Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
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Language & Communication
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/langcom
‘‘We try harder’’ – Silence and Grice’s cooperative principle, maxims
and implicatures
Michal Ephratt ⇑
Dept. of Hebrew Linguistics, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31 905, Israel
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Available online 24 October 2011
Keywords:
Verbal silence
Grice
Discourse
Maxims
Relevance
a b s t r a c t
Grice’s influential contribution is the cooperative principle (its maxims and implicatures).
We examine whether silence as a means of communication alongside speech (as in ‘‘Avis.
We try harder’’) is a case of the addresser’s failure to satisfy Grice’s cooperative principle, or
whether when seen as meaningful symbols, such cases can be seen as complying with the
cooperative principle. We begin by re-analyzing Grice’s examples involving silence. Using
more examples, we examine the four categories of the maxims to determine whether
silence complies with them or flouts them. We demonstrate that, like speech, verbal
silence may sometimes serve communication, thereby complying with the cooperative
principle, and sometimes counters it. These findings highlight the active role played by verbal silence in communication.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
‘‘He has said nothing; there is no reason to
suppose that he is not a rational agent’’
Kasher (1976, p. 213)
1. Introduction
1.1. Grice’s way with words
Paul H. Grice’s paper Logic and Conversation, first presented in 1967 (first published in 1975, see 1989, pp. 22–40), has
made a permanent contribution not only to the philosophy of language, discourse analysis and pragmatics, but also to many
other areas in the scientific community (see Lindblom, 2001, regarding post/neo-Gricean theories, see e.g. Levinson, 2000).1
The basic assumptions underlying Grice’s (1989, p. 28) model is that the purpose of conversation is a maximally effective exchange of information. Furthermore, Grice contends that talking is a rational behavior. Grice observes that communication levers expectations. His major contribution is the integration of these expectations into a theoretical model. Grice incorporates
them into the model as an inferential phase that takes place between formal language (logic) and natural language. This is
the phase of ‘cooperation’, which Grice defines as the cooperative principle (=CP)2:
Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (1989, p. 26).
⇑ Tel.: +972 4 8240190 (O), +972 4 9930784 (H); fax: +972 4 9930397.
1
2
E-mail address: mephratt@research.haifa.ac.il
For a unique presentation about the use of Grice’s model within the psychoanalytic discourse and framework, see Ephratt (2004).
Abbreviations used: cooperative principle = CP; responding utterance = RU; demander utterance = DU.
0271-5309/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2011.09.001
M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
63
Grice breaks down the cooperative principle into four maxims: quantity, quality, relation and manner. Quantity refers to
the amount of information expected by the speaker. Quality looks at the speaker’s efforts to make his contribution a truthful
one. Relation refers to relevance, and manner ensures the clarity of one’s utterances. Nevertheless, Grice observes that in
ordinary conversations (and what he perceives as other cooperative situations), a speaker’s behavior (linguistic and otherwise) may not accord with the maxims. Grice indicates four ways in which the speaker may fail to fulfill a maxim: violating
it; opting out from conversation on the matter; making one maxim conflict with another (e.g., quality and quantity); and
blatantly flouting a maxim. Grice raises a question about the mechanism that resolves the mismatch between the expectations. How can we explain the situation that begins with the sincere and rational intention of the speaker to engage in conversation, thereby following the cooperative principle, and ends with the speaker failing to observe one of the principle’s
maxims? Furthermore, why is the speaker able to convey his message despite such apparent failures? To explain these
anomalies, Grice introduces the notion of conversational implicatures, which are techniques worked out by the hearer to
reconcile the observance of the maxims, thereby saving cooperation and conversation.
This study raises the question about the status of verbal silence (silence as a means of communication alongside speech)
within Grice’s framework. Grice, as well as other scholars following him, equate silence with the flouting of maxims (such as
the maxim of quantity or the maxim of relevance). Our aim is to investigate whether silence is a case of the addresser’s failure to satisfy the cooperative principle and is resolved as meaningful by implicatures, or whether such cases comply with the
cooperative principle. As we shall see, verbal silence, just like speech, may sometimes serve the purposes of communication
and interaction, thereby complying with the cooperative principle, and sometimes counter them.
We embark on our investigation of the status of verbal silence in Grice’s framework by re-examining four of Grice’s
examples:
[1] I can say to my children at some stage in a treasure hunt, The prize is either in the garden or in the attic. [I know that
because I know where I put it, but I’m not going to tell you] (1989, p. 45).
[2] I sought to tell my love, love that never told can be (1989, p. 35, a paraphrase of Blake).
[3] A is writing a testimonial about a pupil who is a candidate for a philosophy job, and his letter reads as follows: Dear Sir,
Mr. X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Yours, etc. (1989, p. 33).
[4] At a genteel tea party, A says Mrs. X is an old bag. There is a moment of appalled silence, and then B says The weather
has been quite delightful this summer, hasn’t it? (1989, p. 35).
[5] A is planning with B an itinerary for a holiday in France. Both know that A wants to see his friend C, if to do so would
not involve too great a prolongation of his journey:
A: Where does C live?
B: Somewhere in the south of France (1989, p. 32).
Grice uses the specific circumstances in example [1] to demonstrate a case of a contextually cancelable ‘‘or’’ utterance. In
such cases the use of the connective ‘‘or’’ is justified even though the speaker knows the strong sense. In other words, the
speaker knows which of the two disjuncts is true. Grice’s efforts revolve around describing the circumstances in example
[1] so that they reinforce the above reading of ‘‘or’’, and act as foreground for the ordinary neutral reading where ‘‘or’’ is chosen as second best – weaker than the strong reading (‘‘A and B’’, or ‘‘B and A’’). According to Grice, the neutral uttering of
‘‘A or B’’ indicates that at the time when the speaker says ‘‘A or B’’, he does not know which of the two holds. Furthermore, he
does know that it is not the case that they both hold. Thus, the maxim of quantity (‘‘Make your contribution as informative as
is required; Do not make you contribution more informative than is required.’’) requires that if when making his statement,
the speaker does know which of the two disjuncts holds, he will choose the former disjunct (e.g., A) and say ‘‘A’’ (or in cases
required by the maxim of relevance, he would say ‘‘A and B’’). As Grice shows, in neutral circumstances saying ‘‘A’’ is a more
informative (and committing) statement than saying ‘‘A or B’’ (1989, p. 46). It then follows that it is the silence of the disjunct
that carries the informativeness. This is no doubt true in sequences such as Grice’s treasure hunt game (example [1]), where
the confirmation of ‘‘A’’ is not the starting point but a further stage (here, the successful hunting of A).
This is the sequence of utterances and matching information:
(1) ‘‘A _ B’’; (2) A Ø(_ B)3 B A
This sequence matches Kasher’s (1976, fn. 15) definition of silence as ‘‘an intentional silence, occurring in a context in
which an act of speech is possible or even natural’’ (and see below on silence when speech is expected).
Grice introduces example [2] as a case illustrating the flouting of the maxim of manner (‘‘be perspicuous’’). In this case,
the speaker is deliberately maintaining ambiguities (‘‘my love’’: a state of emotion or an object of emotion; ‘‘never told can
be’’: cannot be told or if told cannot continue to exist, 1989, p. 35). Grice adds that the case serves as a means of maintaining
the two readings without having to explicitly name each. Comparing the ambiguity in example [1], the strong versus the
weak reading of ‘‘or’’,4 with the (double) ambiguities pointed out in example [2] leads us to another silence. The silence in
3
We use the notation ‘‘Ø()’’ to indicate verbal silence. ‘‘Ø’’ designates the occurrence of silence whose content is provided within the brackets. Thus, for
example, ‘‘A Ø(_ B)’’ indicates verbal silence following ‘‘A’’, the content of which is ‘‘_ B’’.
4
We can justifiably attribute the maintaining of the double reading of ‘‘or’’ in example [1] to the same ‘‘fault’’ of flouting the maxim of manner (as Grice
shows in example [2]).
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M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
[1] is apparent by its form: the verbal – phonetic realization ‘‘A _ B’’ compared with the verbal – phonetic non-realization: Ø(_
B) (realizing only ‘‘A’’). Clearly, this is not the case in example [2].
In example [2] there is a complete match between form and content: the form is fully realized in this line of verse. The
silence, then, does not lie in the absence of form (‘‘say nothing’’, as in the opening quotation from Kasher). The full verbal
realization speaks of silence as a theme – as the object of the utterance. This is the silence that escapes articulation. Therefore, it cannot be authentically and accurately expressed. Having said that, should the mode of articulation successfully obey
the maxim of manner, it would weaken the content validity of its very utterance (and by doing so, would clash with the maxim of quality ‘‘make your contribution one that is true’’). Not being perspicuous is, here, the most cooperative and iconic
means serving the mutual needs of the poet and reader, to communicate vulnerability.
The icon ties together form and content. Peirce (1965) differentiates between genuine icons, which he classifies as ‘‘firstness’’, and symbolic icons. The former do not originate as signs: their initial purpose is not to signify. Such genuine icons lack
the basic requirement of a sign, namely, having two distinct isomorphic phases: the signifier and the signified (selective mutism as a symptom seems to be a good example of a genuine bodily icon of silence, see e.g., McInnes and Manassis, 2005, and
see example [12] below). A genuine icon is then a semiotic anomaly in all semiotic systems and in language in particular.5
Iconic signs are a milder form of iconicity, differentiating form and content. They take part in communication, and thus are treated in the semiotic and semantic study of signs. It is interesting to note that whereas words – language-dependent signifiers,
constructed of specific phonemes molded into syllabic and morphemic structures – cannot be purely iconic, silence, a universal
sign free of phonetic constraints, may indeed constitute an iconic sign (see also Saville-Troike, 2006, p. 379; Ephratt, 2011).
