An Encyclopaedia of Language_03

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An Encyclopaedia of Language_03 AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LANGUAGE 109richness, complexity and multiplicity of pragmatic and discourse meaning which conversational analysis allows, whilstretaining the predictive and explanatory power of pragmatics. 7. REASSESSING GRICE’S CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLEAttempts at applying pragmatic theory to stretches of naturally-occurring discourse have led to a general reassessment ofGrice’s account of conversation, and of the status of the maxims in particular. Many commentators have noted that Grice’smaxims of Quality, Quantity, Relation and Manner frequently overlap and are certainly not all of the same order. Assessmentsof truth or falsity (the maxim of quality), for example, can only be made in relation to the real world, whereas the maxim ofManner is textual (judgements regarding its observance or non-observance are made on the basis of linguistic criteria). Itrelates, in Grice’s terms: ‘…not to what is said but, rather, to how what is said is to be said.’Observance of the maxim of Quality is a yes/no proposition, whereas the observance of the maxims of Manner and Quantityis usually a matter of degree. How well-ordered is ‘orderly’? How prolix is ‘prolixity’? How much information is ‘enoughinformation’? The ways in which a speaker can observe or fail to observe the CP (‘infringing’, ‘flouting’, ‘violating’, ‘opting out’, etc.—see section 1.3 above) vary greatly from maxim to maxim. The maxim of Manner, in particular, is frequently infringedunintentionally and (unlike the maxims of Quality and Quantity) it is difficult to violate it unobtrusively: speakers cannotdisguise, for example, the fact that they are being muddled or repetitious (although an obscure or ambiguous expression maybe used in order to mislead). ‘Opting out’ of the CP presents a particularly interesting case. When speakers explicitly opt out of observing a maxim, theyprovide privileged access to the way in which speakers do, as a rule, attend to the maxims. This in turn offers prima-facieevidence for Grice’s contention that there exists on the part of interactants a strong expectation that, ceteris paribus andunless indication is given to the contrary, the CP and the maxims will be observed. The frequency with which speakersexplicitly opt out of observance of the maxim of Relation, and the comparative infrequency with which they opt out of theother maxims, suggests that it is of a different order from (and more important than) the others. But it is the status of the maxim of Relation which has excited most interest. Many writers (Bach and Harnish 1979, Bird1979, Dascal 1977, Holdcroft 1979, Wilson and Sperber 1981) have commented on the over-arching importance of the maximof Relation and several have gone on to argue that the CP itself should be replaced by a re-defined ‘Principle of Relevance’(Dascal 1977, Holdcroft 1979, Swiggers 1981, Wilson and Sperber 1981): ‘…Grice’s maxims can be replaced by a single principle of relevance. In interpreting an utterance the hearer uses this principle as a guide, on the one hand towards correct disambiguation and assignment of reference, and on the other in deciding whether additional premises are needed, and if so what they are, or whether a figurative interpretation was intended. The principle of relevance on its own provides an adequate, and we think rather more explicit, account of all the implicatures which Grice’s maxims were set up to describe.’ (Wilson and Sperber 1981:171)The arguments most frequently proposed in favour of replacing the CP are:(1) that the CP already is, in essence, a Principle of Relevance. It is argued that it is not possible to find instances of implicatures being generated where the maxim of Relevance is not invoked;(2) that a redefined Principle of Relevance, unlike the CP, is not trivially true: although relevance can be shown to be an extremely powerful factor in utterance-interpretation, in that hearers will look very hard for relevance, there are occasions on which interactants will conclude that an utterance is not relevant (e.g. that a speaker is ‘talking past’ them) and that no conversation is taking place;(3) that forms of relevance (unlike ‘co-operation’) can, in principle, be specified and defined fairly precisely.Dascal (1977), Sanders (1980) and Thomas (1986) argue that it is necessary to distinguish different types of relevance.Sanders (1980:91–92) argues that there are at least four ways in which an expression can be relevant to an antecedentexpression or expression-sequence (not counting word-play). Dascal argues that interactants operate wit ...