Lecture
1. The essence of the category of contact, its components. Conditions for successful communication.
2. The principle of cooperation, its maxims:
a) the maxim of quantity;
b) the maxim of relevance;
c) the maxim of quality (truthfulness);
d) the maxim of manner (way).
3. The concept of politeness. P. Grice's principle of politeness, its maxims.
4. Conflicts of politeness maxims.
1. Communicative contact ‒ is the direct
speech interaction of communicants, which
is carried out through a communicative channel (or channels).
Communicative contact takes place if
the actions of both interlocutors are conscious and deliberate
and they share a common code (shared codes). This
means that the partners in a communicative act must
be aware of each of their own speech actions and each of these
actions serves a certain purpose known to the speaker.
Communicative contact is based on
the communicative code ‒ a system of principles, rules, and
conventions of communication that regulate the speech behavior
of communication participants and are manifested in certain
categories and criteria.
Besides the communicative code, contact is influenced by
the communicative goal and communicative intention, which
has already been mentioned. The communicative goal and communicative
intention are made explicit in communicative moves ‒
communicative techniques that contribute to the
duration of communication and the achievement of
the communicative goal.
The success of communicative contact (and
of communication as a whole) will depend on how well
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the communicative moves and tactics correspond to the communicative goal and
communicative intentions. A mismatch leads to
communicative failures and may be a consequence of
insufficient communicative competence on the part of the speaker,
which, in turn, may be a consequence of not too
significant communicative experience.
2. The principle of cooperation was set forth by the American
scholar Herbert Paul Grice in the work «Logic and
Conversation» (1975). The principle of cooperation is stated
as follows: «Your communicative contribution at
the given stage of the dialogue should be such as is required
by the jointly accepted purpose (direction) of that dialogue», that
is, the principle of cooperation presupposes that each
interlocutor holds two closely related attitudes: the striving for
achieving mutual communicative success and the striving
to achieve one's own personal, selfish success. Both of these
attitudes, being opposite poles, create
lines of force along which communication is directed.
A condition for the success of speech communication is
the interlocutors' orientation toward cooperation, although alongside
cooperative communicative behavior there also exists conflictual
communicative behavior.
Further, H.P. Grice formulates specific maxims,
adherence to which contributes to the creation of cooperative
relations in communication:
1) the maxim of completeness of information (quantity): «Your
statement should not contain anything superfluous, but
should be informative»;
2) the maxim of truthfulness (quality): «Speak the truth, do not
speak without sufficient grounds for doing so»;
3) the maxim of relevance: «Be relevant, that is,
say only what pertains to the matter»;
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4) the maxim of clarity of expression (manner): «Speak
briefly and clearly, avoid unclear and
obscure statements».
1. The maxim of informativeness (quantity) includes
two postulates: 1) «your statement should contain
no less information than is needed»; 2) «your
statement should contain no more information than
is needed». Violation of the first postulate leads to
incomplete understanding of the message. Because
the speaker did not bring the listener up to speed, the latter is not
achieves the desired communicative effect –
of influencing the interlocutor. Excess information, in turn,
may mislead the interlocutor, throw him off
track, because due to the excessive information he may
put forward a suggestion that there exists some special,
hidden purpose, a special meaning.
2. Connected with the first maxim is the maxim of relevance:
«Do not deviate from the topic». Otherwise the conversation
becomes vague, and by the end of the conversation the addresser
and addressee forget what intentions they had at the
beginning of the conversation.
3. The general postulate of quality (truthfulness) reads as follows:
«Try to make your statement true». It
includes two specific postulates: «Do not say that
which you believe to be false» and «Do not say that for which you
lack adequate grounds». By knowingly giving false
information, the speaker inevitably changes the course of the conversation,
the interlocutor's thoughts and knowledge.
4. The maxim of manner: «Be perspicuous», «Be
brief», «Avoid obscure statements»,
«Avoid ambiguity», «Be orderly». The
addressee is influenced not only by the content of the information but also by
the manner of its presentation. If the speaker resorts to
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words that are incomprehensible to the listener, if under one and the same
term different referents are meant, then
the interlocutors will not find common ground. The postulate «Be
orderly» requires that the statement
be precisely formulated. Sometimes this postulate
is violated by inattentive interlocutors, which leads
to a loss of time, to confusion in judgments.
3. The hypothesis about the principles of speech communication, put forward
by Herbert Paul Grice, stimulated a number of studies
aimed both at testing the validity of its theoretical
propositions (i.e., verification), and at the further study
of the principles of communicative influence. One of the attempts
to expand the apparatus proposed by Grice was made
by Geoffrey Leech, who pointed out the possibility of supplementing
the principle of communicative cooperation with the principle
of politeness.
The principle of politeness, in G. Leech's view,
ensures social equilibrium and is
a necessary condition for communicative
cooperation. Politeness represents a strategy
for eliminating conflicts and can be measured in terms
of the effort needed to prevent conflict
situations.
In singling out the principle of politeness, Geoffrey Leech
formulated the following maxims:
– the tact maxim: «Observe the other's interests, do not
interfere in his private life»;
– the generosity maxim: «Do not burden others»;
– the approbation maxim: «Do not criticize others»;
– the modesty maxim: «Deflect praise from yourself»;
– the agreement maxim: «Avoid objections»;
– the sympathy maxim: «Show goodwill».
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4. In G. Leech's view, politeness is by its nature
asymmetric, that is, it does not entail a mirror-precise
reproduction of the same speech actions
with respect to the speaker and the addressee: what may seem
polite in the addresser's view may be impolite
toward the addressee. Any maxim is relative and very
often combines with others; the maxims of politeness very often
come into conflict. The peculiarity of politeness lies in
the fact that not only its violation, but also excessive
observance causes discomfort. Many ethical
situations often turn out to be complex precisely because of
conflicts of maxims. Therefore a true strategist will
choose behavior in which conflicts of maxims
(and they will certainly arise) are least noticeable and do not
hinder the success of the communicative act
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