The relationship between form and content ranges from genuine iconicity to complete arbitrariness. Iconicity is closely
linked to transparency (see Dressler, 1985). Clearly, greater iconicity and transparency, offering closer matches between
form and content, contribute to cooperation between interlocutors because the content is further supported by the form.
Returning now to the iconicity of example [2], we note that it is not genuine (firstness): it is not a case of a void in form
matching a void in the real world. In example [2] there is an iconic relationship between the manner of expression (not being
perspicuous) and the content of that very saying.
Grice offers example [3] as a case involving the flouting of the maxim of quantity by what is said, even though it observes
the CP (and even the maxim of quantity) by what is implicated. Grice (1989, p. 33) describes this situation as follows:
A cannot be opting out, since if he wished to be uncooperative, why write at all? He cannot be unable, through ignorance,
to say more, since the man is his pupil; moreover, he knows that more information than this is wanted. He must therefore,
be wishing to impart information that he is reluctant to write down. This supposition is tenable only if he thinks Mr. X is
no good at philosophy. This then is what he is implicating.
Referencing this very sample, Kasher (1976, p. 211) suggests that at first glace such a case might involve deviation from
the principle of relation (‘‘be relevant’’) and, perhaps, adds Kasher, also flouts the principle of quantity. However, Kasher goes
on to say that on second glance, the picture changes. Grice’s description of the situation (as cited above) makes it clear that
the addresser is, in fact, cooperative. He is writing the letter; he does not opt out; he cannot say more. Therefore, Kasher
(1976, p. 211) concludes that:
There is no basis for assuming that Donald is deviating from these principles, implicitly or explicitly, there is room for
assuming that his linguistic action is subject to them also, in the present context of utterance; and, indeed, if we assume
that his words are relevant to the matter and that they contain exactly the required information, we shall come to the implicature that Donald’s opinion about Milton is negative, in connection with the latter’s candidacy for the said academic post.
We shall return to the issue of implicature later. Now we want to explore this text in light of silence over speech as the
choice of the speaker (Kasher, 1976, fn. 15; Ephratt, 2008, 2011). Maintaining the same circumstances and assuming (as do
Grice and Kasher, at least for this case) that the addresser is cooperative, there are two options: the option he chose (silence),
and the option of speech. Had he chosen the latter, he might have phrased his statements in this form:
[30 ] Dear Sir, Mr. X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. In connection with
X’s candidacy for the said academic post, my opinion is negative. Yours, etc.
[300 ] Dear Sir, My opinion in connection with Mr. X’s candidacy for the said academic post is negative. Yours, etc.
Clearly, the three texts ([3], [30 ], [300 ]) all boil down to one and the same message, namely, the addresser’s (negative) evaluation of the candidate for the job. They all essentially say the same thing. Had this indeed been a report, versions [30 ] and [300 ]
would have been favored over version [3] ([30 ]’s wording – what IS said – emphasizing the positive side of X and [300 ] being a
straightforward report ‘‘rendering an opinion’’, in Kasher’s terms). However, this is a letter of recommendation. Its goal is to
help the candidate get the job, grant, or fellowship he seeks and prevail over the other candidates. Similarly, the letter should
help its recipients arrive at the best decision about the most suitable applicant. As such, it has its own very specific conduct
matching the rules of the game (what we might call the ‘‘cooperative principle’’ of recommendation letters). For example, re5
Many of the instances provided by Bruneau (1973) as psycholinguistic silences and interactive silences are, in fact, icons. When a person who is
overwhelmed by intense emotion loses her speech, this is iconic: she does not do it as a means to communicate something to the other. This is the reason why
such silences should be ruled out and are not addressed when silence is examined as a means of communication (see Ephratt, 2011).
M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
65
sponses to an informal survey about writing letters of recommendation for Yale College fellowships6 provides some guidelines
for the cooperative principle of recommendation letters. Looking at the list of tips on ‘‘what helps’’ and ‘‘what hurts’’, we learn that
despite the fact that such letters of recommendation are not structured as forms, there is an expected checklist of what should
appear there, such as an indication of distinctions and outstanding achievements, especially scored in relation to the candidate’s
peers. Among these tips we also find a clause encouraging the letter writer to give details or examples to support any claims
made. Their list of grounds for saying ‘‘no’’ (opting out) makes clear that the letter writer in our example was not in a position
to get away with saying ‘‘no’’. Had he wanted to write the letter in spite of his negative stance, he could have written [300 ]; had he
been eager to express his negative opinion, he could have gone through the checklist in detail, expressing his view as in [3000 ]:
[3000 ] Dear Sir, Mr. X was a student of mine for introductory courses as well as for an elective and a seminar. His command
of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. His seminar paper, ‘‘Further Thoughts on This and
That’’, was slightly above average. Yours, etc.
All of the above letter-writing dos and the don’ts take as a given that all candidates are brilliant students, and that the
letter writer strongly believes in the student’s qualifications and in his being the most suitable person for that post. The
checklist does not question these assumptions. Instead, it takes these assumptions as a starting off point. Recommendation
letters have a checklist of as-if imaginary slots (blanks) in which to express the candidate’s excellence. The survey respondent’s saying, ‘‘We have also found that, unless a student is first in a class, it is often not helpful to give a class ranking’’,
reflects this point. This same point produced Grice’s original example [3]. In a way, this practice coincides with the legal significance of leaving out details in forms.
Tiersma (1995, p. 45) tells of a taxpayer who filled out an Internal Revenue form that asks about specific sources of income. A question on the form asks the taxpayer to list all income of any type not reported elsewhere on that form. Even
though the taxpayer had such income, he left this portion of the form blank and signed a declaration under penalty of perjury
that the information on the form was accurate. The court observed that, ‘‘Failure to [fill in the blank] was equivalent to an
answer, and a false one at that’’. The taxpayer was found guilty of perjury.7
In the case brought up by Tiersma the null answer is a false answer. In example [3] the null answer in terms of class ranking or list of achievements is indeed a true answer. It accurately reflects the candidate’s state of affairs and hence complies
with CP and all of the four maxims. Referring to the notion of iconicity introduced with respect to example [2], this match
between the lack of (expected) outstanding qualifications and the empty list is indeed iconic.
The advantage of the empty blanks in forms, and the advantage of version [3] as a recommendation letter (when opting
out is not a possibility) are cooperative in the broadest possible sense. They require little from the addressee. Having nothing
to say, the letter is not masked by empty speech (the maxims of quantity and of relation), false or semi-false statements (the
maxim of quality) or obscure formulations (the maxim of manner).
Before we move on, following Kasher (1976, p. 211) we will look at whether [3]: ‘‘Mr. X’s command of English is excellent,
and his attendance at tutorials has been regular’’ is counter to the CP, the maxim of relation (‘‘be relevant’’) or the economic
consideration pointed out above.8 The letter writer can follow the course taken by Blake (example [2]) using words to express a
lack of words or the lack of favorable content:
[30000 ] Dear Sir, I can find nothing enlivening to state in connection with Mr. X’s candidacy for the said academic post.
Yours, etc.
In the wording of example [3], the writer mentions two qualities of Mr. X, even though he knows that these are not the
qualifications needed. He does so not with the intention of being uncooperative, and thus flouting the maxim of relevance
(listing two minor and irrelevant qualifications). On the contrary, he explicitly provides these qualifications as proof of his
cooperation. It as if he is saying, ‘‘This is the most I can come up with. If I fail to mention the qualities you are looking for, it is
not because I haven’t tried, but because there aren’t any’’.
Grice presents example [4] as an authentic case in which an implicature is achieved by real (not apparent) violation of the
maxim of relation. Grice explains that B’s blunt refusal to refer to A’s remark implicates that A’s remark should not be discussed and that A has committed a social gaffe. The question here is what is violated, and what is implicated? To answer this
question, we rearrange here ([40 ]) this fraction of this very same excerpt’s [4] turn taking (see also below the example [130 ]),
yielding the following sequence:
[40 ] A genteel tea party:
A: Mrs. X is an old bag.
B: [a moment of appalled silence,
and then B says]
The weather has been quite delightful this summer, hasn’t it?
6
Responses to an informal survey of Truman Scholarship selection panel members asking: ‘‘What do you like to see in a letter of recommendation, and what
leaves you cold?’’ http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/academics/fellowships/application/writing.html (accessed 19 June 2011).
7
For silence in the legal setting, see also Saville-Troike (1985, p. 7), Kurzon (1995) and Ephratt (2008, pp. 1928–1932).
8
See below on the connection that Sperber and Wilson (1986) make between efficiency and relevance, and see also Kasher (1976, pp. 206-207).
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M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
Now it appears that B’s turn consists of two (not one) elements: the appalled silence and the utterance. Theoretically, the
silence could be part of A’s turn. However, the adjective ‘‘appalled’’ rules out such a possibility, because ‘‘appalling’’ describes
the reaction of another, and cannot, in this respect, be self-inflicted. The justification for using this very adjective ‘‘appalled
(silence)’’ is its force as a direct (iconic) speech act: the act of ignoring, not cooperating, not responding. One can say (as Grice
suggests): ‘‘I refuse to refer to A’s remark’’; ‘‘A’s remark should not be discussed’’, but in effect, this is a response referring to A
and his remark. In this sense, it is counter to what is intended. Such a response might even result in turning A’s remark into
an issue. Silence, understood as appalled, is then the most relevant, sincere, straightforward means of conveying this reaction. This is the rationale behind giving others the silent treatment and similar acts that have been practiced throughout the
world since antiquity (see e.g., Basso, 1970; Agyekum, 2002).
