L2 English Speakers' Understanding of Conversational Implicatures

The Relative Accessibility of Conversational Implicatures for L2 English Speakers
Alexandria Huckaby
Boston University

Huckaby
The Relative Accessibility of Conversational Implicature for L2 English Speakers
2
Table of Contents
Abstract
1. Introduction
1.1. The Theoretical birth of Conversational Implicatures: Grice’s Maxims
1.2. What is a Conversational Implicature?
1.2.1. Cancellability
1.2.2. Non-Detachability
1.2.3. Reinforceability
1.2.4. Flouting the Maxims
1.3. Types of Conversational Implicatures
1.4. Definition of Conversational Implicature used for this study
2. Previous Studies
3. Designing the Current Study
3.1. The Purposes and Guiding Questions
3.2. Creating the Stimuli
4. The Current Study

Huckaby
3
4.1. Participants
4.2. Materials and Procedure
4.3. Analysis of Data
4.3.1. Coding Confirmation and Interrater Reliability
4.3.2. Scoring of Questions
4.3.3. Post-Hoc Analysis of Question Responses
4.3.4. Scoring of Items
4.3.5. Statistical Analysis
4.3.6. Items that were similar among ENs and ELs
4.3.7. Items that were different among ENs and ELs
4.3.8. Analysis of Think about your language questions
5. Discussion
5.1. Why these results matter
5.2. Areas of Improvement for future study
Appendices
A. Materials given to Luis Torres
B. Stimuli and Accompanying questions
C. Data divided into quartiles based upon diff scores
Works Cited

Huckaby
4

Huckaby
5
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate English language learners’ acquisition and
understanding of conversational implicatures. A mechanism was created to test the ability of
learners to understand conversational implicatures. It was comprised of 18 conversations
containing conversational implicatures each followed by questions designed to gauge the
participants’ understanding of the conversational implicatures. I compared the answers of 15 L1
English speakers and 31 L2 English speakers of 3 different proficiency levels. Responses to the
questions were then coded for comprehension of the implicatures. The data in this study
suggests that the biggest predictor of a participant’s ability to understand conversational
implicatures is their English proficiency level. I then discuss language background, type of
implicature, and cognitive load as possible factors in explaining these findings.

Huckaby
6
1. Introduction
This study investigates the second language acquisition of conversational implicatures (Grice,
1975; Levinson, 1983). I hoped to discover whether some types of conversational implicatures
were easier to acquire than others. I compared the ability of 15 L1 English speakers and 31 L2
English speakers to access conversational implicatures, certain understanding a listener has of
the speaker’s meaning and intentions that goes beyond literal meaning. Participants were asked
to watch short conversations and answer questions about their conversational content. These
responses were then coded for comprehension of the implicatures. After analysis, the data
suggests that the biggest predictor of whether a participant will access a conversational
implicature is their level of English proficiency.
1.1 The Theoretical birth of Conversational Implicatures: Grice’s Maxims
Implicatures are based on the work of HP Grice (1975), who defined a set of maxims which
describe how conversations work. Grice’s maxims describe the means by which speakers follow
the Cooperative Principle: make your contribution such as is required, when it is required, by the
conversation in which you are engaged.
What this means is that, when two people engage in a conversation, they are working together
to understand and be understood by the other participant. In order to do that, each participant
needs to be able to count on the other to follow certain rules. Grice described them as follows:
• The Maxim of Quality: contribute only what you know to be true. Do not say
false things. Do not say things for which you lack evidence.
• The Maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required. Do
not say more than is required.

Huckaby
7
• The Maxim of Relevance: Make your contribution relevant.
• The Maxim of Manner: avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly
(Grice 1975, p. 25-27)
Whether we consciously realize it or not, when we enter a conversation, we expect these rules
to be followed. We want our conversational partner to say things that are true. If we are talking
to a person who makes a statement such as “The sky is green and the grass is blue,” we know
that we do not share a common understanding of the world, and our hopes of exchanging
information are lost. We want the person we are talking to to give us as much information as is
necessary for us to continue the conversation. However, we do not want them to give us too
much information either. If we say something like
(1.1A) A: I can’t wait to go swimming in this lake!
we want B to give us all the necessary information they have. We want B to say
(1.1B) B: The water may look nice, but it is actually full of piranhas
rather than simply
(1.1C) B: The water looks nice.
We do not, however, want B to say something like
(1.1D) B: The water may look nice, but it is actually full of piranhas. Piranhas are
a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes. In Venezuela, they are
called caribes.1
If the water is full of piranhas, we don’t particularly care what they are called in Venezuela. We
only want to know that they are there so that we will not go swimming.
1
Piranhas.(n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2015,from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha

Huckaby
8
We want our conversational partner to make their turns relevant to the conversation. If we say
(1.1E) A: I can’t wait to go to my grandmother’s house this weekend!
We don’t want B to say something like
(1.1F) B: Piranhas are a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes. In
Venezuela, they are called caribes.
because that is not at all relevant to the conversation we are having.
Finally, Grice says we want our conversational partners to be brief, orderly and avoid being
overly confusing. If they are telling us a story about visiting their grandmother, we want to hear
the events in the order that they happened. In addition, we want them to say “grandmother”
instead of “the third generation matriarch of the family.”
1.2 What is a Conversational Implicature?
A simplified definition for those who are not familiar with what constitutes a conversational
implicature comes from Keith Allen in Natural Language Semantics.
“The probabilistic character of conversational implicature is easier to demonstrate
than define. If a stranger at the other end of a phone line has a high-pitched
voice, you may infer that the speaker is a woman. The inference may be
incorrect. Conversational implicatures are a similar kind of inference: they are
based on stereotyped expectations of what would, more often than not, be the
case."
(Keith Allan, Natural Language Semantics. Wiley-Blackwell, 2001)

Huckaby
9
Conversational implicatures are a type of conversational shortcut that we as speakers take so
that we don’t have to explain every step of our thought processes to the other parties in our
conversation. A very basic example is as follows:
(1.2A) Speaker A: My car is out of gas.
Speaker B: I know where a nearby garage is.2
As speaker A, we know that speaker B is trying to tell us that he will take us to this garage and
that the garage will likely sell gas that is appropriate for our car.
Grice defined a conversational implicature as follows:
I am now in a position to characterize the notion of conversational implicature. A
man who, by (in, when) saying (or making as if to say) that p has implicated that
q, may be said to have conversationally implicated that q, PROVIDED THAT (1)
he is to be presumed to be observing the conversational maxims, or at least the
cooperative principle; (2) the supposition that he is aware that, or thinks that, q is
required in order to make his saying or making as if to say p (or doing so in
THOSE terms) consistent with this presumption; and (3) the speaker thinks (and
would expect the hearer to think that the speaker thinks) that it is within the
competence of the hearer to work out, or grasp intuitively, that the supposition
mentioned in (2) IS required. (Grice 1975:49–50)
In other words, a conversational implicature occurs when someone says statement p but also
intends to convey additional information q. The speaker must be following Grice’s maxims and
must believe that the listener is able to figure out either logically or intuitively that the speaker
means q when they say p.
2 Adapted From Levinson 1983

Huckaby
10
In the decade after Grice, Steven Levinson published his book Pragmatics (1983),in which he
discussed conversational implicatures and refined Grice’s definition. He very thoroughly
explains the distinct features of conversational implicatures, which will be discussed in later
sections.
Cancellability, meaning that the speaker can do away with the conversational implicature
without contradicting herself
Non-detachability, meaning the speaker cannot get rid of the conversational implicature
by changing words to synonyms
Reinforceability, meaning that the speaker can outright state the conversational
implicature without being redundant
1.2.1 Cancellability
A distinct feature of conversational implicatures is that they are cancellable without causing the
sentence to contradict itself. Let’s go back to our first example, in which A’s car has run out of
gas. B could say
(1.2B) B: I know where a nearby garage is.
and we would use our shortcuts to understand that B will take us there. But B could say
(1.2C) B: I know where a nearby garage is; I will give you directions there.
This cancels the logical jump we made earlier. B is not going to take us there, but B has also not
contradicted what he said in the first part of his sentence. When B said
(1.2D) B: I know where a nearby garage is.
we may have used our shortcut to assume that the garage sells gas that is appropriate for our
car, but B could say

Huckaby
11
(1.2E) B: I know where a nearby garage is; they can tow you somewhere with
gas.
Again, B has not contradicted the first part of his sentence.
1.2.2 Non-Detachability
Non- detachability is probably the most difficult aspect of conversational implicatures to
comprehend. It is the idea that because an implicature is dependent upon the context and the
meaningful content of the utterance, not the linguistic form it takes, changing the words in the
utterance to synonyms does not eliminate the conversational implicature.3
For example, let’s
consider the following sentences:
(1.2F) John tried to run a marathon.4
John attempted to run a marathon.
John tried to finish a marathon.
John did his best to finish a marathon.
In spite of the fact that we changed the words involved in the sentence, we are still able to
understand that in each version of the sentence, the speaker is implicating that John did not
finish the marathon.
1.2.3 Reinforceability
3
For reasons thatwill be made clearer in a later section,this does notalways apply to manner implicatures.
4
Adapted from Levinson 1983

