Conversational maxims

The Grice's conversation maxims are four principles established by Paul Grice within the principle of cooperation , which Grice described in connection with implicature . In a rational conversation, the listener assumes that the speaker does not necessarily have to follow these principles. The principles correspond to the four categories of pure understanding concepts according to Immanuel Kant and are of great importance in linguistics , especially in the sub-discipline of pragmatics .

Cooperation principle according to Grice

The principle of cooperation is: Design your contribution to the conversation in such a way that it serves the recognized purpose or the accepted direction of the conversation in which you are currently participating with your communication partners.

This superordinate principle can be adhered to by orienting yourself as a speaker to the following maxims:

Maxim of quantity ( Maxim of Quantity )
- Make your contribution to the conversation at least as informative as is necessary for the recognized purpose of the conversation.
- Don't make your contribution more informative than necessary for the recognized purpose of the conversation.
Maxim of quality ( Maxim of Quality )
- Try to make a contribution to the conversation that is true.
- Don't say anything that you think is wrong.
- Don't say anything that you don't have enough evidence to suggest.
Maxim of Relevance ( Maxim of Relevance )
- Don't say anything that isn't on the topic, don't change the topic.
- Note the context of the previous communication and the prior knowledge of your communication partner.
Maxim of
style / modality ( Maxim of Manner
)
- Avoid confusion.
- Avoid ambiguity.
- Avoid unnecessary verbosity.
- Avoid clutter.

In summary: only say what is informative, true and topic-related, and say this clearly and clearly!

The four maxims of the conversation logic represent an agreement between the communication partners, which should guarantee an optimized communication.

Hints

Grice himself did not consider the maxims to be clear because they overlap and sometimes compete with one another. Later, the main attempt was made to allow the modality maxim to merge into the others, for example by including "avoid unnecessary proliferation" as the maxim of quantity, etc.

The principle of cooperation and the maxims also describe non-normative guidelines on how to conduct a conversation. However, this impression is conveyed by the designation as maxims and the imperatives used. The maxims are often not observed at all without disrupting rational communication. Rather, it is crucial that interlocutors assume that the maxims are adhered to . Both the observance of the maxims and their (apparent) disregard can trigger inference processes (inferences, e.g. implicatures).

In 1986, Sperber and Wilson criticized that the four maxims can only be summarized under the maxim of relevance. This maxim should be made up of two principles, for which the goal of the most resource-efficient communication possible applies. The cognitive principle represents the intentions of the sender, while the communicative principle describes the exchange between the communication partners.

This means that the requirement applies that the communication should not only fulfill the intentions of the sender, but must also be based on the intentions and competencies of the recipient. In this way, not only does the sender do justice to its own relevance, but also its communication partner can draw relevance from the conversation. Communication is only considered successful if both principles are met, so that mutual understanding prevails.

In order to achieve this goal, the sender of a message has to recognize the intentions and competencies of his interlocutor. This also means that communication depends on the previous knowledge of the interlocutor. In order to save resources, contents that have already been communicated are often assumed to be known by the recipient. At Clark and Carlson, this guiding principle is also referred to as “audience design”, i.e. communication adapted to the listener, with the common ground being the common knowledge background of the communication partners.

There are indications that the acceptance of the principle of cooperation and the maxims is not only valid for conversations, but also for other forms of interaction - Grice already spoke of “cooperative interaction”.

application

Follow the maxims

The maxim of quantity: “Hanna has three children.” → Hanna has no more than three children (otherwise the speaker would have said that). This type of implicature is also called scalar implicature . The listener concludes that there is no higher value.
Quality maxim: “Susanne is at home.” → The speaker believes that Susanne is at home (the sentence: “Susanne is at home, but I don't think so” would be paradoxical).
Maxim of relevance: A: "I have run out of petrol." - B: "There's a petrol station around the corner." → A can assume that B believes that the petrol station is open and has petrol in stock.
The maxim of the modality (here: Avoid disorder): "Hanna married and had a child" is understood to mean that she first married and then had a child. The conjunction “and” is interpreted as “and then”. This conclusion does not arise if the speaker says in the same breath: "However, I do not know in which order."

(Apparent) disregard for maxims

The maxim of quantity: "War is war." → In war it is just the case that ... ( tautologies are always true, but actually uninformative; the listener therefore assumes that more should be said).
Quality maxim: A: “The competition is already quite strong.” B: “We control the entire world economy.” → Of course, the competition is strong, we cannot control the entire world economy either. ( Irony )
Maxim of relevance: Telephone conversation: A: “Well, see you tonight?” - B (in the shop): “Agreed, Mr. Müller, then I'll call you again later.” → B had a reason for the conversation not to continue appropriately, e.g. B. because the boss came into the office.
Maxim of the modality: "He produced a series of notes that came close to the notes of an aria from Rigoletto." → He did not exactly what one could call singing (since it was not expressed in the necessary brevity).

literature

H. Paul Grice : Logic and Conversation. In: Peter Cole, Jerry L. Morgan (eds.): Speech acts (= Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 3). Academic Press, New York NY 1975, pp. 41-58 (in German: logic and conversation. In: Georg Meggle (Ed.): Action, Communication, Meaning (= Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1083). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1993 , ISBN 3-518-28683-8 , pp. 243-265).
Eckard Rolf: Saying and thinking. Paul Grice's Theory of Conversational Implicatures. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1994, ISBN 3-531-12640-7 .
Claus Ehrhardt, Hans Jürgen Heringer : Pragmatics (= UTB 3480 Linguistics ). Fink, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-7705-5168-2 , pp. 72-81.
Dan Sperber, Deirdre Wilson: Relevance: communication and cognition. 2nd Edition. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford 2001, ISBN 0-631-19878-4 .
Herbert H. Clark, Thomas B. Carlson: Hearers and Speech Acts . In: Language . Volume 58, No. 2, 1982, pp. 332-373.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b cf. (in more detail) Hadumod Bußmann (Ed.): Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-520-45203-0 , Konversationsmaximen.
^ ^A ^b ^c Margarete Boos, Kai J. Jonas: Medienvermedte Kommunikation . In: Medienpsychologie (= Springer textbook ). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-46894-3 , pp. 195–217 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-46899-8_8 ( springer.com [accessed January 31, 2018]).

[:0-1] . (in more detail) Hadumod Bußmann (Ed.): Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-520-45203-0 , Konversationsmaximen.

[:1-2] A ^b ^c Margarete Boos, Kai J. Jonas: Medienvermedte Kommunikation . In: Medienpsychologie (= Springer textbook ). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-46894-3 , pp. 195–217 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-46899-8_8 ( springer.com [accessed January 31, 2018]).