Co-operation, violations and making sense

Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 899–920 www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Co-operation, violations and making sense Annabelle Mooney*,1 Centre for Language & Communication Research, Cardiff University, PO Box 94, Cardiff, CF10 3XB, Wales, UK Received 17 June 2001; received in revised form 8 August 2003; accepted 6 October 2003

Abstract This paper revisits Grice’s Co-operational Principle (CP). It argues that to take proper account of maxims, their exploitation and relevance, a recontextualizing of the CP in line with Levinson’s activity types is required. This is especially fruitful in consideration of communication which is prima facie unco-operative. Further, this paper suggests a re-thinking of the taxonomy of nonfulfillment. Detectable nonfulfillment produces only two kinds of results, exploitation of maxims and social implications to be defined below. This paper also seeks to make a distinction between successful and unsuccessful violations. # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Gricean maxims; Co-operative Principle; Conversation; Implicature; Violation; Social implication

1. Introduction Grice’s co-operative principle and his four maxims are powerful tools when dealing with discourse and texts. Grice defines the Co-operative Principle (CP) 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’’ (1989: 26). At the same time, however, it makes no claims about the good intentions of speakers (Leech and Thomas, 1990: 181). Application of the CP leads to the generation of implicature. This is easily accounted for theoretically as the difference between what is said and what is meant. Grice notes that one can distinguish ‘‘between what is said . . .and what is implicated’’ as well as ‘‘between what is part of the conventional force (or meaning) of the utterance and what is not’’ (1989: 41). * Tel.: +44 7867 982 417; +44 20 2087 4243. E-mail address: mooneya@cardiff.ac.uk (A. Mooney). 1 Annabelle Mooney is a Research Associate at Cardiff University in the Centre of Language and Communication. She has recently completed her PhD on the recruiting rhetoric of religious cults. 0378-2166/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.006

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The two principal aims of this paper are firstly to suggest a re-thinking of the CP with respect to Levinson’s ‘activity types’. This takes into account unco-operative talk. Secondly, I will explore Grice’s taxonomy of nonfulfillment suggesting a simplification based on resultant implicature. Levinson’s notion of activity types is productive in the former context as it focuses on the purpose of discourse activity when making sense of the co-operation that does occur (even though it may seem not to) in the exchange. What initially look like unco-operative communicative exchanges can in fact be viewed as cooperative if the activity type is properly understood. A brief discussion of court room discourse will be conducted to show this. Even if an activity type is uncooperative, the maxims are still productive in understanding how communication takes place and how the activity type is conducted. As regards nonfulfillment, this paper argues that it is better accounted for in terms of its resulting implicature (or lack thereof). This approach simplifies and clarifies the existing taxonomy of nonfulfillment. Understanding the CP as both a term of art and an interpretative tool paves the way for understanding nonfulfillment in a more straightforward way than is suggested by Grice’s own taxonomy.

2. Critiques of Grice’s co-operative Principle The CP has not gone uncriticised. Kroch, for example, thinks it vacuous (1972, see Horn, 1988: 130). It is easy to see how such criticisms can be levelled. The CP seems to be describing ideal, and thus unproblematic, exchanges. However this is not the case, as will be shown. Strawson notes that there are problems with the intentionality, which are central to Grice’s account of meaning (1990: 154). He observes that one of the difficulties of Grice’s overall project (not just the CP in particular) is giving a satisfactory analysis of utterer’s occasion-meaning in terms of utterer’s intention, i.e., a satisfactory account, in non-semantic terms, of what it is for someone to intend by his act to communicate a specific message to another (1990: 154). While the relationship of speaker intention to meaning is not only relevant to implicature, it is certainly a part of it. It seems to me that there does not have to be a retrieval of intention as such for the retrieval of implicature. Rather, the hearer assumes that the speaker is following the CP and maxims and the intention is reconstructed rather than retrieved.2 Intentionality cannot logically enter into interpretation of meaning if intention means that which is in the speaker’s mind. As Wimsatt and Beardsley note, the only

2

Indeed, because a retrieval of intention essentially relies on transparency of a speaker’s cognitive process, it is problematic generally as an analytic resource.

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place to find intentionality is in the text (1954), that is, in the words of the speaker. If the speaker’s intention is realised successfully, there is no need to posit an intention outside of the text; the text will suffice. But if it is not successful, there is simply no record of the intention, no way of establishing exactly what it is. Douglas (1996: 241) notes that there is a difference between intentionalism as a theory of meaning—which posits that a text’s meaning has, in some relatively determinate sense, been ‘‘fixed’’ by its author(s)—and intentionalism as a strategy for gaining meaning—which encourages the consultation and examination of extratextual sources (diaries, letters, minutes, etc.) for the purposes of ‘‘getting at’’ the meaning encoded in the text. As Douglas is talking about legislation, the consultation of extratextual sources is encouraged, if not demanded by legally ratified conventions of interpretation. In the same way, in a conversation one may draw on what one knows of a person from past encounters, knowledge of social roles and so on. However, even drawing on this information may not properly realise the speaker’s intention. (Further, consultation of extratextual sources is merely one particular way of attempting to reconstruct intention. It is, however, still textual). Consider I intend to insult someone. If they are not insulted, my intention has not been realised. There are two possibilities here in terms of retrieval of intention. It may be possible to see in my utterance a potential insult (that the particular recipient has failed to note); but it also should be possible to see how the recipient failed to notice it. That is, analysis should be able to account for both possibilities (given that the recipient is competent in the language of interaction and so forth). What matters is not my intention to insult, but whether or how an insult is present in my utterance. In the same way, it is possible that I insult someone unwittingly; without intending to. Here too, what I intended and what the recipient perceived should both be accounted for. It is acceptable to talk about intention as long as it is clear that it is a textual concept rather than an authorial one. By this I mean that we need to see ‘intention’ as something that is textually constructed rather than what the speaker actually might have. All this is not to say that speakers do not have intentions. Rather, the only way of getting at a speaker’s intention is through their words. Because ‘‘the interesting question is not whether a text contains the meanings of its author; the question is whether authorial intent exhausts the universe of textual meaning’’ (Douglas, 1990: 242; cf. Wimsatt and Beardsley, 1954).

