Pragmatics and Gricean Maxims

Our conversations may not always behave entirely logically, but we still have rules to follow. In The Ling Space this week, we talk about the Cooperative Principle and the different Conversational Maxims that make it up and give us the rails our interactions run down.
This is Topic #2 - our second video in the series!
This week's tag language: French!
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Spanish subtitles by Federico Falletti
Looking forward to next week!

[@user-xe9uh9wx3v]

Hello I'm a student majoring in English from Korea. I happened to discover your channel one day and it has been helpful a lot for me to understand Linguistics so much better!! Thank you so much

[@thelingspace]

+Kim Mijin Great! We're glad that you find them helpful, and we hope your friends like them, too. ^_^

[@sarateddy3801]

I'm majoring in English too, but from Denmark. And videos like these really help, thank you!

[@nelsongg347]

Thank you for this excellent piece of knowledge. This is my first immersion about linguistics. It was very helpful. Greetings from the south cone, Argentina.

[@beatrizulloa7363]

Great! I love the way you make something difficult seem so easy :) Thanks!

[@cathinka663]

If you ever struggle with coming up with a topic for the weekly video; maybe you can make one about Levinson and Brown's politeness theory? That would be great :)

[@HowCommunicationWorks]

Cathinka, I've talked about this in my videos. My channel is How Communication Works. Check it out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qIaleamJqq99Zsk

[@sugarfrosted2005]

Oh, Soup or Salad being that you're answering it as logical or. I once said yes to that question because a Super Salad sounded pretty good.

[@jeffirwin7862]

Tell me more about this super salad of which you speak.

[@satoriwitness]

thats what i heard

[@Bongwater33]

Super useful for people with asperger's ! Thanks!

[@Maddin1313]

-Soup or salad? -Yes. >gets salad soup - Gross! >gets soup salad - Impressive! How is this physically possible?

[@mr.e...]

Maddin1313 Gets "super" salad.

[@davidm.johnston8994]

Esteban Álvarez That's what I understood too when I watched the video ^^

[@Ferroxtheone]

but what maxim would that violate?

[@majasabina7513]

I'm an English Major pursuing a masters degree from the Philippines. I actually do not consider myself as a audio-visual learner until I discovered your channel. Your videos are really helpful. Sending my virtual hugs to your team! 😀

[@thelingspace]

+George Kevin Tomas Great! Glad to hear you're finding them useful. I'll pass along the comment to the rest of the team. Good luck with your degree! ^_^

[@lovelydelmundo4911]

Hi Ling Space! I am same with George. I am pursuing Masters Degree in ESL here in PH. I am learning a lot in your channel esp. in Pragmatics. I can use it as a reference for my review. Thank you! :)

[@yonaayulestari3415]

Hy.. wanna be my friend?

[@gustavoreges4707]

I love your videos. Your examples a hilarious, congratulations!

[@miraclemanezasensi]

Great video, thanks! I recently discovered this channel and I would have loved to be able to watch all this stuff in my uni years. I was wondering if the Gricean maxims would also apply to written texts.

[@edenbarbara10]

I love these videos. They make studying and learning so much more fun and easy

[@thelingspace]

Glad to be able to help! That's exactly what we aim for - sometimes having a different explanation is enough to make it click. Best of luck! ^_^

[@roselynramos8176]

I like his straightforward discussion

[@squeezedce6115]

Great work ... I have learned a lot

[@saradehesh9087]

Thanks for thiseffective information

[@coomer8410]

Thank you very much, this helped me a whole lot since I have a hard time understanding my linguistics professor's accent.

[@thelingspace]

+Jim Tien Glad to be able to help! I hope it gets easier for you to understand them, too. ^_^

[@callistaalda1973]

Thank you so much. It helps me so much..

[@walasszlatan7905]

thank you tomorow i have an exam and it is best for me to copy your words into a great essay thnx

[@aileenfowler3967]

Good day, thank you for this video, God bless.

[@iangoddard5915]

Love this channel, thanks!

[@thelingspace]

Sure! Glad to be able to help. ^_^

[@saradjouhri460]

Anything about features of context (hallidays and hymes s model )? Great video btw

[@playd8s60]

something key to remember about gricean principles is that they aren't imperatives; they're meant to be descriptive of how people actually speak!

[@teacherdkennedy]

It's interesting also, because these things are exactly what kids/adults on the autism spectrum have to learn explicitly, rather than picking up implicitly through experience and exposure.

[@thelingspace]

Diana Kennedy Right, they don't have that enriched interpretation of what's going on, because they're not as aware of what the rules everyone's playing by are. That means they're restricted just to the pure logical interpretation of what they hear, not the extra information we add on given the assumptions about how the people we're talking with behave. And without those assumptions, communication can get confusing and tough, because people aren't addressing your concerns or giving you enough information, etc. They're quite important! Thanks for the comment. ^_^

[@utsavthapliyal3407]

This is really awesome. Can you please also put up something about violations and flouting of maxims?

