UNIT 3DISCOURSE COOPERATIO

N

Oral and written speech

The Cooperative Principle

Figures of Speech

BASIC CONCEPTS TO DISCUSS:

It is transient

It is usually improvised

Speakers are bound to take turns when speaking (speaker and listener are both present)

As the listener is present, it is easy to get direct and take the necessary steps to guide the conversation

Oral Speech

It is permanent

It is planned

There are no turns between the writer and the reader, because they do not share the same time and space

As the reader is absent and usually unknown, it is difficult for the writer to predict and take the necessary steps to guide their understanding

Written speech

Immediate context and paralinguistic features help the speaker to express the message without much cohesion

Speech tends to be redundant (repetitions, paraphrases, restatements)

Linguistically informal, less organized

As the writer and listener do not share the same time and space, the absence of paralinguistic features have to be somehow supplied by drawings, graphics, letter type, titles subtitles, punctuation marks, connective, cohesive devices, etc.

It tends to avoid redundancy (more grammatically structured and lexically dense)

It tends to be more formal from the linguistic viewpoint

The Cooperative Principle

The Cooperative Principle is a theory proposed by Paul Grice (1975) which establishes

the implicit agreement between the interlocutors

C.P. includes 4 maxims Be brief

Be relevant

Be clear

Be true

Pay attention to the videos to learn more about Grice’s cooperative principle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRMgGCNKijM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMaNGweLPyo 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2xRipq9Xx8

The four maxims

The maxim of quantity

It recommends not to include in our interactions more information than necessary; that is, it suggests us to be brief

a. Are you ready?b. I told you to wait for me

because I have to take a shower, brush my teeth and then pick up the clothe I am going to wear because I like to dress appropriately…

a. Are you ready?b. Not yet

We need to be careful with the amount of information we get;

If we’re too brief, we could create terseness; if we say too much we could create prolixity

The four maxims

The maxim of manner

It says that our messages should be as clear as possible in order to be understood more easily

I think I’ll go to the S-U-P-E-R-M-A-R-

K-E-T

I love when you sing out of key

We need to be careful, because we could seem rude to people

The four maxims

The maxim of relevance

It states that we should try to make our messages as relevant as possible according to the contextual situation

A teacher stops explaining the topic to tell the students:

Do you like my shoes?

We need to make sure our speech is relevant to the context; otherwise we could make ourselves

look boring or out of context

The four maxims

The maxim of quality

It states that we should try to make our contributions, in any oral or written language interaction, as sincere as possible

Queen Victoria was made of iron

I’d give my life for a cup of coffee

a. What did you do yesterday?b. I spent the whole day studying. I didn’t waste time sleeping, going to the bathroom or eating

We need to be careful, because we could look like liars

The Cooperative Principle

The cooperative principle must be combined

with the use of general knowledge of the world,

so the receiver of the message can reason from

the literal meaning (locution) of what is said to

the pragmatic meaning (illocution of the

speaker) in order to infer what the sender is

intending to do with his /her words

How does our B.K. help us achieve comprenhension?

The Cooperative Principle

An old woman looks for her neighbor and tells him:

There’s a cat stuck under the gate of my garage

Knowledge of the world

Animals are unhappy when they feel trapped

Humans are able to free animals from their pain

Old people loose their abilities (speed, strength)

CooperativePrinciple

The old woman was telling the truth

She was being relevant

She was being clear (even though she was using an indirect speech act)

Taking all these aspects into account, it is possible to explain and interpret the utterance

“There’s a cat stuck under the gate of my garage” as a request for help in freeing the cat:

Come and free the cat which is trapped under the gate…

The Cooperative Principle

This tacit contract can be violated in some cases. This violation

can be done in order to get a specific perlocutive effect on the

listener or reader (we could flout the relevance maxim in order

to change the subject in a uncomfortable conversation; we

could flout the manner and quality maxims in order to avoid

others to understand us; we could flout the quantity maxim in

order to impact and get our interlocutor’s attention)

The respect or violation of these maxims depends on

contextual factors such as the type of relation between the

speakers, the formality of the situation, the place where they

are interacting, etc

The Cooperative Principle

Two friends at the movie speaking to each other during the film:

They use clues to avoid others to get what they say

Teachers reinforcing their explanations to increase their students’ understanding

Two doctors speaking in front of their patient about his/her terminal health condition

using technical vocabulary in order to avoid their patient’s concern

What kind of

resources can we

use to flout/violate

Grice’s maxims?