3. Implicature One of Grice’s most important insights is the difference between what is said (the literal meaning of words) and what is meant (what is implicated) (1989: 24–5). It is this distinction which leads Grice to ‘‘introduce, as terms of art, the verb implicate and the related nouns implicature (cf. implying) and implicatum (cf. what is implied)’’ (1989: 24). Implicatures are generated from various nonfulfillments of the CP. In

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this paper, I argue that Grice’s CP needs to be properly contextualized for it to realise its full power. Grice distinguishes between ‘‘particularized conversational implicature’’ and ‘‘generalized conversational implicature’’ (1989: 37). The former are ‘‘cases in which an implicature is carried by saying that p on a particular occasion in virtue of special 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’’ (1989: 37). The latter occur ‘‘when one can say that the use of a certain form in an utterance would normally (in the absence of special circumstances) carry such and such an implicature or type of implicature’’ (1989: 37). Particularized implicature works in two possible ways because of Grice’s ‘‘special features of context’’. These features may be semantic or pragmatic. This notion of extreme context dependence suggests two levels of analysis: the micro (semantic) and the macro (pragmatic). The micro level, the immediate co-text if you like, is one that is certainly explicable in the case of individual examples. But being ‘nonce’, or oneoff implicatures, these are not predictable purely because of the potentially infinite combinations and permutations of composition that language allows (Levinson, 1995: 93; Clark, 1996: 305–340). I will return to particularized implicature in the second section. While microanalysis is essential to the analysis of particular texts, it is very difficult to deal with in a systematic way at the theoretical level, as the term ‘nonce’ itself suggests. Particularised conversational implicatures have been dealt with but are very difficult to predict except in broad kind (Levinson, 1995: 91). High context dependence, at the macro level, is more easily theorised and generalised. It provides particular schemas of analysis which allow adequate description (rather than prediction) of implicatures. Whether this kind of analysis is pragmatic or semantic is a wide ranging and long standing argument. (Wilson and Sperber, 1981: 156). Strawson, notes, however, that both the semantic and pragmatic are considerations in the development of speech act theory (1990: 153). It is not always necessary to be more precise than this. Even in the case of what appear to be unco-operational texts, it is possible to see the co-operative principle at work, as long as one remembers that ‘co-operation’ has to be understood against the background of the activity type that is being conducted (Levinson, 1979). Kasher, for example, notes ‘‘that very little conversation’’ is co-operative presumably using the normal sense of the word (Grandy, 1990: 405). It is surprising, then, that more work has not centred on the case of violation and flouting of maxims or on unco-operative exchanges generally (rather than particularly).3 Grice outlines four types of nonfulfillment, but as yet there does not seem to have been a direct attempt to answer the important questions that are implicitly raised by this taxonomy. This may be because it falls outside ‘‘linguistic analysis’’ as Kurzon notes for the also neglected perlocutionary effect (1998: 572). Perhaps it has 3

However, for an excellent account of flouting and indeed of the CP taking into account social, cognitive and contextual features see Ann Jorid Klungervik Greenall’s Towards a socio-cognitive account of flouting and flout based meaning, Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Arts, NTNU Trondheim, 2002. As this has only just come to my attention, the valuable insights have not been fully utilised here.

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simply not been considered important precisely because the effect of flouting especially is central to the understanding of conversational implicature and thus covered implicitly and generally by any work that deals with implicature. There is not only one kind of implicature, however. A finer understanding of nonfulfillment compels investigation of the types of implicature.

4. Activity types Levinson’s notion of activity types can be used to contextualise the CP, making it more powerful and perhaps additionally answering criticisms that the CP is culture specific (cf. Keenan, 1976). Activity types are goal oriented and thus may help participants and analysts to identify the linguistic ‘games’ that are being played. The particular activity type being undertaken may well contextualize the maxims but it does not dispense with them altogether. I will begin by outlining Levinson’s activity types and explaining how they can be used to contextualise the CP. How this contextualisation works specifically in relation to jokes and cross-examinations will then be explored. As will be noted, many authors in the field of nonfulfillment make mention of Levinson’s activity types, though usually in respect of particular genres. This is because it helps account for interactions which are not co-operational in a normal sense but nonetheless exploit the maxims to generate implicature. Levinson draws on Wittgenstein’s work in the area of language games (1979: 365). He defines ‘activity types’ as ‘‘any culturally recognized activity, whether or not that activity is coextensive with a period of speech or indeed whether any talk takes place at all’’ (1979: 368). Thus activity types are not merely linguistic events. The important question is ‘‘in what ways do the structural properties of an activity constrain (especially the functions of) the verbal contributions that are made towards it’’ (1979: 370). Gumperz mentions Levinson (1990: 438), but draws first on Goffman’s notion of ‘‘conversational involvement’’ (1990: 431). Gumperz’s claim is that understanding in such [conversational] events rests on two levels of inferencing: a global level where what is at issue is the overall purpose or direction of the exchange and a local level of inferencing which concentrates on sequential relationships such as what the conversational analysts call ‘adjacency pairs’ (1990: 431). It seems to me that the ‘global level’ is the proper place for activity types. The use of activity types seems to solve at least some of the problems raised by the maxims. Horn, for example, notes that linguistic communities may weight the maxims differently and that, it should not be surprising if pragmatic competence, like syntactic competence. . .turns out partially to involve knowing how to set the parameters of variation: the principles set out by Grice and others might well be universal, but

