Вип. 26 (2011)

Pasternak T. A.COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGIES OF ENGLISH «JOB INTERVIEW» ...
Ernest: Does the job carry a pension, sir? – Ernest asked anxiously.
In the given example Director violates the Maxim of Relevance having
changed the topic of the interview about the causes of candidate’s changing the
job for the irrelevant one about the attitude of modern youth to the pension, which
doesn’t refer to the issue:
Most young men these days seem to want dull jobs. The first question young
men ask me is whether the job I’m offering carries a pension. They want to
retire before they start!
The implicature, generated by Director, says that the vacancy doesn’t include
pension benefit.
According to Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber Maxim of Relevance is realized
in any phrase without exception as every expression and their succession in
discourse have certain function and meet certain aims. Thus, communicant chooses
corresponding language means that meet these aims. This principle is known as
“communicative principle of relevance” and states that every act of overt communication
conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance. According to
relevance theory, the presumption of optimal relevance conveyed by every utterance
is precise enough to ground a specific comprehension heuristic that hearers
may use in interpreting the speaker’s meaning. Presumption of optimal relevance
means: a) the utterance is relevant enough to be worth processing; b) it is the most
relevant one compatible with the communicator’s abilities and preferences. So,
the principle of relevance is used in communication irrespective of observance,
violation or flouting the cooperative principle by communicants [11].
The Maxim of Manner doesn’t concern the contents of the utterance but the
manner of delivering it by the speaker and is formulated as follows: “Be clear”. It
means to avoid obscurity of expression, and ambiguity and to be brief and orderly.
If the speaker wants to show that he observes this Maxim, he uses the utterances
of clarification: „I mean, Concerning …, As for …, Know what I mean? Do you
understand?” Violation of the Maxim of Manner can be seen in the incoherence
of the utterances, use of junk words, such as I’d say, just, something like that, or
so; and inappropriate use of other genres. Let’s consider the example:
Michael: ... What can we do to increase sales of the second brand?
Alexander: So, in life, there are trustworthy things and untrustworthy things.
And everything is so because we will it to be so. I’d say, just put them in the
front of the shop, right in the window, or, just cut the price or something. In
this case what is required is taking practical action, instead of speculation.
The given extract illustrates the violation of the Maxim of Manner by the candidate
(Alexander). The answer lacks the logical coherence, as the philosophical
reasoning is mixed with concrete steps/actions (everything is so because we will
it to be so - just put them in the front of the shop; cut the price or something). The
candidate replaces terms from professional language with ones from colloquial
genre (front of the shop, right in the window in spite of show-window); uses contex-
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