Vagueness and Withholding Information in A We J 2020

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Vagueness and Withholding Information in Christie’s (1926) Detective Fiction

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Pragma-Stylistic Study
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Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 11. Number3 September 2020 Pp.331-348
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no3.21
Vagueness and Withholding Information in Christie’s (1926) Detective Fiction The Murder
of Roger Ackroyd: A Pragma-Stylistic Study
Safaa K. Merzah
Department of English Language and Linguistics, College of Education for Women
University of Baghdad, Iraq
Nawal F. Abbas
Department of English Language and Linguistics, College of Education for Women
University of Baghdad, Iraq
Abstract
This study is intended to examine the deceptive strategies utilized in the well-renown Agatha
Christie’s (1926/2002) detective fiction The Murder of Roger Ackroyd to fill a gap in the literature
by conducting a pragma-stylistic analysis of the novel. To do so, the researchers have set two
objectives which are phrased as follows: firstly, examining the pragma-stylistic choices that are
used to surface the deceptive strategies on the character-character level in the pre-dénouement stage
and secondly, investigating the pragma-stylistic choices that are used to surface the deceptive
strategies on the narrator-reader level in the pre-dénouement stage. The stylistic idiosyncrasies of
Christie’s Dr. Sheppard are carried out through an eclectic pragma-stylistic approach to expose his
deceptive strategies for the fulfillment of his selfish ends. Therefore, the study at issue follows an
eclectic conceptual framework which comprises Merzah and Abbas’s deceptive principle (2020)
and Chen’s (2001) self-politeness, along with the stylistic effects achieved via the manipulation of
such linguistic tools, to explore the two levels of discourse, namely, character-character level and
narrator-reader level proposed by Black (2006). The qualitative analysis of the novel has exhibited
that Dr. Sheppard is an expert deceiver who principally relies on indirect strategies, as he is
cognizant of the power of what is insinuated but left unsaid.
Keywords: Agatha Christie, deception, pragma-stylistics, vagueness, withholding information, The

Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cite as: Merzah, S. K.,& Abbas, N. F. (2020). Vagueness and Withholding Information in
Christie’s (1926) Detective Fiction The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Pragma-Stylistic Study.
Arab World English Journal, 11 (3) 331-348.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no3.21
331
Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 11. Number 3 September 2020
Vagueness and Withholding Information in Christie’s (1926) Merzah & Abbas
Introduction
Although the literature on deception is immense, it is only recently that the concept of
verbal deception has become more visible (McCornack, 1992). Many different fields of study, such
as social psychology (Weber, 2017), forensics (Picornell, 2013), and politics (Al-Hindawi & Al-
Aadili, 2017) among others have been of long-standing interest in the field of deception. Knapp,
Hart, and Dennis (1974) undertook a psychological study to determine that verbal and nonverbal
behaviors are characteristic of intentionally deceptive communication. They collected seventy-six
videotaped interviews to provide a database for the analysis of 32 dependent measures. To achieve
their aim, they provided a conceptual framework through which they have concluded that deceivers
show more reticence, vagueness, uncertainty, nervousness, dependence, and unpleasantness than
non-deceivers.
Moreover, Buller and Burgoon (2006) conducted over two dozen psychological
experiments in which they asked participants to deceive one another. Following the lead of previous
research studies, Buller and Burgoon suggested a theory which is entitled “interpersonal deception
theory” whereby they argued that deception is an interpersonal act. They do not advocate the typical
one-way communication experiment as a valid method to detect deception. Instead, they asserted
that interactive communication is most necessary for the sake of detecting verbal and non-verbal
deception. Similar to Knap et al.’s (1974) study, Buller and Burgoon concluded that there are four
message characteristics that reflect the strategic intent: uncertainty and vagueness; nonimmediacy,
reticence, and withdrawal; dissociation; and image-and-relationship protecting behaviour.
Nevertheless, one domain hitherto that seems to be under-researched is literary discourse.

The literature also shows many studies on stylistics: for example, critical stylistics (Ahmed &
Abbas, 2019), discourse stylistics (Abbas, 2020), cognitive stylistics (Jaafar, 2020), etc. However,
such stylistic analyses gave no attention to the act of deception. Merzah and Abbas (2020),
however, conducted a pragma-stylistic analysis by drawing on synthesizing an eclectic model to
explore the deceptive strategies exploited in Flynn’s (2012) psychological thriller Gone Girl. The
main objective of the study was to compare the pragma-stylistic and socio-pragmatic differences
between the antagonists Amy as a psychopathic character and her husband Nick as a non-
psychopathic character. It was found that the style via which Amy and Nick deceive manifests
linguistic gender differences. Both characters revealed different linguistic behaviors when
deceiving the target: on the one hand, the psychopathic character showed directness and
assertiveness. On the other hand, the non-psychopathic character showed uncertainty and reticence.
Unlike the pre-mentioned previous studies, namely, Knap et al. (1974) and Buller and
Burgoon (2006), the present study focuses on literary discourse to manifest the deceptive verbal
strategies of the antagonist Dr. Sheppard. Moreover, the difference between Merzah and Abbas’s
(2020) study and this one is that the former selected whodunnit/psychological thriller, one of the
hybrid sub-genres of crime fiction, as data fo the analysis. It also has a different model than the one
in question. The latter study, however, focuses on a different sub-genre of crime fiction, that is,
Golden Age classic detective fiction. This study, furthermore, adopts a different eclectic model
than that of Merzah and Abbas. Except for their study, no other research to date examined verbal
deception from a pragma-stylistic standpoint in the genre of detective fiction.
Arab World English Journal 332

