Grice's Maxim of Conversation

Because these principles are assumed in normal interaction, speakers rarely mention them stated that verbal exchanges, whether interviews, conversations, or service encounters tend to run smoothly and successfully when the participants follow certain social convention as called conversational maxim.

Grice’s Maxim of Conversation. Grice, as qouted by Grundy (74), formalized his observation that when people talk, they try to be cooperative by elevating this notion into what he called “The Cooperative Principle (CP)”. One way of being cooperative is for a speaker to give as much information as expected. Cooperative Principle is a theory formulated by Herbert Paul Grice that was published firstly by Harvard University Press in his article entitle “Logic and Conversation”, stated: “make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” Grundy (45). Grice proposed that participants in a communicative exchange are guided by a principle that determines the way in which language is used with maximum efficiency and effect to achieve rational communication.

Levinson (102) summarized the CP as the specification of “what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational, co-operative way: they should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while providing sufficient information.” In an attempt to describe how the CP works, Grice formulated guidelines for the efficient and effective use of language in conversation. The guidelines are known as the maxims of conversation. This theory should be underlined that Grice introduces quantity, quality, relation and manner as categories. The fact that Grice quoted by Thomas (62) expressed the cooperative principle in the imperative mood has led some casual readers of his work to believe that Grice was telling speakers how they ought to behave. In all spheres of life people make similar assumptions all the time. Thomas gave a useful analogy that is driving a car to explain Grice’s theory. When people drive, people assume that other drivers will operate according to the same set of regulations as people do (or, at the very least, that they know what those regulations are). If people could not make such assumptions the traffic system would rapidly grind to a halt. Of course, there are times when people do have indications that another driver may not obey the rules (a learner, a drunk, a person whose car is out of control, an ambulance or fire tender with its lights flashing and siren blaring or that they may be following a different set of rules (a car with foreign number plates) and on these occasions people re-examine the assumptions or suspend it altogether. And of course, there are times when the assumption that others are operating according to the same set of rules is misplaced, and then an accident may occur.

Grice argues that without the assumption that the speaker is operating according to the cooperative principle, there is no mechanism to prompt someone to seek for another level of interpretation. The four conversational maxims help people establish what the implicature might be. Mooney (900) stated that what initially look like uncooperative communicative exchange can in fact be viewed as cooperative if the activity type is properly understood. Even if an activity type is uncooperative, the maxims are still productive in understanding how communication takes place and how the activity type is conducted.

It is sufficient to notice that the context is very important in determining what someone means by what they say. Given different context, one would have understood that the same utterances will have different meaning. Conversational Maxims In an attempt to describe how the CP works, Grice formulated guidelines for the efficient and effective use of language in conversation. These guidelines are known as the maxims of conversation. It should be stated that Grice (45) introduces four (4) Maxims as:

Maxim of Quantity.

Under this category requires one to “be as informative as required.” This maxim means that the speaker has to include all the information that the hearer requires to understand. If the speaker leaves out a crucial piece of information, the hearer will not understand what the speaker is trying to say. On the other hand, providing too much information during course of a conversation can be perceived as superfluous and insignificant to the other person.

Maxim of Quality.

which requires one to “be brief”, the speaker should avoid unnecessary, redundant information in his contribution.Quality Under the category of quality, the maxim of truthfulness falls. This maxim refers to the importance of making only statements one believes to be true as Grice expects that the contributions to “be genuine and not spurious.” In short, the speaker is expected to be sincere and tell the truth. They are assumed not say anything that they believe to be false or anything for which they lack evidence. The reason is that if s/he gets making false statements s/he will lose one of the most important social assets a person can have, credibility.

Maxim of Relation.

Under the category of relation, Grice place a single supermaxim namely “be relevant”. The demand for relevance simply means that the speaker should only include information in the communication that is relevant to the topic being discussed.

Maxim of Manner.

Under the category of manner, which Grice understand as relating not to what is said but rather to how what is said is to be said. It assumes the speaker should be brief and orderly, and avoid obscurity and ambiguity expressions. Grice (24) emphasized that it is important to recognize these maxims as unstated assumptions people have in conversation assumed that people are normally going to provide an appropriate amount of information; one assume that people are telling the truth, being relevant, and trying to be as clear as one can.