Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 517
Some means not all
Neo-Gricean pragmatics helps executive communicators identify unintended conclusions invited by wording, alternatives, and audience expectations
Premise
A statement can be literally accurate while steering a decision in the wrong direction. The sentence “Some sites completed inspection” remains true even when every site did. Listeners may reasonably infer that the speaker avoided the stronger alternative, “All sites completed inspection.” Neo-Gricean Pragmatics studies regular expectations behind such inferences.
The governance problem is not simply grammatical precision. Board reports, assurance letters, and compliance updates must be examined for the conclusions their recipients are likely to draw from what was said instead of a more informative alternative. A deliberately narrow assurance can be responsible when evidence is limited, but unexplained narrowness can also invite a mistaken inference about what remains unfinished.
What the model is: Neo-Gricean Pragmatics in Knowledge →
Continue in the series
- The essential model
- Why this matters
- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
- Selected sources
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainMeaning & Clarity
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.