Mayr P (2025)
Publication Language: German
Publication Type: Journal article, Original article
Publication year: 2025
This article is an attempt at a pragmalinguistically grounded approach to Easy Language - an approach that has received little attention in previous research on accessible communication. Specifically, using the German and French versions of an Easy Language text from the field of health communication - namely an information text on organ and tissue donation - this study aims to examine problematic aspects of the guiding principle of maximum explicitness, which is often emphasized in manuals and regulatory frameworks. Drawing on Levinson's implicature model, which closely links implicated meanings to lexical-semantic and morphosyntactic elements and structures, the analysis seeks to demonstrate how linguistic structures endorsed by guidelines and implemented in accessible text products may, contrary to their intended purpose, trigger implicatures. Furthermore, this study seeks to highlight the need for a more nuanced conceptualization of implicitness in the Easy Language discourse - one that moves away from blanket classifications and instead considers implicatures in light of textual and pragmalinguistic factors. In order to better illustrate this issue and to contribute to future developments in Easy Language research, an attempt is also made to categorize the implicatures identified in the analyzed text according to their different potential effects.
APA:
Mayr, P. (2025). Implizit trotz maximaler Explizitheit: Beobachtungen und Überlegungen zum Funktions- und Wirkungspotential von Implikaturen am Beispiel von Swisstransplant. Lebende Sprachen. https://doi.org/10.1515/les-2025-0014
MLA:
Mayr, Paul. "Implizit trotz maximaler Explizitheit: Beobachtungen und Überlegungen zum Funktions- und Wirkungspotential von Implikaturen am Beispiel von Swisstransplant." Lebende Sprachen (2025).
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