Only youxie think it is a nice thing to say: Interpreting scalar items in face-threatening contexts by native Chinese speakers

Abstract

Language comprehension normally involves going beyond the literal meaning to infer what is meant but not said. One widely studied case is the scalar implicature, i.e. some of the students passed the test implies not all the students passed the test. The present study, by considering both the speaker and the listener as a dyad, investigates native Chinese speakers' use of quantity expressions and recipients' interpretation of speakers' utterances in face-threatening contexts. Results demonstrated varied intentions of being honest or being polite on the speaker's end. Native Chinese speakers even extended the polite intention into situations involving someone who was not present. A systematic divergence was observed in the interpretation of the scalar term youxie (“some”). Recipients tended to accept the scalar inference if they considered youxie as an informative device but to accept the logical interpretation if it was recognized as a polite device. This set of cross-cultural evidence highlights the role of communication and perception of speakers' intentions in the interpretation of scalar items.