Grice does not allude (separately) to the two elements comprising B’s turn. Together, do they violate the maxim of relation? Together, do they constitute blunt refusal? The second element’s form and content (the weather) typically exemplify
empty speech. Whereas speech is the most profound, meaningful, typical verbal means of communication (equivalent to
what Kasher (1976, pp. 206–207) describes as the standard use of means), empty speech is an atypical, semiotic convergence thereof. Says Jaworski (1993, p. 76): ‘‘Speech represents here the lack of expected silence (about something)’’.
Looked at now from the dimension of content, it is a signifier with nothing signified. This is Lacan’s ‘‘parole vide’’
(1956/1966, p. 50).
A comment should be made regarding two close but different issues. Small talk might seem to be identical with empty
speech, but it is not so, insofar as small talk serves the phatic function (see Baker, 1955; Jakobson, 1960; Jaworski, 2000;
Ephratt, 2008, pp. 1923–1924; Ephratt, 2011, p. 2304). As opposed to empty speech, small talk should not be looked at with
regard to its content, but with regard to its verbal expression. By definition, the function of phatic expression is to connect,
whereas empty speech disjoins and introduces noise (see Sontag, 1966, p. 12).
The meaning conveyed by empty speech is not the words uttered, but its emptiness. Whereas verbal silence may come
under Goffman’s (1959, p. 2) definition of ‘‘given information’’ (‘‘verbal symbols or their substitutes which he [the individual]
uses admittedly and solely to convey the information that he and the others are known to attach to these symbols’’), empty
speech is ‘‘given-off’’ (‘‘a wide range of action that others can treat as symptomatic of the actor, the expectation being that
the action was performed for reasons other than the information conveyed in this way’’). The emptiness is a symptom givenoff by empty speech. Such use of empty speech emerges both in public and inter-subjective, personal discourses (see Jaworski et al., 2005 on silence in the TV reporting of 9/11). Thus, to claim that the second element in B’s turn ([4] and [40 ]) is
empty speech is to say, as Grice points out, that by changing the topic to a typical non-subject (the weather), B is indicating
his refusal to take on A’s topic, or even to respond or relate to it. The two elements of B’s turn are identical in their function,
and so reinforce each other. B’s conversational strategy – uttering signifiers with nothing signified – functions exactly like his
appalled silence. It is not clear from Grice’s description whether the conversation between A and B in the tea party involved
other people or not. If other participants were present, the two elements of B’s turn could be directed at them rather than, or
as well as, to A.
Having said that B’s utterance is empty speech deliberately intended to disjoin him from A’s remark raises the issue of
cooperation as well as the issue of relevance (relation). As explained earlier, the essence of empty speech is its being a signifier lacking a signified. Relevance is assessed with regard to content: the relevance of signifier A to signifier B in context c
(see below, and see Ephratt, 2004, pp. 185–190). A null signifier can be assessed as either relevant to all non-null signifieds
(as if a semantic variable absorbing all content) or as irrelevant to all non-null signifieds. With regard to the maxim of relation, ‘‘Be relevant’’, it is beyond doubt that B’s first move (the appalled silence) is most relevant because it states in the most
accurate (and iconic) way the message B wishes to convey. Content wise, the two elements of his turn say the same thing:
the second element (empty speech) is indeed relevant to what B (but not A) wishes to convey about A’s remark.
This situation raises the issue of cooperation. Grice (1989, p. 29) outlines three features that jointly distinguish cooperative transactions:
1. The participants have some common immediate aim [. . .].
2. The contributions of the participants should be dovetailed, mutually dependent.
3. There is some sort of understanding [. . .] that, other things being equal, the transaction should continue in appropriate
style unless both parties are agreeable that it should terminate.
Returning now to example [4], it appears that B’s response to A’s remark is in full accord with B considering A’s
remark uncooperative. A’s remark is perceived (at least by B) as committing a social gaffe. As Grice stresses, A does
not seem to share the common aim of a genteel tea party. B observes (second feature) that A is not carrying out the
transaction in an appropriate style (third feature), but A and B have not agreed to terminate the transaction. The
two elements, invoked by B, are indeed cooperative: appellant silence is an act of speech calling A to order, both as
a rebuke and as an act that brings A back to the (original) common aim. Empty speech ‘‘The weather has been quite
delightful this summer, hasn’t it?’’ signals to A, or other participants that despite A being uncooperative, and following
B’s silent act, B is not opting out (third feature above, at least one-sided, and see Grice, 1989, p. 30 way 2) – the conversation continues.
Referring to a different talk exchange (‘‘A: I am out of petrol; B: There is a garage round the corner’’), says Grice:
M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
67
If one interprets the supermaxim of Manner, ‘‘Be perspicuous,’’ as applying not only to the expression of what is said but
also to the connection of what is said with adjacent remarks, there seems to be no case for regarding that supermaxim as
infringed in this example (1989, p. 32).
When interpreting the connection between the second element of example [40 ] and its adjacent remark (the appalled silence of the first element), this very same ruling applies.
1.2. Verbal silence and implicature
Examples [1]–[4] involve silences. A distinction should be made between such silences and other phenomena all termed
‘‘silence’’. The everyday use of the term ‘‘silence’’ does not refer to a single monolithic concept, but stands for an assortment
of notions (Verschueren, 1983; Kurzon, 2007; Ephratt, 2011). ‘‘Silence’’ may refer to stillness as in: ‘‘He will keep the feet of
His holy ones, but the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness’’ (1 Samuel 2: 9); mutism: ‘‘I was dumb with silence’’ (Psalms
39: 3); a pause: ‘‘a time to keep silence, and a time to speak’’ (Ecclesiastes 3: 7); concealment: ‘‘Thou givest thy mouth to evil,
and thy tongue frameth deceit [...] These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such
an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes’’ (Psalms 50: 19, 21); subordinate status:
‘‘Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be
under obedience, as also saith the law’’ (1 Corinthians 14: 43), and the unsaid.9
The silences referred to in examples [1]–[4] serve as a means of communication within human interaction. Along with
speech, they belong within the verbal phase of communication. ‘‘Verbal silence’’ as a pure symbol is clearly distinguished
from other silences. Claiming that silence is composed of complex dimensions and structures, Saville-Troike (1985, p. 9), following Dauenhauer (1980, p. 55), says, ‘‘Silence . . . would be the positive abstinence from employing some determinate
expression’’. She strengthens this claim by saying that, ‘‘Each component that can call for a different component of speech
can also permit or prescribe silence’’ (1985, p. 14), and shows that words, sentences and even complete utterances may be
composed of silence (1985, pp. 8–9, see also Jaworski, 1993, pp. 33, 176, 34, 73–84, 101; Kurzon, 1998, pp. 7–8). Says Bilmes
(1994, p. 79): ‘‘Conversational silence is the absence of talk (or of particular kinds of talk) where talk might relevantly occur’’.
This notion of verbal silence, as part of communication, is defined as the speaker’s choice, when it is his turn, to express
himself using silence. As a variant of a specific linguistic component (a word, a phrase or a chunk of discourse), verbal silences are symbols constructed by a null signifier attached to a specific non-null signified, hence belonging in the linguistic
dimension of communication (Ephratt, 2011, p. 2300).
Bilmes (1994, p. 78) states that, ‘‘Where the rule is ‘Speak’, not speaking is communicative’’. ‘‘Communicative’’ as used
here could be understood in the broad sense as meaning ‘indicative’ or could be understood (narrowly) as sharing the floor
with speech, thus being a literal, verbal means of communicating.
The major issue that must be sorted out here is the relationship between Grice’s notion of implicature and the notion of
verbal silence. Is verbal silence a case of implicature? If not, where does it belong? It might be argued that whereas the broad
reading of Bilmes equates ‘‘communicative’’ with implicative, the narrow reading places verbal silence with speech as fulfillment (see Sperber and Wilson, 1986, pp. 182–183 ‘‘explicature’’ versus ‘‘implicature’’).
The first question to be answered concerns directionality. Do implicature and verbal silence follow the same path? Who
initiates implicatures, the speakers or the addressees? As Grice argues, the hearer (addressee) initiates the implicature. He
activates and implicates only if and when there is no face-value match between what the speaker says and what is expected
by CP and its maxims. Grice outlines the following as a pattern the addressee may pursue for working out an implicature:
He has said that p; there is no reason to suppose that he is not observing the maxims, or at least the Cooperative Principle;
he could not be doing this unless he thought that q; he knows (and knows that I know that he knows) that I can see that
the supposition that he thinks that q is required; he has done nothing to stop me thinking that q; he intends me to think,
or is at least willing to allow me to think, that q; and so has implicated q.’’ (1989, p. 31).
Answering the question using Grice’s conversational implicatures, the implicatures of the speaker or of the listener, turns
out to be quite tricky. Not surprisingly, this approach relies on cooperation. The listener is able to work out an implicature
only if he attributes to the speaker 1. thinking that q; and 2. the knowledge that he knows that the listener knows that he
knows that 1 and that q is required. Thus, Grice places the entire burden of initiating and working out an implicature on the
hearer. The speaker’s direct contribution is his production of a mal-cooperative utterance. The speaker’s indirect contribution
is the assumptions attributed to the speaker by the hearer.
To test this idea, we make use of example [5] that we took from Grice, example [6] from Kasher, which shows silence as
concealment, and example [7]: ‘‘Avis. We try harder’’, which is one of the most memorable advertisements of all time.
Grice provides example [5] as a case illustrating the violation of one maxim due to a supposed clash with another maxim.
