Gricean Maxims and Politeness

Gricean Maxims and Politeness

The conversational implicature is a message that is not found in the plain sense of the sentence. The speaker implies it. The hearer is able to infer (work out, read between the lines) this message in the utterance, by appealing to the rules governing successful conversational interaction. The success of a conversation depends upon the various speakers' approach to the interaction. The way in which people try to make conversations work is sometimes called the cooperative principle.

They are the maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner.

· Relevance: speakers' contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange.

· Quality: speakers should be truthful. They should not say what they think is false, or make statements for which they have no evidence.

· Quantity: a contribution should be as informative as is required for the conversation to proceed. It should be neither too little, nor too much.

(It is not clear how one can decide what quantity of information satisfies the maxim in a given case.)

· Manner: speakers' contributions should be perspicuous: clear, orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.

Leech's maxims : Leech defines politeness as forms of behaviour that establish and maintain comity. That is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony.

·                            Tact maxim: minimise cost to other; maximise benefit to other. Ex: Could I interrupt you for a second? If I could just clarify this then.

· Generosity maxim: minimise benefit to self; maximise cost to self. Ex: You relax and let me do the dishes. You must come and have dinner with us.

·                            Approbation maxim: minimise dispraise of other; maximise praise of other. Ex: John, I know you're a genius - would you know how to solve this math problem here?

·                            Modesty maxim: minimise praise of self; maximise dispraise of self. Ex: Oh, I'm so stupid - I didn't make a note of our lecture! Did you?

·                            Agreement maxim: minimise disagreement between self and other; maximise agreement between self and other.

          Ex: A: I don't want my daughter to do this, I want her to do that.

                 B: Yes, but ma'am, I thought we resolved this already on your last visit.

·                            Sympathy maxim: minimise antipathy between self and other; maximise sympathy between self and other. Ex: I was sorry to hear about your father.

Face and Politeness Strategies

“Face” (as in “lose face”) refers to a speaker's sense of linguistic and social identity. Any speech act may impose on this sense, and is therefore face threatening. And speakers have strategies for lessening the threat. Positive politeness means being complimentary and gracious to the addressee (but if this is overdone, the speaker may alienate the other party). Negative politeness is found in ways of mitigating the imposition:

· Hedging: Er, could you, er, perhaps, close the, um , window?

· Pessimism: I don't suppose you could close the window, could you?

· Indicating deference: Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I asked you to close the window?

· Apologizing: I'm terribly sorry to put you out, but could you close the window?

· Impersonalizing: The management requires all windows to be closed.

Brown and Levinson sum up human politeness behaviour in four strategies, which correspond to these examples: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record-indirect strategy.

· The bald on-record strategy does nothing to minimize threats to the hearer's “face”

· The positive politeness strategy shows you recognize that your hearer has a desire to be respected. It also confirms that the relationship is friendly and expresses group reciprocity.

· The negative politeness strategy also recognizes the hearer's face. But it also recognizes that you are in some way imposing on them. Some other examples would be to say, “I don't want to bother you but...” or “I was wondering if...”

· Off-record indirect strategies take some of the pressure off of you. You are trying to avoid the direct Face Theatening Act of asking for a beer. Instead you would rather it be offered to you once your hearer sees that you want one.

Examples from Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies

Bald on-record

· An emergency: Help!

· Task oriented: Give me those!

· Request: Put your jacket away.

· Alerting: Turn your lights on! (while driving)

Positive Politeness

· Attend to the hearer: You must be hungry, it's a long time since breakfast. How about some lunch?

· Avoid disagreement: A: What is she, small? B: Yes, yes, she's small, smallish, um, not really small but certainly not very big.

· Assume agreement: So when are you coming to see us?

· Hedge opinion: You really should sort of try harder.

Negative Politeness

· Be indirect: I'm looking for a pen.

· Request forgiveness: You must forgive me but....

· Minimize imposition: I just want to ask you if I could use your computer?

· Pluralize the person responsible: We forgot to tell you that you needed to by your plane ticket by yesterday.

Off-record (indirect)

· Give hints: It's a bit cold in here.

· Be vague: Perhaps someone should have been more responsible.

· Be sarcastic, or joking: Yeah, he's a real Einstein (rocket scientist, Stephen Hawking, genius and so on)!

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