GRICE'S MAXIMS AND CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES,COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

1. GRICE’S COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AND IMPLICATURE
AHMED QADOURY ABED
INTRODUCTION
In his William James Lectures at Harvard University in 1967, H. Paul Grice posited a
general set of rules contributors to ordinary conversation were generally expected to follow.
He named it the Cooperative Principle (CP), and formulated it as follows: Make your
conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Grice, 1989:
26).At first glance, the Cooperative Principle may appear an idealistic representation of actual
human communication. After all, as Grice himself has learned from his detractors, many
believe ‘‘. . . even in the talk-exchanges of civilized people browbeating disputation and
conversational sharp practices are far too common to be offenses against the fundamental
dictates of conversational practice.’’ Further, even if one discounts the tone of an exchange,
‘‘much of our talk exchange is too haphazard to be directed toward an end cooperative or
otherwise’’ (Grice, 1989: 369). Grice has never intended his use of the word ‘cooperation’ to
indicate an ideal view of communication. Rather, Grice was trying to describe how it happens
that – despite the haphazard or even agonistic nature of much ordinary human
communication – most discourse participants are quite capable of making themselves
understood and capable of understanding most others in the course of their daily business.
WHAT COUNTS AS COOPERATION?
Grice considers the following, quite unextraordinary exchange:
A: I am out of petrol.
B: There is a garage round the corner (Grice, 1989: 32).
Assuming A immediately proceeds to the garage, secures the petrol, and refills his car, we
may describe B’s contribution as having been successful. By what rational process of thought
was A so quickly able to come to the conclusion that the garage to which B refers would fulfill
his need for petrol? Why did B’s utterance work? Grice’s answer: because A and B adhere to
the Cooperative Principle of Discourse. It is not hard to imagine that two friends sharing a
ride would want to help each other through a minor crisis; thus, ‘cooperation’ in this scenario
seems quite apt. But imagine the exchange went this way instead:
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2. A: I am out of petrol.
B: (sarcastically) How nice that you pay such close attention to important details.
In this second scenario, not only does B refuse to assist A in solving the problem, he uses the
occasion to add to A’s conundrum an assault upon his character. Assuming A feels the sting;
again B’s contribution has been successful. So how and why in this case has B’s contribution
worked? How can such a sour response as B’s callous retort be considered ‘cooperative’?
Again, Grice’s Cooperative Principle proves a useful answer. The explanation requires closer
inspection of the strictness with which Grice uses the term.
Grice explicates his Cooperative Principle of Discourse in ‘Logic and Conversation,’ the
paper originally presented at Harvard University in 1967, later printed in Cole and Morgan
(1975), and reprinted in a slightly revised version in Grice’s Studies in the Way of Words
(1989). Citations are from his final version as it is assumed that this is the one he considered
most complete. In the essay, Grice is careful to limit use of the CP for describing only talk
exchanges that exhibit three specific characteristics:
1. The participants have some common immediate aim.
2. The contributions of the participants [are] dovetailed, mutually dependent.
3. There is some sort of understanding (often tacit) that, other things being equal, the
transactions should continue in appropriate style unless both parties are agreeable that it
should terminate (Grice, 1989: 29).
Though he is careful to limit the CP’s application to talk exchanges that exhibit these
particular cooperative characteristics, this list should not be read as an admission of great
limitation. Grice finds that most talk exchanges do follow the CP because most talk exchanges
do, in fact, exhibit the cooperative characteristics he outlines:
Our talk exchanges . . are characteristically, to some degree at least,
cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a
common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction
(Grice, 1989: 26).
The following is Grice ‘s types of meanings:
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3. What is meant
What is
What is said implicated
Non-
Conventionally conventionally
Conversationally Non-
conversationally
Generally Particularly
GRICE’S MAXIMS
Grice identified the Cooperative Principle as a ‘super principle’ or a ‘supreme principle’ (1989:
368f) that he generalized from four conversational ‘maxims’ he claimed discourse
participants ordinarily follow. Grice(1989: 28) identifies the maxims as:
1. Quantity (give as much information as is required, and no more than is required)
2. Quality (do not say what is false or that for which you lack adequate evidence)
3. Relation (be relevant)
4. Manner (be clear, be orderly, and avoid ambiguity).
Clear fulfillment of these maxims may be demonstrated in the following exchange:
A: Do you know where I can buy some petrol?
B: You can buy petrol at the garage right around the corner.
