Flouting a maxim is when you break one of Grice’s Maxims on purpose. You want the other people in the conversation to notice that you’ve done it and interpret a hidden message in your words. We call this hidden meaning an “implicature”.
Note: If you broke a maxim on purpose but you didn’t want you reader to notice, you aren’t flouting a maxim. You’re violating the maxim.
Grice’s Maxims, or the Cooperative Principle, are a set of four expectations that we have when someone is making a contribution to a conversation:
You can flout any of these maxims. All that matters is that you’ve done it on purpose and want the other people in the conversation (your interlocutors) to notice.
Note: You can only talk about Grice’s Maxims when there are at least two people involved in a conversation. They both need to be speaking and listening to one another. That means that a novel writer can’t flout a maxim to their reader, and someone delivering a speech doesn’t flout a maxim to their silent audience.
Flouting the different maxims
There are different reasons why people flout maxims. It all depends on the context of their conversation (pragmatics) and the implicature that they want to generate.
How you flout a maxim will also depend on which of the four you choose to break.
Let’s go through them one by one and have a look at how you might actually flout them in conversation. The glossary entries for the four maxims also contain useful examples. So, check them out if you’re interested in more!
Maxim of Quality
When you flout the maxim of quality, it’s usually because you want to draw on the humour of not saying what you mean. This can take many forms. Two of the most common examples are verbal irony and sarcasm. They’re not the same thing!
Either way, you achieve this maxim flout when it’s clear to your interlocutors that you purposefully didn’t provide truthful information. That could be because you used a sarcastic tone of voice. It could be your body language. Or, it could be because they can see right in front of their eyes that what you’ve said isn’t truthful. Usually, it’s a mixture of verbal and non-verbal cues (paralinguistics).
An example of flouting the maxim of quality for verbal irony would be when you bump into the same person twice in one day. So, the second time, you say:
You: Hi! Long time no see!
Here, you are flouting the maxim of quality to point out how funny it is that you’ve bumped into them again. The implicature that this generates is that it’s a weird coincidence for you to keep meeting each other!
On the other hand, sarcasm is used for the purpose of mocking a person. You’re trying to point out that they’ve said or done something ridiculous. This might look like this.
Speaker 1: Is that a spoon in your hand? Speaker 2: No, it's just a tiny little shovel I'm going to use to do my gardening.
Speaker 2 flouts the maxim of quality in this exchange to point out how ridiculous Speaker 1’s question was. The implicature generated is that they shouldn’t have asked such a silly question.
For more examples of flouting this maxim, check out the glossary entry dedicated to the maxim of quality.
Maxim of Quantity
When you flout the maxim of quantity, you do it by providing too much or too little information. It has to be obvious to your interlocutors so that they can pick up on the implicature you want to generate.
Usually, people flout the maxim of quantity by providing too little information in their contribution. This will often happen when someone is answering a question. For example:
Speaker 1: Do you know where I can find my sunglasses? Speaker 2: Yes, I do.
In this case, we’d expect Speaker 2 to answer by telling their interlocutor where the glasses are. However, they’ve chosen to flout the maxim of quantity by not providing that piece of important information. In this case, the implicature that is generated by Speaker 2 is that they don’t want to cooperate and say where the sunglasses are.
Although it’s more common not to provide enough information, you could also provide way more information than you need to. For example:
Speaker 1: Where were you at 10:30? Speaker 2: I was in classroom 203 on the chair to the right of the window, in front of Molly and behind Saul.
In this case, Speaker 2 is providing way too much information in a very obvious way. The expected answer would be something as simple as “I was in class”. The implicature that this generates is that Speaker 2 thinks that Speaker 1 is overly intrusive in their life.
For more examples of flouting this maxim, check out the glossary entry dedicated to the maxim of quantity.
Maxim of Relation
When you flout the maxim of relation, you say something that obviously seems irrelevant on face value. That often has one of two effects. First, it can make your interlocutors think that your seemingly irrelevant information is actually relevant and interpret how and why that might be the case. Second, it can make it seem as though you desperately want to change the topic.
The obvious one is when someone asks you a question that can’t answer. It’s not that you don’t know the answer. You do. It’s that you can’t or won’t give the details for some reason.
That could be because you don’t feel comfortable answering the question. Or, it could be because you want them to interpret the answer through implicature. For example:
Speaker 1: Did you kiss Laura? Speaker 2: The weather's nice today, isn't it?
The implicature that is generated by flouting the maxim of relation here is that Speaker 2 did kiss Laura. However, they are being coy about it. They don’t want to “kiss and tell’.
For more examples of flouting this maxim, check out the glossary entry dedicated to the maxim of relation.
Maxim of Manner
When you flout the maxim of manner, it’s about how you deliver your information. You do it in a way that is purposefully ambiguous or confusing – and you want the other people in the conversation to know you did it on purpose.
It can often be tricky to separate when someone is flouting the maxim of manner or the maxim of quantity. That’s because you can break this maxim by being way too wordy with your answer. However, it’s important to note that the maxim of quality is about the amount of information you’re providing. It doesn’t dictate how many words you use to give that information.
