gricean maxims -- langcom 24-25

very interesting

The four Maxims of the Cooperative Principle

1. Quantity

2. Quality

3. Relevance

4. Manner

Sub-maxims of Quantity

A) make your contribution as INFORMATIVE as is required (for current purpose of the exchange)

B) DO NOT make your contribution MORE INFORMATIVE that is required.

Sub-maxims of Quality

A) DO NOT say what you believe to be false.

B) DO NOT say that for which you lack adequate evidence (Say what you believe to be true)

Submaxim of Relation/Relevance

BE RELEVANT

Submaxims of Manner

A) AVOID obscurity of expression.

B) AVOID ambiguity.

C) Be BRIEF.

D) Be ORDERLY.

Conversational implicature

An indirect or implicit speech act: what is meant by a speaker's utterance that is not part of what is explicitly said

How to determine conversational implicatures, according to Grice

1. Taking the meaning of the sentences together with contextual information.

2. Using inference rules.

3. Working out what the speaker means on the basis of the assumption that the utterance conforms to the maxims.

The MAIN advantage of this approach, it provides a pragmatic explanation for a wide range of phenomena, especially for conversational implicatures.

How do we see cooperative principles?

1. Observing: following them

2. Violating: subtly, secretly failing to observe the maxim

3. Flouting: clearly failing to observe the maxim, with the intention of the interlocutors being aware of this

4. Opting out: straight up ignoring the conversation (e.g., reading the newspaper in the middle of the conversation)

EXAMPLE (1)

ex. 1
Husband: Where are the car keys?
Wife: They're on the table in the hall.

The wife has answered clearly (MANNER) and truthfully (QUALITY), has given just the right amount of information (Quantity) and has directly addressed her husband's goal in asking the question (RELATION). She has said precisely what she meant, no more and no less.

EXAMPLE (2)
He is a tiger

Example (2) is literally false, openly against the maxim of quality, for no human is a tiger.

BUT, the hearer assumes that the speaker is being cooperative and them infers that he is trying to say something distinct from the literal meaning. He can then work out that probably the speaker meant to say that : "he has some characteristics of a tiger".

EXAMPLE (3)

Tom has wooden ears

Sentence (3) is obviously false most natural contexts and the speaker in uttering it flouts the first maxima of quality.

Scalar implicature

In general, the the utterance of a given value on a scale will implicate no higher value (as far as the speaker knows)

Alternate definition: An implicature that attributes an implicit meaning beyond the explicit or literal meaning of an utterance, and which suggests that the utterer had a reason for not using a more informative or stronger term on the same scale.

e.g. Saying, "It's cool out" does not mean that it is freezing out
e.g. Saying you have 3 kids when in reality you have 3 kids in addition to another 10, or that you had $5,000 in a Swiss bank account when you had those $5,000 in addition to another $5 million

Maxim of Quantity

Say enough, but don't say too much

Maxim of Quality

Say only what you have reason to believe is true

Maxim of Relation

Say only what is relevant

Maxim of Manner

Be brief, clear, and unambiguous

The Cooperative Principle

Above all else, interlocutors are trying to be cooperative (Grice)

Example of flouting the maxim of quantity

Gricean letter of recommendation in which you write a letter of rec for someone that details their fantastic pickleball skills, fantastic brownie recipe, their interior décor skills, what a great hair braider they are etc. You're saying so many things that, yes, are good, but are so irrelevant to the position that you really mean to say that this person is not qualified for the position.

Example of flouting submaxim 2 of quantity

Essentially lying by omission -- scalar implicature: saying you have 2 kids in addition to another 10

Conditions for a lie

1. The statement is false

2. The speaker intends it to be false

3. The speaker intends to deceive

Calculable implicature (also an example of flouting submaxim of Quality)

A statement in which it must be possible to calculate the intended meaning given in context, the maxims, and the actual utterance (go fucking figure)

Dead metaphor

A metaphor that has been used so often that its original metaphorical meaning is lost

e.g. "go belly up", "you're a star!", "flying off the handle", etc.

Flouting the maxim of quality (example)

Often brings hyperbole, sarcasm, and irony

Flouting of maxim of Relation

Used to bring attention to something else — also suggests that there is nothing relevant to be said

e.g. Saying, "Weather's lovely, isn't it!" right after somebody says something so out of pocket that everybody goes silent

e.g. Similarly to the Gricean letter of recommendation, saying lovely things about somebody that has nothing to do with their competence as an employee/student/etc. in order to say they have no good qualities for that position specifically

Violation of the maxim of Relation

Leading to false inferences (typically to avoid culpability)

Violation of the maxim of Manner

Can make you sound like a freak or super stuck up

e.g. Bringing up Gricean implicatures to a group of business majors

Could also help you test the other person's knowledge of a topic

e.g. Used in a job interview

Flouting the maxim of manner

Done with the intention of obscuring real meaning

Can make puns (or to be silly or literary in general)

Can be used to hide intention

e.g. Making a conversation super drawn-out and long in order to get one participant to leave (meanies.), or when your friend asks what you think of their Atrocious outfit, you comment on lots of things about the outfit to hide the fact that you Hate it

e.g. Spelling out "walk" so that your dog doesn't freak out and think it's time to go for a walk

Tests for conversational implicature: calculable

can be ‘calculated’ by using the maxims & the context given

Tests for conversational implicature: cancellable

can you cancel it?

e.g. “Most of the mothers were Victorian” could give rise to the implicature “not all of the mothers were Victorian”, which could be canceled by adding, “in fact, they all were”
aka defeasibility — conversational implicatures can be defeated in the right circumstances

Tests for conversational implicature: nondetachable

any way of phrasing the same proposition in the same context will result in the same implicature (except for manner-based ones oops lol)

Tests for conversational implicature: nonconventional

the implicature is not consistently carried by the particular linguistic expression used
(basically, the meaning should change if it were in a different context — the meaning it not tied to the phrasing)

Tests for conversational implicature: “not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said”

the implicature can’t be carried by semantics, but by the speaker’s decision to say what they said in that specific context
e.g.

Tests for conversational implicature: indeterminante

you can draw any number of reasonable inferences from this utterance in a particular context
e.g.

Test for conversational implicature

a way to distinguish between conversational and conventional implicatures, hinging on the fact that conversational implicatures are context-dependent and non-truth-conditional