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their relative strength in a given context might well vary across languages and cultures (1988: 131). Their application may well vary in other given contexts, such as variant discourse communities and genres (Swales, 1990). Work on jokes to be discussed presently seems to rely on a particular version of what the activity type model would look like. Attardo notes that while jokes ‘violate’ the maxims, jokes are nevertheless understood (1990: 357). ‘‘Raskin (1985) suggested that joking involves a different kind of ‘communication mode,’ governed by a different set of maxims’’ (1990: 357). In fact, they are not a different set of maxims at all, rather they are maxims contextualized at a macro level by the joke genre. Attardo gives the maxims (see Raskin, 1985: 103): Quantity: Give exactly as much information as is necessary for the joke Quality: Say only what is compatible with the world of the joke Relations: Say only what is relevant to the joke Manner: tell the joke efficiently (1990: 357, my emphasis). Attardo makes clear that speakers co-operate in the telling of jokes and subvert the maxims to ‘‘achieve socially desirable effect’’ (1990: 357–8). It is not unreasonable to think that other genres may subvert the maxims to achieve other socially desirable effects. What is essential, it would seem, is that both speakers are aware of the subversion and understand this. Raskin’s alternative set of maxims that apply to the joke telling world contextualize Grice’s maxims within this activity. Levinson makes the point explicitly: ‘‘The knowledge that is required to make the appropriate inferences is clearly not provided by Grice’s maxims alone, for these are (implicitly) supposed to hold across different kinds of activity’’ (1979: 373). The goal of the activity is to tell a joke and the structural properties of joke telling (taking structural in the broadest sense) dictate what an appropriate contribution is. While what is ‘relevant in terms of the joke’ is not further elaborated by Raskin and Attardo, it does seem that they are appealing to something like an activity type of jokes. While Levinson notes that empirical work is required on activity types, he suggests that the proper area for concern is that of the goals of discourse (1979: 374).4 It seems to me that the ‘‘goals of discourse’’ in Levinson’s ‘activity types’ are more than the communication of information and include the accomplishment of non-linguistic goals, such as amusement. It should be noted that these goals may be treated separately. Attardo, for example, distinguishes between meaning and goals with his twin notions of locutionary and perlocutionary co-operation (1997). The case of cross-examinations may be somewhat clearer. While Grandy does not explicitly mention Levinson, he does make use of Gumperz’s example5 of a crossexamination. Grandy writes that co-operation ‘‘with the interlocutor may be a 4

This seems to lead to a consideration of perlocutionary effect, which, as noted, has been rather neglected in the area of investigation into speech act theory. Though recent work in the area is excellent. See for example Kurzon (1998) and Gu (1993). 5 Though this may initially have been Levinson’s example, it is an obvious case for illustration purposes.

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superficial one imposed by an attempt at coordination with a third party’’ (1990: 406) or rather with a purpose that one is not free to negotiate. In the case of a crossexamination, the parties have directly contrary interests as ‘‘any gain by one is a loss by the other’’ (Grandy, 1990: 406). However, they are constrained to carry on an interchange with a reasonable degree of co-operation and civility because each wishes to persuade the non-participating audience (jurors or listeners) of the correctness of their views and to do so requires at least some degree of co-operation in the conversation. Blatant failure to answer a question or striking the other participant with a chair is usually disastrous to achieving the persuasion of the audience that is desired (1990: 406) The point is that the activity type that is a cross-examination tells participants what is and what is not required and allowed. It is also embedded in the conventions of the courtroom. Gumperz writes, ‘‘We know that the underlying goal of courtroom interrogation is to establish the facts of the case of the benefit of the judge and jury’’ (1990: 432). Gumperz understands co-operation as occurring at the ‘‘level of illocutionary force’’ (1990: 434) or conceivably, depending upon activity type, also at the level of perlocutionary force. Using activity types forces the analyst to reconsider the goals of discourse activities. When considering the CP in conjunction with this, new understandings about the purpose of particular kinds of talk may be revealed. The benefit of adopting the activity type in conjunction with the CP is clear. It contextualizes the maxims and allows a clearer and more relevant construal of contributions. While it is not predictive in a detailed way, it certainly serves to make Gricean analysis more powerful and explicable. Contextualising the CP with the aid of activity types can’t be predictive until the activity type itself is understood. Until one knows the ‘‘structural properties of an activity’’ one cannot understand the way in which these properties ‘‘constrain. . .the verbal contributions that are made’’ (Levinson, 1979: 370). It seems to me that the structural properties of a discourse interaction can sometimes only be observed after the activity is completed. While the participants may well have an understanding of the goals (and therefore structures) of the interaction as it is occurring, for the bystander analyst, this understanding (in the minds of the speakers) may not become clear until completion of the interaction. In the case of conversations, for example, Houtkoop-Steenstra remarks, ‘‘A conversation is not determined by structural provisions only, but also by what conversationalists do with them’’ (2000: 19). Part of what conversationalists routinely do is fail to fulfil Grice’s maxims. In the following I will re-consider Grice’s taxonomy of nonfulfillment and suggest that far from being unco-operative, nonfulfillment generates two kinds of implicature.

5. Nonfulfillment Maxims help to understand interactions not only when followed, but also when they are not. Grice notes that a participant may ‘‘fail to fulfil a maxim in various

