Inaug.-Diss.--Münster. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 11-16.

When seeking information, children expect informants to provide information that is congruent with their knowledge and to use conventional labels. Violations of these linguistic expectations influence their behaviour and perceptions, as they are less likely to seek information from informants with a history of inaccuracy or of violation of conversational form (Eskritt et al., 2008; Koenig & Harris, 2005) and perceive unreliable informants as “silly” (Brosseau-Liard & Birch, 2010). I explored whether violations of linguistic expectations influence children’s perceptions of knowledgeability and helpfulness and whether these characteristics predict children’s information seeking. Forty 5-year-olds observed a farmer and a car mechanic label objects for a foreign child. The objects were associated with one of the two informants, rendering one as the expert, and the other as the non-expert. The informants labelled the familiarization objects by stating either the object’s color or its super ordinate category. During test trials, children selected one of the two informants to label novel objects that were either related or unrelated to either one’s domain of expertise (i.e. novel animals, tools or odd objects). Finally, children rated informant’s knowledge of the familiarization objects and their willingness to help the foreign child. Results show that children perceive an informant who provided the super ordinate category as more helpful and somewhat more knowledgeable than one who provides the colour. When labelling objects related to the informants’ domain of expertise, children rely on expertise to seek information. For unrelated novel objects, a trend suggests that perceptions of the expert’s knowledge influence decision making. These results provide new factors underlying children’s information seeking. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-29 11:43:23.22

The purpose of this study is to examine the language of literary texts based on the pragmatic theories; Cooperative Principle and Grice's maxims. The researcher collected data from a science fiction novel, The Giver by Los Lowry. The findings reveal that most of the time, Lowry made the characters disobey Grice's maxims and the Cooperative Principle. Observance of the maxims was less than failure to observe the maxims. Lowry had her characters fail to observe the maxims for specific purposes such as generating new implicatures, hiding the truth for a period, or persuading and convincing the readers about a message Lowry wanted to convey.

Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Bibliography: p. [166]-170.

Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Bibliography: p. [166]-170.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [93]-111).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [93]-111).

In The Battle of Maldon, the valor of the English who fight is never in question. The infamy of the cowards who flee is evident. The way the poet views the Vikings, however, is slightly less obvious. The poet treats all characters who act within the contract of battle with a sort of biased equanimity—of course, the English are portrayed as more heroic and sympathetic, but the Vikings are referred to in a practical manner as seafarers or warriors. It is my contention that the Maldon poet treats the Vikings as natural parts of the battlefield, as if they had their own maxim pairing and were acting according to expectation. By defining how maxims function in the Old English corpus, illustrating the prevalence of Viking violence leading up to the battle, and presenting literary evidence of a Viking maxim in Maldon and The Battle of Brunanburh, I will define what I believe to be the integral parts of the "Viking maxim" and clarify how its presence in The Battle of Maldon informs the poem overall. / Master of Arts

This paper explores how flouting of the Gricean maxims is used to create comedy in the television series Community.  The aim of the paper is to find out what maxims are flouted the most to create comedy and what maxims the different characters flout in order to create comedy. The paper examines the use of flouts in different situations and explores in what situations the different characters flout the maxims for comedy.  The paper is based on transcription of eight episodes of the series. The results show that the maxim of quantity was flouted most often, and some characters used more flouts than others. These results suggest that the use of flouts has to do with their different personalities, which is why some characters did not use as many flouts in order to create comedy, since it would not be in line with their personality.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the rule breaking of Gricean conversational Maxims and how it is used in the TV series The Office. The character Dwight has been in focus, and the main goal of this study is to find out if and how he violates the Gricean Maxims in conversations. The study is based on written transcripts from four episodes of this TV series. The character Dwight's conversations from these episodes have been analyzed in order to see how one or more of the four conversational maxims (quantity, quality, manner and relation) were dealt with. The maxim that Dwight turned out to break the most was the maxim of relation. Dwight is a character that contributes to this series by repeatedly breaking the conversational maxims. / Syftet med denna studie är att analysera överträdelser av Grices samtalsmaximer och hur de används in tv-serien The Office. Karaktären Dwight är i fokus och målet med studien är att ta reda på om och hur han bryter mot Grices samtalsmaximer. Studien baseras på fyra transkriberade avsnitt från denna tv-serie. Dwights konversationer i dessa fyra olika avsnitt har analyserats för att se hur en eller flera av konversationsmaximerna (kvantitet, kvalitet, uppförande och relation) har behandlats. Den maxim som Dwight visade sig bryta mot mest var relationsmaximen. Dwight är en karaktär som bidrar till denna humorserie genom att frekvent bryta mot samtalsmaximerna.