Transcription
Good morning, everyone. This is problem number 12. All today, I'm going to talk about conversational implicatures, or what's familiarly known as implicature theory. This theory was put forward by Paul Grice back in 1975. He wrote a very influential article titled "Logic and Conversation." The article shed some attention; there has been a lot of material that deals with the insides but expanded on that article. Paul Grice himself was a language philosopher, and he wanted to base human communication on reasoning. He wanted to capture what's going on in indirectness in human communication, and he came to the conclusion that human communication or indirectness in human communication is, in fact, based on our ability to reason, on reasoning, or every to read between the lines. And that's what he calls conversational implicatures. So, conversation and the features are the messages read between the lines. The theory cited the cooperative principle as an umbrella kind of principle which simply states that people cooperate with each other when they engage in communication. So, human communication is based on cooperation; the speaker and the hearer cooperate. So they are not there to make life difficult for each other, but rather to engage in communication that can be pulled easily.
This cooperative principle subsumes four main maxims. They are called—they are called maxims of conversation or conversational maxims: the maxim of quality, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of manner, and the maxim of relation or relevance. Grice wants to show us that when we engage in communication, we cooperate with each other, and by cooperating—cooperating with each other mainly—we either observe these maxims of conversation when we usually convey our messages directly, or we flout one or more of these maxims of conversation in order to deliver a message indirectly rather than directly, by way of conversational implicature. But when flouting a maxim, conversation cooperation is there. This means that the speaker, for one reason or another, decides to deliver a message indirectly rather than directly by flouting, let's say, the quality maxim. When doing that, he went with the assumption that the interlocutor can cope with this flout, can get to the indirect message. So the assumption is that cooperation is there. Flouting a maxim of conversation is done for a communicative purpose; for what we may say in Arabic, say, "infini yaahu"—there is something suppressed, and this something is communicated by way of conversational implicature.
How do we observe and how do we flout maxims of foolishness? When it comes to the quality maxim, we uphold the maxim of conversation when we commit ourselves to the truth of what we're saying. But we—when we produce an utterance, we commit ourselves to the truth of what's said in that utterance, at least linguistic truth. For example, when I say, "John is a genius," and I mean it, when I'm committing myself to the truth of the proposition I am expressing, and in fact, there isn't much to write home about here, why? Because I'm speaking the truth, both linguistically and underlyingly. But in some cases, I may say, "John is a genius," when everyone around knows that John is an idiot. Let's say, "Look, you're the genius coming around," when all the people there know that John is an idiot. So they start laughing. What's happening here? I'm flouting the maxim on quality, why? Because I'm not speaking the truth. But notice that here, not speaking the truth cannot be equated with lying. I'm not speaking the linguistic truth, but I'm committed to the underlying truth—first, on the line through here, that John is an idiot, and the people around—the people there—can get the message; they figure out the message, and they start laughing—from everyone except for poor John, who does not get the message associated, or he may and start laughing with them; you never know. I only show irony here. This is a paradigm example of flouting the maxim of quality, simply because you say something but you mean the opposite of what you're saying. Someone spends a compliment on your new trousers at the coffee shop, and you can't even say, "Oh, you are making my day"—you mean it, you don't; you're just conveying the message back. What has happened is a terrible act, but you are not saying this directly; rather, you are conveying the message indirectly. So the individual would not respond by saying, "You're welcome," rather he is supposed to apologize: "I'm sorry, I didn't need… I don't know how to explain this," things like that, but not responding by saying, "Thank you," or "Your most… good things like that," because this would—would betray the message being communicated. Irony is okay.