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ways’’ (Grice, 1975: 49). Indeed, the various ways in which the speakers might not fulfil the maxims can give rise to different kinds of implicatures. Even if only because it has not been considered in detail before, it is worth being clear about what exactly constitutes flouting, opting out and so on in relation to Grice’s maxims. He writes, A participant in a talk exchange may fail to fulfil a maxim in various ways, which include the following: 1. He may quietly and unostentatiously VIOLATE a maxim; if so, in some cases he will be liable to mislead. 2. He may OPT OUT from the operation both of the maxim and of the CP; he may say, indicate or allow it to become plain that he is unwilling to co-operate in the way the maxim requires. He may say, for example, I cannot say more; my lips are sealed. 3. He may be faced by a CLASH: he may be unable, for example, to fulfil the first maxim of Quantity (Be as informative as is required) without violating the second maxim of Quality (Have adequate evidence for what you say). 4. He may FLOUT a maxim: that is, he may BLATANTLY fail to fulfil it. On the assumption that the speaker is able to fulfil the maxim and to do so without violating another maxim (because of a clash), is not opting out, and is not, in the view of the blatancy of his performance, trying to mislead, the hearer is faced with a minor problem: How can his saying what he did say be reconciled with the supposition that he is observing the overall CP? This situation is one that characteristically gives rise to conversational implicature; and when a conversational implicature is generated in this way, I shall say that a maxim is being EXPLOITED (1989: 49) Dealing with this taxonomy raises a number of important issues. I begin by proposing schematically a new taxonomy of nonfulfillment. How flouting, infringement and suspension, opting out and clashes fit into this will then be discussed. Finally, I deal with the concept of violations, especially the distinction between successful and unsuccessful violations. As has been mentioned, there has not been a great deal of work along these lines mapped out by Grice. The most systematic response is Jenny Thomas’s (1995). But her work does not completely reproduce Grice’s categories. While Thomas notes that ‘flouts’ cause the listener to look for implicature, she seems to use the term (‘flout’) generally, applying it to all kinds of nonfulfillment. This is not necessarily problematic, except in the special case of violation mentioned below. Attention will be paid to this distinction presently. Thomas notes that Grice’s terminology is not used consistently with ‘violation’ being used for all subtypes (Thomas, 1995: 72; cf. Attardo, 1997: 755). This is perhaps a consequence of the fact that most of the nonfulfillments do lead to implicature. Like Grice, Thomas examines the maxims and how they might be individually nonfulfilled (1995: 69–72) but unlike Grice she also gives examples of the categories of nonfulfillment (1995: 72–8).

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Wilson and Sperber (2000) also briefly mention Grice’s taxonomy. However, they pay attention to the way in which particular maxims, notably quality, are flouted, rather than considering the taxonomy itself. It is worth revisiting Grice’s taxonomy as it is possible to simplify it by distinguishing between only two types of meaningful nonfulfillment. The first is that which produces a conversational implicature and can therefore be said to exploit the maxims, the other is that which produces what will be called social implication. Conversational implicatures can recuperate seemingly inappropriate conversational contributions. By this I mean that they are the implicatures that one provides to make a contributor’s contribution clear, true and so on, or if not, why not. The presence of conversational implicatures can thus be said to exploit the particular background knowledge of the maxims in a particular conversation. Indeed, Grice notes that we have to presume that the speakers are ‘‘observing the conversational maxims’’ (1989: 30). Further, the speaker should be able to expect this presumption on the part of the hearer (1989: 31). If implicature results, the maxim can be said to have been exploited. While this may be thought only to apply to the flout (as Grice only mentions exploiting in relation to flouting in the initial presentation of nonfulfillment; 1989: 30), his text that follows certainly makes clear that clashes (1989: 33) also result in implicature (and thus exploit maxims). I shall argue that other kinds of nonfulfillment also exploit the maxims. It would seem that there are other kinds of effects of nonfulfillment. In particular, a nonfulfillment can tell us something about the speaker, rather than about the contribution they want to make. This will be explored later. I call these effects ‘social implications’ as they arise exactly from how something is said, including the context in which something is said, but are not part of the message as normally understood. It is important to identify social implications as they can occur when the maxims are met and when they are not. For example, within certain relationships. humour and figurative language may be possible choices for speakers. Choosing from among available options has certain implications, that is, social implications. These implications seem also to rely on (and in turn generate) ‘‘other items of background knowledge’’ (Grice, 1989: 31). Table 1 represents the various approaches to taxonomies of nonfulfillment. I will deal first with flouts and introduce the concept of social implication. I will then address infringement and suspensions, opting out and clashes. Finally, I turn to violations.

6. Flout The case of flouting is an illustration of exactly why the CP and the subordinate maxims are useful. Flouting of maxims explains how a hearer can recuperate a seemingly inappropriate response by adding, as it were, a conversational implicature to the mix. In terms of this nonfulfillment taxonomy, the flout is not problematic. It is worth spending some time on figurative language. Indeed, the particular kinds of implicature that are generated by the use of figurative language deserve special

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Table 1 The various approaches to taxonomies of nonfulfillment Grice

Wilson and Sperber

Thomas

New System

Violation

Overt violation

Violation

Not relevant

(Unsuccessful violation) Opting out

Social implication Overt suspension

Opting out

Exploiting (opting out at maxim level) Social implication (opting out at CP level)

Clash

Exploiting (lack of knowledge) Social implication (capabilities)

Flout

Covert violation (flouting)

Flout

Exploiting and possible social

Suspension

Social implication

Infringement

Social implication.

attention. In short, it seems that the meaning that is conveyed by irony and metaphor, for example, cannot be conveyed in other ways (thus suggesting that conversational implicature is at work). In the case of metaphor, Garver writes, ‘‘the thesis of reduction [of metaphor to simile] is in practice indistinguishable from the thesis of denial [of metaphor]’’ (1986: 84). Thus, a metaphor is not, for example, just an elliptical simile. A metaphor does not mean what its simile counterpart does. The choice of figurative language carries with it particular consequences. If, for example, a Lecturer was to say to a bright student (who already knew his/her marks), ‘‘it’s quite obvious from your marks that you don’t have a clue what you’re doing’’, he means, ‘your marks show you have nothing to worry about’. The choice of irony in this situation has two implicatures. The first is that the Lecturer wishes to convey that s/he has a high level of confidence in the student, more importantly, a level of confidence that cannot be otherwise expressed. I will come back to this presently. Secondly, the use of irony signals that the relationship between the two interlocutors is such that it can sustain irony. It seems clear, for example, that irony would not be used with a student one did not know very well. Further, one has to at least suspect (especially in a relationship such as this) that the student (or colleague, or friend etc.) would be receptive to the mode of communication (in the sense of recognising and managing the flout). One would tend not to use irony with those one knew to be struggling with English, for example, or those one knew to be particularly literally minded. Cohen makes a similar argument in the case of metaphor (1979). The decision to use metaphor involves three steps.

