Semantics Cooperative and conversations

Slide 1 SEMANTICS Week 8 Conversation and Co operation Week 8 Conversation and co operation Group 8 (K18B) Pham Thanh Huyen (88) Pham Thanh Huyen (86) Ngo Thu Huyen Do Kieu Lan Tran Thi Khuong Lien Nguyen Thi Mien Nguyen Thi Ha My Nguyen Thi Hoang My Cao Thi Huyen Nga Nham Thi Thanh Ngan Nguyen Thi Hien (K15B) Instructor Dr Ha Cam Tam NGO THU HUYEN By saying A > one means A Do you love me? Yes, I do By saying A > one means B Who else? Do you love me? Adam Eva Conversation and co operation Grice.

Week 8: Conversation

and Co-operation

Week 8 Conversation and co-operation

Group 8 (K18B)

1 Pham Thanh Huyen (88)

2 Pham Thanh Huyen (86)

3 Ngo Thu Huyen

4 Do Kieu Lan

5 Tran Thi Khuong Lien

6 Nguyen Thi Mien

7 Nguyen Thi Ha My

8 Nguyen Thi Hoang My

9 Cao Thi Huyen Nga

10 Nham Thi Thanh Ngan

11 Nguyen Thi Hien (K15B)

Instructor:

Dr Ha Cam

Tam

NGO THU HUYEN

By saying A -> one means A

Do you

By saying A -> one means B

Who

love me?

Conversation and co-operation

1 Grice saw communication as governed by a cooperative principle

2 A number of maxims follow as a result of assuming the cooperative principle

3 The CP and maxims can be used to explain a number of features

Maxims

of Quantity

Maxims

of Quality

Maxim

of Relation

Maxims

of Manner

CAO THI HUYEN NGA

Conversation and co-operation

1 Grice saw communication as governed

by a cooperative principle

1.1 Implicature: decode and infer

1.2 Cooperative principle

Conversation and co-operation

1.1 Implicature: decode and infer

Example:

Jack: Did you

enjoy Animal Farm?

Lily: I only

like detective stories.

How do you think that Jack works out what Lily means?

Why doesn’t

Jack just stick

with what Lily

How do you think that Jack works out what Lily means?

Why doesn’t Jack just stick with what Lily has

Jack Lily

he knows he’s got to look a bit further

Lily’s saying she only

likes detective stories

 realises this isn’t relevant

to him

he looks for some further bit

of meaning

Why doesn’t Jack just stick with what Lily has actually said?

How do you think that Jack works out what Lily means?

PHAM THANH HUYEN (88)

How is it that he actually works out what this

further bit of meaning is?

Animal Farm

is not

a detective story

Jack knows that

Animal Farm

is not

a detective story

Therefore

Lily doesn’t Like Animal Farm

Therefore

Lily doesn’t Like Animal Farm

or what she

is implying

JACK

implicature

 Utterance interpretation was not just a matter of decoding , but also a matter

 Moreover, that it was a matter of

inferring the intentions of others

 Grice’s first insight was that there might be some general principles behind how hearers retrieve these implicatures

communication is

a cooperative

activity

TRAN THI

KHUONG LIEN

1.2 Cooperative principle

Cooperative principle is known as a basic

underlying assumption we make when we speak to one another is that we are trying

to cooperate with one another to construct meaningful conversations

- The cooperative principle goes both ways:

observe the cooperative principle

assume that

speakers are

observing it

Speaker Hearer

Speakers tend to behave in certain

predictable cooperative ways that

hearers can then use the assumption that

speakers are behaving cooperatively as a

key part of the process of utterance

interpretation

of logical reasoning or inference

- What are these predictable ways in which cooperative speakers behave?

- What counts as being cooperative?

Grice’s answer to this question is that

speakers follow a general cooperative

principle which can be broken down into a

number of different maxims of

conversation, which fall into four basic

categories

1 Grice saw communication as governed by a cooperative principle

2 A number of maxims follow as a result of assuming the cooperative

NGUYEN THI

HA MY

2.1 Definition of maxims:

The maxims are rules or principles which interlocutors should observe in

conversation

A: what time

will you come

back tomorrow?

ative enou gh.

DO THI KIEU LAN

2.2.2 Maxims of Quality:

- Be truthful

- Do not say what you believe to be false

- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

A: Should I buy my son

this new sports car?

