Human
communication is based on the fact that, as a rule, human beings want to
communicate with one other successfully and what to maintain social harmony
while doing so. It stands to reason, therefore, that during routine
communication the participants involved in the interaction are wiling and
perhaps even eager to cooperative so as the ensure successful communication. It
seems that most exchanges are characteristically, to some extent, cooperative
efforts, and each participant tends to recognize some common purpose. On this
premise. Grice (1975) developed the cooperative principle for the conversation.
This rather general principle maintains the following: “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.” It seems that interactants base their expectations on the cooperative
principle and on other relevant contextual features. Grice’s cooperative
principle consists of four maxims :
1.
THE MAXIM OF QUANTITY
Make
your contribution as informative as required. Do not make your contribution
more informative that required. The mutual expectation of the interactants is
that quantitatively the speaker’s contribution is just right for the interaction
at hand. More would e too much and less would be too little for successful
communication to take place.
2.
THE MAXIM OF QUALITY
Try
to make your contribution one that is true. A. Do not say what you believe to
be false. B. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. The mutual
expectation of the interactants is that the speaker makes proposition or
provides information that s/he believes to be true.
3.
THE MAXIM RELATION
Be
relevant. The mutual expectation of the interactants is that the speaker makes
a contribution to the communicative exchange that is relevant to the topic and
the situation of this exchange.
4.
THE MAXIM OF MANNER
A.
avoid obscurity B. Avoid ambiguity C. Be brier D. Be orderly. The mutual
expectation of the interactants is that the speaker makes his/her contribution
as clear and as comprehensible as possible, and that while doing so, s/he takes
all precautions to ensure such clarity in terms of performance and delivery.
These
maxims can be considered basic assumptions that people follow in their
communicative interaction; however, it must be acknowledged that assume
Anglo-American culture. We believe the maxims get reinterpret when applied to
other cultures. In most cultures, it is generally the case that people provide
just the appropriate amount of information for the other party to be able to
interpret the intention. We can usually assume that people tell the truth (or
the truth are best known to them), that their contribution are relevant to the
discussion at hand, and that they try to be as clear as they can. When a
speaker is aware of having unintentionally violated a maxim, s/he will
immediately try to adjust and make a connections in order to restore adherence
to the maxims. It is often the apologetic additions that make it obvious that a
speaker is self-correcting violations of this kind. Thus, for instance, if a
speaker told us a story too many details (perhaps making the wrong assumptions
about what the hearer already knows), s/he might apologize by saying: “You probably
know all this, so let me get to the main point.” Or in the opposite situation,
where someone (at an information counter perhaps) may not have given enough
information about something, s/he may simply supplementary information upon
realizing the confused look on the hearer face. It is quite clear that
communicators are very aware of the need to cooperate in terms of quantity of
information in order to allow the other party to make the proper inferences and
to get the intention of the language user.
Similarly,
when one is not completely sure that one has proper evidence for the statements
one makes, it is possible to use various hedges in order not to take full
responsibility for the quality of an utterance. As speakers in this case we may
add qualifying openers such as, As far as i know I am not quite sure bu, I
believe that I think that The addition of such openings to an utterance releases
speakers from the need to adhere fully to the maxim of quality and allows them
to state beliefs or opinions rather than facts.
The
maxim of relation (or relevance) plays a very important role in maintaining the
topic of a conversation. As soon as we want to change the topic, we can do so
by using some introductory or opening phrase such as “On another matter
altogether,” The addition of such openings to an utterance that is no longer
relevant and thus move the conversation toward a new topic. The added
information being conveyed here is that I would rather speak about something
else. This can do be done explicitly, as it often is, by people like diplomats
or politicians when they answer a problematic question with the phrase “No
comment”
Has,
therefore, generally, assumed that communication is successful because
interactants adhere to the cooperative maxims. When they don’t the assumption
may be that they deliberately violate a maxim in order to convey additional
(implicit) information or add some special meaning and implicature, beyond what
is actually said, Thus, the politician who answers a reporter’s question with
“No comment” leave deliberate room for implicature and interpretation on the
part of the nearer. In some case, the reporter might simply say later. “so and
no was underwiling to comment” which is a way for the reporter to ignore the
implicature. Alternatively, the reporter may present some speculation related
to the fact that at this point the speaker did not disclose all the details.
Within
each culture there are acceptable ways to “deliberately” violate maxims. For
instance, when complimenting a person, one is not expected to adhere fully to
the maxim of quality. Similarly, when thanking someone for an usually nice
gift, the receiver might deliberately violate the maxim of quantity and say
more than necessary in order to express a deeper sense of gratitude. Since such
a “violation” is usually recognized by both interactants, it has added
communicative value.
When
communication takes place between two interactants who do not share the same
language or the same culture, unintended violations of the maxims can easily
occur. Here was assume that the four maxims apply to all cultures but that
their interpretation may be quite different. Being informative or relevant on
some mutual, expectation with the respect to the maxims that would make
communication more or less successful. Furthermore, the value related to each
maxim might be quite different in different culture. Thus, quantity may be
differently perceived by speakers of different cultures. One example of such
differencies is the amount of information perceive as appropriate when giving
someone directions in response to a request. In some cultures the appropriate
answer would be brief and informative. In other it would be lengthly and
contain some digression from the main poin. If a speaker from the first culture
directly translates the directions s/he gives into the language of the other
culture, The speaker may sound somewhat disinterested or rudely terse. If,
however, a speaker from the latter culture does the same thing when functioning
in the former one, s/he may sound overly verbose and perhaps even annoying. In
order words, such pragmatic transfer might result in the violation of a maxim
in the new language and culture. When such cross-cultural violations take
place, the speakers may not be aware of the need to carry out a correction and
may therefore leave the impression of being impolite or even aggressive, when
this was not at all the speaker’s intention.