What helps metaphors? To create a metaphor, we often use language creatively by coming up with our own creative metaphors. For example, we refer to love as a fever. We are discussing love with financing, and, "Ooh, love is a fever," there must be some message behind what you are said. Do you mean that love is changeable? You mean that love is poor? There must be some message, and you assume that based on what's going on, based on cooperation, and what's going on, you can get the message. So all creative metaphors—when we create metaphors, we flout the maxim of quality. Why? We are not speaking the truth. When you say, "Yes, face is an apple pie," "Allah will move," they must be okay; there must be some message behind what you're saying. Or, "John is a chimney"—or, "moving chimney." What do you mean by that? There must be some message, okay? So it all depends on the assumption that the preacher can figure out an area of cognitive correspondence between what you're saying and what's going on, and—as but a creative metaphor is, at the end of the day, okay, you are a—you're drawing a comparison based on the out of the ordinary rather than the ordinary. The ordinates—you are talking about something that is familiar, for example, and if you are using friend pneumatic expressions which are part of—[Music]—the language, you are not flouting the maxim of quality. Why is that? Because you want expression, despite the fact that they are figurative or with a particular nature; they are part of the language; they have conventional meanings. But when, instead of saying that John is a heavy smoker, you say, "John is a moving chimney," "George is a moving chimney"—here is a creative madam. You are using language creatively here, and you are flouting the maxim of quality. So your conversational implicature here is that John is a heavy smoker. If you say that—if you say that John is a heavy smoker, then you're applying the maxim of quality, but if instead you come up with a metaphor to describe that he's a heavy smoker, then in that case you are flouting the maxim of quality. Hyperbolas, exaggerations—when you—an exaggerated statement—you tell someone that, "I called you 100 times, but you did not respond." Did you call him 100 times, or did you count, because you did not? So here again, here's a matter of flouting the maxim of quality, all right, to indicate that you called him many times. Rhetorical questions—as used by politicians mainly—which do not require answers, why? Because the answers have already been given. The contrast with general questions—general questions observe the maximum quality. When you ask a general question, you don't know something; you ask about it, then you are observing the maxim of quality; you are speaking the truth, the deep part, because there is an information gap. Okay, for example, "Did Jane go shopping last night?" You don't know that whether she went shopping or not, so this is a general question, and it observes the maximum quality, but after—at the end of a lecture, for example, if a speaker says, "Can we quit after all what I have said?" and the answer is obviously no, so this is a rhetorical question, and it does not require an answer. In other words, the speaker here flouts the maxim of quality.
So the maxim of quality has to do with speaking the truth, but notice that here we are talking about two types of truth: the linguistic truth and underlying truth. In both cases—when observing the maximum quality and when flouting the maximum policy—the speaker is committed to the underlying truth, but when flouting the maximum quality, the speaker is not committed to the linguistic—to the democracy. So when said directly that something is nice, when the speaker means that it is terrible or disastrous, this does not speak the linguistic truth, but it does speak underlying truth, why? Because the speaker is committed to the underlying—to the error than the linguistic truth. Example: someone who's done something bad to you—"Our new generation, that's very nice of you," all right, you don't mean it; you mean the opposite. So you're not committed to the linguistic truth to what you're saying, but you are committed to down the line for that—this is kind of terrible. The second maxim of conversation, the maxim of quantity, has to do with the amount of information used, the amount of language used. One is supposed to use the right amount of language and his advantage, no more, no less—that's when he is observing the maxim of quantity. If the person—or if the speaker—is over-informative or under-informative for some communicative purpose, for some reason, then he's said to be flouting the maxim of quantity. Okay, flouting the maximum quantity is quite familiar in the passage of communication. For example, you are asked about—all right, you—how do you think of your students' 10 papers, and you respond by saying, "I like a folder"—would that be a good answer for the student, or would the student appreciate this kind of answer? A smarter student would not, all right? Why? Because at the quality, the 10 papers are not based on how good or honest the folder is. So here is a matter of being uninformative—it's our signal telling the student that his 10 papers are not good enough, what—telling him that you like the folder, and he's supposed to figure out the machine that we don't like his or her temp. Uninformative—sometimes we are all informative. You are—you're asked about something, and you give more information than is required, but you do this for a communicative purpose—you want to deliver some indirect message by way of conversation in response to the question, "How many A's did you get?" and the answer is, "I got two A's." Here, the interpreter is observing the maxim of quantity, why? Because this standard need implicates that figure two is no more, no less. But assuming that instead of saying, "I got two A's," he responds by saying, "I got only two