Pragmatics and the Intuitions of Law Enforcement Officers International Pragmatics Association Annual Conference, 2005 Riva del Garda, Italy Kerry Linfoot-Ham, University of Florida

Introduction “If you are ever arrested in the US, remember that what you say may not be as important as how you say it.” Cho (2001:11).

Theories “Co-Operative Principle” (Grice, 1975) “Relevance Theory” (Sperber and Wilson, 1986) “Politeness Principle” (Brown and Levinson, 1987) “Derivational Thinking” (M.J. Hardman, 1996) “Norm Resistance Theory” (Austin Turk, 1966)

Co-operative Principle   “…make your conversational 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.” Grice (1999:78)

Co-operative Maxims Quantity – make your contribution as informative as is required Quality – make your contribution one that is true Relation – be relevant Manner – be clear, unambiguous, brief, and orderly Grice (1975:45-46)

Quality Quality – 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 “COPS HATE LIARS [sic.]” (Florida Police Officer Ray Wisher, 1999:38)

Principle of Relevance “Every act of ostensive communication communicates the presumption of its own optimal relevance.” Sperber and Wilson (1986:158)

Politeness Principle Leech’s (1983) maxims: Tact maxim Generosity maxim Approbation maxim Modesty maxim Agreement maxim Sympathy maxim (see also Brown and Levinson, 1987)

1) quality 2) politeness 3) relevance 4) manner 5) quantity Hierarchy of Importance for the Conversational Maxims and the Politeness Principle : 1) quality 2) politeness 3) relevance 4) manner 5) quantity

Derivational Thinking (DT) Linguistic Postulates: number (use of singular/plural structures) sex-based gender (with the masculine form as the root and the feminine derived from the masculine) ranking comparative/absolute (e.g. better, best) e.g. Hardman (1996)

Norm Resistance Theory “[law is a] consensus-coercion balance maintained by the authorities …” Turk (1966:607)

Variants of Authority-subject Values Subjects and authorities both act congruently with their cultural norms Little/no agreement between the verbal and behaviour of authorities and subjects and the cultural norms they hold Congruence is present for the authorities with regard to adhering to their cultural norms, but incongruence exists for the subjects “Incongruence between official norms and behaviour among the authorities will reduce the chance of overt conflict because it deserves discretion”, (Turk, 1966, p. 608)

Organization and Sophistication Levels of support for actions within a group, and how far this is integrated into the group dynamics. Turk assumes police have complex organization, whereas subject organization may vary according to their social circle. Sophistication Knowledge of others, which may be used to manipulate them. Turk again assumes that authorities have high levels of sophistication, whereas the levels of subjects may vary.

Other Pragmatic Theories Conversation Analysis (CA) For example, Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks (1977) See Heydon, 2005 for an example of CA used within a law enforcement setting

The Future Aims: Training law enforcement officers: Prevent physical/verbal conflict caused by communicative frustration Training law enforcement officers: Create a few simple, user-friendly categories that front line officers can access and utilise without effort

Thank you for listening! The End Thank you for listening!