Figures of speech can be used to reach a special communicative purpose; that is, when we want to get our interlocutor’s attention, or when we want to create a special effect on our listener or reader, we make use of different resources such the figures of speech.

A figure of speech is a word,phrase or sentence used withthe intention of producing a

special effect on our interlocutor

Simile Metaphor Hyperbole Irony Metonymy

Alliteration Personification Onomatopoeia Euphemis Idioms

Cliche Assonance Allegory Analogy Humour

Anadiplosis Antanaclasis Climax Half rhyme Superlatives

Figures of speech

SimileIt refers to a comparison;

the comparison is made explicitly by the use of a function word (like, similar to, as, likewise)

Peter eats like a pig

Figures of speech

MetaphorIt’s a kind of comparison:

you describe something by referring to something else. The comparison

is established implicitly

The rain came down inlong knitting needles

Figures of speech

Hyperbole

It refers to an exaggeration in order to make something sound more

impressive than it really is

Women can do thousand of things at the same time

Figures of speech

Personification

Figurative speech which function is to attribute human qualities

to animals, nature, objects, ideas.

It was time to go home but the bell

refused to ring

Figures of speech

Irony or sarcasm

They are subtle forms of humor that involves saying the opposite of

what we really mean

They just love being peaceful

Figures of speech

MetonymyIt refers to substitution:

one word or phrase can be substituted for another with which it is

closely associated

There was not a single soul the moment I arrived

Figures of speech

AlliterationIt refers to the repetition of

usually initial consonant soundsin two or more neighboring

words or syllables

PI

She sells seashells by the seashore

Figures of speech

Onomatopoeia

A figure of speech by which the sound of words suggests or echoes a sense.

(Imitation)

PI

The buzz of the bees…

Pedagogical Implications

There are many reasons why English teachers should try to

teach their students how to understand, interpret and use

different types of figures speech:

1) As they are so frequently used, our students will find them

every time they are exposed to oral or written English;

2) Given the fact that their signification is always different to

their contextual value, they are a potential common cause of

misunderstandings,

3) If they develop the ability to use English in a figurative way,

their communicative competence will be increased since the

productivity of their linguistic repertoire will be multiplied.

Read the following text and try to identify examples of the

different figures of speech acts explaining

which maxim(s) you consider are violated

PRACTICE ACTIVITY

As I expected, the waiting room was as crowed as a football stadium. Any waiting room, especially a dentist's, as this was, is not the best place to spend an afternoon. No matter how hard a dentist tries to make his waiting room look pleasant, it always has a bizarre atmosphere, because there is that odd smell that reminds you of a hospital.

A small table in the centre is covered with very old magazines, like museum’s antiques. This waiting room was not exception. There were ugly pictures on the wall and the magazines on the table looked like a great pile of waste paper. I took my seat and decided to pass the time watching people around me.

The Dentist’s Waiting Room

How do you feel when yo

go to the dentist?

A little man beside me was turning over the pages of a magazine quickly and nervous; every second he would throw the magazine on to the table, look for another one and go back to his chair. Near him, there was an old man whose snores were so loud they would wake a sleepy elephant. Meanwhile, the little man next to me kept sighing loudly. At last, he got up, walked towards the door and began examining microscopically the pictures on the wall. He soon got bored of his scientific study of art and he grabbed another magazine from the bottom of the mountain and took a seat. There was a deathly silence in the room when the door opened and a nurse entered: next! She said…. And the next lucky victim was led into the room.