Chapter Four: Pragmatic

Principles
 PRINCIPLES
Elements of understanding
Prerequisites to understanding
Proposal for description (Reuland, 1979)
In Chomskyan grammatical writing, principled
usually is a mere synonyms for reasoned or
simply justified
Going all the way from elementary knowledge to
high-level, theoretical and metatheoretical
speculation
 METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES FOR
LINGUISTICS
1. Simplicity
A theory/ principle should be as simple as possible
2. Non-contradiction
A theory/ principle should be self-consistent (i.e. free
from contradiction)
3. Exhaustive
Property of description or grammar, etc, that covers all
the relevance data.

Therefore, a good principle is an internally consistent,

exhaustive and simple calculus providing a descriptive
procedure for the analysis of texts
Ranking These principles are
Non Conditions for a sound
description of a
- language, and should
not be confused with the
con rules of description

trad themselves.

icti
on
Exhaustive

Simplicity
 RULES

Rules of
Grammar
language

Therefore, the rules are

the grammar
 Continue
The rules of the grammar contains all the
information needed to establish the entire set
of correct sentences of a language
This shows that language is rule-generated
Rule-generated = well-formed sentences
 THE COMMUNICATIVE PRINCIPLE
People talk with the intention to
communicate something to somebody
It is the hidden condition for all human
pragmatic activity.
No matter how one may try, one cannot not
communicate (Watzlawick, 1967)
Speakers often mean more than they say
(Leech,1983)
 Gazdars Terminology
(adapted from Levinson, 1983)
Avoids giving our interlocutors either an over-
or an under-dose of information.
A strength scale of expressions ranging from
stronger to weaker:-
All, most, many, some, few, none.
E.g. :Many implies that all cannot be used
 CONTINUE
When communicating, speakers try to be
understood correctly by the listeners
Therefore, avoid giving false impressions.
No matter how logically correct and true ones
speech is, if it confuses or misleads the hearer,
then the utterance will not have its proper
effect.
Therefore, Communicative Principle defined
as
I want to communicate,
What I do communicate depends on what I
can communicate (speakers circumstances),
What I must communicate (interlocutors
expectation
 PAUL HERBERT GRICE

Proposed cooperative principle (1975)

 THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES
Definition:
The underlying assumption is that
communication requires cooperation
between speakers and people spoken.
also known as maxims of conversation
 COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE (CP)
(Grice, 1975, 1989) GRICE MAXIMS

Quantity Quality
Maxims
Relevanc Manner
e
 MAXIMS OF QUANTITY
Make your contribution as informative as
required
Do not make your contribution more
informative than required

Say neither more nor less than the discourse required

 MAXIMS OF QUALITY

Do not say what you believe to be false

Do not say that for which you lack

adequate evidence

Do not lie & make unsupported claims

 MAXIMS OF RELEVANCE

Be relevant
 MAXIMS OF MANNER
Be perspicuous and specifically
Avoid obscurity
Avoid ambiguity
be brief
be orderly
DOSTOYEVSKI AND RUBBER BALL
Wheres my ball? Why dont you look behind
Volume 6 of Dostoyevskis
Collected Works?

SARA, 6 years old

Owner
Living room filled with books and
bookshelves
 CONTINUE
The communication between Sara and
owner violates the maxim of manner:-
Information is not perspicuous
Against the maxim of quantity
Too much information
Too little information
 COOPERATION AND FACE
Two views that clash CP
1. One is that of cooperative behavior as a kind
of abstract, philosophical rationality; the
notion of cooperation reduces to what is
minimally necessary to explain peoples
actual use of language
2. The second view raises Problems of moral
philosophy and practical ethics
 Cooperation and face
Face : A persons public self image

Face a threat to another

individual expectation
threatening regarding self image
act (FTA)

Lessen the possible

Face saving threat
act (STA)

Yule (1996)
 Example
Situation:
A late night scene, a young neighbour is playing his
music very loud and older couple are trying to sleep

Him : Im going to tell him to stop that awful

noise right now! (FTA)
Her : perhaps you could just ask him if he is going
to stop soon because its getting a bit late and
people need to get to sleep (SFA)
 COOPERATION AND FLOUTING
Flouting means that the speaker implies a
different function from the literal meaning of
the words used.

Example
A Well, how do I look?
B Your shoes are nice
 COOPERATION AND FLOUTING

Three important areas of problems

occur between cooperating human
(1) (3)
(2)
Cooperation- Certain forms of
Significant
taken as social (including
differences in
general, language)
cooperative
inviolable and behaviour are
behaviour
disputable preferred
 Flouting maxim by use of not accepted
meaning to the hearer
There are two bad men in the world. The Russian

white man and the American white man.

bad uttered as a compliment in American Black

English

Non black audience could not expected to know this

 Lead the addressee to look for a convert,
implied meaning
Doorman: I need to see your ID, its the rule.
Inger : But I left it back at the hotel.
Doorman: sorry maam, then I cant let you in.
Inger : But Im twenty-nine and the mother of
four
Doorman: Yes, and Im the popes grandfather and
have six kids
 VIOLATION
Reason 1: If someone deceive the listener

Example:

Interviewer : What is the military budget?

President: Could you keep a secret?
Interviewer : Yes
President : So, I can keep a secret too!
 VIOLATION
Reason 1: If someone doesnt want to
respond

Example:

Mary : You really love me?