[@thelingspace]

We do touch on this a bit in our episode on implicatures, entailments, and presuppositions: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hGqylZh6hrChiJY But it is true, we haven't really gone into it in more detail. We can try something like that soon. ^_^

[@winariasimanjuntak7759]

very informative,i'd like to share this with my students ^^

[@thelingspace]

+Winaria Simanjuntak Sure, feel free! We're happy when teachers want to use our stuff, too. ^_^

[@dvdinz]

Hello! I love watching your channel! I am studying my MA in ELT. I have a question regarding pragmatics. I am intrigued about some phrases used by Americans for example: Give me a break! You can say that again! I´ll say! I am wondering which theory explains theses phrases?

[@houdaben681]

thank you for this video , well this actually helped me in my discours analysis paper :D

[@thelingspace]

+houda ben Great! Glad to be of help. ^_^

[@AgrabATC]

I think that the basic principle behind these maxims is when they're flouted or violated.

[@azeelia]

best lesson ever. thank you!

[@thelingspace]

+Noor Azeelia Abdul Manan Glad we could help! ^_^

[@davidm.johnston8994]

I've acted my whole life like logic bot 3000 to get the meaning out of what people say that would advantage me the most. Especially with people who I should obey, like my teachers and my parents. But I think that I don't fully understand these rules, because for example for an exercise at school, I actually need it to be spelled out like a contract to be sure of what I can do and what's beyond limits. I guess I'm not very cooperative, but it's not entirely my fault.

[@mystery_finked]

Great videos! They are really helping me kick butt in my intro Linguistics class. Thank you :)

[@thelingspace]

Glad to be able to help! ^_^

[@carlosmorales4349]

MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS

[@GregSanders]

The cooperative principle is really fascinating, I feel like it's something that's worth keeping in mind just to evaluate whether one's baseline communication is effective and to figure out where the weaknesses are. So does it also seem hardwired? Or does it just seem to be a matter of parallel development? The fundamentals are so, dare I say, logical that it seems like the parallel development could be enough.

[@thelingspace]

It'd be difficult for it to be hardwired in the sense that Universal Grammar is, because technically, the Cooperative Principle isn't part of grammar proper. Syntax and semantics themselves really do operate in a pure logic kind of space, and those are core to language, but pragmatics, which the Conversational Maxims are part of, sit outside the grammar and just interact with it to hone our interpretations of conversation. I'd say it seems more likely that this is parallel development, since the different Conversational Maxims do largely make sense if you assume people want to be cooperative in their communication. These are descriptive rules, and they are meant to capture how people behave. Since being nice and friendly in communicating is probably the same everywhere, it makes sense we'd end up in the same place. And since the way the rule is phrased is flexible, it can apply well to other societies. For example, in a place where being less informative is viewed as appropriate, then you need less information to meet what's required. But it's still being cooperative and working on the same lines as the other person you're talking with. It's worth noting on this point that there is disagreement (as with most things) about whether this is the best way to represent how pragmatics works. We'll probably cover the competition in a future episode. ^_^

[@GregSanders]

The Ling Space Ah, I was wondering how the cross-cultural flexibility would work. That makes sense. Cooperation means different things in different contexts but still fits pretty well in the space the rule outlines.

[@AlvieAlfian]

Good explanation thank you....

[@thelingspace]

+Alvie Alfian Thanks! ^_^

[@connorwoolf2053]

Great Video, Thanks

[@thelingspace]

+Connor Woolf Glad you liked it! Thanks. ^_^

[@kahinam8212]

thanks for for those great videos really helpful!!

[@thelingspace]

+Kahi Na Glad you like them! Thanks for the kind words. ^_^

[@kahinam8212]

thanks :)

[@rumeysaalarcin7336]

Thank you it helped so much. Linguistics is really hard 😯

[@saxgirl93]

I should've watched this before going to the sociolinguistics sessions at LSA2016. ;_;

[@thelingspace]

+saxgirl93 It's good to be able to keep track of! I mostly went to acquisition and processing talks, but the maxims pop up in a lot of places. ^_^

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

the fuzziest and most ethnocentric part of linguistics lol. like how (western) academics didn't bother with the maxim of politeness until later "avoid ambiguity" also sounds like a reaally ethnocentric hypothesis

[@maryamm7349]

Thanks helped me alot

[@thelingspace]

+Maryam FA Glad to be able to help! ^_^

[@Bouzsi]

I frickin LOVE super salad!

[@christopherellis2663]

Gricean vs Grecian? Many do not say what they mean or mean what they say.

[@MiaL1313]

Is it possible to flout all four of the maxims? Thanks in advance!

[@thelingspace]

Sure, they're all floutable, although if you did flout all of them in the same sentence (by, say, replying with an overly long under-informed lie of a non-sequitur), it'd be pretty hard for your interlocutor to really judge all the stuff that went wrong there. ^_^

[@MiaL1313]

Thanks! Great explanation btw!

[@stevezes]

Have you ever read Politics and the English Language? It's pretty interesting.

