Grice’s “Conversational Maxims”
A Framework to Help You Make Your Contributions Matter and Understand the Hidden “Implicatures” of Communication
Communication is not always easy. In fact, it’s quite a challenge from time to time, and we may all have experienced conflict, misunderstanding or simply a lack of clarity due to a misinterpreted message. It’s those moments when communication goes wrong or breaks down that make us think about what should have gone right. They are actually great moments to learn from. In this article want to share some personal moments of communication that went wrong. And I want to show that this often has to do with the inference and hidden meaning of language being misinterpreted. We often mean more than what is literally said.
First, let’s look at some practical examples:
The Cases
Example number 1
A few years ago I was asked to join an organization that was undergoing significant change. The digitized market developments forced the company to adapt not only in terms of product development, but also in terms of developing and maintaining a “digital mindset” within the company. I was asked to help with this. I led a team of about 30 people and, to be honest, I failed. Not only was the task a huge effort that left me lying awake at night. I was also young and new to my leadership role and I made mistakes. One of them was the way I communicated with my boss, the managing director of the company. Because the change was difficult to manage, I spent a lot of time with my team, listening to their ideas and concerns, thinking about what the strategy for the future might be. I created endless power point decks and also had many discussions with my manager. Which is still what I would deem right (except the endless ppt decks). What wasn’t right, was the amount of information I bombarded my manager with. In order to create transparency about the challenges in the company, I sent my manager e-mail after e-mail in which I structured my thoughts. The amount of information I sent him must have been overwhelming.
I violated Grice’s Conversational MAXIM OF QUANTITY: Give enough information but not too much.
Second Example
A few years ago, I was negotiating a creative service that I needed help with. The person I was thinking of had great ideas and I wanted to hire them for the job. We had a briefing call and I explained my needs. I felt this person was a perfect match for me and I was actually looking forward to collaborating. We agreed to come up with a proposal and move on from there. After that call I never heard from the person again. I followed up by email, but never received a response, including my text messages. After a while I told my colleague that this person was obviously not interested in doing the job and we booked someone else. It was only a few months later, that this person shared with me that they had dyslexia. Not only was this a great learning moment in terms of empathetic listening. It also was a great reminder of the importance of looking for evidence before we make up our minds.
This is an example that illustrates Grice’s second maxim for conversations, the MAXIM OF QUALITY: Bet truthful and base your contribution on evidence.
Third Example
Perhaps you have experienced it yourself: Endless meetings where everyone wants to share their point of view and at the end of the meeting everyone feels drained. One wonders whether what was said could have been more to the point. Effective meetings can be planned through well-prepared agendas, clear objectives, structured time slots and a moderator who ensures that what is discussed stays in line with these points. Meeting effectiveness can also be increased by a simple question, everyone can ask oneself: “Is what I am saying really relevant to the topic?” Sometimes this means holding back what I am about to say. Not always is sharing all my knowledge the appropriate thing to do. We all want to be seen in the workplace and recognized for our expertise. Because of this, it is not always easy to hold back. As we all know, sometimes it is our ego and need to feel important that gets in our way.
Grice’s MAXIM OF RELEVANCE helps us to remind ourselves: Stay relevant to the topic.
Example number 4
In a group coaching session that I facilitated one day, one of the leaders shared this: He has a hard time understanding what his supervisor expects from him. He thinks the way he communicates, is often vague. He assumes that there is some politics behind what is expected from him, and he has difficulty figuring out the real goal behind initiatives. Every time he raises the question, his manager avoids being clear and remains ambiguous in his statements.
This is an example of a violation of Grice’s fourth MAXIM OF MANNER: Be clear and perspicuous. Avoid ambiguity and obscurity.
The Theory
The four maxims that have been used to describe what went wrong in these cases were coined by Paul Grice (1913–1988). The British philosopher and linguist has devoted his research to the philosophical studies of meaning in the field of semantics and is known for his theory of “implicature”. By implicature, he means that the speaker uttering a particular word or phrase, implies more than its conventional meaning. It is important to understand the context, circumstances and suggested inferences of a word or phrase in order to create true understanding and meaning.[1] This perspective includes a distinction between the literal meaning of linguistic utterances and their communicative meaning (ie what is meant, the implicature) — which can diverge.[2]
Mistakes, he claims, “arise from inadequate attention to the nature and importance of the conditions governing conversations.”[3] Grice coined the term “Cooperative Principle”, which essentially means that people are expected to communicate cooperatively and in a helpful way. [4]
“Make your conversational contribution such as required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.”[5]
The basic idea of Grice’s cooperative principle is to view communication as cooperative action. The sender of a message must convey the message to the other person in such a way that the other person can understand the message and understand its meaning. Only then is it possible to achieve the communication goal, which thereby creates understanding and meaning. Grice believes that communication cannot take place if the participants don’t have a common interest (no matter how small).[6] He therefore sees the cooperative principle as prerequisite for achieving any communication goal.