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4. Let us assume that B is sincere and knowledgeable, and A finds the garage right away based
upon B’s advice. It is the case then that B’s response to A’s question follows the maxims
completely, giving exactly the right amount of information (quantity), information for which
B has the required evidence (quality), information that is directly connected to A’s question
(relevance), and information given in a fashion effectively and efficiently understood
(manner). But Grice knew that people do not always follows these maxims as they
communicate ;”What dull business conversation analysis would be if they did!” Rather,
interlocutors can fail to fulfill the maxims in a variety of ways, some mundane, some
inadvertent, but others lead to what most consider the most powerful aspect of Grice’s CP:
conversational ‘implicature.’ Another Example
A. “How do I get to Sainsbury’s, mate?”
B-“Go straight ahead, turn right at the school, then left at the bus stop on the hill.”
Speaker A assumes that:
 B believes his directions to be genuine – the maxim of quality;
 B believes the information to be sufficient – the maxim of quantity;
 B believes the information to be clear – the maxim of manner;
 B believes his directions are to Sainsbury’s – the maxim of relation.
FAILURE OF MAXIMS AND IMPLICATURES
Grice describes four ways in which maxims may go unfulfilled in ordinary conversation. The
first three ways are fairly straight forward. One might violate or infringe a maxim. This
infringement is often done with the intention of misleading; for example, one might say,
‘Patricia was with a man last night’ as a way of making Patricia’s routine dinner out with her
husband seem clandestine. One might opt out, making it clear that one refuses to cooperate
in a conversation for some reason:
One may be legally bound not to provide information one has. Or,
One might encounter a clash of maxims, facing the choice of violating one maxim or
another.
For example, one may not be able to give all of the information required (quantity) because
one does not have adequate evidence for the information (quality). Most interesting is the
final possibility for the nonfulfillment of a maxim: flouting or exploiting a maxim for the
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5. purpose of implicating information (implicature). This case is the one in which even an
apparently uncooperative response illustrates discursive or linguistic cooperation. Let’s recall
the above example:
A: I am out of petrol.
B: There is a garage round the corner.
In this instance, we may claim, that B – at first blush – appears to break the maxim of
relation. For what does a garage have to do with petrol? Since drivers are aware that garages
sell petrol, it is not long before A realizes that B has not broken the maxim of relation at all; it
is, in fact, instantaneous. B’s point is directly relevant. B is being cooperative in both the
colloquial sense and the specialized sense Grice applies to the term. Grice’s Cooperative
Principle makes sense of the speed with which A is able to process the usefulness of B’s
contribution. A assumes B is following the maxims and would thus not mention the garage
unless it had petrol. In the next scenario, however, the exchange, and thus the rational
process by which A makes sense of B’s contribution, is markedly different:
A: I am out of petrol.
B: (sarcastically) How nice that you pay such close attention to important details.
In this instance, B flouts the maxim of quality by stating as true something for which he has
specific and immediate evidence is untrue. One likely implication of B’s remark is that A is an
idiot for not paying attention to such an important detail as having enough petrol in the car.
If A feels the sting of B’s remark, A and B have exhibited discursive cooperation that resulted
in an implicature directed to A from B . Maxim infringement occurs when a Speaker fails to
observe the maxim, although s/he has no intention of generating an implicature and no
intention of deceiving. Generally infringing stems from imperfect linguistic performance (in
the case of a young child or a foreigner) or from impaired linguistic performance brought
about by nervousness, drunkenness, excitement, disability.
–Rachel: Yeah, and also we need more umm, drinks. Hold on a second. (Gets up but stumbles
a little bit.) Whup, okay. (She makes it to the phone and picks it up, without dialing.) Hello!
Vegas? Yeah, we would like some more cola, and y’know what else? We would like some
more pizza. Hello? Ohh, I forgot to dial!
–(They both start laughing. There’s a knock on the door.)
–Ross: That must be our cola and piza! (Gets up to answer it.)
–Joey: Hey!
–Ross: Ohh, it’s Joey! I love Joey! (Hugs him.)
–Rachel: Ohh, I love Joey! Joey lives with a duck! (Goes and hugs Joey.)
–Joey: Hi!
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6. –Rachel: Hey!
–Joey: Look-look-look you guys, I need some help! Okay? Someone is going to have to
convince my hand twin to cooperate!
–Ross: I’ll do it. Hey, whatever you need me to do, I’m your man. (He starts to sit down on the
bed. There’s one problem though, he’s about two feet to the left of it. Needless to say, he
misses and falls on his butt.) (Looking up at Joey.) Whoa-oh-whoa! Are you, are you okay?
