On Sweet Words and Malicious Rumors from a Pragmatic Perspective

Pragmatics offers a unique perspective for the study of language in use. According to Austin’s speech act theory, the addresser might conduct three kinds of acts: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocution- ary ones while speaking. And according to the Grice’s theory of conversational implicature, there exists coop- erative principle in conversation including four maxims: quality, quantity, relevance and manner. However, the principle and its maxims are not necessarily followed at all times. Out of expectation, people violate the maxims and tell lies which brings about the implicature. The authors of this paper just take sweet words and malicious rumors as examples. The people in love often make love pledge which helps to increase their affec- tion to each other. And in the interview, the interviewees often avoid to mention their weakness in order to highlight their strengths. And this helps them to get the ideal jobs. At the first sight of another person’s child, the compliments without any reasons will make things worse. The employers’ spreading of rumors without any factual basis that their boss has inclination of extramarital love will result in misunderstanding and embarrassment. The deliberate fabrication of story of one’s colleague’s stealing will hurt his personality and self-respect. Nevertheless, the sweet or artful words might be accepted to increase people’s interpersonal re- lationship and to achieve certain purpose. And they might damage such relationship because of their hypocrisy and revelation of it. The rumors are just like hidden arrows which might cause even greater damage. Based on Austin’s and Grice’s theories, the above analysis of some examples shows that language has the great power of pleasing and hurting people.