A's"—only—the addition "only" here would give rise to a conversational implicature. But he was supposed to do better, lost them, didn't do well, lost them, and this is done by flouting the maxim of quantity, by being over-informative. I mean, the example of being over-informative as the use of tautologies—tautology means repeating the same item from the own—tautology can be reduced to the formula X is X. When you say that X is X, but in fact you mean X is Y, so here you are—oh, you are over-informed, but you are doing this for a communicative field. "A husband is a husband"—10x a moment—"A husband is a husband," addressing either the husband or the wife, and this would give different conversational implicatures depending on the situation. Are you talking about the obligations of the husband? Why? For the negations of the wife toward their husband or toward their children? Oh, what have you? Are you like this, such…not that conversational implicatures are context-based. You have to consult the context in order to get the composition and procedure—in order to figure out the compositional implicature. So, "A husband is a husband," and she's saying, "A husband is responsible for his wife," all right? If I say this, a hundred right, her husband is financially responsible for his one, okay, obvious like this, right? This is simply okay, observes the maxim of quantity. But if instead you opt for a total addict expression, "A husband is a husband," but you implicate the same thing, all right? So you're doing here the same job, but by way of conversational implicature. "Business is business," so in different situations can conversationally implicate different things. This is a simple hard work, so you're not there to sit—are you? Business does not involve connections, so forget the fact that I'm your aunt; business involves noble mercy, so you can't blame me for hitting another businessman so hard. All these can be conversational implicatures of the tautology, an expression, "Business is business." So when it comes to the quantity maxim, it's really a matter of either being under-informative or all informative, or writing the right—or using the right amount of land when you are observing, so—and it has to do with being either under-informative or over-informative, but you opt for that for communicative tips in order to convey a conversational implicature, or in order to convey a message by way of conversational—and we get to see it—or to say it more properly—the next maxim of conversation is the maxim of manner, and this relates to the way something is said; that's why it's called the maximum manner, and in fact, there are many sub-maxims of this maxim. Be perspicuous, or be clear—this is one sub-maxim. Be orderly—another sub-maxim. Be brief, and I mean avoid ambiguity; don't be ambiguous; don't use ambiguous advances. Okay, that is when someone is observing the maxim of manner. For example, when it comes to being orderly, okay, usually when we communicate with each other and when we observe the maxim of manner, we follow the natural order of things. You go to the shop and buy sugar for you, and you don't buy sugar and go to the shop. You go to college and get a degree; you don't get a degree then go to college. This is the natural order of things. If you change this natural order for some reason, then there must be some message being communicated from conversational conflictive, and this may happen in the literature, for example. Our familiar example has to do with getting married and then having children—so one first marries then has children, not the other way round—or getting married then be pregnant. But assuming that someone asks you about Jane—"I haven't heard of Jane recently; any news about her?"—"Oh, she gets pregnant and married"—a word from poor Awad, all right? So Awad is managed a woman who's already pregnant, okay? So this—this compositionally implicates that game is very illegal child. This is a conversational implicature; it's not said directly. But adverts often flout the maxim of manner in order to attract attention, in order to get more customers, why? Because when the customer likes the advert, improbably, or either buys the community or goes into the restaurant or something like that. An interesting example is an advert used by Pizza Hut; it reads, "Seven days without pizza makes one week." And notice that this advert drinks want to skim at the times can attend the food schema. We clear that the wordplay on we—we time—we expect this is all right; this is a clouding of the maxim of manner, and this is done in order to attract customers, attract people. Taboo stuff often involves planting of the maximum matter, alright? When you say something that means two things, usually one is a straightforward interpretation, and the other is a taboo cannibal message. All such examples involved planting the maxim of manner. When you spell out—spell out words instead of seeing them in the ordinary way in front of children, you don't want a child to hear a taboo word, so you spell it out. This escapes the child, and you get the message across, don't you? The ice cream example in the literature is a familiar one: a couple long shopping with their little boy; the husband suggests buying something for the boy, and the wife responds by saying, "I D—I see easy R—E—I am"—that's alright; we buy him—and buy him—and okay, so she did not say "ice cream," because if she said "ice cream," probably the little boy would insist on having an ice cream; that's why she spelled it out in order for it to escape the child, so they could buy an apple or anything else for him. Again, what's being plotted here is the maxim of manner. So the maxim of manner can be mounted by pot—by being not clear or not perspicuous, by being not briefed, by being not orderly, by being ambiguous anywhere fees can flout the maxim of manner in order to convey a message for we are conversational implicature.
The last maxim of conversation is the maxim of relation—what the ice called the relation action—but this is more familiarly known as the relevance maxim, which has to do with being credible. If you are observing the maxim of relation or being readable, if you flout it, then you must be flouting it for a communicative purpose. Would be crazy for me, for example, to start talking about the price of tomatoes at this juncture. Would you appreciate that? This is crazy, why? Because this is not relevant to what I'm doing. So we make sure that when we engage in communication, we are readable; we observe the maximum relevant; we can also flout it, but when we flout it, with a sour laughing on cooperation, the assumption that the interrogator can figure out why I am doing that and behaves accordingly. For example, if I ask you about what's happening in Syria—"What do you think of what's happening in Syria?"—and you think this is a sensitive issue, respond by saying, "No, let's know how copy at the cafeteria, or the weather is nice for this time of year, isn't it?" Then that questioner would get the message that you don't want to talk about what's happening in Syria. You're doing this for communicative pills; you are flouting the maxim of relevance or all relation in order to convey the message that you don't want to talk about what's happening then see. Or assuming that—okay, this can be thing happens quite often when people come together and they start gossiping about someone, and assuming that that someone—or a friend—oh, this—your hair appears on the scene all of a sudden, they start telling on him and chained was one of them, changes the subject, and others give them a say that, okay, the spot to know something about X, Y because a friend of his has appeared at the scene, and they get tuned to the new topic. This—alright, changing the topic here is a flouting of the maxim of relevance, but this is done for a comparative term; you want X's friend to hear what bad things they say about his or her friend. So the maximum relation has to do with whether someone is relevant or not. If you are relevant, then you're observing the maxim of conversation straightforwardly, but if you flout it, you are still—you are relevant, but you are relevant in your own way; you are conveying the message or delivering the message by way of conversational implicature.
So, as you can see here, we have two key concepts in this theory: observing a maxim of conversation and flouting a maxim of conversation, and both options are based on the cooperative principle, the CP—the fact that interactions cooperate with each other when they engage in communication. Most people, in fact, stop there when they talk about conversation in pictures; they talk about observing conversation maxim and flouting a composition matter. But grass impact talks about four options—screw that—these are them, to keep options and human connection, but he mentioned two other possibilities: when someone infringes a maxim of conversation and when someone violates a maxim of conversation. Infringing a maxim of conversation has to do basically with the maxim of manner, and that's when something—producing an utterance is produced that has more than one meaning or that has a conversational implicature—has a double meaning—conversational implicature—but the intended creature—or but sorry, but the speaker is not aware of that. Have you ever said something and people start laughing, but you don't know why they laugh? I guess all of us may have experienced that—probably must have experienced—that's because what you have said carries two meanings, but you are only aware of one; you are not flouting here. If you are aware of both, then you are—what—flouting the maximum manner, but if you are not aware of the conversational implicature, then they are infringing the maxim of manner; the speaker is not aware of the composition and fixture, but the educator can figure out there is a—again, there is a very interesting example cited in the literature about a British MP on a live show. He was defending the rights of immigrants in the UK, and in the heat of his defense, he said, "Look, guys, last week I had two Indians for lunch." The audience were stuffed laughing, but he didn't know why they were laughing. He was so angry when they told him that his utterance could carry two meanings that he slaughtered—is not only invited two Indians to lunch but also his—water to Indians and Indian at lunch. He didn't like that, but what he said, in fact, carried two meanings; that's why—okay—laughter was generated on the part of the audience, but he was not aware of the conversational implicature; he just meant one thing—that he invited two Indians to much rather than his Luthor two Indians and had them for lunch. If we look around, we find lots of examples of infringing the maximum, and especially when it comes to entering oral communication, simply because language competence may not be there. If, for example, there is a joke about an hour coming here of policemen and London driver, he was diving a music, "Can I back here, share? Can I walk you?" and the policeman, "Oh, sure, this is a free country; you can park anywhere," I ended up meeting—I think it fills us