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Be that as it may, this study aims at bridging the gap in the literature by manifesting certain
deceptive strategies of withholding information and vagueness in Christie’s (1926/2002) most
successful novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This can be achieved by drawing on a stylistic
analysis. The analysis under consideration is particularly interested in surfacing the deceptive
strategies in the genre of crime fiction because it is regarded as a fertile ground for deception. The
genre itself carries deceptive connotations. More specifically, the present study is set for two
objectives as a means of exposing the unorthodox manner via which Dr. Sheppard issues deceptive
strategies: firstly, investigating the pragma-stylistic tools that manifest Dr. Sheppard’s deceptive
utterances on the narrator-reader level (N-RL) in the pre-dénouement stage. Secondly, examining
the pragma-stylistic tools that reveal Dr. Sheppard’s deceptive utterances on the character-character
level (C-CL) in the pre-dénouement stage.
The study under discussion can yield significance to linguistics in general and pragma-
stylistics in particular. It offers a linguistic examination of the deceptive utterances in the prototype
detective novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. As a result, it is of value not only to the area of
linguistics but also to that of literature; it can demonstrate how detective fiction writers deploy
deceptive strategies successfully and creatively to challenge the abductive skills of readers, and
hence increase the readership of this genre.
Literature Review
Pragma-Stylistics
Stylistics can be conceptualized as the scientific study of literary discourse and that it is the
only linguistic sphere which allows the analysis of literary texts and their literary meaning by
employing objective analytical linguistic-oriented tools (Fischer-Starcke, 2010). Based upon this
view, stylistics, therefore, fills a gap in the literature of linguistics. In addition to the preceding
conceptualization of stylistics, the modern view suggests that stylistics is a method that aims at
explaining how meaning in literary or non-literary varieties is formed through the writer’s or
speaker’s linguistic choices (Hickey, 1993). Pragmatics, however, is concerned with context-
embedded aspects of language (Levinson, 1983). It can be alternatively demonstrated as in the
following equation: [Pragmatics = Semantics + Context]. Hickey (1993) coined the term “pragma-
stylistics”, which, since then, has come to be an important approach to text analysis. Pragma-
stylistics, in consonance with Black (2006), is concerned with showing the extent to which
pragmatics contributes to the study of literature; it looks at the usefulness of pragmatic theories to
the interpretation of literary texts. Busse, Montoro, and Nørgaad (2010) assert that “next to the
classic stylistic tool kit of investigating graphological information, sound structure, grammatical
structure of lexical patterning, pragmatic models like speech act theory, Grice’s (1975)
‘cooperative principle’, politeness, implicatures, turn-taking management” (p. 43) are few of the
pragma-stylistic approaches frequently applied to the language employed in literary discourses.
Following Busse et al. (2010), underlying a pragma-stylistic investigation of dialogue are

some central questions of stylistic analysis:
Why and how does a play text/dialogue mean what it does? What is the specific style of a
conventional exchange? How can it be analyzed? What are the effects of the linguistic
choices made? (5) What do these choices say about the characters’/speakers’ interpersonal

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relations and their inherent power structures? How is humor generated? Why do we
perceive interactional exchange as, for example, impolite? (p. 40)
Finally, the question “how deception is created and detected?” might as well be added to the afore-
listed questions. By hybridizing pragmatics and stylistics, more comprehensive explanations can
be presented for many unexplained phenomena (Hickey, 1993).
Definitions of Deception
According to Zuckerman, DePaulo, and Rosenthal (1981), deception is “an act that is
intended to foster in another person a belief or understanding that the deceiver considers false” (p.
2). In a similar vein, Buller and Burgoon (2006) argued that deception is defined as “a message
knowingly transmitted by a sender to foster a false belief or conclusion by the receiver” (p. 205).
Based on this definition, there are two features that need to be fulfilled to perform the act of
deception successfully: firstly, it is necessary for the sender to have a conscious intent to deform
reality; secondly, the sender must expect the receiver to be unaware that they are ill-informed.
Mahon (2007), on the other hand, conceptualized deception as follows:
[t]o intentionally cause another person to have or continue to have a false belief that is
known or truly believed to be false by bringing about evidence on the basis of which the
person has or continues to have a false belief (pp. 189-190).
The problem, however, is that Mahon specified the target as necessarily singular, not plural.
Intuitively speaking, A can, via a gesture or a statement, deceive B, C, etc. simultaneously. For this
reason, Mahon’s definition is also rejected. Carson (2010) agrees with Mahon (2007) in that the
process of deception should necessarily involve inserting false data in another person, where the
information itself is false. He, nonetheless, disagreed with Mahon because the information can be
truly or “partly” believed to be false by the sender. The aforementioned definitions can be
summarised in one definition, which is endorsed in the study undertaken, as follows: A person S
deceives another person (+) S2 iff S1 intentionally causes (+) S2 to believe X (or persist in believing
X), where X is false and S1 necessarily believes that X is false. It is worth mentioning that the
symbol “+” refers to the notion of pluralism/multiplicity, that is, one or more than one person being
deceived.
Withholding Information
Ekman (1992) argued that concealment occurs when “the liar [technically, a deceiver, not
a liar] withholds some information without actually saying anything untrue” (p. 28).
The problem with this definition is that it treats “deception” and “lying” as two terms that denote
the same semantic meaning. This is evident when Ekman (1992) began his definition of lying by
saying, “[i]n my definition of a lie or deceit [emphasis added], then, one person intends to mislead
another…” (p. 28). This conceptualization can be considered for the study under discussion
provided that the researchers substitute the noun “liar” with “deceiver.” Castelfranchi and Poggi
(1994), along similar lines, conceptualized concealment as a deceptive behavior that occurs when
the speaker “hides some information by giving H [the hearer] some other information that is true
but is not the relevant one for H’s goals” (p. 284). In light of this definition, concealment differs
from lying in that the latter strategy puts forth “untrue” information. Also, Castelfranchi and Poggi
advanced an argument, concluding that concealment is a strategy of omission, which makes the
former a subordinate notion.

