Introducing English Linguistics

cooperative principle
to
explain how conversation involves a certain level of “cooperation” among
communicants:
Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of discon-
nected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are charac-
teristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each partici-
pant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of
purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction. 
(Grice 1989: 26)
The cooperative principle
The social context of English
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Grice proposed four maxims to explain how people cooperate when they
speak: Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner. When a maxim is violated
(or “flouted”), a 
conversational implicature
results, i.e., the utterance
receives an interpretation that goes beyond the words that are spoken. For
instance, the conversational exchange below occurred at the end of an
interview with three individuals – Michael Shapiro, Michael Moshan, and
David Mendelson – who had created a musical CD to help prepare high
school students in the United States to take the verbal section of a stan-
dardized test, the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test). 
Linda Werthheimer (interviewer): How well did the three of you do on the
verbal section of the SAT?
David Mendelson:
Michael Shapiro did really well 
[laughter]
(Weekend Edition, NPR, Saturday, January 6, 2007)
Quite naturally, the interviewer is interested in how the creators of the
study guide did on the very test for which they are attempting to help stu-
dents succeed. But because Mendelson does not really answer her ques-
tion, instead commenting on how well one of his co-authors did on the
exam, he has violated Grice’s maxim of Quantity: he has not made his
contribution to the conversation informative enough. He has said too lit-
tle. And the implicature – the additional layer of meaning in his response –
is that he did not do well on the exam. The laughter following his state-
ment clearly indicates that the other speakers had recognized his viola-
tion of the Quantity Maxim and understood the meaning of what he was
saying.
Table 3.1 lists Grice’s four maxims, provides brief definitions of
them, and then lists Grice’s full definitions. To best understand the
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INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS