The Cooperative Principle was formulated by Paul Grice and stated in 1967 for the first time at Harvard University (Pan 2012: 20). The principle demonstrates the priory unknown “existence of implicatures” within conversations (Kotthoff 2006: 272). Since the interlocutors abide by the Cooperative Principle, these implicatures commonly appear in conversations and can be considered a “natural outcome” of verbal communication (Gibbs 1999: 117). Grice formulated the concept in the following way (1975: 45):
Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the Cooperative Principle.
In addition, Grice …show more content…
However, humor can also create, for example, happiness and smiles. The ways in which humor can be caused are manifold (Pan 2012:22), including, inter alia, funny movements and jokes. Even though the outcome of humor is common knowledge, defining “humor as a discursive object” is rather challenging due to its occurrence as a “natural kind” (Vandaele 2002:222). As humor is considered an essential part of living (Hu 2012:1185), it is less surprising that it has been analyzed numerous times for diverse reasons. Some studies deal with the history of humor as well as its social function whereas other studies are trying to determine how humor is created (Pan 2012:20). Everybody engages in humor irrespective of age, gender and nationality. However, the socio-cultural background influences the creation of humor strongly as will be demonstrated in chapter …show more content…
Namely, successful conversations are cooperative since collocutors need to comply with the maxims and deduce meaning according to the maxims. Therefore, the concept of Grice is an approach how interlocutors deduce the meaning from what is being said (Hu 2012: 1186). The same process is happening during the creation of humor. However, after having presented that humor can be created by violating the Cooperative Principle, one might consider the development of humor ‘non-cooperative’. This assumption is supported by Attardo, who claims that jokes are “non-cooperative in Grice´s sense” (1994: 271). He might have a point; however, this argument is only valid in Grice´s terms. As Kotthoff points out correctly, speakers can violate the maxims and shift the meaning to a deeper level (2006:278). Thereby, speaker and listener still have to cooperate to create meaning. As discussed before, humor as well as the Cooperative Principle have similar preconditions that need to be fulfilled. Raskin suggests that the Cooperative Principle and humor are rather similar; however, the principles of humor subordinate all residual principles and primarily focus on the creation of humor (2007: 99). Therefore, he illustrated the closeness of humor and the Cooperative Principle as well as its maxims by creating seperate maxims for the
Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the Cooperative Principle.
In addition, Grice …show more content…
However, humor can also create, for example, happiness and smiles. The ways in which humor can be caused are manifold (Pan 2012:22), including, inter alia, funny movements and jokes. Even though the outcome of humor is common knowledge, defining “humor as a discursive object” is rather challenging due to its occurrence as a “natural kind” (Vandaele 2002:222). As humor is considered an essential part of living (Hu 2012:1185), it is less surprising that it has been analyzed numerous times for diverse reasons. Some studies deal with the history of humor as well as its social function whereas other studies are trying to determine how humor is created (Pan 2012:20). Everybody engages in humor irrespective of age, gender and nationality. However, the socio-cultural background influences the creation of humor strongly as will be demonstrated in chapter …show more content…
Namely, successful conversations are cooperative since collocutors need to comply with the maxims and deduce meaning according to the maxims. Therefore, the concept of Grice is an approach how interlocutors deduce the meaning from what is being said (Hu 2012: 1186). The same process is happening during the creation of humor. However, after having presented that humor can be created by violating the Cooperative Principle, one might consider the development of humor ‘non-cooperative’. This assumption is supported by Attardo, who claims that jokes are “non-cooperative in Grice´s sense” (1994: 271). He might have a point; however, this argument is only valid in Grice´s terms. As Kotthoff points out correctly, speakers can violate the maxims and shift the meaning to a deeper level (2006:278). Thereby, speaker and listener still have to cooperate to create meaning. As discussed before, humor as well as the Cooperative Principle have similar preconditions that need to be fulfilled. Raskin suggests that the Cooperative Principle and humor are rather similar; however, the principles of humor subordinate all residual principles and primarily focus on the creation of humor (2007: 99). Therefore, he illustrated the closeness of humor and the Cooperative Principle as well as its maxims by creating seperate maxims for the