Huckaby
12
Reinforceability is an aspect of conversational implicatures that allows a speaker to explicitly
state the conversational implicature without being redundant. We will explore this idea by going
back to our example from the beginning of this paper.
(1.2G) Speaker A: My car is out of gas.
Speaker B: I know where a nearby garage is.
We established earlier that speaker B likely means (and expects B to figure out that he means)
that he will take A to this garage and the garage will have the gas A needs. It would not be
redundant, however, if the conversation went as follows:
(1.2H) Speaker A: My car is out of gas.
Speaker B: I know where a nearby garage is, and I will take you there.
They sell the kind of gas you would need.
1.2.4 Flouting the Maxims
Speakers will sometimes intentionally break the rules of conversation to say something
indirectly. In this case they are doing what is called flouting or exploiting a maxim. For this to
work, a speaker must make it clear to the hearer that she is violating a maxim. For example, if
we have a conversation like (1.2I), below,
(1.2 I) Speaker A: This professor is the worst! Don’t you think he grades unfairly?
Speaker B: Hey, are you going to go see the new Star Wars movie?
we can easily see that speaker B is violating the maxim of relevance. What she says is in no
way relevant to what speaker A says. If we assume that B is being cooperative, we can also

Huckaby
13
assume that she is trying to tell A something by violating this maxim. Speaker B is indirectly
telling A that she does not want to talk about the professor. She is changing the subject.
A speaker can violate each one of the maxims in order to send a message. More examples of
this can be seen in figure 1.31.
1.3 Types of Conversational Implicatures
My study looks at implicatures that revolve around following and violating Grice's four maxims.
Examples of each kind of implicature used as stimuli in this study can be seen in the chart
below, Figure 1.31.
Conversation What it usually
means
How we get to that usual meaning
Quality John: I might
win the lottery.
Mary: Yes, and
pigs might fly.
Mary thinks John
has absolutely no
chance of winning
the lottery.
Assume Mary is cooperative, and thereby
following the normal rules of
conversation. She is saying something
that she knows is not true: Pigs can’t fly.
She is drawing a comparison between
John’s winning and the pigs flying. She
must not think John can win.
Quantity John: Where
are my keys?
Mary doesn’t know
the exact answer,
but wants to give
Assume Mary is cooperative and
following the rules. She gives two
locations so she must have evidence to

Huckaby
14
Mary: They are
either in the
kitchen or the
living room.
as much
information as
could be helpful.
suspect John’s keys are in one of those
locations. A single thing cannot be in two
places, however. Mary must not have
enough evidence to make the stronger
claim that John’s keys are in one room
over the other. She gives as much
information as she has evidence to
support.
Manner Mary:
Let's
get the kids
something.
John: OK, but
not I-C-E C-R-
E-A-M
John is spelling out
ice cream so that
the kids don’t know
what he is saying.
Mary will most
likely pick up on
this and know not
to say ice cream.
Assume John is cooperative and following
the rules. It is not typical for a normal
English speaking person to spell out a
word for no reason. John is flouting
Manner.He must have a reason. We
typically spell things so that kids (who are
illiterate) will not be able to understand.
Relevance John: Where's
the roast beef?
Mary: The dog
looks happy.
Mary thinks that
the dog may have
eaten the roast
beef.
Assume Mary cooperative. Somehow the
way the dog looks is relevant to John’s
question. Mary is giving a hint as to what
she thinks happened to the roast beef.
She does not want to say outright that the
dog has eaten the roast beef, possibly
because she doesn’t know it to be a fact.
She doesn’t want to say anything that she
does not have evidence for.

Huckaby
15
Figure 1.31:Examples of four types of conversationalimplicatures and the logical steps follow ed to get to common meanings
While I have categorized each implicature used in this study into one of four categories (based
on Grice’s maxims), completely isolating every implicature by maxim is not feasible, and some
implicatures will use multiple maxims. Let us look, for example, at the conversation used in the
Relevance category in Figure 1.31. We have to assume that Mary is being relevant, but we also
have to assume that Mary doesn’t want to say something that isn’t true. There is an interaction
between relevance and quality here, which is typical of many implicatures. A third maxim
comes into play by the manner in which Mary answers. She doesn’t say her idea in the most
direct and clear way. She instead chooses to be a bit obscure.
Another example of overlap in implicature type can be found in conversation (1.3A).
(1.3A)John: Do you want a burger?
Mary: Is the Pope Catholic?
From Mary’s response, John can infer that Mary does (enthusiastically) want a burger. To get to
this understanding, John must assume Mary is cooperative. If Mary is being cooperative, she
would respond in a way relating to John’s question. Mary has asked a question that she expects
everyone knows the answer to is ‘yes.’ She must be drawing a comparison between her
question and his question. Everyone knows the Pope is Catholic and everyone knows Mary
wants a burger. This is relevance with an overlap of manner.
1.4 Definition of Conversational Implicature used for this study
For the purposes of this paper, I am using the definition of conversational implicature as
described by Julie Hirschberg (1985):

Huckaby
16
“I propose that a conversational implicature pj is licensed by a speaker’s
utterance of some ui when a speaker intends to convey pj by saying ui; when a
speaker and hearer mutually believe that speaker is being cooperative and that
belief in pj is ‘required’ given ui and speaker cooperativity; and when pj is
CANCELABLE, NON DETACHABLE, AND REINFORCEABLE.”
In other words, a conversational implicature p occurs when someone means p by saying
statement u, and that everyone in the conversation believe that the speaker is being
cooperative. U must also be cancelable, non-detachable, and reinforceable, as discussed in the
previous sections.
2. Previous Studies
In the years since Grice and Levinson, there has been a large focus on pragmatics, but little of
this focus has been aimed at second language learning. It is underrepresented in the literature,
with the vast majority of contributions made by Taguchi. Her work has focused on the accuracy
and processing speed of L2 learners and has shown that proficiency is a major predictor of
accuracy in assessing conversational implicatures (Taguchi, 2005; Taguchi, 2008; Taguchi et al,
2013). The implicatures investigated in these studies were indirect requests, indirect refusals,
and opinions.5
While some of the stimulus items in my study do involve giving indirect opinions,
it was not a primary focus in my work.
5
To make this more clear, here are examples taken from Taguchi (2008).
Indirect Refusal:
John: Hey, Steve and I are going dancing tonight. Would you like to come too?
Mary: I’m not feeling so well.
Indirect Opinion:
Jane: I came to talk to you about my paper. I’d like to find out how I did on it. Was it OK?
Dr. White: How much time did you put into it?

Huckaby
17
Taguchi’s paper The Effect of Working Memory, Semantic Access, and Listening Abilities on the
Comprehension of Conversational Implicatures in L2 English (2008) focused on indirect
refusals and indirect opinions. They were then sorted into conventional (with regard to language
use) and non-conventional. Indirect refusals were considered conventional because excuses
were given for why a person could not participate in an activity (I have an appointment, I am not
feeling well, etc). Indirect opinions were considered non-conventional because they were not
attached to particular linguistic forms or “predictable” patterns of discourse exchange (Taguchi
2008, p 526). Implicatures that were more conventional in language use required less time and
processing effort. The implicatures that were non conventional, were much harder for the
learners to understand. Similarly, Cook and Liddicoat (2002) produced a study that indicated L2
speakers did not do as well with the implicatures in indirect requests, especially if those indirect
requests are non-conventional.6
Slabakova’s Scalar Implicatures in Second Language Acquisition (2009) produced very
interesting findings about what learners deem acceptable in their second language as compared
to their native language. Her study indicated that learners are much more willing to accept
information that is less logical(e.g. “All books have colored pictures”).Native speakers answered
more logically (e.g. “Some books have colored pictures, but not all. Many books do not have
pictures at all.”). Slabakova suggested L2 learners derive more implicatures than native
speakers because learners are less able to come up with “alternative contexts [in the L2] as
they do in their native language” (Slabakova 2009, p 2457). This is likely because of a cognitive
load issue.
6
Cook and Liddicoat defined conventional and non-conventional similarly to Taguchi. Some examples of
what they considered conventional and non-conventional are:
Conventional Indirect requests
Can you cook?
Would you mind throwing the ball over?
Do you have four $1.00 stamps?
Non-Conventional Indirect requests
Is that the phone ringing?
Are you putting salt on my meat?
The kitchen is a bit untidy.

Huckaby
18
While there have not been many studies done in the area of second language pragmatics, there
are a number of papers that discuss the topic in a theoretical manner. Thomas (1983) wrote
about possible sources of what she called “cross cultural pragmatic failure.” She argued that
many of the pragmatic issues one experiences while learning a second language come from L1
transfer and suspects that speakers either misjudge the social conditions (meaning they likely
base their idea of politeness in their target culture on that of their native culture) or they
misjudge the force of a statement in the target language. She suggests that both of these issues
can be corrected through teaching metapragmatic awareness but allows that such education
cannot be possible until the learners are at a high enough proficiency to be able to discuss
metapragmatics. A later theoretical paper, written by Richard Schmidt (1993), suggests that a
pragmatic form must be “noticed” before it can be acquired. What is noticed will change as
proficiency increases because the cognitive load will be lighter at a higher proficiency. Both of
these papers suggest that levels of proficiency are a strong predictor of whether or not an L2
learner will pick up conversational implicatures in their target language. Thomas's ideas
(Thomas,1983) were somewhat confirmed by a study done by Takahashi and Beebe (1987).
Their study showed that for refusal implicatures, learners are very likely to answer as they would
in their first language. This supports the idea that many issues could come from L1 transfer.
Lawrence Bouton (1988) looked at conversational implicatures and asked “to what extent does
a person’s cultural background affect his or her ability to derive conversational implicatures like
American English speakers?” He designed a testing mechanism in which he had 33 scenarios
and dialogues followed by a question about what a speaker meant by his or her statement. The
responses were multiple choice, giving 4 options for the participant to choose from. His study
suggested that some types of implicatures are harder to access than others, even for native
speakers of English, and that relevance and quality implicatures were the easiest for L2
speakers to access. He suggested that quantity was the hardest.
Very little data has been collected to support the suspicions of linguists and ESOL instructors
that L2 learners struggle with conversational implicatures in regular conversation. Second

Huckaby
19
language pragmatics has been focused primarily on politeness, as well as understanding
requests and refusals.These types of conversational implicatures are only the tip of the iceberg.
There are many other times that learners will encounter conversational implicatures. That is the
focus of my study here.
3. Designing the Current Study
3.1. The Purposes and Guiding Questions
I wanted to look more deeply into the conversational implicatures that come up in other parts of
conversation- things that native speakers do regularly and that are necessary to carry on
conversations with native speakers. I feel it is important not only to help show empirically
whether learners struggle, but also help find the causes of any struggle with different types of
implicatures.This study is designed to determine if different types of implicatures were harder for
learners to access, and at what level of English language proficiency these implicatures become
accessible to learners.
The guiding questions for this study are
1. Are different types of conversational implicatures equally accessible to second language
learners?
2. At what level of language proficiency do these implicatures start to become accessible?
The ideal mechanism for testing would be one in which English speakers would score 100% on
understanding implicatures.The reason for this is that English speakers employ conversational
implicatures regularly in their communications to one another and it can be assumed that they
do not struggle with them. The stimuli would also have to have vocabulary that is
understandable at a literal level by the L2 speakers with the lowest language proficiency. It
should also mirror actual English conversation as closely as possible.

Huckaby
20
Each stimulus in this study employs one of the four types of implicatures mentioned in the
previous section. This will allow investigation into whether a particular variety of implicature is
more accessible than the others.
3.2. Creating the Stimuli
Pilot test materials Three versions of the study were tested in order to improve the stimuli.
The original version of the stimuli was a document with 20 conversations followed by a series of
questions. It was given only to English L1 speakers in order to determine how well they could
understand the questions. The conversations were between an unnamed speaker A and an
unnamed Speaker B, as shown below.
A: Janet doesn’t seem to have a boyfriend.
B: She has been making a lot of trips to Bob’s house
lately.
What is B trying to communicate to A with his statement?
Figure 3.21 stimulus and question frompre pilot study comprised of simple conversations by undefined speakers followed by
questions about the conversations.
Participants filled in the answers to the questions and emailed back the document. In this first
trial run, it became apparent that some of the stimuli were confusing in their phrasing and some
of the questions were unclear. Most of the original stimuli were altered before being used in the
final study. Examples of these changes can be seen in the chart below.

Huckaby
21
Original Version of Stimulus Final Version of Stimulus Reasons for change
The judge came in and everyone
stood.
● Which picture set matches
the sentence above?
A
B
● Does it have to be the case
that the pictures occur in
that order?
● Is there any relationship
between the judge coming
in and the people standing?
John: The professor came in and the
class applauded.
● Based on what John said,
which picture matches the
events in the sentence?
● If the class begins to applaud
before the professor came in,
could John still say "The
professor came in and the
class applauded"?
This stimulus was changed
because the order of the
clauses may not have
been causing the
implicature. Everyone
knows that people stand
when the judge comes in.
So if the order were
reversed, maybe they saw
him outside the door.
Maybe the bailiff made a
gesture. If you want the
order of the clauses to do
the work, you have to have
something that could
happen in either order.
The questions were edited
for clarity. It is important
that the participants are
able to easily understand
what they are being asked.
A: How did Harry fare in court
today?
B: He got a fine
● Did B answer A’s question?
● Do you think Harry could
have also gotten community
service?
● How do you know?
John was with Harry in court today.
John knows everything that
happened with Harry’s sentencing.
Mary: How did Harry’s court case
go?
John: Oh, he got a fine.
● Do you think Harry was also
sentenced to go to jail? Why
This stimulus needed more
explanation to help set the
scene for the conversation.
The language of the
question needed to be
simplified as well. “Fare in
court” is a difficult phrase
for a low proficiency EL to
understand.
The questions needed to
be changed as well
because a fine and
community service may
not be mutually exclusive

Huckaby
22
or why not? outcomes, whereas a fine
and jail generally are.

Huckaby
23
Figure 3.22 Changes made to the stimulus betw een first and final trials of the study
In the next version, the stimuli were presented in the form of a PowerPoint, which introduced
large changes in the appearance of the study. The unnamed speakers were renamed John and
Mary. Speech bubbles appeared over John and Mary’s heads as the conversation occurred. In
addition, due to some confusion among the L1 speakers about the meaning of some of the
sentences, I determined that it might be beneficial to include an audio recording of the
conversation as the turns appeared on the screen, as indicated in the image below.
Figure 3.23 One of the stimulus Items used in an early version of this study
I recorded the audio for both John and Mary, and it played in conjunction with the conversation
occurring on the screen, meaning participants could see the conversation and hear the
recordings simultaneously. In the example above, Mary speaks first. When the slide appeared, it
would only have the images of John and Mary, as shown below. Then Mary’s speech bubble

Huckaby
24
and the associated recording would appear. Then it is John’s turn to speak. His speech bubble
would appear on the screen and be accompanied by the associated recording.
Figure 3.24 A series of images depicting the order of images appearing on the screen in an earlier version of the study

Huckaby
25
John and Mary have approximately the same number of turns initiating the conversation. After
each conversation slide is a slide of questions. The participants were asked to record their
answers to these question either on a document, in the notes section of the PowerPoint, or on
the slides themselves and email the answers back to me.
Another change to this version of the study was a simplification of language. I determined that
some of the language in the first trial version of the stimuli may be too complex for low
proficiency speakers and tried to adjust the language so that it still felt natural to the L1
speakers but was easy enough to understand for the low proficiency L2 speakers.
This version of the study was then tested again by several English L1 speakers who had not
taken the first version of the study. After adjusting a few minor issues in this version, primarily in
the form of formatting and clarification of directions, this version of the study was piloted with 8
L1 English speakers from various parts of the United States and 3 L2 English learners from 3
different countries.
Final version of the materials Several changes were made during the transition from the
pilot to the current study. A major change to the format of the study was presented. I chose to
use Google Forms to allow instant access and grouping of results. This also allowed more
control over how the participants viewed the study. While each item occurs in the same
sequence depicted in figure 3.23, it was now done in the form of a video. This is beneficial
because it allows the participants to easily hear the conversation multiple times if necessary.
Another rather dramatic change that occurred when moving to this version of the study is that
John and Mary were no longer represented by real human figures. It came to my attention that
having real figures has the difficulty of allowing each participant to bring the baggage of their
own beliefs and possible assumptions about the figures. The current version of the study
depicts John and Mary as stick figures, allowing each participant to project whatever they like
upon John and Mary. In addition, changes were made to the voices of the two characters. In the
earlier version of the study, the parts of both John and Mary were recorded by the researcher,

Huckaby
26
meaning that there was a single female voice representing both characters. In the current
version of the study, the researcher recorded the part of Mary and a male L1 English speaker
who had not previously been associated with the project recorded the part of John. This was
done to help further distinguish which character was speaking.
Figure 4.1One of the stimulus items used in the current study
After piloting the previous form of the study, it was clear that one particular item was extremely
difficult for both the L1 and L2 speakers. Because of this, it was removed from the current
version of the study. In its place, I added a control stimulus item. This item, shown below, had
no conversational implicature, only the literal meaning of the words.

Huckaby
27
Figure 4.2 One of the stimulus items used in the current study
As there is no reason to believe that John means anything other than the literal meaning of his
words, this question helped determine if participants would project additional meaning where
there was none.
4. The Current Study
4.1 Participants
31 English learners (ELs) participated in this research along with 15 English L1 English
speakers (ENs) . The average ages of the groups are approximately the same, 25.35 years old
for the ELs and 27.27 years old for the ENs. The range of ages is also approximately the same,
18 years old to 43 years old for the ELs and 19 years old to 47 years old for the ENs.

Huckaby
28
ELs were recruited at the center for English language support for international students at a
large university on the east coast of the US. These learners were divided into groups based on
their proficiency as determined by the university program that works with international students
(here given the pseudonym Center for International Student Language Education, or CISLE).
CISLE provided these descriptions of the levels of students' English abilities:
Level Description of abilities
Beginner Students who have successfully completed the elementary level can
understand simple, everyday speech and conversations when the
language is simplified, delivered slowly, and clearly articulated. They can
interact in short social exchanges, talking about personal and general
social matters using basic phrases and sentences. They can understand
simple, Adapted written texts, and write a short, simple passage,
connecting ideas from sentence to sentence.
CISLE is not intended for complete beginners. Elementary level students
must be able to speak, understand, write, and read simple English
sentences before coming to CISLE.
Low
intermediate
Students who have successfully completed the low intermediate level can
understand simple conversations, discussions, presentations and narration
when listening to Adapted and clearly articulated language at slow to
moderate speed. They can interact in conversations and discussions
related to familiar topics, and narrate a simple story or experience. They
can understand simple, Adapted written texts, and write a short, simple

Huckaby
29
passage using paragraph form.
Mid intermediate Students who have successfully completed mid intermediate level can
understand social conversations and academic discussions, presentations
and narration when the language is Adapted and clearly articulated, and
delivered at slow to moderate speed. They can interact in conversations
and discussions, and narrate a story or experience.They can understand
Adapted written texts up to several pages in length, and write a short,
simple paragraph.
High
intermediate
Students who have successfully completed high intermediate level can
understand straightforward social conversations and
academic/professional discussions, presentations and narration, when the
language is clearly articulated and delivered at moderate speed. They can
interact in conversations and discussions, explaining personal views, and
giving clear, detailed descriptions. They can understand short, simple,
unAdapted texts, and write several organized paragraphs on a single topic.
Advanced Students who have successfully completed advanced level can understand
social conversations, academic/professional discussions, presentations
and narration of moderate complexity in a variety of settings, when the
language is delivered at a natural pace. They can interact in conversations
and discussions, explaining and supporting personal views, and giving
clear, detailed descriptions and analyses. They can understand lengthy,
complex texts written in a wide range of styles, and write a clear, well-
organized, and well-developed essay
Figure 4.11 Description of abilities of students in each level of instruction, provided by CISLE

