Grice’s Maxims, otherwise known as the Cooperative Principle, is a set of expectations that we have in spoken conversation. They were proposed by linguist and philosopher Paul Grice and are one of the two theories that make up the Conversational Maxims.
There are four maxims, or principles, that we expect people to follow in conversation:
If people are following all four of these maxims, we are much more likely to take what they are saying at face value. If they don’t follow them and we notice, we assume that there is some hidden information that they are not sharing with us.
Grice’s Maxims are not a set of rules that you must follow when having a conversation. Grice wasn’t proposing an etiquette guide. Instead, they’re just a set of assumptions that we expect people to follow. When they don’t, they’re not ruining the conversation. It just adds layers to it.
Breaking Grice’s Maxims
When people break a maxim, they can do it for many different reasons and in many different ways.
It will depend on which maxim you’re breaking. For example, you might break the maxim of quantity by not giving enough information or saying too much.
It will also depend on what your intentions are when you break the maxim. For example, do you want people to notice that you’ve done it or not?
When people break maxims in everyday speech, it is usually in one of the following six ways:
- Flouting a Maxim: When you want the other people in the conversation (interlocutors) to notice that you’ve broken the maxim.
- Violating a Maxim: When you’re trying to get away with breaking a maxim without anyone noticing.
- Infringing a Maxim: When you don’t realise that you’ve broken a maxim. This could be for many reasons. For example, being drunk, misunderstanding other people, or not speaking the language very well.
- Opting Out of Grice’s Maxims: When you choose not to engage in the maxims at all. For example, you might say something like “no comment”.
- Suspending a Maxim: When there is a social expectation for you not to follow a maxim in a particular situation.
- Hedging a Maxim: When you make it explicit that you have broken a maxim through hedging words.
When your interlocutors notice that you’ve broken a maxim, it creates a hidden (implicit) meaning. We call this “generating an implicature”.
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Working Out Which Maxim Was Broken
It can be tricky to work out which of Grice’s Maxims was broken in a conversation. For example, people often mix up the maxim of quantity and the maxim of relation.
So, how can you know which one was broken? Well, it all comes down to what you’d expect a good reply to be.
Think about the activity type. Ask yourself what kind of language you’d expect to see in this kind of conversation. Do you expect people to be formal? Informal? Use a lot of jargon? If they don’t use language in the way we’d naturally expect for that kind of conversation, they might be breaking a maxim (probably the maxim of relation).
Look at the speech that came before. Think of what an expected response to that speech might look like. For example, if someone asks you what your name is, the expected response would be to give your name. If the response is “yes” or “no”, that would go against the expected response. So, it must break a maxim.
Then, compare the actual response to what you think an expected response would be. If the actual response is on topic but doesn’t give enough information, it’s probably breaking the maxim of quantity. If it goes completely off-topic, then it’s breaking the maxim of relation. Information that is simply not true breaks the maxim of quality.
Using This in Your Analysis
The important thing to note about Grice’s Maxims is that you can only use them to talk about a conversation between two or more people.
That means you can use them to talk about a spoken conversation or interview. You can also use them to talk about dialogue in a novel or play. That’s absolutely fine.
However, you cannot use Grice’s Maxims to talk about a speaker and a silent listener, or a writer and their reader. So, that means that the narrator can’t flout a maxim for the reader. It doesn’t work like that.
Both of the people in the conversation have to be speakers and listeners. They both have to be engaged in the conversation in real-time. If the text is one-sided, where one person plays the role of the text producer and the other plays the role of the text receiver, these maxims don’t apply.
When analysing these maxims, you should focus on the implicature the speaker creates. What implicit meaning did they create when they broke the maxim? Are they trying to hide the implicature not? If they are trying to hide it, why?
Also, only analyse the maxims when the speaker is breaking them. There is nothing interesting that you can really say when the speakers follow the maxims. It isn’t going to give you anything interesting to analyse.
Grice’s Maxims and Neurodivergence
It is important to note that flouting a maxim is more common in conversations between neurotypical people. Most neurodivergent people understand how to flout these maxims and recognise when others have flouted them. They can do it when necessary, particularly when they are talking to neurotypical people. However, it often isn’t their preferred or natural way of having a conversation.
People with autism often have experiences of being mocked for missing when someone flouts a maxim – particularly when they are young. So, although they learn the maxims over time, they can often second-guess themselves or even feel anxiety in conversations when people flout maxims.
If you are someone with autism, know that it’s completely normal if you don’t always “get” it when someone has flouted a maxim. Also, studying Grice’s Maxims in closer detail can help you to understand the strange ways that neurotypical people speak. Never feel the pressure to mask. However, use this to help you understand how your friends and family communicate.
On the other hand, if you are close to someone with autism, please be aware that flouting maxims might not be something that comes naturally to them. Consider their communication style and think about how you can make the conversation accessible to everyone.
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