Homework #4
Find three advertisements/product labels, where the information really meant by the producer is different from the conventional implicature (see your Pragmatics handout).
For example, a billboard says: "We sell air-tickets to London for 999".
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Conventional implicature: I can fly to London for 1000 Kc + some taxes, probably not more than 1300. I probably cannot fly any day, but I am flexible, so that should not be a problem.
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Reality: They have exactly two tickets for that price, you have to pay 3000 in taxes, 1000 fuel surcharge and you have to fly on Christmas Eve.
- The advertisement breaks the conventional implicature, however strictly speaking it does not lie. It does not say they have many tickets or that there are no taxes.
Note: this is a pragmatics homework, not a homework about bad advertising practices in general. Do not send me adds/labels where the company is clearly lying. What they say cannot contradict the entailment of the add. They can be sneaky, but they cannot lie.
Note 2: The advertisements should be different from each other and from the example above