Huckaby
30
CISLE places students into classes based on their own results for each student. Since I knew
what classes each student was placed into, I will use these categories a proxy for testing, which
I was not able to do. These categories formed the basis for the classification of subjects in terms
of their English proficiency.
From this point, to compose groups of relatively comparable size, each participant was sorted
into one of the following four groups based upon their proficiency:
Group 1: beginner and low intermediate (8 participants)
Group 2: middle intermediate and high intermediate (12 participants)
Group 3: advanced level (11 participants)
Group 4: English L1 speakers (15 participants).
4.2 Materials and Procedure
Participants, both English L1 and English learner, were asked to come into the phonetics lab at
the university to participate. They were placed in front of a computer to complete the study.
While they were not given a time limit, the average participant completed the study in just over
an hour. In order to reduce stress and fatigue, participants who had not completed more than
50% of the survey at the end of one hour were stopped. If they were more than 50% complete,
they were allowed to complete the questionnaire. They were not informed ahead of time that
they would be stopped.7
7
Four participants were stopped and notable to complete the study. Their data is used in this analysis.Though it is
incomplete,Ichose to use this data because Ifeel it accurately represents the abilities ofthe participan ts in an actual
conversation.As they were not able to answer these questions in a timely manner,they likely would not understand a
normal English conversation.

Huckaby
31
The questionnaire consisted of 25 videos depicting stick figures having a conversation followed
by a series of questions; it was presented as a Google Form. The conversations appeared both
in writing and in audio format simultaneously. The participants had the ability to replay the
videos as many times as necessary. After each video, there were a number of questions about
each video. The number of questions after each video ranged from 1 to 4. The questions were
designed as a mechanism to get the participants to explain their understanding of the
conversations they have been presented with. The questions included closed types like “Did X’s
answer seem normal or strange?” as well as open questions about the feelings and thought of
the character: “What will Mary think after John says Z?”
All questions were presented in an open format, meaning that participants were expected to
type their answers into a text box. This was done in order to allow participants to provide as
much information as they felt was necessary to answer the question. This format was also used
for questions traditionally presented as closed questions (multiple choice questions, and yes-or-
no question), as shown in the examples below. (See appendix for entire set.)
Figure 4.21 examples of closed questions employed in the current study8
All three questions in the above example are technically closed questions .They present the
participant with two options to choose from (strange or normal for 2.1, yes or no for 2.2 and 2.3),
but require participants to type in their answers in order to allow for any extra explanation that
8
While questions about the ability to answer questions similarly in a participant’s own language were
asked, they were not coded. The analysis of these questions was done separately.

Huckaby
32
the participants wished to provide. Some participants chose to answer “I don’t know” to these
closed questions, creating a third option.
Open-ended style responses allowed for a three-value system of coding to be used. This was
used to explore how participants understood the conversational implicatures, as it is possible
that they were able to only partially understand a conversation. Understanding may not be an
all-or-nothing venture. Participants may have a partial understand or an inkling of what is
happening in the conversation, but not understand it completely. The three value system
allowed the coders to code for that partial understanding.
Data was analyzed by running ANOVAs to determine if there is a statistically significant
difference between the ENS and the ELs. ANOVAs were also run to determine if there is a
significant difference between the proficiency levels, and between the types of questions used.
All of this was used to determine what the biggest predictor of accessing implicatures is.
4.3 Analysis of Data
The data collected were looked at and coded in two different ways: with regard to each
individual question and, subsequently, with regard to each stimulus item. A three value system
was used to gauge the understanding: 1, 0.5, and 0. A question was coded as a 1 if it was clear
to the coders that the participant answered the question as though he had accessed the
implicature in the item. An item was coded as a 0.5 if the answers given to the questions
indicate a partial or possible understanding of the implicature in the item. An item was coded 0 if
the answers given by the participant indicated that they were not able to access the implicature.9
Each item contained between 1 and 4 questions that were designed to determine whether the
participant had accessed the implicature. The questions were coded first as a way to screen for
9
Examples of this coding can be found in section 4.3.2. A complete key to the coding process can be found in the
appendix.

Huckaby
33
any questions or stimulus items that were interpreted in ways not in accord with the intent of this
study.
4.3.1 Coding Confirmation and Interrater Reliability
Confirmation of coding
In order to confirm the reliability the coding given to the responses, a second coder was brought
in. Luis Torres is a recent graduate in the field of psychology from Columbus State University in
Columbus, Georgia. He was only somewhat familiar with the study. Before he was given any
data, he knew that I was working with second language English learners to see if they are able
to access conversational implicatures. He was not aware that he would be receiving both
English L1 speakers’ and English learner speakers’ responses.
The subjects were renumbered to remove any indication that there were two groups (English L1
and English L2). All personal information that was collected (age, proficiency level, native
language) was removed so that it could not influence the coding given to each participant. He
was given a spreadsheet of the responses with personal information removed, a link to the
study so that he could see the questions and videos, and a spreadsheet with the code that I had
established.The directions he was given can be seen below:
On the pages with the responses, you will see questions with decimals (like 1.1, 1.2, etc) the number
before the decimal is the video number. You are coding per video. So, the way you are going to do this
(and I will use video 1 as an example) is as follows
The value 1 response for video 1 is "The dog ate the roast beef." If you see that statement in any of
the responses for the questions associated with video 1, you mark that participant as having a value of
1 for that video. There are also responses valued .5 and responses valued 0.

Huckaby
34
Some of the participants will hedge their responses, We are coding them for as high a response as we
can. For example, if someone answers with "The dog or someone ate the roast beef," this contains a
response valued at 1 and a response valued at .5. We are coding this as 1
Use your best judgement when coding. If you come across an answer that means the same as an
answer I have on the coding sheet, mark it like that answer. It does not have to be verbatim what I
have on the sheet.10
After he finished coding the first 10 participants’ responses per stimulus,11
he sent them to me,
and we discussed his coding as compared to mine. This was done to make sure that we were
interpreting the coding key in the same way. While we were extremely close in our initial coding,
we did have a few discrepancies. We discussed my coding and my reasoning behind coding the
way that I did. Luis explained his coding and his reasoning as well. At that point, we made a few
adjustments to the coding key in order to make it better reflect our collective understanding of
the “correct” answers. Luis then coded each participant by stimulus and then by question.
Interrater Reliability
The interrater reliability was high between the two coders. A Kappa Agreement statistic was
used to assess the inter-rater reliability of Alex and Luis. Each rated 1195 answers. Out of the
2390 ratings, 2199 were matches. Kappa= 0.81, p<.0001, with the 95% confidence interval
between .795 and .843. This can be seen in the contingency table below.
10
Luis and I discussed this further when confirming our coding. We agreed, for instance that for stimulus
8, “Karen is dating Bob” (the answer given in the coding key) is marked the same as “Karen might be
going out with Bob” (S01N) and “Bob could be her new boyfriend” (S14N). Even though they are not
identical, they are communicating the same idea.
11
Luis was given all of the responses along with a code that I had created detailing the correct response
for each stimulus item. He was told to use this key to each participant’s responses with regard to stimulus
items first as practice for coding.I also used this key to code each participant’s responses with regard to
the stimulus items.We then compared coding. The reason we did not simply start with coding each
participant’s responses with regard to questions is that I wanted to make sure that I didn’t tell him my
codes for each question. I created a practice round working with the data in order to discuss the data and
the type of coding I wanted without influencing his codes per questions. The practice coding was not used
in this study. I instead calculated the codes for each participant with regard to the stimulus items by
averaging Luis’s codes for each question.

Huckaby
35
Figure 4.3.11 Contingency table show ing interrater reliability betw een Alex and Luis

Huckaby
36
In an attempt to remove any biases in coding on my part, the coding used to determine average
scores discussed here in this paper was that of Luis. While I had access to information such as
proficiency, Luis did not.
4.3.2 Scoring of Questions
The participant responses were coded per question in a three value system. For each question,
participants were coded on whether they answered the question with regard to an
understanding of implicature in the stimulus video. The coding was the same as coding per
stimulus item in that if the participant accessed the implicature, they received a code of 1 for
that question. If they did not answer as though they had accessed the implicature, they received
a code of 0 for the question. If they seemed to have somewhat accessed the implicature, but
had not given an answer that clearly indicated that they had accessed the implicature, they were
given a code of 0.5 for that question. See the chart below for clarification. The complete guide to
coding responses can be found in Appendix A.
Stimulus Conversation:
John: Where’s the roast
beef?
Mary: The dog looks happy.
Question 1.1
What will John think after Mary
says ‘The dog looks happy”?
Implicature:
The dog ate the roast beef.
Participant number Responses code given
S01N 1.1 She did not understand the 0

Huckaby
37
question
S08N 1.1 The dog ate the beef. 1
S10N 1.1 It is not ready 0
S11N 1.1 There is no roast been left .5
Stimulus Conversation:
John: Where’s the roast
beef?
Mary: The dog looks happy.
Question 1.2
What does Mary think happened
to the roast beef?
Implicature:
The dog ate the roast beef.
Participant number Responses code given
S01N 1.2 The dog ate the roast beef 1
S08N 1.2 also the dog ate the beef 1
S10N 1.2 Burned 0
S11N 1.2 Someone ate all roast beef .5
Figure 4.3.21 Examples of responses received fromparticipants for questions 1.1 and 1.2 and the coding they received.

