Herbert Paul Grice or, Paul Grice (How he was usually
referred to), determined that speakers adhere to four conversational maxims:
1 . Quantity- to use an appropriate amount of
detail
2 . Quality –
to speak the truth and do not knowingly mislead
3 . Relevance –
to keep what is being discussed relevant to the topic
4 . Manner- to
avoid vagueness and ambiguity
This is known as the cooperative principle (How people talk
to one another).
Politeness is known as a ‘Super-maxim’, in that people are
mindful of others personal or face (see Ervin Goffman) needs in a conversation.
Those who obey the cooperative principle in their language
use will make sure that what they say in a conversation furthers the purpose of
that conversation. Obviously, the requirements of different types of
conversations will be different.
As the maxims stand, there may be an overlap, as
regards the length of what one says, between the maxims of quantity and manner;
this overlap can be explained (partially if not entirely) by thinking of the
maxim of quantity (artificial though this approach may be) in terms of units of
information. In other words, if the listener needs, let us say, five units of
information from the speaker, but gets less, or more than the expected number,
then the speaker is breaking the maxim of quantity. However, if the speaker
gives the five required units of information, but is either too curt or long-winded
in conveying them to the listener, then the maxim of manner is broken. The
dividing line however, may be rather thin or unclear, and there are times when
we may say that both the maxims of quantity and quality are broken by the same
factors.
Herbert Paul Grice:
Born - 13 March 1913
Birmingham, England, UK
Died - 28 August 1988 (aged 75)
Berkeley, California, US
School study- Analytical Philosophy
Main interests - Philosophy of langauage
- Semantics
- Pragmatics
- Metaphysics
- Epistemology
- History of philosophy
Your notes on the linguistic theories are very detailed. Well done! Now try to apply them in your analysis of texts.
ReplyDeleteAJK