4. CONVERSATION

Gricean Maxims of Conversation

Not all of the connected text that people have to process occurs in written form. We can think of ordinary conversations as examples of spoken connected text. Conversations are interesting to study because they occur so frequently and because (unlike written texts) they normally involve the production of a great deal of language with little time for planning and revision.

We've already seen a number of examples of linguistic rules that people follow in producing or comprehending language. Some of these have to do with ways of combining sounds to produce words, combining words to produce sentences, or even combining ideas to produce meanings. Many researchers believe, however, that yet another set of rules is necessary for people to use language appropriately or effectively, especially in conversations: pragmatic rules.

Here we will examine some pragmatic rules specific to conversations called the Gricean maxims of cooperative conversation (Grice, 1975).

Grice believed that for people to converse, each must do more than produce utterances that are phonologically, syntactically, and semantically appropriate. Consider the following "conversation":

SPEAKER A: I just heard that Joe got promoted today. Isn't that great?
SPEAKER B: Salt Lake City is located in Utah.
SPEAKER C: No, Charles Darwin is the father of modern evolutionary theory.
SPEAKER A: What's the square root of 34?
SPEAKER B: Chocolate ice cream is sweet.

What is wrong with this conversation? Notice that all of the sentences that the speakers have produced are "legal," and at several levels. Each obeys the phonological rules of English. Each is syntactically well formed. Each is meaningful. Yet all together, they don't add up to a conversation. In part, what is going on is a lack of connection between anything one speaker says and anything else another speaker says. Normally in conversation, each of a person's contributions or utterances bears some relationship to what others have already said or to what the speaker plans to say later. In this sense, speakers could be said to be providing a context for one another's contributions.

Grice (1975) argued that for a conversation to take place, all the speakers have to cooperate with one another. Although speakers in a conversation have many choices to make concerning what they will say, as well as when and how they will say it, there are still constraints, or general rules, that they must obey (Miller & Glucksberg, 1988). Grice described speakers in a conversation as all following a general "cooperative principle."

Speakers do this, Grice believed, by following four specific conversational maxims or rules (Grice, 1975):

1. Maxims of quantity. Make your contribution as informative as required. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
2. Maxims of quality. Try to make your contribution one that is true. Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you have no evidence.
3. Maxim of relation. Be relevant.
4. Maxims of manner. Be clear. Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief. Be orderly.

Violations of the maxims produce conversations that are noticeably odd. For instance, if someone asks, "Do you have a watch?" and you respond, "Yes, I do," you are violating the first maxim of quantity: You are being less informative than is required. Your conversation partner is not, in all likelihood, taking a census for Timex or Rolex; he or she probably wants to know the time. As a member of the language community that you live in, you are expected to know that the question asked is really a request for the time and to respond appropriately.

It is also possible to violate the first maxim by being too informative. For example, some of my students occasionally invite me to eat with them in the campus dining halls. When we arrange a luncheon date, they often ask something like "Where should we meet?" My response ought to be something on the order of "How about if you come to my office?" rather than something much more detailed like "Please come to my office door, and I will be standing 27 centimeters inside of it." The latter is bizarre, presumably by virtue of being overly specific.

The second maxim has to do with truthfulness. Generally, conversation partners assume that the other is telling the truth, or at least what the speaker believes to be the truth. On some occasions, it is permissible to violate this maxim-for example, to be ironic. Imagine that a friend who's missed a lecture in a class in which you are both enrolled asks, "How was class today?" You can respond, "Utterly fascinating!" even if it really was dry as toast, if you somehow signal that your answer isn't to be taken literally. Rolled eyes, exaggerated intonation, winks, and the like help to communicate that your violation of the maxim of quality is itself meant to communicate something-in this case, ironic humor. If you simply utter an untruthful response without letting your listener know that you aren't being candid, then your conversation will not be successful, and your conversation partner could legitimately complain about your conversation skills.

Someone who consistently violates the maxims of quantity or quality may well be perceived as uncooperative or obnoxious and, after a while, may find it difficult to attract conversation partners. Someone who consistently violates the third maxim of relation by responding with irrelevant utterances will have a bigger problem: He or she will simply be regarded as, at best, very bizarre. To illustrate, imagine a conversation between Tom and Joe, two college roommates:

TOM (looking around): Hey, Joe, have you seen my sweater?
JOE (looking at Tom, and smiling): Lo, a flaming squirrel!

If Joe persists in violating the maxim of relation, he will likely find himself at a complete loss for conversation partners, if not roommates and friends.

The fourth maxim, the maxim of manner, generally governs the way you choose to construct your conversation contributions. The general idea is that you should speak as clearly as possible, using language appropriate to your listener and the context. Among other things, this maxim forbids you to answer your professors in pig Latin or your younger siblings in "academese." It also prevents you from holding a filibuster (unless you are a congressperson) and requires that you at least try to organize what you say before you begin speaking.

Gricean maxims are not always obeyed, but the assumption is that people try to obey them most of the time. When the maxims are violated, the speaker apparently wishes to end the conversation, wishes to avoid the conversation, or expects the listener to understand that the violation is occurring and why (Miller & Glucksberg, 1988). Again, though, it is doubtful that the average person is consciously aware of the rules. As with most linguistic rules, maxims are implicitly understood even if they can't be precisely stated.