Week 5 Grice's Maxims

Question 1

Indirect speech acts

Answer 1

“Do you have any money on you?”
meaning
“I don't have any money;
can I borrow some from you?”
How do we work out what this utterance really means = CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

Question 2

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

Answer 2

The utterance (“Do you have any money on you?”) =
additional message which Grice (1967) called a conversational
implicature.
- arrive thru process of INFERENCE based on UNDERSTANDING of RULES governing SUCCESSFUL CONVERSATIONAL INTERACTION

1. usual ling meaning
2. CONTEXTual info (shared knowledge)
3. assumption speaker obeying: CO-OP PRINC.

Question 3

Cooperative Principle

Answer 3

Make Conversational Contribution:

• AS REQuired
• AT STAGE which it occurs
• BY ACCEPTED PURPOSE/DIRECTION
• Of TALK EXCHANGE

GENERAL: Mutually Engaged w Listener in Activity which Benefit BOTH

RULES: 4 CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS

Question 4

Conversational Maxims

Answer 4

• RELATION: be relevant
• QUANTITY: not too much/too little (overexplain/omitt)
• QUALITY: say truth/support it
• MANNER: Clear: Brief, ordely, /no/ obscurity + ambiguity

> > maxims HIGHLY culturally bound
>notions of ‘relevance’, ‘clarity’,
‘informativeness’ etc. may be culturally bound.

Question 5

obeying maxims

Answer 5

normal convo - cooperateive

Question 6

flouting maxims

Answer 6

maxim DELIBERATELY disobeyed, w/ INTENTION hearer recognise that this is the case

=

INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

Question 7

violating maxims

Answer 7

• not relevant
• too much/omit
• lie
• RARE, because we need them for convo, or only happens in intercultural context sometimes by accident

Question 8

flouting quality

Answer 8

• (The Maxim of Quality: Say only what you believe to be true and
adequately supported)
• “What a wonderful neighbourhood.” (about slum)
• A deliberate falsehood for rhetorical effect

Question 9

flouting quantity

Answer 9

(The Maxim of Quantity: Be only as informative as required for
current conversational purposes)
• A book review …
“This first novel is well bound and is remarkably free of typographical errors. …”
IE: “It’s garbage …”

Question 10

flouting manner

Answer 10

• (The Maxim of Manner: Be clear: be brief and orderly and avoid
obscurity and ambiguity)
• a reference …

VAGUE VAGUE
• “Mr. Jones is given to the presumptive.”
This is vague (I’d have to look up the word!) and pretty unhelpful as it
stands. You’d infer that the speaker doesn’t like Mr Jones and doesn’t want
to say very much.

Question 11

flouting relevance

Answer 11

• (The Maxim of Relation: Be relevant)
A. ‘What on earth has happened to the roast beef?’
B. ‘The dog is looking very happy.’
IE: The dog ate the roast…

Question 12

Indirect speech acts

Answer 12

• acts that DEPEND (for their interpretation) on HEARER’s ability to RECOGNISE cooperative principle = deliberately breached