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(1) the speaker issues a kind of concealed invitation; (2) the hearer expends a special effort to accept the invitation; and (3) this transaction constitutes the acknowledgement of a community. All three are involved in any communication, but in ordinary literal discourse their involvement is so pervasive and routine that they go unremarked. The use of metaphor throws them into relief, and there is a point to that (1979: 6). The point of using metaphor, Cohen argues, is the cultivation of intimacy. While the three steps that Cohen outlines are ‘‘involved in any communication’’ the kind of community that is acknowledged by the use of metaphor (and indeed irony) is one that is local, private and particular. They are particularised implicatures (Grice, 1989: 37). Indeed, there seems to be a perlocutionary effect at work here. That Cohen notes that there is a ‘transaction’ between the producer and receiver of metaphor dovetails nicely with Gu’s understanding of perlocutionary acts as transactional (1993). 6.1. Social implications It seems to me that when speaking figuratively, the overall transactional import of an utterance cannot be conveyed in any other way that does not channel those very same transactional values. Certainly the effect is not the same, as has been examined. How exactly the figurative choice differs from its ‘literal’ counterpart (if one can put it like that) seems to differ from case to case. This is perhaps to be expected from particularised implicature. In the case of the Lecturer speaking to the bright student given above, the difference between ‘you don’t have a clue what you’re doing’ and ‘you have nothing to worry about’ seems to be an intensification of some kind. The figurative choice (in this case irony) does involve speech play. Ferrara notes that ‘‘serious messages are often communicated in speech play’’, that communicating ‘‘obliquely is less threatening’’ (1990: 116). The use of figurative language in commendation of the student appears to be about lessening embarrassment and cultivating confidence in the student. It appears to follow from this that the very mode of communication is also something we may want to pay attention to. It is this that social implication captures. Social implication tells us something about the relationship between interlocutors. This relationship is important as different kinds of relationships support different ways of being co-operative. For any given situation there may be a number of ways of contribution to an exchange that is in line with the CP. How the CP is followed can tell us more than merely that it has been followed. It is necessary to be more specific about what this means. Generation of implicatures presuppose that the CP is being observed—at some level at least (Grice, 1989: 30). It also requires that the information required to work out the implicature ‘‘be available to both participants and both participants know or assume this to be the case’’ (Grice, 1989: 31). Part of this information may be due to prior interactions between the participants. The same sharing of information is necessary for social implications.

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Suppose a husband and wife went to Paris for their honeymoon many years ago. It is the only time they’ve been there and is a memorable and treasured experience. The couple many years later take a trip to the Italian countryside. After some time there the wife asks her husband, ‘What do you think?’, the husband replies ‘Paris’. On the surface the husband appears to be unco-operative. Certainly an outsider would not be able to see similarities to Paris city and the Italian countryside or why he answered in this way. The wife, however, can easily work out her husband’s meaning. Had he said, ‘It reminds me of when we went on honeymoon’ or, ‘It’s like being young again’ or something of that kind, we would have a simple case of implicature. The husband’s meaning would be available even to those who had only just met the couple; his meaning being that he likes the Italian countryside very much (assuming that honeymoons and youth are good things). By answering ‘Paris’ the husband invokes background information only available to himself and his wife. His wife will certainly work out his implicature (that he likes the Italian countryside) but will also see the significance of his response in terms of social implication. That his answer can only be understood by those in the know about the Paris honeymoon serves to intensify his praise of Italy. Furthermore, in answering in this way, the husband also foregrounds his relationship with his wife in a positive (and intimate) way. The husband has followed the CP here in a way that only his wife can understand. His wife will also realise this exclusivity. In this case, the CP is followed in a way that only these intimates can understand. This makes it, for them, an intimate exchange in itself. This intimacy does not arise from the topics of honeymoons, Italy and Paris but from the way in which the topics and the CP are dealt with. Social implications can exist where there is not implicature. Thus social implications can accompany an exploitation (as in the example with the husband, wife and honeymoon) or it can be the only result from nonfulfillment (as discussed presently).

7. Infringement and suspensions Infringement is apparently due to imperfect command of language and presumably has only social implications because of this. Thomas notes that this could be due to being unfamiliar with the language (as with a language learner or child), because of being drunk, nervous, excited or just being unable to speak ‘‘to the point’’ (1995: 74). Some cases would be the following. Someone learning English as a second language English speaker: Would you like ham or salad on your sandwich? Non-English speaker: Yes. At this point, the questioner would be likely to re-phrase, emphasising the disjunctive ‘or’. Significant in terms of infringement is that the answer tells us little more than that there has not been comprehension. This is a case of social implication in the absence of implicature.

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Children are also prone to infringements. Interestingly, large collections of children’s infringements are contributed by readers in women’s magazines and publications like Reader’s Digest. The sixth-grade music class I was teaching had just started when one student asked, ‘‘Are we going to sing with musical accompaniment today or Acapulco?’’6 The infringement tells us only about the child’s familiarity with a specific vocabulary. Suspension appears to be a form of opting out, but one that is conditioned by cultural or communal norms (Thomas, 1995: 76–77). Thus it too results in social implication in so far as it signals a conformance to these norms, as opposed to implicature arising from nonfulfillment of the maxims. Thomas’ examples include the way in which British actors refer to ‘The Scottish Play’ instead of Macbeth as the latter is thought to be bad luck (1995: 77). Indeed, suspensions can be conventional in particular cultures and subcultures. The social implications arising from such suspensions can express affiliation to a group, as suspending the right maxims at the right times demonstrates knowledge of cultural codes (and thus is a performance of cultural literacy). It is not clear, however, whether (sub)cultural suspensions may more efficiently be dealt with under the context of activity types above.