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Galasiński (2000) and Marrelli (2004), however, seem to use the concepts omission and
withholding information synonymously. Following this train of thought, Dynel (2018)
differentiated between withholding information and deceptively withholding information,
maintaining that “deception necessitates withholding information” (p. 299). Withholding
information is of paramount importance for all deceptive forms. The phenomenon of lying, for
instance, necessitates keeping true information, and the very act of deceiving for that matter, covert
since the speaker aims at sustaining a false belief in the targeted hearer. This is a requisite of all
forms of deception (Carson, 2010). Deceptively withholding information (which will be called
“withholding information” hereafter), however, can be employed strategically to invite a false
belief in the target, that is, as a form or a source of deception per se. For completeness, Dynel
(2018) avered that it is the relevance of the concealed information, compulsorily coupled with the
intention to invite a false belief in the targeted hearer that can architect the jointly sufficient criteria
for withholding information.
Concerning the micro-strategies of withholding information, they can be systemized into

two strategies: (i) half-truths which can be conceptualized as providing relevant “true” information,
yet intentionally failing to deliver the entire truth (Marrelli & Castelfranchi, 1981), (ii) silence
which is defined as the absence of talk. It is a non-verbal communication that transmits a plethora
of meanings. Dynel (2018) maintained that withholding information can be performed by a “dint
of silence”. Silence can be viewed as a strategy of deception only if the withheld information is of
relevance to the situation under interaction, and, through which, the sender aims at fostering a false
belief in the receiver(s) or to continue having it. Phrased differently, the deceivers may intentionally
not participate in an exchange, while they are aware that they should because they have some
crucial and relevant information to share with the target.
Vagueness
Égré and Icard (2018) put forth an argument in which they conclude that vagueness can be
utilized as a deceptive mechanism. Vagueness might be described as a non-committal mechanism
to impede the deceived from discovering the (entire) truth. This can happen in cases in which the
speaker is “perfectly informed” and being purposefully imprecise to withhold information, hence
misdirecting the hearer. Following this strategy, the speaker can certainly mislead but need not lie
in the strict sense of the word. An exception, however, is made when the provided “partial”
information triggers false implicature. Égré and Icard further argue that it is the context and the
intention which determines the deceptiveness of this phenomenon. It can be deduced, so far, that
vagueness can be deceptive in three ways: (1) when it is used to refrain from violating the maxim
of quality at the expense of exploiting the maxims of manner and quantity (for not giving sufficient
information); trigger false implicatures, thus violating the maxim of quality; (3) and when it is
disguised in hedging expressions and/or presupposition.
Unreliable Narration
Even though fiction writers designed an unconventional literary device known as
“unreliable narration,” in the 18th century, the term was first coined by Booth (1960) in his famous
Rhetoric in Fiction which shaped and prospered the notion of narratology into a discipline. Booth
(1961) phrased the notion of unreliable narration as in the subsequent lines: “I have called a narrator
unreliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (that is to say, the
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implied author’s norms), unreliable when he does not” (pp. 158-159). Heyd (2006) summarised
the concept of unreliable narration in few but efficient words: “A narrator is unreliable if he violates
the CP without intending an implicature” (p. 225). It can be said, in simple terms, that one of the
salient techniques of unreliable narration is the deviation from pragmatic theories. However, the
researchers in this study will propose an argument that a new principle should be designed and
followed when deceiving.
The Deceptive Principle

Merzah and Abbas (2020) composed a new principle which is modeled on Grice’s (1991)
cooperative principle. The four maxims of Grice (1991) can be demonstrated as follows: (1) The
maxim of quality: (a) Do not say what you believe to be false. (b) Do not make your contribution
more informative than as required. (2) The maxim of quantity: (a) Make your contribution as
informative as is required. (b) Do not make your contribution more informative than as required.
(3) The maxim of relevance: Be relevant. (4) The maxim of manner: (a) Avoid obscurity of
expression. (a) Avoid obscurity of expression. (b) Avoid ambiguity. (c) Be brief. (d). Be orderly.
In their model, Merzah and Abbas (2020) argued that interlocutors adhere to the following principle
when intending to practice deception:
Make your conversational contribution not as is required, at the stage as you make it occur,
by the purpose of direction of the talk exchange in which you evade, ambiguate, and/or are
vague, while withholding your real intentions so as not to be honest or accountable for what
you say. One might label this the Deceptive Principle. (p. 92)
As demonstrated below, Merzah and Abbas (2020) proposed four maxims that compose the
deceptive principle (henceforth, DP):
(1) The Maxim of Quantity: (a) Do make your contribution as (un)informative (i.e., more
or less than is required) as you need to achieve the fostering of a false belief in the target.
Withhold relevant information if needed. (b) Do make your contribution more/less
informative than is required. Distort (hyperbolise or downsize) reality if need be. (2) The
Maxim of Quality: (a) Do not hesitate to falsify/fabricate/lie if it serves your argument
better. (b) Do not hesitate to plant seeds of doubt, or spread rumours you have no evidence
to be true. (3) The Maxim of Relevance: Be irrelevant. Do not hesitate to plant red herrings
for the purpose of irrelevancy. To achieve this: (a) Evade addressing the heart of the matter
or answering questions. (b) Practice self-/other face-threatening acts to distract the target’s
attention. (4) The Maxim of Manner: (a) Be unclear, indirect, and unorderly to enable
incoherence, hence deception. (b) Be ambiguous/vague if you need to mislead or hide
information of truth/relevance. (p. 93)
The deceptive maxims stated above reveals that the nature of the deceptive principle is parasitic on
the cooperative principle. On the surface, they must appear cooperative for the act of deceiving
cannot be effective without the parameter of covertness. This is precisely what McCornack’s
(1992) IMT has concluded: The speaker pretends to adhere to the cooperative principle —they are
careful not to make their violation apparent to the target for the deception lies in the target thinking.
Chen’s (2001) Self-Politeness