A Speaker opts out of observing a maxim whenever s/he indicates unwillingness to cooperate
in the way the maxim requires. This happens when a suspect exerts their right to remain
silent or when a witness chooses not to impart information that may prove detrimental to
the defendant.
Detective: Has the defendant ever told you she hated her father and wanted him dead?
Shrink: Such information is confidential and it would be unethical to share it with you.
Under certain circumstances,as part of certain events ,there is no expectation on the part of
any participant that one or several maxims should be observed (and non-fulfillment does not
generate any implicatures). Such cases include:
1) Suspending the Quality Maxim in case of funeral orations and obituaries, when the
description of the deceased needs to be praiseworthy and exclude any potentially
unfavourable aspects of their life or personality.
2) Poetry suspends the Manner Maxim since it does not aim for conciseness, clarity and lack
of ambiguity.
3) In the case of speedy communication via telegrams, e-mails, notes, the Quantity Maxim is
suspended because such means are functional owing to their very brevity.
4) Jokes are not only conventionally untrue, ambiguously and seemingly incoherent, but are
expected to exploit ambiguity, polysemy and vagueness of meaning, which entails, among
other things, suspension of the Maxims of Quality, Quantity and Manner.
Without cooperation, human interaction would be far more difficult and counterproductive.
Therefore, the Cooperative Principle and the Gricean Maxims are not specific to conversation
but to interaction as a whole. For example, it would not make sense to reply to a question
about the weather with an answer about groceries because it would violate the Maxim of
Relation. Likewise, responding to a request for some milk with an entire gallon instead of a
glass would violate the Maxim of Quantity.
A: I hear you went to the theatre last night; what play did you see?
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7. B: Well, I watched a number of people stand on the stage in Elizabethan costumes
uttering series of sentences which corresponded closely with the script of Twelfth Night.
Here, B’s verbose answer, although it doesn’t say anything more than “I saw a performance
of Twelfth Night,” invites A to infer that the performers were doing a miserably bad job of
acting. However, it is possible to flout a maxim intentionally or unconsciously and thereby
convey a different meaning than what is literally spoken. Many times in conversation, this
flouting is manipulated by a speaker to produce a negative pragmatic effect, as with sarcasm
or irony. One can flout the Maxim of Quality to tell a clumsy friend who has just taken a bad
fall that her nimble gracefulness is impressive and obviously intend to mean the complete
opposite. The Gricean Maxims are therefore often purposefully flouted by comedians and
writers, who may hide the complete truth and manipulate their words for the effect of the
story and the sake of the reader’s experience:
A: What are you baking?
B: Be i are tee aitch dee ay wye see ay kay ee.
By answering obscurely, B conveys to A the implicature that the information is to be kept
secret from the young child who is in the room with them. Speakers who deliberately flout
the maxims usually intend for their listener to understand their underlying implication. Thus,
the Gricean Maxims serve a purpose both when they are followed and when they are flouted.
GRICE’S POSSIBLE IMPLICATURES
While one example hardly illustrates so many cases, Grice works out a number of possible
forms of implicature: irony, metaphor, meiosis (understatement), hyperbole, social censure,
deliberate ambiguity, and deliberate obscurity (for example, if one is trying to keep a secret
from the children). In all of these cases, maxims are broken and the breaks result in specific
information implied to and understood by the receiver of the utterance. The power of the
conversational maxims to describe rational processes by which speakers and hearers make
sense of each other’s utterances have energized many scholars of language and conversation
across many fields. But the Cooperative Principle has not been free from serious critique.
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES
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8. According to Grice, utterance interpretation is not a matter of decoding messages, but rather
involves:
(1) taking the meaning of the sentences together with contextual information,
(2) using inference rules
(3) working out what the speaker means on the basis of the assumption that the utterance
conforms to the maxims.
The main advantage of this approach from Grice’s point of view is that it provides a pragmatic
explanation for a wide range of phenomena, especially for conversational implicautres--- a
kind of extra meaning that is not literally contained in the utterance.Conversational
implicatures have the following characteristics:
1- They are cancelable:
… a putative conversational implicature that p is explicitly cancelable if, to the
form of words the utterance of which putatively implicates that p, it is
admissible to add but not p, or I do not mean to imply that p, and it is
contextually cancelable if one can find situations in which the utterance of the
form of words would simply not carry the implicature. (Grice,1989: 44.)
