Grice's Conversational Maxims

Grice’s Conversational Maxims act as guidelines to ensure that conversational interactions satisfy the Cooperative Principle, which states that contributions to conversations are appropriate to the conversation. The four maxims are that of:

1. Relevance

2. Quality

3. Quantity

4. Manner

I will provide examples of times when someone may intentionally violate each of the maxims and why they might do so.

The maxim of relevance states that you stay relevant to the topic. One may intentionally violate this when one is asked a question that one does not wish to answer. It may serve as a somewhat polite way of sidestepping the question without explicitly saying “I do not wish to answer that question.” The one violating the maxim would hope that the other party would get the picture. An example might be if someone asked, “How do you like my painting?” and the answer would be, “I like turtles!”

The maxim of quality states that one makes their contribution to the conversation the truth. If one wishes to answer the question, “How do you like my painting?” without hurting the other’s feelings by saying it is not good, one might reply, “I really like it!” even if they believe it is horrid.

The maxim of quantity states that one makes their contribution not more or less informative than required. Some people may violate this by speaking excessively in one-word answers. On the other hand, we all seem to know someone who, when asked, “How do you like my painting?” answer beginning with the history of art from the ancient world to the present. To intentionally violate this maxim, one might want to avoid conversation or drive the other person away with excessive information.

The maxim of manner states that one would only use brief and less obscure descriptions, and should avoid ambiguous statements. If one wanted to be evasive in revealing their true feelings (especially if they are negative), they may intentionally make an ambiguous statement that can be taken either as a negative or a positive.

Reference:

O’Grady, W. & Archibald, J. (Eds.). (2010). Contemporary linguistics. An introduction. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.