[CN: abusive behaviour.] Imagine that I don’t have the slightest intention of ever having kids but have a family member who is very concerned that I haven’t had kids. Telling her my decision directly will really upset them so imagine I have this conversation instead:
FAMILY MEMBER: So, when are you having kids???
ME: Well…not everyone can have kids!
What just happened here?
Welcome to the world of pragmatics, the study of what gives language meaning other than the literal words we use (ie. socially and culturally-mediated context). The norms implied in the above exchange are probably not universal, but I bet your understanding of the [fake] exchange is that I misled the family member by using a true statement to imply that I can’t have kids.
Linguists who have worked on pragmatics have theorised a few sets of unwritten rules that we usually follow. At least two of these are relevant to abusive behaviour. First, there’s Grice’s Cooperative principle, which explains why the above conversation was misleading. When we speak to someone, we expect them to cooperate in these areas:
- Maxim of Quality: say things that are true.
- Maxim of Quantity: say the amount of things appropriate to the context.
- Maxim of Relevance: say things relevant to the topic of conversation.
- Maxim of Manner: say things in a straightforward way.
The original exchange has me breaking the Maxim of Relevance. I know the other person would assume my statement was directly relevant to the question and would hence interpret it to mean that I can’t have kids. Yes, this is a bit of what linguists do (based on my uni linguistics major). Kinda like killing a joke by explaining it, right?
Unfortunately, abusers can also take advantage of assumed conversational norms to shirk responsibility for their actions.
When we hear someone make a claim, we generally don’t assume they’re lying, extraordinary claims such as UFO abductions excluded. It’s also common for abusers to lie very blatantly to someone’s face about their actions. In my experience, even if you might know they’re lying, there’s a part of your brain that’s inclined to believe their statement because you’re used to following the maxim of quality. An abuser may even take special care to explicitly highlight how truthful they’re being and how they’re not lying, coasting on this even further.
The maxim of manner is also relevant. Ambiguous statements are a major tool of abusers, often giving the abuser plausible deniability (especially given the politeness maxims below). The people who these statements are directed at might then question themselves about how to “interpret” an ambiguous statement, meaning the abuser relies on the fact that we will charitably assume relevance and clarity.
But wait, there’s more! The politeness maxims are a part of the social contract that I think abusers use even more. These 6 maxims are all very similar:
- The Tact maxim: avoid expressions that make others lose face, maximise ones that make them gain face.
- The Generosity maxim: be generous to others and strict on yourself.
- The Approbation maxim: praise others.
- The Modesty maxim: don’t praise yourself; disparage yourself.
- The Agreement maxim: maximise agreement between yourself and others, minimise disagreement.
- The Sympathy maxim: express sympathy/empathy for others in conversation.
These can be used by abusers in two ways.
The first is providing abuses cover. They know that the people they target are operating with maxims such as generosity or agreement. As long as there’s a more “innocent” interpretation of their words (or even actions), they are less likely to be confronted directly because of the social contract. Even if they are being explicit, they are unlikely to be confronted directly because of the maxims of tact and agreement.
Abusers also rely on the politeness maxims being a barrier to people speaking up about them. Talking to someone about a case of abuse can often break at 4 or more of these maxims. Whereas disparaging yourself, thinking it was you who misunderstood and so on are perfectly standard and we’ve all been trained by social norms to apply those in conversation and in our own minds when thinking about a situation.
So far I’ve been gender-neutral but let’s get real. Abuse dynamics are highly gendered. If anything, these social norms highlight how gendered this is out in the real world. If there are norms about modesty, agreement and relevance that we of all genders practice, how much more can they be used against a woman who’s expected to show more modesty, more agreement, more tact in conversational markers?
There’s one more way that abusers use these norms. They often build up a reputation for being socially inept, unaware or awkward as another way to deflect responsibility for their actions. They’re often slick about it so any of us can be fooled. But the social and conversational norms I’ve outlined are so pervasive that the vast majority of people know them and follow them. This includes a lot of neurodivergent people who may have to be more explicit about learning them but still need familiarity to function in society (since social norms do not currently accommodate them).
If you actually examine the totality of an abuser’s life, you’ll probably find that they follow these social/conversational norms perfectly well — when they need to. For example when they’re talking to someone they don’t have power over, or a stranger, or someone they’re trying to get something from.
They know exactly what they’re doing.
0 Comments