Huckaby
38
Some of the questions did not allow for a .5 scoring option. For example, question 23.2 asked
participants to choose between image set A and image set B, shown below. As there is only one
correct answer for this question, the coding options were only 1 and 0.
based on what Mary says, which picture set matches
the events in the picture?
Figure 4.3.22 Example of a response that does not allow for a .5 value coding
4.3.3 Post-Hoc Analysis of Question Responses
The pilot study allowed me to refine the questions and the presentation format. Nevertheless,
after administering the items to our sample of 46 subjects, I found unintended interpretations of
several of the questions. For example, I found that in questions 15.1 and 15.212
participants,
12
These questions and the accompanying stimulus can be located in the appendix.

Huckaby
39
both English learners and L1 speakers, had trouble distinguishing between “appropriateness”
and “truth.” In other questions, I noticed that there seemed to be no difference between the
performance of the ELs and the ENs, a possible indication that these questions were not
accurately representing the abilities and understanding of the participants. Because of this
concern, I removed any questions in which the average scores of the ELs were the same as or
higher than the ENs. These questions were not used in analyzing the data collected13
.
4.3.4 Scoring of Items
Since there is only one conversational implicature per stimulus item, looking at each question
individually does not show the whole picture of what the participant understands. To truly
understand whether the participant was able to access the implicature, I needed to create a
score that took into account all of the questions for each item, and I needed to be able to put the
ENs and the ELs on the same scale.
To calculate the new EL and EN scores, the following procedure was followed (which will be
illustrated by items 1 and 22)
Procedure Item 1 Item 22
Determine the number of
questions still considered for
the item
Item 1 has 2 questions still
being considered.
Item 22 has 4 questions still
being considered.
Find the average score for Average score for the ENs for Average score for ENs for
13
These questions and the accompanying stimulus can be located in the appendix

Huckaby
40
each question for the ENs 1.1 is .833 (out of 1)
1.2 is .866 (out of 1)
22.1 is 1 (out of 1)
22.2 is .666 (out of 1)
22.3 is 1 (out of 1)
22.4 is 1 (out of 1)
Find the average score for
each question for the ELs
Average Score for the ELs for
1.1 is .677 (out of 1)
1.2 is .709 (out of 1)
Average score for the ELs for
22.1 is .805 (out of 1)
22.2 is .483 (out of 1)
22.3 is .548 (out of 1)
22.4 is .419 (out of 1)
Add up the scores for all
questions in the item for the
ENs and divide by the total
possible score for each item
to compute percentage
correct
(.833+.866)/ (1+1) =
1.699/ 2 =
.849
(1+ .666+ 1+1)/ (1+1+1+1)
3.666/ 4 =
.917
Repeat this for the ELs (.677+.709)/ (1+1)=
1.386/ 2 =
.693
(.805 +.483+ .548+ .419)/
(1+1+1+1)=
2.255/ 4=
.564

Huckaby
41
Subtract the EL score for the
item from the EN score for
the item in order to get the
Diff score for the item
.849-.693= .156
.156 is the diff score for item
1
.917- .564= .353
.353 is the diff score for item
22
Figure 4.3.41 The procedure used for calculating the Diff scores for ENs and ELs for each stimulus item
After the Diff scores are found, they can be converted into percentages to show the percentage
differences between the amount that each group got correct for each item. Continuing the
example from above, we could say that for item 1, the ENs got 84.95% correct (or, overall,
about 84.95% of the group was able to access the implicature) while the ELs got 69.3 % correct
(or 69.3% of the EL group was able to access the implicature in item 1), leaving a 15.65% gap
between the two groups. In other words, out of a total possible of 100%, ELs were roughly 16
percentage points lower in their average score than ENs.
The following charts show the average scores for both the ELs and ENs for each question and
the calculated scores for each stimulus item. The charts are divided up by primary type of
implicature in the item.
Relevance Implicatures
Stimulus Item
Question
s
Average
EL Score
for
question
Average
EN Score
for
question
Average
EL
Scores
for Item
by %
Average
EN
Scores
for item
by %
NEW Diff
scores for
item

Huckaby
42
1
John: Where’s the
roast beef?
Mary: The dog
looks happy
1.1 What
will John
think after
Mary says
“The dog
looks
happy”?
.677 .833
69.3% 84.95% 15.65%
What does
Mary think
happened
to the roast
beef?
.709 .866
3
John: Is the
chicken good?
Mary: I tried the
chicken once.
Now I always go
for the salad.
Did Mary's
answer
seem
normal or
strange?
.709
.933
70.9% 93.3% 22.4%
4
Mary: Don’t you
think Brenda is so
stupid and
annoying?
What will
Mary think
after John
says "Gee
the
weather
0.209 0.9 20.9% 90% 69.1%

Huckaby
43
John: Gee, the
weather sure has
been nice lately
sure has
been nice
lately"?
8
Mary: Karen
doesn’t seem to
have a boyfriend.
John: She has
been spending a
lot of time at
Bob’s lately.
What will
Mary think
after John's
statement
"Karen has
been
spending a
lot of time
at Bob's
lately"?
0.548 0.866 54.8% 86.6% 31.8%
12
John: I have to
get to the office
by 8am. What
time is it now?
Mary: The paper
hasn’t come yet.
What is
John going
to think
after Mary
says "The
paper
hasn't
come yet?"
0.451 0.933
42.96% 88.86% 45.9%
Does Mary
know what
time it is?
0.548 0.933

Huckaby
44
What does
Mary think
that John
knows?
0.29 0.8
13
Mary: Where’s
Bill?
John: There is a
yellow VW
outside of Sue’s
house.
Where
does John
think Bill
is?
0.741 1
53.15% 93.3% 40.15%
What does
John
expect
Mary to
know?
0.322 0.866
18
John: Do you
want a burger?
Mary: Is the Pope
Catholic?
What will
John think
after Mary
says "Is the
Pope
catholic?"
0.258 1
48.35% 96.6% 48.25%
Does Mary
want to
know if the
Pope is
0.709 0.933

Huckaby
45
Catholic?
24
Mary: Do you
have a Bachelor’s
degree?
John: I have a
PhD
Does John
have a
bachelor's
degree?
0.709 0.933 70.9% 93.3% 22.4%
Figure 4.3.42 EN and EL average scores and Diff scores as calculated for each Stimulus Item w ith a relevance implicature
Among the relevance implicatures, the item with the largest score difference is item 4. The
Average score of the EN speakers was 69.1% higher than the average score for the learners.
The item with the lowest difference was item 1. ENs only averaged 15.65% higher than did the
ELs. Illustrations of these differences can be seen in graph 4.3.41, below.

Huckaby
46
Graph 4.3.41 Comparing the average percentage correct for each Relevance implicature item for ENs and ELs
Quality Implicatures
Stimulus Item
Question
s
Average
EL Score
for
question
Average
EN Score
for
question
Average
EL
Scores
for Item
by %
Average
EN Scores
for item
by %
NEW Diff
scores for
item

Huckaby
47
7
John: I might win
the lottery this
week?
Mary: Yes, and
pigs might fly.
Does
Mary think
that John
could win
the lottery
this
week?
0.87 1
80.5% 100% 19.5%
What will
John think
after she
says
"Yes, and
pigs might
fly"?
0.741 1
14
John: Tehran is in
Turkey, Isn’t it?
Mary: Yeah, and
London’s in
Armenia
Does
Mary think
that
London is
in
Armenia?
0.87 1 87% 100% 13%
19
Did John
lock the
door?
0.322 1
28.96% 95.53% 66.57%

Huckaby
48
John and Mary
are leaving the
house for a few
hours. They have
left the house and
walked down the
street
Mary: Did you
remember to lock
the door?
John: I thought I
would leave it
unlocked and see
what happens
How do
you
know?
0.225 0.933
Will Mary
likely think
John
locked the
door or
not?
0.322 0.933
20
John: Did you like
my presentation?
Mary: The room
you gave it in was
beautifully
decorated.
Did Mary
like
John's
presentati
on?
0.612 1
53.17% 89.97% 36.8%What will
John think
after Mary
says "The
room you
gave it in
0.548 0.933

Huckaby
49
was
beautifully
decorated
"?
Why did
Mary
answer
the way
she did?
0.435 0.766
21
Mary sees
Stanley. He is
wearing a police
uniform. She
knows he has
been applying for
a job at the police
department.
Mary: So you got
the job?
Stanley: Actually,
I stole this
uniform.
Did
Stanley
get the
job as a
policeman
?
0.677 0.933
68.76% 93.3% 24.54%
Did
Stanley
steal the
uniform?
0.741 0.933
Why did
Stanley
say he
stole the
uniform?
0.645 0.933

Huckaby
50
22
John: I'm Bill and I
hate Christmas
Does
John
actually
think he is
Bill?
0.806 1
56.38% 91.65% 35.3%
Does
John want
the police
listening
to him to
think he is
Bill?
0.483 0.666
How does
John feel
about
Bill?
0.548 1
How does
John
expect the
people
listening
to him to
react?
0.419 1
Figure 4.3.43 EN and EL average scores and Diff scores as calculated for each Stimulus Item w ith a quality implicature

Huckaby
51
Among the quality implicatures, the item with the largest score difference is item 19. The
Average score of the EN speakers was 66.57% higher than the average score for the learners.
The item with the lowest difference was item 14. ENs only averaged 13% higher than did the
ELs. Illustrations of these differences can be seen in graph 4.3.42, below.
Graph 4.3.42 Comparing the average percentage correct for each quality implicature item for ENs and ELs
Quantity
Stimulus Item Questio Average Average Average Average NEW Diff