8. Opting out Opting out is due to an unwillingness to co-operate (Grice, 1989: 30; Thomas, 1995: 74). The speaker ‘‘may say, indicate or allow it to become plain that he is unwilling to co-operate in the way the maxim requires’’ (Grice 1989: 30). I want to argue here that the clash generates implicature because the addressee will know, and indeed the speaker intends to reveal in some way, that s/he is opting out of a maxim. The indication of opting out, however, may not be linguistically explicit. It may be conveyed with a wink, or tone of voice. In any case, the addressee will see the opting out as intentional as opposed to careless. Some implicature may be gained from this; that the speaker is keeping a confidence for example. It is worth revisiting Grice’s criteria for implicature to make this plain. The hearer will rely on: (1) ‘‘the conventional meaning of the words used’’ as well as any references involved; (2) the CP and the maxims; (3) ‘‘the context, linguistic or otherwise, or the utterance; (4) other items of background knowledge; and (5) the fact (or supposed fact) that all relevant items falling under the previous headings are available to both participants and both participants assume this to be the case’’ (1989: 31). (3) allows the ‘making plain’ of the opting out to be other than linguistic. That the opting out is made apparent in some way satisfies (5). In Grice’s example, the opting out is flagged, ‘‘I cannot say more, my lips are sealed’’, and the implicature is that the speaker is keeping a confidence.

6

Reader Debbie M. Watts’ contribution to ‘‘Short Takes’’. Reader’s Digest website, www.rd.com.

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Further, it seems to me that Grice’s example about a Professor (A) writing a testimonial for a student is actually a case of opting out. A is writing a testimonial about a pupil who is a candidate for a philosophy job, and his letter reads as follows: ‘‘Dear Sir, Mr. X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Yours, etc. ’’ (1989: 33) Grice writes, ‘‘A cannot be opting out, since if he wished to be unco-operative, why write at all?’’ (1989: 33). However, in Grice’s own terms, opting out does not require opting out of the CP altogether (although it may do so); opting out from one of the maxims is enough. ‘‘He may opt out from the operation of both the maxim and of the Cooperative Principle’’ (1989: 30). This may signal a need for two levels of opting out; at the level of the maxim and additionally at the level of the CP. In any case, the example given for opting out (‘‘I cannot say more; my lips are sealed’’, 1989: 30) does not appear to opt out of the CP altogether. Indeed, ‘‘if he wished to be uncooperative’’ and presumably this means opting out of the CP altogether, ‘‘why [speak] at all?’’ (1989: 33). If the CP is opted out of altogether, one would have a social implication. It is not always easy to know if this has happened however. Consider Professor A and his testimonial in this sense. Grice suggests that to opt out of the CP altogether would mean not speaking at all. However, if there is going to be any implicature or implication from this, how does a potential recipient know that this complete opting out has occurred? Should Professor A not reply to the request at all, one may first assume that the request had not been received. In the same way, but with rather a quicker resolution, if on response to a question a person present (X) does not reply, the questioner would likely assume that the question had not been heard (or not heard as directed towards X). Should X continue to remain silent, the social implication resulting would be something like rudeness. As the use of implicature here may seem contentious, it is worth revisiting Grice’s ‘‘general pattern for the working out of a conversational implicature’’ (1989: 31). He has said that p; there is no reason to suppose that he is not observing the maxims, or at least the Co-operative Principle; he could not be doing this unless he thought that q; he knows (and knows that I know that he knows) that I can see that the supposition that he thinks that q is required; he has done nothing to stop me thinking that q; he intends me to think, or is at least willing to allow me to think, that q; and so he has implicated that q (1989: 31). If we take the case of the testimonial, we know that the Professor is not opting out of the entire CP as if this was the case no letter would have been written at all. So while s/he has made clear that an opting out from the maxim of quantity has occurred, at the same time the implicature is that the student is not a good candidate.

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9. Clash Grice defines the clash as the demands of one maxim infringing another. Grice notes (1989: 33) that a clash generates implicature. It is worth examining the kinds of implicature that clashes generate. A clash may result from an imperfectly informed or equipped speaker trying to co-operate (Grice, 1989: 32-3). A clash arises from the imperfectly informed speaker. This would generate implicature (relating to the speaker’s knowledge). If A asks B where a grocery store is and B replies, ‘somewhere around the corner’, A will conclude that B does not know exactly where the grocery store is. It is worth noting that there is a difference between choosing not to be cooperative with respect to a maxim and being unable to co-operate. Choosing not to be co-operative (opting out) generates different kinds of implicature from being unable to be co-operative (clash). If we take the example of A writing the student’s testimonial again, it is possible to construe the short offering as an example of a clash. The implicatures then differ. In the case of opting out, the implicature is that the student is not a suitable candidate. In the case of the clash, the implicature is that the Professor simply does not know enough about the student to comment. In the latter case one would expect this to be flagged in some way by the Professor. If one is unable to co-operate because of lack of language proficiency, this would appear to be an infringement generating social implication. If A asks C where the grocery store is and C replies ‘to the left’ while gesturing with his/her right hand, A may assume that while C knows where the store is, C is unable to express this information because of language limitations. Such a situation is resolvable should one choose to trust hand signals rather than terms of direction. The social implication, however, remains.

10. Violation Grice only identifies one category of violation. It seems to me, however, that from the reception perspective, a further kind of violation needs to be identified. In this section I will distinguish between successful and unsuccessful violations. I will also distinguish between successful violations and humour. I make this distinction in order to note that from successful violations there will be no implicature (as will be discussed) and that from unsuccessful violations there will be. It is worth noting that one cannot always logically eliminate the possibility of a successful violation. Indeed, Coleman and Kay in their exploration of the concept of ‘lie’ (a kind of violation) in relation to their research data comment, . . .we have no safeguards to eliminate the possibility that some subjects were giving intentionally misleading answers, though we have no reason to imagine they were (1981: 40, my emphasis).