John : I like to watch movies and
playing badminton
 POLITENESS
Showing awareness of another persons
public self-image
Politeness is also defined as the concern
for someones face

(Yule, 1996)
 LEECHS POLITENESS PRINCIPLE
Leech defines politeness as a type of
behaviour that allows the participants to
engage in a social interaction in an
atmosphere of relative harmony.
 Continue
Some illocutions are inherently impolite and
others are inherently polite (Leech, 1983)
Impolite illocution: orders
Polite illocution: offers
Politeness is as an abstract quality
considering the individual expressions , lexical
items or morphemes
 THIS VIEW IS WRONG IN TWO COUNTS:

1. The social position of the speakers may

indicate different politeness values for
individual cases.
o Social hierarchy
2. Politeness depends on the positive or
negative effects it has on the person who is
given the order.
 MITIGATION
This principle of politeness tells us to
minimise the effects of impolite statements
or expression (negative politeness)
Also, it tells us to maximise the politeness of
polite illocutions (positive politeness)
 EXAMPLE:
Your son eats the beautiful icing of your
husbands birthday cake before the party.
What you will say:-
Negative politeness
You have eaten the icing off the cake.
(the child would have been insulted, especially if the accusation is not
true)

Positive politeness
Someones eaten the icing off the cake
(Although it is not as informative or relevant or violate the maxims of
quantity/ relation, this expression obeys Politeness Principle)
 POLITENESS MAXIMS (1985)
Leech lists six maxims:-
tact, generosity, approbation, modesty,
agreement, and sympathy.
These maxims vary from culture to culture:
what may be considered polite in one culture
may be strange or downright rude in another.
 THE TACT MAXIM
'Minimize the expression of beliefs which
imply cost to other; maximize the expression
of beliefs which imply benefit to other.'

1. Could I interrupt you for a second?

(Politeness strategy of minimising the imposition)
2. If I could just clarify this then.
(reflects the positive politeness strategy of attending
to the hearer's interests, wants, and needs)
 THE GENEROSITY MAXIM
'Minimize the expression of beliefs that
express or imply benefit to self; maximize the
expression of beliefs that express or imply cost
to self.

1. You relax and let me do the dishes.

2. You must come and have dinner with us.
(The maxim of generosity focuses on the speaker, and says
that others should be put first instead of the self.)
 THE APPROBATION MAXIM
'Minimize the expression of beliefs which
express dispraise of other; maximize the
expression of beliefs which express approval
of other.
1. I heard you singing at the karaoke last night. It sounded like you were
enjoying yourself!
2. Gideon, I know you're a genius - would you know how to solve this math
problem here?
(It is preferred to praise others ,
The first part of the maxim avoids disagreement; the second part intends
to make other people feel good by showing solidarity.)
 THE MODESTY MAXIM
'Minimize the expression of praise of self;
maximize the expression of dispraise of self.

Oh, I'm so stupid - I didn't make a note of

our lecture! Did you?
 THE AGREEMENT MAXIM
'Minimize the expression of disagreement
between self and other; maximize the
expression of agreement between self and
other.'
A: I don't want my daughter to do this, I want her to do that.
B: Yes, but ma'am, I thought we resolved this already on your
last visit.
(It is simply observed that they are much more direct in
expressing agreement, rather than disagreement: 'seek
agreement' and 'avoid disagreement,')
 THE SYMPATHY MAXIM
Minimize antipathy between self and other;
maximize sympathy between self and other.
This includes a small group of speech acts such as
congratulation, commiseration, and expressing
condolence
All of which is in accordance with Brown and
Levinson's positive politeness strategy of attending to
the hearer's interests, wants, and needs.

I am sorry to hear about your father.

 HORNS TWO PRINCIPLES
Focuses on a central problem in a
conversational cooperation
some utterances on a certain reading have a
clear an unambiguous meaning while other
interpretation require a special effort on the
part of the listener
 Example 1

I cut a finger yesterday

(Horn 1984:15)

Normal reading the cut finger is mine

Some stretch of imagination a finger belongs to
someone else
 HORNS TWO PRINCIPLE

Q- Q for quantity
say as much as we
principle can

R R for relation
Say no more than
Principle we must
 Example 2
Im meeting a woman tonight

Steven : Wilfred is meeting a woman

for dinner tonight
Susan : Does his wife know about
it?
Steven : OF COURSE she does. The
woman he is meeting IS his wife
 RELEVANCE AND CONSPICUITY
According to Sperber and Wilson, pragmatics needs
only ONE principle - Relevance
The principle of relevance is much more explicit
than Grices co-operative principle and maxims
(Sperber & Wilson, 1986)
The principle argues that the
"hearer/reader/audience will search for meaning in
any given communication situation and having found
meaning that fits their expectation of relevance, will
stop processing."
 COGNITION AND RELEVANCE
Humans tend to pay attention to the most
relevant phenomena available
They tend to construct the most relevant possible
representations of these phenomena, and to
process them in a context that maximises their
relevance.
Relevance, and the maximisation of relevance, is
the key to human cognition
To communicate, it is necessary to be relevant.
 Continue
For relevance theory, in accordance with the
Communication Principle, achieving
successful communication by the way of the
relevance of what is being said is a successful
aim in conversation or other verbal
interaction.
 Continue
Communicators do not follow the principle
of relevance; and they could not violate it
even if they wanted to. The principle of
relevance applies without exceptions.
(Sperber & Wilson,1986)
People are ready for something that will make
sense (is relevant), and will build the
understanding.
 Continue
If the utterance that we are hearing or
reading is accessible as part of our mutually
recognised, and common cognitive
environment, it shows that the utterance is
relevant
In contrast, we are not equally ready for
something that would not be easily accessible
because it does not belong to our common
cognitive environment.
 HOW TO CHARACTERISED A SUCCESSFUL
COMMUNICATION?
The successful communicator is one who
makes his or her intention to convey
information, to persuade, to make believe;
manifest to both himself or herself and the
partners.

The realisation that a trustworthy communicator

intends to make you believe something is an
excellent reason for believing it
(Sperber & Wilson,1986)