Huckaby
52
ns EL Score
for
question
EN Score
for
question
EL
Scores
for Item
by %
EN Scores
for item by
%
scores for
item
17
John: Where are
my keys?
Mary: They’re
either in the kitchen
or the livingroom.
Why does
Mary
name two
places in
her
answer?
0.612 0.766 61.2% 76.6% 15.4%
9
John was with
Harry in court
today. John knows
everything that
happened with
Harry’s sentencing.
Mary: How did
Harry’s court case
go?
John: Oh: he got a
fine.
Do you
think
Harry was
also
sentence
d to go to
jail? Why
or why
not?
0.645 1 64.5% 100% 35.3%
Figure 4.3.44 EN and EL average scores and Diff scores as calculated for each Stimulus Item w ith a quantity implicature

Huckaby
53
Only two quantity implicatures were considered for the final data set. On average, ENs scored
35.3% higher than did the ELs. Illustrations of these differences can be seen in graph 4.3.43,
below.
Graph 4.3.43 Comparing the average percentage correct for each quantity implicature item for ENs and ELs
Manner
Stimulus Item Questions
Average
EL Score
for
question
Average
EN Score
for
question
Average
EL
Scores
for Item
by %
Average
EN
Scores
for item
by %
NEW Diff
scores for
item
5
Why does
0.387 1

Huckaby
54
Mary: Let’s get
the kids
something to eat.
John: Okay, but
not I-C-E C-R-E-
A-M.
John spell
out the
words "ice
cream"?
19.35% 83.3% 63.95%
What will
Mary think
when John
spells out
the words
"ice
cream"?
0 0.666
10
John: How was
Carol’s singing at
the recital?
Mary: Carol
produced a
series of sounds
that closely
resemble the
notes of a song.
What does
Mary think
of Carol's
singing?
0.483 1
42.65% 95% 52.35%
How do you
know she
thinks that?
0.37 0.9
23 How did
Ray get a
0.741 1 77.35% 100% 22.65%

Huckaby
55
Mary: Bill hit Ray
and Ray got a
black eye.
black eye?
based on
what Mary
says, which
picture set
matches the
events in
the picture?
0.806 1
Figure 4.3.45 EN and EL average scores and Diff scores as calculated for each Stimulus Item w ith a manner implicature
Among the manner implicatures, the item with the largest score difference is item 5. The
average score of the EN speakers was 63.95% higher than the average score for the learners.
The item with the lowest difference was item 23. ENs averaged 22.65% higher than did the ELs.

Huckaby
56
Illustrations of these differences can be seen in graph 4.3.44, below.
Graph 4.3.44 Comparing the average percentage correct for each manner implicature item for ENs and ELs
4.3.5 Statistical Analysis
We would now like to compare the different types of implicatures to determine if there is a
difference among them. When comparing the different types of implicatures, we run into a
problem: in the final data set there is an unequal number of stimulus items for each type.
Because of this, we cannot compare the types directly. Instead, we must look at the general
trends for each type.

Huckaby
57
There are 7 relevance items in the final data set. The diff scores range from 69.1% difference to
15.65% difference. The mean difference is 42.24% difference between the ENs and the ELs.
.
Graph 4.3.51 Diff scores for each of the 7 Relevance items
There are 6 Quality items in the final data set. Their diff scores range from 66.57% difference to
13% difference between the ENs and the ELs. The mean diff score is 32.62%.

Huckaby
58
Graph 4.3.52 Diff scores for each of the 6 Quantity items
Graph 4.3.53 Diff scores for each of the 3 Manner items

Huckaby
59
There are only 3 Manner implicatures in the final data. Their Diff scores range from 63.95%
difference to 22.65% difference. The mean difference between the ENs and ELs is 46.32%.
Among these three types discussed, there is a pattern. All three types have almost identical
range and mean diff scores. Since there are only 2 quantity implicatures, it cannot be said that
they follow this pattern. To see where they would fit in this, we would simply need more items.
I next calculated the average scores (out of a possible 1) for each implicature type across
proficiency levels,14
seen in graph 4.3.54. Across each implicature type, the average score rises
along with the proficiency. This is a good indication that a major predictor of understanding a
conversational implicature is proficiency level.
14
This means that I averaged the scores for all participants within each proficiency group for each
individual item. I then took each of the items within a single implicature type and calculate the mean
score. This resulted in a mean score for each proficiency group for each type of implicature.

Huckaby
60
Graph 4.3.54 Average scores out of 1 for each proficiency level for each type of implicature
ANOVAs were run to determine what the major predictors of a participant's ability to access the
conversational implicatures was. I first wanted to address the questions themselves since the
scores for the questions were used to calculate the scores for the items. Questions were coded
as being either open or closed. If you look at the linear model below where question type was
run by itself, it is a statistically significant predictor of getting the questions right.

Huckaby
61
Figure 4.3.55 ANOVA run to determine if question type is statistically significant
Next this needed to be compared with other factors to determine if it is the strongest predictor.
When we also look at the proficiency status, we can see that question type is no longer
statistically significant (see figure 4.3.57 below).

Huckaby
62
4.3.56 Interaction between question type and proficiency status

Huckaby
63
4.3.57 ANOVA comparing proficiency level to question type
The question type is not significant, but you can see it in the “interaction term”. This means that
for each proficiency category, there is a slightly different relationship with the difficulty of the
question type. It appears overall that open questions (question level 0) are harder than closed
questions (question level 1). For group 4 (the ENs), there is very little difference. This is a ceiling

Huckaby
64
effect, meaning that by the highest proficiency the question type has a negligible effect on the
understanding. For group 3, there is a much larger difference.
We then want to include the implicature type. Looking at the full model, we can see that type of
implicature is not statistically significant. The greatest predictor of whether a participant will
access a conversational implicature is their proficiency level.

Huckaby
65
4.3.58 ANOVA comparing proficiency status and implicature type
4.3.6 Items that were similar among ENs and ELs

Huckaby
66
After the diff scores were calculated, the data was divided into quartiles based upon the diff
score for each item. The highest diff scores were at the top (1st quartile) and the lowest diff
scores were at the bottom (fourth quartile).
What can be seen below in figure 4.3.61 is the bottom quartile, the quartile with the smallest
percentage of differences between the ENs and the ELs. The common thread among these
items is that they are fairly simple; they don’t require a large logical leap. For example, let us
look at item 24, the item among these with the largest difference between the EN and EL
scores. What is required to understand this implicature is that one generally gets a Bachelor’s
degree before one gets a PhD. Since all of the ELs were working with CISLE in connection with
a university, this is knowledge they would likely have. These types of implicatures are likely
spoken in the first languages of the participants as well. They are very common. As Taguchi
(2008) suggested, these conventional types of responses take less effort for the learners to
understand.
Item
Type of
implicature
NEW EL
Scores for
Item by %
NEW EN
Scores for
item by %
NEW Diff
scores
for item
24
Mary: Do you have a Bachelor’s
degree?
John: I have a PhD relevance 70.90% 93.30% 22.40%
7 flouting 80.50% 100% 19.50%

Huckaby
67
John: I might win the lottery this
week?
Mary: Yes, and pigs might fly.
quality
1
John: Where’s the roast beef?
Mary: The dog looks happy
relevance 69.30% 84.95% 15.65%
17
John: Where are my keys?
Mary: They’re either in the
kitchen or the livingroom. quantity 61.20% 76.60% 15.40%
fourth
quartile
14
John: Tehran is in Turkey, Isn’t
it?
Mary: Yeah, and London’s in
Armenia.
flouting
quality 87% 100% 13%
Figure 4.3.61 the quartile w ith the smallest percentage of differences betw een the ENs and the ELs
4.3.7 Items that were different among ENs and ELs

Huckaby
68
What can be seen below in figure 4.3.71 is the top quartile, the quartile with the largest
percentage of differences between the ENs and the ELs.
The first thing that will be noticed about these is that they are primarily flouting maxims. The
only exception to this is item number 18, but while it is not outright flouting a maxim, it does tend
to dance on the edge of it. Mary uses a question to answer a question. That certainly is not a
typical way to respond to a question.
There is another common thread among several of these examples: conventionality in English
speech. Taguchi (2008) suggested that there is a greater cognitive load when something is not
conventional. If you are not exposed to a phrase or a pattern of exchange, it will not hold that
same level of conventionality for you. Item 4 employs an almost comically stereotypical way to
change the subject. Though you can use a logical path to come to the correct response,
someone who has had more exposure to normal English conversations has an advantage. A
similar thing can be said of item 5. Spelling a word out is a stereotypical way to hide a
conversation from children. Again, you can follow a logical path to figure it out, but you have a
distinct advantage if you are familiar with the conventional use of the act.
As a long time learner of Russian, I can say from experience that learners who have trouble
understanding a phrase or sentence are very likely to assume it contains an idiom in the
language they are learning. If they are able to understand the words, but not understand the
meaning of the phrase as a whole, they are likely to assume it is an idiom and move on. I
suspect that is what happened with item 18.
Item
Type of
implicature
NEW EL
Scores for
Item by %
NEW EN
Scores
for item
by %
NEW Diff
scores for
item

Huckaby
69
correct correct
4
Mary: Don’t you think Brenda is
so stupid and annoying?
John: Gee, the weather sure has
been nice lately
flouting
relevance 20.90% 90% 69.10%
19
John and Mary are leaving the
house for a few hours. They have
left the house and walked down
the street
Mary: Did you remember to lock
the door?
John: I thought I would leave it
unlocked and see what happens.
flouting quality 28.96% 95.53% 66.57%
5
Mary: Let’s get the kids
something to eat.
John: Okay, but not I-C-E C-R-E-
flouting
manner
19.35% 83.30% 63.95%
1st quartile