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10.1. Successful violations Authentic examples of successful violations are difficult to find, as Thomas notes (1995: 73). If the implications of this are explored, it is difficult to consider the successful violation a matter for linguistic enquiry at all. Doubtless, successful violations occur and should be mentioned in a taxonomy of contributions in respect of the CP. But after its identification, at a theoretic level, it is almost impossible to move any further. Grice himself is not clear about what may constitute a ‘violation’ apart from asserting that it is possible to do, ‘‘quietly and unostentatiously’’, and may result in misleading someone. Thus there is a space for the successful violation—one that is so quiet and unostentatious that it is not noted and that is extremely likely to mislead. While the successful violation can be dealt with, theoretically that is all that can occur (cf. Wirth, 1979: 62). Why this is the case, and why successful violations have little bearing on the understanding of humour and figurative language, will be examined shortly. This is done to clarify the category of successful violation and also in order to make some remarks about humour and figurative language. If a violation is successful, that is, if it is completely quiet and unostentatious, the hearer will not detect the violation. Even though the speaker may intend to and indeed violate the maxim, the other interlocutor will simply not know (see Castelfranchi and Poggi, 1994). The semantics of ‘lie’ (to return to this kind of violation) demands an intentional misrepresentation; there is an ‘‘anti-communicative goal’’ (Castelfranchi and Poggi, 1994: 286). The semantics of ‘lie’ point to a pragmatic point; if the violation is not detected, it is successful. Successful violations other than straightforward violations of quality (lies) do exist and deserve attention. Successful violations can also be implicated; in such cases the implicature generated will be false. In terms of which maxim is finally violated (rather than exploited), this will always be the maxim of quality. Another maxim can be flouted, however, in giving rise to the false implicature. Straightforward violations of other maxims when possible seem better placed in other categories of nonfulfillment. The violations of maxims apart from quality are unsuccessful in as far as they can be detected. This does not mean that the resultant violation of quality will not be successful. The maxim of quantity can be violated by saying too much or by saying too little. In the case of saying too much, the speaker will generate a social implication of the kind outlined above in infringement. The speaker who says too much will be thought: (a) not to be able to speak to the point; (b) to lack appropriate knowledge about what the other participants know; or (c) to be patronising. There may be other social implications that arise from this. In the case of saying too little, the audience will think that the speaker knows only this much (flout) or is being unco-operative at the level of the maxim (opting out) or cannot say more (clash). Successful violations of quantity which say too little would likely be termed ‘lies of omission’. In the case of relation, it is difficult to see how this maxim can be itself successfully violated (undetected). It is easily violated in a detectable way and likewise may result

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in a successful violation of quality. What the speaker implicates through a violation of relation may itself be false. In the case of manner too, it is difficult to see that it can be successfully violated. Should a speaker be ambiguous, for example, this would appear to be a case of a clash, infringement or a flout. In the case of detecting successful violations, we need more than the maxims (as they can be quietly violated) and are perhaps pressed to invoke such notions as trustworthiness of the speaker, general plausibility of their position and coherence of their ‘story’ over time. This is not supposed to be an exhaustive list. I mean merely to suggest that if a successful violation is to be detected, the maxims will not aid in this. Fraser notes, ‘‘where the speaker intends the hearer to accept the false information as true. . .the speaker’s intention to mislead is necessarily covert: you cannot expect to mislead the hearer by explaining that’’ (1994: 145). Indeed, Grice notes the existence of these other maxims, and this may go some way in alleviating the problem. He notes, however, that these ‘‘other maxims’’ (aesthetic, social or moral in character), such as ‘‘be polite’’ generate ‘nonconventional implicatures’ (1989: 28). Yet even with the help of these ‘‘other maxims’’ it is not clear that successful violations will be detected. Nothing, apart from information which is exactly not available, will uncover these violations. In short, the violation cannot be recuperated analytically as it simply cannot be detected with information available. 10.2. Successful violations vs. humour The successful violation differs from humour. Successful violations also differ from the flouting involved in irony, metaphor and other figurative language because in these cases of flouting, the speaker can reasonably expect the other person to take up the figurative interpretation. There is no such invitation or expected uptake of the successful violation; indeed, quite the opposite. ‘Successful violations’ cannot be detected. If humour cannot be detected it has failed. I shall not attempt to deal with humour completely here (see for example Attardo, 2001). I merely wish to point out that while humour may belong under the category of violation, it cannot belong under the category of successful violation. Given that a successful violation is completely quiet and unostentatious, and humour is (one would expect) intended to be understood and appreciated, humour cannot be completely quiet and unostentatious (and thus cannot be a successful violation). Attardo maintains that ‘‘a consensus has been built within humour research that humorous texts violate one or several of the maxims’’ (1993: 528). If humour belongs anywhere in the taxonomy of nonfulfillment it undoubtedly is in violation (of the non-successful kind). If this is the case, it is not clear why Raskin (1985: 103) offers his alternative set of maxims for jokes. It seems to me that the notion of activity types (implicit in Raskin’s joke maxims) solves the problem of how to account for jokes in relation to the CP. However, for the moment, it is sufficient to note that humour cannot be a successful violation and that social implication at least follows (as it is a non-successful violation). One can imagine cases in which humour and irony are not expected to be detected by a participant in talk. In such cases, the violation is for the benefit of either the