[@thelingspace]

Duck I hadn't read it before, but thanks for bringing it up, since I saw it wasn't that long, and I've read through it now! What's most interesting to me is how much what Orwell is saying is arguably true about speech today, as well. And it's certainly true, there can also be some willful rule-breaking going on in writing to avoid saying anything technically lying. I like Orwell's stuff, but I hadn't read any of his non-fiction before, so this was good for me. ^_^

[@gilbertopereira7795]

These maxims are developed without any empirical studies. Grice made them up without barely testing it. They definitely don’t apply to all genre of conversation, much less to other languages.

[@fortyeu789]

I want a logic bot =)

[@thelingspace]

+fortyeu789 They're very cute! Maybe we can think about that for the future. ^_^

[@streetsandlanes]

Chomsky refers to one near the start of Syntactic Structures. Would I be correct in thinking that there are a whole variety of logic bots in hypothetical existence?

[@shimaatahoon8692]

You explain that by easy but i need to write it and you are very fast

[@blinkxo6131]

The super salad (soup or salad ) joke is a joke I heard on jimmy Kimmel 's hashtags segment

[@JosephRios_doulos_en_christos]

Just because you like some doesn't necessarily infer that all is not true. Spend a few minutes going over the square of opposition.

[@sjuns5159]

Well I don't blame the guy, who wouldn't want some super salad?

[@zapazap]

I like to make people sad. :)

[@meryemraoui8995]

plz gimme semantics lectures link !

[@thelingspace]

Here's a list back on our website of all the different semantics and pragmatics episodes we've done! www.thelingspace.com/semantics-episodes

[@meryemraoui8995]

thx ^^

[@NappingWanderer]

This lesson is amazing and very informative. thank you :) but bro, I'm so high and your jumpcuts every sentence or so are buggin me out xD like, My brain will fill in all thos missing frames. trippy stuff.. Keep up the good work though, dude, I love your channel and have subbed you. :)

[@thelingspace]

+Dustin Johnston Glad you liked it anyway! And thanks for the comment, too, it made me laugh. We've gotten better in the more recent ones with spacing out the cuts, so hopefully it'll be easier for you. ^_^

[@NappingWanderer]

Anytime ^.^ Glad I could have a positive impact on your day, puttin' out peace is what I strive for. I'll be sure to check out your more recent stuff too, thanks for the tip. Keep it up, too many people find that language is boring, but they would not even be able to say that if not for language. It evokes the world out of the Universe. In many cultures, talking is no different than praying, a sacred act that has the power to bring existence into existence. I'm a linguistics major and am fascinated by the topics you cover, you're doing a good thing, my man :)

[@thelingspace]

+Dustin Johnston Thanks! We do our best to do right by language, because it really is awesome. ^_^

[@Keepedia99]

That every language follows the maxim of quantity is really fascinating to me. Does that mean there's no language that formally has words meaning 'exactly some' (ykwim) and 'all' where using the former means that there's at least one thing not in the group?

[@ZSOLOMONIC]

Jonah hill??

[@tiwinee]

I'm having a hard time with everything that is implied and not directly said. As an autistic girl, my brain can't work those "hidden information" and I'm often totally clueless. I love these videos, but I'm sorry to say I find these comments "no one will like you" and "you'll make everyone you're talking with sad" kind of harsh, as I'm clearly not doing it purposely ! I want to believe you were careless this time and will now think twice before being judgemental.

[@akshaypuradkar1568]

if you observe people closely, you'd find these 'maxims' are followed under only a handful circumstances, like extremely high comfort level with the audience or urgency of communication or something else. even as a normal person the comments should be passed over because not only pragmatics isn't followed by the entirety of the human population, it isn't even a thing humans are capable of doing. it's like expecting an average person to do verbal arithmetic at mechanical speeds. what little pragmatics we indeed find in conversations is the best-effort a speaker makes. the pragmatics which he said we(as listeners) will violate and make "everyone we're talking with sad", is way way different(and even unimaginable) from the pragmatics you as an autistic girl or will ever violate. the way i see it, i think it makes much more sense to define pragmatics as we do accent,.. "pragmatics used by the person is the way he/she speaks in certain well defined scenarios".

[@way2girly]

I knw way too many humans who dont follow these rules and it irritates me so bad

[@kalashnikovz65]

Some girls on tinder voilate the maxim of Quantity all the time.

[@emansamir8478]

That's great but could you please slow down a little bit so we can keep with you as non-native speakers of English. I feel you speak so fast.

[@gmarasco91]

Do you have a degree? Not that it matters, just curious.

[@thelingspace]

+The Capitalist I'm close to the end of a PhD in linguistics; I spent a year as a prof at Concordia, and then I started making these videos. I'm working on finishing alongside this. ^_^

[@tylerrocksbjj]

Buy tem flakes

[@flawedplan]

My god how I fear for this generation.

[@yonaayulestari3415]

Please, speak slowly

[@catlover10192]

It's naive to assume people are truthful and know what they are talking about.

[@tylerrocksbjj]

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[@tylerrocksbjj]

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[@tylerrocksbjj]

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