Why conversation works.
 Conversation
works – even when we don’t say
what we mean.
 Why it works so well fascinated philosopher
Paul Grice. He wondered about conversations
such as this:
Jack: You’ve got a mountain to climb.
Lily: It’s better than a slap in the face.
 What
is going on here, and how do we know?
 British
 Spent
educated philosopher of Language
the last two decades of his career in
the U.S.
 Grice
concluded that conversation must
follow its own set of logical principles or
‘rules.’
 He worked out how, even when we don’t
mean what we say – that the full pragmatic
force of our utterance is easily understood,
as in this example:
What does ‘pragmatic’
mean?
Lily: This bottle’s half empty already!
Jack: Gosh – is that the time already?
 Grice
decided that communication is a cooperative activity: when two people
communicate it’s in their own best interests
to make it go as smoothly as possible.
 Speakers
behave in certain predictable ways.
 "Make
your contribution such as it is
required, at the stage at which it occurs, by
the accepted purpose or direction of the
talk exchange in which you are engaged“
(Paul Grice)
 This
translates into 4 maxims:
 Quality
 Quantity
- Manner
- Relation
 “Do
not say what you believe to be false.”
 “Do not say that for which you lack
evidence.”
 So...
When someone speaks to us, we
assume:
- that what they say is not knowingly untruthful.
- that the truthfulness of what they say does not
need to be made stated.
 “Make
your contribution as informative as is
required.”
 “Do not make your contribution more
informative than is required.”
 So...
When someone speaks to us, we
assume:
- they do not purposefully hold back anything that
is important
- they do not give more information than is asked.
 “Be
perspicuous” (clearly understood)
 “Avoid obscurity of expression”
 “ Be brief”
 “Be orderly”
 So,
when someone speaks to us, we assume:
- That what they say is being said as
straightforwardly as they can say it.
 “Be
relevant.”
 So...
When someone speaks to us, we
assume:
- That what they say is relevant to the
conversation.
 In
short...
 1.
Be true
 2. Be brief
 3. Be clear
 4. Be relevant
 These
maxims ensure that conversation is
maximally efficient, rational and cooperative. It also ensures that we understand
conversation.
A. “How do I get to Sainsbury’s, mate?”
 B. “Go straight ahead, turn right at the school,
then left at the bus stop on the hill.”


-
-
Speaker A assumes that:
B believes his directions to be genuine – the
maxim of quality;
B believes the information to be sufficient – the
maxim of quantity;
B believes his directions are to Sainsbury’s – the
maxim of relevance;
B believes the information to be clear – the
maxim of manner;
You can choose to ignore the maxims – usually
to create a particular effect
A speaker can choose to:
Violate – be intentionally misleading
 Opt-out – refuse to co-operate
 Flout – be intentionally ironic

Can you think of any
examples of
conversations you have
had / heard recently
where maxims have not
been followed?
Joke from comedian Les Dawson.
Not too bright, that particular lad. A salesman found him
sitting on the doorstep one day. ‘Is your mother at home
sonny?’ he asked. ‘Yes, replied the boy. So the salesman
knocked on the door for a few minutes, then tried ringing
the bell; finally he resorted to bashing on the window – all
to no avail. ‘I thought you said your mother was at home,’
he snapped at the boy. ‘she is,’ came the reply, ‘only this
isn’t our house.’
Is this violating /
flouting/ opting
out? Which maxim
is being flouted?
 This
is an interview between Jeremy Paxman
and Michael Howard. The leader of the
opposition violated the maxim of relation by
not giving an answer that related to the
question:




Paxman: Did you threaten to overrule?
Howard: I was not entitled to instruct Derek Lewis and I
did not instruct him.
Paxman: Did you threaten to overrule him?
Howard: The truth of the matter is that.
 Here,
Paxman asks the Prime Minister a
question; the minister opts out of the maxim
of relation:
Paxman: “When will war become inevitable?”
 PM: “ Well I know you have to ask that question
but it’s the kind of question I cannot answer.”

• This is the most important ‘use’ of Grice’s maxims.
• Unlike ‘violating,’ ‘flouting’ a maxim allows a speaker to signal
that although they seem to be ‘violating’ a maxim, they are still cooperating.
“MMM, Donuts.”
“Homie, those pants look awful tight to me.”
 1.



Read the script and see if you can identify
when Grice’s Maxims are being followed
when Grice’s Maxims are being broken, and more
importantly...
How? Which rules are not being adhered to?
2.Then have a go at writing your own scripted
conversation in which Grice’s Maxims are broken.
Implicature
 Match
the term to the definition
Term
Definition
Opt out
Be intentionally ironic
Manner
Do not be perspicuous
Quality
Be intentionally misleading
Violate
Say something relevant
Quantity
Say enough but not too
much
Flout
Do not lie
Relevance
Refuse to co-operate
 What
Grice calls ‘implicature’ occurs when a
speaker chooses to flout a maxim.
 The listener, assuming that the speaker still
intends being cooperative, looks for
meaning, other than that which is said.
 The intended meaning will be arrived at
through the speaker working out the
pragmatic force of the utterance rather than
the semantic sense?
What are
semantics?
Flouting the maxim of…
A: I hear you went to the theatre last night; what play did
you see?
B: Well, I watched a number of people stand on the stage in
Elizabethan costumes uttering a series of sentences which
corresponded closely with the script of the Twelfth Night.
Which maxim
is being
flouted?
What can we infer about
the quality of the acting?
Flouting the maxim of …
 A:
What are you baking?
 B:
Be and I are tee aitch dee ay wye see ay
kay ee.
Which maxim
is being
flouted?
What can we infer about
the information being
communicated to A?
Flouting the maxim of…
A lecturer to his student:
“So let me say straight away, James, that your essay is
beautifully printed, the font has been immaculately well
chosen and the positioning of those staples is a work of sheer
genius…”

To James, the comment is not relevant to what he wants to
hear – so he assumes the lecturer has ‘flouted the maxim’ of
relevance.

BUT…James assumes the teacher is still co-operating in the
conversation by taking his turn, so he must be saying
something relevant about the essay.
What can we / James
infer about the quality of
the essay?

On first inspection , such a comment is
apparently not relevant to what James wants to
hear – so he could assume that teacher has
‘flouted the maxim’ of relevance.

BUT, James assumes the is still co-operating by
taking his conversational turn, leaving James to
assume he IS saying something relevant about
the quality of the essay. Therefor he is flouting
the maxim of manner.

SO, the listener assumes that the speaker
assumes that the listener can work it out…

So far we have looked at how the Maxims are
adhered to, or not, in conversation.

However, many kinds of communication operate
as interactions, a sort of ‘one sided’
conversation – letters, advertisments, and so on.
Applying Grice’s maxims to written texts can
allow us to develop subtle insights.
 It’s
more difficult to flout Grice’s maxims in
writing because it’s not so easy to ensure
that your reader understands what is
happening.
Why?
You lose prosodic
features like stress
and intonation. You
also lose
paralinguistic
features like body
language.
• What
maxims are
being
flouted?
• What
implicatures
are being
created?
• To what
effect?
• For what
purpose?
 We
are going to look at a transcript of
conversation together.
I
then want you to work individually to write
an analysis of this extract, looking for:
- Grice’s maxims - followed or not?
- If not, which maxim is being ignored
and in which way? Why?
- What does this say about: the context
of the conversation, the speakers, their
relationship to one another etc.