Says Grice:
9
As shown in Ephratt (2011), this equivocal use of ‘‘silence’’ has entered scientific terminology, thereby directing the focus of the academic pursuit of
research on silence (Bruneau, 1973; Jensen, 1973; Sacks et al., 1974). See also example [5] below.
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There is no reason to suppose that B is opting out; his answer is, as he well knows, less informative than is required to
meet A’s needs. This infringement of the first maxim of Quantity can be explained only by the supposition that B is aware
that to be more informative would be to say something that infringed the second maxim of Quality. ‘‘Don’t say what you
lack adequate evidence for,’’ so B implicates that he does not know in which town C lives (1989, pp. 32–33).
Still, B could have restated his reply as follows:
[50 ] A: Where does C live?
B: I don’t really know. Somewhere in the south of France.
In doing so he would have been more cooperative by observing both maxims. However, B did not follow this option. Perhaps B was ashamed to admit that he did not know where C lives. In that case, B’s aim (not disclosing his ignorance) clashes
with A’s aim (or A and B’s shared aim, to fit visiting C into their trip, see Kasher on example [6]). This is a clear case of silence
not being part of the code. It is silence that is there to conceal (‘‘I don’t wish to disclose that ‘I don’t know’’’), not to inform
(‘‘I don’t know’’). B’s silence implicates his ignorance, and gives-off (Goffman, 1959, p. 2, see example [4] above) his shame
(concerning this ignorance). This entire implication comes about because of B’s attempt to conceal – not to make apparent –
his ignorance (see Ackerman and Goldsmith, 2008).10 B’s silence is not a means of informing, but a means of hiding
information.
The same logic holds for Kasher’s (1976, p. 214) own example,
[6] Morton: Who is going to marry your sister?
I: A peacock dealer.
Kasher presents this example of a speaker who intentionally chooses to offer partial information, even though he can supply complete information. He calls this an example of ‘‘narrow silence’’. Kasher concludes this example (as well as his entire
paper)11 saying that:
One possible explanation is that there is no full cooperation, because it is contrary to my interests, to a certain extent. I am
interested in having Morton know this and that about the man, but no more, to the extent that it depends on me.
In fact, Kasher presents example [6] and others to show how such silences (wide – full, and narrow) fit into his rationality
principle. To do so, Kasher rewrites Grice’s statement, ‘‘He has said that p; there is no reason to suppose that he is not observing the maxims, or at least the Cooperative Principle’’ as, ‘‘He has said nothing; there is no reason to suppose that he is not a
rational agent’’. Says Jensen (1973, p. 252): ‘‘Silence performs a revelational function in communication; that is, it can facilitate making something known but also can hide something’’. Examples [5] and [6] are cases of silence as a means of hiding.
The Avis advertisement (example [7]) is a case of verbal silence as a means of revealing information. The raison de être of
the ad campaign begun in the early 1960s was to move Avis from being the second-ranked car-rental service in the US to the
first, thereby overtaking Hertz.12 As we learn from the story behind the ad, ‘‘we try harder’’ was the answer given by Avis’ president to the questions posed by the advertising agency. As the story reported in Time magazine notes:
It began with some casual questioning. Robert C. Townsend, the president of Avis, Inc., was talking with his advertising
agency about ways to boost Avis’ rent-a-car business, which trailed far behind Hertz in the car-rental field. Were Avis’
cars newer than Hertz’s? asked the admen. No. More rental locations? No. Lower rates? Nope. Wasn’t there some difference between the two? ‘‘Well,’’ said Townsend, thinking for a moment, ‘‘We try harder.’’ Lights flashed. Bugles blared.
Sirens wailed.
It follows from this description that in the context of discovery (as opposed to the context of justification, see Hempel,
1966), Hertz was the given, thus, the object of the question (and comparison, ‘‘In what way is Avis better than Hertz?’’).
‘‘We try harder.’’ Being second in an adjacent question-and-answer pair resulted in a grammatically well-formed, syntactic
construction in which the reply is not expected to rearticulate the non-Wh syntactic roles (compare e.g., ‘‘Who killed Cock
Robin? I, said the sparrow’’, see Hiz, 1962, pp. 159–160; Miller, 2006).13 Still, this has to do with the story behind the ad. We
move on to the interaction, namely, the utterance sent by the ad man to the potential customers (what the addressee might hear
or read). The use of a superlative (comparative) adverb (‘‘harder’’) dictates a syntactic construction of comparison. Quirk and
Greenbaum (1973, p. 330) detail this construction:
[. . .] a proposition expressed in the superordinate clause is compared with a proposition expressed in the subordinate
clause by means of ‘COMP(arative) ELEMENT. This comp-element specifies the standard of comparison (eg: health) and
10
Referring to the silence as the second of question–answer adjacent pairs resulting from Samon’s friends’ inability to solve the riddle that he posed to them
(Judges 14: 14), Miller (2006, p. 39) claims that such a silence is not perceived by the biblical narrator as hostile or uncooperative.
11
Kasher’s final words following this citation are: ‘‘Grice’s cooperation principle does not permit such an explanation without radical changes in its content,
its justification and the manner of its operation’’.
12
Time. 24 July 1964. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939058,00.html.
13
A full sentence such as ‘‘I killed Cock Robin’’ could be produced in language courses or student–teacher transactions, or in formal speech. It is not standard
in colloquial speech.
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identifies the comparison as equational or differentiating. The comp-element is linked with the subordinate clause by a
correlative sequence [. . .].
The copywriter (the speaker) has chosen the prototypical comparison structure. However, no prepositional clause (such
as ‘‘than X’’) is articulated following this comparative element. Unlike in cases [1]–[4] above, here the syntactic ‘COMP(arative) ELEMENT explicitly elicits verbal silence: the choice of the speaker to convey by silence what is expected using speech.
The ‘COMP(arative) ELEMENT serves here as the forerunner of verbal silence. It is a linguistic code, an explicit means chosen
by the speaker to signify the coming verbal silence. The speaker utilizes such linguistic forerunners, grammatical or semantic
stumps to signal the location, content and category of the verbal silence. He is not saying, ‘‘We try hard’’. He is saying, ‘‘We
try harder Ø(than X)’’. Formally (in the sense of the apparent form as well as in the sense of grammatical well-formedness), it
is not for the hearer to assume a compliment – it is there by the way the speaker chooses to formulate his utterance. Unlike
the silence of example [5], the silence here is not a case that calls for implicatures. It belongs in the code, in what is said.
Grice (1989, p. 86) admits that, ‘‘Implicature is a blanket word to avoid having to make choices between words like ‘imply,’ ‘suggest,’ ‘indicate,’ and ‘mean’’’.14 Moreover, Grice proposes (not to use ‘‘suggests’’ . . .) these equivalents because they are
all modal verbs, sharing the quality of not committing the truth-value of the utterance of the sentence. The Avis ad is not suggesting Hertz. It is not for the hearer to choose among various potential possibilities. In the car-rental business of 1964 there is
one leader, Hertz, and Avis is a far second. The campaign seeks to overtake Hertz – this is the issue. Attaching the silenced compelement to a subordinate clause other than Hertz would be incorrect. In verbal silence, as in saying, there is a meaning (reference) that is necessarily true. To this end, the ad man also chooses to end the clause with a full stop, not three dots (as if literally
saying ‘‘full stop’’ – that’s a fact, see Borochovsky, 2003). Hertz is thus the only possible, unequivocal comparison.
Looking at the issue from a modal perspective, when there is one leading company, statements such as:
[7] Avis. We try harder.
[70 ] Avis. We try harder than the others.
[700 ] Avis. We try harder than the leading company.
all reference the same company, so
[7000 ] ‘‘Avis. We try harder than Hertz’’
is not merely suggested.
If so, why isn’t ‘‘Hertz’’ vocalized here, thereby matching form and content (the maxim of manner)? One possibility is that
what we have here is not a case of verbal silence, but a case of silence as concealing. It differs from verbal silence in that this
it is not silence freely chosen by the speaker as a means of conveying a message. As demonstrated in examples [5] and [6]
above, silence may also occur when the speaker does not wish to share (cooperate) all of his information, or when others
prevent him (silence him) from sharing or disclosing information. Given the legal prohibition in effect in the US at the time
of the Avis ad forbidding the naming of competitors in advertisements, this could well be the case. If this were the case, and
the speaker wanted to be cooperative, he could bypass this forced silencing by replacing the censured singular term (proper
name: ‘‘Hertz’’) with a logically equivalent, definite description, e.g., uttering [700 ] or [70 ]. He could also get around this ban by
using the approach adopted by the Digital Equipment Company. In the late 1970s, Digital was in the same position vis-à-vis
IBM that Avis was vis-à-vis Hertz. Digital overcame the prohibition of mentioning IBM by using verbal silence in its ads:
[8] On second thought, Digital.
The mention of the second in a series (‘‘second thought’’) is a forerunner signaling the verbal silence’s first thought (the
more emotive, not considerate one), IBM (see Ephratt, 2011, p. 2301). But this is not the case with Avis.
This advertisement was the anchor of Avis’ campaign. Neither the Avis Company nor the advertising agency were trying
to conceal information, nor did they wish to be uncooperative, On the contrary, they sought maximum cooperation, hoping
to reach each and every potential customer.15 For this reason they preferred the option of verbal silence (announced by the
syntactic forerunner) to the full production or the silencing option. As explained, ‘‘Hertz’’ is necessarily – rather than suggested
– the only value successfully instantiating the compliment, so uttering ‘‘Hertz’’ or leaving this signifier unrealized does not affect
information (the maxim of quantity and the maxim of relevance). Still, not realizing ‘‘Hertz’’ ([7000 ]) adds information not conveyed by its realization ([7]), because stating both ‘‘Avis’’ and ‘‘Hertz’’ ([7000 ]) gives them equal weight and presents them as equal
contestants in the contest. In contrast, not realizing ‘‘Hertz’’ ([70 ]) informs us that the contest is over. Hertz has vanished as a
contestant, and Avis has taken over.