Huckaby
70
A-M.
10
John: How was Carol’s singing at
the recital?
Mary: Carol produced a series of
sounds that closely resemble the
notes of a song.
flouting
manner
42.65% 95% 52.35%
18
John: Do you want a burger?
Mary: Is the Pope Catholic? relevance 48.35% 96.60% 48.25%
Figure 4.3.71 The quartile w ith the largest difference betw een the scores of the ENs and the ELs
The data supports this idea of more exposure to English being the key to figuring out these
more conventional phrases.
Proficiency
Group Number
Number of
participants
who scored a 1
Number of
participants
that scored a
0.5
Number of
participants
who scored a 0
Average score
for group
1 0 3 5 0.187

Huckaby
71
2 3 6 3 0.5
3 6 7 0 0.772
4 14 1 0 0.967
Figure 4.3.72 Values and scores for each proficiency group for item 18
If we look again at number 18 in the figure above, we can see that there is a steady rising in the
averages for each group. More people are able to access the conversational implicature as you
go higher in the proficiency. If we look at the averages per group for each of the other items in
this quartile, we see the same thing.
Item Group 1
averages
group 2
averages
group 3
averages
group 4
averages
4 .187 .333 .182 .9
19 .208 .222 .333 .95
5 .25 .125 .227 .833
10 .375 .479 .409 .95
18 .187 .5 .772 .967

Huckaby
72
Figure 4.3.73 mean scores of each proficiency level for all items in top quartile
The table above shows a general trend of average scores for each question getting higher
across the groups as you move toward a higher proficiency. There are a few exceptions to this,
but since the sample numbers are so small, one person who understood or didn’t understand a
particular question can make a difference in the number; overall the trend is fairly clear.
4.3.8 Analysis of Think about your language questions
For 10 of the stimuli considered in this study, participants were asked questions about the
conversations and whether they could say something like that in their own language, an
example of which is shown in figure 4.3.81, below.
Figure 4.3.81 An example of a Think about your language question
The ELs were instructed to answer these questions with regard to the language they listed as
their first language. The ENs were told to answer these questions with regard to their own
personal idiolect.
I compared the number of ELs who said that they cannot say something like the stimulus to the
Diff scores for that stimulus. The results of this can be seen in the table below.

Huckaby
73
Stimulus
number
Item
ELs who cannot
say that in their
language
diff score
4
Mary: Don’t you think Brenda is so
stupid and annoying?
John: Gee, the weather sure has
been nice lately
16 69.10%
19
John and Mary are leaving the house
for a few hours. They have left the
house and walked down the street
Mary: Did you remember to lock the
door?
unlocked and see what happens.
17 66.57%
5
Mary: Let’s get the kids something to
eat.
John: Okay, but not I-C-E C-R-E-A-M.
10 63.95%
18
24 48.25%

Huckaby
74
21
Mary sees Stanley. He is wearing a
police uniform. She knows he has
been applying for a job at the police
department.
Mary: So you got the job?
Stanley: Actually, I stole this uniform.
5 24.54%
3
John: Is the chicken good?
Mary: I tried the chicken once. Now I
always go for the salad.
7 22.40%
7
John: I might win the lottery this
week?
Mary: Yes, and pigs might fly.
7 19.50%
1
14 15.65%
17
Mary: They’re either in the kitchen or
the livingroom.
3 15.40%

Huckaby
75
14
John: Tehran is in Turkey, Isn’t it?
Armenia.
8 13%
Figure 4.3.82 The number of ELs w ho ‘cannot say that in [their] language’ compared to the diff score for each stimulus
The chart shows that there is a general trend that the more ELs who said that they could not say
something like the stimulus, the higher the diff score. It is not the case, however, that this
follows exactly. For example, stimulus 1 had a diff score of 15.65 %, but nearly half of the
learners said they can't answer the way Mary does. Similarly, stimulus 18, which has 24 (the
most) learners who cannot answer the way Mary does, has a lower diff score than 5 other
stimuli. The (Pearson r) correlation between the diff scores and the percentage of ELs who
could not say something like the stimulus was .615, p=.06 (n=10). While not significant, there is
a strong trend towards an association between ELs’ disavowal of the stimulus in their L1 and
the difference between their performance and that of English native speakers.
5. Discussion
Unlike Bouton (1988), I did not find any indication that any type of conversational implicature is
significantly easier for a learner to access than any other. By far the biggest predictor of whether
a participant would be able to access a conversational implicature was proficiency level. This
supports the ideas of Schmidt (1993). It is likely that at a higher proficiency, the participants are
experiencing a lighter cognitive load. They are familiar with the vocabulary and the grammatical
forms. They do not have to work as hard to process that information and therefore have a lighter
cognitive load. They are able to dedicate more of their cognitive processing to understanding
and logically tracking the conversational implicatures.

Huckaby
76
A possible concern about the results of this study is the idea that different language
backgrounds could have different cognitive loads associated with figuring out the conversational
implicatures. It is true that this study did not control for the language backgrounds of the
participants. Fortunately, a vast majority of my participants were native Arabic speakers (19 out
of 31) and they were spread out across the various EL groups.
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
7 8 4

Huckaby
77
Figure 5.1 Number of Arabic L1 speakers in each of the EL proficiency groups
This helps support the idea that proficiency, not language background, is the major factor in
predicting accessibility of conversational implicatures.
5.1 Why these results matter
This study shows that there is more to proficiency level than simply being able to read or hear
and understand unfamiliar texts in an L2. There is a connection between proficiency level,
pragmatics, and cognitive load. Section 4.3.8 shows that, though they did correspond generally,
how well the Els did as a whole did not correspond exactly to whether they could say certain
phrases or respond certain ways; it did not correspond exactly with how familiar the stimulus
phrases were to the participants. Some stimuli had very low diff scores in spite of most
participants saying that it was unfamiliar. Some stimuli had very high diff scores in spite of most
participants saying it was familiar. The difficulty came from processing the implicatures, not
understanding the stimuli.
Higher proficiencies did better overall with regard to understanding the implicatures, and I
believe that cognitive load is responsible for this. The more proficient learners have interacted
more with the English language. they are more familiar with the vocabulary used in the stimuli
as well as the sentence structures. Because of this, they did not have as great a cognitive load
when it came to understanding the literal meaning of what is presented to them. This lighter
cognitive load allowed them to fill in the pragmatic gaps and access the implicatures. The less
proficient learners were less familiar with the vocabulary and sentence structure of the stimulus.
Because of this, they had a greater cognitive load when it came to understanding the literal
meaning of the stimulus. This heavier cognitive load made it harder, and even left some unable,
to access the conversational implicatures.

Huckaby
78
5.2 Areas of Improvement for future study
There are many areas of this project to be considered when considering paths of future
research. A larger sample size could show stronger statistical significance. It would also be
beneficial to have many more items and consequently more implicatures for the participants to
comment on. The difficulties of that (a limitation of this study) is that participants begin to suffer
fatigue the more items there are to interact with.
Another issue that should be considered is that of coding. While the second rater, Luis Torres,
did not have explicit knowledge of the levels of proficiency of each participant, since the
participants are required to type their own answers, it is possible that he may have been
influenced by things like typos and non-target-like grammar. It would be interesting to have the
ratings done again after converting all of the responses received into a more target-like spelling
and grammatical form.
Changing the question types could also be an avenue for future study. Most of the similar
studies have used a multiple choice format to their questions. I think it would be interesting to
use the same set of stimuli and questions run as both open questions and multiple choice
questions and compare the performance of participants.
As was mentioned in section 1.3, it is nigh on impossible to find an example of a conversational
implicature that rests purely in one type; there are small tastes of other types in most
implicatures. Because of this, it would be interesting to see this study recreated with a more
narrow definition of each type of conversational implicature that accounted for the interaction
between types. Alternatively, with many more questions, even if there was overlap in implicature
types in questions, if you had enough questions with enough different overlaps, then you could
tease this out.
While it is possible that cognitive load accounts for the findings that proficiency level predicts
performance levels on this task, cognitive load was neither systematically manipulated nor

Huckaby
79
completely controlled for in this study. Something that is needed for future research in this area
is a version of the study that does vary syntactic and lexical complexity in a systematic way.
Additional Materials
Appendix A: Materials given to Luis Torres for coding verification
Stimulus
Stimulus
question
Question Value = 1 Value = .5 Value =0
(Adapted from Levinson 1983:
126)
1.1
What will
John think
after Mary
says “The
dog looks
happy.”
Dog ate the
roast beef
no more roast
beef/
Someone ate
the roast beef
anything
else
1.2
What does
Mary think
happened to
the roast
beef?
Dog ate the
roast beef
no more roast
beef/
Someone ate
the roast beef
anything
else

