Conversational Implicature in Oprah Winfrey TV Interview with Criminals: A Pragmatic Perspective

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed  to explore  how offenders employ conversational implicature in handling questions relating to their offences during interviews in media. Special emphasis is placed on comprehending the roles and tactics of implicating criminals concerning their responses.

Methods:. In adopting a descriptive qualitative approach embedded in pragmatic theories, this research targets a case study of Aaron, a former American convicted of murdering his wife in 2004, and a subsequent interview on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) on December 11,2004. Frameworks include Grice’s Cooperative Principle of 1975, the conversational implicature of 2020, the politeness theory of 2019, and the newly developed facework and evasion techniques of 2022.

Results:. The study results showed that criminals often violate Cooperative Principle maxims while using language to express another message that exonerates them of blame. The study results also showed that  that among all the implicature strategies, the use of evasion is most common as it ensures the criminal does not respond in a way that will be compromising and does not appeal for forgiveness. This discussion situates criminals in media interviews as actors who rely on implicature while responding to shape how the audience perceives them without being forced to tell the truth.

Conclusions: This study has reached some conclusions, the most important of which is that criminals employ indexical communication patterns by violating Grice’s CP maxims or flouting them. These are not only techniques for controlling and managing information but also tricks helpful to hide one’s guilt and prevent one from being held responsible.