Jim : Yes, I think I saw him while I was sleepi c. Maxim of Relation
Grundy 74 state that maxim of relevance is fulfilled when the speaker give information that is relevant to the topic proceeding. Therefore, each of the
speaker or hearer must be relevant to the topic of conversation. Examples: a Kelly : Mom, I got 3 on my English.
Mommy : You can be an excellent English teacher. b Abraham : Mike, your girlfriend is really awesome.
Mike : Yesterday I hit John until he got fainted.
d.
Maxim of Manner : be clear in giving an information 1 Avoid unclearness of expression.
2 Avoid ambiguity. 3 Be brief.
4 Be orderly.
Add by Cutting 35 stated that maxim of manner is when the speakers put information briefly and orderly, the speaker must avoid the obscure and
ambiguous information from the hearer. Therefore, each participant must give the information directly and reasonably, and it should not be vague, ambiguous
or excessive.
It is important to recognize these maxims as unstated assumptions we have in conversations. We assume that people are normally going to provide an
appropriate amount of information and they are telling the truth, being relevant and trying to be as clear as they can. These rules according to people are expected
to behave when communicating with one another are frequently flouted or violated.
D. The Non- Observance Maxim
Grice pointed out that not all people observe the maxims, when the speaker fails to observe the maxims, this means that there is a distinction between what
the speaker says and what he means, in other words, an implicature arises as a result of non-observance of the maxims, and the implicature here plays a great
role to get the intended meaning of the speakers utterance
.
Grice distinguished five types by which the speaker fails to observe a maxim; they are flouting, violating, Infringing, opting out, and suspending.
1. Flouting a Maxim The speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim in which he has no intention of
deceiving or misleading. The speaker wishes to raise the hearers attention to the implicit meaning which is different from, or in addition to, the expressed
meaning. According to Grice this additional meaning is called Conversational implicature and the way by which such implicature is generated is called
flouting a Maxim Grice 71. An example was given by Thomas 71: Interviewer: Did the United States Government play any part in Duvaliers
Departure? Did they, for example, actively encourage him to leave? Official: I would not try to steer you away from that conclusion.
In the above example the official response is extremely long and convoluted and it is obviously no accident, nor through any inability to speak clearly,
therefore, he has failed to observe the maxim of manner. The official has
replied Yes
.
The other example which involves the flouting to maxim of quantity is shown below:
A: How did you find Jones’ thesis? B: It was well typed.
Richards and Schmidt 122, explained that by choosing not to be as informative as required, B is suggesting that the other qualities of the thesis were
not worth commenting on. B has thus communicated through rules of conversational implicature that it was a bad thesis.
2. Violating the maxims According to Grice 49, the speaker violates a maxim when she will be liable to
mislead the hearer to have such implicature. For example give by Thomas 73
Context : There was a husband that asked to his wife who was guessed maybe having an affair.
Husband : Is there another man? Wife : No, there is not another man.
Wife‟s reply is true that she is not having affair with another man, but not the whole truth she is, in fact, having an affair with a woman.
3.Infringing the maxim When the speaker has an imperfect knowledge or performance of
language, the speaker here infringes the maxims like a young child or a learner of foreign language who has imperfect command of the language. Furthermore;
nervousness, darkness, excitement may make impairment of the speakers performance, in these cases she does the infringement Thomas 74. Sometimes
speaker infringes the maxims because he is incapable to speak clearly, he does not know the culture or he has not enough knowledge of language.
For example: Someone learning English as a second language speaks to a native speaker.
English speaker : Would you like ham or salad on your sandwich? Non-English speaker : Yes
The implicature has not been generated by interlocutor; she has not understood the utterance. The answer might be interpreted as non-operative; this is a case of
different social knowledge which implied a different implicature Dornerus 7.
The difference between violating and infringing located in the fact of speakers intention; in violating the speaker is liable to mislead the hearer, whereas in
infringing the speaker unintentionally fails to observe a maxim. Violating is a kind of misleading the hearer to get implicatures, the speaker here intends to
mislead in order to save face or avoid hurting the audiences. Infringement occurs when a speaker fails to observe the maxim because he has no perfect knowledge
to communicate
.