Chen (2001) provided the notion of self-face, which means politeness directed to the self.
He argued that self-politeness or self-face refers to cases in communication where the need to shield
and enhance one’s face influences the style and the content of what one says. By drawing on Brown
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and Levinson’s theory, Chen (2001) proposed similar strategies for his model. However, only two
strategies are applicable to the selected data of this study:
1) Withhold the self-face threatening act (henceforth, W-SFTA) – which can be boiled down to
being silent altogether. It should be mentioned that this strategy is not discussed in the model that
is designed for other-face. The strategy in dispute is realized by the maxim of quantity of the DP.
2) Off record: This strategy is manipulated when much is at stake. It is realized by the three maxims,
namely, quality, relevance, and manner, of the DP. The study in question, nevertheless, is limited
to the maxims of quantity and manner.
It seems that Chen (2001) has separated two related concepts into two super strategies: off
record: the maxim of quantity and the super strategy withhold self-face threatening act (i.e.,
silence). Because the DP includes silence as the first sub maxim of quantity, it has been decided
that W-SFTA should be included within off record: the maxim of quantity to avoid redundancy.
The model of Chen is employed in the study in question to surface all the macro-strategies of
deception, depending on the intention and the style via which Dr. Sheppard deceives.
Detective Fiction
The tradition of classic detective fiction has been given multi-labels: the clue-puzzle story,
whodunnit, the mystery story, and the analytic detective fiction, all of which refer to the basic
structure of the genre, that is, to its characteristic of intriguing and challenging the reader to analyze
the murder-detection-explanation stages successfully (Horsley, 2005). During the interwar period
(1918-1939), the enclosed British community was the provenance of betrayal, deception, tension,
and death (Çelikel & Taniyan, 2015). The period of the 1920s and 1930s, as Çelikel and Taniyan
(2015) argued, is known as the “Golden Age” of (classic) detective fiction in England. The term
under consideration can refer to either the period itself (interwar), or the type/genre of crime fiction
produced. Todorov (1977) averred that detective fiction was at its peak during the interwar period
(1918-1939). It is during this age that murder became an indispensable part of crime fiction after
focusing on robbery and fraud crimes as in Sherlock Holmes’ stories (Rowland, 2010).
It was also the age where crime writers employed more intricate plots which can be
particularized by a gathered group of vastly possible suspects. As Roland (2010) demonstrated, the
Golden Age presented crime fiction typically in a secluded country house or any locked room. The
Golden Age fiction is characterized by the marginalizing of sex, vulgarity, and violence, which
lead to forming the subgenre of cozy mystery (Bertens & D’haen, 2001). It has consistent features
introduced in seriatim fashion such as discovering a body, facing a series of red herrings, finding
clues to solve the puzzle, and the dénouement of “whodunit” (Rowland, 2010). It is worth noting
that the dénouement stage, also known as the solution or the revelation stage, in crime fiction is the
segment of the story in which the protagonist or any other character unravels all the mysteries of
the murder. It sets the finale of the story for readers and other characters. Simply put, it is “as much
a ‘tying up’ of the action as an untying” (Wales, 2011, p. 107).
Scaggs (2005) has used the term “whodunnit” synonymously with “detective fiction.”
Readers must be provided with linguistic clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the
crime should be induced before the detective or any other intelligent character solves the mystery
in the dénouement stage in the final pages of the story. For this reason, crime fiction challenges the
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abductive skills of the reader. Detective fiction has several genres as briefly afore-demonstrated.
The Detective fiction The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a mixed-breed of the three most common
detective fiction subgenres, namely, whodunnit, locked room mystery, and cozy mystery (Ashley,
2002; Bertens & D’haen, 2001; Todorov, 1977).
Christie’s (1926/2002) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Like many mystery novels, and particularly Christie’s works, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
is set in a claustrophobic environment that seems isolated from the rest of the world—as a result,
the novel does not allude to historical events. Following Todorov (1977), Christie’s The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd is one of the top novels that best exemplifies the subgenre of whodunnit. A novel
that falls under this category presents not one, but two stories: the story of the murder and the story
of the investigation. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Dr. Sheppard, the narrator, is presented from
the beginning as a sincere, sympathetic, and peaceful person, only to discover in the last part of the
book that he is the mysterious murderer, leaving readers to question whom to trust. Presenting the
narrator as a physician and a polite man is a red herring in itself, distracting readers and misdirecting
suspicion. Contemporary readers, especially those in the 1920s, would be predisposed to trust him
on account of the long-standing tradition, stretching back to the Sherlock Holmes stories (narrated
by the reliable Dr. Watson) in which the narrator of the detective story is the most trustworthy
character. In this novel, Christie challenges readers’ assumptions about narration and the
conventions of the mystery novel when it is revealed in the final chapter of the novel, entitled
Apologia, that the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a manuscript written by Dr. Sheppard
who appears to be the mysterious murderer. Priestman (2003) asserted that Christie’s The Murder
of Roger Ackroyd is “full of impostures” (p. 82).
Dr. Sheppard is not a cold-blooded psychopathic person who likes to harm or slaughter
people for his pleasure. Instead, he is an ordinary man who grew weak at some point in his life.
Because of his critical financial problems, he blackmails Ms. Ferrars, one of the characters who
quickly commits suicide at the beginning of the novel. When Mr. Ackroyd is informed about this,
he is soon also murdered by the physician. As Poirot remarks, the mysterious murderer is not a
criminal nor a sociopath; he is only a desperate person with a “strain of weakness” as Dr. Sheppard
indirectly describes himself. Almost all the characters avoid the truth in different scenes in the
novel.
Methodology
The framework of the study undertaken comprises two models:
1) Chen’s (2001) self-politeness
2) Merzah and Abbas’s (2020) DP.
They have been selected because of their efficient utility to surface the strategies of deception,
namely, withholding information and vagueness. This section is finalized by a synopsis of the
techniques of data analysis:
1) Each utterance or related utterances, according to the researchers’ interpretation, will be
given numbers in a superscript format to refer to them as representations of the utterances
in question instead of re-writing pieces of the extract whenever needed, hence save space.
2) Each extract will be contextualized before providing the analysis.

