Grice's maxims of conversation

Grice’s Maxims of Conversation:

The principles of effective communication

When you write or talk, you generally do so with the purpose of conveying information.

MISTAKES: MINOR ( less effective communication) MAJOR (serious misunderstandings)

Grice's maxims of conversation

are a collection of maxims proposed by linguist Paul Grice to describe principles that people intuitively follow in order to guide their conversations, to make their communicative efforts effective.

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Maxims of Quality (be truthful)

There is one supermaxim of quality:Try to make your contribution one that is true.Submaxims:

• Do not say what you believe to be false. Avoid stating information that you believe might be wrong, unless there is some compelling reason to do so. If you do choose to include it, then provide a disclaimer that points your doubts regarding this information.
• Do not say that for which you lack evidence. Avoid including information that you can’t back up with supporting evidence. If you do choose to include such information for some reason, provide a disclaimer that points out your doubts.

Maxims of Quantity (be informative)

• Make your contribution as informative as is required. Provide all the information which is necessary for the purpose of the current exchange; don’t leave out anything important

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• Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Leave out any unnecessary details that aren’t important to the current exchange.

How do I get to the library?

“Keep walking.”

“Keep walking straight ahead; there will be some nice flowers on your right and some lovely new trees that they just planted a few months ago on your left. Anyway, once you reach the big intersection—it’s one of the biggest in the area, it took forever to build it—then you need to turn to your right.”

“Keep walking straight until you reach the intersection, and then turn right.”

Maxim of relation (be relevant)

Be relevant. Make sure that all the information you provide is relevant to the current exchange; omit irrelevant information.

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Maxims of manner (be clear)

Submaxims:

• Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid language which is difficult to understand, such as because it contains words that the listener doesn’t know.
• Avoid ambiguity. Avoid ambiguous language which can be interpreted in multiple ways, and which therefore makes it difficult for your recipient to understand what exactly you’re trying to say.
• Be brief. Provide information in a concise manner, that allows your recipient to focus on the key details.
• Be orderly. Provide information in an order that makes sense, and makes it easy for your recipient to process it.

be clear

be relevant

Summary

Grice’s maxims of conversation are a set of observations that describe how people communicate when they want to be properly understood by others; you can use these maxims as guiding principles to make your communication as effective as possible.

be informative

be truthful