National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences

Unit 3: Grice’s Cooperative Principles

Download 0.49 Mb.

View original pdf

Page	81/107
Date	19.01.2023
Size	0.49 Mb.
	#60408

1 ... 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 ... 107

ENG223 Discourse Analysis

1.0 Introduction
Cooperative Principle
3.0 Main Content 3.1 Cooperative Principle General Formulation

Unit 3: Grice’s Cooperative Principles
Contents
1.0 Introduction
2.0. Unit Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Cooperative Principles General Formulation
3.2 Maxims of the Cooperative Principles
3.3 Maxim of Quantity
3.4 Maxim of Quality
3.5 Maxim of Relevance
3.6 Maxim of Manner
Self-assessed Exercises
4.0. Conversational Implicatures
5.0. Conclusion
6.0. Summary
7.0.Tutor-marked Assignment
8.0.References/Further Reading
1.0 Introduction

In this Unit, we shall be learning about the principle that HP. Grice identified as what we follow whenever we are engaged in an conversation. When we are engaged in any conversation, there is a basic underlying assumption we make in the sense that we try to cooperate with one another to construct meaningful conversation. This assumption is known as Cooperative Principle. This assumption is what will be our concern in this unit. Within the assumption, Grice identified four maxims that we try to observe. We will also discuss these maxims.
2.0 Unit Objectives

At the end of this Unit, you should be able to do the following
• explain what is meant by Cooperative Principle
• identify in any conversation the observation of any of the maxims of the cooperative principle
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Cooperative Principle General Formulation

Speakers try to contribute meaningful, productive utterance to further whatever conversation they are involved in. Listeners also assume that their conversational partners are doing the same. The summary of cooperative principle according to Grice
(1975) is

98 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 Speech errors are often ignored in conversation as long as the meaning the speaker is trying to get across is clear. Likewise, we often find that meaning in some statements on the surface seem ridiculous and unrelated, eg, sarcasm, metaphors, hyperbolic statements and so forth, because we assume that speakers who use them are trying to get across some meaning. This is what the whole idea of cooperative principle is all about.

Download 0.49 Mb.

Share with your friends:

1 ... 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 ... 107