires less processing effortthan a strictly literal one.

3. Another study by Levorato (1993) investigated children’s ability to use contextualinformation in order to determine the meanings of idiomatic expressions. First andfourth graders read stories in each of which an idiomatic expression was embedded.The results showed that children used contextual cues effectively and were able tounderstand the meaning of idioms.

4. Verbal reporting assumes that people can verbalize internal thought processes. Thecognitive task, whether done silently or verbally, does not alter the information ac-cessed because they operate at an unconscious level unless asked to describe theprocesses (Ericsson and Simon 1987).

5. Ericsson and Simon (1980: 215) proved that verbalization influences cognitive pro-cesses “only if the instructions require verbalization of information that would nototherwise be attended to”.

6. The Mann-Whitney U test was selected because it can be applied to a populationsmaller than eight (Guilford and Fruchter 1987; Witte 1993).

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