It is the speaker’s (copywriter) calculated wording, the lexical and syntactic, grammatical choices, the speech and the verbal silence that say this. Verbal silence belongs in the utterance produced – deliberately – by the speaker. The speaker puts it
14
Grice (1989, p. 360): ‘‘What the signifying expression (or its user) says as distinct from implies, suggests, hints, or in some other less than fully direct
manner conveys’’.
15
As reported in the article, the company went out of its way to make this slogan a reality. They really did try hard[er].
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there just as he chooses where to place a particular word to highlight Avis. This whole picture as it emerges here is by no
means the outcome of the working through of the addressee.
Beyond the crucial difference between verbal silence being a code said by the speaker and an implicature that is the listener’s working through of what the speaker failed to say, the two also differ in form. Grice (1989, p. 31) demands that:
The presence of a conversational implicature must be capable of being worked out; for even if it can in fact be intuitively
grasped, unless the intuition is replaceable by an argument, the implicature [. . .] will not count as a conversational
implicature.
Resolving the mismatch between the speaker’s dictum, and the expected CP and its maxims requires a set of arguments
that fill in or repair the mismatch. Such was the argument worked out by the addressee (A) in example [5] that B does not
know where C lives. The argument (or set of arguments) worked out as implicature bridges the speaker’s utterance (B) and
the successful fulfillment of the CP. This bridging highlights the differences between conversational implicature and verbal
silence. What might seem to be a matter of quantity is actually a crucial qualitative matter. As its appellation indicates, verbal silence is verbal. It is a sign that is not manifested phonetically. Thus, the scope of the silence is the local scope of the
verbal entity not realized, be it a phoneme or a sign (see example [1]); a word or a syntactic role (see example [7]); a speech
act (see example [4]) or a whole talking turn (see example [3]).
To summarize, after discussing verbal silence using examples provided and analyzed by Grice, (examples [1]–[4]), we
then moved on to conversational implicatures, demonstrating the considerable differences between them (example [5])
and verbal silence (examples [1]–[4], [7]–[8]). Introducing the notion of implicature before focusing on the maxims matches
Grice’s approach in Logic and Conversation (see 1989, pp. 22–40). However, it does not match the way a conversation advances. In an actual conversation, an implicature is activated only when the speaker deviates (or seems to be deviating) from
the CP, particularly from one of the maxims.
Our motivation for addressing the issue of implicature before investigating each of the maxims is not simply to follow
Grice’s approach. It arises from Grice’s contention about cases such as examples [1]–[4]) that silences are generally resolved
by working out conversational implicatures. The significant differences between verbal silences (examples [1]–[4], [7]–[8])
and non-communicative silences (example [5]) do not support automatically shoving verbal silence onto implicatures. Now
we can move on to a discussion of the intermediate stage, namely, the maxims.
2. Conversational maxims and verbal silence
We now examine Grice’s four maxims one by one in light of verbal silence.
2.1. Quantity
Says Grice (1989, p. 26):
The category of Quantity relates to the quantity of information to be provided, and under it fall the following maxims:
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of exchange).
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Our mission here is to determine whether verbal silence flouts the category of quantity. When we deal with language, we
deal with form, meaning what is said, and content, meaning what is meant. In Grice’s terms, there is the quantity of form and
the quantity of information (content). Silence in all of its forms shares a lack of form, because there are no sounds. As demonstrated earlier, we can differentiate between the speaker’s silence (including verbal silence) and other silences (such as
stillness or the silence of the listener, who is expected not to talk but to be listening). We check to see whether speech is
expected, and it is only if speech is expected that the lack of form could be related to content. Furthermore, having determined that speech is expected, in order to discuss verbal silence we must show that the content (expected in the speaker’s
speech) is conveyed by his using silence (no voices). Looked at from a quantitative perspective, verbal silence as informative
is a case of no form conveying complete content.
It appears from the above quotation that Grice confines the quantity category to the opposite case. He looks at the quantity of information provided by the speaker. The manner in which that information is provided is the category dealing with
the quantity of form (see maxim four of manner).
Kasher (1976, p. 201) and others quote Grice as phrasing the second maxim of quantity, ‘‘Do not make your contribution
less or more informative than is required’’. In all of Grice’s statements of this maxim he says ‘‘more informative’’ not ‘‘less
informative’’ (but see example [5] above). Grice splits the quantity category into two maxims. Prior to the maxim just
quoted, he postulates that the contribution should be ‘‘as informative as required’’. ‘‘As informative’’ clearly means (by conventional implicature . . .) informative enough, not less, which, in turn, explains the next maxim: not more. What, then,
would constitute a case of silence violating the requirements of the quantity category, a case that flouts the requirement that
the speaker should provide an adequate amount of information (no more and no less)?
M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
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Clearly, cases in which the speaker opts out from interaction or in which information is concealed violate the maxim of
quantity. One can opt out or conceal information using words or by invoking silence. However, as we saw in example [5]
(and see also Kasher, 1976, p. 213 example), this is not verbal silence; it is not silence as a means of communication.
Typically, speech is the ultimate means for contacting others and providing information. Therefore, providing less information – as in example [5] – is then a case of infringing on this requirement. However, as the specific examples presented
earlier show, the reverse may also occur (Jensen, 1973). Example [1] above is a case in which the verbal silence that silences
the disjunct known to be false is as informative as stating its falsehood (A Ø(_ B) B A ^ B B A). As analyzed above, case [4]
may also demonstrate circumstances in which speech is as informative as the silences chosen (leaving aside the matter of
iconicity or politeness, see [40 ]–[4000 ]). The same can be said about the testimonial (example [3]–[300 ]).
We analyzed example [2] as a case of silence escaping articulation. Here is a clear case in which speech is inferior to silence, supporting the classic claim of poets about the shortage of words. A proverb that appears in various forms in many
cultures and languages notes that a thousand words are often not enough to express a single thought. This proverb points
to the maxim of quantity that is fulfilled by (verbal) silence. Clearly, failing to provide information does not accord with the
maxim of quantity. However, it is not necessarily the case that speech fulfills this maxim and silence (verbal silence) flouts it.
For example, the following three texts demonstrate cases in which verbal silence is more informative than words, cases in
which verbal silence, not speech, fulfill the maxim of quantity:
Adler (2007, p. 181) analyzes the silence in the ad for the sugar substitute, Canderel:
[9] Canderel: Avec Ø vaut mieux que sans Ø (=Canderel: with Ø is better than without Ø).
She points to the two omissions of the non-human object (Canderel)
[90 ] Avec [Canderel] vaut mieux que sans [Canderel].
Adler shows that
[900 ] Avec Canderel vaut mieux que sans Ø
Articulating the first occurrence of ‘‘Canderel’’ (as in [900 ]) would produce a 2 + 2 + 2 even metric slogan that would serve
memorization. However, this prosodic gain would be at the expense of the information supplied, ruining the iconic force of
the ad. Articulating the first occurrence of ‘‘Canderel’’ ([900 ]) would substantially enlarge the volume of ‘‘avec’’ (=with) overshadowing ‘‘sans’’ (=without). The choice of silence adds another message not expressed by words. The parsimony of words
iconically conveys the loss of weight achieved (slim utterance for a slim figure), at least partly, by consuming Canderel rather
than sugar:
[9000 ] Avec [Canderel] vaut mieux que sans [sucre].
Given that the concern here is reducing superfluous calories, the advertisement makes use of verbal silence as an iconic
symbol. The parsimonious use of words and the merger of the ellipsis as a null signifier in the text produce an iconic analogy
between form and content. This silence is primarily a linguistic symbol, produced here by a syntactic ellipsis. Moreover, as
Adler points out, omitting the complements of the prepositions ‘‘avec’’ and ‘‘sans’’, but leaving them as forerunners of the
verbal silence (as stumps), meta-linguistically places them in focus. They shift from procedural grammatical entities to content words conveying the message of the ad.
The ad – directed at people sensitive to weight gain – makes use of verbal silences to get across information. This goal
results in this slim utterance ([9] that carries all of the information and messages it wishes to state in order to promote Canderel and persuade customers to consume it. The ad proves to potential customers that they can indeed achieve their goal.
Just as we have (meta-linguistically) demonstrated that not only does cutting words not require a reduction in information –
it may even increase information, so you (the consumer) can trust us that by using Canderel, not only will you lose weight,
but you will also be better off (thus realizing a gain).
We now move on to a different example of verbal silence conveying more information than words – thus fulfilling the
maxim of quantity completely. Example [100 ] is taken from Grimm’s tale ‘‘The Twelve Brothers’’. The Brothers Grimm begin
the tale conventionally: ‘‘There were once on a time a king and a queen’’, which is followed by the unique setting of this
specific tale:
[10] There were once on a time a king and a queen who lived happily together and had twelve children, but they were all
boys. Then said the King to his wife, ‘‘if the thirteenth child which thou art about to bring into the world, is a girl, the
twelve boys shall die, in order that her possessions may be great, and that the kingdom may fall to her alone (1968,
pp. 37–38).
‘‘Who lived happily together’’ could still be attributed to formulaic conventional opening. As Raufman (2007) illustrates,
the uniqueness ends with the clause
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[100 ] and had twelve children, but all were all boys.