2- They are non-detachable:
… it will not be possible to find another way of saying the same thing, which
simply lacks the implicature in question, except where some special feature of
the substituted version is itself relevant to the determination of an implicature
(in virtue of one of the maxims of Manner). (Grice,1989: 39.)
3- They are calculable:
The presence of a conversational implicature must be capable of being worked
out; for even if it can in fact be intuitively grasped, unless the intuition is
replaceable by an argument, the implicature (if present at all) will not count as
a conversational implicature. (Grice,1989: 31).
This last property is what Grice considers crucial for distinguishing between conversational
and conventional implicatures. Conventional implicatures are generated by the meaning of
certain particles like ‘but’ ,’yet’, ‘even’, or ‘therefore.’ Consider the difference between (1)
and (2):
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9. -He is an Englishman, therefore he is brave.
-He is an Englishman, and he is brave.
-His being brave follows from his being English.
According to Grice, a speaker has said the same with (1) as with (2). The difference is that
with (1) he implicates (3). This is a conventional implicature. It is the conventional meaning of
‘therefore,’ and not maxims of cooperation, that carry us beyond what is said. Grice's concept
of conventional implicatures (which has antecedents in Frege; see Bach 1999) is the most
controversial part of his theory of conversation for many followers, for several reasons.
According to some, its application to particular examples runs against common intuitions. By
using the word ‘therefore’ is the speaker not saying that there is some causal connection
between being brave and being English?
TYPES OF CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES
Among conversational implicatures, Grice distinguished between ‘particularized’ and
‘generalized.’ The former are the implicatures that are generated by saying something in
virtue of some particular features of the context, “cases in which there is no room for the
idea that an implicature of this sort is normally carried by saying that p.” (Grice ,1989: 37).The
above example of conversational implicature is, then, a case of particularized conversational
implicature. A generalized conversational implicature occurs where “the use of a certain
forms of words in an utterance would normally (in the absence of special circumstances)
carry such-and-such an implicature or type of implicature” (Ibid.). Grice's first example is a
sentence of the form “X is meeting a woman this evening.” Anyone who utters this sentence,
in absence of special circumstances, would be taken to implicate that the woman in question
was someone other than X's “wife, mother, sister, or perhaps even close platonic friend”
(Ibid.) Being an implicature, it could be cancelled, either implicitly, in appropriate
circumstances, or explicitly, adding some clause that implies its denial. Also , conversational
implicatures can be scalar and non-scalar. They are scalar as in using ‘some ,,compared with
<all, most, many , some , few >:
- I’m studying linguistics and I‘ve completed some of the required courses.
Tannen (1986:34-45) claims that Grice’s maxims of cooperative discourse can’t apply
to ‘‘real conversations’’ because in conversation ‘‘we wouldn’t want to simply blurt out what
we mean, because we’re judging the needs for involvement and independence’’. Tannen
assumes that Grice’s maxims are prescriptions that conversations must follow strictly in order
to be considered cooperative. Cameron demonstrates a reductive view of Grice’s use of the
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10. term ‘cooperation’ when she describes Grice’s CP as an ‘inflexible’ and ‘unproductive’
apparatus that provides yet another way for both ‘chauvinists and feminists’ to believe that
‘whereas men compete in competition, women use co-operative strategies’ (1985: 40f).
Cooper (1982), interested in applying Grice to theories of written composition, claims that
Grice advocates cooperation because what enables conversation to proceed is an underlying
assumption that we as conversants have purposes for conversing and that we recognize that
these purposes are more likely to be fulfilled if we cooperate (1982: 112).
Grice himself acknowledged the difficulty some have had interpreting his use of
‘cooperation.’ As a final chapter to his 1989 book, Grice wrote a ‘Retrospective Epilogue’ in
which he considered criticism of his theories had engendered. It has already been related that
here Grice acknowledged that his theory suffers from a perceived naı¨vete´. To combat the
criticism, Grice adds useful information about what counts as cooperative in discourse. First,
he reminds readers of the sort of utterances he seeks to elucidate: voluntary talk exchanges
that require some form of ‘‘collaboration in achieving exchange of information or the
institution of decisions.’’ And, he points out that within exchanges intended to produce
information or determine decisions, cooperation ‘‘may coexist with a high degree of reserve,
hostility, and chicanery and with a high degree of diversity in the motivations underlying
quite meager common objectives’’ (Grice, 1989: 369). In the maxims, Grice believes he has
found universal conventions that all people may regularly follow in their meaning-making talk
exchanges. In order for such a set of conventions to function, a certain degree of at least tacit
assent to those conventions is necessary. Thus, the term ‘cooperation’ is quite apt. The
crucial subtlety of Grice’s theory is this: interlocutors do not necessarily cooperate with each
other; they cooperate with a set of conventions that allows each interlocutor to produce
approximate enough meanings for communication to work. The aim for Gricean conversation
analysis – and thus the CP and the maxims – is not to advocate benevolent cooperation, but
to prove the rationality of conversation. ‘‘. . . observance *of the maxims+ promotes and their
violation *except in the case of implicature+ dispromotes conversational rationality’’ (Grice,
1989: 370).