mark this is Park, okay? If—if someone wants to create trouble for the speaker, you would ruin that Gray Pierce's prey, okay? This is basically a matter of language confidence. If we look at International Science posted in English, we find lots of examples of infringing the maximum manner. I'll give you just a couple of examples, one—all right—at a zoo in Europe, a sign was put on that reads, "If you have food for the animals, give it to the guard," and people going to the zoo would laugh when they print that sign, why? Because you're—this design infringes the maximum manner, simply because has a double meaning—could mean either leave the food with the guard or feed it to the guard. Another example, and we'll design a reception desk with you reading, "If you have values, leave them at this desk," I wonder—all right—very nice to be able to revalue that desk, so one could function freely in his room, all right? You know that what's meant is not values, but rather valuables. Again, this is a case of infringing the maxim of manner; the writer of that fine was not aware of that; it can't imagine that you were—he or she was a weird, didn't mean it, but that's the way it came out anyway. The fourth option—violation—is very late and a maximum conversation, and here we are specifically talking about the maxim of quantity when some information is held without being untruthful. So here we cannot assume that cooperation is fully adhered to; there is an element of delusion, or there is an element of deception. This involves cases where the conversational implicature is truthful—sorry, let me say it right—okay—cases where the utterance is truthful; in other words, the speaker is truthful, but the conversational implicature of the utterance is not valid, and this may happen sometimes, all right? There are many examples in the literature aside only one of them, then I'll give you my own examples. One example refers to a man sitting on a bench at the park with a dog lying beside him. Another man came by and sat on the same bench, vadoma wanted to break the ice and start from poor sequences; he asked him—that the man sitting there—"Does your dog bite?" and the man responded, "No, it doesn't." The next village, that dog bit the man; he turned to see—"You told me that you do—does not match."—"Oh yeah, my dog doesn't bite; that's not my dog; my dog is at home, and it's a nice one; it doesn't buy." Okay, this involves not—no, it doesn't; his answer, "No, it doesn't," compositionally implicates that that dog is—and in ozma fight, but the conversational implicature is not borne out, why? Because he was referring to his dog at home rather than the dog lying beside you. Another example I often give in my classes, one relating to college life where the buses are, for example, you are a Fisher; you go to where the buses are; you want to go to someplace safe, let's say I want to go to Sweden, and you come near a man standing and the door of one of the buses, and you ask him, "Which bus goes to Sweden?" and he responds by saying, "It's the C bus," then you walk away looking for the C bus, but later on you discovered that that man was standing in the door of a C bus. What's that? What he said was truthful; Stacey boss is truthful, but the conversational implicatures…
It gives rise to is not valid. This converted or at health and France conversational implicates that that bus is not a C bus, but it turned out that it was. So this involves violating the maxim of quantity. This means that the man did not give the whole story. He was supposed to say “Is the C bus this?” but did not say that. He just said “Is the CMAS?” which means that, or which conversation because that it was not a C bus, okay. This so violating the maxim of quantity involves not giving the whole story, withholding some information, which results in deluding. Gonna tell the kicker. I think that’s enough.
And so far as these four possibilities in this theory: observing a maxim of conversation, flouting a maxim of conversation, infringing a maxim of conversation, and violating a maxim of conversation, the differences between them are supposed to be clear, and I think I have made them clean—made the difference between them clearly. But let me repeat the difference very briefly. Observing a maxim of conversation simply involves—involves committing yourself to the truth of what you’re saying, intended linguistic truth, but using the right amount of language in terms of quantity, in terms of manner. You don’t flout any of the maxims. Your purpose is perspicuous or clear, brief, unambiguous, orderly. Infringing a maxim is formalization and both in flouting. Imagine convenient both or are displaced them full cooperation and the speaker or than the speaker and Aunt Ella Peter are aware of what’s going on in terms of conversation that picture and infringing a maxim conversation is only the entity Peter who’s aware what’s going on in terms of composition, yeah, but not the speaker. In violating a maxim of conversation, there is an element of deception, despite the fact that the utterance or the speaker’s utterance is truthful, but the conversational implicature is—is not valid. That’s why there is an element of delusion or an element of deception.