Syntactically, this is a well-formed, complete clause that, together with the preceding clause, creates a well-formed conjunction. However, this clause features an absence, an absence expressed by verbal silence. By the contrastive ‘‘but’’ and by
counting the boys and summarizing them as ‘‘all boys’’, the tale informs us that the king and queen had no daughters. Says
Raufman (2007, p. 115):
The feminine heroine is considered missing both in the plot level (she does not exist and her absence is present in the
opening clause ([see 90 ])) and in the means used to describe her absence, focusing on the presence of the sons. This is
a textual silence telling of the absence of the daughter. At the meta-linguistic level this is a hint anticipating the preference of silence to speech, stating it as a deficient condition required for obtaining completeness. As the story progresses,
we see how these relations, leaving out the absence, and so emphasizing its existence, function in molding the image of
the daughter as the silent heroine.
Raufman does not follow the feminist or postmodern rewriting of the narrative that transposes the heroine into a speaking hero. Instead, she reexamines the silence and the silent heroine, revealing the superiority of silence to speech. Analyzing
speech and silence in ‘‘The Twelve Brothers’’, Raufman demonstrates the liberating force of silence, the power that it gives
the daughter to counter the killing force of speech granted to the men in the story (the king, his sons, and the prince). As
Raufman shows, what at first glance seems like silencing – the external ban imposed on the newly born princess by the
old woman not to talk or laugh for seven years – turns out to be an authentic and expressive means of contact and communication activated alongside speech and in place of speech. It is this silence that releases the brothers from their curse, punishes the stepmother, and brings life and happiness to the princess and her beloved prince.
The last example of silence, which may be the most informative, is the Christian marriage ceremony.
[11] The minister addresses the participants thus: ‘‘If anyone here can show just cause why this man and woman should
not be joined together in matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace’’.
Participants: (silence).
If, as in example [11], no one stands up and speaks, these individual and collective silences are taken as a linguistic symbol expressing a negative answer, as if each participant has said referentially, ‘‘No, I have no just cause to say that’’.16 Not
uttering the word ‘‘no’’ does not count as a reply of no, thus flouting the maxim of quantity. This curial information is delivered
using verbal silence. It is important to emphasize that the answer to the minister’s question is not known, even though in the
case of the marriage ceremony, the negative answer, as signified by silence, might indeed be the desired answer. As real life
shows, and Hollywood films make manifest, a positive answer (expressed using words) is indeed a possibility.
In summation, despite Grice and other scholars linking silence with the infringement of the maxim of quantity, the examples presented here demonstrate that not only does verbal silence convey the information required by speech, but in many
cases it also conveys information at a level beyond speech. As we noted, silence looked at from the point of view of form as
opposed to content would be dealt with under the fourth maxim, that of manner (see Section 2.4).
2.2. Quality
The second maxim in Grice’s cooperative principle is that of quality. Says Grice (1989, p. 27):
Under the category of Quality falls a supermaxim – ‘try to make your contribution one that is true’ – and two more specific maxims:
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
As the extreme case, lying is perceived as uncooperative because it is counter factual, or, when its goal is deception, counter cooperative. In fact, Grice asserts that this category is not just one among many. It is superior to the rest because ‘‘false
information is not an inferior kind of information; it just is not information’’ (1989, p. 371). Obeying the cooperative principle
and its attendant maxims is behavior learned in childhood, so it takes a good deal of effort to make a radical departure from
the habit. In support of this claim, Grice says that it is much easier to tell the truth than to invent lies (1989, p. 29). Jacques
Lacan goes even further, saying that: ‘‘You have to know one hell of a lot of things to keep a lie going. There is nothing more
difficult than to sustain a lie’’. This is why, on the one hand, there is the possibility of deception, and on the other hand, it is so
difficult to keep the lie going, namely, to suppress the truth.
Clearly, one can lie using words, and one can lie by being silent. Grice lists cases of irony, metaphor, meiosis (understatement) and hyperbole (exaggeration) as examples of speech (or rather figures of speech) that flout the first maxim of quality.
Grice admits that it is not easy to find examples that flout the second maxim, but they can be found in generalizations that
16
Clearly, this has nothing to do with ‘‘rhetorical questions’’ (see Miller, 2006; Ephratt, 2011, p. 2301).
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lack supporting evidence. Grice’s examples, such as metaphor, are clear instances in which both the speaker and his interlocutors know that what is uttered is not the truth, and so, according to Grice, the hearer invokes implicatures.
We now look at the possible relationship between silence in general, and verbal silence in particular, and the category of
quality. Can silence serve to lie to or deceive (not conceal)? Do such cases flout the category of quality?
One feature that might encourage the use of verbal silences for deceiving (thus flouting quality) is the space that silence
offers between saying (delivering the message) and not saying (not uttering). However, as the example from Tiersma (1995,
p. 45) shows, despite this seeming space, the court found a null answer in the income declaration to be a false one. Tiersma’s
story is clearly an example of silence being uncooperative (with authority and regulations), thus flouting the supermaxim
and its first maxim.
Nir (2010, p. 28) claims that a reticent speaker is being dishonest in that he has something to say, but refrains from saying
it, thus flouting quality. Looking at ironic (see Grice above) silent responses within what he terms ‘‘communicative silence’’,
Nir says that the speaker pretends he has nothing to say, but this dishonesty is fictitious; by this very silence, the speaker
conveys a message. It is not clear from Nir’s wording whether this understanding and the message involved are the actual
cooperative saying of the (ironic) speaker, or whether it is the interlocutor’s implication arrived at by the flouting of quality.
The example involving the guidance given by Yale College about letters of recommendation (see [3] above and fn. 5): ‘‘We
have also found that, unless a student is first in a class, it is often not helpful to give a class ranking’’ is also a case of this
silence flouting the supermaxim of quality. Not commenting on the student’s rank implies that he was not first in his class.
The case at hand points to a significant issue about the relationship between silence and the category of quality: the ongoing
ethical question of whether truth necessarily equates with the whole truth. The supermaxim talks of making one’s contribution one that is true, namely, saying the truth. In contrast, the submaxims deal with falsehood, namely, not saying. We
seem to have contradictory goals here. Are we to tell the truth (and the whole truth), or are we to be informative, as the letter
of recommendation letter requests?
Looked at from the perspectives of quality and quantity traps silence in between the issue of the truth and the whole
truth. Remaining silent when the speaker knows something to be false or when he has doubts is the ultimate standard means
of serving the maxims of quality (see example [5] above and see Ackerman and Goldsmith, 2008). However, as we have
shown, if and when one seeks the whole truth, this search may clash with the maxim of quantity (see our discussion about
the category of relation (Section 2.3)).
Silence is not the standard means for communication. Nevertheless, as we saw here, in some cases verbal silence does
serve as communication. However, there are very special situations in which silence is the only means for telling the truth
(and thus telling the whole truth), cases in which the attempt to describe matters using words would flout the second maxim
of quality. We are referring here to extreme cases such as psychic cases explained as black holes (Tustin, 1986; Eshel, 1998),
as well as cases experienced prior to verbalization (see e.g., Van Buren and Alhanati, 2010). ‘‘Black hole’’ is a term borrowed
from astrophysics. It describes states of disassociation in which the self cannot cope with certain experiences, so it cuts itself
off. This disassociation serves as a protective mechanism and is often activated in the wake of traumas such as rape or massacres. The essence of this mechanism (detachment) is that despite being present in the flesh, the person is absent mentally
and emotionally. From this it follows that any attempt to describe or share what happened is doomed to failure. Telling the
experience not experienced by the cut-off self would result in flouting the second maxim: ‘‘Do not say that for which you lack
adequate evidence’’. As psychologists have realized, in such cases, silence is indeed communication (Khan, 1963). It is the
authentic truth – and the whole truth means sharing the experience of the black hole. The inadequacy and lack of words,
and silence as the means of expression reoccurs over and over in the tales of rape victims and the recounting of life-threatening experiences, such as murder. Holocaust survivors – ordinary people, as well as authors and poets – resort to this silence as both means and theme (Bar-On, 1989; Wiseman and Barber, 2008).
Wajnryb (2001, pp. 107–109) outlines varied constellations in which silence is preferred to speech, in terms of preserving
truth. Such is the sense of betrayal: ‘‘Words, being finite, would place limits on the phenomenon, perceived as non-finite, and
thereby betray its enormity’’; the most that words can manage is mediating or mitigating. She also refers to the survivors’
‘‘sense that their language won’t do justice to the enormity of their experience and that if they are to fail in representing
what happened, then it is better not to try at all’’. Wajnryb also mentions the ‘unshareability’ that makes the telling pointless.
An illocutionary motivation she mentions for withdrawing from speech is the fear that labeling gives voice to the trauma,
thus amplifying it. In such cases, ‘‘silence speaks louder than words’’.
Let us conclude our discussion about silence and the category of quality with a common, everyday occurrence:
[12] A person (A) approaches another person (B),
A: Do you hear me?
B: (silence).
Should B reply ‘‘no’’, this would be a straightforward infringement of the category of quality. B’s silence is a pure icon (see
the discussion in example [2] above). It is not a symbol, so it is not verbal silence (there is no differentiation between the
signified and a signifier as a means of communication). The next scenario is different in this respect:
[120 ] A approaches B speaking a language foreign to the latter (B):
A: Parlez vous français?
B: (silence).
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M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
B does not speak French. He may not even realize that A is asking a question. B’s lips remain sealed. Referring to the code,
his silence says: ‘‘I am not part of it, I do not share this code’’. As such, this is indeed an answer to the meta-linguistic question: ‘‘No, I cannot communicate with you’’. As the question asked is a yes/no question, the addresser (A) will perceive this
silence as meaning ‘‘No’’.17 Had B answered ‘‘No’’ or ‘‘I do not speak French’’, his very words – what he said – would have countered its content (and truth value, indicating that he did understand the question expressed in French). This response would
flout the second maxim of quantity.