Of course, there are going to be times when being overly wordy will also mean you give more information than needed. That might mean that you’re breaking both maxims.
It is useful, though, to focus on what the outcome of this information is: does it tell the interlocutor more than they need to know? If so, that’s the maxim of quantity. Or does it actually just confuse them and hide the true meaning of your words? That’s the maxim of manner.
Here’s an example of flouting the maxim of manner:
Speaker 1: Did you put the clothes away properly? Speaker 2: I didn't not put the clothes away.
In this example, Speaker 2 uses the double negative “didn’t not” to make their language more ambiguous. The implicature that it generates is that they put the clothes away, but that they didn’t necessarily do it very well.
For more examples of flouting this maxim, check out the glossary entry dedicated to the maxim of manner.
How do you know which maxim you’re flouting?
It can sometimes be difficult to figure out which of the maxims you’re flouting. So, it helps to figure out what the expected answer would be in that situation and thinking about how it breaks from that.
It is easy to notice when someone has flouted the maxim of quality. They’ve said something that isn’t true. You might know what the actual truth is. Or, it might be that they’ve made it obvious that they haven’t told the truth. Either way, that’s simple enough.
With the maxim of quantity, ask yourself “What would you expect to find in their contribution?” If there’s a piece of info missing from what you’d expect, then they’re flouting the maxim of quantity. Remember, it doesn’t actually matter how many words they use to give the info you need.
For the maxim of relation, it’s also easy to see that someone’s not said something relevant. It’s useful to check with the maxim of quantity first, though. Sometimes, people mistake not giving enough info for being irrelevant. Ask yourself if what the speaker said is on topic. Are they actually responding to what the previous person said? Or are they saying something completely different that isn’t related to the topic at all?
Finally, you have the maxim of manner. This is the trickiest one to notice, in my opinion. However, the question you need to ask yourself is easy enough: “Is there an easier way to say what they said?” Just like with the maxim of relation, check with the maxim of quantity first. Then, try the maxim of manner after that.
The Maxim of Quantity vs the Maxim of Manner
Let me give you an example of the difference between flouting the maxim of quantity and the maxim of manner.
Speaker 1: What are you eating? Speaker 2: Food.
In this case, ask yourself the question: what pieces of information would you need from this answer for it to follow the maxim of quantity? Well, Speaker 1 is probably expecting their interlocutor to describe the type of food they’re eating. That’s the info we need.
In the example, we don’t find out what the food is. We just find out that it is food. Of course, this is obvious to us. We expect people to be eating food. So, the information we’d need from this answer isn’t there. It must be flouting the maxim of quantity.
On the other hand, look at this example:
Speaker 1: What are you eating? Speaker 2: Self-raising flower, sugar, eggs, and butter that I put in the oven and baked until it rose up.
In this example, you are getting the information you need. They have told you the type of food that they’re eating. It’s cake. They described cake.
However, they took lots of words to tell us that. So, I ask myself the question, “is there an easier way to say what they said?” Yes! There is! They could have just said, “I’m eating cake”. Or, even more simply, they could have said, “cake”.
Why is it important to understand flouting maxims?
If you’re an English language and literature student, it’s important for you to understand how communication works. This is particularly true if you’re doing your A-levels or studying for a degree.
It’s all well and good to be able to notice when there’s a simile or metaphor in a text. However, those are the obvious things. They’re all face-value. They’re the obvious things that you get taught to find at GCSE. Writers don’t always use them all the time. So, you need to find other things to talk about when the language is more subtle.
By the time you get to A-level, you shouldn’t be only describing the obvious figurative language. You should be able to give words to the things that we already subconsciously know.
What do I mean by that? Well, when we see someone flout one of the maxims, we immediately start interpreting possible implicatures. We don’t need to know what Grice’s Maxims are to do that.
However, if someone were to ask us why we came to that conclusion, we probably wouldn’t be able to explain what it is about the language that made us come to that conclusion. We might be able to point to the exact words that caused the implicature but not explain why they had that effect.
Grice’s Maxims are a huge part of how people communicate with one another. So, understanding how they work will make you a better writer and student. You’ll be able to see how other writers make conversations seem natural and add subtext to their work. Then, you’ll be able to replicate it in your own writing!
Other ways to break maxims
There are other ways to break maxims. The name of breaking a maxim will differ depending on your intentions.
You might break a maxim on purpose but not want anyone to notice – you are trying to deceive them. When this happens, we call it “violating a maxim”.
You could break maxims on purpose but use language to lessen the intensity – maxim hedging.
When there is a societal expectation that you will break a maxim, it’s called “suspending the maxim”.
On the other hand, if you break it by accident, we’d call that “infringing a maxim”.
These are all useful to know. However, maxim flouting is the most useful one to use when you’re talking about how people and characters communicate with each other. If you’re going to learn one of these terms for the future, please make it “flouting a maxim”. It will open up so much to say about conversation!
« Back to Glossary Index
Community Discussion
or explore Announcements