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3) Square brackets are used to enclose material such as symbols, explanation, or addition that
the researchers have inserted in a quotation.
4) Tables which demonstrate the frequencies of the deceptive strategies, their realizations, and
the pragma-stylistic tools used for analyzing each utterance will be provided, for the sake
of precision and characterization. Beck (2003) has suggested that descriptive statistics
would be of great value if incorporated within the procedures of the analysis in qualitative
research method. According to Leedy and Ormrod (2015), moreover, the process of
tabulation of the frequencies of each characteristic and providing descriptive statistics is an
essential method of data analysis in qualitative content analysis.
Data Analysis
The section in dispute shows the analysis of the selected extracts by drawing on the eclectic
framework which is demonstrated in the two previous sections.
Extract -1-: N-RL + C-CL

‘In all probability this is the last case I shall ever mean to know. [N.1] And I shall know—in
spite of you all.’ [N.2] He brought out the last words provocatively, hurling them in our faces
as it were. [N.3] I think we all flinched back a little, excepting Geoffrey Raymond, who
remained good-humoured and imperturbable as usual. [N.4] ‘How do you mean—in spite of
us all? [N.5] he asked, with slightly raised eyebrows [N.6]. ‘But—just that, monsieur. [N.7]
Every one of you in this room is concealing something from me.’ [N.8] He raised his hand as
a faint murmur of protest arose. [N.9] ‘Yes, yes, I know what I am saying. [N.10] […] Each
one of you has something to hide. [N.11] Come now, am I right?’ [N.12] His glance, challenging
and accusing, swept around the table. [N.13] And every pair of eyes dropped before his. [N.14]
Yes, mine as well. [N.15] ‘I am answered,’ [N.16] said Poirot, with a curious laugh. [N.17] He got
up from his seat. [N.18] ‘I appeal to you all. Tell me the truth—the whole truth.’ [N.19] There
was a silence. [N.20] ‘Will no one speak?” [N.21] He gave the same short laugh again. [N.22]
‘C’est dommage [unfortunately],’ [N.23] he said, and went out [N.24] (Christie, 1926/2002, p.
146)
Contextualization of Extract –1-

Poirot proposes to Dr. Sheppard that they should have a meeting with Ackroyd’s family.
After gathering in Ackroyd’s house, Poirot first asks Flora to disclose Ralph’s location if she knows
his whereabouts since this act will declare his (Ralph’s) name. Flora solemnly insists that has not
the slightest idea where Ralph is. Next, Poirot employs the same plea to the others—including Dr.
Sheppard, yet he receives no answer.
Analysis of Extract -1-

The above-cited extract is restricted to repeatedly revealing two deceptive micro-strategies:
half-truths and silence—both of which are realizations of the deceptive macro-strategy withholding
information. After each utterance detective Poirot has produced [N.1; N.2; N.8; N.10; N.11; N.12;
N.16; N.19; N.21; N.23] particularly the ones where he asked direct questions that demand eliciting
answers [N.12; N.19], issued an order to speak [N.21], along with Raymond’s question [N.4], Dr.
Sheppard has practiced deception on the C-CL via silence, as he has had eleven opportunities to
confess or reveal the truth, yet chose to be silent.
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He is purposefully not engaging in the exchange nor answering questions directed to him
while he knows he should, because he has the most relevant and crucial information to share with
the target (i.e., Detective Poirot and Roger’s family). Dr. Sheppard relies on their default
assumptions that he is cooperative, innocent, and a family friend. These default assumptions are
the false beliefs that he has allowed them to nurture by appealing to the first maxim of quantity and
the self-politeness strategy of being off record by the submaxim in dispute, that is, “[d]o not make
your contribution as (un)informative (i.e., more or less than is required) as you need to achieve
fostering a false belief in the target. Withhold relevant information if needed”, after each of the
utterances [N.1; N.2: N.4; N.8; N.10. N.11; N.12; N.16; N.19; N.21; N.23]. On a final note,
deception on the C-CL in respect to the aforementioned extract is in the form of withholding full
utterances (i.e., silence) to keep the deceived parties in a state of complete ignorance and,
consequently, make them nurture false beliefs. This is pragma-stylistically realized by withholding
the SFTA which, in turn, is triggered by virtue of the deceptive maxim of quantity and the strategy
of being off record in terms of self-politeness. It also seems that Dr. Sheppard is practicing
deception for protecting and self-serving purposes since he refuses to appear as a murderer in the
eyes of his sister, Caroline.
Eventually, detective Poirot gives him the will to commit suicide instead of deforming
Caroline’s high expectations of her elder brother (i.e., Dr. Sheppard). In his letter of Apologia (the
final chapter of the novel in which Dr. Sheppard puts forth a detailed confession and a suicide note
to readers on the narrator-narratee level, namely, N-RL + C-CL), he writes to readers the following
lines:
My greatest fear all through has been Caroline. I have fancied she might guess. Curious the
way she spoke that day of my ‘strain of weakness.’ Well, she will never know the truth.
There is, as Poirot said, one way out… I can trust him. He and Inspector Raglan will manage
it between them. I should not like Caroline to know. She is fond of me, and then, too, she
is proud… (Christie, 1926/2002, p. 285)
Pragma-stylistically, this is realized by the deceptive maxim of quantity and withhold the SFTA
since, based upon Chen’s (2001) notions, the term “self” does not only refer to Dr. Sheppard
himself, but also those aligned with him, such as his sister. Following this line of argument,
triggered by the intention to save self-face, Dr. Sheppard plans to deceive the targeted hearer/reader
every time he keeps silent.
A narrator is reliable only when he demonstrates objectivity, a wide range of knowledge,