Huckaby
80
Mary: I tried the chicken once.
Now I always go for the salad.
(Adapted from Beaver 2001
http://web.stanford.edu/class/li
ng144/notes/lecture5.pdf)
3.1
Did Mary's
answer seem
normal or
strange?
normal N/A
strange/
anything
else
3.2
Does Mary
think the
chicken is
good?
no N/A
yes/
anything
else
Mary: Don’t you think Brenda
is so stupid and annoying?
John: Gee, the weather sure
has been nice lately
(Adapted from Grice 1975: 54)
4.1
What will
Mary think
after John
says "Gee
the weather
sure has
been nice
lately"?
John wants
to change
the subject/
does not
want to
discuss it
John is
worried that
Brenda will
overhear them
anything
else
Mary: Let’s get the kids
something to eat.
John: Okay, but not I-C-E C-R-
E-A-M
5.1
Why does
John spell
out the words
"ice cream"?
John
doesn't want
the kids to
hear/
understand’
N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
81
104)
5.2
What will
Mary think
when John
spells out the
words "ice
cream"?
Don't say
the words
ice cream."
N/A
anything
else
John: I might win the lottery
this week!
Mary: Yes, and pigs might fly
7.1
Does Mary
think that
John could
win the
lottery this
week?
no N/A
yes/
anything
else
7.2
What will
John think
after she
says "Yes,
and pigs
might fly"?
Mary
doesn't
believe in
him
N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
82
Mary: Karen doesn’t seem to
have a boyfriend.
John: She has been spending
a lot of time at Bob’s lately.
8.1
What will
Mary think
after John's
statement
"Karen has
been
spending a
lot of time at
Bob's lately"?
Karen s
dating Bob
Karen has a
boyfriend
anything
else
8.2
Does John
agree with
Mary's idea
that Karen
does not
have a
boyfriend?
no N/A
anything
else
John was with Harry in court
today. John knows everything
that happened with Harry’s
sentencing.
Mary: How did Harry’s court
case go?
9.1
Do you think
Harry was
also
sentenced to
go to jail?
Why or why
not?
No N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
83
106)
John: How was Carol’s singing
at the recital?
Mary: Carol produced a series
of sounds that closely
resembled the notes of a
song.
(Adapted from Grice 1975:55)
10.1
What does
Mary think of
Carol's
singing?
Carol's
singing was
bad
N/A
anything
else
10.2
How do you
know she
thinks that?
anything
about the
words Mary
says
anything about
the tone of
voice
a
nything
else
John: I have to get to the office
by 8am. What time is it now?
Mary: The paper hasn’t come
yet
107)
12.1
What is John
going to think
after Mary
says "The
paper hasn't
come yet?"
John still
has time/ it
is earlier
than 8am
etc.
John will know
what time it is
anything
else
12.2
Does Mary
know what
time it is?
no/ not
exactly
N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
84
12.3
What does
Mary think
that John
knows?
the time the
paper
comes
N/A anything
else
Mary: Where’s Bill?
John: There is a yellow VW
outside of Sue’s house
102)
13.1
Where does
John think
Bill is?
in/at/outside
Sue's house
N/A
anything
else
13.2
What does
John expect
Mary to
know?
Bill drives a
yellow VW/
what kind of
car Bill
drives
anything else
that is
necessary to
know in order
to answer the
questio
n (who Bill is,
Who Sue is,
etc)
anything
else
John: Tehran’s in Turkey, isn’t
it?
14.1
Does Mary
think that
London is in
Armenia?
No N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
85
Armenia
110)
14.2
What will
John think
after Mary
says "London
is in
Armenia"?
He is wrong N/A
anything
else
Mary: They are either in the
kitchen or the livingroom
Adapted from Levinson 1983:
139
17.1
Why does
Mary name
two places in
her answer?
She doesn't
know which
one
that is where
John usually
leaves his
keys/ there are
two possible
locations
anything
else
18.1
What will
John think
after Mary
says "Is the
Pope
catholic?"
Mary wants
a burger
N/A
anything
else
18.2
Does Mary
want to know
if the Pope is
No N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
86
Catholic?
John and Mary are leaving the
house for a few hours. They
have left the house and
walked down the street.
Mary: Did you remember to
lock the door?
unlocked and see what
happens
19.1
Did John lock
the door?
Yes N/A
anything
else
19.2
How do you
know?
sarcasm/
joking
because he
didn't seem
worried or
concerned
anything
else
19.3
Will Mary
likely think
John locked
the door or
not?
yes, John
locked the
door
depends on if
he normally
locks the door
anything
else
John: Did you like my
presentation?
Mary: The room you gave it in
was beautifully decorated
20.1
Did Mary like
John's
presentation?
No N/A
anything
else
20.2
What will
John think
after Mary
says "The
She didn't
like his
presentation
the room was
better than his
presentation
anything
else

Huckaby
87
room you
gave it in was
beautifully
decorated"?
20.3
Why did Mary
answer the
way she did?
She didn't
want to be
rude/ trying
to be tactful
Sarcasm/ she
liked the room
better than
she liked the
presentation/
she is trying to
avoid the
question
anything
else
Mary sees Stanley. He is
wearing a police uniform. She
knows he has been applying
for a job at the police
department.
Mary: So you got the job?
Stanley: Actually, I stole this
uniform.
21.1
Did Stanley
get the job as
a policeman?
yes N/A
anything
else
21.2
Did Stanley
steal the
uniform?
No N/A
anything
else
21.3
Why did sarcasm/ N/A anything

Huckaby
88
Stanley say
he stole the
uniform?
joking/ really
obvious
else
John: I’m Bill and I hate
Christmas!
22.1
Does John
actually think
he is Bill?
no N/A
anything
else
22.2
Does John
want the
police
listening to
him to think
he is Bill?
no N/A
anything
else
22.3
How does
John feel
about Bill?
John
dislikes Bill/
thinks he is
a scrooge/
other
negative
feelings
N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
89
22.4
How does
John expect
the people
listening to
him to react?
laugh/
agree/ join
in
N/A
anything
else
Mary: Bill hit Ray and Ray got
a black eye.
23.1
How did Ray
get a black
eye?
Bill hit him
someone hit
him
anything
else
23.2
based on
what Mary
says, which
picture set
matches the
events in the
picture?
B N/A
anything
else
23.3
If Ray got a
black eye
before Bill hit
No N/A
anything
else

Huckaby
90
him, could
Mary still say
"Bill hit Ray
and Ray got
a black eye"?
Mary: Do you have a
bachelor’s degree?
John: I have a PhD
24.1
Does John
have a
bachelor's
degree?
yes N/A
anything
else
Appendix B: Stimulus Items and Associated Questions
Stimulus
Stimulus
question Question
(Adapted from Levinson 1983: 126)
1.1
What will John think
after Mary says “The
dog looks happy.”
1.2
What does Mary think
happened to the roast
beef?

Huckaby
91
John: Do you have your car with you today?
Mary: I walked in today
2.1
Did Mary's answer
seem normal or
strange?
2.2
Did Mary bring her car
today?
Mary: I tried the chicken once. Now I always go for the
salad.
http://web.stanford.edu/class/ling144/notes/lecture5.pdf)
3.1
Did Mary's answer
seem normal or
strange?
3.2
Does Mary think the
chicken is good?
Mary: Don’t you think Brenda is so stupid and
annoying?
John: Gee, the weather sure has been nice lately
(Adapted from Grice 1975:54) 4.1
What will Mary think
after John says "Gee
the weather sure has
been nice lately"?
Mary: Let’s get the kids something to eat.
John: Okay, but not I-C-E C-R-E-A-M
5.1
Why does John spell
out the words "ice
cream"?
5.2
when John spells out

Huckaby
92
the words "ice
cream"?
John: The professor came in and the class applauded.
http://web.stanford.edu/class/ling144/notes/lecture5.pdf)
6.1
Based on what John
said, which picture
matches the events in
the sentence?
6.2
If the class begins to
applaud before the
professor came in,
could John still say
"The professor came
in and the class
applauded"?
John: I might win the lottery this week!
Mary: Yes, and pigs might fly
7.1
Does Mary think that
John could win the
lottery this week?
7.2
after she says "Yes,

Huckaby
93
and pigs might fly"?
Mary: Karen doesn’t seem to have a boyfriend.
John: She has been spending a lot of time at Bob’s
lately.
8.1
after John's statement
"Karen has been
spending a lot of time
at Bob's lately"?
8.2
Does John agree with
Mary's idea that
Karen does not have
a boyfriend?
John was with Harry in court today. John knows
everything that happened with Harry’s sentencing.
Mary: How did Harry’s court case go?
(Adapted from Levinson 1983: 106) 9.1
Do you think Harry
was also sentenced to
go to jail? Why or why
not?
John: How was Carol’s singing at the recital?
Mary: Carol produced a series of sounds that
closely resembled the notes of a song.
10.1
of Carol's singing?
10.2
How do you know she
thinks that?

Huckaby
94
Mary: Where does Max live?
John: Somewhere in Montana
11.1
Does John know
Max's street address?
John: I have to get to the office by 8am. What time is it
now?
Mary: The paper hasn’t come yet
12.1
What is John going to
think after Mary says
"The paper hasn't
come yet?"
12.2
Does Mary know what
time it is?
12.3
that John knows?
Mary: Where’s Bill?
John: There is a yellow VW outside of Sue’s house
13.1
Where does John
think Bill is?
13.2
What does John
expect Mary to know?
John: Tehran’s in Turkey, isn’t it? 14.1
Does Mary think that
London is in

Huckaby
95
Mary: Yeah, and London’s in Armenia
Armenia?
14.2
after Mary says
"London is in
Armenia"?
Mary: How many kids does Stanley have?
John: Stanley has 4 kids
15.1
Would it be
appropriate for John
to say "Stanley has
two kids"?
15.2
Would it be true if
John said "Stanley
has two kids"?
John: How are Fred and Betty?
Mary: They had a baby and got married.
(Adapted from Valee 2008:423)
16.1
Based on what John
said, which picture
matches the events in
the sentence?
16.2
If the couple had a

Huckaby
96
baby after they got
married, could Mary
still say "They had a
baby and got
married"?
Mary: They are either in the kitchen or the livingroom
(Adapted from Levinson 1983: 139) 17.1
Why does Mary name
two places in her
answer?
18.1
after Mary says "Is the
Pope catholic?"
18.2
Does Mary want to
know if the Pope is
Catholic?
John and Mary are leaving the house for a few hours.
They have left the house and walked down the street.
Mary: Did you remember to lock the door?
John: I thought I would leave it unlocked and
see what happens
19.1
Did John lock the
door?
19.2 How do you know?
19.3
Will Mary likely think
John locked the door

L2 English Speakers' Understanding of Conversational Implicatures

L2 English Speakers' Understanding of Conversational Implicatures

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (12)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (14)

Similar to L2 English Speakers' Understanding of Conversational Implicatures

Similar to L2 English Speakers' Understanding of Conversational Implicatures (20)

L2 English Speakers' Understanding of Conversational Implicatures