2.3. Relation
Under the category of relation, Grice (1989, p. 27) places a single maxim, namely, ‘Be relevant’. Looking back at the cooperative principle, Grice admits that among the questions that remain unanswered is the clarification of the notion of relevance and ‘‘further consideration why there is a general expectation that this maxim (and indeed all maxims) be
observed’’ (Grice, 1989, pp. 86–87 and see also Dascal, 1977, p. 310; Sperber and Wilson, 1986, p. 36). Immediately following
this statement, Grice expresses his doubts about whether he will be able to address all of the remaining questions. Indeed,
the question about relevance does not receive any further attention.
Dascal (1977) and Sperber and Wilson (1986) took up the challenge, devoting their studies to the clarification of ‘conversational relevance’. Marcelo Dascal observes that despite the intensive use of the notion of relevance in many varied domains, ‘‘this concept is seldom clearly defined or characterized’’. He adds,
[T]here is a sense in which a certain concept of relevance, perhaps not identical with the one required of R [Grice’s relation maxim], governs the operation of the other supermaxims, as if the CP [Cooperation Principle] itself were a principle
of ‘relevance’ rather than a principle of ‘cooperation’ (Dascal, 1977, p. 311).
As we mentioned in the discussion about the category of quantity, Grice suggests that ‘overinformativeness’, rather than
violating quantity, is ‘‘confusing in that it is liable to raise side issues’’ or matters of relevance (Grice, 1989, p. 27, and see
Spence, 1982, p. 104).
Dascal’s main contribution to the clarification of the notion of ‘relevance’ lies in the following three issues:
1. Extracting ‘relevance’ from its treatment (Grice) as a monadic predicate. Dascal defines relevance as a dyadic predicate, a
function of two variables ‘responding utterance RU is (ir/)relevant to demander utterance DU’ (Dascal, 1977, pp. 313–316).
However, Dascal points out that defining the relevance of RU to DU as the existence of at least one respect in which RU is
relevant to DU would result in a situation in which if ‘‘all judgements of relevance are trivially true, then no judgement of
irrelevance is true’’ (Dascal, 1977, p. 314). To resolve this difficulty Dascal (1977, p. 315) states, ‘‘Something is topically relevant at time t for a subject S if it is at the center or focus of S’s field of attention at t’’ (bearing in mind the background).
2. The differentiation between two notions of relevance: pragmatic relevance and semantic relevance. Pragmatic relevance
refers to the relevance of an action to a goal. Semantic relevance is the relevance (‘‘aboutness’’) of propositions (as linguistic, logical, or cognitive entities) to other entities of the same type. ‘‘Being relevant’’, according to Dascal, is the result
of the intricate relationship that must hold between the semantic and pragmatic components (see Dascal, 1977, pp. 311,
321).
3. Dascal’s third contribution is seeing the function of RU’s relevance to DU as an equation determined only by – and after –
all of the variables have been solved. Hence, relevance is determined retroactively. Its appropriate method is abductive
rather than deductive or inductive. The respondent has to figure out whether there is an implication, and, if so, what
it is (relevance).
Dascal (1977, p. 321) lists three possible conversational outcomes:
1. If both the pragmatic relevance and the semantic relevance of the reaction (RU) match the demand (DU), then it is ‘‘maximally relevant’’ to it, and there is no need for implicatures.
2. If ‘‘no component of the reaction matches the demand’’, then the former is ‘‘totally irrelevant to it’’, and no implicature can
be generated.
3. ‘‘Only if some components are irrelevant, whereas others are relevant can an implicature arise’’.
Dascal (1977, p. 326) concludes by stating two rules for generating relevance implicatures: ‘‘Check for topical relevance.
Check for correct identification of demand’’.
17
The following discussion between Jim and Huck (The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain, 1962, pp. 87–88), illustrates that not all people would take
‘‘Parlez vous français? to be a question. I thank my husband Prof. Uzzi Ornan for pointing out to me this instance: ‘‘Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de
same way we does?’’ ‘‘No, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said – not a single word.’’ ‘‘Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?’’ ‘‘I don’t know;
but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy – what would you think?’’ ‘‘I wouldn’ think nuff’n;
I’d take en bust him over de head – dat is, if he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ’low no nigger to call me dat.’’ ‘‘Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do
you know how to talk French?’’ ‘‘Well, den, why couldn’t he say it?’’
M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
75
Sperber and Wilson (1986; Wilson and Sperber, 1993) are acknowledged as the founders of the most influential ‘‘relevance theory’’. They too take Grice as their starting point. While they give credit to Grice, particularly about his idea that
the act of communicating creates expectations that it then exploits, they reject the dichotomy he puts forward between
the mechanism decoding the explicit (coded) content of an utterance and the one accounting for its implicit (implicated)
content. They claim that these mechanisms are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, it is expected that complex forms of
communication will make use of both mechanisms, thereby combining them. Therefore, they introduce a new classification
based on the notion of ‘‘explicitness’’: ‘‘An assumption communicated by an utterance U is explicit if and only if it is a development of a logical form encoded by U’’ (1989, p. 182). Implicatures are then defined and identified in light of explicitness,
and the notion of ‘‘explicature’’. An ‘‘explicature’’ is an explicitly communicated assumption, whereas an ‘‘implicature’’ is any
assumption communicated implicitly, not explicitly (1989, p. 182).
Sperber and Wilson (1986, p. 36) criticize Grice for ignoring the psychological phase of interaction, thus arriving at a poor
description of communication. They also criticize Grice for his approach to relevance, which according to them, retains much
of the vagueness of the commonsense view and results in no more than dressed-up appeals to intuition. Sperber and Wilson’s view of communication in general and relevance in particular is a model that stresses the efficacy of communication.
Relevance results from the mingling together of the code (coding and decoding) and the mutual cognitive environment
(worlds) shared by and apparent to both communicator and addressee. Their starting point is their contention that the most
obvious asset of human beings as a species is in them being efficient information-processing devices. Thus, a speaker does
not speak in vain. Information processing, they say, involves effort, and will be undertaken only in the expectation of some
reward. Being relevant is such a reward (1989, pp. 46–49). They outline the assumptions underlying optimal relevance
(1989, p. 164):
1. The set of assumptions I which the communicator intends to make manifest to the addressee is relevant enough to make
it worth the addressee’s while to process the ostensive stimulus.
2. The ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one the communicator could have used to communicate I.
Sperber and Wilson see relevance as a relational feature balancing quantities. They set two conditions for determining
relevance (1986, p. 153):
1. A phenomenon is relevant to the individual to the extent that the contextual effects achieved when it is optimally processed are large.
2. A phenomenon is relevant to the individual to the extent that the effort required to process it optimally is small.
As its names indicates, of the four CP categories, it is the relation category that by definition glues everything together.
This is clear from Dascal’s model as well as from Sperber and Wilson’s theory of relevance. In contrast, Grice’s CP assumes
coherence: the coherence of aims (see Kasher), the coherence of logic and the coherence of topic. Dascal and Sperber and
Wilson frame relevance as a measure sensitive to all factors. These factors include Dascal’s semantic and pragmatic measures, Sperber and Wilson’s mingling of the code, mutually manifested cognitive stances, as well as the complexity of goals
and motivations (psychological factors). Even though relevance is determined in retrospect, as Dascal states, it is not always
the case that relevance is always in need of implicature. Optimal relevance and a complete match between the reaction
utterance and the demand are cases that fulfill the relational category. In such cases, the speaker has produced utterances
that take into account all of the factors, thereby attaining maximum efficiency.
As we have shown, the requirement for relevance is at issue in example [4]. Grice uses example [4], the genteel tea party
incident, as an authentic case in which an implicature is achieved by a real (not an apparent) violation of the maxim of relation. In our analysis of the case, we pointed out the relevance of B’s double element response to A. The two elements that B
invokes are indeed cooperative. Appellant silence is a speech act calling A to order. Empty speech, ‘‘The weather has been quite
delightful this summer, hasn’t it?’’, signals that despite A’s being uncooperative, and following B’s act of silence, B is not opting
out: the conversation continues.
The next example, taken from a scene in Act II of the play Waiting for Godot by Beckett (1954, p. 59), shows us that silence
as a response is not necessarily a matter of implicature invoked by the flouting of a maxim, such as relevance. Instead, it may
indeed be the very fulfillment of that maxim.
[13] Vladimir: What does he do, Mr. Godot? (silence) Do you hear me?
Boy: Yes, Sir.
Vladimir: Well?
Boy: He does nothing, Sir.
Should the discourse proceed as presented in the raw text (example [13]), the silence indicated as stage directions18 and
the three lines that follow seem to add no information. Their only justification may be in their enhancing tiresome boredom (not
18
On silence in stage directions see e.g. Jaworski (1993, p. 94) and Wilson (2000, pp. 163–175).
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M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
immaterial to the theme of Waiting for Godot). Such a justification is ipso facto contrary to relevance being an efficiency measure, so content-wise it ranks very low in relevance. However, by looking at silence as a symbol, we may obtain a richer reading,
one that is attained by rearranging this fraction of this very same discourse ([130 ]):
[130 ] Vladimir: What does he do, Mr. Godot?
Boy: (silence)
Vladimir: Do you hear me?
Boy: Yes, Sir.
Vladimir: Well?
Boy: He does nothing, Sir.
To Vladimir’s question about Godot’s occupation the boy answers—in silence: nothing for nothing (he does nothing).