COPERATIVE:INTERLOCUTORS OR THEIR CONTRIBUTION!
Although many have claimed Grice’s writing on the CP is ambiguous and is on occasion
inconsistent with terminology, this should not be said of Grice’s measured use of the term
‘cooperation.’ Precise readings of Grice’s writing on cooperation demonstrate that he rarely,
if ever, describes interlocutors as being cooperative. Rather, he claims that interlocutors’
contributions to conversation are cooperative. The contributions are uttered in cooperation
with a set of conventions for producing meaning. In this sense, we might think of a pair of
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11. interlocutors as each operating according to the dictates of a set of conventions (the maxims)
and thus they are ‘cooperators’: two operators of discourse operating at once.
The second major critique of the Cooperative Principle has been a topic of spirited
discussion among linguistic philosophers since Grice first proposed it. Grice himself identifies
the problem as resulting from the thought that communication is simply too ‘‘haphazard’’ to
be described accurately as having a cooperative end. Some forms of communication are not
appropriately described by the CP. Grice suggests the problem is two-fold: First, he agrees
with critics that the maxims appear less ‘‘coordinate’’ than he would prefer. The maxim of
quality appears in some ways more definitive of information than the other maxims. And, the
maxims are not independent enough: relevance has been often regarded as containing the
essence of the other maxims. Second, Grice’s selection of cooperation as the ‘‘supreme
Conversational Principle’’ underpinning the rationalizing operations of implicature remains,
to say the least, not generally accepted (1989: 371). Though in his final work he admitted
some misgivings and offered minor refinements of his maxims of cooperative discourse,
Grice, up until his death in 1988, defended his selection of the Cooperative Principle as the
‘supreme principle.’ Grice’s influence is most apparent in a branch of linguistic study that has
become known among some as Neo-Gricean pragmatics. Scholars in this field have greatly
revised Grice’s maxims of cooperative discourse in a variety of interesting ways, but they
have maintained the basic direction of Grice’s work, especially in regard to the concept of
conversational implicature.
Sperber & Wilson (1986) produced one of the most influential alternatives to Grice’s theory.
They developed a theory of relevance based on a number of assumptions about
communication:
1- Every utterance has a variety of linguistically possible interpretations, all compatible with
the decoded sentence meaning.
2. Not all these interpretations are equally accessible to the hearer (i.e. equally likely to
come to the hearer’s mind) on a given occasion.
3. Hearers are equipped with a single, very general criterion for evaluating interpretations as
they occur to them, and accepting or rejecting them as hypotheses about the speaker’s
meaning.
4. This criterion is powerful enough to exclude all but at most a single interpretation (or a
few closely similar interpretations), so that the hearer is entitled to assume that the first
hypothesis that satisfies it (if any) is the only plausible one .
Sperber and Wilson argued that all of Grice’s maxims could be replaced by a single principle
of relevance that the speaker tries to be as relevant as possible in the circumstances (1986).
Davis (2005) argues that Sperber and Wilson’s theory suffers from some of the same
problems as Grice’s, including:
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12. - overgeneralization of implicatures
- a clash with the principle of style
- a clash with the principle of politeness
ANALYSIS OF A TEXT
The selected text is The Creak, a short play by Yousif Al-An, translated into English by Dr.
Mahammed Darweesh( Mamoon House,2010) pp.23-41. The procedure adopted in analyzing
the text is the following:
1- Numerating the starting of each line. The total number of lines is 539. This short play
is of two presentations. The first presentation is either description of the context, or a
long monologue .The second one is a conversation between the only two characters,
namely , He and She. This is the part we will focus on in our analysis.
2- The text will be examined from a conversationally-organized orientation , in the sense
that a full conversation implicature will be regarded as the functional context.
3- Identifying the existent implicatures.
4- Classifying implicatures into conventional or conversational (scalar or non-scalar).
5- The selected approach is Grice‘s classification into conversational vs conventional
implicatures.
6- Reference will be shedded on their maxims.
