It concerns a basic assumption in conversation that each participant will
attempt to contribute appropriately,at the required time, to the current
exchange of talk.
The maxims of the cooperative principle are:
Quantity:
- Make your contributions as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange.
- Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true.
- Do not say what you believe to be false.
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Relation: Be relevant
Manner: Be perspicuous
- Avoid obscurity of expression.
- Avoid ambiguity.
- be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
- Be orderly
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Hedges
In applied linguistics and pragmatics (sub-fields of linguistics), hedges allow speakers and writers to signal caution, or probability, versus full certainty.
Hedges can also allow speakers and writers to introduce or eliminate
ambiguity in meaning and typicality as a category member. Hedges might
be used in writing, to downplay a
harsh critique or a generalization, or in speaking, to lessen the impact
of an utterance due to politeness constraints between a speaker and
addressee. Typically, hedges are adjectives or adverbs, but can also consist of clauses such as one use of tag questions.
Hedges may take the form of many different parts of speech, for example:
- There might just be a few insignificant problems we need to address. (adjective)
- The party was somewhat spoiled by the return of the parents. (adverb)
- I'm not an expert but you might want to try restarting your computer. (clause)
- That's false, isn't it? (tag question clause)
Implicature
An implicature is an additional conveyed meaning. It is a message that
communicates something more than just what the words mean.
An implicature is something the speaker suggests or implies with an utterance,
even though it is not literally expressed. Implicatures can aid in
communicating more efficiently than by explicitly saying everything we
want to communicate.
Take for example the following exchange:
A: I am out of gas. (to passer by)
B: There is a gas station 'round the corner.
Here, B does not say, but conversationally implicates, that the gas station is open, because otherwise his utterance would not be relevant in the context. Conversational
implicatures are classically seen as contrasting with entailments: They
are not necessary or logical consequences of what is said, but are
defeasible (cancellable). So, B could continue without contradiction:
- B: But unfortunately it's closed today.
