Today’s Linguistics talked about the most interesting thing! I think you’d be interested in learning the names of these norms and how different they hit our neurodivergent brain.
If I went over two pages, I’ll tell you the rest during our hangout today hahaha
Herbert Paul Grice, a philosopher of language, proposed that interpersonal interactions are governed by "implicit norms" that people unconsciously follow and assume others will also adhere to. Grice termed this set of implicit norms the "cooperative principle." And can be further divided into four maxims: the Maxim of Quantity, the Maxim of Quality, the Maxim of Relevance, and the Maxim of Manner.
Maxim of Quantity dictates that one should provide the maximum amount of information required for the conversation based on the current context. No more, no less.
If A has five cats in total and B asks, "How many cats do you have?" according to the Maxim of Quantity, A should respond, "Five." If A instead answers, "Three," the response is technically not incorrect, since A does indeed have three cats. But if B later finds out that A actually has five, B may suspect A of lying or deliberately withholding information. The reason A’s response of "three" creates this impression because the implicit norm in communication dictates that one should provide the maximum amount of relevant information needed.
On the other hand, if A answers, "I have five cats, and I also have three dogs, six guinea pigs, and my sister has three cats. My neighbor has two huskies. My mom also loves animals; she’ll be turning 65 this year, decided to retire, and closed the restaurant my grandmother passed down to her..." this response would be overwhelming. The amount of information far exceeds what is necessary for B’s question.
The Maxim of Quality refers to the expectation that participants in a conversation provide truthful information and avoid knowingly sharing falsehoods or unverified claims. This does not mean that everyone will always be perfectly honest, but generally, people tend to follow this principle and assume that others do as well. As a result, most individuals value the truthfulness of their own statements (at the very least, they avoid providing blatantly incorrect information).
Unless one already knows that the other person has a habit of lying hahaha. There is usually no reason to constantly doubt the credibility of what they say.
The Maxim of Relevance states that responses in a conversation should be relevant to the preceding topic. If A asks, "What time is it now?" and B responds, "The garbage truck just left," this reply can be understood as "The garbage truck leaves around 6 PM every day, so the current time should be slightly past 6 PM." The assumption is that B’s resp is relevant to A’s ques.
Like how you asked Kate, "Has Jose started dating anyone new recently?" and she responded, "She’s been going to the gym almost every day lately."
Based on the Maxim of Relevance that we didn’t know we were doing, we knew Kate’s response as implying that Jose is frequently visiting the gym, possibly because she met someone there. However, if Kate later says, "I was just making a random comment. I have no idea if Jose is dating anyone," this would likely result in some frustration or a slap in the back of the head from us.
The last maxim, the Maxim of Manner, refers to the expectation that speech should be clear, concise, well-organized, and unambiguous to avoid misunderstandings. e.g.
A: "Are you busy with anything important right now?"125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ00YLRXnhUd
B: "Not really, nothing much."125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGJaP2OpWDP
A: "There’s something I want to tell you. It’s really difficult for me to say this, but I’ve decided to ask anyway. Last weekend, I had such a bad headache that I couldn’t sleep… Could you pass me that pack of tissues on the table?"
It seems like A is about to bring up a sensitive or significant matter, perhaps a personal issue or an important request. However, if A simply wanted someone to hand them a pack of tissues, their buildup to the request would appear unnecessarily convoluted and unclear. This might make B question whether A really just wanted tissues or if there was some hidden intention behind their words. Or perhaps it’s our time to bring up the “Are you ok?” conversation hahaha
I swear I could write another two A4 just for summarizing this lecture. I have to get to implicature and positive/negative face.
125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhiiFqeEFNz
125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVs4ZGpSN61
125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEOAGbeKax7
Yours,125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoGtJ8STw68
and then Add to home screen.