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Exploring Gricean maxims in Facebook conversations through the lens of Gen-Z users: A pragmatic analysis

Volume: 111  ,  Issue: 1 , October    Published Date: 28 October 2022
Publisher Name: IJRP
Views: 424  ,  Download: 500 , Pages: 387 - 399    
DOI: 10.47119/IJRP10011111020224054

Authors

# Author Name
1 Russel J. Aporbo

Abstract

This is a pragmatic study aimed at identifying conversational maxims violated by Gen-Z users in their Facebook conversations and the conversational implicatures embedded in their exchange of conversations. This also explored the syntactic form and the corresponding illocutionary forces used in the linguistic corpora gathered. This qualitative study applied pragmatic analysis as tool to extrapolate the maxims observed by users and the implicatures generated. Linguistic corpora were gathered from computer mediated discourse focusing on Facebook platforms. Conversations were gathered through screenshots with the approval from the identified Facebook users. These were transcribed into written form and selected to fit the objectives of the study and analyzed using Paul Grices Conversational maxims and John Austins types of Illocutionary Acts. These were also elaborated by focusing on the syntactic forms  of the conversation and its explicitness or non-explicitness. Data revealed that Gen-Z users violated the four conversational maxims such as quantity, quality, relevance and manner. Implicatures were drawn according to how participants exchange their responses in the comment section of the posts. Gen-Z users manifested their degree of familiarity towards one another by directly flouting and violating the Gricean maxims. The syntactic forms used were declarative sentence, Yes/No Interrogative and Wh Interrogative.  From the identified lines of conversations, the illocutioanry forces used were only representative and Yes/No and Wh Questions. All these statements were all non-explicit since no performative verbs were reflected in their computer-mediated discourse. Understanding Pragmatics as one important discipline of Linguistics is essential to develop communicative competence, intercultural sensitivity and tolerance. Speakers engaging in Facebook conversations or any computer mediated discourse may have diverse cultural backgrounds but pragmatic competence would certainly ensure the success of communication.

Keywords

  • Gricean maxims
  • Facebook conversations
  • Gen-Z users
  • Pragmatic analysis