Singapore University: TSL557e TMA 01 on Grice's Pragmatics

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Herbert Paul Grice's contributions to pragmatics, exploring his cooperative principle, maxims, and their implications for language use and understanding. It critically examines Grice's impact on pragmatics, pragmatic competence, and interlanguage pragmatics, highlighting his focus on inference, rationality, and reasoning in communication. The essay further distinguishes the various ways maxims can be flouted under Grice's cooperative principle, illustrating how speakers can intentionally deviate from these principles to convey implied meanings. Finally, it analyzes whether flouting is a cooperative act, particularly in the context of learner's interlanguage and the difficulties associated with pragmatic competence, considering the role of context, social norms, and the speaker's intentions in shaping communication. The essay draws on various sources to support its arguments and provides a nuanced perspective on the complexities of pragmatic theory and its applications.

Running head: ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
Herbert Paul Grice published Grice pragmatics. It is totally related to the co-operative
study of semantics (Fauziah, Yuliasri & Rukmini, 2020). He is known as the theory of
implicature. It is able to say what one communicates than what a person is saying. He says that
the word “yes” and “no” has some identifiable meaning.
In this essay, Grice’s contribution on pragmatics is discussed critically (Antoniou et al.,
2020). It also discussed regarding the difference between the various ways a maxim can be
flouted under the co-operative principle of Grice. In this essay, total analysis is performed
regarding the pragmatic.
Question a
Grice’s contribution to pragmatics
As per Allot (2005), one of the important contributions to the pragmatic of Grice was to
give attention to the connections with the inference, rationality and reasoning. He recommended
that talking might be a special case of behavior. He did not think that the type of inference model
was totally exclusive (Guerra, 2020). The steps of the inference were very laborious and it was
responsible to consume a huge amount of energy. He mentioned that reasoning was undertaking
of the inference for reaching towards a goal (Fauziah, Yuliasri & Rukmini, 2020). His personal
reasons were required for his theory of meaning. Other experts like Warner mentioned that
pragmatic procedure was involved in the conscious awareness. It highlighted many points for
this procedure (Antoniou et al., 2020). Many experts were not satisfied with the Grice theory.
According to Chomsky, the use of the language is very innovative but it is not determined by
inner as well as outer condition. It includes exact environments. But use of creative languages is

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not appropriate for the subjects of science and technology. In this particular case, many experts
are disagreeing (Derakhshan & Eslami, 2020). According to McGivray, the environment created
by Chomsky does not need any sentence. He needs not to say anything to anyone. Chomsky says
that language is not bounded and it is not responsible to take any input from the environment
(Escobar, 2020). It is entirely related to the exact circumstances. There is no important restriction
of the important study of the reason provided by him (Derakhshan & Eslami, 2020). McGilvray
provides a summary of the idea of Chomsky. He says that no science can elaborate on the view
of intelligent behavior. It helps to explain how much intelligent behavior a person can do. The
study of the language can be referred to as a set of features of the mind or brain (Duarte, 2020).
With the help of the common standard, pragmatic can be treated as the most successful scientific
program. It gives a unique elaboration of the incidents that can be thought of as not connected
(Antoniou et al., 2020). It motivates a person to do the experimental assignments. It has some
conceptual foundations which are related to the other sections of cognitive science.
Grice’s pragmatic has been considered as ethnocentric. It is totally related to inter-
cultural context (Aberdein, 2020). The social context of pragmatics is totally related to the
rationality of discourse. It is also involved in linguistic and non-linguistic context. These are the
social context of Grice pragmatics.
Grice’s contribution to pragmatic competence
Pragmatic competence has the capability to use languages in a proper manner
(Derakhshan & Eslami, 2020). It is entirely dependent on the social point of view. It is very
efficient for performing effective communication in the second language. Grice mentions that
sometimes pragmatic competence is avoided. He mentions that it is a talent by which the native

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speakers are used to define the non-native speakers as a good communicator (Duarte, 2020). He
says that the all the second language speakers at the initial level that helps to perform the
communicative competence. If the grammatical competence is to initiate to design then some
more vocabulary is necessary. The second language speaker can perform his communication in
an efficient manner (Escobar, 2020). According to Wierbicka (2003), the imperative is being
taken for Swaring in English. Grice mentions that the learner should not show his or her attitude
at the time of learning. It is the main contribution of the EFL teacher to provide guidance to the
learner. They use the most traditional methodology for providing a request in English (Fauziah,
Yuliasri & Rukmini, 2020). As an EFL teacher, a person needs to be aware of various ways in
which pragmatic transfer involves. It may have a huge impact on learners.
Grice’s contribution to interlanguage pragmatics
Grice mentions that Interlanguage pragmatics is considered as a branch of second
language acquisition (Németh, 2020). It helps to examine the knowledge of the learner. It is used
to perform the socio-cultural norms. He says that second language learner needs some linguistic
forms. There are various activities that can be performed for socio-functional operations. He
mentions that learners need to know which form is quite appropriate for a particular situation
(Kornai, 2020). According to Kasper and Dhal (1991:216), interlanguage pragmatics is
elaborated in a narrow sense. It is used to refer to the non-native sense.
Question b
There are various ways by which maxim can be flouted (Yusro, Sutopo & Yuliasri,
2020). A person can flout the maxim of quality for highlighting a clumsy friend who has just
taken a bad away so that her representation is attractive. The intention of saying this totally