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speaker’s own amusement or for the amusement of others in the talk (and ‘in the know’). Here there is an intention to mislead, or at least poke fun at the participant who can be reasonably expected not to be able to detect the violation. In the case of humour the maxims are contextualised by the type of communicative activity taking place, that is, joke telling.7 There can be no ‘error recovery’ in the case of successful violations because there is no indication that a violation has occurred. To put it another way, while jokes, irony and humour can be detected at second brush, successful lies cannot. It does not matter how many times one examines the production of a successful lie. Without new information or subsequent encounters, there is nothing in the production of a successful lie that reveals the lie. This does not mean that it is not possible to find out that one has, for example, been lied to. The ‘success’ of successful lies refers to the fact that the violation is seamless. It is necessary, then, to distinguish a first reading of a joke, in which the reader notices the violation of Grice’s maxims, and a second reading, in which the reader, having switched to the non-bona-fide mode of humor, reinterprets the text as a joke. . .(Attardo, 1990: 357). Successful violations cannot be reinterpreted. It is perhaps worth noting that jokes can also fail. When one does not expect humour in a particular communicative context, either because one ‘knows’ the speaker as humourless or because humour is inappropriate and so on, one may well be uncertain that humour was intended. It is conceivable that a joke will fail if it is taken ‘literally’; in a sense a failed joke is a successful violation or at least a social gaffe. In the latter case, the failed joke would be an unsuccessful (detected) violation probably of relevance or manner (with resultant social implication). 10.3. Unsuccessful violations In the case of unsuccessful violations, I suggest that there are not implicatures but only social implications (as has been discussed above). For example, the case of a violation of quantity in which the speaker says too little, communicates something about the speaker’s personality (shyness), state of knowledge (that is, very little) or general willingness to help. In the case of a violation of the entire CP (which may be better expressed as opting out of the CP altogether, as discussed above), again only social implications are available. In such a case, the violation would indicate general unwillingness to be co-operative (or extremely limited linguistic capabilities). In the case of a detected lie, we find out something about the speaker and even perhaps about their intentions (why they chose to mislead, for example; certainly we might want to speculate about this). Attardo notes that in the case of doubting the ‘‘CP compliance of the speaker’’ communication is invalidated, ‘‘since the only safe inference from M [what the speaker said] is that the speaker said M’’ (1993: 540). 7

This, of course, explains why intention is not useful analytically. One can intend to mislead, and thus violate a maxim. But there is no way of retrieving this intention.

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Further, he notes that ‘‘In reality even when one knows that one is being lied to one still tries to extract as much information as possible from the situation’’ (1993: 541, n. 2).8 Moreover, when one knows one is being lied to, one knows that the speaker is a liar, at least in that particular instance. Reasonably, this would impact on all other interpretations of other contributions by that speaker. We see the problems with violations in the choice of texts that Thomas makes to illustrate the concept. The first example is far from perfect as it is not a successful violation at all levels, as will be discussed. The second example is not a successful violation either, as will also be discussed. Example [1] Alice has been refusing to make love to her husband. At first he attributes this to post-natal depression, but then he starts to think she may be having an affair. ‘Allie, I’ve got to ask you this.’ He stopped ‘Ask me then–‘ ‘Will you give me a truthful answer? However much you think it’ll hurt me?’ Alice’s voice had a little quaver. ‘I promise.’ Martin came back to his chair and put his hands on its back and looked at her. ‘Is there another man?’ Alice raised her chin and looked at him squarely. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There isn’t another man.’ And then Martin gave a long, escaping sigh, and grinned at her and said he thought they had better finish the champagne, didn’t she? Example [2] An English athlete, Diane Modahl, the defending Commonwealth Games 800 metres champion, pulled out of her opening race and returned to England. Caroline Searle, press office for the England team, said: ‘She has a family bereavement; her grandmother has died.’ The next day it was announced that Ms Modahl had been sent home following a positive test for drugs. What Ms Searle had said was true. . . The second violation is only detected, or rather revealed, because of subsequent information. It is a lie uncovered, that is, rendered unsuccessful. The same may be true of the example from the novel, in so far as the husband does not have access to knowledge that the reader does or will have.9 In this case, the violation is successful 8

This is the case not only in lies, but also in the case of an ill-equipped speaker. In the case of C giving directions above, saying ‘left’ but gesturing right, one would still try and piece together the location of the grocery store (especially if there were no other people around to ask). This, however, is a case of infringement. 9 Having not read the novel, I don ‘t know whether the reader would know or not.

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with respect to the husband but not the reader. In this example it is only possible to detect the violation because of textual clues; clues we only pick up on if we know how to read novels (cf. Culler, 1981). Indeed, the relationship between reader and writer would seem to preclude successful violations at this level. If, for example, we are reading a detective novel and the case is solved at the end through the use of a piece of information which has not been given to the reader, one may well feel cheated. The genre is set up so that it is logically possible for the reader to solve the problem. The information may not be foregrounded as important to the solution, but it will nonetheless be present. Indeed, most interesting about the first example is that it is actually a flouting of quantity. Alice need only have replied ‘no’ to her husband’s question. To reply ‘There isn’t another man’ potentially signals that there is another something else; not a man. On the other hand, this information could be construed by the husband as being emphatic, given that this is a denial of a suspicion. It is possible also to read this example as violating the maxim of quantity in so far as Alice should have provided more information; or indeed less, there was no need to mention ‘‘another man’’ specifically. But as we have seen, there is no indication that the husband detected or could detect the violation. It is significant that successful violations do not generate implications. The maxims and the CP appear to be intact. On the surface, violations look no different from other statements.

11. Conclusion As Levinson stressed, the important thing about activity types is the goal that informs them. It seems to me that the concept of activity type goes hand in hand with the notion of discourse communities. The epistemic stance of a group will necessarily entail the activity types that the group performs. It may be possible to extrapolate the discourse community from the texts of a particular community especially if some contextual information about the community is brought to bear on the situation. Thus, the notion of activity type can be informed textually, and then, with the help of appropriately contextualised maxims (according to the activity type model) can be fed back into the text for a more cogent analysis. This, then, involves working at the macro level in a highly context dependent manner. Making a distinction in nonfulfillment between exploitation (resulting in implicature) and social implication certainly simplifies the existing taxonomy of nonfulfillments. Further, it makes clear that information is generated whether the CP is followed or not. This brings the analytic purpose of the CP into clear focus. The difference between various types of nonfulfillment is not that implicature does not result (except in the case of successful violations). The difference is in the kinds of implicature that result. Further, the addition of social implication realises theoretically for the CP what the application of activity types also takes into account; that communication is about more than simply transferring information. The goals that one may have are multiple; the ways in which these goals might be realise are also

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various. Activity types and social implications aid in the description of these various goals and various realisations.

Acknowledgements Much thanks to the extremely useful comments given by reviewers to earlier drafts of this paper.

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