and leaves nothing of relevance unexposed. In all the utterances [N.3; N4; N.6. N.9; N.13; N.14;
N.15; N.17; N.18; N.20; N.22: N.24], Dr. Sheppard is being truthful in his narration, but not
completely. The only reason that prompts Detective Poirot to gather Ackroyd’s family and Dr.
Sheppard in one room is to appeal to them to reveal the whereabouts of Ralph and to confess of
murdering Ackroyd because he suspects that one of them is the culprit. Since Dr. Sheppard has
hidden Ralph and murdered Ackroyd, he is classified as an unreliable narrator for he has withheld
the most two relevant and crucial items of information to readers. As such, Dr. Sheppard is
practicing deception on the N-RL via employing the micro-deceptive strategy of half-truth 12
times. This is manifested by the third super strategy, that is, off record, of self-politeness which is

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triggered by the deceptive maxim of quantity and the strategy of being off record in regard to self-
politeness.
Extract -2-: N-RL + C-CL

‘You think it’s burglary?’ [N.1a] I said slowly. [N.1b] ‘What else could it be? [N.2] There’s no
question of suicide, I suppose?’ [N.3] […] ‘It’s murder right enough. [N.4] But with what
motive?’ [N.5] ‘Roger hadn’t an enemy in the world,’ said Blunt quietly. [N.6] ‘Must have
been burglars. [N.7] But what was the thief after? [N.8a] Nothing seems to be disarranged?’
[N.8b]
He looked round the room. [N.9] Raymond was still sorting the papers on the desk. [N.10]
“There seems nothing missing, and none of the drawers show signs of having been tampered
with,’ the secretary observed at last. [N.11] ‘It’s very mysterious.’ [N.12] Blunt made a slight
motion with his head. [N.13] “There are some letters on the floor here,’ he said. [N.14] I looked
down. [N.15] Three or four letters still lay where Ackroyd had dropped them earlier in the
evening. [N.16] But the blue envelope containing Mrs. Farrar’s letter had disappeared [N.17]
(Christie, 1926/2002, p. 51)
Contextualization of Extract -2-

Raymond, Ackroyd’s secretary, suggests that the criminal act probably began as a robbery
since, as he naïvely claims, Ackroyd has no enemies. On the face of it, nothing seems to be stolen.
The absence of Ferrars’ letter, however, suggests that the blackmailer is somehow involved.
Analysis of Extract -2-

Since the verb “say” in utterance [N.1b] is defined and treated synonymously with the verb
“utter” (Meriam-Webster, 2020), and the verbs “say” and “utter” can refer to any of the following
verbs or illocutionary acts, for example, “asking,” “confirming,” “demanding,” “lying,”
“pretending,” etc., this shows that the verb “say” is not precise, as it implies a one-to-many
relationship [N.1b]. That is to say, the dialogue tag “said” implies a relationship of one word versus
many meanings. It should be mentioned that Dialogue tags are expressions used after a character
has spoken, as in “(s)he said/thought/yelled/lied,” to show which character is communicating at the
given time. They are also essential to add further details to the dialogue (Evans, 2015). For the sake
of comparison and clarification, the following are examples of faithful narration which are
extracted from Gone Girl (Flynn, 2012). Nick, Amy’s husband, punctiliously exhibits to readers
the exact degree of his sincerity in the first two utterances infra:
i. “So what’s that one [the note] mean? he [the policeman] asked. “I have no idea, “I lied
[emphasis added] (Flynn, 2012, p. 67).
ii. “I don’t have it with me,” I lied [Nick deceives his mother in-law] (Flynn, 2012, p. 80).
Likewise, the following examples demonstrate the manner through which Amy meticulously
expressed her sincerity:
i. “I can just barely,” I lie [Amy is referring to her swimming skills] (Flynn, 2012, p. 262).
ii. “Reading,” I lie [Amy is lying about her occupation] (Flynn, 2012, p. 283).
Following this train of thought, Dr. Sheppard has deliberately chosen the verb “said” to report his
speech instead of, for instance, choosing the verb “pretended” to be vague, hence deceptive.
Accordingly, Dr. Sheppard is communicating deception on the N-RL by employing an imprecise

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verb, that is, “said” which, in turn, appeals to the maxim of manner and the strategy of being off
record by the maxim under consideration in terms of self-politeness [N.1b].
Utterance [N.2], furthermore, is presented by Dr. Sheppard to be true, yet not sufficiently
since the fact that Dr. Sheppard is the murderer has been withheld. Because the importance of this
fact is vital, it can be concluded that Dr. Sheppard has exploited the micro-deceptive strategy of
half-truth which is centered on the deceptive maxim of quantity and the strategy of being off record
in respect to off record.
On the C-CL, Dr. Sheppard does not respond to Raymond who has produced an affirmative
illocutionary act: “I hereby affirm that the murderer must have been a burglar,” [N.7] and asked
two questions concerning the motive of the thief and the scene of the crime [N.8a; N.8b]. Raymond
is under the false impression that Dr. Sheppard’s silence is a sign of a lack of knowledge. However,
the act of silence here is a sign of deception that is driven by a two-layered intention:
i. An egoistic or self-serving intention to escape punishment from the police and Ackroyd’s
family.
ii. W-SFTA, as he is fond of his sister and does not want her to know that he has committed
a murder. Therefore, he feels self-ashamed. In his Apologia, Dr. Sheppard shows that he
prefers committing suicide over letting Caroline, his sister, knows about the blackmail and
the murder.
Therefore, Dr. Sheppard allows Raymond’s false belief to be nurtured by the default assumption
that it is centered on the micro-deceptive strategy of silence which, in turn, appeals to the maxim
of quantity and the self-politeness strategy of being off record by the maxim in question. On the N-
RL, however, Dr. Sheppard is communicating true utterances [N.9; N.10; N.11; N.12], yet he is
not being informative enough to share the crucial fact that he is the murderer. As such, there is an
employment of the deceptive micro-strategy of half-truth which is based on the deceptive maxim
of quantity and the strategy of being off record in regard to self-politeness.
Along similar lines, on the N-RL, Dr. Sheppard is issuing a true utterance; however, he has
manipulated the utterance by morphing its structure from the active to the passive voice to hide the
subject or the doer of the action [N.17]. He has also exploited a verb that cannot collocate with the
preposition “by,” that is, “disappeared” to further ascertain that he has not the slightest clue
concerning the identity of the person who took the letter. Following this thread of thought, the use
of the passive voice triggers the deceptive maxim of quantity and the self-politeness strategy of
being off record by the maxim of quantity in respect to self-politeness which, in turn, manifests the
micro-deceptive strategy of half-truth [N.17].
Discussion of the Findings

This section advances the findings of the analysis and tabulates them for the sake of
maximizing illustration. Further, it offers interpretations which psychologize the character of Dr.
Sheppard.
Table 1. Frequencies and percentages of the pragma-stylistic tools of the selected extracts

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Dr. Sheppard
Pragma-Stylistic Tools
Pre-dénouement Stage
N-RL C-CL
Self-Politeness DP
no. % no. %
Off record: W-SFTA: Maxim of quantity: 1st sub-maxim 17 94% 11 100%
Off record: W-SFTA Maxim of quantity: 2nd sub-maxim 0 0% 0 0%
Off record: Maxim of manner: 1st sub-maxim 0 0% 0 0%
Off record:
Maxim of manner: 2nd sub-maxim 1 6% 0 0%
Total 18 100% 11 100%
It is exhibited in Table one that the first sub-maxim of quantity was the most exploited sub-
maxim vis-à-vis the other sub-maxims of the DP. The frequencies further show that the sub-maxim
under consideration was employed on the N-RL more than it was employed on the C-CL. The
second sub-maxim of manner was used only once on the N-RL. The rest of the (sub-)maxims
showed no appearance in the selected extracts.
Table 2. Frequencies and percentages of the macro- and micro- deceptive strategies in the selected
extracts
Dr. Sheppard
Micro- and Macro- Deceptive Strategies Pre-dénouement Stage

N-RL C-CL
no. % no. %
Vagueness 1 6% 0 0%
Withholding information: Half-truth 17 94% 2 18%
Withholding information: Silence 0 0% 9 82%
Total 18 100% 11 100%
The findings in Table two show that Dr. Sheppard employed the macro-strategy of
withholding information significantly more than the strategy of vagueness. On the C-CL, it was
found that the micro-strategy of silence was used with the frequency of (9) whereas no employment
was found on the N-RL. The micro-strategy of half-truth, moreover, was used (17) times on the N-
RL versus two on the C-CL. The strategy of vagueness was used only once in the selected extracts,
particularly on the N-RL.
The selected extracts show that Dr. Sheppard is interested in practicing deception via
exploiting indirect deceptive strategies (viz., withholding information and vagueness). It is also
shown in Table two that the deception is boiled down to silence nine times on the C-CL.
Both of the strategies, namely, vagueness and withholding information imply discreetness. It is
perhaps difficult for Dr. Sheppard to be silent altogether on the N-RL since he is the narrator, and,
therefore, responsible for commenting on the occurring events and offering dialogue tags at the
very least. The most workable and reticent alternative deceptive strategy on the C-CL, as a result,

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is the micro-deceptive strategy of half-truth, followed by the deceptive strategy of vagueness. Dr.
Sheppard’s preference to deploy indirect deceptive strategies can be justified as follows: The
following lines are excerpted from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd to support/confirm the argument
under discussion: “My greatest fear all through has been Caroline. I have fancied she might guess
[…] And then what shall it be? Veronal? There should be a kind of poetic justice […] I have no
pity for myself either” (Christie, 1926/2002, p. 286). It is quite clear that Dr. Sheppard, burdened
with remorse, believes that he deserves punishment.
This finding seems to lend support to a recent study in the literature on deception: Merzah
and Abbas (2020) examined Nick’s (Amy’s husband) utterances in terms of deception and reached
to the finding that he deceives mainly by withholding information. The researchers justified the
finding in question by affirming that Nick, in contrast to Amy, is not a psychopathic character.
Rather, the reason for his tendency to withhold information is attributed to his feeling of
embarrassment and guilt as it is confirmed by the character himself on the N-RL: “I felt a burst of
intense guilt, self-loathing. I thought for a second I might cry, finally” (Flynn, 2012, p.79). It is
also worth noting that the author Flynn and the character Nick are both Americans, whereas the
author Christie and the character Dr. Sheppard are both British. By drawing a parallel between an
American and a British non-psychopathic male character, it seems that they both share the same
style of deceiving (i.e., withholding information by utilizing the maxim of quantity) the target.
Accordingly, though it is out of the scope of the study undertaken, it can be concluded that the
findings under argument have the potential to be extrapolated cross-culturally.
By this token, it can be affirmed that the findings of the study under construction along with
Merzah and Abbas’s (2020) article replicate the findings of previous classic studies (e.g., Buller &
Burgoon, 2006; Knapp et al., 1974) in the field of psychology in terms of the following:
a. It has been traditionally argued that untrained/ordinary deceivers are reticent in comparison
to truth-tellers.
b. They also seem more uncertain/hesitant than truth-tellers.
The available findings can be better illustrated in the figure infra:
More/Exaggerated Retinene
Less/Unexaggerated Retinene
Deceitful ordinary/normal characters Non-deceivers
Dr. Sheppard and Nick
+ + + + + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Figure 2. Visual representation of the degree of retinene in relation to the pragma-stylistic