Examples
1-He: Good morning life, good morning world…(Turns to the door) may you last long ,creak
,for as long as you are there, I am here! Go on with your music,for you are the sign of my life
and existence.
+> He expresses his loneliness to the extent he regards the door creaky sound a lovely piece
of music. A conversational implicature where Flouting the maxim of quality is so clear by
using hedges like ‘as far as ‘, and the manner maxim in using the modal ‘may’.
2- He: this is enough, it suffices to remind the muscles of life and work
+> He regards the creak of the door as the ultimate sign of action and movement in the
sense that his life is such a quiet one. A conversational implicature of the maxim of manner
is maintained by using ‘enough’ and ‘suffice’.
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13. 3-He: impossible …you…impossible!!
She: Let me at least say hello before you shout. It reminds me of your voice when you used to
rage and scream.
+> He saw her after a long period of time. Both are friends or relatives that she still had some
memories about his reaction.
A conversational implicatures of the maxim of relation. This implicatures is of two sides; in
the first line ,it is flouted by using ‘impossible’ as scalar implicature .In the second line ,this
conversational implicatures is followed without any form of violation simply by using ‘at
least’, which in turn stopped the possibility of another scalar implicatures.
4-She: My house is in a densely populated area.
He: I do not …
+> She lives in such a popular area or in a city, or many people always visit her, in
comparison of his. A conversational implicature where flouting of the maxim of quantity is
clear ,since more than one alternative is possible. He opts out this maxim since he does not
complete his statement.
5-She :I wanted to depend on myself. I am still able to be of value to people and the world,
and be delighted by their happiness. I do not want to be a small part of a whole.
He: You still philosophize as usual.
+>She has the ability to help other people and she is willingly eager to do that A
conversational implicatures that she is still productive and useful despite being in the sixties.
She still has many ambitions to be done , which are regarded as somehow difficult therefore
he described the situation as a sort of philosophy. Flouting of the maxim of quantity is clear in
the scalar implicature by ‘able to’ and ‘small’.
6-He: Do not you feel lonely sometimes?
She: Sometimes? Yes, I do and …
He: And what?
She: Aha! Am I on a social visit or to give you an account of my private life?
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14. +> He is behind something that at that age, does she feel lonely like him, or something else?
The difference is that she has friends visiting her all the time ,whereas he has nothing. A
conversational implicatures where flouting of the maxim of quantity is evident. Another
implicatures is in the last line where the maxim of relation is clear.
7-He: Let me bring you coffee first …I will be back soon.
She: still moving about like a small child.
+> She is commenting on his way of moving may be because of his age or other factors. Also ,
the verb ‘moving’ can be interpreted as behaving ,since she has spent more than one hour
without anything to be offered. A conversational implicatures with the maxim of quality.
Using ‘first’ stops the possibility of violating this maxim.
8-She: I gave up smoking three years ago…Have you forgotten?
He: I did too only a year ago.
+> Both are not smokers now. A conversational implicatures suspended the quality maxim. It
is quite easy to a speaker to suspend the implicatures (only) using the expression ‘at least’ : ‘I
did too at least a year ago’. Also ,it can be cancelled by adding further information ,often
following the expression ‘in fact’: I did too only a year ago, in fact , ten months from now.
9-She: I’ll finish some paper work and be back.
+>She intends to do part of the work. This is realized as a scalar implicature <all ,most,
many, some, few>. A conversational implicatures where flouting the quantity maxim is
clear.
10-She: whenever she writes a letter to her uncle she includes lines of verse.
+> Her granddaughter is either studying literary subjects and writing verse ,or quoting verse
without studying literary subjects , or reading poetry without writing. A conversational
implicature with flouting of the quality maxim.
11-She: To the bus. Perhaps it is repaired now and they are waiting for me….Thank you for the
coffee.
He: Thanks for the visit. Do it often….
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15. +> She has finished her visit. The reason that led he to this visit is repairing the bus. So she
lives away from him. A conversational implicature of the quality maxim where flouting is
clear in using ‘perhaps’.
12-She: They repaired the bus quickly and took whoever was nearby, leaving the others
behind?
He: What will you do?
She: I will wait for the next one.
He: When will it arrive?
She: Within an hour as well.
+> They repaired the bus and left many behind and she is one of them. Her decision is to
wait the next one. More than one conversational implicature here: the first one is related to
the flouting of the maxim of manner by using ‘whoever’ and ‘others’. The second one is
flouting the maxim of quality by using ‘within’ , and this maxim ,on the other hand is kept by
using ‘the next’.
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