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opposite. The ultimate outcome is an ironic understatement. Maxim of relevance may lead to
performing the blaming with the help of irrelevant praise (Guerra, 2020). Maxim of manner may
relate to ambiguity. These maxims are used by the comedians having several purposes. It is
performed to hide several truths. They may select some words for the outcome of a particular
story. It is also related to the prior experiences of the reader. Speakers who are performing the
flout of maxim intentionally, they force the listener for understanding the implemented
implicature (Murphy, 2020). For a clumsy friend, a person will likely understand what the
speaker is offering the compliment. Therefore, cooperation is still available but it is not at the
literal level. For gaining some experiences of thought, the speaker flouts maxim. Grecian maxim
fulfills both the purposes, when they are obeyed and when they flouted (Németh, 2020). As per
Grice (1975), a person can violate the rules of maxims intentionally. Because of that other people
are totally dark regarding this matter. If a person flutes the maxim of quality then he or she is
telling lie. If a person is violating the maxim of quantity by providing not enough knowledge
then that person is blamed for being economical with the truth (Sibul, Vetrinskaya &
Grishechko, 2020). Violating the rules of maxims means breaking the rules in an illegal manner.
According to rules, some violations of maxim can be very dangerous than the other violations.
If a person is flouting the Grice’s maxim, he or she destroys this one inside a flagrant
procedure. So that it is quite obvious that it is divided or segregated (Yao & Du-Babcock, 2020).
If it occurs then it is quite clear that the speaker wants to forward some information to the
listener. Grice refers to the meaning highlighted with the help of flout. It is also referred to as
implicature. From this, it can be said that the meaning of the term implicature is extra meaning
(Yusro, Sutopo & Yuliasri, 2020). But he also mentions that some lies (which are known as
white lies) maintain social peace and these are acceptable.

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Masudi (2007) conducted several researches on the flouting of Grice’s maxim. He
conducted that research in the field of literature, humor and religion. Researchers are performed
in both verbal as well as written mode (Fauziah, Yuliasri & Rukmini, 2020). There are others
researchers are conducted for this particular topic. These are: “Flouting Grice’s Maxim and
Dinner” (by Rundquist, 1990), “The Flouting of Conversational Maxims by the main characters
in Titanic Movie” ( by Purwanto, 2008), “The Flouting and Hedging Maxims in the English
Translation of Surah Yasin” (by Mashudi, 2007) and many others. There are very less number of
studies are conducted in the field politics for Grice’s maxim because no researchers are
interested to work on this particular context.
Question c
There is a co-operative principle that is implicature of the pragmatics. Human beings are
connected with rational and logical way in pragmatics (Aberdein, 2020).. It is argued that, the
people conversation is embedded into the conversation of the people. Audience tries to
understand the impact of a remark given by the people. It is highlighted as the co-operative as
well as contextual information. Grice’s says that, the speaker can create the meaning and their
audiences (Antoniou et al., 2020). They are able to infer the exact meaning. He thinks that,
people follow several patterns for their interactions with other people.
They also consider the coherence of unity and it is highlighted in the rational level
(Escobar, 2020). He is totally concerned with the procedure by which a person meaningfully
connects various sentences. Different speakers highlight various issues. These maxims do not
give a reader the idea that how a person should talk, but it is totally related to the assumption of
listeners. Davies (2008) highlights that; the surface meaning does not follow the maxim of Grice.
The Co-operative principle plays a vital role in pragmatics. It is totally related to the linguistics.

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But they do not said regarding the implementation of this. Thomas (1976b: p. 176) says that,
they have ignored the term “co-operative principle”. There is an ambiguity as well as consistency
within the Grice own defination of co-operative principle.
At present, there is a huge amount of interest in the pragmatic study of the Co-operative
principle (Antoniou et al., 2020). It is specially related to the maxim flouts. These are entirely
significant to the difficulties of pragmatic competence. According to Thomas (1995), pragmatics
is always identical to the co-operative act. In this particular case, Grice can be treated as a
normal language (Aberdein, 2020). As per Dornerus (2005), people can manage to understand
the language in an efficient manner through the language is totally imperfect. As per Mey
(2006), many people think that the learners may reach the intended meaning of the inter-
language as well as pragmatic competence. He also states that the learner believes in his or her
inference about the pragmatic differences.
Green (1996) says that, rationality as well as competitiveness is main features of the
common speakers (Duarte, 2020). But non-cooperative conversation is treated as co-operative.
They are many global schemes those are related to the more global themes including listener as
well as speaker.
Conclusion
Grice theory is totally related to the co-operation principle. He thinks that, it believes in
successful communication. He avoids the fact that there is tendency to perform
miscommunication intentionally. It does not contain any social context. It only follows the
account of social context. Grice is interested to find the logic of communication and it highlights

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the difference between saying and meaning. At the end, it is said that, Grice Pragmatics is an
important concept in linguistics.

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