Before ending this lecture, let me say that according to many theories, the maxim of relevance is more important than the three—four maxims. In fact, there is a theory by the name relevance theory, which reduces the form actions of conversation to one main principle, that is the principle of relevance. And this is done by Sperber and Wilson in the early 80’s. Stood at the film back on crisis theory, but instead of talking about form actions of conversation, they only talk about one principle, that is the principle of relevance. So according to relevance theory, there’s only one principle, and this principle is a matter of degree. Or so relevance is a matter of degree. This simply means that instead of talking about flouting a maxim of quality, for example, what we’re supposed to invoke here is just the rack or the principle of relevance. So when you say that John is a genius when everyone knows that you wanna say it is you are being relevant. You are relevant, why? Because the other is based on the contextual factors, based on context, the others figure out the machine that you mean that John is an idiot. So relevance here or what you say is interpreted in terms of optimal relevance. Optimal relevance. When you pull out options, for example, that little action is ruled out immediately, why? Because everyone there knows that John is an idiot, and that’s why the option is for the second interpretation that John is an idiot rather than John is a genius. Optimal relevance is a key concept in this theory. This theory has to do with interpreting intentions in terms of business, and relevance is a matter of degree. The amount of information suppressed in our addresses will engage in communication peers from one to another. Sometimes the suppressed information is so small and can be figured quite readily. This impractical, this reflects the fact that human communication is entertainment or underspecified. There is always something suppressed. One can even cite the use of referring expressions: “John came and asked him for you this morning.” John could be crazy for me to refuse an appealing expression like John if you have no idea who John is. So then there are something suckers and say “John, whom I know that you know, came in asking for you this morning.” Okay, do I say this? I don’t do this, but this is lingering in the background. So our communication, general speaking, is underspecified. Human communication is underspecified. That’s why, but there is always something completely indirectly, and the fact that we hope with the same directness and the recognition is based on our ability to interpret things in terms of optimal relevance, not that the more suppressed information there is, the more processing is required. So there is an inverse candle relationship between the amount of or the degree of processing and the amount of indirect material for suppressed material. So one can assume that I can plug things. For example, if we look at this in terms of relevance, are less relevant than observations. They are less relevant insofar as the degree of relevance is concerned, not and so far as whether something is relevant or not, because according to this reductionist approach, whatever we produce in the course of communication is delivered higher the degree of relevance, the less time we spend in processing the atoms, and the lower the degree of awareness, the more talent exerted to process an utterance. Here relevance is a matter of degree. If the degree of relevance is too low, which may happen sometimes if you say something, but what you have said is over the head of your and predict you’ll enter look hitter, the addressed does not get the message, whether for some reason or another. It could be because all right you are conveying a message indirectly. It could be because you are using terminology that is not immediately. Whatever the case is, so the degree of relevance is to know. When the degree of relevance is too low, according to various theory and explicator is called the interpreter would inquire about what the speaker means by others saying, “What do you mean by that? Could you repeat what you have said? I can’t get it. You’re talking over my head many times. Yeah, could you explain what you’re upset? This is too difficult to interpret for me. Could you explain it?” Okay, this is quite possible, all right. When there is a breakdown in communication, this means and the dictator is not getting the message, and according to this theory, an explication is called for. The visitor would ask for an explanation and thus what’s called explicator and this here. So this theory, as you can see, is reductionistic in nature, seduction stick because it reduces all the maximun of conversation to one main principle, the principle of randomness. So a small psychologically based which one is better? I personally, okay, prefer crisis TV recently because it is more detailed and it helps specific insights in human conversation, but relevance theory is also interesting, but its detection stick. All right, one all right, one would just assume that whatever is said is relevant and it has to do with whether the and read the literature can process and advance for now because whatever one change in combination is supposed to be reversed, the reverse of the reversal or the degree of arrows varies from one branch to another, and we cope with this when something unpredictable happens. There is a breakdown of communication then Alex Fisher is involved. Okay, thank you very much. I hope that you will flout these maxims in your conversation. This because this would make your communication more interesting. Indirectness is an important feature of human communication where often or many times indirect in order to avoid many unpleasant things. And thanks for guys and the beautiful superior Aleutian who have given us very interesting insights on the nature of human communication. Thank you very much, and goodbye.