Vladimir’s next question indicates that he does not grasp this silence as a symbol, so he suspects that the boy has not
heard his question and could not reply. The boy, having answered the initial question, interprets Vladimir’s second question as a fresh one, not as an indirect speech act invoking an answer to the first. The boy then answers the literal (second)
question accordingly (‘‘yes, Sir’’). Vladimir’s ‘‘Well?’’ expresses his renewed attempt to get the boy’s answer to his initial
question. Thus, ‘‘He does nothing, Sir’’ is the boy’s verbalized paraphrase of his first informative answer expressed by verbal silence.
This conversational transaction, as staged here ([130 ]), indicates that the boy’s initial answer, namely, the one produced in
(verbal) silence, belongs in the said (explicature), and is a sincere, cooperative (and even iconically informative), direct, relevant answer to Vladimir’s genuine question. From the boy’s perspective, as the speaker, his silent responding utterance (RU)
is a sincere, direct outcome of his focus following Vladimir’s request for information (DU: ‘‘What does he do, Mr. Godot’’). The
boy’s responses to Vladimir’s ongoing questions clearly indicate that it does not occur to the boy that he and Vladimir do not
share a mutual cognitive space. The boy is sure that his silence constitutes an answer (the most efficient, assuming shared
mental worlds). The boy’s responses are, clearly, not in line with the working out of implicature (Grice, 1989, p. 31 as quoted
above). The boy does not take the silence as a supposition to be worked out by Vladimir.
The last example of verbal silence fulfilling the maxim of relevance has to do with connectives. By their nature, connectives are procedural signs indicating logical, linguistic relationships between entities: arguments, signs etc. The most common connectives are dyadic ones, creating relationships between two entities. As evident in example [1] above, relationships
may be conjunctions, disjunctions, entailments, equations, etc.
Our example comes again from the Bible, from the beginning of the Book of Exodus:
[14] And these are the names of the sons of Israel who had come into Egypt; with Jacob had they come, each with his
household (Exodus 1:1, The Darby translation, Youngs literal translation).19
‘‘And’’ is a dyadic conjunction, A ^ B, that conjoins two books, Genesis and Exodus, indicating continuity (King James version and other translations expresses this continuity saying: ‘‘Now these are the names [...]’’. However, we also find many
cases in which connectives such as ‘‘and’’ or ‘‘but’’ appear in initial positions of a discourse, poem or any other text. The major
issue here is, what is their function in such initial positions? Do they connect? What do they connect? Bolden (2010) describes the function of ‘‘and’’ prefaced in initial position as naming the unsaid, what has not been said but may have or
should have been said. In comparing the functions of ‘‘and’’ and ‘‘but’’ in initiating turns in discourse, Schiffrin (1987, pp.
152–177) stresses the discursive function of ‘‘but’’ as contrasting an upcoming unit with a prior one. Among these contrastive actions, Schiffrin also mentions ‘‘but’’ as marking a return to an issue brought up previously. While Schiffrin never refers
to ‘‘but’’ as initializing a discourse, Frost’s (1971, p. 469) poem clearly uses the conjunction to achieve this goal.
[15] But outer Space,
At least this far,
For all the fuss
Of the populace
Stays more popular
Than populous.
Despite Dascal’s demand utterance and Sperber and Wilson’s mutual cognitive worlds, Frost’s poem could not have begun
with any other word. It serves as the forerunner of verbal silence. In addition, the text from ‘‘but’’ onwards creates a universe.
It is this very ‘‘but’’ that marks the semantic, thematic contrast between inner space and outer space; between the close and
the far (very far) away, between the reached (by populous) and the not-reached, preserved and lost. Note, also that the poem
has no title.
19
Biblos: parallel translations, http://bible.cc/exodus/1-1.htm (accessed June 2011).
M. Ephratt / Language & Communication 32 (2012) 62–79
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2.4. Manner
Grice defines the category of manner not with regard to the content of the utterance, but to its form. Grice says (1989, p. 27):
. . . [U]nder the category of Manner, which I understand as relating not (like the previous categories) to what is said but,
rather, to how what is said is to be said, I include the supermaxim – ‘Be perspicuous’ – and various maxims such as:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
Be orderly.
Grice expects a cooperative response to avoid obscurity of expression, avoid ambiguity, and be orderly. He justifies this
demand by the desire for a form of expression that facilitates the appropriate reply (Grice, 1989, p. 273). For Grice, all of this
is in the realm of conscious, deliberate intention (Grice, 1989, p. 35). The adjective ‘‘appropriate’’ in Grice’s wording seems to
indicate a dependence between manner and relation. For a reply to be appropriate, that is, not obscure or ambiguous, and for
it to be orderly, relevance should be determined. Unnecessary prolixity is measured and determined with regard to the
tradeoff between contextual effects on the one hand and the effort required for processing on the other (Sperber and Wilson,
1986, p. 153). The assumption is that in speech, there are enough words to achieve this goal. For any message (content) l,
there is an utterance (form) t that optimally conveys l. Using an obscure or ambiguous term or an expression that is not
orderly may reduce the effort invested by the speaker. Such a result may occur in the immediate short-term, as he eventually
may then have to waste more words to clarify his original expression. Such manners of expression also burden the interlocutor, who attempts to make sense of what the speaker uttered (implicatures). If he fails, he must request a clarification. As
demonstrated in example [2], in poetry, in general, and specifically when vulnerability, a lack of words, absence and death, or
obscurity itself are the theme, the choice of such ambiguities (including those obtained using silence) is the most perspicuous manner for conveying these themes. Indeed, they are in accordance with the CP and fulfill the first two and the fourth of
the maxims of manner.
In verbal communication, communication based on the standard use of words, being too brief is a clear case of silence
flouting the maxims of quantity, relation and all of the maxims of the category of manner – including ‘‘Be brief’’. These
are uncommunicative silences (see [5] above). With regard to equalizing efforts, the third maxim, ‘‘Be brief’’, seems different
than the three others. Here it is the speaker who must exert the most effort. He could get l across by being verbose. The
extreme case of producing form, uttering words, but saying nothing, is empty speech. At the other end of the scale from
empty speech, verbosity, and optimal speech is verbal silence. This is not the silence that conceals or fails to be clear. This
is the case in which an additional word or syntactic construction would violate the delicate equilibrium between the use of
words and the use of silence. To the examples of verbal silence dealt with above, we wish to add a fresh one, analyzed by
Amihud Gilead (2008). Gilead examines ‘‘how to do things with the minimum few words’’. To this end he analyzes the following story that Ernest Hemingway submitted to a contest for the shortest and best short story:
[16] For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
As Gilead shows, in those six words, Hemingway creates an entire universe, an enigmatic and tragic one. This six-word
story is a book, a movie and a poem; it lacks nothing. There is no superfluous word or punctuation mark. Moreover, as Gilead
states, ‘‘Each word in the story gets the utmost meaningfulness or significance that a word may have’’. (2008, p. 120). There
are other excellent short stories that are longer than six words, but any attempt to add or replace a word would harm the
effect achieved by this brevity, this unique combination of speech and silence – between what is expressed using words and
what is not expressed this way. Gilead explains that this silence is also a stillness, as if following this untimely death, nothing
can change (in the parents’ life); everything is frozen. No relief is possible. The only consolation, says Gilead, lies in its artistic
beauty. As Gilead shows, the tension between this text as a poem and as an advertisement (leaving out practical details is
proof that the writer has no practical intentions) embodies many losses. He sums up saying (2008, pp. 124–125) that:
The closer that words approach silence, the greater the effect that they can convey [. . .] Much remains in silence, and yet
this kind of silence is full of reality, thoughts, emotions, and feelings It is pregnant with innumerable unspoken words [. . .]
And this silence speaks; this silence echoes each word to the utmost.
Finally, Gilead (2008, p. 128) reformulates his initial question: How many superfluous or missing words can the best
shortest story have? My answer is: Not one, he says. Interestingly, Gilead (2008, p. 127) also refers to the absence of a title
as a means of opening the story and making it more universal.
Gilead does not mention or base his analysis on Grice’s model. However, his claims, as well as his entire paper, are a thorough and systematic assessment of the maxims of manner. The words are brief, and the verbal silence is perspicuous.
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3. Epilogue
Kasher (1976, pp. 189, 206–207) describes the difference between the standard use of a tried and true means, those that
has proven themselves to be the most effective and the least costly. To demonstrate the differences, he contrasts using a
hammer, the standard tool, and a coconut to nail a picture on a wall. We have all come across instances in which speech
has been used to thwart communication, make noise, mask and disjoin, even though it is the standard form of communication. We have also encountered instances when silence – though not the standard means of verbal communication – did indeed serve as communication.
These findings highlight the active role played by verbal silence within communication. However, their importance goes
beyond the realm of the study of verbal silence. The switch from automatically labeling silence as a flouting of the CP to the
understanding that verbal silence may at times fulfill its maxims makes a unique contribution to the philosophy of language
and general linguistics. These disciplines must be alert to the semiotic difference between not saying anything as a flouting
of the principles of communication and saying nothing (verbal silence) as ultimately serving successful communication.
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Web references
Biblos: Parallel Translations, <http://bible.cc/exodus/1-1.htm> (see fn. 19).
Time Magazine, 24 July 1964. Advertising: Trying Harder (see fn. 12), <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939058,00.html>.
Yale University, Fellowship Program, Application Process Writing Letters of Recommendation (see fn. 6), <http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/academics/
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Michal Ephratt is a Professor in the Department of Hebrew Language at the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research interests include neologisms,
transparency theories and pragmatics, as well as linguistic models in non-linguistic disciplines. Her major research focus is on the study of silence as means
of communication. She is the editor of ‘‘Silences – Silence in Culture and in Interpersonal Relations’’ (2007).