Grice's Conversational Maxims: Deviations and Implied Meaning

Understanding Grice's Maxims and Implicatures

Grice's Maxims of Conversation provide a framework for understanding how people communicate effectively. However, speakers sometimes deviate from these maxims, leading to specific communicative effects.

Violating Conversational Maxims

When speakers violate a maxim, they deliberately fail to observe one or more maxims, intending to deceive the interlocutor. In such cases, there is no implicature generated. The speaker knows the hearer will not understand the surface meaning because they intentionally supply insufficient information, say something insincere, irrelevant, or ambiguous. The hearer, wrongly assuming cooperation, may be misled. In some cultures, certain forms of maxim violation, such as "white lies," are considered acceptable.

Opting Out of Conversational Maxims

When speakers opt out of a maxim, it indicates an unwillingness to cooperate, yet they wish to avoid appearing uncooperative. This often occurs when the speaker cannot cooperate due to legal or ethical reasons. Furthermore, opting out helps the speaker avoid generating a false implicature.

Example of Opting Out:

• The Conservative M.P., Teddy Taylor, was asked a question about talks he had had with Colonel Gaddafi: "Well, honestly, I can't tell you a thing, because what was said to me was told to me in confidence."

Using Hedges in Conversation

Speakers often use expressions known as hedges to signal their awareness of the maxims that might be violated or flouted, indicating their desire to observe them. Hedges help manage expectations and clarify communicative intent.

Examples of Hedges:

• Quality: "I may be mistaken, but I thought I saw a wedding ring on her finger."
• Quantity: "So, to cut the story short, we grabbed our stuff and ran."
• Relation: "This may sound like a dumb question, but whose handwriting is this?"
• Manner: "This may be a bit confusing, but I remember being in a car."

Properties of Implicatures

Conversational implicatures possess distinct characteristics that differentiate them from other forms of meaning.

• Non-detachability: Implicatures remain present even if the linguistic expression that creates them is paraphrased, provided the basic semantic meaning is retained.
• Cancelability: Implicatures are pragmatic meanings and, consequently, can be explicitly canceled by speakers in conversations without contradiction.

Limitations of Conversational Implicature Theory

Despite its insights, the theory of conversational implicature faces several criticisms:

• There is no definitive way to determine how many implicatures may arise from a single utterance.
• Some implicatures are inferred by hearers even when they were not intended by the speaker.
• More than one maxim can be flouted or violated simultaneously, and some of the maxims appear to overlap, making clear distinctions challenging.

Presuppositions vs. Implicatures: Key Differences

While both presuppositions and implicatures relate to implied meaning, they differ significantly in their nature and origin:

Presuppositions:

• Are created before the utterance is spoken (knowledge assumed to be true prior to saying something).
• Are tied to the surface structure of an utterance.
• Are typically triggered by specific lexical items or grammatical constructions.

Implicatures:

• Arise after the utterance has been said, emerging from the context of the conversation.
• Are not activated by specific lexical or grammatical triggers but by the interaction of the utterance with conversational maxims and context.