Grice's Conversational Maxims

Grice’s Conversational Maxims

Maxim of Relevance- Be relevant

Conversation: A group of friends and I were talking about work and another friend joined our conversation.  Obviously the newest edition to the group was unaware of the pervious conversation that had taken place, so in mid conversation our newest friend contributed: “Did you watch Big Bang Theory Last night?” to which I responded “Do you know why the sky is blue?” ::with sarcasm::.  Obviously I asked an irrelevant question to poke fun at our friend whose contribution was extremely off-topic.  This would be an example of a violation of the Maxim of Relevance because both contributions to the conversation were irrelevant to the subject at hand.

Maxim of Quality – Try to make your contribution true

Conversation: A conversation that I have witnessed between husband and wife is always a good example of the Maxim of Quality.  When the wife is getting dressed and she asks her husband “how do I look?” or “does this make me look fat?” the husband will often revert to the generic answer “yes of course honey, you look wonderful” .  Even if the statement is not necessarily trye Why? Well first of all it is always the smartest answer for a husband and second of all because in this instance the husband feels that violating the Maxim of Quality will preserve his wife’s feelings.

Maxim of Quantity- Do not make your contribution more or less informative than required

Conversation:  My father is often in violation of the Maxim of Quantity.  When you confront him with a problem in which you are seeking a relatively simple solution you always get an extremely lengthy answer. For example, “Dad my car won’t start.  I’m pretty sure that it is the battery, how can I check to see if my battery is dead?”  His response starts with “the battery? Well are you sure? What type of noise did the car make? Did the lights turn on? Etc”  So this far into the conversation my father still has not answered the initial question which was: How do I check to see if my battery is dead?”  This would be an example of a violation of the Maxim of Quantity because he asking for information that is more informative than required.

Maxim of Manner- avoid ambiguity and obscurity; be brief and orderly

Conversation: I often intentionally violate this maxim to elude a message to someone subtly.  For example, we are working in the teacher workroom and another teacher approaches me about a student who is having problems in their class:  “Allyson did you have _________________________ in your class last year?” to which I would respond “yes”.  “Well did he/she have any behavioral issues in your room?” to which I would respond “do you mean did I have to write him/her up 3 times for being late for class, once for cheating on a test and a third time for screaming profanities to a student in the hallway? No, of course not.  He/she is an upstanding student”.  I think in this case the maxim is violated to place emphasis on the fact that the student is not only a behavioral problem but a significant one.  Sarcasm can often communicate an idea further than an outright statement like, “yes I had behavioral issues with the student”.  However, it is easy to see why violation of this maxim using sarcasm would cause considerable confusion for an ELL who might take the statement literally or be confused by the conflicting ideas in it.