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The Cooperative Principle by Paul Grice.

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Englisch

Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz - KFU

1, Penz, 2017

Peter N. ©
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The cooperative Principle


Table of Contents



Introduction

This term paper will be concerned with the Cooperative Principle by Paul Grice.

The Cooperative Principle is generally about cooperation with one another, thus the name Cooperative Principle. When two people speak, we can assume that they cooperate to bring meaning across. To bring meaning across properly, we have so called maxims of conversations.

These four maxims are the following (I will explain them in greater detail later in my work):

  • Quality Maxim

  • Quantity Maxim

  • Relation Maxim

  • Manner Maxim


In the picture below you can see the linguist llama. He is usually a very whimsical guy. If asked whether Grice’s maxims are important, he replies that sandwiches are tasty, which does not really answer the question, does it?


1

Verbal communication, whether interviews, conversations or service encounters usually run

more successfully and without problems when the participants follow a few social conventions. Let us prove that based on an example: (cf. Cutting 2008: 34)


X is the interviewer and Y is a lady living in sheltered housing (apartments for retired people with a warden living on site, responsible taking care of them and alerting public services if help is needed):

X: Do you find the place is warm enough?

Y: Yes, oh yes. Very comfortable I think. It’s all that you need really, you don’t need any more.

X: And you say that the warden is a nice person.

Y: Oh yes, you will get other opinions, but that’s my opinion.

X: Well you can’t please everybody can you?

Y: She’s been very good to me.

X: What would the other people say?

Y: Ah well I don’t know. I wouldn’t like to repeat it because I don’t really believe half of what they are saying. They just get a fixed thing into their mind. But it’s always been, I mean, we had another one – this is our second one. But if she’s off ill and that it’s oh off ill again and I mean she’s got certificates to prove it.

But they just seem, what irks them really is we can’t get a warden that will be overnight you see.

X: Right, sort of 24 hours, 7 days a week. (Cutting 2008: 33-34)


The reporter asks questions and the woman provides answers that give just the right extent of information and are relevant to the question, precise and straightforward. She says all that is needed, she is being honest, she is sticking to the topic, and she is not saying anything that is inconclusive.

The lady is following the conversational maxims of the Cooperative Principle by Grice.


Now let us look at the four maxims of the principle.


Maxim of quantity

The contribution is to be made as informative as required, but not more or less than required. In other words: Speakers try to give the maximum of information with the minimum of effort.

Some speakers tend to give too much information and risk boring the hearer. Others give too little information and risk their hearer not being able to identify what they are talking about because they are not precise enough.


Maxim of quality

The truth is to be said. Speakers are assumed not say something which they believe to be false or for which they lack evidence.

Some people try to make themselves more interesting or like to draw their hearers’ attention by saying what they believe to be true.


Maxim of relation

The speaker should say something that is relevant to what has been said before.


Maxim of manner

The speaker is assumed to be clear, brief and orderly.


According to Grice, hearers expect speakers to obey the Cooperative Principle and that the awareness of the four maxims allows hearers to presuppose the speakers’ intentions and implied meaning. The meaning transmitted by speakers and recreated as an outcome of the hearers’ inferences is known as conversational implicature. (cf.


Yule (cf. Yule 2014: 145) states, that we require our conversational partners to communicate us in some way if these maxims are not being observed in particular circumstances. There certainly are conversational exchanges in which the cooperative principle may not seem to be in operation.

For instance, during their lunch break, one woman asks another how she likes her sandwich and gets the following answer.


Oh, a sandwich is a sandwich. (Yule 2014: 145)


In logical terms, this reply seems to have no communitive value because it expresses something obvious, does not appear to be informative and therefore seems to be a tautology. It repeats a phrase that adds nothing and would therefore hardly count as an appropriate answer.

The woman with the sandwich responded without an explicit evaluation which means that she has no opinion. So, she communicated that the sandwich is not worth talking about. (cf. Yule 2014: 145)

For instance, a professor interviewed a young man for a place at a college and concluded, that the young man would not do. He said, “I think you would be happier in a larger – or smaller – college”. In that example, the professor did not observe the maxim of quality, since he did not say what he thought.

Additionally, he did not follow the maxim of manner either, since he was being equivocal and antithetical.

It is likely, that the man knew what the professor tried to tell him; namely, that he had failed the interview. So, it was just a nice way of telling him the truth. (cf. Cutting 2008: 35)

Implicature

An implicature is an additional meaning that is indented by the speaker and generated by the hearer. In our example the woman implied that the sandwich wasn’t worth talking about. In the following example, we can see how someone implies something in conversation. (cf. Yule 2014: 146)


Lara: I’ve got an exam tomorrow. (Yule 2014: 146)


Apparently, Lara’s statement does not answer Carol’s question because she does not say “Yes” or “No”. Carol will still interpret the answer as a “No” or “Probably not”. Lara’s answer contains important information, so Carol can assume that “exam tomorrow” means that Lara has to study and therefore cannot go out tonight.

The answer is not just a statement about upcoming events (exam), it contains an implicature. So, it does not just mean that Lara has an exam tomorrow, it also means that she cannot go to the party tonight because she has to prepare herself for the exam. (cf. Yule 2014: 146)


Another example for an implicature is a part of the dialogue between two characters in “Little Britain”.


Shopkeeper: I was just about to take my lunch hour.

Margaret: I don’t have any arms or legs! (laughter)


In this conversation, the shopkeeper asks Margaret if she could come downstairs and sell the gentleman. She does not say “No”, but she says that she does not have any arms or legs. So, the Shopkeeper and the reader or viewer can assume, that her answer means “No”.

Conclusion

The Cooperative Principle and its four maxims is essential for every conversation. The participants in a conversation should be informative, truthful, relevant and clear, so that the other participants know what he/she is talking about and can respond. Although not every conversation contains the observance of the Cooperative Principle, we still know (in most cases) what our conversational partner refers to or means (implicature).

Yule, George (2014). The Study of Language. Cambridge: MPG Printgroup Ltd.

Illustration listing


Words: 1310


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