Cover not available

In:Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics
Edited by István Kecskés and Stavros Assimakopoulos
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 274] 2017
► pp. 33–52

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 2
“Western” Grice?

Lying in a cross-cultural dimension

 | Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz
Published online: 14 June 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.274.03mei
Abstract
Lying is a cognitive ability serving the deception of interlocutors. Following Grice (1989), we can say that lying violates the first maxim of Quality. Yet there are scholars who argue that the “Western” (rationalist, individualistic) view of Grice cannot account for the social and cultural variation we find in non-Western cultures (e.g., Danziger 2010). This article discusses a number of arguments for and against “Western” Grice and argues that the universalist view of the first maxim of Quality is compatible with social and cultural variation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A general definition of lying
  • 3.Investigating lying from a cross-cultural perspective
    • 3.1Standard situations of lying
      • 3.1.1Greetings
      • 3.1.2Refusal by untruthful excuses
      • 3.1.3Pedagogical contexts
    • 3.2Values associated with lying
      • 3.2.1Truthfulness and honesty
      • 3.2.2Modesty and face-saving
      • 3.2.3Narration and humor
      • 3.2.4Antisocial goals, e.g. gossip
      • 3.2.5Prosocial goals
  • 4.Is the Gricean approach ethnocentric?
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
References
Adenzato, Mauro, and Rita B. Ardito. 1999. “The Role of Theory of Mind and Deontic Reasoning in the Evolution of Deception.” In Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. by Martin Hahn, and Scott C. Stoness, . 7–12. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barnes, John A.. 1994. A Pack of Lies: Towards a Sociology of Lying. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benton, Matthew A. forthcoming. “Gricean Quality.” Noûs.
Bergmann, Jörg R. 1993. Discreet Indiscretions: The Social Organization of Gossip. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blum, Susan D. 2005. “Five Approaches to Explaining ‘Truth’ and ‘Deception’ in Human Communication.” Journal of Anthropological Research 61: 289–315. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2007. Lies that Bind: Chinese Truth, other Truths. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope. 2002. “Everyone Has To Lie in Tzeltal.” In Talking to Adults: The Contribution of Multiparty Discourse to Language Acquisition, ed. by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, and Catherine E. Snow, 241–275. Mahwa, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, Rong, Chunmai Hu, and Lin He. 2013. “ Lying between English and Chinese: An Intercultural Comparative Study.” Intercultural Pragmatics 10: 375–401. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cole, Shirley A. N. 1996. “Semantic Prototypes and the Pragmatics of Lie Across Cultures.” The LACUS Forum 23: 475–483Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coleman, Linda, and Paul Kay. 1981. “Prototype Semantics: The English Verb lie.” Language 57: 26–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Danziger, Eve. 2010. “On Trying and Lying: Cultural Configurations of Grice’s Maxim of Quality.” Intercultural Pragmatics 7: 199–219. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
du Boulay, Juliet. 1976. “Lies, Mockery and Family Integrity.” In Mediterranean Family Structures, ed. by John George Peristiany, 389–406. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro. 1993. “Truth and Intentionality: An Ethnographic Critique.” Cultural Anthropology 8: 215–245. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eichelberger, Julie. 2012. A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis of the Spanish Word Lie: Implications and Applications for the Second Language Learner. MA Thesis: Baylor University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erat, Sanjiv, and Uri Gneezy. 2012. “White Lies.” Management Science 58: 723–733. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fallis, Don. 2012. “Lying as a Violation of Grice’s First Maxim of Quality.” Dialectica 66: 563–581. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gilsenan, Michael. 1976. “Lying, Honor and Contradiction.” In Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behaviour, ed. by Bruce Kapferer, 191–219. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1989. “Logic and Conversation.” In Studies in the Way of Words, Herbert Paul Grice, 22–40. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Edward T. 1976. Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hardin, Karol J. 2010. “The Spanish Notion of Lie: Revisiting Coleman and Kay.” Journal of Pragmatics 42: 3199–3213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan. 2013. Intercultural Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lapinski, Maria Knight, and Levine, Timothy R.. 2000. “Culture and Information Manipulation Theory: The Effects of Self-construal and Locus of Benefit on Information Manipulation.” Communication Studies 51: 55–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Kang. 2013. “Little Liars: Development of Verbal Deception in Children.” Child Development Perspectives 7: 91–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 2014. The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locke, John L. 2010. Eavesdropping: An Intimate History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCornack, Steven. 2014. “Information Manipulation Theory 1.” In Encyclopedia of Deception (Vol. 2), ed. by Timothy R. Levine, 507–509. Los Angeles: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meibauer, Jörg. 2006. “Implicature.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Vol. 5; 2nd edition), ed. by Edward K. Brown. 568–580. Oxford: Elsevier. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Pragmatic Evidence, Context, and Story Design: An Essay on Recent Developments in Experimental Pragmatics.” Language Sciences 34: 768–776. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Lying at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nishimura, Fumiko. 2011. Lying: Strategies to Manage Undesirable Communicative Situations in Japan and New Zealand. PhD Dissertation, University of Waikato. Available at: [URL] (accessed 4 April 2016)
Ochs Keenan, Eleanor. 1976. “The Universality of Conversational Postulates.” Language in Society 5: 67–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1975. “Everyone Has To Lie.” In Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use, ed. by Mary Sánches, and Ben G. Blount. 57–80. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seiter, John S., Jon Bruschke, and Chunsheng Bai 2002. “The Acceptability of Deception as a Function of Perceiver’s Culture, Deceiver’s Intention, and Deceiver-Deceived Relationship.” Western Journal of Communication 66: 158–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spence, Sean A., Mike D. Hunter, Tom F. D. Farrow, Russell D. Green, David H. Leung, Catherine J. Hughes, and Ganesan Venkatasubramanian. 2004. “A Cognitive Neurobiological Account of Deception: Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 359: 1755–1762. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sweetser, Eve E. 1987. “The Definition of Lie.” In Cultural Models in Language and Thought, ed. by Dorothy Holland, and Naomi Quinn, 3–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina (to appear): “Lying and Politeness.” In The Oxford Handbook of Lying, ed. by Jörg Meibauer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vincent Marelli, Jocelyne. 2004. Words in the Way of Truth. Truthfulness, Deception, Lying across Cultures and Disciplines. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Xiao-lei, Ronan Bernas, and Philippe Eberhard. 2012. “When a Lie is Not a Lie: Understanding Chinese Working-class Mothers’ Moral Teaching and Moral Conduct.” Social Development 21: 68–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yum, June Ock 1988. “The Impact of Confucianism on Interpersonal Relationships and Communication Patterns in East Asia.” Communication Monographs 55: 374–388. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Mubashra, Saima & Ghazala Kausar
2023. The Truth About Mendacity: The Role of Deception Motives in Perception of Deceptive Communication in Pakistan. Sage Open 13:4 DOI logo
Meibauer, Jörg
2018. The Linguistics of Lying. Annual Review of Linguistics 4:1 ► pp. 357 ff. DOI logo
Jörg Meibauer
2018. The Oxford Handbook of Lying, DOI logo
Meibauer, Jörg
2023. On commitment to untruthful implicatures. Intercultural Pragmatics 20:1 ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue