For example, say Joe Bloggs brings his teenage son Fred into a GP surgery and waits outside the consultation room while Fred goes in to speak with the doctor about his (um...) genital herpes. The consultation goes fine but when the GP opens the door to let Fred out, his father is there, asking the doctor a question...
Father: Did Fred come in to see you about his genital herpes?
Doctor: Fred may or may not have come in to discuss genital herpes. I'm not obliged to disclose that information.
And this probably hasn't breached confidentiality law.
However, if the conversation goes as follows...
Father: What did Fred come into see you about?
Doctor: Fred may or may not have come in to discuss genital herpes. I'm not obliged to disclose that information.
The doctor's answer is the same logically. As much as you break down that sentence he has said exactly the same thing. Yet it seems he has disclosed extra information compared to the first answer. There is an implication, a subtext, that Fred has genital herpes, that didn't seem to be as present in the first answer. Therefore, I'd imagine that the second answer is more likely to be found to be breaching confidentiality laws than the first.
Interesting...
What do I conclude from this? That the logic that governs language can't deduce every implication of a sentence and is thus context-independent, whereas the law that governs what can or cannot be said through language is highly context-dependent...
At least that was my conclusion!
Edit: Apparently, there is a whole field of linguistics called Pragmatics devoted to the contextual differences we apply to language such as in my example above. Awesome!
Doctor: Fred may or may not have come in to discuss genital herpes. I'm not obliged to disclose that information.
And this probably hasn't breached confidentiality law.
However, if the conversation goes as follows...
Father: What did Fred come into see you about?
Doctor: Fred may or may not have come in to discuss genital herpes. I'm not obliged to disclose that information.
The doctor's answer is the same logically. As much as you break down that sentence he has said exactly the same thing. Yet it seems he has disclosed extra information compared to the first answer. There is an implication, a subtext, that Fred has genital herpes, that didn't seem to be as present in the first answer. Therefore, I'd imagine that the second answer is more likely to be found to be breaching confidentiality laws than the first.
Interesting...
What do I conclude from this? That the logic that governs language can't deduce every implication of a sentence and is thus context-independent, whereas the law that governs what can or cannot be said through language is highly context-dependent...
At least that was my conclusion!
Edit: Apparently, there is a whole field of linguistics called Pragmatics devoted to the contextual differences we apply to language such as in my example above. Awesome!
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