B: I don’t know if that’s such a good idea His record isn’t so great

B’s answer

is truthful and it is supported

by evidence

2.2.3 Maxim of Relation:

- Be relevant

A: How are you doing

in school?

B: Not too well, actually

I'm failing two of my classes



B’s an sw

er

is r ele

va

nt

A: What did you think

of that movie?

B: It was really interesting

 B’s

 answer

is very clear

1 Grice saw communication as governed by a cooperative principle

2 A number of maxims follow as a result of assuming the cooperative

PHAM THANH HUYEN (86)

3.1 Basic outline of the Gricean approach to

pragmatics

implicates

Example 1 Jack: Do you like Animal Farm?

Lily: I only like detective stories.

2 ways to interpret Lily’s intention

(1) Lily is not obeying

 Intended meaning can be inferred

- If retrieving Z is necessary in order for X not to be a violation of one or more of the

CP and maxims

Grice approach to pragmatics

Jack: Has Bill left?

Lily: One of the pairs of Wellington boots has gone from the hall.

Example:

Bill has put on the boots to go out

One of the pairs of Wellington boots

has gone from the hall

Bill has left

What Lily said

Therefore

Lily implicates

NGUYEN THI HOANG MY

- Flouting a maxim (major violation)  to exploit it

to create a conversational implicature

- A flouting implicature  deliberately breaking a conversational maxim while still being

cooperative

at tutorials has been regular

Yours etc.”

Reference

More informative than required

The writer openly flouted or exploited the Maxim of Quantity

Implicate: Mr X is not good at philosophy (The writer has done so for a purpose)

Example 2:

Mr A has been truly stitched up

by a business colleague Mr B;

he turns to another

colleague and utters:

“He’s a fine

friend.”

A

He has said something he doesn’t believe.

Flouting the Maxim of Quality

Implicate: He’s a bad friend.

 Someone reviewing an enthusiastic (but not entirely

accomplished) performance by a young singer might write the deliberately obscure, and verbose sentence in (a) rather than the (almost synonymous) sentence in (b)

(a)  Miss X produced a series of notes that

corresponded closely with the score   of

‘Home Sweet Home’

(b)  Miss X sang ‘Home Sweet Home’

Example 3:

 Flouting the Maxim of Manner

NHAM THI THANH NGAN

Identify which maxim is

being used

or violated

Exercise 1

LAURA: Come on, I’m taking you to the gym MEREDITH: Yeah, and pigs can fly

why?

Answer Q1

clearly untrue By combining the “yes”

response with a clearly untrue statement,

Meredith is implying that the actual response

is “no.”

Exercise 2

JOHN: Where’s Meredith?

ELIZABETH: The control room or the science lab.

why?

Answer Q2

Maxim Violated: Quantity; Elizabeth didn’t

give as much information as John wanted

(Meredith’s exact location), but instead gave a weaker statement (giving two possible

options).

• Implication: Elizabeth doesn’t know which of

the two places Meredith is.

1 Grice saw communication as governed by a cooperative principle

2 A number of maxims follow as a result of assuming the cooperative

NGUYEN THI

MIEN

4.1 Much of what Grice himself says is pretty obscure though Grice’s maxim of manner

requires speakers to avoid

obscurity

4.2 Grice had no systematic account of how

you might go from rationality in general to the CP and Maxims in particular

According to him, the CP is simply a

description of what does happen

4.3 For Grice, the CP and Maxims can only

be used to account for the retrieval of

implicatures

 it seems to have been forgotten that

orienting towards the CP does not entail being explicit

1 Grice saw communication as governed by a cooperative principle

2 A number of maxims follow as a result of assuming the cooperative

NGUYEN THI

HIEN

According to Grice’s insight:

*Communication is a cooperative activity We try to cooperate with one another to

construct meaningful conversations

*The cooperative principle can be divided into four maxims ( Quantity, Quality,Relation

and Manner)

The simplest way to think of Grice’s

maxims is general rules we follow in

conversation

+ However, that’s not entirely accurate

The interesting thing about these

“rules” is that often, we don’t follow

them Sometimes, maxim violations are creative It means we use these maxim violations to generate the implicature

1 Grice saw communication as governed by a cooperative principle

2 A number of maxims follow as a result of assuming the cooperative