Friday, November 4, 2011

Application Questions Week 8

#1 A good school? (Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Rashid are both parents of students in the district where Mrs. Thomas also teaches.)

Mrs. Thomas: Johnny has Mr. Smith as a teacher next year. I hear he is an excellent teacher.
Mrs. Rashid: He's very nice.
Mrs. T: Are you happy with the school district?
Mrs. Rashid: There are many lovely people in the neighborhood.

It appears that the Maxim of Relavance has been violated by Mrs. Rashid in this dialogue. She may be signaling that she wants to end the conversation because she is not interested in the topic. It may also be that Mrs. Rashid doesn't have anything nice to say about Mr. Smith or the school district and, knowing that Mrs. Thomas works in the district, chooses to give irrevelevant answers to change the subject. And finally, it is possible there is a language barrier between Mrs. Rashid and she doesn't fully understand the questions and provides irrelevant answers because of this.

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