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People cooperate in an effort to understand each other. They make assumptions based on helpful motives, rather than just a literal reading of the content.
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People cooperate in an effort to understand each other. They make assumptions based on helpful motives, rather than just a literal reading of the content.
Why is it OK for me to respond to the question ‘would you like to go for a walk?’ by saying ‘it is raining’ , rather than ‘no’? It is because you assume I am cooperating in an effort to communicate, and you therefore make an effort to see the relevance of my response.
The philosopher HP Grice identified four maxims (rules) that we assume that other people follow in a spirit of cooperation. Paraphrased, they are:
Quantity: Give the right amount of information. This means neither withholding anything that is relevant, nor swamping with unnecessary detail.
Quality: Don’t say things you know aren’t true (and we could include withholding a relevant truth in this).
Relation: Be relevant.
Manner: Be clear and brief.
The reply ‘it is raining’ in the first sentence is said to ‘flout’ the relation maxim, as on a literal level it appears not to be relevant to the question. However, because we assume cooperation and therefore that the reply must be relevant, we look for a valid inference (called an implicature by Grice) – in this case, that the walk is undesirable in the rain. Flouting is obvious, intentional, benign and mostly unproblematic.
The cooperative principle also explains why communications mislead. When flouting is covert, and therefore potentially duplicitous, it is termed ‘violating’. So, if a ticket agency offers me concert tickets for £30 but then adds a hidden booking fee, it violates the Quantity maxim. Many of the ‘dark patterns’ identified in digital communications are violations of Grice’s maxims.
Grice HP, (1975) ‘Logic and Conversation’ in Peter Cole and Jerry L Morgan (eds), Studies in Syntax and Semantics III: Speech Acts, Academic Press.
Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford Introductions to Language Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.