Paul Herbert Grice's Theory Of Conversational Prinplanation

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Paul Herbert Grice observed that in most conversations, what is meant often goes beyond what is said, and these additional meanings can generally be inferred and predicted. Thus, his theory of conversational implicature is based on pragmatic implications. They are not attached to the particular words and phrases in an utterance, but arise from contextual factors and the understanding the conventions used in conversations. The theory focuses not only on the semantic meaning of an utterance, but also on the different techniques of communication. Grice’s concept of conversation is based on the notion that the contributors to a conversation are rational and uniform in approach and therefore must obey a general principle of rationality known as …show more content…
He stated the nine maxims of conversation, that a speaker must follow, and grouped them into four categories: Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner. The Maxims of Quantity focus on information. They are, “Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange” and “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.” The maxims of Quality focus on truth. They are, “Do not say what you believe to be false” and “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.” The Maxim of Relation is, “Be relevant.” And the Maxims of Manner focuses on clarity. They are, “Avoid obscurity of expression”, “Avoid ambiguity”, “Be brief”, and “Be orderly.” (Grice …show more content…
She focused her argument on the indigenous people of Madagascar, who did not follow the maxim of quantity about giving precise information. According to Keenan, if someone in this society is asked, “Where is your mother?” their reply would be, “She is either at home or in the market”, even though they precisely know where their mother is. (Keenan 84) According to the first maxim of quantity, this is not a very cooperative response, as the speaker is not precise. The speaker is not introducing any conversational implicature, as we would expect in a case where a maxim is flouted. This is because of culture-specific values, which are not universal. Thus, Gricean theory does not hold well according to Keenan’s arguement.
Another criticism towards Grice’s theory came from Wilson and Sperber. They claimed that Grice just gave an account of how statements are interpreted, and argued that he did not distinguish between the implications and the actual meaning of an utterance. According to them, Grice assigned every aspect of interpretation of an utterance to one of his categories. They argued that if the speaker tries to be as relevant as possible in his utterances, all of Grice’s maxims could possibly be replaced by a single principle of

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