required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. (Grice, 1975) The maxims supporting this principle are defined by Grice as: Quantity: make your contribution as informative as required. Do not make it more informative than required. Quality: do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Relation: be relevant Manner: be perspicuous; avoid obscurity of expression; avoid ambiguity; be brief; be orderly.
Flouting and violating the maxims
A person is flouting a maxim if he/she does not observe it
but has no intention of deceiving or misleading the other
person. By flouting, at least one of these maxims, the speaker can convey, in addition to the literal meaning of his utterance, an additional meaning, which is a conversational implicature: E.g.: A: Im out of petrol. B: There is a garage round the corner. Implicatures are partially derived from the literal meaning of the utterance produced in the specific context shared between the speaker and the hearer.
Maxim clash. A speaker might violate one maxim
in order to preserve another. Example: Carson is driving John to Merediths house.
CARSON: Where does Meredith live?
JOHN: Nevada.
Major violation - to create a conversational
implicature: By clearly and obviously violating a maxim, you can imply something beyond what you say. Examples: JOHN: Wheres Meredith? ELIZABETH: The control room or the science lab.
Violating the Cooperative Principle. One
instance in which a speaker might break the maxim of quality is if they are really trying to deceive the listener. Signaling a violation (minor violation). A person might essentially come out and tell you they are violating a maxim and why. Examples. I dont know if this is relevant, but... (relation) Im not sure how to say this, but... (manner) I cant tell you; Im sworn to secrecy. (quantity) This is just the word on the street; I cant vouch for this information. (quality)
Criticisms of the Maxims
Its not clear whether the maxims work in other languages
and cultures (e.g. silence in English and Japanese culture or
recommendation letter in English and Japanese) Cross-cultural pragmatics: cross-cultural use of speech acts. The failure to convey or understand a pragmatic intention in another language and culture is cross-cultural pragmatic failure (Thomas, 1983) Some key concepts are undefined. A lot of intuition must be used to figure out when a speaker is being irrelevant. Theyre not a complete listing of the rules we follow in conversation; for example, there are also rules about politeness, which are not addressed. There is some overlap, so its not always clear-cut which maxim is being violated. For example:
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JOHN: Are you done yet?
MEREDITH: Well, lets see, Ive had to deal with seven
near-catastrophic systems failures in the last four hours,
Elizabeth dragged me to four different useless meetings, and someone replaced my regular coffee with decaf, so Im only just getting caffeine in my system and I still have to track down whoever did it and slowly eviscerate them, which is a little higher on my to-do list at the moment than fixing your stupid computer, so no, no, Im not done yet, actually. JOHN: Jeez, a simple no would have sufficed.
Politeness and face
Saving face and losing face
Implicatures The term is used by Grice to account for what the
speaker can imply, suggest or mean, as distinct from
what he literally says. Conventional implicatures determined by the conventional meaning of the words used, e.g. - He is an Englishman, he is, therefore, brave. Conversational implicature is derived from a general principle of a conversation plus a number of maxims which a speaker will normally obey. Implicature is generated intentionally by a speaker Inference is produced by a hearers on the basis of certain evidence.
Exercises Each problem presents a short dialogue. You must
identify which maxim is being used or violated. Figure
out the implication:
Politeness principles (Lakoff, 1973): dont impose, give
options, make your hearer feel good, e.g. Im sorry to
bother you, but... How to choose a politeness strategy (in different cultures) Politeness and gender (cross-cultural aspect, e.g. Hello gorgeous! two friends; in the street/construction site)
2. CARSON: What happened?
MEREDITH: He got attacked by a giant bug, and he passed out. Implication: He passed out because he was first attacked (in other words, the order in which the events occurred is: (1) he got attacked; (2) he passed out.) What maxim creates that implication, and why?
1. LAURA: Come on, Im taking you to the gym.
MEREDITH: Yeah, and pigs can fly. What is Meredith implying? What maxim creates that implication, and why?
3. JOHN: We just have to fly real close to the
corona of the sun! MEREDITH: Youre lucky youre pretty. What is Meredith implying? What maxim creates that implication, and
why?
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4. LAURA: Do you have any pets?
CARSON: I have two wee baby turtles.
5. MEREDITH: Tell them what happened!
JOHN: Meredith saw an object or entity strongly resembling a giant bug.