preferences between ordinary deceitful characters and non-deceivers

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Conclusion
It has been manifested that Dr. Sheppard slyly deceives by drawing predominately on
indirectness and passiveness, both of which coalesce into forming his style of deceit. Detective
fiction writers need to write a story that shows deception and challenges readers’ analytical skills
to solve the mystery. However, to unravel the mystery, readers need the narrator to be (semi-)
truthful; giving false facts on both levels of the discourse will make the task of solving crimes
impossible. Therefore, the study in dispute approached the text pragma-stylistically to unpack the
choices of the deceptive strategies that are successfully utilized by the writer. As such, the study
contributed to the knowledge of pragma-stylistics, deception, and literature. The rigorous and
systematic pragma-stylistic tools helped to achieve the two pre-established objectives for this
article:
The first deceptive maxim of quantity as a strategy of being off record to save self-face
scored the highest frequency in comparison to the other sub-maxims with a percentage of 94% on
the N-RL and 100% on the C-CL. This finding exhibits that the macro-deceptive strategy of
withholding information was the highest in frequency in comparison to vagueness. Moreover, the
micro-deceptive strategy of half-truth scored a higher percentage 94% on the N-RL than it did on
the C-CL with a percentage of 18%. The micro-strategy of silence, furthermore, showed a higher
frequency on the C-CL with a percentage of 82% than it did on the N-RL with a percentage of 0%.
Whereas half-truth scored higher on the N-RL, Table two showed that silence scored a higher
percentage on the C-CL. The latter finding was justified by the fact that Dr. Sheppard, as a narrator,
is obliged to report the events to readers. Therefore, he could not resort to the micro-strategy of
silence. Nevertheless, he chose utilizing the micro-strategy of withholding information instead
because he still needed to hide crucial facts from readers. This choice of strategy enabled him to
narrate certain aspects of the truth and conceal the most significant ones simultaneously. He also
utilized the verb “said” as a dialogue tag to further mislead readers. Although he did not lie in this
instance, his employment of the verb “said” is vague and it lacks exactness. As shown in Table
two, this surfaced the strategy of being off record to save self-face, which led to the manifestation
of the second deceptive maxim of manner. It scored a higher frequency on the N-RL with a
percentage of 1% in relation to the C-CL in which the maxim in question scored a percentage of
0%. As such, the first and second objectives have been achieved.
The study in question offers certain implications for novelists/writers in general and crime
writers in particular as it helps them to understand the strategies of deception and how they are
employed by a first-person narrator/character. It is also helpful for them to know the linguistic
characteristic of the sub-genres of detective fiction, namely, locked room mystery, whodunnit, and
cozy mystery. On that note, the article under construction can be regarded as a useful source for
crime fiction writers specifically; the process of writing a crime novel can be significantly less
effortful and more methodical.
Acknowledgments:
The researchers of the present study are indebted to the College of Education for Women,
University of Baghdad, Al-Jadiriyya, for carrying out this stud

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About the Authors:

Safaa K. Merzah is an M.Ed. Candidate in the Department of English Linguistics, at College of
Education for Women, University of Baghdad. She earned her B.Ed. degree from Al-Mansour
University College in 2017. The areas in which she is interested include stylistics, cognitive
science, forensic linguistics, computer software engineering, and computer science.
ORCid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6061-773X
Nawal F. Abbas earned her Ph.D. degree in English Linguistics in 2014 from the school of
Humanities, University of Sains Malaysia. She is currently an assistant professor of English
linguistics at the College of Education for Women, University of Baghdad. The aress in which she
is interested include pramgatics, (critical) discourse analysis, stylistics, and semantics.
ORCid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2608-6909
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Vagueness and Withholding Information in Christie’s (1926) Detective Fiction

Article in SSRN Electronic Journal · January 2020

Safaa K. Merzah Nawal Fadhil Abbas

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Keywords: Agatha Christie, deception, pragma-stylistics, vagueness, withholding information, The

Nevertheless, one domain hitherto that seems to be under-researched is literary discourse.

Arab World English Journal 332

Following Busse et al. (2010), underlying a pragma-stylistic investigation of dialogue are

Arab World English Journal 333

Arab World English Journal 334

Concerning the micro-strategies of withholding information, they can be systemized into

The Deceptive Principle

Chen’s (2001) Self-Politeness

Christie’s (1926/2002) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Arab World English Journal 338

Extract -1-: N-RL + C-CL

Contextualization of Extract –1-

Analysis of Extract -1-

A narrator is reliable only when he demonstrates objectivity, a wide range of knowledge,

Arab World English Journal 340

Extract -2-: N-RL + C-CL

Contextualization of Extract -2-

Analysis of Extract -2-

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Discussion of the Findings

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Total 18 100% 11 100%

Micro- and Macro- Deceptive Strategies Pre-dénouement Stage

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Figure 2. Visual representation of the degree of retinene in relation to the pragma-stylistic

Arab World English Journal 344

Arab World English Journal 345

About the Authors:

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Arab World English Journal 348

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