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Applying Grice's Maxims
Four conversational maxims govern inferences in conversations; Grice
suggests that cooperation in conversation is based on speakers and hearers using the
following guidelines to interpret the inferences necessary to make sense of
conversation.
1. Quantity: be informative
a) make your contribution as informative as required.
b) don’t make your contribution more informative than required.
2. Quality: be truthful
a) don’t say what you believe to be false.
b) don’t say that for which you lack evidence.
3. Relation: be relevant. (A real "catch-all" maxim that could subsume all
others. Also vague: what is "relevant"?
4. Manner: be perspicuous.
a) avoid obscurity of expression.
b) avoid ambiguity.
c) be brief. (Note: not the same thing as 1(b), which concerns amount
of information, not number of words.)
d) be orderly.
NOTE: Grice’s point is not that we always follow these maxims -- we don’t! -- but
that, when there is a need to interpret an indirect or amibuous statement, we are
guided by the maxims.
The maxims guide conversational inferences in 2 ways:
1) usually we assume that a speaker is trying to obey the maxims, so we
cooperatively infer whatever information would be needed to bring his
utterance into conformity with the maxim.
Ex: A: Does John have a girlfriend?
B: Well, he goes to Kingman every weekend.
Interpretation: B intends his answer to be relevant to A’s question. So A
infers that B believes John has a girlfriend in Kingman.
Ex: A: John has three children.
B: OK, I’ll bring home three balloons.
Interpretation: A is being as informative as is required; so B can conclude that John
has 3 and only 3 children. B would be very surprised to find out that John
actually has 4 children, and A knew that.
But notice that, even so, A wouldn’t literally have lied: if John has 4 children,
he obviously has 3. It’s just that we’re so used to assuming that the Maxim of
Quantity governs conversation that we automatically draw the inference that
the speaker means "3 and only 3".
Similar example: "The flag is red and white."
Inference: it’s not red, white and blue.
2) However, sometimes the speaker will FLOUT (disobey) a maxim in a very obvious way.
In that case, we also draw an inference.
Ex 1 (irony): A: John just failed another test.
B: Boy, that guy’s a a real genius!
Interpretation: B is disobeying the Maxim of Quality in such an obvious way that we
assume he must intend to be ironic.
Ex 2 (a letter of recommendation for a teaching post):
Dear Sir:
Mr. Jones’ handwriting is neat and his attendance at seminars has
been regular.
Yours very truly, Prof. X.
Interpretation: Prof. X is so obviously flouting the Maxim of Quantity that we assume
he’s trying to get the reader to infer something -- probably that Jones is a
terrible candidates.
Ex 3 (from a concert review): "Miss Smith produced a sequence of notes that closely
resembled in pitch and timbre the notes of "Home Sweet Home".