Grice’ cooperative principle encompasses “Four Conversational Maxims”, the categories of Quantity, Quality, Relationship, and Manner. The four maxims that Grice defines are the rules that must be followed in a conversation in order for communication to be successful. This is how Grice defines the four maxims[7]:
The maxim of Quantity
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
The maxim of Quality
Try to make your contribution one that is true, specifically:
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
The maxim of Relation (or Relevance)
Make your contributions relevant.
The maxim of Manner
Be perspicuous, and specifically:
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
4. Be orderly.
Grice claims that violating these maxims leads to misunderstanding and inefficiencies. A participant in an exchange may fail to fulfill a maxim due to quiet and unostentatious violation, by “opting out” (e.g. by saying “I cannot say more; my lips are sealed”) or by flouting a maxim; that is, by blatantly fail to fulfill it.[8]
Wilson and Sperber argue, that it is due to Grice’s theory, that “a distinction between what the speaker explicitly said and what he tacitly implied or implicated…are now part of the standard machinery of pragmatic analysis” (even though they suggest further considerable modifications).[9]
In short, Grice claims that following the maxims can help craft our message so that it can be understood. He also suggests that when any of these four maxims are violated, we should be triggered to look for some hidden or implied meaning. Implied meaning in figurative expressions could reveal itself as irony, metaphor or other misleading communication. The speakers often fail to adhere to the maxims in order to convey the full extent of their real meaning to their interlocutors. Consequently, conversational implicatures arise during a conversation in which the speaker intentionally disregards one of the maxims of a conversation. Such a violation can have an implicit meaning for the recipient.[10]
Here’s an overview of the four Conversational Maxims:
How would applying these principles have helped in the four situations described?
· In case number 1, I should have avoided writing endless e-mails (By the way, the channel we use in our communication is also important). I guess the message I was really sending was that I was feeling overwhelmed. Scheduling regular meetings with my manager, for which I would have prepared brief executive summaries on the strategic challenges, followed by an in-depth discussion, would have been the appropriate way to communicate. In this way I would have followed the maxim of QUANTITY. Say enough, but not too much.
· The second case made me think a lot. If I had just called that person and asked what the hurdle was, he might have told me. I jumped to conclusions without checking the real reasons for why he didn’t reply to my e-mails. The maxim of QUALITY could have helped me to reassess the situation. And we probably would have worked on a nice creative project together as I was interested in that person’s creative abilities, not the quality of writing an email. This examples also shows how the maxim of quality applies to both interlocutors. If he had been open about his challenge to write correctly sooner, we would certainly have worked on that project together.
· The third case shows that the maxim of RELEVANCE can be followed by thoughtful preparation as well as an awareness on a very personal level. When we speak a lot in meetings, it’s often times because we want to be seen, appreciated and acknowledged for our ideas. However, thinking about the relevance of our contributions when saying something, not only increases meeting effectiveness, but also improves the quality of our daily interactions.
· Finally, the fourth case shows how ambiguity can raise many questions that can lead to uncertainty, disengagement, and sometimes even frustration. Leaders not always have all the answers or can even share them if they do. But sometimes being perspicuous can also mean saying things like “I don’t know. I cannot share right now, but will be able to do so in a few months. Here’s what I expect and why.” In this way, the maxim of MANNER can help to keep people engaged.
How can Grice’s theory help us in a very practical sense?
1. Pay attention to the “cooperative principle” in your interactions and watch for violations.
2. Use the maxims of conversations as guiding principles: Craft your message according to the four conversational maxims in order to make your expression one of quality and relevance.
3. Look for hidden meaning when conversational maxims are violated or disregarded.
[1] Grice, 1989, p. 25
[2] Röhner/ Schütz, 2016, p. 25
[3] Grice, 1989, p.24
[4] Levinson, 1983, p.100–102
[5] Grice, 1989, p. 26
[6] See Röhner/ Schütz, 2016, p. 25
[7] [7] Grice, 1989, p. 26/27
[8] Grice, 1989, p. 30
[9] Wilson/ Sperber, 1981, p. 155
[10] Grice, 1975, p. 41–58
References:
Paul Grice: Studies in the Way of Words, 1989
Stephen Levinson: Pragmatics, 1983
Deidre Wilson, Dan Sperber — Conversation and discourse, 1981
Jessica Roehner, Astrid Schütz: Psychologie der Kommunikation, 2016
Paul Grice: Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole and Morgan (Eds.). Syntax and Semantics, 1975
