(Assignment)

Common Misrepresentations of Grice's Theory

There are many criticisms which can be made of Grice's work. However,
there are four criticisms of his work which are made very frequently
(particularly
by non-specialists) and which are totally unfounded. The first is that Grice
had a ludicrously optimistic view of human nature: that he saw the world as
a
place full of people whose one aim in life was to cooperate with others. This
is a complete misreading of Grice's work and is discussed in detail in the
Cooperative
Principle article.
The second unfounded criticism is that Grice was proposing a set of rules for
good (conversational) behavior. This misunderstanding probably stems from
the unfortunate fact that Grice formulated his maxims as imperatives. But it
is clear from everything else he wrote on the subject that his chief objective
was simply to describe linguistic behaviors which, by and large, people do
observe in conversation unless they wish to generate an implicature, or are
deliberately setting out to mislead, or are prevented for some reason from so
doing (e.g., nervousness, an inadequate
grasp of the language).
The third misconception represents Grice as believing that his maxims are
always and invariably observed. This is simply false—such a claim would
make complete nonsense of his theory. Discussing the maxims in his 1978
and 1981 papers, Grice refers to them as being:
standardly (though not invariably) observed by participants in a talk
exchange.
desiderata that normally would be accepted by any rational discourser,
though, of course, they could be infringed and violated.
The fourth misunderstanding is to confuse the different types of
nonobservance of the maxim. This seems to come from an incomplete
reading of Grice's articles, or a reliance on second-hand accounts (few
general linguistics textbooks discuss any categories other than flouting). A
typical criticism of this order (this one is from Sampson ) runs as follows:
people often flout his [Grice's] maxims. To anyone who knew, for instance,
my old scout at Oxford, or a certain one of the shopkeepers in the village
where I live, it would be ludicrous to suggest that as a general principle
people's speech is governed by maxims such as 'be relevant'; 'do not say that
for which you lack adequate evidence'(!); 'avoid obscurity of expression,
ambiguity or unnecessary prolixity'(!). In the case of the particular speakers I
am thinking of... the converse of Grice's maxims might actually have greater
predictive power. What Sampson is discussing is not the flouting of a maxim
(that is, the blatant nonobservance for the purpose of generating an
implicature). What he is describing is the unmotivated or unintentional
nonobservance of a maxim, which Grice calls 'infringing'
Grice was well aware that there are many occasions on which speakers fail
to observe the maxims, even though they have no desire to generate an
implicature,

and even though his categories seem to cover all possible instances of
onobservance.
Several writers have suggested that there are occasions when there is no
need to opt out of observing the maxims because there are certain events in
which there
is no expectation on the part of any participant that they will be fulfilled
(hence the nonfulfillment does not generate any implicatures). This category
is necessary to respond to criticisms of the type made by Keenan, who
proposed as a counterexample to Grice's theory of conversational
implicature the fact that in the Malagasy Republic participants in talk
exchanges 'regularly provide less information than is required by their
conversational partner, even though they have access to the necessary
information' . Keenan's examples do not falsify Grice's theory if they are
seen as instances where the maxim of quantity is suspended. There is no
expectation at all on the part of interactants that speakers will provide
precise information about their relatives and friends, in case they draw the
attention of evil spirits to them. Although the Malagasy may appear to be
under-informative at the level of what is said, the uninformativeness is
nevertheless systematic, motivated, and generates implicatures which are
readily interpretable by members of that community. Suspensions of the
maxims may be culture-specific (as in Keenan's examples) or specific to
particular events. For example, in most cultures, the maxim of quantity
appears to be selectively suspended in, for example, courts of law,
committees of inquiry, or indeed in any confrontational situation where it is
held to be the job of the investigator to elicit the truth from a witness. The
witnesses are not required or expected to volunteer information which may
incriminate them, and no inference is drawn on the basis of what they do not
say.
Other linguists criticized Grice's Maxims as:
• It’s not clear whether the maxims work in other languages and cultures.
• Some key concepts are undefined. A lot of intuition must be used to figure
out, for
example, when a speaker is being irrelevant.
• They’re not a complete listing of the rules we follow in conversation; for
example, there are also rules about, say, politeness, which are not addressed.
• There is some overlap, so it’s not always clear-cut which maxim is being
violated.

Reference List
Thomas, J. ( 1997). Concise Encyclopedia of
Philosophy of language.
(Peter V. Lamarque ed.). Oxford: Elsevier Science
Ltd